clique

The police are knocking at my door shouting… though all I can hear is a dull far-away murmur through the deafening tones of Bach’s “Allegro” in D minor. The balcony door was opened as a sheet of linen danced in the salty ocean breeze. Little white caps of  waves were peaking and disappearing at random in the distant view off the beach. The  tragedy. a scene ripped from Macbeth it seemed with the eerie fluctuations of dozens of violins in crescendo to milk the vibe. I had little time. not near enough to enjoy all the music that was out there…all the beach and sand… away from the herds and mobs, the money pit of plastic and speed. I was never meant to feel these things, to see the beauty. The gift and curse… to know all the cures to all the diseases of the world but unable to do a thing about it. I saw it then the struggle of life1

The burden of existence and the grace of mediocrity. As I lied in bed disoriented, unsure of what lay ahead but thankful for that instant when the beauty comes full circle and equilibrium perfected. This peace of mind, my nirvana desensitized, out of reality. Then back, clear headed knowing full well my fate, my genes and my blood poisoned by disparity.      My grandfather on my dad’s side committed suicide when my dad was in his mid twenties and has suffered from major depression ever since… it runs in the family… I haven’t eaten, showered or even gotten out of bed in three days. I was sick, thin as a rail, ghostly white with ugly dark bags under my eyes. I was severely depressed. I had always been somewhat of a loner, until recently, just walking in the shadows like a ghost. Observing watching, detached. I learned how to get by alone, a bit naive . I grew up in the country miles away from the nearest house. My afternoons and summers were spent in the woods behind my small brown wooden house in my own imaginary world . the small country cottage my parents called it but back then, as a kid I didn’t know we were poor,  it didn’t matter I was happy then in that mystic age when you can do no wrong. The world was covered in plastic bubble wrapping, safe and pure. I was king. 2

Its funny, in a sense, the things that go through your mind when facing the end. I had nothing left in me  this thing this knowledge just laid before me, beautiful in all accounts just sat on top of the table like a piece of rare art, invaluable, meaningful but otherwise useless. Like myself empty as a glass vase so translucent yet so obfuscated from the world around me. Nothing made any sense. I had locked myself in my tiny bedroom with a gram of heroin and a bottle of Xanax to end my pain. I had once had it all. Straight A’s, a 1300 SAT ,  acceptance into the pre med program at West Point Military Academy in New York. Needless to say all of my successes on the pitching mound, the classroom, the cross country trail and the wrestling mat have all disappeared from my life. I am a walking shadow moving silently in the dark as the world swirls about me like an eye of a tornado. Loneliness , addiction, suicide ,madness and pain loomed over my head  like a black hole in the sky, relentlessly sucking the life out of me. I weakly rolled up my right sleeve and poured out a large heap of heroin in a spoon.  I hurriedly pulled my Zippo from my pocket and lied down on my black platform bed. After the heroin had dissolved in the water; police becoming louder as I sloppily pulled the heroin into a one cc syringe; I filled the syringe to the top and jabbed the needle into my right arm, while with the other hand poured an entire bottle of Xanax in my mouth, picked up a fifth of vodka and choked down the metallic tasting blue pills. A flood of pleasure overwhelmed me and I dropped the vodka all over the bed, smearing my latest charcoal drawing of a dove in mid flight. I didn’t care… all my troubles would soon be over. I was drifting away… floating …with nothing on my mind but the oncoming release of it all. The walls all around me seemed soft and warm, almost fuzzy. My eyelids filled with lead as each time I opened them the room grew smaller and smaller untill I found myself under the summer sun of my childhood, all my sins purges and innocence restored, back in the woods behind my house. I heard a loud thud then an onslaught of shouting. What the fuck has happened to me?3

The hills and boroughs of the foothills of the Carolinas  are not fruitful for urban development, suburban even really. The winding dirt roads range from dusty tan and red mud to gravel and sand in the country disappear beyond rolling yellow fields in the distant side of town near Blacksburg in between the bloodthirsty briar brush fields and boulders and the open green hills scattered here and there with cows caged in pastures with old wooden poles crooked and out of line. The massive track of land that hasn’t yet seen the modern age the houses and trailers scattered about, some in clusters some on solitary peaks others hidden even more into the twists and turns of  rural York county, my land, the place  I drive  when I’ve got something on my mind or just want to get away. watching the scenery through the rows of bare trees; trailers rusting with the broken tractors and tin roof sheds holding baled hay. Driving parallel  to a creek I’ve known for years that has no name. constant and self-reliant . turning off of the rough gravel road to a veritable mud pit. I shook and spun to the tones of Lynard Skynard in my dusty white 1994 Z71 with my school sticker on my rear window and a palmetto tree on the bumper. My rear wheels spun up a cloud of red-white dust as my pickup barreled down Flatrock Road down to my cousin Jay’s newly renovated house. It was a fixer-upper but he, my uncle John and my dad all dabbled into pretty much everything , construction , plumbing…we had friends , we knew people. It was the self-reliance we as we the working class had to adhere to. We never “called the guy”. This was the way my whole family was, at least on my dad’s side of the family   4

My mother’s mother, Memom, had just moved in with us and had taken my room. As a gesture of thanks and as an early  birthday present she paid to transform our tractor shed into an apartment for me. My family was lower middle class, parents both teachers, my mom taught PE and my dad taught Automotive classes at my high school where I had come to think of myself as a big shot. We made decent money but for some reason we were  always short ,living paycheck to paycheck, falling deeper and deeper into debt. My grandmother completely furnished my apartment, a brand new contemporary platform bed, an Italian black leather sofa with matching club chairs an entertainment center with a  brand new 20’ plasma television with digital hookups, a  fully stocked kitchen  with all new appliances, a bar and washer and dryer. I was totally independent; so grateful for my generous grandmother who I adored yet who was losing her health fast and as any decent family would do we took her in . My mom had two brothers… one a doctor and the other a dentist, both big wheels with investments in real estate all over the place, making more money than any one man should. They wouldn’t have anything to do with my grandmother, , even arguing between themselves which one should pay for a nursing home. They were busy doing whatever it is that wealthy people do. Work for two weeks, take a trip to france, come back work two more weeks then go on a cruise… why not. I guess if I had the means I would do the same. It wasn’t so much the financial gap that caused this unseen unspoken tension but rather their aloofness, a kind of cavalier blue-blood air that dwelled deep within unknown to those similar but disenchanting to the likes of us. they had little to do with us, as were  too much of an ordinary working class family, some would say white trash, but there is a certain nobility, a graceful humility in our struggle. In our world, faith was put in those others, friends, neighbors, co-workers, strangers… in a sense that we were all working for something bigger and better. We were the wave that carried the elite crest. We weren’t saints by any stretch of the imagination, the ante-bellum concept of the southern gentlemen was long dead, except in rare cases, the  large family plantations and mansions lied in ruins as well as the wealth contained in those old caricatured dwellings, though the attitudes ingrained still surfaced. That is the way of the world now I suppose, families break up, move away, loose touch, foreign sounding northerners were piling in with funny last names and a certain shrewdness that alienated me a bit. In my little  slice of dixie family and friends were sacred. Though over the years our culture , our way of life was dying. I guess they were ashamed of us… my two uncles on my mother’s side, but I didn’t give a flying fuck, at least we were good honest people. I was just as ashamed of them and their decadence as they were of our ignorance. 5

I pulled in Jay’s small driveway beside his red Z71 and my uncle’s white van as two dogs came out from behind the back of the small brick house. I got out and petted the dogs( I had forgotten the names) and wandered around to the back of the house to a little patio that looked out over a valley and a huge track of rolling green pasture partially obscured by a hedgerow of brush. I heard someone speaking behind me coming from the trucks, though it sounded muffled and far off. I walked back and peeked around the corner as my uncle crawled out from under the house  6

It was our last practice before playoffs and this was my year, junior year. When I wasn’t pitching the coaches  had me playing third base behind a senior and also second base behind another senior, both of whom were pitchers. I personally liked JP Atchley the third basemen, he was the best fielder on the team and could hit bombs, nonetheless I had the strongest arm on the team but couldn’t hit worth a shit. I was just happy as hell to be with the older guys to finally make it to Varsity , a lifelong dream of mine so to speak .there weren’t many juniors on the team period, just Kurt and Me with Rick, our sophomore  shortstop. Coach  might have me in mind as a pitcher. I was small though, short 5”7 130 lbs, some said even too small for baseball but I could hit up around eighty eight with my fastball and had a curve that broke close to three feet. Jayvee baseball is not the most glamorous undertaking there is, it involves hard unappreciated work , getting the field ready for the varsity players and practicing in batting cages and rocky hills during home games. It was a right of passage unless you were a golden boy like Rick  who went straight to varsity, never having to worry about the team’s drinking water or raking home plate or anything of that sort. 7

After we had finished stretching ; which was the social aspect of the day’s practice. I partnered up with my catcher Kurt.8

Kurt Brown was my best friend. We first met in Little league…I pitched. He caught. We were always on the same baseball teams growing up. We became the best of friends and a formidable pair on the baseball field. Kurt was black, just a shade under six feet with shoulder length dreadlocks. He stayed over at my bungalow, which was really an old tractor shed hang out more so than anything, just a place to hang out and not be bothered. He must have spent more time over there with me that at his own place. He was always well dressed, most of the time in either solid black or white. His parents were well off,  his father, Kurtis Brown Sr.  was a well respected surgeon who commanded a small amount of fame in the town and his mother was a nurse in the same hospital… Charlotte General I think is the name. We lived in a small country town called York, about ten miles South West of Charlotte, NC in South Carolina where they had the nicest house in town and were one of the wealthiest families in town. They had money, but it was different somehow I’m not sure how to describe it… he was just Kurt, plain and simple. We had been good friends with the Browns ever since my little league days ,.. Kurt Sr. and my dad Steve were our coaches all the way up until high school where we both were stars in a small high school sort of way. Kurt was a fixture at my house almost daily, special occasions, Christmas , family gatherings and so on. We were closer than brothers. We shared an interest in Blues and grunge Rock. Kurt was a phenomenon on the guitar and I did my best to keep up on the drums. We had a band   just the two of us and a bass player Jonathan, who was two years older than us working on his engineering degree at a big university a few cities over.9

We first met Jonathan at a concert at Tremont Music Hall in Charlotte where he was playing for a cheesy metal band and stuck out bad like John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. Kurt used the poetry he wrote as lyrics. We’d play in small restaurants and clubs around town and on occasion in Charlotte. Kurt was an artist… that was his passion. Despite the geographical inconvenience we just clicked. Jon quit his other band and as he put it “those douche bags just sucked ” and we started playing more and more on the weekends at my makeshift tractor shed insulated by surrounding pines in every direction. Despite our hardcore friend, Kurt and I never did anything over the top … case of beer on the weekends, sure maybe even a bond fire and an acoustic guitar but nothing serious. We were tailgaters not junkheads. Besides we were going places, United States Military Academy, The Art Institute Of Charlotte…Kurt especially, he worked with charcoal and oils and was very talented while I focused on academia and sports. My dad warned me as a child, he told me never to become a mechanic. He wanted me to be a professional, someone people looked up to so I worked my ass of quite literally all the way up.10

We worked our way further and further back stretching out and exaggerating the arcing motion of our arms. This was my favorite part of the game, throwing. Just chunking a small little ball hundreds of feet away and hitting Kurt’s glove without him even moving it. That, to me, was satisfaction. My back was almost against the outfield fence, lobbing throws to Kurt in silence, almost a religious ritual. Hop-step and release with a slight grunt, a whipping of the wrist and then you just watched the ball tail slightly to the right with a subtle arc, it peaks then curves back to the left hitting Kurt square in the chest. beautiful, I know what John Donne was really writing about.  This is it you think to yourself, I want nothing more. You glance at the high school in the background and you couldn’t care less. Bombs could be raining from the sky but you were safe on the field. Like coach K told us,”once you step between the lines the outside world doesn’t exsist.” Coach K wasn’t one for speeches or pep talks, and though he was young, probably thirty five or so , he was old school with red hair and a Scots-Irish freckled complexion and would only talk candidly with the seniors on Saturday practices. Kurt takes a second and repeats the ritual only he throws with the jerky, over the top motion that good catchers use. So smooth it’s like wiping your ass with silk. The ball comes out of his hand fast then is stuck for a moment in midair, then it becomes bigger and you hear the humming of the seems in the air and “pop”, a slight sting you’ve been conditioned  to love and a quaint rush of adrenaline. You can tell everything you need to know about a man after you’ve thrown with him. Whether he’s confident or insecure, hardworking or lazy, sincere or shady, soulful or flat. We’ve thrown just as far as we can without lobbing rainbows so we inch back closer until we were about sixty feet apart. Still no talk.  All the gossip about who is getting some and who got in a fight that day were saved for when we were going through hitting drills in our little groups that would alternate between batting practice, shagging the balls, and hitting in the cage. Me and Kurt were in the same group because we were the pitcher –catcher combo along with Blake Gillman and Dante Moore. Blake was a big shot in school, though he was one of the nicest guys you’d ever meet, he was a lineman in the fall and looked about thirty and was the beer buyer for the seniors and certain lucky underclassmen. He somehow knew everyone in school and would keep me and Kurt up to date with all of the crazy back door shit that went down. Kurt grabbed a milk crate full of old nasty water-logged balls that were worthless except for hitting of the tee and strengthening your arm. Nobody but me ever practiced pitching with a twenty or so ounce water-logged ball, I don’t know why, I would throw with it for about twenty minutes then pick up a good ball and throw bullets. Kurt sat to the side of the net down facing the woods to the far right of the right field line. God only knows how old those nets were cause ill be damned if we got any new equipment, we couldn’t even keep our practice t-shirts though I don’t plan on turning it in. everything went to football. They got t-shirts for everything, offensive line shirts, linebacker shirts, everything. they’d go to a camp and get special t-shirts, then if they improved their squat max, new t-shirt. We took turns hitting into the net off the tee. I had a perfectly sound swing, everything was mechanically perfect, though I could never hit worth a damn in a game. To be honest I didn’t give a damn about hitting, that’s what everyone else was for. Kurt, Blake, JP,and Quinn hit the bombs, whenever I did get up to hit I would just lean into pitches or bunt, it wont woo the fans but it got you on base.   and when coach called us all in. I jogged in and tossed a ball high into the air that Kurt caught in mid stride towards coach.11

We all took a knee around the young fire red haired coach who perpetually chewed wintergreen dip.12

“it’s the last practice before Fairfield comes here for playoffs…13

“they’re not gonna roll over and die for us so stay sharp….14

“Friday is on the mound tomorrow and Quinn wednesday against Broome 15

“so keep the bats hot and don’t let up and no mental errors on the field”16

Josh Quinn was our ace pitcher and using him against Fairfield would be a waste because we were tied for first with Broome at 9-1 respectively. So, I was the natural choice to go in, keeping all the seniors and their bats on the field and in the game and giving me an opportunity to prove myself, to get so me respect from the seniors and everyone really . I was on the team, first step. Now to rise above to shine on like a crazy diamond. I knew this wasn’t going to happen overnight. I worked with puritan ethic finishing every drill as best I could , every throw as hard and sharp as I knew I could make it, even the trivial things, covering the infield with tarps when it rained , sweeping out the dugouts, soaking up the wet spots with old sofa cushions , which was the worst practice day you could think of. The April of my sophomore year, right after I was called up to varsity , was the wettest April in the southeast since the twenties , which gave me the unique opportunity to learn the finer aspects of field maintenance I would later pass on to future players. One day during that wet April 17

After coach’s talk,  a man of few words if their ever was one. We split into groups for infield and outfield drills while Kurt and I worked in the bullpen. I was only supposed to throw at the max forty pitches but my elbow was killing me. I put my glove down at the pen and went to the dug out with Kurt and grabbed three or four anti-inflammatory pills chased by some Aleive  maximum strength and icy hot crème. 18

“man this sucks” I groaned19

“when that adrenaline gets to pumpin and youv’e got that black jersey on you wont feel a damn thing man…I know you on the mound… you’re a cocky little motherfucker it’s not gonna stop you”20

“yea” I said with a smile21

“you know I can’t wait right? They never pitch me enough…what one loss to Northwestern and no starts for almost the whole season.”22

“you mean an ejection at Northwestern”23

“That ass was crowding the plate… it hit him in the side”24

“you alright now man let’s throw a few”25

“yea alright”26

we paced our way back to the bullpen as the rest of the team were taking batting practice and drills.27

“Fairfield’s a gimme if I don’t shut them out then man…”28

Kurt popped a squat behind the plate.29

“just throw it man”30

I was living better than my parents and little sister, who was the love of my life. I had a fancy apartment and was working at a local hardware store for spending money. I had a nice truck …a Chevrolet Z71 Silverado, a redneck truck to be sure… complete with the chrome toolbox. Those who didn’t know me might think of me as a simple country boy, however I was anything but. I had been aspiring to be a doctor ever since I was a child , buying musty medical textbooks from the seventies from the thrift store downtown before there was an internet. Back then I went to the doctor once a week for allergy shots, for the longest time I was never scared of needles. The same nurse gave me the shots week after week , pinching my arm gently saying, “one two three” and that was it. The only part I hated about going to the doctor was the wait. We walked straight in to the back where there were a row of five or six plastic chairs and dozens of outdated magazines, mostly Ladies Home Journal and Southern Living and boring things of that sort, then there were the Dr. Seuss books I had outgrown but still flipped through, but after half an hour or more of waiting a nine year old gets antsy. I was fascinated by the doctors; the way they walked around sharply, hurriedly in important white coats with fancy pens and all the knowledge of the universe. My medicine was kept in a vial in a small refrigerator covered with multi-colored magnets of name brand drugs on the counter on the right side of the hallway where most of the general medical supplies were stored in cabinets  above the sink 31

In school I wasn’t in any sort of clique , I didn’t belong to any stereotypical group. I was a little bit of everything, a stoner, a jock, a Goth, a prep, a nerd… everything. In fact there really weren’t any cliques at all per se. our entire school held less than a thousand students.  I had friends in every group there was. 32

It was just days before our midterm exams for first semester, senior year, I was living easy though, school was a breeze and I was ranked second in my region in the 135 pound weight class with a month left till the regional and state matches. I wasn’t too worried about it either, wrestling was just something I did to stay in shape for baseball . I had a winning record on the mat 7 and 3, and there certainly is nothing quite like coming out of the locker room to a full crowd with the whole starting Varsity team to AC/DC’s “Back in Black”, as our uniforms were all black with a white “Y” in block lettering for York High School . I ate it up… completely, the competition the testosterone , I was an adrenaline junkie and  loved to win, to be the best. That’s what attracted me to West Point, they only took the best and made them better. I was working my way through the screening process and was just waiting for one confirmation letter. I had always been this way, type A, super motivated and gung ho.33

The underclassmen were wiping down the mats with antiseptic and rolling up the three inch thick black rubber moaning and groaning under the direction of Judd Sutton, our 140 pound five foot six senior starter and two time state champion captain. Judd was originally from Iowa where they’re big into wrestling about like the way football is down here. He was my drill partner , ugly as hell with an interesting odor about him; but I did well by wrestling against him day after day; for the past two years he straight out toyed with me , but now I could put up a reasonable fight and of course I had come to learn all kinds of  humiliating moves to put on people. I was sitting on the floor against the full size mural of a cougar painted on the wall above our locker room door, sweating through my black tee shirt taking sips of orange Gatorade in between gasps of breath when a particular thought crossed my mind… Wrestling is a lot like life… the more you put into it and practice the greater you will reap later on. Perfect meritocracy, but wrestling practice is worse than Paris Island on a muggy day in July. Its exhausting, and just when you think you’re drained ,your muscles feel like jello and your heart is pumping battery acid there are more ab crunches, sit-ups, push ups and all kinds of medieval torture you can imagine.   The kids, as I call the underclassmen had finished the grunt work, the same as me and Judd and all the other seniors    years before. Judd walked over  to me as most everyone else had gotten dressed and were heading out he extended his arm and helped me up.34

“you gonna die on me sir?35

”thinking about it”36

I Got to my feet.37

Judd always called me sir. He was going into the military too, enlisting in the marines. While I’d spend four years in school becoming an officer he’d already be in the ranks kicking that proverbial ass. Two polar opposite futures, one  a gentlemanly title with power and privilege and  another a nose to the grindstone ask no questions do and die calling.38

“gadamn I feel old man” I grunted as I bent down and put own my letter jacket, three patches, one for cross country, one for wrestling with safety pins underneath for each win and my coveted baseball patch. I was proud of them all but the baseball patch meant a little more.39

“ah your full a shit sir”40

“I mean it. I’m not used to watching my weight, all this tuna and protein shakes are getting to me.”41

“It’s all in your head sir, everything is mental”42

“you know last year I weighed ninety pounds… mom grilled out steaks every other night and I ate like a beast but nothing.”43

“you can’t fuck with biology man… it does what it does when it wants to.”44

Just as I was about to say something clever the lights of the gym went out except for the orange security light right above the door that led to the parking lot. I looked around and everyone was gone. The locker room door opened and coach Floyd came out with an unsurprised look on his face. Pink Floyd was by far my favorite coach, we had three, Mr. Burke the head wrestling coach and one of the hundred football coaches we had, he played for Carolina in college as a defensive linemen and taught sophomore English to the regular kids, then Mr. Starnes the weightlifting coach and hardass who I will never forget  blessed me out my sophomore year when I was barely ninety pounds working out for baseball surrounded my two hundred pound football players during the summer camps,  there were no baseball camps. They made us work out with the football team and  run all the drills  like grab and drag, a fun little exercise where you wear a harness attached to a bungi  cord attached to another harness and you tried to find some one smaller than you to drag on the ground for ten yards at the sound of a whistle. There were people somewhere in a think tank brainstorming new training equipment and drills and gadgets for southern high school football teams to waste all their money on, never mind that our physics books ended with “… and soon to the moon”.45

46

My alarm clock went off at exactly six in the morning jolting me a little as I was brushing my teeth. I hated that noise, so intrusive. Like fallout sirens forecasting impending doom. I gargled some Listerine, spit it quickly into the sink and with much restraint tapped the snooze button. I had been up for nearly an hour. Today was a big day; our last tests before the final exams and I had low A’s in all my classes hoping to exempt the exams except for calculus, which was a lost cause for me. Nuclear physics sounds glamorous and all but i was acing anatomy and was already accepted into the pre-med program at West Point.47

I had been impatiently alternating between watching the clock on my chest of drawers and aimlessly looking over my two bookcases already dressed in my Kelly blue Pointer jeans and yellow knit polo shirt from my black leather reclining chair in my bedroom. The books were mostly my older brother Marcus’. He was killed in a hit and run outside of Columbia  while working on his master’s degree in English literature from The University of South Carolina Honors College. I was fifteen. I never cried… I didn’t get mad or cuss God. I don’t know why I just felt empty. It wasn’t until recently that it’s really bothered me. Marcus was the same age as my two cousins Jay and Phil on my dad’s side. They all played baseball together in high school and lost in the AAA State Championship they’re senior year. Jay and Phil went on to play ball at different small colleges in North Carolina but Marcus put it down for school.48

The Stranger by Camus caught my attention for some reason. I flipped through the skinny book and wondered what my brother got from it , from all of these.49

I glanced at the clock…it was six twenty eight. Kurt and I had a tradition, everyday before school we met at the Huddle House for breakfast  across the street a ways from the super Wal-Mart and Lowe’s in the midst of traffic jams due to the widening and new construction of roads, a new bridge, more mini-malls and stores to add to the gonzo appeal of a once quaint southern town50

It was about ten or so in the morning…. I was smoking a black clove cigarette from my collection In the new humidor I had bought myself along with a mini bar liquor cabinet and wine fridge … My favorite new toys. Cigars and a fully stocked bar compliments of an internet ordered fake id. I was sitting in my club chair decked out in a plain black tight fitting tee shirt that I could barely pull of wearing since I had been gaining a little weight, ripped up faded jeans, worn out Chuck Taylors, with a silver ring on my left ring finger, a tattoo of an infinity symbol on my left pointer finger, a studded black leather bracelet on my right wrist, and a necklace of bone and metal with an anch symbol dangling at the bottom listening to The Smashing Pumpkins when my one year old Jack Russell Lou Dog faced the door and began to bark….seconds later Kurt shows up in a brand new French cuffed black suit with his rimless glasses wearing a large smile.51

“merry Christmas motherfucker” he shouted with a laugh. “yea man….hows it goin bro”? “lemme show you something”….he said with a full pearl grin. He lead me out of my apartment and right beside my Honda VLX Cruiser was a jet black Kawasaki street bike .”Holy shit man…you got a bike now “. We had always talked about riding together…since we were kids we both loved bikes. I was into the classic cruisers , my brother Kurt had a thing for the sleek elegance of a street bike.”Howd you get your parents to go for this”?. Kurt had always wanted a bike but it was’nt until December 26th, his eighteenth birthday that he was allowed to get his motorcycle license and a bike. I had been riding a bike since I turned fifteen…I had only driven my truck on rare occasions when my mom needed something from the grocery store or when the garbage needed to be hauled off. We bragged and jabbered about our bikes for at least the better part of an hour then I invited him into my place for a drink.52

“Tequila Sunrise”?....”you know it” Kurt responded quickly. I mixed his tequila orange juice and grenadine with a lime wedge from my mini bar while mixing myself a vodka martini shaken not stirred of course, with nothing but the finest vodka…Absolut, product of Switzerland . I handed Kurt his Sunrise and we chilled in my living room grooving on some Smashing Pumpkins.53

“you know we should really use this sound man” he said referring to the Smashing Pumpkins…”I mean it’s not your runt of the mill grunge… its got strong emotion like any good band yet its unique in its usage of industrial sound”.54

“are you saying we need to use some synthesizers or something” I asked innocently. “well…. Not necessarily , all I’m saying is we need that modern sound to fuse with our bluesy rock, you know… something different” he said as he strapped on his Fender American Deluxe Telecaster, black with white body guard across his chest and began to softly pick a riff….That was my cue , I put my martini down beside my floor tom and lit a cigarette and placed it into the ash tray I had mounted on my bass drum. “lets go man whatdoya have in mind”?55

He plugged into the PA and cut on the microphone and we began to jam. This was one of the most rewarding things I ever did… it was so therapeutic to be able to pound out my anger and frustration through music.. we were quite good as musicians, but playing together since freshman year had made us into a machine. I could instantly pick up a beat to anything Kurt came up with, the two of us bringing out the best in the other as we played. We jammed for a long time without saying a word, we were music junkies, among other things, we had gathered an arsenal of amplifiers, mixers, PA systems, effects, an assortment of guitars and monitors, everything you could imagine. We even had a bootleg recording program on my laptop we used to record CD’s. I have no doubt we could have made it just playing music, rocking out in front of a crowd was like a drug. You just caught the vibe and let the music flow. It was what I’d like to think nirvana would be like. Total Zen. But it was just a hobby, maybe an obsession. A Tuesday- Thursday nights and weekends kind of a deal. The Music was a big part of it, on the weekends a dozen or so of our friends would come over and listen to us play and drink some,  just having fun. My place was about two football fields away from my parent’s house through the woods and had a separate entrance, we were completely safe.56

We had been playing for the better part of an hour nonstop, my hands were getting sweaty and I was loosing my grip on the sticks but we were in the zone and I didn’t want to stop. I raised my arm to hit a crash when my stick flew across the room.57

“damnit” I whined.58

“time for a little break anyways” kurt said as he sat his telecaster  against the two hundred watt marshal amp set up in the far corner of my cluttered apartment beside the drums.59

“yea 60

“you still goin to the Art Institute?”61

“yeap , just finishing up my portfolio in third block”62

“no shit?... Lisa and I are in there with you too then.”63

“that means we all have second lunch” Lisa added64

“art is my last class I got early dismissal”65

“we do too… fuck yea!” I let out66

“do you think your sign is still there?” Kurt asked67

“I hope so, I spent like three hours making it”68

“what sign?” Lisa asked.69

“well I got an old coffee can and filled it with cement and stuck a two by two piece of lumber in it and nailed a sign that said ‘reserved for Mr.Cobain’ on it and put it in the teacher’s parking lot right beside the door at the end of F hall right where my three classes are, I don’t even leave that hall all day. I got physics first which is like the first room on the hall then English which is right next to the door then art which is in the middle”70

“no fair man I have to go all the way from AP history on C hall to art on F” Lisa said as she finished off the rest of my hash browns. 71

“yall about ready?” Kurt asked as he rifled through his wallet.72

“yea let’s get outta hyaer” I said as I took Lisa’s hand and  spun her around as if we were doing the Shag.73

“it’s your turn right?” I asked Kurt 74

“yea I got it” I said as I asked for a to go cup of sweet tea , then laid a two dollar tip on the table while Kurt paid. 75

We all three walked out to my truck and I pulled my briefcase from the back of the driver’s seat. I laid the case on the seat and sprinkled a pinch of cocaine on the herb as I stuffed the pipe with hash. I lit it up and took a voracious hit and passed it to Lisa as I struggled not to choke. She did the same as I exhaled an almost transparent cloud of smoke. Lisa started to cough uncontrollably . I gave her my cup of tea and asked if she was alright. She took a few gulps and caught her breath. 76

“yea I’m fine but fuck man…that shit’s harsh”77

Kurt nodded his head as he took a drag.78

He handed me back the pipe and I refilled it and sprinkled on just a bit more powder on and took another hit.79

After everyone finished that bowl we packed one more without the coke and we climbed into the truck and blasted some good ol’ Led Zeppelin and headed to school.80

When we got there it was still early, which we always were. Going into the senior commons and socializing before school was the most rewarding part of the day for me now ,that and the art teacher that we had was a bigger pothead than me Kurt and Lisa combined. 81

Lisa and I were now very high and the blaring Led Zeppelin only intensified our high I reached for two forty milligram pills of oxycontin that were hidden in my truck’s ashtray I took mine and then handed the other pill and my tea over to Lisa who did the same. I sprayed some air freshener on Lisa and myself as well as all over the truck, then gargled some Listerine I kept in the side compartment of my door. We both got out and staggered at first but soon we regained at least some degree of stability we grabbed our book bags, high as hell, and walked into the senior commons. By then id say most everybody had gotten in as we walked through the hall outside the lunchroom where there was always a large group of kids, I got the distinct impression that they had stopped talking as we walked by. ”my god there gonna know something’s up for sure, and the oxy hasn’t even kicked in yet. Sure enough Lisa had run into the side of the wall, I pulled her close to me and put my arm around her to help her keep her balance till we made it to the senior commons. We finally made it to “our” table at the back corner of the senior commons which were hexagonal benches with crooked wooden tops. Mine and Kurt’s name were still engraved in large letters in the painted wood. I helped Lisa get her book bag off as I laid mine on the ground next to the wall beside hers.82

“I shouldn’t have taken that oxy man I’m fucked” Lisa said with a sense of desperation. I had an idea I took out a plain white sheet of copy paper and fountain pen from my book bag and wrote “Lisa had an accident skiing over the Christmas break and is on heavy medication please excuse her if she seems a bit out of it this week, by Friday she should be able to get off her pain medication”. 83

“Here you go, anybody stops you in class or in the halls just show them this and you should be fine”. 84

“thanks.. I feel fucking awesome but I’m seeing double and shit.”85

“me too, this is the fun part… trying to act straight is fun as shit. The only people that can tell are the other druggies and they’ll just be like ‘roll on ‘ or snicker to themselves but really I do this all the time and nobody else picks up on it except other druggies, you’ll be fine, just don’t worry about it.”86

“dude right now I don’t give a shit about anything” Lisa said with a grin.87

“lighten up man and let her have fun” Kurt said88

“do you want some vodka?”  Lisa asked Kurt. 89

“cause I’ll be WAY too fucked up if I touch this stuff”90

“sure I’ll take it, thanks”91

“no prob” she said as she pulled the Gatorade bottle out of her book bag and handed it over to Kurt who took a sip.92

“goddamn man! There any Gatorade in this shit?”93

“it’s half and half” I said94

“shit!” he said as he held it up to eye level and took another swig.95

“here use some of this” I reached into a side pocket and pulled out a travel size bottle of Listerine.96

“hell yea man, what the hell kinda shit you got in there, there any room for books?” he said sarcastically.97

“I come prepared mu fuger”98

“I see that” he said with a laugh99

Just about that time Josh rolled into the senior commons and walked over and threw his book bag on the growing pile by the wall.100

“what’s up beetchas” he said in his Spanish accent 101

“how was la playa?” he asked102

“well…I know that we went and I slightly remember something about a hospital but the rest is a blur”103

“that’s my boy!” josh said laughing then suddenly stopped.104

“Gad almighty you two look fuckin wasted”105

Lisa nodded her head and laughed to herself.106

“yea well whatchya gonna do you know” I replied107

“dude your eyes are just one big pupil”108

“eh don’t bother me none” 109

“ill tell you what really happened” Kurt said right before I punched him in the shoulder and gave him a look.110

“they uh… they stayed fucked up for a week straight111

“no shit it’s Layne for god’s sake. This fucker is perpetually wasted… oh yea you got somthin for me?”112

“yes sir right here” he held out his hand and I shook it as he grabbed the bottle of triple c’s and put it in his pocket. 113

“can I have some of that tea?” 114

“sure but go take em in the bathroom”115

“right”116

I looked at my watch, it was eight, we didn’t have to be in class until eight-twenty. By now the commons had filled with people. I sat down beside Lisa and put my arm around her neck.117

“how you doin babe?” I asked as I leaned down and kissed her118

“uh…shit I feel awesome I wish I could do this every day without having to worry about getting caught.”119

“don’t worry about that you can’t get in trouble if you don’t have anything on you”120

“really?”121

“yea I know my substance laws by heart”122

Right as I was about to say something to Lisa josh made his way back through the crowd of people.123

“hey you know we got the same first block” I said124

“yea… I told you that two weeks ago when we got our schedules”125

“oh.. ha…never mind then”126

“I heard that class was fun” josh said127

“yea doc Pratt is cool as hell…it’s what I’ve heard at least128

“I took that class last semester” Lisa said as she perked up a little129

About that time I could start to feel the oxy as a warm gooey feeling spread through my body in waves.130

“whoa” I said as I sat back down.131

I took another sip of tea and threw it away in the trash can beside the table and took out my orange vodka when the bell rang, which meant we had ten minutes to get to class.132

We all stood still as a mob of kids left the commons, waiting for the crowd to go down. Me and Lisa got up and headed out the front door to get to her class on the far east side of the school, most classrooms had an outside entrance so we walked around the building to her door, she grabbed my neck and kissed me, we stayed there making out until the bell rang then as she went inside she said “love you Layne”133

“love you too babe, see ya at break”134

I walked all the way around the building to F hall and then stumbled into doc’s room. I saw josh at the front on the left side of the room with his stuff on an empty desk beside him , all eyes were on me as I did my best not to look like a wasted jackass. I finally made it to the front where I practically collapsed into my seat. I just rested my head against my hand and closed my eyes, feeling myself sink deeper and deeper into my chair, like my body was melting. I must have nodded off because the next thing I remember josh was shaking me. 135

“wake up man…class is over”136

“oh shit…for real?”137

“yea man…you comin to the pit for break?”138

“Yea I’m comin” 139

I got my Gatorade vodka out and put my book bag on and took a sip then put the lid on, I was still very much out of it so I just followed josh to the pit where Lisa was sitting on the steps talking to Kurt and his latest fling Jennifer. They called it the pit because it was basically a pit, the pit was a big hexagonal open space from which each hall branched off of, there were four short steps that led down to a depressed pit. I took a seat beside Lisa and she put her arm around my neck and pulled my head against hers.140

“I nodded off my entire first block and nobody said a word, I just handed that note to ms. Ray before class and nobody said a word.”141

“me too, I nodded of the entire class, josh here had to wake me up or I’d still be in doc’s class”142

“I think yalls eyes were bigger than your stomachs huh?” josh said143

“yea we might have overdone it today” I said144

“yea” Lisa said with a laugh “sure is fun though”145

I took another big swig of vodka then got some Listerine and gargled then swallowed it. Another warm wave of pleasure rippled through my body, all I could do is let out a soft groan. I turned my head and kissed Lisa who put her arms around my neck and kissed back we kissed for what seemed like ten minutes and I’m sure everyone in the pit was staring at us but fuck, I was too far gone to give a shit. Ordinarily, if it had been anyone else a teacher would have came up to us and said something,  but I knew all the teachers in the school and they all knew me and my dad so I was rarely held up to any minor rule. We were still kissing when the bell rang. I helped Lisa up and walked her to her Spanish class which was on the way to my English 101 class. When I got to class the room was  half empty, I looked out the door down and across from the room and saw my English teacher Ms. Goodwin smoking. I walked outside and leaned against the wall took out my Marlboro lights and lit up. She explained to me that since English 101 was a college course that we were treated like college students and got to eat and drink during class and didn’t have to show up until after the morning announcements. So I grabbed the vodka out of my left pocket and took a few sips, I’m sure she could smell the alcohol because it was quite pungent but she never said a word.146

I had Ms. Goodwin last year for English IV Honors and she had grown to like me because I could write well and had such a broad vocabulary. She was fairly young I’d say about twenty five or so , right out of college.147

“I hear you got into West Point” she said still looking forward.148

“yes maim sure did”149

“what’s your major”150

“English151

“so your going to be a teacher or something like that?”152

“yea probably, gotta pay the bills cause you don’t hit it big writing lyrical poetry”153

“oh so you write”154

“only when I’m sober”155

She laughed “so you’re going to be the stereotypical hermit alcoholic writer then”156

“hopefully” I said. “hopefully”157

I’ve got the alcoholic/addict thing down , I’m working on getting the writing down, and apparently I have the insane part down as well.”158

“what do you mean by that?”159

“well over Christmas break I got diagnosed schizoaffective. My logical thinking is all …well how can I say this… fucked basically. I have no common sense anymore, right… and if I can’t do something my way I get confused, that’s why I made a seventy in calculus last semester. So naturally I’ve made the transition from future doctor to writer. Well, I mean I lied I guess, I got into West Point but I can’t go now that I’m crazy and my concentration is shot to hell. I guess I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”160

“don’t give up Layne, this doesn’t put you out of the race you can still get into a college, maybe not with the Army but if you work hard enough you can still make it”161

“I sure hope so”162

“well it’s about that time” she said and walked back into the building.163

“I’m right behind ya” I said as I lingered outside and finished my cigarette and chugged the remaining vodka. I staggered up the few steps back into the building and just picked a seat in the back where I could enjoy my ever strengthening buzz. The class flew by I just sat back with my lit book in my lap half conscious as Ms. Goodwin handed out grading scaled went over the syllabi and went on something about our first reading assignment and the essay format we were to go by. I actually got my notebook out for this one but still managed to doze off for two thirds of the class.164

I was startled by the bell. I slowly put my books up as everyone around me rushed out like there was a fire. I walked out and said “see ya later” to Ms. Goodwin and waited outside her room waiting for Lisa to come around the corner. I was a bit unsteady on my feet so I leaned up against the wall. I was about to nod off right there standing in the hallway when I saw Lisa coming towards me. She grabbed my right hand and kissed me as we walked just up the hall to Mr. Shaw’s art room there were five round tables with four chairs around each table Kurt was already at a table drawing so we sat at his table Lisa sat sideways with her legs across my lap.165

“sup” Kurt said still focusing intensely on his still life I got out my sketch book and started to draw Lisa’s face, tracing every curve with my eyes. I was almost done with her outline when I got cabin fever. I took Lisa by the hand and walked into the supply room. Lisa sat up on a table and pulled me between her legs and kissed me which we did for what seemed like an eternity. Then, suddenly someone opened the door, it was Mr. Shaw I quickly pulled my hand back out from under Lisa’s shirt and before he said anything I blurted out “uh…we’re just looking for some much needed inspiration.”166

He let out a short laugh then said “well hurry up and find it because we do have somewhat of a class going on out here.”167

“yes sir be right there”168

I grabbed Lisa and kissed her one more time before we went back and sat down beside Kurt. Lisa sat sideways again with her legs across my lap as I got to work on my portrait. I watched her for the longest time. She laid her head down on folded arms with closed eyes breathing deliberately slow, quiet. I watched her sleep and somehow I felt complete I felt like I had achieved everything I had ever wanted. I was at peace for that short period of time, for that moment all was right with the world. It was beautiful.169

The obnoxious ring of the bell brought me back from my little world. Lisa opened her eyes but didn’t move. She just looked at me and smiled, as if I was all that mattered. She slowly sat up and reached for her book bag still high I picked it up and carried it for her to my truck. We both got in  I was in the driver’s seat and cranked up.170

“are you sure you can drive babe?”171

“yea I’m fine I’ve got a high tolerance for that shit.172

We went straight home as we were still too out of it to carry on a conversation, besides I was focusing on driving as Lisa fell asleep and laid against the window.173

We made it home without much fuss, Kurt pulled up shortly and I carried Lisa to the bed and spread some sheets over her as I kissed her forehead174

“ill take my bike to practice will you be able to drive the truck anytime soon?” yea once I take a nap… I’m still felling that oxycontin” 175

Well we learned something today… no heavy opiates at school.176

”yea she mumbled as she rolled over to sleep. In the meantime I got Lisa’s drivers license, scanned it, worked on it a bit on Photoshop to make her twenty one, I printed it out and super glued it to her old license then stuck it in a thick book with some free weights on top to make sure it wouldn’t come apart.177

“remember if you still feel like going I was planning on going to the matrix in charlotte tonight. 178

“yea I’ll be sober by then it’s starting to wear off anyways”179

“alright honey ill be back in a few.180

We still had an hour to kill before practice so of course we went to the Huddle House downtown . I rode my VLX cruiser with my baseball gear on a book bag  I wore on my back,  and Kurt his Kawasaki did the same as I parked beside Kurt he said “we gotta hurry up ,I wanna hit off the tee before practice”181

“ight man we got plenty of time. I hadn’t an appetite so I just ordered a bowl of chili and a salad with Italian dressing.182

“you know you better eat up boy” Kurt said in an ominous voice.183

“coach is gonna bust our ass today since we didn’t make practice over spring break”184

“yea I guess… he wont say anything to me or you, were all he has. I just have to keep throwing shutouts and you just gotta keep hitting those bombs. “185

“true…we can do pretty much anything we want as long as we produce”186

“yea” I said arrogantly “don’t worry about it”187

“I gotta get crunk before practice…it’s the only was to keep my arm in shape’188

“not me man I gotta take batting practice”189

“well all I do is throw for about an hour and I think I’m getting tendonitis in my elbow so I gotta take a half of an oxy for the pain and then coke on game days.”190

”now don’t get me wrong you know I get crunk on game days every time but I cant be staggering and fuckin up when I take bp.” 191

We ate hurriedly though we were still early getting to the field so we just helped uncover the tarps and rake the infield. We had the batting cage rolled down when the underclassmen began to trickle in. we were bored so we got a ball from the equipment closet and just began tossing around. Which despite what people say, is the most fun thing about the whole game of baseball. I can’t decide, besides the coke, which we have to save for game days, which is better for practice alcohol or weed?192

“I say nothing cause you already took some oxy”193

“oh yea… never mind”194

We had finished raking the infield and we were just sitting on the bench when coach came and sat beside us, with a characteristic dip in his mouth, he was a young coach I’d say in his early or mid thirties.195

“coach I’m not gonna be worth shit today I just got laid and I’m slightly drunk.196

“just none of that game days …you don’t go to school like that do you”197

“coach, my girlfriend just moved in with me, and I have nothing but two electives all day so I’m either drunk or high everyday…except game days of course.198

“you need to keep that under control, nothing will hurt you if you do it in moderation’199

“yea but you should see his girlfriend” Kurt said as he slapped my outstretched fist.”200

“I’m not talking about that I mean all the drinking and drugs man…to much of that stuff you’ll get hooked and everything will get fucked up. I know from experience the same thing happened to my brother.”201

“I gotchya coach don’t worry bout me, this motherfucker right here though…..I dunno”202

“okay okay, the underclassmen are starting to come in , get them out dressed in twenty minutes or so”203

“aye aye cap’n” Kurt said.204

It was dark. I cut my headlamp off and took off my book bag filled with my clothes and glove. I walked in to my room to find Lisa asleep on the sofa in a simple black dress that conformed to every contour of her body; a glass of merlot half empty on the coffee table. I went into the bedroom and changed as I heard Lisa moan as if she were stretching and awakening. I had just put my black French cuffed pinstriped shirt on as Lisa came walking barefoot into my room and hugged me , half leaning against me without a word . I picked her up off of her feet and carried her to the bed where she sat up alert and asked,” when are we leaving?” I put on my ripped up jeans and my black leather shoes and simply said, ”in a bit”. She looked at me anxiously and with one arm slumped casually over her bended knee she laid flat on the bed and closed her eyes. 205

“I’m coming , just gimme a second” I said as I walked into the bathroom and freshened up, brushed my teeth and glared with indifference into the mirror. I walked out and picked her up once more as she bit my ear and said” were gonna have fun tonight”. I opened the thick biology book that held her ID and looked at it carefully, I threw it on the bed, “now that’s how you do that” I said with pride. She picked it up and glanced at it then put it in her handbag and put on her suede black sandals, I grabbed the briefcase and we hopped into the truck.206

We were ten minutes out of charlotte. The orange glow of the streetlights   reflected upside down in the truck’s windshield gave me a sensation of the surreal. We topped the final hill that had obscured our view and as we peaked, the sparkling skyscrapers rose shimmering out of the darkness. I found a spot a few blocks from the Bistro on Hunter Avenue beside a jazz club that had spilled people all into the sidewalk, a young woman in  a white skirt and long black boots laughed uninhibited at some anecdote I happened to overhear as we walked up the sidewalk lined with trees where a group of bats had made their home, the sidewalk was white with bat shit and I thought to myself, “do bats even live in cities?”. The maitre’di put us on the outside ring of tables next to the windows. I ordered a ten year old Chablis for the both of us and took out a cigarette and placed it beside my glass as I searched my coat pocket for my lighter.207

“here ya go” Lisa said , then a spark and a flame shone a warming glow onto the table I bent down and lit my cigarette.208

“I find your personal philosophy very intriguing”209

I let out a laugh with out thinking much of it and took another drag on my cigarette.210

“I mean it” she said then laughed and kicked me under the table.211

I looked in her eyes with a grin.212

“what?”213

I hesitated for a moment, “it’s just funny I guess, the way a suit and a fancy restaurant will affect your vocabulary”214

“yea… but you still have your accent”215

“of course”216

“always  gonna have that”217

“I wouldn’t have it any other way sugar britches” I said with a chuckle.218

About that time our waiter came out with our salads and took our orders. He looked about twenty five in a white shirt with a black tie not unlike myself. He went through his little spiel and I waited politely until he was done.219

“no thanks, I think I’ll have the house fillet medium rare with the au jus on the side and the red potatoes”220

“excellent choice sir. And for the lady?”221

“I believe I’ll have the same only I’ll take my fillet rare”222

“great, ill put your orders in now” he said and disappeared behind the foliage that obscured the kitchen door. 223

I turned to Lisa , “etiquette is so un-American”224

“what do you mean? What’s a southerner without manners?”225

I know I wouldn’t have it any other way, but etiquette is different, we have manners out of respect for other people, etiquette is just a set of outdated rules, it’s elitism if you ask me.226

“I guess… I never think about that kinda stuff”227

“well I don’t lie awake at night thinking about it… it just came to me when that waiter went through his spiel.”228

“so how much is this gonna cost big shot?”229

“doesn’t really matter”230

“oh yea?”231

“it’s just how I roll m’lady…I guess you could say I’m not tied down with social or economic restraints” I said with a dry laugh.232

“no my little social deviant you just don’t give a fuck about anything”233

“hey that’s not true… I care about things. I care about you for one…well yea I guess… you’re probably it.”234

“awww that’s cute. You this Chablis will go good with some Oxy”235

“indeed it would ..after we eat ill get some don periogn and we can kill it on the way home”236

“sounds like a plan… that’s like two-hundred dollars a bottle tho how are you gonna pay for all this”237

“you worry too much just let me take care of it”238

About that time our steaks came out and we sat there eating charlotte’s finest for about thirty minutes or so before I started getting antsy. We had finished off the Chablis , but we needed something special for the “after party”, so when the waiter came back to check on us I ordered a bottle.239

“this is really ridiculous how we can do this”240

“I know its great isn’t it” I said in agreement.241

“here you go sir your champagne” the waiter popped the cork and poured us two new flutes of champagne and left.242

“here’s to excess” I said as I raised my glass243

“to excess” she repeated and touched her glass with mine then downed the entire glass.244

“that stuff is really good”245

“I know” I said as I finished mine. I put the cork back in the bottle and grabbed Lisa’s hand and said “okay, lets get outta here”246

I saw our waiter disappear into the kitchen and we hopped up and casually made our way out the door.247

“what are we doing you haven’t paid”248

I started to run down the stairs. “lets go before they see were gone”249

She realized what we had done and let out an uncontrolled laugh. We ran down the two floors out into the city streets champagne in hand. she put her arm around me and we walked down Archer St. a few blocks back to Hunter to the jazz club for cocktails.250

We were standing outside of The House of Blues on Hunter St. where I saw a homeless man on the other side of the road lying next to a tree. Lisa’s arm was still around mine as we walked across the street to the man sitting beside the tree. 251

“Nice night” I said.252

“I sure hope so said the man”253

“champagne strike your fancy sir?” I said as I handed out the bottle of don person .254

He reached for it timidly. “thank you young man” he said sincerely . 255

We began to turn back to the jazz club then I said to Lisa “you know what… I’m cravin some Oxy lets pop one then go to the club and just chill”256

“you read my mind” she hugged me and walked closer and put her chin on my shoulder “but you can’t drive totally fucked up can you?”257

“well my tolerance is up…but I’ll just take some Xanax instead to be safe” 258

we walked back down the tree lined , guano covered sidewalk to my truck. Lisa sat in the passenger seat while I took out my briefcase and opened up one of the bottles of Oxycontin and dumped one in my hand as well as two bars of Xanax all of which I put in my back pocket.259

“alright… you ready?”260

“yea lets go”261

we walked hand in hand back up to The House of Blues and took a seat at a table near the front right side of the stage. I had never heard of the band that was playing but I liked them whoever they were.262

“what about your parents?” Lisa asked263

“what about them”264

“don’t they give you a curfew or anything or do they know your club hopping in charlotte?”265

“oh that… well they go to bed early and they never have said anything to me really as long as I don’t wake them up”266

“this is so cool, I cant believe I’m doing this”267

“L-I-V-I-N babe that’s what it’s all about”268

“apparently so with you” she said as she leaned over and kissed me.269

“what do you want from the bar?”270

“oh… I have no idea… I’ve never had a cocktail.271

“whaaat? Never had a cocktail. Here I know what you’d like”272

I made my way to the bar just as the guitarist was going into a solo, “Kurt has this guy easy” I thought to myself. I slapped my ID on the bar top. 273

“whatl ya have?” the bartender asked without even glancing at my ID.274

“um… I’ll take an Absolut martini and a Singapore sling. I glanced over at Lisa while the bartender was mixing the drinks. She was beautiful. I couldn’t believe that somebody actually loved me, much less one who loved to party as much as me. I had spent eighteen years practically alone but now… now all that was changing. I brought the drinks over to our table and sat down I took out the pills from my back pocket and slid her Oxy across the table and popped my Xanax and washed it down with a few sips of vodka and vermouth. Lisa looked at me and smiled then did the same.275

We had been at the club for about an hour, Lisa had moved her chair beside mine and was resting her head on my shoulder with my arm around her, she didn’t say much; she was probably feeling too good to talk and I was feeling the drugs as well. We just sat there for another half hour almost in a trance until the band stopped playing. I looked at my watch, it was almost two in the morning. 276

I whispered to Lisa “we better get going”. She let out a “yea” that sounded more like a moan than anything else and I helped her up, my arm around her waist supporting her since she was almost out of it. We walked out of the club to the street to the sound of cars driving by heads out of their window shouting at each other. We headed in the opposite direction, away from the bad noise back to the truck. 277

The drive home should have made me nervous, the speeding cars and the weaving in and out should have put me on edge…not this time, I had Alice in Chains’ unplugged cd in and I couldn’t have been more relaxed. Lisa was half asleep only saying how much she loved a song every once in a while. A thought came to my mind that I wasn’t going to be worth shit tomorrow in school but at that time I didn’t give a fuck about anything but the girl beside me, it wasn’t like I had college to look forward to anymore, that was out of the picture, maybe tech school then a boring menial job. Last year I was going be somebody, do something great, practically aced my SAT’s but fuck, I need more Xanax. I pulled into a gas station and bought a pack of Marlboro Light 100’s and a Pepsi. I looked in the side window and Lisa must have been asleep, her head was against the glass and she wasn’t moving. I took out my briefcase and popped another Xanax. We were almost home and it wouldn’t hit me for at least another twenty minutes. I got back in the truck, started the cd over and headed home.278

We made it home by two-forty five, though it only seemed like it took five minutes, I was still feeling the Xanax a bit but I had to have something stronger. As I opened the passenger door Lisa and woke up “are we home yet?”279

“yea babe were here”280

I got the briefcase while she climbed out of the truck and we went inside. I sat on the far end of the sofa and put the case on the glass coffee table. Lisa lied down and put her head in my lap.281

“let’s pack a bowl or two” she said rather slowly, I could tell the Oxy was still running strong in her.282

“sounds good” I opened up the case and got out my biggest pipe and began pinching off some pot from the still full bag.283

“wait…I got an idea” I grabbed a salt shaker full of cocaine and sprinkled the bowl with a hearty helping of coke. 284

“there we go” I said as I put the pipe up to my lips and lit it. A rush of smoke filled my lungs and I held it in as I passed it to Lisa who did the same. I felt an instant surge of energy and a substantial buzz, I couldn’t think of anything except how high I was and how stunningly beautiful Lisa was. We continued to smoke until the bowl was cashed. I put it down on the coffee table and leaned down and kissed her, she put her arms around my head and kissed back, her tongue felt electric against mine with the taste of strawberries. She grabbed my hand and stood up. I followed her and put my arms around her waist as she did my neck then I picked her up. She wrapped her legs around my waist and leaned up against the wall , knocking down my print of Boulevard of Broken Dreams to the floor. We fumbled our way into the bedroom where I halfway threw her on the bed. She sat up and slipped out of her dress as she said softly “I love you”.285

I unbuttoned my shirt all without saying anything then bent down and whispered “I love you more” in her ear.286

I awoke before the alarm went off the next morning to the sight of clothes strung about the room. Lisa’s arm was over my shoulder so I carefully got up so as not to disturb her. I was an insomniac to begin with I didn’t really need sleep but I knew Lisa needed hers. She still had a chance at school. The cold water of the shower woke me up fully as I tried to piece together the previous night. I put some ratty torn jeans on and a sleeveless camouflage jacket over a black t-shirt then went into the living room. I re-hung the picture that we had knocked down and sat on the sofa rifling through my briefcase to pick out the day’s supplies and decided to crack open a few nitrous bottles to kill time until Lisa woke up. I lied there stupefied staring at the beams overhead inhaling bottle after bottle. I heard the shower running but it didn’t register to me that Lisa was up for a few seconds. I realized that my game, the first round of playoffs, wasn’t until tomorrow so I could waste a day. I poured out a small heap of heroin onto my spoon and added some water from an eyedropper and mixed it up with the plunger of my needle, then boiled it down with my Zippo until it was a clear solution. Then I carefully pulled all of it up into the syringe, found the vein and injected. The rush was breathtaking, my eyes slowly closed and it seemed I was absorbing all the pleasure in the world. A warm calm flowed through my body in waves. I was floating. I sat everything down and just lied there enjoying my little slice of heaven. When I heard the shower water cut off I sat up and quickly cleaned everything up except one Oxycontin, an ounce bag of pot, and my pipe , all of which I put in different pockets on my jacket and my flask of vodka newly refilled, I was armed and ready for the day. 287

Lisa came out into the living room in nothing but a pair of hot pink cotton panties, the pitter patter made by her bare feet against the smooth gray concrete was intensified by the drugs as it was the only thing my mind could take in at that moment. She cocked her head to the side and put her hand on her hip. “I’m getting fat aren’t I ?” I laughed out loud at the thought though I guess I never told her how beautiful she was because I was in perpetual awe, hiding a secret fear that showing my feelings for her too strongly might belittle me in her eyes in some way. Maybe I was just inexperienced, I had no idea what to say. A nervous burning pain started in my  stomach as if I was a child caught daydreaming in class and asked an impossible question. She looked at me , right in the eyes , took her hand off her hip and walked over to me . “honey I’m just fuckin with you” she let out a raucous laugh, you should have seen your face.288

“awww here” she said and she came over and hugged me. I wrapped my arms around her chest and lay my head against her breast ,”you know I love you” .289

And with that she tried dressing with me kissing her but finally she playfully pushed me onto the bed and put her shirt on and said simply “damn”. 290

We made it to the huddle house around seven in the morning , Kurt was already there as usual reading the paper. We sat down beside Kurt in his pinstriped suit and white oxford shirt with the collar out with French cuffs in the highest fashion. Lisa wore  a simple black blouse with a white tapered skirt and I had on a black t shirt with a raggedy pair of jeans and chuck taylors. I ordered some coffee and lighted a cigarette , I wasn’t very hungry but Lisa ordered a strawberry waffle.291

“you know were in a recession” Kurt said as he took another sip of tea and handed me the front page of the news.292

“what the fuck is that” I asked .293

“what a recession?” Lisa replied as she grabbed up the newspaper and began to read.294

“a recession is when the economy goes down, unemployment goes up, so do prices for virtually everything…the dollar is loosing strength” Kurt informed me.295

“basically jobs are gonna be harder to get, well have to work till were eighty so the baby boomers can have their fuckin social security, and we got a war to fight, our generation is fucked.”296

“man you worry to much… things work out, they always do”. I argued297

“yea man just chill out” Lisa reaffirmed.298

“that’s precisely the attitude that will get us into trouble, we have to do something man … it’s gonna be up to us, we have to grow up”299

“Jesus man your wiggin out on me here” I said to Kurt.300

“if you say so man , if you say so”301

I finished my coffee and took a drag off my second cigarette as Lisa threw back her glass of tea and finished it then said, “that shit doesn’t matter man lets go hit the pipe.”302

“Righty-oh ol’ chap righty-oh” I said as I followed Lisa out of the booth as did Kurt who folded his newspaper and asked for a to go cup of coffee. We waited for him outside my truck while I packed a bowl of high grade pot.303

“let me spark it”304

I handed the pipe and lighter over to Lisa who lit the pipe and cleared it within a matter of ten seconds with a series of short inhalations.305

“hot damn” she said as the words came out in smoke almost. By that time Kurt had made his way to the truck and Lisa passed the bowl to him. He took a deep breath and lit it then French inhaled casually then gave it to me, he said something about not wanting to get too high and left on his bike while me and Lisa stayed and killed almost twenty minutes in the parking lot of the Huddle House.306

When we made it to school Kurt’s bike was in its usual spot beside the stairs outside the “porch” as we called it outside of ms. Godwin’s room next to the library. I parked beside him in my self-reserved teachers spot. We sat there for a minute listening to Nirvana’s Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam.307

“I love this song” Lisa said out of the blue. I was caught off guard daydreaming, imagining myself there at that concert years ago when the song was recorded. 308

“oh yea me too…love it…lyrics are kick ass”309

“yea”310

“you feeling anything?”311

“yea I’m buzzing pretty good”312

“nice”313

“I brought some with me today… we can come out here during break and toke up”314

“sounds good to me”315

“aight let’s go in”316

I leaned over and kissed Lisa, she was it… all I wanted, nothing else mattered, she made me not think about my disease, she made it go away, a huge part of my life had been taken from me but she was there to fill in those holes, god I loved her and at that time… I knew she loved me. 317

We walked around the school to the entrance of the senior commons, my arm around her neck, hers around my waist, it was a wonderful time. We were in our prime… and we knew it.318

When we got to the commons josh and Kurt were at our table talking. We made our way, the two of us through the crowd of people I suddenly had the feeling I was the star in some kind of TV. show, like my time had come and everything was coming together for me. We sat down together at the table, my arm still around Lisa’s neck leaning against me and I her.319

Kurt laughed out loud at something josh said.320

“yo Layne , did you see the Simpsons yesterday?”321

“nah man we went to Charlotte last night”322

“what were you doin in charlotte?”323

“nothing really just a dine and dash”324

Lisa perked up…”Layne ordered a bottle of don periogne and gave it to a hobo”325

Josh laughed, “holy shit man that’s funny as hell”326

“it was pretty fun” Lisa added.327

“hey Kurt” josh said.328

“Layne and Lisa went to charlotte and ran out of a restaurant with a bottle of don periogne and gave it to a hobo”329

“what restaurant?”330

“I dunno”331

“it was the Bistro 100” Lisa replied332

“nice” Kurt said as he opened up the business section of the paper.333

By that time the senior commons had filled up with people, it was almost eight. I leaned over and whispered, “imam head to the bathroom I’ll be right back” in Lisa’s ear then stood up and fought my way through the crowd down the hall and around the corner to the bathroom. I walked into the furthest stall from the door and closed it behind me. I took out my eighty milligram Oxycontin and popped it in my mouth, then reached for my flask from my back pocket and washed it down with some Absolut vodka. I flushed the toilet and walked back out into the hall, through the crowded senior commons to the Gatorade machines , I put my dollar in, punched the button for the yellow Gatorade and brought it back to my table just as the bell rang. A mass of people migrated forward in the opposite direction towards the hall I had just left, most of the faces I had grown up with , some of them I did not but I said nothing, just fought my way back to the table where my friends were still sitting. Josh was sitting on top of the table and Kurt  was putting his newspaper into his book bag. I sat back down beside Lisa and kissed her forehead, she smiled and put her arm around my neck and leaned against me as we both got up.334

“see ya at break man” josh said as he took off out the door we had come through in the morning.335

“later man…Kurt …pleasure”336

“right on bro” he said as he stood up.337

Lisa took my hand and we headed out the front doors to the outside of the school.338

“I hope this never ends” I said as Lisa looked up at me and smiled.339

“me too”340

we walked around the octagonal building to her class’ door where she put her arms around me and leaned up and kissed me.341

“love you girl”342

“love you Layne” she said as she opened the door and went inside. I stood there for a moment just beaming. I was content. I wanted nothing more, life made sense. I grabbed my book bag straps and stared at my grungy old chucks for a while then a walked slowly around the school without a care in my head to F hall.343

The tardy bell rang as my foot hit the floor in Doc Pratt’s room he was still playing on his computer. A couple of girls were standing around his desk talking, flirting perhaps, hell I didn’t care, good for Doc Pratt I thought as I took my seat beside josh.344

“hey man did you see the Simpsons last night?” josh asked345

“nah man”346

“it was the one where Homer gets attacked by those birds and gets a prescription for pot”347

“oh yea I’ve seen that one before… he like trips balls and stuff”348

“it was cool… it’s a shame that doesn’t happen to you in real life”349

“yea I know”350

about that time I noticed two huge speakers at the front of the room started playing some hip-hop song softly. The two girls sat down and Doc began his lecture. Sound waves and energy.351

I had to admit Doc was pretty cool, time flew by and it was almost the end of class before I knew it. We had all packed up and were waiting for the bell to ring when josh came up to me.352

“so when’s the wedding”?353

“what you talking about”?354

“come on you and Lisa are all over each other”355

“I dunno man I haven’t even thought about the future… I’m having to much fuckin fun in the present.”356

Josh laughed. “ That’s my boy”357

Just as he said that the bell rang I took a right out of Doc’s room.358

“where ya goin dude?” josh asked innocently.359

“goin to see Lisa”360

“ah you’re pussy whipped”361

“nah man it’s not like that”362

“whatever you say man…see ya”363

“later”364

I walked down f hall to ms. Godwin’s room and waited out on the porch for Lisa.365

I leaned against the outside wall and took out my Gatorade and poured half of it out and filled it back up with vodka from my flask. I put my flask back in my pocket and took a swig of the electric Gatorade just as Lisa walked through the door.366

“there you are” she said367

“how was class”368

“boring as hell… you”369

“ah it wasn’t that bad”370

“yea Doc is pretty cool”371

we walked together down to my truck, I unlocked both the doors and we got in, I turned on Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam and I took out the loaded pipe and handed it to Lisa who took a drag. she coughed a little and handed it over to me.372

“good shit” she said , smoke still on her breath. I lit it and took a deep drag and tried to hold it in long as I could. We smoked in the truck for about five minutes, our break was ten but by then the truck was so fogged up with smoke it was obvious what we were doing. We hopped out of the car as rolls of smoke followed us. I grabbed some deodorant spray and sprayed myself off, then Lisa did the same. 373

“man I’m pretty fuckin high” Lisa said grinning374

“me too”375

“I’ll see you later babe I’m off to espanol”376

“ah have fun”377

“you know it” she said then kissed me quickly and took off to class. I grabbed a cigarette out of my jacket and stated to smoke as I made my way around to the porch outside of Ms. Godwin’s room. Sure enough she was standing there cigarette in hand , leaning by the wall.378

“any ideas for your comparison contrast essay Layne?”379

“actually I do have one”380

“let’s here it”381

“well have you seen the movie Fight Club?382

“yea”383

“well I’m gonna compare Brad Pitt’s character Tyler Durden to Jesus”384

“whoa… deep thinker huh”385

“I try”386

“well what’s gonna be your argument”387

“well…first of all they were both leaders of what you might call a cult, or at least a small gathering of followers at the beginning, they both were kind of on the fringe of society at the time, and they both had plans to become a kind of movement”388

“interesting”389

“I try anyways”390

“not bad… now all you have to do is word it right and you’ll have yourself a nice little paper”391

“thanks”392

“anytime…lets go in it’s about that time”393

I went inside and took my spot at the back row, we were doing a critical analysis on a reading in class, I had my note book out, and my Gatorade on my desk, sipping on it while I wrote some poetry in rhyming couplets in my notebook.. I finally got bored and just started daydreaming about Lisa, wondering what she was doing, if she was daydreaming about me at the same time. About that time I could really fell the Oxycontin working on me, I felt wonderful just slouching there writing lyrics wasting class time, I must have nodded off a few times cause it seemed like the clock would jump forward in fifteen minute intervals.394

I awoke to the sound of Lisa’s voice.395

“Layne you okay?”396

“what?”397

I looked around and the class was empty, even Ms.Godwin was gone.398

“Hurry up your gonna miss third block”399

I grabbed my drink and walked out with Lisa up the hall to Mr. Shaw’s class. Kurt was already there working,  we sat down at the table beside him. I was so comfortable, half-drunk with a hearty buzz. Without saying much Mr. Shaw let us get out our work. Lisa had started a still life of a bunch of different sized vases with charcoal while I got out my sketchbook and started working on my portrait of Lisa. We didn’t talk much every once in a while she would look up and blush a little as she looked at me drawing her but went back to work without a word. Art class was always a relatively calm and quiet time, perfect for my Oxy buzz and my high. This class went on much slower than the other two. I took my time searching every curve of Lisa with my eyes, I could find no blemish, nothing but the ideal girl I had dreamed about. As my mind wandered I began daydreaming about the previous night. She was so fun to be around I quite literally couldn’t think of anything else, well her and the drugs of course. I had gotten a lot done that period in spite of daydreaming half of class away. I had finished the outline of her figure. I was kind of tired so I put my stuff away and just relaxed the rest of the period.400

Me and Lisa just leaned on each other not saying a word. Kurt was into his drawing and Mr. Shaw was at another table when the bell rang. Me and Lisa slowly stood up and headed out the door, I looked back at Kurt who was still working on his project. He looked up, “I’ll be at your place in a minute…I’m just gonna finish this real quick”401

“ight man”402

We walked out through the crowded hall and out to my truck where a few other seniors were heading home or to Storky’s to shoot pool or what have you. We  threw our book bags in the bed of the truck and hopped in, I immediately put in a Sublime cd and rolled down the windows.403

We made it home fairly quickly, there wasn’t much traffic at one fifteen. I stopped at the “Chinese Amoco” as we called it for a pack of Marlboro light 100’s and a quarter tank of gas. As soon as we were in the living room Lisa got the briefcase and began to cook up a batch of skag , I lit a cigarette and turned on my stereo to my Velvet Underground cd and sat on the couch watching her, she laid out three syringes on the coffee table. 404

“make sure you fill mine three quarters full…my tolerance is up”405

“mine too… a little anyways”406

“well I wont have to do anything today at practice except hang around the bullpen and watch the underclassmen since I’m throwing tomorrow… don’t give Kurt that much he’s still gotta take batting practice”407

“alrighty”408

It was a science, an art even… the suspense grew as she boiled down the solution and carefully filled each syringe with poison. About that time there was a vague rumbling then it stopped, Kurt was here. He came in and sat his helmet on the table beside the door.409

“sup bro?... yall cookin up… smells good” 410

“yea man were all set… waiting on you”411

“coo”412

Lisa cleaned everything up with some rubbing alcohol I kept in my bathroom, she put all the paraphernalia back into my kit in the briefcase and slid it under the coffee table, we all three sat on the couch . I went first, I always did. I undid my belt and tightened around my right arm while I squeezed my hand into a fist. I found my usual spot, took off the cap and injected. I was almost instantly high, still functioning but overwhelmingly relaxed, I sighed and slouched back into the couch and just went limp, I felt like warm Jell-O inside and started to laugh. Lisa took the belt from my arm and did the same, then Kurt followed suit. Lisa moaned a little. “I love this shit… how much we got left?413

“id say about a gram and a half…something like that”414

“enough to last us till the end of school if were conservative” Kurt added415

“yea… what three more weeks right” I asked416

“yea three weeks” Lisa answered slowly.417

I grabbed Lisa up and walked in the bedroom and laid her down and sprawled out beside her.418

“come on Kurt, you know you want to” Lisa said. And with that we were all three sprawled out on top of each other on my bed just floating. we must have laid there, just the three of us happy, high and on top of the world for at least an hour and a half. Lisa had nodded off and I was almost asleep as well when Kurt shook me.419

“time to go man”420

I carefully moved Lisa’s arm from around my chest, trying not to wake her up. I grabbed my bag of baseball gear, put my hat on, hopped on my cruiser and headed off to practice with Kurt.421

Practice was easy, I had a strong buzz the whole time I was coaching the underclassmen pitchers in the pen . while I was watching them I rubbed icy hot on my elbow and did some stretching on the grass to the side of right field. I was sitting , legs stretched out when Kurt came up for batting practice. I watched as he put every other ball into the pines. Damn I wish I could hit like that, but that was his thing he could take ‘em deep, off some of the best pitchers in the state, he was in contention for the state home run record, just as I was for the school strike out record though we never talked about it, we just loved the game, and always have.422

We stayed ofter practice in the parking lot just chilling beside our bikes.423

“you know tomorrow might be it”424

“ I know man, but don’t worry, your gonna throw a shutout like always and well be in the State championship next week in Columbia”425

“right right, either way man I’m gonna miss it”426

“I know, me too”427

“good times man…good times”428

we stayed there talking for another hour, tomorrow might be it for us seniors, but I guess all things must come to an end , no matter how much work you put in or how sweet it is. It was almost a religious experience out there that day. We reminisced until the sun was hanging low and orange in the sky  half obscured by the pine trees behind the left field fence.429

When I got home I noticed that all the lights were out except for a red glow coming out of my bedroom window and a regular thump from my subwoofers that was audible over the hum of my engine. I walked inside to find Lisa in nothing but a black nightgown that seemed to float on a pocket of air around her body, not even touching her skin. My red spotlight was all that was on and she came up and hugged me. Her arms around my neck moved down to my waist and she pulled me closer, her body warm against my dirty practice uniform, she rubbed her bare leg up against mine.430

“over there… on the table… take it, its wonderful” she said slowly and seemingly with some effort. On the table lay two pills of ecstasy. She leaned against me then lied down on the bed halfway moaning while stretching out . I threw my gear in the closet and took my shirt off and put some soft cotton shorts on, then went into the living room to my bar and grabbed a bottle champagne I had been saving I took out my ice bucket and went to the fridge and filled it, put the bottle in the silver bucket along with two flutes and headed to the bedroom. I put the bucket on my nightstand and filled the two glasses as Lisa laid there with her eyes closed tracing her outline with her finger, I could tell she was rolling. She sat up, I handed her a flute of champagne.431

“why are you so good to me Layne?”432

I was taken by surprise.433

“because I love you of course”434

“why?”435

“why do I love you?”436

“yea”437

“shit I dunno, you’re fun, your beautiful, smart, I cant think of anyone id rather be with than you”438

she smiled the way she does and leaned over and kissed me.439

“take that x , then we can have some real fun”440

“that’s my girl”441

I picked up the pills and popped them in my mouth and washed them down with a gulp of champagne. I slipped into the bed beside her and put my arm across her chest. I was facing down , Lisa up. we just laid there for what seemed like forever, feeling the rhythm of each others heart beating and the warmth from each other under the cold silk sheets. As I lay there I suddenly became aware of all my senses and every time Lisa’s skin touched mine a shiver went down my back followed by a warm pleasure. I leaned over and kissed her as she took off her nightgown and brought me closer to her. We were breathing in harmony as our stomachs merged and it became difficult to speak I was so overcome with love and pleasant feelings.442

I woke up first the next morning, I was drained and a bit hung over. I looked at Lisa lying beside me naked and just though how luck I was to have found it, the love; the thing that people write songs about and fight for and cry over… I had it, I had it completely .I leaned over and kissed Lisa on the cheek then went and took a shower and freshened up. The warm water woke me up completely but my headache was still there, then that thought popped into my head, it was game day, upper state championships. I had to be one hundred percent mentally and physically if I was to be on and if we were going to win. I got dressed and came out of the bathroom. Lisa was just getting up.443

“morning babe”444

“morning…you ready for the big game”445

“hell yea I am”446

“ill be right out” with that Lisa went into the bathroom with a change of clothes, tight ripped jeans and a spaghetti strap blue top. I sat on the couch thinking to myself, “Riverside… those punk bitches are going down…shutout, nothing else will do. If I do my job my defense will do theirs and Kurt will bring the big bat…damn I can’t wait”447

I was already jacked up, fuck school I thought I need my rest.448

I got up and opened my briefcase and put one bag of coke into my bat bag with my glove. I went ahead and put my bat bag in the toolbox of my truck while Lisa got dressed. She met me outside and we took off to the Huddle House.449

This particular day we beat Kurt to the Huddle House. I had put in some Smashing Pumpkins to keep me energized. We went in through the glass doors and as soon as I sat down the waitress I forget her name , brought us each a glass of tea and a coffee.450

“whatlya have this morning” she asked.451

Lisa went first.452

“ill have some country ham and scrambled eggs and toast”453

“ill take a strawberry waffle a side of bacon and scrambled eggs”454

“alrighty… be right up”455

“someone’s hungry” Lisa remarked.456

“gotta fill up for the game shug”457

“ah of course”458

“are you just gonna stay and sit in the bleachers until the game so we don’t have to take the bike too”459

“yea that’s fine”460

I leaned over and gave Lisa a quick kiss.461

“love ya babe”462

“you too Layne”463

about that time Kurt came strolling in the door and sat opposite us with his newspaper and took a sip of coffee.464

“damn…hot” he said.465

“they usually are”466

“very funny ace”467

“so yall nervous”? Lisa asked.468

“no.. not nervous…cocky is more like it” I returned469

“got that right” Kurt said470

“it aint nothing but a thang… we can handle it, right boss?”471

“sho nouff” Kurt quipped.472

We didn’t stay long at the Huddle house, we were a bit antsy so we decided to go out to the truck and smoke a quick bowl to calm our nerves.473

We sat silently at our table that day in the senior commons, no sign of josh, I didn’t call him last night, must be sick I thought. The day went by slowly for me, I’m sure it was the same way with Kurt, the suspense was killing me. I walked in late to Doc Pratt’s class in full uniform, as was customary on game days, and announced, “Doc...don’t bother me any today I gotta rest up for the game… upper state championship”474

“just take a seat Layne”475

I grinned and sat down beside josh’s empty chair and slept. I was awakened when Doc the empty chair beside me squeaked as Doc sat on it during his lecture. I looked around me, most people were paying attention , taking notes, there were a couple people in the back with their heads on their desks. They must be like me I thought. No future.476

The bell awoke me the second time just enough to see a mass of book bags go out the door . I grabbed my book bag and followed the crowed out into the hall, I walked down to the porch outside of Ms. Godwin’s room and waited for Lisa . I took out a cigarette and lit it, a steady line of smoke arose from the cherry to the sky as I stood there thinking, I was nervous. A few minutes later Lisa showed up and hugged me.477

“how’s it goin rock star”478

“fine… just a little nervous, buts it’s okay, nothing seeing your face can’t take care of”479

she wrapped her arms around me and we just stood there hugging, rocking side to side until Ms.Godwin came out. Lisa whispered “ I love you” then headed off for her class.480

“so you’ve got a little girlfriend do you” Ms. Godwin asked481

“it’s more than that… I’m gonna marry her”482

“oh wow, she must be special”483

“saved my life”484

“how’s that?”485

“can’t explain it really…just gives me a reason to live you know… otherwise I wouldn’t give a shit about anything.. I mean it nothing”486

“well there’s always hope”487

“heh… that’s just what people with no real problems say to themselves to cheer them up when there feeling blue…I’m way beyond that”488

“maybe you should see Ms. Hilton, the guidance counselor”489

“thanks for being concerned but I’m an adult I can handle it… besides I don’t want to go tell my story, there’s nothing they can do but talk to me”490

“well I’m goin in… hope you feel better”491

“thanks”492

I sat down on the steps and pulled out another cigarette…just thinking.493

After I finished I flicked the cigarette to the ground and stomped on it, and hurried inside for class . I took my usual seat in the back, folded my arms and rested my head, I had a million things running through my mind. The minutes ticked by slowly, almost painfully. I tried sleeping but couldn’t so I jotted down a few notes and otherwise let my mind wander. By the end of class Ms.Godwin had assigned another five hundred word essay, I didn’t pay any attention, I wasn’t going to do it, what was the fucking point.494

The bell rang while Ms. Godwin was in mid-sentence . I packed up my things and left. Fuck it.495

Lisa was there waiting on me in the corner of the hall I went up to her and put my arm around her waist, we walked slowly down the hall, just enjoying each others touch.496

“let’s get outta here, I’m tired of this shit”497

“what’s wrong babe?”498

“nothing just tired… meet me at the truck I’m going to go talk to Kurt.499

I went into Mr. Shaw’s room and Kurt was already busy drawing at our table.500

“hey man were skipping out… wanna come with?...actually I need you to come help me with the kegs for tonight.”501

“ight man I’m coming”502

me and Kurt met Lisa at my truck.503

“so what’s the plan big guy” Kurt asked504

“well we gotta go pick up the two kegs from Winn- Dixie I ordered last week and I need your help loading them up on the truck and unloading them down in the field where the bonfire is gonna be”505

“ight man sounds good to me… meet you at Winn-Dixie?”506

“yea were right behind you” 507

me and Lisa hopped into my truck and drove off towards Winn-Dixie.508

“how much is this gonna cost”509

“bout three fifty for two kegs”510

“damn”511

“it will be worth it tho… we gotta have a kick ass party after we beat Riverside”512

we pulled up to the store, Lisa stayed in the truck as Kurt parked beside us and we went inside. We talked to the manager, a man of about thirty who checked my id and gave me a paper to sign after I handed over the money. He directed us to pull back around the store where the kegs were waiting.513

“my little brother turns twenty one today” I told the man.514

“well have fun… the kegs are due back a week from today”515

we pulled the truck around to the back of the store where two stock boys were waiting on us with the kegs. We handed them the slip of paper and they loaded the metal beer bombs into the truck. I took Kurt around and dropped him off at his bike.516

“we gotta stop and get the ice … but ill meet you in Blacksburg”517

Blacksburg was a small town just outside of York where Kurt’s family owned a bunch of land, it was well hidden from the road and there was a huge field for parking behind a grove of trees so cops wouldn’t be a problem, besides Lisa and I both had ID’s.518

Lisa and I stopped at a BP station and bought ten bags of ice, we already had the plastic trash bins in the truck so we were off to Blacksburg.519

“you know this will be about the biggest party of the year…I told Leslie and word got around pretty quick, everyone is coming to the game and following us to the party.”520

“nice.. we better win though…but shit I’m getting wasted anyways”521

it took us about twenty minutes to make it to the turnoff off of  Highway five and then another five minutes down a country road. We turned down an old dirt road about a quarter of a mile to the field. I parked beside the gigantic pile of wood and what was left of an old shed we were going to burn. Kurt was right behind me on his bike.522

“hot damn this is gonna be sweet” Kurt said523

“no kiddin man… it better be worth all this trouble”524

“it will be awesome don’t worry, everyone is coming” Lisa reassured me.525

I grabbed two folding lawn chairs out of the truck and laid them on the ground. Kurt helped me put the kegs in the trash bins then Lisa filled them with ice.526

“all set” Lisa said.527

“I believe so babe”528

“ight man we gotta get our heads right, this shits for real”529

“hell yea man”530

I opened the door to my truck and blasted some Smashing Pumpkins. We were jacked up ready for the game. Kurt followed us to the field and we put on some black eye paint like we were some apache tribal warriors getting ready for battle, streaked down our faces in odd patterns, coach didn’t like it, but it was our time. We went into the dugout and put on our cleats and got dressed for the game. It wouldn’t be long now. Lisa sat in the bleachers while Kurt and I , along with the rest of the team stretched in the right field grass.531

“here they come” said Blake, our starting first baseman and starting quarterback in the fall. The Riverside bus pulled up in our parking lot and began to walk of the bus.532

“aight, Blake, take ‘em out for drills”533

“yea man” he said.534

Blake got up and led the team in some running drills as Kurt and I  got our gloves and started to warm up in the bull pen.535

It was game time, my arm was feeling good and my curve was on, I sat alone with Kurt on the bench while the coaches and umpires were talking. 536

“let’s get crunk” I said to Kurt while the other starters were taking infield and outfield practice and the rookies were running drills.537

“yea man let’s do it… this is it”538

we went to the far corner of the dugout where I had put my bat bag on the shelf and discretely opened up the bag of coke. We each licked a couple of our fingers and stuck them into the coke and snorted the white crystalline powder a few times. I zipped up the bag and it was time to take care of business. Over the loudspeakers they began to play my song, “Rooster” by Alice in Chains. I took the mound and Kurt pointed at me from home plate.539

“its all you man…let’s do this shit” he said as he put his mask on and squatted down. By that time I was electric, I could barely feel my arm and as I warmed up, the lead off batter for Riverside in the on deck circle, my confidence grew. There’s not a chance in hell for this son of a bitch I thought to myself. I’d have to say I was throwing mid-eighties warming up, but when the ump pointed at me and the batter stepped up to the plate…I let it rip. And let it rip I did, eleven strikeouts in six innings of a yet scoreless game. It was in the bottom of the sixth that Kurt came up to bat grinning, we had both refueled in the dugout and I could tell he was going do something big. He let the first strike go by, it was an outside curve. Then I got a bad feeling in my stomach. 540

“There not gonna pitch to ‘em” I said aloud.541

They must have done some scouting , Kurt wasn’t going to see a strike all night, and sure enough… he walked. The next batter, in the number five spot, Blake, hit a long fly ball to center that at first, looked as if it would make it out but was caught near the warning track, the next two batters grounded out and I was back on the mound.542

It was the bottom of the eighth, still tied at zero, Kurt was up again.543

First pitch, high and outside. Godamnit! I thought to myself , there taking the bat out of his hands. 544

Another curve, the count was two balls, no strikes, they were going to walk him for sure. The pitcher wound up and threw a loopy curve way outside, Kurt lunged forward almost stepping over the plate and made solid contact.545

There was no doubt it was out, it was a shot over the right field fence and deep into the pines. The whole bench jumped up and shouted and rushed towards home plate. Kurt trotted around the bases with the biggest grin I’ve ever seen . when he jumped and stomped on home plate the team engulfed him and practically carried him back to the dugout.546

It was the top of the ninth I had given up two singles, the first two hits by Riverside the whole night, I wasn’t about to loose this game for my team. There were runners on first and third. With three straight curve balls using all of my natural strength and then some I struck out the batter for the first out. I was starting to feel the pressure but I couldn’t let it get to me . I leaned back and threw one of the hardest fastballs of my life…he connected with it, the ball jumped of the bat screaming towards third. Our third baseman, Sean leapt out, fully stretched and snagged the grounder , jumped up and threw a shot to second then to first, double play…we had done it. There was a deafening roar all around. I was filled with pride. Kurt ran up to the mound and jumped on me, I grabbed him as the whole team converged on the mound in celebration.547

Basically the whole school showed up in pick up trucks around the bonfire helping themselves to the free beer and good times. We were on top of the world. Kurt was sitting on a log playing his acoustic and I was sitting in my lawn chair with Lisa on my lap singing random Blind Melon songs messing up all the words, but it was all good. In between songs Kurt, Lisa, myself, and a few other kids passed around joint after joint. We had the briefcase in the truck with an almost unlimited supply of drugs and partied well into the night and early morning. One by one people left until about six in the morning it was just us three , the lone gunmen still playing and partying.548

I woke up with Lisa leaning asleep beside me still in my chair, there was a mess of empty beer cups littering the ground. The bonfire was down to a few flames and ashes. Kurt was passed out in my truck. I just lied there with Lisa, close ,comfortable, and happy. we drifted back to sleep.549

I awoke the second time to a hung over Kurt sloppily dumping the melted ice from the kegs over the fire. Lisa was in the back of my truck loading up the empty kegs.550

“damn what happened last night” I said obnoxiously and half drunk.551

Kurt groaned, “ah man…just the biggest party I’ve ever heard of… did you see how many people came man…Jesus Christ”552

“that was pretty fucking awesome guys” Lisa said from behind me, “Layne you got wasted and started belting out songs,… it was horrible” she said with a laugh.553

“yea but it sure was fun” I said proudly554

“how bout them cougars!” Kurt let out.555

“fuck yea…goin to state” 556

“I’m so proud of you guys” Lisa said lovingly, “lets go to the huddle house and sober up, see if we made the paper”557

“hell yea” I said excitedly.558

We loaded up the truck and dropped off the empty kegs by Winn-Dixie then drove to the huddle house.559

“Cobain ,Brown lead York over Riverside” now that’s what I’m talking about Kurt said as we read the headline of the sports page of the Herald .560

“front page of the sports.. kick ass fellas561

“that’s five years of hard work paying off” I said562

Lisa slouched up against me and moaned.563

“you okay lis?”564

“ughh… just don’t feel good all of a sudden…kinda nauseous, I’ll be alright just let me lean on you for awhile”565

“of course babe”566

the waitress came over with two glasses of tea and a coffee for Kurt.567

“congratulations boys…drinks are on us for our local heroes”  568

“well thank you maim” Kurt replied.569

“appreciate it” I responded570

I loved it. I loved my small town, the huddle house, the baseball field, the high school, all of it. It was something out of a dream that was coming true. Out of all the things that had happened to me over the past year, the hospitalizations, the Bi-Polar Schizophrenia, the suicide attempt, everything, this was good times.571

We sat there in the Huddle House talking for almost an hour soaking it up, Lisa started to run a fever so I said goodbye to Kurt and took Lisa home where she slept most of the day while I played guitar to her. She said it made her feel a little bit better so I serenaded her into the night.572

Monday morning , Lisa was still not feeling totally well but she said she would be fine and decided to tough it out. We met at the Huddle House that morning and ate as usual. We loaded up on Oxycontin and some opium laced pot in the parking lot then headed off to school, my vision was a bit hazy and it was a miracle that I made it to school. Lisa and I huddled together at our table before school while Kurt read the paper. I looked up from Lisa’s hair to find josh all cut up with a butterfly bandage over some stitches across his check and a black blood red eye.573

“holy shit man what happened?”574

Kurt put down his paper and saw josh as I said it and his jaw dropped. Lisa turned around and gasped, “oh my god”575

“an eighteen wheeler ran me off the road into a ditch on the way to school Friday”576

“are you okay?” I asked as he dropped his book bag on the pile against the wall and sat down beside us.577

“I’m okay, my face is pretty numb though”578

“damn man you look like hell” Kurt said in disbelief.579

“I know” josh said with a regretful tone, “they gave me some Vicodin but it still hurts like hell”580

“dude let me hook you up”, I reached into my camo jacket and pulled out an eighty milligram oxy and handed it to josh.581

“Thanks doc… I’ll go to the bathroom and take it now”582

“sorry bout that man” Lisa said583

“it’s alright, shit happens” and with that josh disappeared into the crowd on his way to the bathroom when the bell rang. Lisa and I took off on our usual route outside and around the building. I had no idea that this would be my last day of school. I kissed Lisa goodbye for now and walked around to Doc Pratt’s room and took a seat beside josh , I had made it before the bell this time, a first.584

I turned to josh who I could tell was beginning to feel the effects of the oxycontin as was I .585

“feeling any better?”586

“yea man” he said with a goofy stoned grin.587

I looked around to find that doc wasn’t yet in the class so I sneaked a gulp of vodka down from my flask and stuffed it back into my back pocket.588

I was feeling really good, I was slouched in my chair doodling and writing haikus through doc’s lecture on measuring energy waves. I would have once been interested, sitting there erect taking notes like an eager third grader, but my future was sealed. Bi-Polar Schizophrenia equals no concentration which equals no college or good work which equals a future of hospitals, and yes, drugs , and general disappointment. I was dozing off from the opiates as usual when the bell rang. I looked to my left, josh was asleep as well, I woke him up then walked down the hall to meet Lisa.589

She was standing there looking sexy, beautiful ,as people walked by she stood there motionless as if in a freeze frame out of a movie, she was focusing on something on the other end of the hall. I came up behind her and wrapped my arms around her, she leaned her head back and smiled. We walked out on the porch and made out until Ms. Godwin interrupted us.590

“oh sorry, don’t mind me” she took out a cigarette which reminded me off my own craving and I did the same. Lisa leaned in and kissed me then walked off to her second class.591

“what do you think of Sylvia Plath, Ms. Godwin?, she has to be one of my favorites”592

“tragic… what happened to her, or er what she did, one can only imagine what she would have created if she hadn’t killed herself”593

“it’s the way all the greats go…suicide,…or in the music field, which I consider to be art, drug overdoses”594

“that theory definitely holds some weight. I’ve always bought the idea that to be truly original and creative you have to be mad in some way.”595

“well there’s Van Gough, Plath, Hemmingway, Hunter Thompson, Kurt Cobain, Layne Stayley, Janis Joplin, Hendrix…I could go on for hours”596

“yea” she said as she exhaled a stream of white smoke597

“but what do I know, I’m just a simple English teacher…alone”598

“and I’m just a crazy addict”599

she half way laughed… “that’s not good Layne”600

“I know… but what am I supposed to do”601

“well it’s about that time… we’ve been out here for a while I bet the class is waiting on us”602

“you mean you”603

I followed Ms. Godwin back to class and took my seat near the back, still feeling the oxy running strong, but not yet intoxicated. I started to nod off when all of a sudden I heard a voice over the intercom calling me to the office, “ah fuck” I said a little too loudly. I knew I was busted somehow. When I got to the office Lisa was standing behind my parents teary eyed.604

“what?…what?!.. what happened I said in a desperate panicked voice my dad came over and hugged me and said, “Memom is going pretty fast, were going to the hospital”605

“what does that mean?... what is that supposed to mean” I said loudly, a bitter pain hit my stomach and I panicked.606

“she’s not going to make it” my mom said.607

Lisa came up and hugged me then took my hand and walked me to my truck. I pulled around to the front of the school where my parents were waiting and followed them to the hospital. Lisa held my hand all the way up the elevator to the intensive care unit, by the time we got to Memom’s room…she was gone my cousins surrounded her bed and hugged me as I walked into the room, we said the Lord’s prayer and just stood there in shock. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room, except for mine. I couldn’t feel anything. I was numb, empty, and I hated myself for it.608

I dropped out of school, although I technically graduated early, I would get my diploma in the mail. Every morning Lisa woke up, took a shower and met Kurt at the Huddle House, I didn’t care about state, I wouldn’t be able to pitch anyway I just lied in bed shooting up and waiting for Lisa to come home. I guess I never dealt with my grandmother’s death, I just held it in, and whenever the pain became too much I shot up more heroin, my supply was dwindling and I didn’t give a shit about anything, I lied there in self-loathing, for taking my grandmother for granted, taking the money she had earned and gave to me and turned my place into a luxury penthouse, I wanted to die so bad, but I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do that to Lisa, to my parents, so I lied around my apartment wasting away, using and using, drug after drug, anything and everything to ease the pain and get away from myself. I didn’t eat. Kurt would come over after practice to check on me. He was a true friend. Lisa would bring me food but I rarely ate. I was so empty. I kept this up for weeks until one day I looked into my briefcase and all my heroin was gone, pot wasn’t enough for me anymore so I called Kurt up the Saturday after we lost the state championships.609

until an idea popped into my head. I stopped playing. “what’s the deal man”? Kurt exclaimed, a bit disappointed that I had interrupted his solo... “dude… lets go to the beach,…my grandmother owns a house right above Myrtle Beach on an island… you know I’ve told you before…Sunset Beach”. “Fuck yea man”! we can take our bikes down there . “ill call Jonathan”. “Alright he’s off still isn’t he”? …”Yea I think so”.610

Jonathan had graduated a year ahead of us and was one of our best friends…he was going to tech school for drafting , he was interning at an engineering firm but he was off the week after Christmas. “I’ll call him up… you go get some supplies” I said with a grin. Ight man I’ll see you in a few. Kurt took off on his new bike to gather up some supplies for the trip. I got Jonathan’s voicemail and left a message. I hated leaving voice messages… I felt so vulnerable as if I was putting my life on the line waiting for a diagnosis on whether or not I had cancer or something. In the meantime I walked down to my parents place and found my mother on the phone with one of my uncles,… I didn’t ask … I really didn’t care. I waited for my mum to get off the phone. “okay ill talk to you Monday then.. bye….what do you need”?611

Mom, me Kurt and Jonathan are gonna head down to Sunset for a few days if that’s okay…612

”sure honey just be careful and no drinking and driving… I mean it son”.613

“Thanks mum. I wont”.614

”You have all the keys , don’t you”? 615

“Yes Maim , right here”. 616

“ Alrighty then , ill go tell your dad”….617

do you need any money?, cause I don’t think I can give u much”. “No that’s okay mum I have some saved, a lot actually”.” Well that’s good”. She gave me a hug and gave me a hundred dollars anyway and I returned to my room to pack. I threw my party clothes and two suits in a duffel bag , mainly French cuffed oxfords and a few black pinstriped shirts and my white tie. I went online to see how much money I had in my account. I had saved up nearly 10, 500 dollars from four years of working at the hardware store. That will be more than enough…I hope so anyways I said to myself with a grin. Then, just as I logged off my account a heard a rumble then the sound of a car pulling up to my apartment with the bass line of a Sublime song rattling my walls… looks like Jonathan is here. Its funny isn’t it…. Later in my life I would find myself alone with nothing to offer anyone except a look into my madness but at this moment all was well… friends were plentiful, fun was the word. Time seemed to slow to a halt as we were locked in a beautiful new world ….young and free. Jonathan jumped out of his new Mustang GT and we shook hands.” got your message….we ready to go?618

“Just waiting for Kurt to get back….619

“oh yea check this out”…Jonathan hopped back into the mustang and put in a new cd.620

I walked about the car furtively, knowing how much Jonathan valued his fucking car and tried to avoid touching the exterior at all costs I was startled by the sudden thump of his subwoofers and tripped on a water hose and caught myself on the side panel of the car.621

“Watch it man.. damn” he barked622

“sorry….it’s just a fucking car ma n”623

“yea well its MY fucking car and I’m a man who cares, now check this out…624

I just got some new fifteens put in”.625

He proceeded to turn the volume painfully up where the whole car vibrated with such force that it made me instantly sick to my stomach.626

“cut that shit down man people live here”627

He shook his head and turned the obnoxious music down.. he looked like a dog as one would if it’s master was about to beat him, so I quickly let out a “nice system “ to stroke his overgrown ego and he snapped out of it.628

I stared at his nice new interior.. tuning out everything he said. I Wasn’t angry at him or anything.. the dials and tachometer just seemed to be more exiting than his dribble and boasting. He turned up a sublime song and I watched the graphic equalizer on his cd player. It was beautiful. I secretly fancied an idea of writing a mathematical equation based on the movements of the equalizer but I wasn’t that good at math. I felt out of it. Mentally. My head was far away as I watched the equalizer dance to the music, wondering what kind of genius had made such a thing.. I felt a bit alienated from Jonathan after that.. he wouldn’t have the capacity to appreciate something like that. He lived in a world of fifteens and subwoofers and new cd players and new toys. I hated toys. We were sitting in his    car daydreaming when a UPS truck rolled down my drive way. I hopped out of the car and met him.629

“Layne Cobain?” yes sir that’s me 630

He handed me a clipboard631

“ill need you to sign this for me”632

I did. And he unloaded three large boxes onto my patio633

“thank you he said in an obligated tone and he scurried off. I went into my room and grabbed some box cutters.634

“what the fuck is that?” Jon said635

“just books.”  636

“how much did all that shit cost?”637

“bout twelve hundred… give or take”638

“dude you’re fucked up in the head. Why did you buy twelve grand worth of fucking books”?639

“these are the Britannica set of the greatest works of the western world….you can get a better education here than you could at Harvard.” 640

“yea”… well honestly who gives a shit.. your not going anywhere.641

You can’t ..like you said you cant concentrate for shit , your constantly depressed and you had to drop out of West point because your nuts.”642

“yes I know that.. but it doesn’t hurt anything now does it.”643

“guess not…it’s your money”.644

I carried the boxes inside and stacked them up beside my bookcase which was already full, id imagine Ill need to get one of those as well. The conversation with Jon had changed my mood so I went into my living room and put in my Velvet Underground CD.645

Jon came in and sat down across from me as I sprawled out on the couch turning up the volume, I was starting to get nervous and I awaited Kurt and his medicine . I was naturally attracted to opiates and downers I would get acute panic attacks and suicidal depression. I don’t know if it was just the schizoaffective disorder I had recently been diagnosed with or the fact that my life as I had planned it was over,.. no college.. no doctor just a life of helplessness and insanity and pain.646

Heroin was my poison…no one else would touch it.. and why should they? They had futures they were going off to college.. they were going to be somebody. So I would hang on till they moved away, went to college, got married, got jobs and got lives.647

But none of it really mattered. And why should it.. nothing matters when you’ve got heroin.648

My first time about two months ago I failed my English exam and decided to kill myself  I told Kurt and he said there were better ways than suicide to deal with things like this he gave me a couple of prescription pain killers which I gobbled up and it helped… somewhat but the pain was there.649

The next day I told him I had to have it.. something stronger…the strongest he could find and I had to have it fast . he looked at me dead in the eye with a most grave expression and simply said..”skag”.650

The next day I gave him 200 dollars and within an hour he brought me a gram of dope…white and pure as the driven snow. Thus began my addiction.651

It was instant ecstasy a push of the plunger and a slight pinch and the pain was gone… no worries no more troubles, just comfortable oblivion.652

I was sitting in my black leather club chair flipping through Plath’s Ariel , to Tulips and began to read those famous lines when Kurt busted through the door with his characteristic pearl grin and said.653

“ask me….654

Go ahead ask me man.”655

“okay….we happy?...”656

And with an assuring face he exclaimed 657

“we real fucking happy!” 658

I wasn’t really fucking happy, I was exited on the outside in a shallow sort of way, happy, yes. In the fact that I had my drugs, but inside I knew it wasn’t right… I knew there must be something better, something real that could take the pain away.659

He tossed me my black imitation leather briefcase and I opened it up and sure enough…we were really fucking happy.660

A whole prescription pad ,two grams of high quality heroin, two bottles of oxycodone, 40 milligram , 80 per bottle ,four grams of coke, four ounces of pot and an old aspirin container filled with ecstasy , and my drug accessory kit, which included syringes, bent spoons, lighters, a small box of canisters of nitrous oxide and crackers, six grams of dark sticky opium and a variety of uppers and downers, three pipes and two shot glasses and a flask of vodka which I hastily put in my back pocket, complete with my professionally made fake id. We were ready for the beach.661

It took us about an hour to pack up and put everything in the back of the Z71, my briefcase was up front with me, Kurt was driving since he insisted that he drove better high anyway and liked it, while Jonathan drove behind us in his mustang, weary of all of our ”stupid ass” drugs. 662

I put in my new Trepan CD and turned it up, we were thirty minutes out…on the opposite side of Rock Hill when I got bored.663

“how bout it?…we’ve been driving a while.”664

Kurt looked at me and let out a “bout time goddamnit!”665

I snatched the briefcase from up under the seat and opened it up.666

“what shall we start will today my friend?...667

“don’t be stupid…pot of course”668

“right” I got out an ounce bag of pot and a hollowed out cigar, closed the lid of the briefcase, rolled the windows down in the ritual of rolling a blunt.669

It only took a few minutes but I packed as much pot in the cigar as I could… it was almost bursting.670

“now that’s a fuckin’ bad blunt right there son” Kurt said.671

I wiped the debris off the case, pulled out my lighter and lit it.672

By the time we reached Lancaster, another thirty minutes later, the blunt was three-fourths gone and we were fucked.673

We drove a few dozen miles longer and I got antsy; my mind was racing and I couldn’t concentrate to save my life.674

“alright fuck this….I’m getting’ the real shit.”675

“this early?” Kurt said. 676

“I don’t like long boring road trips I’m gonna’ knock myself out for a few hours”.677

I opened up the briefcase one more time and popped a 40 milligram Oxycodone, washed it down with some vodka from my flask then I hunted around for my opium pipe.678

“you do realize your going to be unconscious for hours and ill have no one to talk to don’t you?”679

“too bored… must sleep”680

I pinched off a piece of opium and rolled it into a ball that I placed in my pipe;  the aroma itself was as sedating as it was tantalizing, I placed the pipe to my lips lit the end and let myself go to an oncoming of far away opium dreams. 681

“duuuuuude…..waaaaaaake uuuuuuuuup” I cracked my eyes as I practically floated on a warm ocean of pleasure. I could discern Kurt’s voice but it was far off, echoing as if in an infinite cavern. I closed my eyes, the sun’s harsh rays were burning too much for the though of sight. I slipped back into the fantasy of my painless state. Suddenly I heard a flood of bad noise…682

Wake up goddamnit….lazy ass junkie.” 683

I came to, much too soon indeed. I opened my eyes and I was sprawled out in the truck, my feet lied on the dashboard as I wiped the drool off my face.684

“I’m up…I’m up man” I let out groggily.685

My vision was still blurred and my gait a bit staggered as we made our way into the diner right off interstate seventy- seven. I sat down with Kurt opposite Jonathan who , unaware of my masturbatory overindulgence of opiates, kept asking me a million fucking questions about the beach house while I did my best to stay conscious. …686

“food goddamnit”…I woke up… must have nodded off again…687

“What do you want man?”688

“uhh.. nothing, not hungry.” 689

This was an outright lie, I was damn near starving but I couldn’t care less about food right now.690

I finally came down hard…sober; I had been out of it for nearly two hours as I found myself in a most unnatural position in the passenger seat of Jonathan’s car. Apparently, in a failed attempt to get my lifeless body into the truck ,it was easier just to throw me into the convertible.691

We were following Kurt somewhere around Darlington when I realized my head was throbbing.  A sudden overpowering sickness came over me and I vomited all down the side of Jonathan’s new shiny red mustang. He didn’t seem to notice..  I dare not say a word. The regular thumping of the cars subwoofers was probably the one to thank. 692

Since we were only slightly over half way there I knew id have to start a conversation or go deaf so I asked about his girlfriend Anna, the only other thing, besides his car that he gave his attention to.693

“so how’s it goin with Anna”694

Jonathan: its not too bad this time, she quit bitching and complaining about the ring so…I dunno things are good695

Anna was a worldly girl, dyed blonde hair , tan skin ; a perfect match for an ex football big shot like Jonathan  they came straight out of an old fifties romance movie; except they had the most dysfunctional relationship I had ever seen. He would buy her everything she wanted and then they would fight, not talk to each other for a couple days about once a month ad infinitum. 696

Jonathan: She finally came to her senses ya know…..it’s weird , she does this thing every month or so… like a cycle697

Jesus God I thought…698

Jonathan: sometimes it’s like she loves her mother more than me…she gets mad, goes to her mom’s for a day or two…mellows out and comes back.699

…it’s kinda getting old ya know… but I can deal with it.700

Now I knew Jonathan better than he knew himself, after all I was an avid reader of Jung’s. he had to be in control, and when he wasn’t, he would disappear from the public life for a few days , never to be heard from, then when things with Anna picked back up he came out of his shell and I’d get a call.701

“yea…just work through that shit man…I mean yall are perfect for each other…you know that”702

Jonathan: yea what can I say703

“so how many miles to the gallon does this hog get…five…six?704

He let out a short laugh.705

“pshh…try twelve”706

“oh my bad….that’s pretty good, seeing how it’s a GT and all”707

Jonathan: yea I ain’t complaining …Check this out.708

He proceeded to take out the Sublime cd and fumbled around with his case while halfway paying attention to the road, he pulled out another disc from the case and carefully put it in to the stereo. 709

“Sublime! Didn’t see that one coming”710

Jonathan: I know there fuckin’ awesome711

I didn’t say much after that…I just let my mind wander and watched the rows of tobacco plants blossoming in the muggy Carolina heat. 712

It was almost dark when we finally pulled into the driveway on my house at Sunset. I had fallen asleep or something when Kurt made a wrong turn somewhere around Conway that took us all the way up to Wilmington.713

I think everyone was tired…the way we all flopped out of the cars and lazily carried our stuff up the stairs mindlessly swaggering almost.714

“thank you God almighty …took fucking forever”715

I pulled out my keys and happened to catch a glimpse of what I thought was a falling star.716

“whoa…fireworks….aren’t they illegal here?” Jonathan asked innocently.717

“Yankees man…just Yankees” I said half jokingly as I patted his shoulder.718

The house was freezing when we first got in…it was refreshing. Jonathan ran up the stairs to the bedroom opposite mine and yelled “I got it sucka!”719

“damnit man!” Kurt retorted. He was stuck with the single bed in the room down the hall from my room with the balcony as I made perfectly clear that it was my house and I got the balcony room. 720

I grabbed my briefcase off the kitchen counter and my overnight bag from the floor and I made my way up to my room. I kicked open the door since I didn’t have a free hand, dropped my stuff beside the bed and collapsed.721

“Marijuana! …weed! Weeeeeeed! Pot goddamnit! I rolled out of bed. “yea I know…weed good yes….happy fun time “ I shouted as I opened the door. Kurt was smiling, as always. I let out a chuckle. 722

“let’s go man…happy fun time remember”  723

“yea I know man I’m on it…you know if you don’t want the kiddie room sweetheart you can always park that beautiful black ass in my room” I let out a hearty belly laugh and Kurt punched me in the jaw.724

“dick!”I nailed him in the stomach and he bowled over. 725

“mother-fucker!” Kurt moaned.726

“yea  come on lets hit this before I have to really kick your ass” I said bluntly.727

“every damn time…right in the stomach “ Kurt belted out.728

I snatched up my case and Kurt opened the door and walked out on the balcony.729

“I thought there was a light…” I flicked on the balcony light and interrupted Kurt mid sentence .730

“ah…so that’s what those little switches do”731

Kurt pulled up a lawn chair we kept out on the balcony to my rocking chair. I put the briefcase on my lap, opened it up and stared in awe at the collection we had assembled…732

“mmmmm good” 733

“that’s right foo all you can handle and moew” I said.734

I took out my big glass pipe and shot glasses as well as the ounce bag of pot and closed the case and put it down behind me. I reached for my back pocket and took out my flask and poured us out a couple of shots.735

“to the gods!” I said as I raised my glass.736

“to the gods” Kurt answered as we poured out a bit of vodka on the wooden balcony. Then we simultaneously emptied our glasses in one swift chug. 737

“happy fun time!” I yelled as I grabbed the pot and began to fill the pipe. 738

“wait...holy shit I forgot” Kurt said739

“what?”…740

“Music man….where’s the cd player?...it’s that time for some Jimi Hendrix”741

“oh hell yea, ill get it”742

I scrambled down both flights of stairs , almost killing myself to get to the truck where I found the cd player all by it’s onezies. I snatched it up and took off upstairs.743

..purple haze…all around.. “fuck me running this is nice” Kurt said in a girlish falsetto. I chuckled  as I sat back down.744

“now where was I?”745

“sir I believe you were about to partake in some illegal marijuana smoking” Kurt said.746

“righty-o good sir , righty-o”747

I stuffed the pipe and lit it, my lungs instantly filled with harsh smoke as I struggled to get as much in while not choking ;once I knew I was in the clear I began French inhaling.748

“you know…….if you do this…….you wont waste ……all that smoke”. I exhaled; almost no smoke came out in my breath.749

“that sir, is how you do that” I said.750

“my turn” he said with that characteristic smile of his.751

I carefully handed the pipe over to Kurt.752

“hit it like you got a pair byatch!”  753

Kurt took the pipe from me. “watch this white boy”754

He lit the pipe and hit a mighty drag then he quickly stood up  then just as fast collapsed back into the chair.755

He took a few breaths…”that sir….is how you do that!”756

“very nice” I responded.757

We continued in this manner for quite a while, I’m not exactly sure of the time, but the sky was beginning to lighten up about the time we put everything up and just kicked back. By this time had passed the giddy laughing stage and passed over into the deeper philosophical state of mind.758

“this is the life man…enough said” I let out.759

“no doubt…if the whole world just chilled the fuck out and got high…we’d all starve…but we’d all get along.”760

“yep” I said. It was true…to me at least. I guess I didn’t see the bigger picture or something because what he said made perfect sense to me. Why can’t we all just mellow out? , be something better than a bunch of greedy imperialistic assholes. I dunno,…beyond the comprehension of an eighteen year old. 761

“dude get your acoustic and jam some” I said after a lengthy silence.762

“good idea all this stuff has got me wanting to play.” Kurt stepped into the other room and came back with his custom hand made Crossroad guitar he had bough from a luthier back home in York. As Kurt began playing I saw a seagull flying in the early morning sky, I ran and got my sketchbook from my overnight bag and began to draw a dove in charcoal. We sat out there for what seemed forever, me drawing away while Kurt played some improvised blues. 763

It must have been sometime around ten…we were getting pretty tired there for a while but didn’t want to waste our vacation time sleeping all day so Kurt suggested to my approval that we hit a couple lines of coke to wake us up. A couple lines to us more or less meant a gram between the both of us so we were wired. The nitrous however was my idea. 764

“hey…lets take the case out on the beach and get stupid, feel Sartre’s bullshit nothingness for a few minutes.765

“ah… nice call” he replied.766

We gathered up a couple of beach towels a cooler full of Blue Moon Ale than Jonathan had apparently acquired while we were getting high. The three of us walked down a couple of blocks to the beach…Kurt and I were feeling superhuman….swaggering. I had a tight black T-shirt and some ripped up jeans and sandals on, Kurt had a white long sleeve oxford unbuttoned showing his chest with gray slacks and black leather shoes. Jonathan had a Nirvana tee on with some gray slick bathing trunks. I’m sure we looked like fools, Kurt and I strutting about trying to look buff while Jonathan was trying to figure out what was wrong with us but being to polite to assume to ask, said nothing.767

We found a good spot out near sixth street , the pier was within a reasonable walk away if we got bored and wanted to shoot pool. 768

“this is good…right here” Jonathan said as he took the towel around his neck and laid it out flat on the curved sand at the bottom of the dunes. Kurt and I followed suit and we three laid out as I put my shades on.769

“fuck!” Kurt blurted out.” I forgot mine. I reached into my cross country bag with “York Cougars” written across it and pulled out his glasses…I always came prepared.770

“ah good shot” he said as I handed the sunglasses over his way.771

“alright… now for an existential experiment” I confirmed. 772

“Sartre is wack, nigga” Kurt said as I handed him the cartridge of nitrous. I had put him on to my interest in philosophy and being the intellectual he is read everything there was to read on the subject.773

Kurt cracked open the cartridge of nitrous with the shiny blue metallic crackers I had bought at a head shop the previous winter. He began to inhale the gas with deep breaths for about thirty seconds then he just laid flat.774

“was he right?” I asked775

“He let out a moan …”total…..absolute…..bullshit”776

I let out a laugh. ”my man” I yelled777

“what in the hell are y’all doin?” Jonathan asked , not wanting to be left out.778

“there are some deep philosophical dilemmas we are faced with……we are merely seeking answers in the name of science and progress …. Wanna try?” I said in an ominous tone.779

“no way man, ill leave all that shit up to you guys, I’m goin swimming” Jonathan said as he jumped up and made his way down to the surf. Usually Jonathan would stay and make fun of us as we were all messed up and get some kicks out of us make complete assholes of ourselves but I guess we were boring him.780

I took the chilled cartridge out and loaded another in and cracked it and inhaled the cell destroying fumes, after about five seconds of deep inhaling my mind went blank and I closed my eyes…complete nothingness, I just laid down and enjoyed being nothing for a while. I finally snapped out of it and looked up at the sun… bullshit….maybe…fuck…I dunno. Whatever it was it sure was peaceful. 781

“how many brain cells am I gonna kill today you think doc? Kurt asked.782

“hmmm couple million I suppose…doesn’t really matter”783

“nope” Kurt said in agreement as I loaded another nitrous cartridge and handed it over. Kurt proceeded in cracking and inhaling which we did for about the better part of half an hour. Not wanting to go totally brain dead we took a break from our existential experiment and decided it was best to slip once again into the sweet realm of opiates.784

“time for oxy …don’t you think?” I asked Kurt.785

He sat up and took his sunglasses off and looked far off into the distance as if he was distracted by something.786

“Kurt….anyone home?” I asked jokingly787

“oh uh yea man break em out”788

I rambled through my briefcase and found one of the pill bottles.789

“give me a half” Kurt said.790

“ight…ill take my whole…my tolerance is up” 791

“really?...that sucks man” Kurt said with an air of concern.792

“mmmhmm” I took my knife from my ankle sheath and cut his in half and put the other back in the bottle. I got up and dragged the cooler closer to us and got out two bottles of ale and twisted off the caps, handing Kurt his medicine.793

“to the gods” Kurt said.794

“To the gods” I replied as we ritualistically poured a sip out onto the sand and took our medicine. 795

“wanna cigarette?” I asked Kurt.796

“nah…tryin to quit”797

“ah… good man” I replied as I took out a pack of Marlboro Light 100’s from my bag.798

“filthy habit indeed” I said as I put the cigarette up to my mouth and lit it.  799

A sharp pain hit me in my stomach, a sickness overcame me suddenly and I bowled over.800

“ahh….ahhh fuck” I moaned and sprawled out in the sand with my legs kicking the ground. Kurt jumped up with a quickness, “dude!?...hey what’s wrong?”801

The pain began to subside and the sickness was erased by a warming sensation that seemed to flow from my stomach in waves throughout my body.802

“I’m fine…..I’m fine man, it just hit me all the sudden”803

“you sure?” Kurt asked.804

“yea, no problem…I’m just gonna go inside and take a nap or something…try and sleep it off .”805

About that time Jonathan came walking in from the water, ”what’s goin’ on?”806

“my man here just got a little bug that’s all” Kurt replied. 807

“yea I’m just gonna go take it easy for a while get something in my stomach,…see if that helps.” I said as I picked up my bag and briefcase.808

“alright now take it easy man…ill see ya in a bit.” Jonathan said as he picked up his towel off the cooler.809

“yea man …see ya in a few”, I responded half-heartedly as my mind was in my briefcase. The walk back to the house was almost unbearable …I was tempted to just stop and shoot up right there in the dunes. Once I reached the road I knew I could make it home as I picked up my pace.810

I threw my bag down beside the truck and climbed up the stairs with much haste and finally into the bathroom upstairs. I opened the briefcase and when I saw the three small bags of heroin my heart sank. I reached for a bag and my kit and began to make my fix. I poured a pinch of the clumpy white powder into a spoonful of water and began to mix the two with the plunger of the syringe I lit my Zippo and added the flame as the divine concoction began to bubble and boil. I let it cook for a few seconds ,then when all of the powder had been dissolved and the solution clear, I laid down the Zippo and put the plunger back into the syringe and with much care and attention began to suck up the solution into the syringe. When all was said and done I put the cap back on the needle and cleaned up everything. I hid the briefcase under my bed and laid the needle on my nightstand as I went out on the porch to get my cd player.811

I found that while under the sweet grip of opiates that nothing will do except classical music or of course the Velvet Underground. I took out my Hendrix cd and placed the Underground disc in the stereo and set it for a continuous loop play. Finally, I was ready to push off. I sat Indian style on my bed as I carefully inspected the needle. A sharp pain followed by a rush of warmth caused me to drop the needle on the floor and lie down. Victory. The general feeling of well being came upon me and all was right with the world , I concentrated on my heart as it began to slow with my thinking. Nothing in the world mattered anymore. I had found my great escape. 812

Awake ,still with my eyes shut my waist felt heavy and I could make out a familiar voice seemingly far off. I struggled to get my eyes open.813

“he’s not dead is he?” it was a female voice…that I had heard before…814

I opened my eyes to find my vision quite blurred but I was coherent enough to recognize who it was that was sitting on me.815

“Lisa!” I said sounding an awful lot like a drunkard.816

“what the fucak are you doin here?” I let out.817

“well hello to you too” 818

“I mean how did you get here?”819

“Leslie brought me,…were stayin down at myrtle “ she said in a flirtatious voice.820

Lisa was a grade under me but partied like a college chick on acid, we always talked at parties, mainly due to the fact that we would be the last two people awake or not passed out but nothing ever became of it for some reason. I had always liked Lisa but for some reason I didn’t act . 821

“let’s get wasted whatya say?” Lisa said eagerly.822

“goddamnit I’ve been fucked up for twenty four straight hours, but… I guess a little more wont hurt” I said with a smile.823

I loved the company of other druggies, especially girls. They were so much more interesting than guys, to me anyways. 824

“where’s Leslie?” I asked as she rolled off of me and sat on the edge of the bed.825

“downstairs with Jon and Kurt”826

“she’s drunk I bet”827

“not yet but soon” she said laughing.828

I got up and dragged my briefcase out from under the bed as Lisa came around to inspect my collection.829

“it’s been about three months in the making”830

“whoa…holy shit man…can I powder my nose?”831

“mi casa es su casa”832

“awww” she came and hugged me as I got out one bag of coke.833

We went outside onto the porch. I could tell I had been nodding off for a while, the sun was behind a rain cloud almost on the horizon , and I checked my watch and saw that it was seven o’clock.834

I emptied a gram onto my handheld mirror and began dividing up some lines as I listened to Lisa.835

“we got in just a few hour ago….Kurt called me on my cell and told me yall were down here. This is so cool…I didn’t know you had a house down here”836

“yea we’ve had it for a while. Its nice because there aren’t as many people around here like there is at myrtle, and then there’s the no cop factor which is pretty nice too.”837

“yea I bet. It’s too bad you didn’t call me before you came I woulda come with you guys; although it doesn’t really matter now that I’m here”838

“are you and Leslie still…together?”839

“oh no not really “ she said with a laugh. That was just kind of a phase really. Why do you ask?”840

“just wondering”841

“sure you are” she said with a grin.842

“why don’t you have a girlfriend?”843

“what?” she laughed and asked again844

“why don’t you have a girlfriend?”845

“hell if I know really…I don’t really go out looking for girls, they cant hang with me long enough…they never go nuts. 846

“oh really?” she said as if it were a dare847

“really…and besides I can talk but that’s about it.”848

I leaned over and snorted a line then passed it to Lisa. We continued to blow coke for a while without talking, then after about ten minutes we both were very high.849

“you just don’t know how to take a relationship to the next level” she said in a matter of fact tone.850

“first you can start of by doing this” she said then came over to me, her eyes a bit glassy but still very pretty. She took my hand and placed it on her hip.851

“then you can do something like this and she leaned over and kissed me.. I was shocked, nothing like this ever happened to me  .  I froze for a split second, unsure of what to do. Then my instincts kicked in and I kissed her and gently pushed her up against the glass door . I kissed her neck softly and licked her neck all the way down to her chest.852

“let’s go I inside’” she said winded853

She grabbed my hand as I reached for the briefcase and pulled me into the bedroom. She took off her shirt and threw it beside the bed then pulled me over her in the bed. I kept kissing her and massaging  her bare back. she started to moan softly then rolled over and pulled me on top of her.854

Jon, Kurt, and Leslie sat in the front of the truck while me and Lisa were sitting stolen lawn chairs cruising down to myrtle beach I had my briefcase under my chair and a cooler full of beer in the back that served as an ottoman  for Lisa and I. there was a massive amount of teenagers as long as could see, traffic was such that we didn’t move for ten minutes then go about fifty yard and repeat. But that was the fun part, me and Lisa hanging on lawn chairs in the strip with an insane amount of drugs and two cases of beer the only bad part was that everyone had their windows down blasting rap as loud as they could,; Kurt having the same attitude toward rap as I did, put in a Nirvana  cd and cranked it up as loud as we could. Fucking rap .everyone there had imports and tricked them out with body kits and huge speaker and neon green under lights. It almost made me sick. This was South Carolina damnit not L.A. ,Anyways we cruised up the strip high and on top of the world with the hot ocean breeze coming of to the left of us. 855

“this is awesome” Lisa said right as two other girls just hopped the back of the truck with us, one was crying and the other one was trying to comfort her.856

“what’s wrong with her is she okay” 857

The other girl said that her boyfriend tried to rape her and they  had no place to go.858

“It’s okay man yall can stay with us if you’d like, I’ve got a extra room with two single beds. She looked puzzled at first but then she glance back at her crying friend and said” oh my god thank you” we headed to a club if yall want to go, we’ll look out for you. 859

“this is Lisa, I’m Layne, the guy driving is Kurt, and the tighty whitey is Jonathan.860

the girl who was crying raised her head from her knees and said it’s Kayce , nice of you to pick us up.861

“no problem”862

“oh, and this is my best friend Ryan.863

So yall do anything or are yall straight, well not really we don’t much hard stuff but we do like to ecstasy at clubs and sometimes hit the hash pipe864

But no one around here will sell it to us cause didn’t bring any 865

After riding for about two hours we decided to go clubbing I’d say around nine or ten we got to Kryptonite , where there was the only rave in town, and by good half of the South’s hot girls we there. We sat in the back of the truck and finished off the beer and just relaxed in the truck bed and took our medicine, then Kurt Lisa and I all took some ecstasy  we were feeling great when we got in, Kurt and Jon went ahead in with Ryan and Kayce while me and Lisa still sat in the bed of my truck. I leaned over and kissed her as we continued to make out in the parking lot .after a while we started to feel the effects of the ecstasy and we made out even more, our sense of touch exaggerated and pleasurable. Finally she said866

“let’s go inside”867

And so with little words spoken between us from then on as the music forbade any personal conversations868

I had my fake id ready and the bouncer took one glance of it and gave me twenty-one plus green bracelet and gave Lisa the minor green bracelet.869

when we first stepped into the club we were in a trance, the ground shaking bass and the neon light and lasers sucked us in we were in a world of pure sensory euphoria I’m not a big dancer but Lisa dragged me onto the floor right in front of the stage and DJ’s. Lisa started jumping up and down yelling “woohoo” so I naturally started to dance. It wasn’t half bad as I thought it would be, but I guess when your drunk and on ecstasy you really don’t care about how stupid you look.870

We continued to dance for about an hour then I went to the bar and ordered a vodka martini and a Singapore sling for Lisa. We made our way to the tables at the other end of the club and saw Jonathan talking to kayce. We sat down with then I pulled out a cigarette while halfway paying attention to what Jon was saying. I don’t think he was big into raves but he pointed out Kurt and Ryan dancing together. I finished of my martini.871

“Are you guys wanting to go or something…aren’t yall having fun?”872

“yea I’m fine it’s just I don’t feel it right now873

“That’s cool man just tell me when you wanna leave”874

We stayed at the club until about two in the morning I was wrecked and so was Lisa, everybody else was pretty sober875

“I wanna get a tattoo” I said to Lisa876

“a tattoo of what?”877

“the sacred  heart of course878

“There was a tattoo parlor we passed on the way here… it’s open till like four during the summer” I said.879

“that’s cool , I’m ready to get outta here anyways.880

We finally found everybody amidst the chaos of the rave and loaded up into the truck and headed across the boulevard to the Ink Link . before I got out of the truck I took some oxycontin so it wouldn’t hurt as much. I staggered into the place and talked to this big Mexican man about getting a tattoo.881

I took off my shirt and lied face first in what seemed to be a massage table.882

I  couldn’t feel a thing it only took him half an hour to finish the sacred heart. Since it wasn’t as painful as I had heard I asked for and infinity sign on my left pointer finger which took no time at all. I ended up owing about a hundred bucks so when he was finished I put my shirt back on and asked  “do you do piercing too”883

“yea man what do you want” he said884

“I’m thinking two holes in each lobe “885

Alrighty, what kind earrings do you want, we’ve got a display in the other room886

I followed the big Latino into the “piercing room” and saw some titanium studs that I picked out for my top holes then I got a twelve gauge open ended earring for the bottom holes. I got them pierced in about ten minutes without a hitch, although I couldn’t put my gauges in for at least two weeks. But fuck that I went ahead and put them in anyways. I had a totally different world perspective than I did when I first came to the beach.887

By the time everyone was ready to go home I had one more stop to make…Wal-Mart.888

I was sick of dressing like a businessman or a law student, there was a Wal-Mart on the way home,  I wrote a prescription for dilaudid and oxymorphone to add to my collection. I went to the pharmacy department and was given  glances and no hassle they just filled it while I looked around. I grabbed two five packs of black t-shirts then a pair of black leather combat boots and some eyeliner and black nail polish. I was tired of pretending I was happy. I returned to the pharmacy and picked up my medicine as well as a box of insulin needles.  When we finally got home Leslie’s car was in the drive way pulling out as we turned in, we all waved and she said shed be back in the afternoon tomorrow. it was close to four in the morning and everyone was tired except for me Lisa, and kayce. The three of us went up to my room and I laid the briefcase out on the bed. I felt extra shitty today, though I don’t know why. I decided to mix up an opiate concoction with some coke. The two girls were watching intensely at what I was doing, I crushed up some oxycontin , dilaudid, oxymorphone and added a pinch of heroin and a pinch of coke into a large spoon and began heating it and stirring until there were no particles in the solution, I had cooked up enough for three people. I got three syringes and filled them about halfway I put up my heroin tools in my briefcase and put it under my bed. We each sprawled out on the bed and shot  up, I was instantly high with an infinite warmth and pleasure came over me and I just laid there after I had given Lisa and Ryan an injection. I some how managed to get to my stereo and put a Nirvana CD on ,then I took two steps and collapsed on the bed. Nobody said a word for what seemed like an hour. Then out of the blue Lisa blurts out “oh my god I love this shit”889

Kayce was still nodding off but in a moment of clarity she let out a weak “yea”890

I started to sketch that dove in my sketchbook except I put a human face on it with legs instead of bird feet.  after a while the girls became more coherent then we started talking about school while kayce just listened and made remarks about how her school was so different. I found out she was from charlotte and went to East Mecklenburg High school which was huge compared to York where everybody knew everybody and there weren’t any real cliques like big schools. Just about the time we got around to talking about the drugs Kurt came up to my room with two handles of Absolut vodka. He chunked one at me and said “merry Christmas fucker”and left. I was kind of surprised and I put the vodka on my nightstand for later. Then I had an idea…”anyone want to snuff some Xanax it will strengthen your high. Lisa was all for it but kayce abstained. I ground up some one milligram Xanaxes and got my dollar bill and mirror and razor from my case.891

“ladies first” I said cheerfully .892

“fuck Xanax lets IV some coke and get crazy” kayce said unexpectedly .893

“well shit.. sounds good to me”894

“yea” Lisa remarked. I completed the ritual and soaked up all the coke I poured out into one needle. 895

“you go first” kayce said896

“alrighty” I said prideful  I shot up the coke and almost instantly felt it. It was just like being manic and high at the same time I passed the needle over to Lisa but she hesitated but finally took it and slammed it then she passed what was left to kayce who did the same. By this point I had no inhibitions whatsoever so I grabbed Lisa closer and kissed her. This didn’t phase kayce who in turn kissed Lisa too and began to take her shirt off.897

It was the greatest experience of my life kayce had fallen asleep naked and I was in my boxers ,Lisa got Kurt’s guitar and brought it out onto the balcony and played some chords. We were coming down and were philosophizing about life the state of mankind religion and all those things you normally don’t think of. By this time I was really tired and I could tell Lisa was too. We both went inside, I put in my Bach cd and me and Lisa laid beside kayce who still haven’t moved from when we left out on the balcony shook her to wake her up to see if she was okay but she was just sleeping. I had an idea.898

“your not that tired are ya?” I asked Lisa899

“no not really”900

“Lets go sit out on the beach and watch the sun come up”901

“that’s a good idea…well need some supplies though, nothing hard”902

“Alrighty then pot it is” I said 903

We checked on kayce one more time before we headed downstairs and got a big beach towel. Lisa was carrying the briefcase we walked about an eight of a mile to the beach. We found a spot under some dunes and while Lisa just laid there looking at the stars I got out my pipe and filled it and passed it over to her. we smoked and smoked then we got really philosophical.904

“do you like high school?” Lisa asked905

“well I mean yea I’ve got lots of friends and school is easy”906

“not for me it isn’t” I’ve got a bad reputation for being such a big druggie….907

I mean everybody knows you do hard shit but they still treat you the same908

That’s why I’m moving to Seattle, I’ve lost all my friends because of the things I do but if you asked me id say there just a bunch of pussies” 909

“the only reason I know everybody and they like me is because I’ve been in every group I mean I play baseball so I’m in with the jocks, I’m halfway smart so the preppy kids notice me and I’m in with the partying crowd because well I’m the biggest druggie in school, and now I’m kinda Goth if you can tell.. well really I’m grunge it’s just there aren’t many of us left so Goth is what I can relate to. I just don’t like that screaming death metal shit. You know what fuck all those guys, you’re only young once so why not party your ass off while you still can.”910

“my thoughts exactly” she quipped 911

After high school everything you think you know you don’t it totally different, people that wouldn’t normally have anything to do with you in school will come up to you and talk for a bit. I’m telling you the smart kids and the preps go to college get good jobs making loads of money but they are never satisfied and they end up living in the suburbs  and driving minivans and Lexuses and get into huge debt. Money just complicates everything, not so much when your single but when you get married and have kids you have to conform.912

“let me see the pipe let’s toke”913

“oh yea I forgot” here.914

Lisa packed the pipe tightly and took a huge hit, more than any girl I’ve ever smoked with.915

“Jesus god man dint know you were such a pothead”.916

“look who’s talking junkie”917

“eh maybe”918

We smoked for what seemed like hours and we had smoked an entire bag by the time the sun came up . then we’d give each other shotgun after shotgun and kissing all the while. “this is it! I can’t think of anywhere or anybody id rather be with right now.”919

“awww that’s so sweet”. She rolled over on top of me and took her shirt off as I did the same. The were people with flashlights walking up and down the beach but it was still pretty dark and we were safe behind some sand dunes. this was probably my favorite experience of my entire life, having sex on the beach, the soft sand felt so good touching my skin, after about thirty minutes to an hour we grabbed up our sandy clothes and just laid on the blanket looking at the stars and passing the pipe back and forth, then I got out two Xanaxes and crushed them with a mortar and pestle I brought from my duffel bag, I rolled a blunt pouring the crushed up Xanax on to the pot then finished rolling. I lit it and at first it had a very chemical taste to it but I soon got used to it I handed it over to Lisa. I was already feeling the effects and soon after finishing of the blunt we put the roach into our pipe for later. We just laid there with her legs over mine sideways, we just laid there and enjoyed the moment. We must have dozed off because when I woke up it was hot and the sun was almost straight over us. I woke up Lisa.920

“hey leesce wake up.921

She rolled over facing me her nose not even an inch from my face.922

“I’ve been awake you lazy bitch “ she said with a cackle 923

“Lets get our shit and go back inside”924

“yea”925

We packed up all our goodies and made our way back to the house.926

“you know you’re the only person I’ve met that hasn’t tried to change me, I used to get nervous around other people especially middle age people who love to harass teenagers….just thought you’d like to know.927

“well Layne I love you too she said with a smile, I couldn’t tell weather or not she was serious. But I put my arm around here and walked the rest of the way teasing her. When we got to the house she undressed right in front of me smiling the whole way getting into the shower. I heard the water begin to run and I was about to go inside when I heard her say” well aren’t you coming in? 928

“eh… I guess so” I said sarcastically but full of anticipation. I walked into the stall and she put her arms around my hips and pulled me closer.929

“I need you to do me” she said to my astonishment.930

“what?” I said curiously931

“I said I need you to wash the sand of my back I can’t reach it but I can feel it there. I grabbed up a washcloth and soap and began going over her entire body we stood in the shower about two hours after washing her clean and having sex twice I was finally drained and the hot water was beginning to make me lightheaded.  I dried off with a towel and she did the same I put my boxers on and she wrapped herself up in a towel as we went upstairs. Kurt and Jonathan were still sleeping so we quietly walked upstairs in my room where we changed. Kayce was still asleep on the bed so we tried not to bother her. Lisa put on a white pleated skirt and a black wife beater as I changed into my other pair of ripped jeans , my new black boots and new black t shirts. 932

“I’m gonna turn you into a Goth, come here”. She grabbed my hand and began to put black polish on them, then after that she put some eyeliner on me and then tried to cover up my dark purple eyelids with rouge .933

“and there ya go”934

“nice” but I’m still not listening to any death metal shit”935

“that’s fine hon I don’t listen to it either” 936

“okay man she’s been out for a while make sure she’s okay” I said937

Lisa went to touch her shoulder but jerked it right back.” Oh my god she’s dead,” “What!? Dead… no she cant be we all did the same amount I made sure of that.938

She’s so cold oh my god what the fuck are we gonna do we can go to prison for this. Ah fuck…FUCK!. Lisa ran downstairs to tell Kurt and Jon I grabbed the phone off my nightstand and said ”four twenty-nine sixth street Sunset…there dead” then I ran into my room mixed up some dilaudid, heroin, and oxycontin and filled the needle full I got out my bottle of Xanax and took the whole bottle and chased it with the vodka and spilled it all over my sketchbook . I really didn’t care.  I hid the briefcase under the bed cause I knew cops were headed this way. I turned on my Bach’s greatest hits cd and laid back with my needle contemplating what I was about to do. Then out of nowhere I heard a  bunch of commotion; I knew it was the police so I got up and locked the door and laid back down I had the needle point right at my veins , the I hear “this is the police open the door. It gave me a reason to do it so I jabbed the needle into my arm and shot up.939

940

I woke up to Lisa standing right over me .941

“so you made it huh”…well me too you’ve been out of it for two days now942

“what do you mean me too?943

Lisa showed me her left arm with gauze wrapped around her wrist944

“when I saw you I thought you were dead so I did this… if you hadn’t called 911 we would have both died. Kurt and Jonathan are coming at six to visit us.”945

“what? Where are we?”946

“We both attempted suicide hon, well you actually committed suicide but they resuscitated you and gave you an adrenaline shot to the heart. You were legally dead for 8 seconds you luck fuck. Were in the psych ward but they can’t call our parents because were both eighteen. You’re getting Xanax you bastard, you got a prescription for it. Anyways it’s not as bad as it could have been , there holding us for five days we’ll make it in time for school and nobody will know about it cause I told Kurt and Jon not to say a fucking word about this to anyone.947

“man five days in this place it looks like a fuckin prison” don’t worry we don’t have to do any group shit if we don’t want to, I’ve been smoking non-stop basically cause there’s nothing to do and the people around here aren’t exactly sane.948

“well at least I have you to keep me company” I sad949

“I didn’t know you were schizoaffective….read it on your chart, I happened to come across it” she said with a grin. Is that why you do it…drugs I mean cause you have this disease and now you can’t even think straight enough to go to college. Anyways… lets go get your Xanax and lace a cigarette. I went up to the nurses station and said my name.950

“oh you’re up…here you go” she handed me a  small paper cup full of pills, I slipped the Xanax into my pocket and took the rest in front of the nurse. Lisa was right behind me and took some anti-depressants they gave to her she followed me into my bathroom where I took out the Xanax and crushed it up and sprinkled it down onto a cigarette. 951

“good job…looks like you’ve been doing this a while man”952

“not really I only started doin this shit since right after I got diagnosed schizoaffective. it’s just I’ve been doing in practically six months straight twenty-four seven.953

“that sucks man I didn’t know about all that I just though you were an arrogant smartass jock until I started coming to parties with your crowd.954

“yea well I was an arrogant smartass until I got sick, started drugging really heavy and failing classes…I mean I got into west point which is harder to get into than Harvard… but all that shit doesn’t matter much anymore now does it.955

“Alrighty lets go spark us up one and try and have an intelligent conversation with a full blown schizophrenic”956

“that’s not very nice at all”957

“it’s okay I’m one of them too…it’s like calling somebody a nigga, if your black it’s okay and cool but if your white you’ll get into a fight.958

It’s my right to make fun at crazy people cause I’m crazy myself. Anyways, lets go smoke”959

“lets” she said as she grabbed my hand pulling me into the smoking room. The room was about as big as a large walk in closet with a circular green table with a giant ashtray in the middle. We sat down beside an older woman that kept calling me boy and an old man smoking talking to the wall.960

“see…this is the life I’m gonna have, talking to inanimate objects being perpetually disoriented that my friend is why I am a druggie.961

You know people who get my disease before they turn twenty five have a seventy percent chance of committing suicide so fuck it I’m gonna stay high and die high, the world is such bullshit. I let out a laugh and said “never mind this philosophical crap lets smoke. I let Lisa take the first drag and fell back into her chair.962

“man I can taste that shit “963

“good that means its burning…some pills wont burn  . she passed the cigarette to me and she slouched in her chair as I smoked and said964

“you know I could get used to this…just sleeping all day and getting high three times a day.”965

“well I guess it wouldn’t be that bad if you were in here with me but I couldn’t stand being alone in this place.”966

“they don’t really seem that involved I mean we basically just do what we want from what I’ve noticed.”967

We talked like  no one was around us even though there was an older woman staring at the table with a cigarette burning away in her hand and a man in his thirties or so still arguing with the wall.968

“still this place freaks me out, I feel like someone’s gonna flip out or something” Lisa remarked.969

“I doubt it …they’ve got us so drugged up were like sheep.970

“yea you’re right about that, have you gotten your methadone yet?”971

“we get methadone?”972

“yea so we don’t go into convulsions and throw up from withdrawals. They’ll probably give it to you at lunch. I take mine three times a day.973

“why did you do it?...why did you try to kill yourself” 974

She paused for a second then said ”I love you Layne…you’re the only person who understands me I dunno”975

“same here babe.. lets go somewhere in private “we walked out of the smoking room , her hand on my hip, mine over her shoulders .976

“This is great” she said.” I’m gonna have sex at a mental ward” she said halfway talking to herself.977

“You know they have my fake id so we wont have to pay a thing”978

“nice.. I wouldn’t pay anyway… there the ones who brought me here” 979

“okay, come on” I grabbed Lisa by the hand and ran into my room while the orderly turned down the hall to the right, I pushed Lisa on top of the bed then laid beside her as she rested her head on my shoulder.980

“have you seen the doc yet?” I asked981

“not today but I did yesterday “ 982

“what did he say?”983

“he diagnosed me borderline so no meds” 984

“well that’s nothing everybody is borderline” 985

“why the hell are we here, I’m in a fucking psych ward” I mumbled986

“I think you’re about to find out pretty soon. But for now I’m gonna go take a shower and change “ 987

“alright I’ll see ya in a bit”988

I laid in bed just thinking how fucked up this situation was, at least I had Lisa here with me or I really would go nuts.989

“Layne… Layne its time for your meds” a frail young nurse not much older than me stood by my door. I got up and followed her to the nurse’s station “here’s your methadone and your Xanax” she handed me a small paper cup with two pills in them, free drugs I thought to myself , can’t get any better than this, ill stay fucked up and the time will fly by. I slipped both the pills into my pocket as the nurse looked down at something on her desk. I pretended to take the medication and said thank you.990

“oh Layne don’t go anywhere Dr. Pistone is going to see you in a few minutes you can sit right over there beside his office.”991

I went to sit outside the doc’s office and as I was waiting I noticed the window of the nurse’s station began to ripple as if it was water then I got the most peculiar sensation and became confused…disoriented but still I sat in the chair after about twenty minutes I became frightened. The walls of the room formed impossible angles and everything began to have an inner glow luminating itself. This had happened to me before about six weeks ago except not as intense, I had been lying on my couch listening to my stereo when all the sudden the music seemed to echo and sound as if it was coming from far away and I had a lava lamp that seemed to come out in  3-D .992

The door opened. “come on in”993

Dr. Pistone was a dark skinned man with an Indian accent and slight overbite.994

I sat down and he asked me how I was doing.995

“not so good doc, not so good”996

“why is that”997

“well I was just fine about three months ago then I started to get really depressed and couldn’t concentrate for shit, my head just races with thoughts and every time I get really nervous or anxious or anything like that I start to trip out”998

“what do you mean by “tripping out?”999

“well the best I can describe it is like feeling your in a movie and have no control over what you do and then every sound seems to be amplified or far away and I get disoriented. Then sometimes I feel high for no apparent reason it feels like I just did cocaine or something.”1000

“have you ever done any psychedelic drugs before?”1001

“oh no, that stuff is too intense for me”1002

“too intense? We found a massive amount of opiates in your urine sample as well as marijuana ...that’s why you’ve been given methadone to ease you off opiates. “tell me… how long have you been using?”1003

“not long at all really just when I went nuts and my grades went down the shitter…I’d say about three months.1004

“so the drugs came after your psychotic symptoms?”1005

“yeah  six moths ago I wouldn’t have even been around it but it got to the point where I was freaked out all the time and I just used to get by” 1006

“from what I’m hearing you have a condition called schizoaffective disorder. It’s a combination of manic depression and schizophrenia It’s pretty rare but we can treat it with medication. Now I’m gonna give you a mood stabilizer and some psychotropics for the psychotic symptoms and ill up your dosage  of Xanax so we can curb that anxiety and of course you’ll be on methadone for some time. Ill go put this order in for your drugs and the nurse will get you when the paperwork is finished. That’s all for right now”1007

I left the office and went to my room to get some cigarettes when Lisa came up to me wrapped up in a towel.1008

“so what’s the word?”1009

“apparently I’m out of my goddamn mind “1010

“what’s your diagnosis”1011

“schizoaffective”1012

“damnit that does sucks… but I still love you, you crazy ass fuck”1013

“thanks” I said as I bent down and kissed her”1014

“lemme go put some clothes on ill be right back”1015

“oh yea I forgot, I get a full milligram of Xanax and methadone three times a day, that doc is a little loose with the prescription pad. I’m gonna save mine up and take them all at once at night.”1016

“ooh fun , you have to share the wealth though.”1017

“of course, it wouldn’t be as fun if it was just me.” I said with a laugh1018

“alright, be right back” and she took of down the hall with nothing but a towel.1019

“meet me in the smoke room” I yelled.1020

I chuckled to myself,” being crazy aint so bad, I just can’t go to college, I’ll live off five-hundred dollars a month from disability and be a drain on society. I snatched my cigarettes from my bed and headed to the smoking room when I heard a big commotion at the nurses station. “get the fuck off me! You fucking prick! Let me go gaddmanit ! two cops were carrying a young girl with dark eyeliner and a black t shirt that said ”fuck you” in big white letters complete with a pierced nose, eyebrow and tongue with black fingernail polish. I turned around and saw Lisa with her head sticking out of the cracked door. She mouthed the words “what the fuck?” I just shrugged my shoulders they carried her kicking and screaming down the hall to the isolation room. After they gave her a shot of thorazine and everything had settled I went into Lisa’s room.1021

“lets go talk to that girl”1022

“haha…very funny she’ll probably tell you to go to hell”1023

“well imam at least try”1024

“alright’1025

me and Lisa made sure no one was looking and snuck down the hall to the isolation room. We squatted down to the small rectangular hole where they bring your lunch plate to and Lisa said ”hey you there”1026

“what?” she said tersely 1027

“what the hell did you do?”1028

“I escaped … I’ve been in this motherfucking shithole for six months. I got caught stealing five boxes of Coricidin and they were goin to take me to jail but they found out I was supposed to be in here.”1029

“wait…aren’t those triple c’s?, Coricidin that is .1030

“yea”1031

“you do anything else” I asked.1032

“no just weed, no hard stuff”1033

“hey we gotta go but well see you when you get out”1034

“peace” she said as if she was disappointed that we had to go. I just said that cause Lisa was pulling me away.1035

“I didn’t take a shower for her” she whispered as she bit my ear. I picked her up off the ground and carried into my room and shut the door. Lisa pushed me on the bed and strattled me . she took of her cami and then her black lace bra and threw them on the ground. She bent down and we started kissing and she took my shirt off and laid on top of me with her arms around my neck.1036

“I’m sorry” I said1037

“for what” she asked1038

“well for overdosing like that, I was being selfish , I’m sorry you had to go through that.”1039

“hon ill go anywhere for you” she said as she smiled . she moved in to kiss me again when a nurse opened the door and came in.1040

“oh….um I’m sorry, uh you lunch is ready” she said quickly as she shut the door1041

“okay thank you” I shouted1042

“well now that she’s gone” Lisa said with a wide grin.1043

Lunch was particularly bland  but I practically inhaled it as I had not eaten in three days I was going to get seconds when the girl with the “fuck you” shirt walked in and sat beside Lisa. I finally got my food and sat down.1044

“so they let you out huh?”1045

“yea that thorazine knocked me on my ass for a few hours. I’m still a bit groggy.1046

I’m sorry I didn’t catch your names.”1047

“this is my mistress Lisa and I’m Layne.”1048

“pleasure …I’m Kim”1049

“so what are you two in here for1050

“well this fuckin dumbass tried to kill himself by shooting up heroin and dilaudid and taking a bottle of Xanax with vodka, I just cut my wrist.1051

“damn” she said shocked. How can you still be alive?1052

“well I died for eight seconds and they gave me an adrenaline shot to the heart; and I supposedly have schizoaffective disorder 1053

“that’s kinda fucked up man” Kim said1054

“me I’m a cutter.’ She said as she pulled up here sleeves to show about a dozen scars on her arm, and a sociopath borderline”1055

“I’m borderline” Lisa said1056

“so you cut then too?”1057

“no I’m a druggie, that’s how I deal with it, it’s much more fun than cutting”1058

” you know that they can keep you here as long as they want. The longer you stay the more money they get. its bullshit man! You know they can force medicate you, Its like mental slavery. If you refuse to take your meds then they get another doctor to override your rights and force medicate you. The whole mental health system is bullshit. It’s worse than a prison . I mean they can literally drug you out of your mind and keep you here as long as they want. Apparently mentally ill people are third class citizens in this country, and then they have the nerve to tell me I have an attitude problem with authority, Which is because there the one’s taking away my freedom. This place isn’t as bad as most places, it’s a cesspool, but they pretty much let you do what you want and treat you like an adult”1059

“you know you should call your congressman” I said. We all had a good laugh1060

“I’m goin nuts, I haven’t been laid in six moths, there hasn’t been a guy anywhere near my age that wasn’t either completely out of it or just ugly as hell.1061

“I have an idea, I’m up for a threesome if yall are… just for fun.” Lisa said1062

I gave Lisa an awkward glance and said “and I thought guys were horny Jesus Christ.”1063

“come on it will be fun” 1064

“yea come on, that’s all there is to do in this place” Kim said.1065

“alright, just wait till tonight when they change shifts come into my room.”1066

“perfect” said Kim 1067

“neglect is our ally” Lisa said with a laugh1068

“how old are you by the way?” I asked 1069

“just turned twenty last week…what about you two?”1070

“I’m seventeen and he’s eighteen”1071

“you look older than eighteen…with the beard and all1072

“tomorrow is our last day I think… it would be nice to go out with a bang” I quipped. 1073

“hahaha…you dumbass” 1074

“ill be shitfaced by tonight, hope I don’t pass out and disappoint you two”1075

“how’s that” Kim asked  1076

“well my Xanax dosage got doubled from a half to a whole milligram, and I’ve saved up three as well as three methadone pills.”1077

“Can I try some methadone? I know I said I didn’t do hard shit but I’m desperate”1078

“sure” Lisa said” I’ll give you one and Layne will give you one so we can all take two.”1079

“shit ill just give yall each a Xanax. It will be a pimpin good time” 1080

“nice” Kim said.1081

We talked and philosophized for another hour back in the day room while all the old people were sleeping . I left the two girls talking to get a shower since I hadn’t had one all day. The shower was about three feet by three feet, there was nothing to it at all. It was kinda like the one I had in my place. I’m gonna  put an old tub in my master bathroom when I finish installing the drywall and wiring the rest of my place. A big tub with legs like in the eighteen-hundreds so I can take some oxy and just lay in the tub with my arms over the side holding a joint I thought to myself, if I make it home alive. I got out of the lukewarm shower and dried off. I jumped when I turned around Lisa and Kim were sitting there laughing1082

“he’s got a nice ass” Kim said to Lisa. 1083

“you mean my nice ass, I’m just letting you borrow it for a night”1084

I pretended not to hear them. I got my clothes on and went to the nurse’s station to get my nighttime meds. I went into the day room and got a carton of grape juice to take them with. I came back to my room to find Lisa half naked giving a massage to a half naked Kim.1085

“not fair yall started without me” I said jokingly1086

I gave Kim a methadone and Xanax and Lisa gave one of her methadone pills to her as well. I took mine the passed the grape juice to Lisa who then in turn gave it to Kim. I then sat behind Lisa on the bed and began to give her a massage after about twenty minutes the drugs began to kick in and we just went at it.1087

I awoke the next day with Lisa naked on her stomach beside me. I laid back down still feeling some effects of the drugs and relaxed. I nodded off and when I woke up Lisa was putting on her clothes and she said” Kurt and Jonathan are here to pick us up…hurry up and get dressed”1088

I sprang out of bed and got dressed and got my stuff together as Lisa went down to her room to pack.1089

I could see Kurt and Jon  waiting in the lobby with Lisa as I got my fake id back and signed my fake name on my release papers. I walked out of the ward into the lobby and a wonderful feeling came over me I was free.1090

“hot damn where’s the party” I yelled and hopped in the back of Jonathan’s mustang. 1091

“you’re a gaddaman idiot. How bout telling somebody before shooting up heroin and dilaudid at the same time, what the hell were you thinking” Jonathan said.1092

“don’t worry about that, that shit is over. We still have all of today to chill out before we have to leave tomorrow.”1093

“I hear that. Were just gonna go out on the beach and chill or do you guys have a better idea?” 1094

“sounds good to me, I haven’t been outside in four days.”1095

“well you were unconscious for two of them”1096

“yes Lisa I know that”1097

She leaned over and kissed me.1098

“we need to go by a pharmacy…me and Layne have a scrip for methadone”1099

“alright, there’s one up here in Little River” Jon said calmly.1100

“how bout some Sublime Jon” Lisa asked.1101

“oh yea, shit I forgot” he said as he put in the cd and cranked the bass up. 1102

“that’s more like it”. Kurt said1103

We stopped at a CVS pharmacy and got our prescriptions filled. It only took about fifteen minutes as we were the only ones in the store. I went up to the checkout counter and bought a carton of Marlboro lights while we waited. When we got back in the car Kurt handed me my briefcase. “I don’t know weather or not to give this to you, you junkie ass motherfucker.” 1104

“I’m fine man, really , nothing but beer and weed from now on.” 1105

“the burden was lifted and I felt great, euphoric even, and I had Lisa. We didn’t say much on the way back to the house, we just relaxed to some Sublime. They didn’t ask anything, we didn’t say anything1106

When we got back to the house I grabbed my duffel bag and my briefcase with both of our methadone in it and followed Lisa into my room. She sat quietly on the bed as I unpacked my things. 1107

“tonight were going skinny dipping” Lisa said in a matter of fact voice.1108

“we are?” I said puzzled.1109

“don’t tell me your gonna wuss out on me….hon you don’t have anything to be shy about I know”1110

“well that is true” I said with a grin. “I guess if you insist”1111

“well I do but don’t say anything to Kurt or Jonathan”1112

“alright”1113

“let’s get wasted before we go out on the beach”1114

“I’ve been waiting for you to say that”  1115

I got up and took my briefcase into the bathroom and cooked up two syringes of heroin while Lisa sprawled out on the bed.1116

“I forgot what real beds feel like geez.”1117

I came back into my room and locked the door. I sat down on the bed and gave Lisa her syringe.1118

“you do me. I can’t ever hit a vein I just get huge heroin blisters and waste it.”1119

I took the cap off and slapped her arm after using my belt as a tourniquet . I found one and slowly injected the skag into her arm. She let out a small moan and lied down on the bed. I put the used needle in my case and shot up myself. We laid there for about half an hour until Kurt came up and asked if we were ready to hit the beach.1120

“yea we’ll be out in a minute just gimme a second.”1121

“hey Lisa you awake”1122

A groggy “yea” came out1123

“were all goin to the beach remember”1124

“yea I’m awake just let me put my bathing suit on. She got out of bed and undressed as if we had been married for ten years and put a solid black bikini on. 1125

“don’t forget what were doin tonight” she said with a smile as she came over and sat on the bed.1126

“will you tie this for me”1127

I lifted her hair around her neck and laced up her top. 1128

“how do I look she said as she hunched to one side.1129

“perfect … have you seen my bathing suit anywhere.1130

She rambled through the pile of clothes on the floor and found my silver with red Hawaiian flowers trunks and threw them towards me I stripped down and put them on as I grabbed a big beach towel an umbrella and my briefcase of course and we headed out for the beach. We seemed to be walking in slow motion I had a hard time keeping up with Jon and Kurt without staggering I could tell Lisa was doing the same. We found our old spot and I screwed the umbrella down into the sand after laying out the towel, Kurt and Jon were surfing on a couple of boards my cousin had given me when he got his new one. Lisa lied face down on her towel soaking up some rays while I guarded the cooler, to my surprise there was a half full bottle of vodka left in the cooler along with twelve blue moon ales.1131

“hey lis wanna take some shots with me?.1132

“in a little bit” she grumbled, obviously feeling the heroin still. I was pretty wasted myself but wasn’t to the point of being sloppy wasted. We were fairly alone out on the beach so I thought some cannabis was in order. I took a large bag of it out put it in my rainbow glass pipe, lit up and took a huge hit. Lisa smelled it and reached over for it and I handed the pipe and lighter to her. She rolled over and sat Indian style on the towel. 1133

“you know if my uncle saw me doing this he’d kick me out of his house for sure”1134

“great just move in with me… I’m talking no hassles”1135

“are you serious…you’d let me move in with you?”1136

“hell yea that’d be awesome”1137

“as soon as we get home I’m packing my things man”1138

After smoking a few bowls we decided to go test the water out. Lisa sat on my shoulders with her legs under my arms and we went out where Kurt and Jon were surfing.1139

We stayed out on the beach all day, alternately getting stoned and drunk and surfing which was hilarious, finally after being out for a good five hours me and Lisa headed back to the house. Kurt and Jon came shortly after they went to the pier and shot a few games of pool.1140

Me and Lisa again went into my room out on the balcony and smoked from the pipe. I brought out the cd player and put on my mixed cd of blind melon and the pixies by then it had started to get dark. I once again got my briefcase and a couple towels and we walked down the narrow sandy path to the beach. I laid down the towel and put my briefcase on top. This time we were right under the pier and the night lights combined with the full moon gave off an eerie blue glow, I had two syringes already prepared, I gave Lisa hers first, she laid out on the towel as I shot up . I didn’t dose as much as I normally would cause I really didn’t want to drown. Lisa asked for a cigarette and I pulled two out of my pocket and gave one to her. She untied her top and slipped out of her bikini as I did the same.1141

The water was unusually warm.1142

“Let me float” Lisa asked1143

“what?”1144

“Hold me up kinda so I can float”1145

I held Lisa up by her back and she floated.1146

“whoa this feels so fuckin good”1147

She stretched out and moaned. 1148

“ahhhh yea”1149

I held her up with one hand and held her head with the other and bent down and kissed her .1150

“I love you Layne”1151

“I love you too babe”1152

I picked her up and put her on my shoulders and walked around for a while letting the waves crash over me then as a huge wave was coming I flipped her back off my shoulders and she let out a high pitched scream. When she came up she ran over to me and tackled me under water. We played around for a while then sat at the edge of the shore and let the ebbing waves crash on us.1153

“Won’t your parents be kinda upset that I’m moving in with you?” 1154

It’s my land and my apartment, besides I’m eighteen, and once I get my disability check and the interest from my inheritance I won’t have to work and we can get a new apartment.1155

We spent the rest of the night just talking on the beach until the sun started to come out. We dried off and got dressed before the older folks came out to walk. We went upstairs on the pier and shot pool for a while then made our way back to the house. When we got to the house Kurt and Jon were still asleep so we took a shower and changed out of our bathing suits I stood in the shower facing Lisa.1156

“you know what?...you’re fucking hot…come here.” I grabbed Lisa’s hips and brought her closer to me and kissed her neck. She wrapped her leg around mine and put her arms around my neck I reached for the knob on the shower and turned the water off.1157

“I’m clean enough”1158

“yea”1159

I grabbed a clean towel and wrapped us both in it and scurried into my bedroom.1160

I was awakened by Kurt who came in and sat on the edge of the bed with me in my boxers and Lisa naked, which didn’t seem to bother her since she didn’t try to cover up.1161

“yall ready to get outta here” Kurt said.1162

“yea just hand me my jeans over”1163

Lisa had already got up and put on her underwear and was putting her skirt on when she looked at us and said “what?...you’ve never seen a woman before”1164

We got our things packed up in the truck, Kurt rode with Jonathan and Lisa was in the truck with me rambling through my briefcase.1165

“no…no way.. no hard shit I gotta drive”1166

“come on a little weed wont hurt you”1167

“okay but that’s it”1168

“fair enough” Lisa said.1169

We made it to Darlington, the half way point before Lisa got a craving for some Smirnoff. I pulled into an Exxon and got my fake id out and bout three six packs of Smirnoff triple black, when I got to the counter the old black lady running the register didn’t even seem to look at me, she just rang the beer up and I paid.1170

I handed Lisa a six pack put one in the middle on top of the briefcase and the last one in my tool box.1171

We were back on the road, Lisa had already finished three Smirnoffs when she dug into the briefcase and pulled out some weed and some opium. She pinched of a chunk of opium and sprinkled it onto the weed already in the pipe and took a hit.1172

“mmmmmm opium…taste’s good man. Here you take a hit”1173

“I dunno man I gotta drive,”1174

“ ah quit bein a bitch and smoke it old man”1175

“alright alright give it to me”1176

I took the pipe while we were waiting at a red light and took a big hit of the laced weed. I was feeling it almost immediately she had put to much opium in it I could tell.1177

“damnit you tryin to kill me or something?”1178

“you can handle it big guy…plus it will be much more interesting this way” she said as she opened up another Smirnoff .1179

“hey speed up I wanna do something”1180

She grabbed an empty bottle and held it out of the door as I was going about seventy five in a fifty five zone.1181

“bet you you’ll miss it”1182

“shut up and watch this”1183

Right as we were coming up on a speed limit sign she flung the bottle out the window and hit the sign. The bottle exploded into a million pieces and the sign was warped.1184

She started laughing.1185

“Oh my god did you see that…hahaha”1186

“Get rid of all the empty bottles”1187

“with pleasure”1188

We continued to play bust the beer bottle on the road sign all the way into rock hill. By that time we had finished all the Smirnoff in the truck.1189

“alright chill out for a while there are cops all over Rock Hill”1190

“it’s all good man”1191

Jonathan and Kurt headed off to my house to drop Kurt off to get his bike while I drove Lisa to her uncle’s to get her things. I helped her carry out about a half dozen boxes and two large duffel bags to the truck then we headed to my house.1192

“I rearranged my place since the last time you came over at that party”1193

“oh for real coo”1194

“had to make space for our equipment and the PA system”1195

“right right”1196

We pulled up to my place at about six.1197

“home sweet home” Lisa said smiling1198

I unloaded the boxes and she grabbed her two oversized duffel bags and we went inside.1199

“fuckin a man, you pimped this place out”1200

“yea you like it?”1201

“hell yea… real leather furniture, surround sound, a bar…damn man you’re     only eighteen.” 1202

“I worked my ass off for most of this stuff, the furniture and everything else was a Christmas present from my grandmother”1203

“are you still gonna work at York Lumber?”1204

“I quit. I just got a quarter million dollar trust fund from my grandmother, I’m living off the interest and my disability. I can’t work during baseball season anyway, I mean we’ve got a playoff game here Friday against Lugoff… they beat us twice during regular season, but I wasn’t pitching then, they’ve never seen me pitch.”1205

“kinda cocky aren’t we”1206

“have to be cocky…otherwise you’ll get intimidated and they’ll hit you like a pitching machine. Pitching is all psychological.” 1207

“oh, I never really thought about it like that.”1208

“it’s not even that I can throw hard it’s just because I can read people that makes me good…anyways… are these two boxes all you have left to unpack?”1209

“yea this is all of ‘em”1210

“let’s go see the parents.”1211

“damn, this is gonna be awkward”1212

“nah you’ll be fine , they know you.”1213

“how’s that?”1214

“my mom taught you in ninth grade.”1215

“oh yea”1216

“come on… let’s get this over with.”1217

We walked down the path to my parent’s house. I could see through the window that they were in the living room watching the news or something. I opened the door for Lisa and hoped for the best.1218

“howdy howdy I’m back” I said as my mom turned around and stretched her arms out. I went over and gave mom a hug. 1219

“mom, dad, this is Lisa…she’s staying with me until I get my apartment”1220

“oh okay yall behave now though, I know how you like to stay up when you have company over but you’ve got school tomorrow.”1221

“yes maim I know”1222

“Lisa, are you graduating with Layne this year” my dad asked.1223

“well, actually I’m a junior but I’ll have enough credits to graduate this year , so yes sir”1224

“we just came in to say hi, we still have to unpack and stuff so I’ll see you in the morning.”1225

“wait ,one more thing, when’s your game?” my dad asked as he got up to see us out.1226

“Friday here at six…we’re playing Lugoff.”1227

“are you pitching?” mom asked1228

“yes maim as far as I know”1229

“don’t go and do something stupid son remember how hard  you’ve worked this year, don’t go and blow it”1230

“I know dad don’t worry”1231

“night yall” mom said as she turned back around.1232

“night”1233

We left and started walking back to my place.1234

“you need an ID Lisa.”1235

“yea I know”1236

“I’ll make you one tonight then so we can go out tomorrow night”1237

“go where?”1238

“this place in Charlotte called the Matrix, it’s a club, or bar or whatever, and if not for that you need one for the rave after we beat the shit out of Lugoff.”1239

“your not gonna find any raves around here.”1240

“they have ‘em at the old collusiem  every Friday night.”1241

“that’s awesome , I had no idea”1242

“well I mean nobody from York goes except for me Kurt and sometimes Josh and a couple of girls from Rock Hill that we party with.”1243

“ Josh McCorkle?”1244

“yea”1245

“why didn’t he go with yall to the beach?”1246

“he had to work…he only got two days off for Christmas”1247

“man that sucks”1248

We got to my place and we finished unpacking her things and threw the boxes in the utility room.1249

“now that’s that… how bout a drink”1250

“don’t mind if I do”1251

I went to my bar and got out my big glass of unopened Absolut and a gallon of orange juice. I poured two glasses half full of orange juice and filled the rest with vodka.1252

“I’ll get the case”1253

“alright, it’s under the bed on the other side”1254

I carried the two drinks over and set them down on the coffee table as I sat on the couch. Lisa came and put the briefcase on the coffee table as well.1255

“what shall we do then?” Lisa asked innocently.1256

“hmmmm… some downers of course, weed naturally and some oxy?1257

“let’s wait and shoot the oxy when we go to bed”1258

“splendid idea” I said in my feaux English accent. I proceeded to grind up some Xanax while Lisa filled the pipe with hash. She handed it over and I sprinkled two milligrams of Xanax on the herb.1259

“ladies first” I said as I handed the pipe back to Lisa. She lit it and took a drag then tried to hold in a cough.1260

“just let it out, that shit is harsh I know”1261

She exhaled and a stream of white smoke came out with a slight cough .1262

She handed the pipe over and said “you can taste that Xanax man”1263

“I know if it burns that means it’s working” I said with a laugh, then relit the pipe and took as big of a hit as I could manage without coughing up my lungs. I held the smoke in as long as I could then French inhaled the rest until only a trace white cloud came out as I exhaled.1264

“somebody’s been smoking for a while”1265

“that’s just them iron lungs byatch.1266

“here let me try”1267

I filled the pipe with some fresh herb and added two more milligrams of powdered Xanax.1268

“there you are m’lady”1269

We smoked for about fifteen more minutes and finished off a few screwdrivers. We were pretty far gone. I could tell we were both about to nod off so I packed up the briefcase and put it under the coffee table.1270

“if we shot oxy right now I don’t think we’d make school tomorrow”1271

“me either… we’ll do it some other time”1272

I laid on top the queen sized bed just feeling the effects Lisa undressed and went into the shower. I woke up to Lisa wearing nothing but a pair of my running shorts as she laid beside me and kissed me. I rolled over on my side and put my arm around her and kissed her once more as I began to drift off with my head on her chest and legs intertwined.1273

I woke up at about five thirty the bed was empty and I got up to the sound of the shower running. I went into my living room and started a pot of coffee. I went back to the bed and lit a cigarette to start my day. I walked down to my parent’s house with my leash and got Lou dog and walked her up to the mailbox at the end of our dirt road. When I got back to my place Lisa was throwing clothes on the bed and getting dressed. I took the leash off Lou dog and took a quick shower. I had not been fully awake but when the cold water hit me I woke up pretty damn quick, I had a small water heater and one long shower used up most of the hot water but I didn’t really mind. I got dressed then I went to my bar and got out a handle of cheap vodka and two Gatorades, I poured out half of the Gatorade and filled the rest with vodka, I grabbed a pack of triple c’s cause I knew Josh would be wanting some at school so I took them all out and put them in an old unlabeled pill bottle, then Lisa and I grabbed our book bags and the case and got in the truck. I put a Nirvana cd in and rolled the windows down as we rode across town to the huddle house for some breakfast. Kurt’s bike was parked near the door. We could see Kurt sitting at a corner booth through the glass as we walked in.1274

“there they are” Kurt said with a sense of relief.1275

“can’t skip breakfast at the huddle house, it’s a tradition you know”1276

“yall do this every day before school?” Lisa asked1277

“yea man eat some greasy breakfast then hit the pipe and head to school” I replied.1278

“nice… I think I can get used to that” Lisa remarked as she scooted closer to me and put her leg over between mine sitting sideways in the booth.1279

“I ordered your usual”1280

“country ham and eggs?”1281

“yeap”1282

“nice”1283

“aww that’s so cute” Lisa quipped.1284

“what?” Kurt and I said simultaneously1285

“oh nothing”1286

“so how’s the married life?” Kurt asked1287

“to be honest I can’t really remember most of it but what I do remember was great.” Lisa said with a smile1288

“yea man I really couldn’t tell ya I’m right in the middle of a weeklong bender, I’m going for a personal best” I said with a chuckle1289

“only thing is I have to be sober by Friday so I can shutout Lugoff, and after we win state , I don’t need any of my classes this semester to graduate so it’s gonna be on after that.”1290

“what about West Point?” Kurt asked. “you gotta straighten up fuckin big time man”1291

“what…they can’t un-accept me. Besides I’m just gonna enjoy my last semester of high school that’s all”1292

“all I’m sayin is don’t blow it, you gotta sweet deal getting in like you did”1293

“it’s all good man, you worry too much”1294

Kurt was about to say something but was interrupted by the waitress who brought us our food.1295

“Kurt!”1296

“yea man.. you okay”1297

“nah man I need some skag bad”1298

“dude you’re getting in to deep”1299

“please man I need another hit… I have to or I’ gonna fuckin go nuts”1300

“Layne..”1301

“please man I’m begging you”1302

“dude… alright.. fine, ill be over in about fifteen minutes but I need you to go with me”1303

“whatever it takes man “1304

“alright later”1305

“bye”1306

I was shaking with anticipation or perhaps withdrawals who knows, I was just… desperate”1307

About ten minutes later Kurt showed up with a serious look on his face I had not really ever seen before, he pulled a silver pistol out of his belt and handed it to me”1308

“just in case” he said1309

“what?”1310

“just in case something happens,… these people don’t fuck around, ill go in and handle everything, you just watch my back”1311

“here’s five hundred man… we gotta make it last”1312

I handed Kurt my five hundred dollars, I had no idea how much of my savings I had spent in the past six months, probably not much , I guess I was too afraid to look at the balance.1313

It was about nine o’clock when Kurt made the phone call. We were to be at the dealers house in charlotte at ten. We sat nervously in the truck listening to Nirvana’s Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam to try to calm our nerves…it wasn’t working. We started out to Charlotte at about thirty till, I had my gun tucked under my belt driving the truck down interstate seventy-seven with the windows down , Kurt took out a bottle of Xanax from the briefcase and handed me a couple bars.1314

“for your nerves” he said.1315

With that we both took some and kept driving.1316

“take a right here”1317

I turned down an unlit street about a half a mile.1318

“right here.. pull in and turn your light off”1319

I obeyed , adrenaline pumping, overpowering the Xanax. Kurt went inside without a word.1320

“be careful” I said to him as he went inside.1321

About five minutes later I was startled by a loud “pop”, followed by two more.1322

“oh shit!”1323

Kurt came running out of the house bleeding and stumbled into the truck as two men started firing at us. I pulled my gun out and blasted back blindly and kicked the truck in reverse and sped off unscathed.1324

“Kurt!...where you hit man where you hit?”1325

“my shoulder…It hurts to move my arm”1326

“don’t move it… just keep pressure on it , ill get you to the hospital”1327

“dump the guns man dump the guns” Kurt said with effort.1328

I took the two pistols and chunked them out the window into some weeds.1329

We made it to the emergency room at Carolinas Medical Center, Kurt was still conscious but was visibly dizzy and was slurring his speech. Two nurses ran out with a stretcher and they hauled him off to surgery.1330

“We were walking down to a club when all of a sudden I hear this loud “pop” and my friend dropped to the ground” I explained to the doctor after waiting for two and a half excruciating hours in the waiting room. I had called Kurt’s parents and told them the same story, they were on their way. I sat there in disbelief when the doctor was explaining to Kurt’s parents, “they were walking to a club on Hunter when he was hit by a stray bullet. We’ve stopped the bleeding and stitched him up, he’s very lucky to be alive”1331

“oh my God…our Kurt” Ms. Brown said sobbing1332

“he’ll be fine” Dr. Brown reassured her.1333

I explained everything to Dr. and Ms. Brown again , they hugged me and thanked me for helping save Kurt’s life. I didn’t say anything else. I was numb,… again. 1334

I called Lisa and told her what had happened.1335

“oh my god… oh my god, how bad is it?”1336

“he’ll be fine, just a flesh wound”1337

“are you okay Layne?... do you want me to tell your parents and come pick you up?”1338

“nah I’ll be fine.. just a little shook up”1339

“are you sure?”1340

“yea babe…I’m comin home”1341

“love you Layne”1342

“I love you…more than you’ll ever know”1343

As soon as everything was settled with the parents I drove back home, Kurt was to spend at least a week in the hospital. I got home to find Lisa studying at my desk with a glass of red wine on the table. I walked behind her and put my arms around her neck and kissed the back of her head.1344

“everything’s gonna be okay babe” she said as she turned around and kissed me.1345

“I hope so”1346

“it will all work out in the end”1347

I helped myself to a glass of wine and took out my briefcase. It was time to suppress, suppress, suppress. I got out everything I had left, an ounce of coke, a half empty bottle of Oxycontin, an ounce and a half of high grade pot, a good sized chunk of sticky opium, and a bottle of Xanax .1348

“Lisa you want any of this before I binge”1349

“well… what the hell I got too much shit on my mind as it is”1350

“what will it be?”1351

“just some weed for me, I have exams tomorrow”1352

I broke off a large bud and stuffed it in my party pipe and handed it over to Lisa.1353

Lisa sparked it up and took a small drag and passed it back, I took a deep breath then inhaled as much as I could, holding it in, exhaling coughing and repeating. We smoked for about thirty minutes until we had killed an entire quarter ounce together. We were both high but for some reason I still wasn’t satisfied. Lisa was growing sleepy so I kissed her goodnight and saw her to bed. I turned all the lights out in the room except for the Christmas lights that were strung overhead in the fashion of the French Quarter. I sat on my couch listening to the Velvet Underground softly as Lisa slept with all my drugs in my case out on the coffee table I took a hammer and smashed up an oxycontin , chopped it down into a fine powder with the razor blade from my kit and carefully scooped it up into a spoon . I added some water and boiled it down into a solution. I had to get away, this was my escape. I had to get away from this life for a while, for as long as possible, and thus began the greatest drug binge of my life. It was nothing short of masturbatory self indulgence, hedonistic escapism. I just lied on the couch shooting up, taking pills, smoking opium and pot in cycles, Lisa would come home everyday from school and check on me but I was too high to notice her tears. 1354

I was down to my last two oxycontin, all the Xanax, opium, pot, and cocaine had been used up. I was a wreck, tremors from the drugs, insatiable cravings for more, I had tapped into a latent well of dark emotions . I looked into my briefcase , it was empty , save for two eighty milligram oxycontin pills which I immediately took, my accessory kit, and a full prescription pad. I had an idea.1355

I took the pad out and in my sloppiest handwriting wrote a prescription for another bottle of one hundred and sixty milligram oxycontin tablets, the highest dosage.1356

I was somewhat out of it from the two pills but still managed to make it to the pharmacy and turn in my prescription after waiting fifteen minutes in line. I took a seat and waited for my prescription to be filled. After about thirty minutes I began to get frustrated. They never took this long to fill a prescription even as busy as they were. Just then a police officer came into the pharmacy and the attendant pointed at me, the officer came over to me and asked, “are you Layne Cobain… may I see your ID”1357

“sure” I said and stood up, still unaware of what was going on, I handed the officer my ID then he uttered those magic words.1358

“Layne you are under arrest for forgery and attempting to obtain controlled drugs by fraud”1359

A chill ran up and down my spine as my stomach began to burn as they cuffed me and took me off to the police station… I was numb,… again.1360

I had been in prison for about a month, taking regular doses of methadone to wean me off the opiates when I got some visitors.1361

My parents were standing on the other side of the reinforced glass booth holding Lisa’s hand. my dad sat down and picked up the phone as I did.1362

“hi son, how are they treating you in there”1363

“like a criminal… but what are ya gonna do”1364

my dad’s face turned red and I could tell he was holding back tears.1365

“why you” he said , lips quivering1366

“I’m okay dad, it’s not so bad”1367

my mom and Lisa put their hands on my dad’s shoulder.1368

“the lawyer says he can get you out in two months…just hang in there son”1369

“okay dad”1370

“Lisa has something to tell you he said with a bittersweet smile”1371

Lisa sat down and took the phone from my dad’s hands.1372

“Layne I love you”1373

“I love you too baby… I’m so sorry”1374

“don’t worry babe it’s okay”1375

“I let you down, I won’t forgive myself… I don’t deserve you”1376

“don’t talk like that… Layne… Layne I’m pregnant…”1377

tears streamed uncontrollably down my cheeks and I smiled for the first time in a long time.1378

“are you happy?”1379

“yes Layne… I want this… I want to be with you. In two months you’ll be out of here and we can start over fresh.”1380

“oh my god… I love you so much Lisa”1381

“and I you…but we already know don’t we she said smiling.1382

She pressed her lips up against the glass and I did the same.1383

“bye Layne… I’ll be waiting for you”1384

“bye babe”1385

Two months in prison, knowing you have a baby on the way, goes by excruciatingly slow, practically every waking moment was spent thinking about my girl and my baby on the way. Lisa came and visited almost every weekend, she was beginning to show and I swelled with love. It was all there, I was clean, off methadone. We had sworn off drugs from now on , for our sake and the baby’s, well, Juliet Paris Cobain, my baby, our baby, our new lives. The day I got out my mom and dad along with a swelling Lisa came and took me home. The first thing I did after kissing Lisa and listening to Juliet with my ear against Lisa’s stomach was enroll in York tech, I was going to fight this, my illness, for my new family. I got my old job back at York Lumber to take care of Lisa while she was pregnant and to support ourselves while I went to school.1386

I had been in tech for a little over three months, sitting in a biology class taking notes on the lecture of microbiological chemical processes when my phone rang. The professor stopped and looked at me but I didn’t care. It was Lisa.1387

“Layne!... my water broke… hurry home”1388

with that I let out a raucous laugh in the middle of class and yelled out, “I’m having a baby!” and ran out.1389

The day Juliet Paris Cobain was born was the happiest day of my life, I was going to school, working for my new family. Everything was perfect except for one thing. 1390

A few weeks after Lisa came home from the hospital, we left Juliet in the care of my parents and went to the Bistro 100 in Charlotte to celebrate. I parked in the same lot I did almost a year before, I had since grown a scraggily beard and grown my hair out a little, but Lisa was the same beauty she was before, even more so. We walked hand in hand up Hunter St. under the rows  of bat infested trees, the guano on the sidewalk had since been cleaned.1391

“brings back some memories doesn’t it” I said to Lisa in her new  simple black silk dress.1392

“oh yea. You know we’ve been through a lot together Layne… but I wouldn’t change a minute of it”1393

“me either babe”1394

“you know I made reservations”1395

“you did not!”1396

“tonight is special…for new beginnings”1397

“you were always good to me Layne”1398

“no I wasn’t… I let the drugs get in the way”1399

“babe we both did”1400

“well none of that…not anymore”1401

we took the elevator up to the fifth floor to the bistro.1402

“good evening… Mr. and Mrs. Cobain is it?”1403

“oh were not married” Lisa said to the well manicured maitre’di that cracked a smile.1404

“right this way maim”1405

he took us to the same table we had sat at the previous year , only there was a single rose in a vase on the table and a candle burning.1406

“does this suit madam”1407

“oh this is wonderful thanks”1408

we sat down as the maitre’di brought out a bottle of Don Periogne and poured us each a flute of champagne.1409

“Layne we can’t afford this”1410

“don’t worry lis it’s taken care of”1411

the waiter then brought out our salads and took our orders. I asked for a fillet, medium rare and Lisa ordered shrimp alfredo. 1412

“you know I love the city at night… all the bright lights and people” Lisa said.1413

“I know what you mean I love it too”1414

“but there’s still no substitute for home”1415

“nope”1416

“still … do you think we should move to the city”1417

“I dunno do you want to”1418

“well it’s just a though”1419

“maybe after I graduate we can look into it”1420

“yea that would be cool”1421

“nice”1422

The waiter brought out our entrées and we sat talking for the longest time, the restaurant was beginning to thin out as we finished our meal. Then the waiter brought out our check, and to the side, a two carat diamond ring.1423

“oh my god, what is this” Lisa said unsure of what was happening.1424

I looked into Lisa’s eyes and gently touched her hand.1425

“Lisa will you marry me?”1426

“Layne…” she said half crying.1427

“of course I will”1428

“come on Layne your gonna be late man” Kurt said , decked out in his tuxedo. I was looking into the mirror at myself adjusting my bowtie.1429

“I’m comin’”1430

“damn I cant believe it back in this room on this beach, this is perfect man”1431

“I know”1432

I followed my best man downstairs where Jonathan and Josh were waiting on us.1433

“your parents are already on the beach with the preacher” Josh said.1434

“let me tell you, Lisa looks beautiful Layne, you’re a lucky man” Jonathan added1435

“yea she is” Kurt said1436

“thanks guys”1437

“well… we ready let’s do this big guy” Jonathan said.1438

We made our way out of the beach house and down the sidewalk on sixth street onto the sand and finally on the beach where my mom and dad  were holding Juliet standing beside the ocean with our preacher. We stood there in the cool ocean breeze for about fifteen minutes, then like a diamond in the sky Lisa appeared accompanied by Leslie in a simple white dress. She seemed to float towards me until she took my hand and we faced the preacher. 1439

“I love you Layne”1440

“I love you too lis… more than you’ll ever know”1441