We met at a bar one humid, summery, Marlboro night. It was a place made yellow with cigarette smoke and dyed white with cocaine powder glowing starkly under the rusted light of street lamps and the beeping signals of call girls. The vending machines blinked humanly while humans sold sex mechanically. Men and women with skin flushed in different scarlet colors but with eyes as pale as ghosts roamed the streets, devouring each other as they crossed each others' paths. And boys and girls with eyes glowing a spiney and needy red but with flesh as white stardust crawled like lepers along the sidewalk, picking golden pennies off the street for their wants. All this under the splatter of stars that bloomed around a sickly moon.1
And then there was you, hunched under the weight of narcotics that spread over you like a river over rocks, tumbling you, polishing you, rounding you. And ruining you. Your skin was as white as burial shrouds as you sat under the flourescent lights, coal eyes half-lidded in a perpetual dream that glided through your brain like water. You watched it as it flowed softly through your body and floated gingerly from your mouth in soft puffs of smoke that littered the sky with hallucinations.2
And then there was me, reeling under the push of amphetamines that pressed against me like a rock against a river, crushing me, dividing me, splitting me. And breaking me. My eyes were two spider-webs of crimson as the sleepless night unfolded before me like a fantasy, my grayish fingers trembling with excitment, my feet restless from anticipation. I stared as the demons of insomnia colored the edges of my vision with their ghoulish bodies, letting them zip through my precariously-set reality.3
And we sipped beer slowly, two outcasts sitting side-by-side; one learning how to dream, the other forgetting.4
Your dead eyes whispered illusions of self-righteous demonaltry, of self-consuming bloodshed, of waltzes in steps of death and hatred and vengence. You dreamt of Machiavellian heroism, of Beowulf-like justice, of savages and heroes and cowardice that colored it all into a frightful yellow.5
And my short breaths spoke of narcistic championship, of brutish gladiator shows of glamor, of coal lumps of dreams that could never be. And a heart that had all but retired them into nests of despair.6
We were anti-hero and hero, sitting side-by-side, shoulders pressed together and mouths silent from alcohol.7
By midnight you were so close to crashing that the corners of your eyes were charring red and I was so close to asphyxiating that the rims of my fingernails were burning black. You couldn't walk. I couldn't sit.8
I took you back home that night and watched you sleep while pacing the room like a madman.9
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The next morning we went to the movie theater and watched a technicolor film about a woman who died slowly over the course of a lifetime, her dreams creaking and caving and collapsing slowly over her head. I envisioned her with her fingers crossed like a Greek Jesus, the fractures of her hopes hovering over her head like broken halos two days before Easter Sunday. And quietly, the fires flamed around her as her existence slowly doubled and closed her up in a deep, dark, and silent sleep.11
You watched the recognition blossom in my eye curiously like a child searching for reasons. I said nothing as I purchased Japanese wine and American hot dogs, eyes downcast and bleeding with soft tears.12
You shrugged and said, "Everyone has to die sometime."13
"You have a weird habit of drinking sake through a straw," I replied, a smile pasted sloppily on my face.14
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We wrecked your car three days later under a haze of alcohol and nicotine-charmed smoke. I still remember the starry-eyed look in your eye as you emerged from the womb of metal that used to be your car, not a single scratch on your body, and the tears you cried as you trembled into the world like a newborn. And I still remember the dragon of smoke that spun out of our mouths as we climbed onto the ruined roof and smoked the rest of the deformed pack of menthols.16
You told me about Russian Roulette, the morbid game of Russian military subheroes, and the hypnotic spin of the chamber as it twirled with its copper promises of death and liberation. Winter scenery appeared before me as we sat in imaginary snow, landscape packed tight with ice and snow, a revolver sitting heavily between our two cigarettes, one bullet nestled in its depths.17
One bullet.18
Two heads.19
And too many dreams to be laid to rest.20
Then we said nothing as we watched the silver clouds carve disappearing graffiti against the pitch black sky, both of us mulling over the possibilities.21
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We saw a movie that morning about poisonous beauty, of promises and lies, of adoration and sulking betrayal, of speculation and self-centered insecurity. With unbridled passion and clamped tongues hissing softly into the ears of those who got too close, and juicy apples offered to any spectator who dared to taste.23
And an empty, hollow ending that resounded deeply through the chambers of my heart.24
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The first time we had sex, we were totally, completely, and frighteningly sober. It was a diplomatic affair, really, all polite and theoretical and horrendous.26
You kissed me. I kissed you back.27
You touched me. I touched you back.28
Again. And again. And again.29
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That morning we saw a movie about friendship. Hard, unforgiving friendship that glared into the eyes of intruders and cut into the ribs of participants. Cold, brutal friendship that produced nothing but loving betrayal and grotesque adoration.31
And unrequited love as stark and heavy and painful as crucifixtion without promise of salvation.32
Our eyes didn't meet as we walked out the theater, shoulders clumsily melded together in the pull of the crowd.33
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I found you playing Russian Roulette in your apartment one sunny Saturday afternoon, gun cocked and ready, eyes open and staring. Blankly.35
Click, went the trigger.36
And blink, went your eyes. Disappointedly.37
I sat down across from you and took the little thing from your hands, gingerly craddling the thing like an infant. I opened the chamber and stared at the single bullet sleeping snugly in the machine. 38
I spinned it and asked, "Why?"39
Click. I shuddered and felt myself dying, the taste of death addicting on my tongue, the hope of release intoxicating.40
You stared at me with your big, black eyes and took the gun.41
"Because."42
Spin. Click. I saw you flinch.43
"You were there."44
Spin. Click. I flinched.45
"And so was I."46
Spin. Click.47
"No," I whispered hoarsely, "No you're not."48
Spin.49
Spin.50
Spin.51
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Click.53
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