Friday night, October 22nd, 2004. 1:00am.
He's blacked out in some black dream.
The valley-girl wannabe's are still pointing, still giggling, in between trucker-sized gulps of sugary vodka sevens. The club's soundsystem still pounds the flesh on the dancefloor--nobody knew for sure if he was stumbling drunk or stumbling from a hot dose. Too much of a hot dose.
He's sweating and incoherent. Eyes rolling back in his head. He drops his drink but can't hear it smash on the floor. The air around him a smoke filled haze, mad voices everywhere, a quick scream as he falls forwards. His legs have forgotten the body.
The black dream. The nothingness. Swells over him and swallows up the insides. The brain gives up but the body remembers--keeping the lungs minimally full with air.
The crowd cricles around him.
They can only point.
More laughter swallowed up by the black dream before it registers in his ears.
And then there's the commotion.
The grabbing and shaking, the water splashed on his face. A hand splashed across his face. Voices, crazy and screaming for calm. Who is this guy? Does anybody know this guy?
But nobody does.
He stumbled in a few hours ago accidentally. Forgot his jacket at the bar. Spilled a drink on a beer tub girl and called the bouncer a facist. He tried to pick up a hooker--but the drugged brain can't convert thoughts into words anymore--he froths and spits from the mouth. All he can mutter: fuck it all, fuck it all, fuck it all.
His hands are cold. Lips blue. Somebody calls out for an ambulance.
Then the tremors. Violent quakes that start in the spine and shoot out through the limbs. A man is holding his tongue--he can taste a woman on the man's fingers, but not even sex can pull him out of the black dream.
An oxygen mask. A flashlight in the eyes.
Thick bands are wrapped around him. Tied down to a stretcher, he recognizes the sqwak of a radio, the ceiling light shines over him in the back of the ambulance. Is he dying in this white mist, or is it his womb?
Needles and a breathing tube.
A siren.
Crash of hospital doors and nurses screaming out to each other. A doctor: this is the tenth one tonight--grab the stomach pump and some adrenaline. Moves through his procedures half awake, half dreaming of returning to his wife. Climbing into bed with her, hiding away from all this maddness. The knife wound kid he treated is a headache in his brain. Another drugged out kid. Another goddamn drugged out kid. Goddamn it.
He won't take my story home to the safety of his bed. He risks contagion.
I have nothing left but the machines I'm linked to.
The oxygen bribing my lungs to breathe again. A heart monitor beeping and blarring. There is a young nurse in the corner--does she recognize me?
I cannot recognize myself anymore.
And then the black dream.
Morning. The brain wakes up. My mouth stained charcol black from the great purge.
I can't speak, there is a wild shattering headache in my eyes, the shell of me aching and quivering. Hating me for being alive in this condition. How many times Jacob? How many times can you do this to yourself?
Another drugged out kid. Another goddamn drugged out kid. Goddamnit.
Police. Notebooks. Questions I can't answer. Eyes that judge me--addict. The word crosses their eyes behind the flesh--I can see them formulating it, then I see the pleasure as they spit it at me. Venom.
Addict.
But I did not take these drugs on my own.
Tox screen results: amphetimines, barbituates, blood alcohol levels that reach off the page. And up the wall, crawls across the ceiling above me--I can see the black dream sliding down the walls behind them. It wants to swallow everything.
I remember cocaine and whiskey.
But my blood is shaded in heroin grey death. A track mark where the needle broke in my arm. The sour bruised flesh swollen around it.
Did you do this to yourself?
Did I do this to myself?
I wasn't watching. The black dream clouded me. Kept me safe from the sight of me.
There are no more voices to wake me from this black dream. My river blood flows with a lingering memory of opium regret. Not caring about not caring anymore. Did I sacrifice my body for the curse? The sickness in me--a wicked root that flowered into pure destruction.
I have taken years off my life.
He's blacked out in some black dream.
The valley-girl wannabe's are still pointing, still giggling, in between trucker-sized gulps of sugary vodka sevens. The club's soundsystem still pounds the flesh on the dancefloor--nobody knew for sure if he was stumbling drunk or stumbling from a hot dose. Too much of a hot dose.
He's sweating and incoherent. Eyes rolling back in his head. He drops his drink but can't hear it smash on the floor. The air around him a smoke filled haze, mad voices everywhere, a quick scream as he falls forwards. His legs have forgotten the body.
The black dream. The nothingness. Swells over him and swallows up the insides. The brain gives up but the body remembers--keeping the lungs minimally full with air.
The crowd cricles around him.
They can only point.
More laughter swallowed up by the black dream before it registers in his ears.
And then there's the commotion.
The grabbing and shaking, the water splashed on his face. A hand splashed across his face. Voices, crazy and screaming for calm. Who is this guy? Does anybody know this guy?
But nobody does.
He stumbled in a few hours ago accidentally. Forgot his jacket at the bar. Spilled a drink on a beer tub girl and called the bouncer a facist. He tried to pick up a hooker--but the drugged brain can't convert thoughts into words anymore--he froths and spits from the mouth. All he can mutter: fuck it all, fuck it all, fuck it all.
His hands are cold. Lips blue. Somebody calls out for an ambulance.
Then the tremors. Violent quakes that start in the spine and shoot out through the limbs. A man is holding his tongue--he can taste a woman on the man's fingers, but not even sex can pull him out of the black dream.
An oxygen mask. A flashlight in the eyes.
Thick bands are wrapped around him. Tied down to a stretcher, he recognizes the sqwak of a radio, the ceiling light shines over him in the back of the ambulance. Is he dying in this white mist, or is it his womb?
Needles and a breathing tube.
A siren.
Crash of hospital doors and nurses screaming out to each other. A doctor: this is the tenth one tonight--grab the stomach pump and some adrenaline. Moves through his procedures half awake, half dreaming of returning to his wife. Climbing into bed with her, hiding away from all this maddness. The knife wound kid he treated is a headache in his brain. Another drugged out kid. Another goddamn drugged out kid. Goddamn it.
He won't take my story home to the safety of his bed. He risks contagion.
I have nothing left but the machines I'm linked to.
The oxygen bribing my lungs to breathe again. A heart monitor beeping and blarring. There is a young nurse in the corner--does she recognize me?
I cannot recognize myself anymore.
And then the black dream.
Morning. The brain wakes up. My mouth stained charcol black from the great purge.
I can't speak, there is a wild shattering headache in my eyes, the shell of me aching and quivering. Hating me for being alive in this condition. How many times Jacob? How many times can you do this to yourself?
Another drugged out kid. Another goddamn drugged out kid. Goddamnit.
Police. Notebooks. Questions I can't answer. Eyes that judge me--addict. The word crosses their eyes behind the flesh--I can see them formulating it, then I see the pleasure as they spit it at me. Venom.
Addict.
But I did not take these drugs on my own.
Tox screen results: amphetimines, barbituates, blood alcohol levels that reach off the page. And up the wall, crawls across the ceiling above me--I can see the black dream sliding down the walls behind them. It wants to swallow everything.
I remember cocaine and whiskey.
But my blood is shaded in heroin grey death. A track mark where the needle broke in my arm. The sour bruised flesh swollen around it.
Did you do this to yourself?
Did I do this to myself?
I wasn't watching. The black dream clouded me. Kept me safe from the sight of me.
There are no more voices to wake me from this black dream. My river blood flows with a lingering memory of opium regret. Not caring about not caring anymore. Did I sacrifice my body for the curse? The sickness in me--a wicked root that flowered into pure destruction.
I have taken years off my life.