I sit alone at a table. It’s dark and I don’t know where I am or how I got here. There are bottles of liquor and wine everywhere and on the table in front of me is a large pile of white cocaine and a huge bag of yellow crack. There is also a torch, a pipe, a tube of glue and an open can filled with gasoline.
I look around me. There is blackness, there is alcohol, there are drugs. There is an abundance of all of them. I know I’m alone and there is no one to stop me. I know I can do as much as I want of whatever I want.
As I reach for one of the bottles, something inside of me tells me to stop, that what I’m doing is wrong, that I can’t do it anymore, that I’m killing myself. I reach anyway. I grip the bottle, bring it to my lips and take a long deep draw that burns my mouth, my throat and my stomach.
For the briefest instant I feel complete. The pain I carry with me disappears. I feel comfortable and at rest, confident and secure, calm and composed. I feel good. Goddamn it, I feel fucking good.
The feelings are gone as quickly as they came and I want them back. I don’t care what I have to do, what I have to take, what I have to endure. I’ll do anything. I just want them to come back.
I take another drink. It doesn’t work. I grab a different bottle, take a larger drink. It doesn’t work. I seize bottle after bottle, take drink after drink, nothing works. Instead of feeling better, I feel increasingly worse. Everything I felt that was good has become bad and it has been magnified beyond any point of reference or comprehension. My only option is to try and kill. Kill what hurts. Kill it.
I switch to the drugs. I take a deep breath and I bury my face in the pile of coke and I inhale and my nostrils turn to fire and the back of my throat becomes an inferno. I take a breath, inhale, take a breath, inhale, take a breath, inhale. Too much too fast and my nose starts bleeding. I wipe the blood away and I take a breath and I inhale. I do it again. The killing has started, but I’m not close to being done.
I rip open the bag of crack and I pull out a handful of small yellow rocks. I wipe the blood again and I snatch the pipe, which is a long straight piece of glass and a screen filter and I start stuffing rocks into it. I fill it, wipe the blood again, fire up the torch, put the pipe in my mouth, bring the white flame to its tip. I inhale. Hot peppermint honey mixed with napalm followed by a rush a thousandfold stronger than the purest powder, a thousandfold more dangerous. I hold and the rush gains speed and power and it grows, consumes and overwhelms me. I feel good again, perfect, magnificent and invincible, like the power of every orgasm I’ve ever had, could ever have and will ever have has been concentrated into a single moment. Oh my God, I’m coming. Oh my fucking God, I’m coming. Let it come let it come let it come let it come. Let it fucking come.
It’s gone as fast as it came and I know it’s gone for good, replaced by fear, dread and a murderous rage. Any pretense of experiencing pleasure disappears. I grab rocks, stuff the pipe, hit. I grab rocks, stuff the pipe, hit. The torch is white and the glass is pink and I feel the skin of my fingers bubbling but it doesn’t bother me. I grab rocks, stuff the pipe, hit. I do it until the bag is empty and then I stuff the bag into the pipe and I smoke the plastic. I have a murderous rage and I need to kill. Kill my heart, kill my mind, kill myself.
There is glue and there is gasoline and I want them both. I grab the glue and I put the end of the tube below my nose and I lay a thick line on the skin between my nostrils and my lip. Each breath brings the stench of Hell and death, each breath brings on the desire for more. I am killing quickly and efficiently now, but not quickly or efficiently enough.
I lean over and place my nose just above the shimmering surface of the gasoline and I stare into the face of chemical annihilation. This face is my friend, my enemy and my only option. I take it.
Breathe in, breathe out, go faster and faster and faster and faster. I don’t feel anything anymore or what I do feel is so powerful that my mind and my body are incapable of allowing it to register. I am comfortable here. This is what I want, what I need and what I must have, and this is where I have been living the last few years of my life.
I realize that I’m cold and I snap and I open my eyes. The Room is dark and quiet. A clock near John’s bed reads six-fifteen. I can hear Warren snoring. I sit up and I rub my body and I shiver. Goose pimples cover my arms and the hair on the back of my neck stands straight and I’m scared. Scared of my dream, scared of the morning, scared of this place and the People in it, scared of a life without drugs and alcohol, scared of myself, scared to deal with myself, scared of the day that lies ahead, scared shitless, scared out of my mind. I’m scared and I’m alone and it’s early in the morning and no one is awake yet.