twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine

Twenty-six...

I haven't left my apartment for over three days now. In fact, I haven't even opened the curtains in at least two days. I have even, for the time being, given up shaving and the growth on my face is starting to take form. Not any sort of form that is anyway good but it does add something to me that I can't really describe. My plants could probably use a little light. I turned a couple of them the other day because they were starting to tilt far too far to the right and I'm hoping that they'll bend the other way now. It seems though that this bending is taking its time as they've hardly, if at all, moved since I turned them over a week ago. They look healthy but could be, for all I know, dying inside. The leaves are green and full but they somehow seem sick.
And, in a move that could only be regarded as fateful, I went out a few day back and purchased a carton of cigarettes. Thus giving up the illusion, an illusion that only applied to me and not to those around me, that I wasn't really smoking that much and that I had it under some sort of control. And in the days since purchasing them have smoked more than my usual pack and a bit a day. In fact in the past three or four days have gone through seven packs from the carton of ten. It's as if I'm daring god to strike me down with cancer and really get this show on the road. Bring it on Big Daddy, bring it on. My hands, or at least my fingers, are showing the signs of my increased habit. Yellow patches of skin now grace my index and middle finger of my right hand, the true sign of a man with a knack for the taste of smoke and a love of nicotine.
The World Series has started and now seems as good a time as any to stay home and watch television. Jamie and I often call each other during the games when something happens, a home run or great play in the field. The cable's been paid for well in advance so I may as well use it. My friend, Dave, in Toronto, sometimes calls as well, on his dime, and we always end up talking sports and all that it entails. He has more knowledge than I do in regards to stats and numbers but we both know our stuff in regards to the game itself. I have, for the past few years, made predications as to who will be where in regards to the standings at the end of the year, with him doubting me almost always. I have been very close in the past few years so I feel I have placed myself in good standing with him. Dave is one of the few people I know who has, in the past made a living writing for magazines, newspapers and has had stories published in short story anthologies. He's interested in what I'm doing but somehow I feel he thinks I'm a bit off. The way things have been going he could be right.
I wonder, sometimes how I'm going to put this all together. The chapters I have written, the order in which they will appear. The chapters or bits are more a reflection of how I see things now more than they are representation of the things I have actually been doing. They all seem, the chapters, interchangeable, like the story is more a series of vignettes more than it is a accurate time line of someone's life and times. A film maker friend of mine, Mina, told me she often writes as if all the different scenes could be put anywhere and still make the film a cohesive piece and I feel as if I'm somehow assembling several moments and scenes that will somehow be in order later on. The different scenes reflecting the way I view things now, the casual sex with women I have just met, drugs I have taken against my better judgment, the lure of excitement and how I regard those around me now. How I now have a better understanding of those who do the things I have been doing in hopes of gaining life experience except that they live that life everyday. How I see the world around me with a lot more clarity, albeit I'm out of my head often times when I'm experiencing it. The nights of excess are talking there toll on me without a doubt. My chest often hurts in the morning from nights spent in smoky after hours bars, another a smoke hangover. My eyes bloodshot and watery. I have gained the look of a man hell bent for something. Dark rings lie under my eyes from a lack of sleep, my skin has taken on a ruddy complexion, while not harsh, it's a few steps off my usually clean straight up look, the facial hair doesn't help much either. A good shower and shave are definitely in order, maybe I'll even open the curtains and see what's up in the alley.
As I open the curtains I see that the action in the alley is in full swing with the junkies seemingly holding court next to a dumpster. The arms of their shirts rolled up tightly with loaded needles at the ready somehow it all seems so organized today. Some days there seems to be a haphazard approach to what their doing but today it's as if they all given a easy to follow instructional booklet on how to get the most out of their equipment and the proper procedure to get the maximum benefits out of their junk. As if I can feel their grime on me, I head for the shower and decide to wash off the dirt of the last three days, shave the hair from my face. Then, after the hosedown, head up to Sunrise Market to get a load of groceries, including a large portion of veggies to get myself back on track and ready for more adventures in the world I have recently become a large part of. Lord knows you can't fly without fuel.


Twenty-seven...

Storybook romance (end of innocence.. Add to others.)

Her place smells like an old apartment I had years ago when I lived in the West End. The walls there were falling apart with the insulation poking through in spots. The floor creaked every time you stepped anywhere on it, the windows cracked and the sinks all green from years of water making its way through corroded copper pipes. A hooker and her kid lived net door and my sister was down the hall popping pills to wake up each morning.
Her place has none of this but the feel is the same. A feeling of neglect seems to sit about the place. Damp and full of the smell of mildew. I've been here for a few days now after meeting her in a seedy bar far on the east side of town. She had been out trying to forget life and I was out and in the right place at the right time for her. Her husband's been away for a week or so and she says she has no idea when he's coming home. I have made to leave several times but have failed because, quite frankly, the sex sells itself. She's older than me, much older, and the things she has taught me about sex and fucking make me want for more each time I go to leave. Each time, as I get set to leave she presents herself to me each time taking complete control over me. Her hands touching me with the softness of a woman much younger than herself but with the wisdom of a woman who has been there, done that.
I've lied to her. Or rather I have neglected to tell her anything about myself. She's asked very little of me or about me but when she does I have lied, completely. In bed her hands run over me as she asks about who I am, where I came from, where I went to school, where my parents live and where I work. My name is the only thing she knows for sure or at least thinks she knows. I lied about that as well when she asked. I feel no need to give up more than she needs to know. I won't be around when her husband finally comes back so why pretend that I will?
Tonight though, I will take her to the places she wants to see. The places I have told her about. The booze cans she missed the first time around. While she is at least twice my age he could and can easily pass for many years less than that so she shouldn't feel too out of place. I want to show her my world. The places I go where no one really knows me but they know that I fit in and know what's what. The places where junkies mix with jacked up stock brokers and lost artists. The places deep in the back alleys of Chinatown, places down three flights of stairs that are nothing more than shooting galleries and places to hide out from the rest of society. Tonight I will fuck her in the back room of a booze can because she has always wanted to do it where someone may see, where she could get caught.
She's in the kitchen and I can she her catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror above the sink as she washes the dishes from our dinner. I have been away from this type of domestic structure for so long that it feels as if I'm living at home again with my parents except this time I'm sleeping with someone old enough to be my mother. And all the time, as of late, I have spent lately coursing through the streets of Vancouver seeking out the things that drive us all seems to be coming to some sort of a head. Watching others go through all the motions, the dance as it were. All the while wanting someone to take along for the ride, someone to experience the sickness. The nights spent in bed with those I had only met hours before, the charge in my heart as I held a syringe full of heroin seconds before plunging it into my arm, the feeling of hopelessness after waking up in an alley after a night of drinking and unknown quantities of drugs. She wants to experience all of these things, and she wants to do it all with me. I'm the one she's been looking for and when it's over she'll throw me away. I know this. Maybe I'll want to do the same.
I'm eager to leave and I tell her so. Her car is parked out in front of her building and we decide to take it as mine is down a few blocks. Also, because my car is far more recognizable to all of my friends it works out better for me that we go in hers. I haven't been in touch with anyone since I've been staying at her place and if I can keep a low profile until this is all over it's all for the better. I have been questioned lately about my motives, my actions as of late. It's in me is all I can say, we all have something inside us. I, while not always trying to do so, find the worst society has to offer, I always have. I know right now that I'm being used, much like I have used others before. So what's the big deal? It's not as if I don't know. I do. She wants something and I'm here to provide it. I have been around the block, many times. She hasn't, she wants to go around at least once.
I have told her about my drug use, my driving to bars and taking home whoever it was I could convince that night, my driving the streets late at night and watching those at clubs as they went through the motions of picking of others. She, while not knowing much else about me, about my weakness', what I fear, where I'm afraid to go. And maybe even why. And I, on the other hand, know what she wants, what she's afraid of and even how she's weak. We're using each other and we both know it, even though neither one of us has said it. We don't need to.
We drive downtown and though it heading for Chinatown and a place I know where we can see the city from the inside out. As we drive down Hastings I get her to take a left onto Abbott Street and then tell her to pull over next to the hotel at the corner of Cordova Street. As soon as I roll down the window a dealer has made his way up to the window and I tell him I need a couple of rocks, maybe a few if he's got some. He holds out his hand and shows me five good size pieces of feebase and tells me the price. Without asking I reach into her purse and find a fifty and fold it up and give it to him. Before I know it we're off down Cordova and then into an alley behind, of all places the police station on Main Street.
I had, earlier in the day, gotten a glass pipe from store on Hastings and was, for the first time about to freebase. She, however, didn't know this was the case and I figured why let the cat out of the bag now? She had this idea about me, one based on things I had told her, things she took as the truth. Why ruin it now?
The smoke filled the car and I sensed, for the first time, that maybe she thought she had taken this thing a little too far. Her hand held the pipe as I lit the end and the crack took on its amber glow. Her eyes told the story of a woman lost in her own time. A woman who up until a week ago was, seemingly happy at home with her husband and her regular, if a little boring, day job. A woman who had raised three kids, put them through school, watched them grow up, had watched them fail, watched them win and was now in a car with a man she hardly knew and smoking crack.
Her hands trembled as she took the pipe away from her mouth and fell back into her seat. And for the first time, for the first time in a long time, I felt badly. Like I had taken someone too far. Not like the women I had taken home many times before, not like the young woman I knew who asked me for a ride and then tried to seduce me. Not like the leading on of people to get whatever it was that I wanted. This time I had maybe ruined someone. And maybe there was no turning back now. Caught up in it all she places another rock into the pipe and asks me to light it. I know as soon as she takes the first pull that this will be the last time I see her like this and that I will be heading home tonight to sleep in my own bed.
As the smoke clears in the car I can see she has her hand between her legs and is rubbing herself. Her eyes are closed and her mouth is moving and forming words but there is no sound. I move towards her to try and hear and as if she knows I will do this she reaches up as I move towards her and grabs the back of my head and pulls me down to her chest and then tells me she wants me to fuck her.
The act is the thing she's been looking for. The end to a weekend of sex with a man she hardly knows, in fact, doesn't know. The thrill of getting caught, the infidelity, the high from the, up until then, unknown drug, the strange hands on her body. I know now that, as I did seemingly seconds before but now more clearly, that after it's all over I'll be gone, at least from her life.
Pulling her over to my side of the car and on top of me I can see in her eyes the look of a little girl who has lost her way. Her hair covers my face as we kiss and in one shift motion she reaches down and undoes my pants. The beginning of the end had just begun.


Twenty-eight...

The e-mail's regarding the group sex have stopped coming and I can't help thinking I was simply being taken for a ride and that, maybe, that was for better. The net is full of people posting things they have no intention of following through with and this seems to be the case here. What was I thinking anyway? Would I have gone through with it? I guess in many respects now that I have set in motion so many things that I would never have done that I probably would have. My friend Aaron had read all the mail and was game to come along as well and see what happened and has been asking me what the latest with it was and I had to tell him that, indeed, nothing was happening. Alan, the organizer, had seemingly, disappeared from the face of the earth and when I decided to e-mail him and ask him what the latest was he responded saying that it was on hold and that the women had gotten cold feet. And while he added that he still intended to go through with it, and that the women were simply still deciding I knew it was all over and that if I wanted to find something else like this I would have to look elsewhere. I think I'll let it go for now I've got other things to figure out right now.
Kevin calls and is on about the church idea and to tell him that I've had put it on the back burner simply because I've had been holed up in my apartment because I needed a break from the weirdness. I do say, however that I do plan to go through with it at some point, even though I know that I'm lying. That all my plans got put aside due to my greater interest in the night life I have been experiencing, and that I still want him to be with me when I do it. Religion, and all that I thought of it, had taken a back seat of late as I explored other options, I tell him. Explored? Shit. I was damn near charting a completely new course for others to follow.
"I think I've found other stuff to do."
"Like what, I mean I've heard things but..." Kevin stopped seemingly not knowing what to say next.
"What have you heard?"
"Just that no one has really seen that much of you and that when they do you often have this glazed look in your eyes"
"Just a lack of sleep, I'm not eating right..." I say as if defending myself as if I need to.
"What's this about the Legion with Vern?"
"I can't really tell you much, I don't remember any of it."
"Vern said..."
"Well, what Vern says and what really happened could be two very separate things..." I stop realizing I don't really know what I'm talking about, "But then again, who knows?"
"Are you going to snap out of this?"
"I suppose, but sometimes I wonder. I mean, how can I go back to living a rather sedate lifestyle after all this?"
"What do you mean?"
"In the last few months I have drank more than I ever have, slept with people I only met hours before, some old enough to be my mom. Done drugs I had only seen people use from my balcony. Smoked like a man on fire. And now I find myself out looking all the time for more."
"But you have a reason, right? It's all suppose to lead somewhere."
"Sure. I hope so. I. Mean, I have been writing some. But it all seems so disjointed. Little slices of life that I have to somehow put into place so that it all makes sense. So it justifies what I've been doing."
"I wouldn't worry. You're too smart to let this become a lifestyle you'll stick with."
"Sure." I say trying to believe what Kevin's saying
I know what he's saying makes sense but it's as if I've adopted this new found freedom as a new lifestyle. For now at least. All the free time I have has become a curse. The not having to get up every day and go to work. No clock to punch, no boss to report to. The unemployment cards keep coming and I keep signing them waiting each week for the cheques to come in so I'll have a little cash to spend how I see fit.
"I've got to go, Kevin. Maybe we can meet up later at Subbeez for some lunch I need something in me besides bad dollar pizza."
"I'll be downtown later near there so why don't I just meet you there?"
"Call me when you're there and I can just walk over."
Several options, in terms of employment have come up lately and I wonder if I should exploit them. A couple of days a week at a cafe near my house has been offered to me, the food there would do me good. I've also been told of a few things I could do at a radio station I used to work at, some freelance stuff that could net me a few hundred bucks here and there. A gas station I used to put in time at called and said they needed someone to pump gas and do the odd oil change. Shit, when I worked there before I practically destroyed the cars that came in there putting all the additives in the wrong places. All of this could help me get out off this rut I'm getting myself into and maybe keep me out of trouble for a while. Getting up with some purpose would probably be a good thing.
At two-thirty Kevin calls and say he's at the restaurant and I tell him I'll meet him there as soon as I can. He tells me he's a little short and could I front him a few bucks until next week, like I'm in any position to give him what little cash I have. I tell him I'll take care of it today but that I would like to see my paintings finished by the end of the century if at all possible. He seems insulted and I quickly tell him not to be so sensitive and that it's no problem. Gathering up my stuff I head downstairs and decide that instead of walking I'll take my car just in case Kevin needs a ride somewhere after. It's also raining and I've decided that I've had enough of the wetness here on the wet coast and feel no guilt driving the few blocks to Subbeez. God made the gas and lord knows I'm going to use it.


Twenty-nine...

Leeanne calls just as I'm leaving and tells me she's quitting her job and going back to school. I wonder what drives her sometimes and wish I could maybe get a little of what it is she's got. She seems to have an endless supply of energy and always has a plan, something I don't. She's decided to go to college and get a degree, or something-a piece of paper, in multimedia, web page design, cd rom authoring and whatever else comes along. Lord knows she can do it and she probably will. I let her know that I'm behind her but tell her I have to get going to meet Kevin and figure out what I'm doing with my life. She asks if she can come along because she needs to get out of the house and would like to see me. I tell her if she can be ready quickly I'll pick her up on the way. She passes on the ride but says she'll meet us there in about a half hour as she's over at her boyfriend's house, or rather a guy she's 'just fucking' at the present time. Her description not mine.
Leeanne and I used to date, in fact we went out for several months on two separate occasions but due to my lack of concentration, among others things, broke up for good a few years back. She has become one of my best friends and seems to understand me better than anyone. The fact that she's 'just fucking' someone right now makes me feel as if I'm not the only one out there having meaningless sex. Maybe it's just my way of justifying my current course, maybe I just like to think of her having sex because I can picture it, maybe I just like the pain of picturing it. Whatever the case, I like it.
As I exit my underground parking I see an ambulance in front of my building, a rather common sight, with the attendants down on the knees attending to a junkie who has overdosed or fallen. His shirt is off and they're in the middle of trying to revive him. Blood is on the pavement by his head which indicates he has fallen down and as I look closer I recognize him as a guy who is often in front of my building wandering around looking lost at the best of times. His jeans are wet in the crotch as if he's wet himself and I wonder for a moment if maybe he's actually died this time. Others on the street continue to walk by as if nothing is happening except for a few who stop for a second to get a good look at the one less fortunate than themselves. I check the traffic coming down Cordova and when it clears head past the ambulance and down the street making my way towards Homer Street and Subbeez restaurant.
Subbeez can only be described as the place the young and fashionable go to eat. A large space off the beaten track that sports wait staff very in tune with what's what and all that's hip. Cement, steel and enough candles, that they let drip onto the ground, make it far too cool for the likes of me. Kevin, however, because of his arty nature, fits in even if he's an old guy like myself.
Kevin's seated in the back far from the center of the action and I notice him only because I see his hat, which seems to never leave his head. As I walk towards the table I pass a couple of the waitress'' that I know, say hi and think things I shouldn't be thinking and know if any of them ever came true I could die a happy man. Sometimes I'm in love with my mind's eye because in this case it's all I've got, and all I'll ever get.
"You look tired." Kevin says as I sit down at the table
"I am. I'm not getting alot of sleep, too much in my head it seems."
"I don't think I've ever seen you with bags under you're eyes."
"It's a new development to be sure. Leeanne's meeting us here."
I say trying to change the subject.
"I'd like to.."
"Careful, Kevin. "
"What do you mean?"
"I used to date her. Maybe you've forgotten."
"You used to date everyone. Maybe you've forgotten."
"I get the point."
Kevin is exaggerating, I have dated my fair share of women but, up until recently never regarded it as all that casual. One seven year relationship and a load of six month to year relationships that still mean alot to me. Love it seems is something I have always fallen easily into. Lately though it seems as if I have come to separate the two, the sex and the love. Love now seems like a distant memory while sex has taken center court and has, of late been, on display for all to see. Or at least for all to hear about.
"I've been thinking about these job ideas alot."
"What jobs?"
"Lisa wants me to work at Mondo Lisa on Cordova street, the radio station called and said they have a few things they'd like me work on. But I don't know if I'm ready for real employment, not yet."
"What do you mean? This would be the perfect thing for you. Some structure."
"I know but I wonder if I've seen enough of the stuff I need to write my book. Gained enough dirt to write about. To make my life look like it's worth writing about."
"Shit, man. You've been burning it so hard I'm surprised, knowing how you really are, that you've gone this far."
"Sure, but all the ideas I have haven't added up to much so far. I mean, I write them down as I see them or how I feel about them and I wonder about putting it all together."
"I haven't seen them but I know you've done enough low lifeing to last a lifetime."
"I have chapters stored away in my head that are just dying to get out. But I wonder if anyone will want to read about a guy, even if I present it as fiction, who leads a truly disgusting lifestyle. A life that has become mine."
"But it's not really your life, you can step back from it, can't you."
"I suppose."
"I write songs that are about all sorts of things but as I play them now those experiences are at a distance."
"But I've been living this shit every day now for the past six months or more, ever since I decided to write this thing."
"But you can't continue to live this way."
"I know."
As if on cue, Leeanne walks in and heads towards our table. Her hair is wet as if she couldn't find a parking spot close enough and has had to walk in the rain to the restaurant. It's odd, even though we've become great friends on a purely platonic level, I always feel a sense of regret, for the first couple of seconds wherever I see her. I have even made jokes to her saying that no matter what happens we're going to end up married someday. Sometimes I think it's really going to happen.
"Why are you guys sitting in the back?"
"It's easier on our hearts." I say in reference to the waitress'
"We're too old to have that kind of stress put on us. If we get too close it'll kill us." Kevin adds saying what I'm thinking.
"You guys kill me." Leeanne says settling into the booth and pulling out fresh pack of camels. "Why don't you pick on someone your own age? "
"We do. We just like to put ourselves through this hell because somehow it makes us feel better in the long run."
"I don't feel better in the long run." Kevin says looking at me across the table. "I usually feel like shit."
"Well, you've gotta work on that. It's all about perspective." I say lighting Leeanne's smoke.
When we went out Leeanne had just quit smoking and I now feel a sense of responsibility towards her smoking now. She had made the decision to quit and then I came along to wreck it for her. We'd be out and I'd light up a Winston and test her willpower. Before long she was bumming drags off of my smokes and taking the odd whole smoke from my pack. Before I knew it she was back in the fold smoking as if she had never quit. As I watch her now pulling on her Camel, I feel as if I was the reason she began again and, in an offhand way feel badly. But then again, maybe I was able to bring back to her something she really loved but thought she could be without. For that I feel, as perverse as it may sound, happy I could provide.
I tell Leeanne about the job offers and how I don't know if I'm ready to go back to working just yet. Practically a regurgitation of what I said to Kevin before she arrived. All my doubts and worries. She looks as if she's about to laugh at one point but holds off when she sees I'm completely serious.
"But you've always worked. Why wouldn't you want to now?" Leeanne says butting out her half finished smoke
"Maybe because it's been a while since I've had to. "
"But you're going to have to soon, right? When the cash runs out." Kevin says stealing one of liana's smokes. "You can't ride the gravy train forever."
"I've still got a few weeks of unemployment cheques coming in.'
"That's pathetic." Leeanne says now clearly disgusted with me. "You've got to get over this idea that you can ride this thing out for all it's worth."
"I know. I'll get it together." I say waving to the waitress hoping to break this train of thought up by having her come over to take our order.
We order a few drinks and tell her to just order us anything to eat because none of us can decide what we want. She seems unhappy with the idea of having to order for us but then as if it all comes to her says ok and is off to the kitchen to place our orders.
The rest of the time is spent talking shop with Kevin, who has recently begun making new old furniture, talking about how to make new things look old and decayed and Leeanne telling us how she was thinking about quitting her job and going back to school. I listened to them thinking all the while that I had probably said enough and that I had better get it together soon lest I lose sight of the real world and keep living in the one I had formed for myself. We end up getting an omelet, a lamb burger and a bowl of leek soup, Leeanne and Kevin decide to just keep on drinking using the smokes as their main course. I eat the omelet. I've always been good for breakfast anytime.