That's what I tasted when my mind was lifted out of the blackness of sleep.
Sunlight registered through my eyelids, shining bright and fiercely pink on my sheltered eyeballs. They seemed to be the only sensory receptors on my body, for I could feel nothing else. A sharp, painful feeling in my nose as I inhaled through it.
My eye lashes stuck together defiantly as my eyelids creeped open. Immediately I had to narrow them, for the combination of sun and wind on the snow surrounding me made seeing nearly impossible. I was lying on icy snow, packed down hard by the many feet passing through Central Park. My right hand, frozen numb and blue, lay in a bed of broken glass. The cuts had long stopped bleeding.
Taking care not to lay any pressure on my right hand, I struggled to raise myself into a sitting position. My face, though it did not respond to touch, did feel wetness. The copper.
Blood.
I spat on the ground beside me, decorating the surrounding blanket of white with red. Rolling my tongue along the inside of my mouth, I was content to find that all of my teeth were in place. The stinging in my nostrils continued. Out of habit, I swiped at them with my thumb and sniffed. The resulting pain nearly made me drop to the ground again and scream. The blood flowing into my open, sleeping mouth was a result of my nose. My nose was broken.
I sat and waited for the blinding pain to reside. My jeans were soaked and frozen stiff. I took in my surroundings from the ground.
I was a little ways off the main path winding around the trees, shivering in their skeletons, the colorful autumn foliage fallen and crushed under the awesome mass of white. It was November, which meant the snow was a grade school boy's dream. The fields in my eyesight, rich with sweaty, competitive boys kicking soccer balls under the summer sun, now bore evidence of recent snowball fights, a lopsided snowman with a smile even more so, a single lost, forgotten glove, gently tugged this way and that by the wind as it lay frozen to the ground.
To my left, the icy path leads to a clearing, which houses a small pond.
Flashback: holding her small hand, tossing dried corn to the ducks, the pink tip of her nose crinkling as she laughed.
The ducks had long gone by now.
Gingerly I raised my uninjured hand and felt the bridge of my nose. Crooked as ever before, but with an added bump now, a large one on the left. I've broken my nose many times before. It's the kind of thing you have to deal with when you're in the kind of business that I am. Deal with the people I do.
My legs, skinny, frost bitten, sad little things as they were, like loyal old dogs they took up the burden of my weight once more as I stood. I ambled my way down the slippery path, shuffling my numb feet as to prevent the chance of slipping. The broken glass and the bottle neck in the snow receded farther and farther behind me.
As I slowly made my way through the park, I tried to collect my thoughts. My nose began to run, but I didn't dare sniff or wipe again. Instead I gently dab, dab, dabbed with the mangled sleeve of my shabby, miserable coat. Most of the blood had coagulated by now in the cold wind and made breathing difficult.
I attempted to recollect the beginning of my evening. With an extraordinary effort, I managed to recall buying booze, but that happened so often in a day I could barely distinguish the days from each other anymore.
I remembered the feel of a lush shag carpet between my fingers, the enhanced colors of unclear faces around me, the euphoria, the hilarity of it all. I remember doing a line.
My left nostril twitched.
The rest of the evening passed in a delirious, yet familiar, haze. Blackness. Unidentifiable surroundings.
I reached an exit to the park which spilled out onto 5th Avenue. My shoes were in a wretched condition. One purple toe peeked out of the front of my left shoe, while the right boasted frayed, rotten laces, blackened with grime. They had been run ragged. I don't remember the last time I had new shoes. I don't remember the last time I had a new toothbrush.
A snowy phone booth stood resilient against the whistling wind, its shelter tempting and inviting. I scurried inside.
The insides of the windows were marked with black permanent marker, displaying the names of various gangs involving a lot of arrows, indiscernible scrawling and quite a few well-drawn penises. The floor was littered with cigarette butts, a "Roll up the rim to win!" coffee cup and what looked mysteriously like shit in one corner.
I picked up the receiver and placed the cold metal ear piece against my raw, unfeeling ear. A cool female voice prompted me to insert money into the slot in front of me. I fumbled around inside my coat and, with effort, extracted my wafer-thin wallet. Desperately scrabbling around inside the change pocket, I breathed a cloud of misty relief as my numb fingers closed around one quarter. Two quarters. I don't believe in God. I have this thing where, I believe in children. In innocence. And so I thanked every goddamn kid in the New York State I had two quarters left in my wallet.
The machine received my offering with hollow clinks of metal against metal. I struggled to remember my own phone number. Finally, it rang. Once, twice. She should have been home by now. Three rings. Flashback: stringy hair hanging over the bong. Four rings. Yellow teeth displayed in a smoky smile. Five.
A click, someone on the line. The habitual "hello" of answering the phone was lost in the silence.
'Janice?' I venture.
Nothing.
'Jan? I know you're there, answer goddamit.' I was impatient already. I hadn't even had a shot and the sun was already tumbling off its zenith to the west.
'What the fuck you want.' A slurred, hoarse female voice answered.
'How are you, I mean, you doin' alright? You doin' okay?'
'Fuck off.'
'Look, baby," I started, "I woke up in Central again. Are you-'
'Leave me the fuck alone, hey? Where you callin' from, anyway?'
I removed the receiver from my mouth to vomit on the ground. The bile was laced with blood. An old woman walking her inch-long excuse for a dog contorted her face in disgust.
'Hey, you there? Where the fuck you callin' from, anyway?'
My ever-encompassing sleeve faced the unpleasantry of my mouth.
'5th Avenue. Look, I'm comin' home right now, alright, did we get the stuff?'
'Hey, you alright?'
'Did we get the fuckin' stuff, Jan?'
Beeeeeeeeeep.
Flashback: warm hands wrapped around my waist, a delicate raven head tucked neatly under my chin.
I hung up.
Back out on the street, cabs littered the overcrowded streets like fleas on a mutt, big yellow beacons in the midst of the honking, blaring, angry forest of traffic. I took out my battered wallet, and with it dropped out a benzadrine into the snow. I bent to pick it up, popped the Benny, and continued to examine the bill compartment of my wallet. Two crumpled receipts, three dollars and an empty dime bag.
I spat on the dirty ground beside me, lit a cigarette, and began walking the eighteen blocks home.
if I hadn't have felt so shitty, I'd have probably enjoyed it more. I quite like to walk places. Gives you time to think. Cabs smell like sweat and vomit anyway.
I passed a Saks window display and purposely avoided my reflection in the glass. I've always lived on a whim and ignored the consequences. I move forward without looking back at the damage. I walk away. I run. As I determinedly kept my face forward, I began to feel the effects of the Benny. My muscles twitched with energy, my senses were electric. Walking became warp speed and slow motion all at once, the people on the street were hilarious and beautiful and wonderful and I felt like singing and making love to every one of them.
Before I knew it, before I was prepared, I was taking the stairs up to my apartment two steps at a time. As I reached my floor and passed each apartment, I believed I could hear every single person inside them breathing. I found my rusted key and managed to jam it into the lock after some trouble, this making me laugh to myself.
The humour, as with all else positive, was immediately sucked out of the apartment into the hallway. As I closed the door behind me, it only served to seal in the tension.
'Janice?' I called out. Nothing.
I removed neither my shoes nor my jacket. Home was a shabby 300 dollar rent apartment, those kinds where the kitchen and the living room are the same thing. We had a 15-by-22 foot room, the rotted wooden floorboards swollen with yesterday's leakage hosting a moth-eaten green sofa, but you could barely tell the color anymore between all the stains and rips and shit. There was a broken lamp in one corner, a beat-up dirty, springy mattress (stolen from someone's lawn) and a small black and white tv. The kitchen was a counter with a sink and a gas stove oven, and two cabinets on the wall in front of it. The bathroom door was missing. Naturally, the apartment had no a/c or heating, so in the winter, you had to dress really warm. We didn't own anything really warm. I kept my shoes and jacket on.
Janice lay asleep on the sofa, curled under a ragged blanket like an infant. Even through the layers of the blanket and her clothes, you could still see the clear outlines of her ribs slowly rising and falling. Janice is very skinny. Kind of like me. She used to have shiny black hair that perfumed the air when she flicked it, now reduced to dead stringy threads simply hanging down to her waist, frayed and coarse, like a street dog's matted fur. Her hands the size of a porcelain doll's, only not half as pretty. The nails were chewed down until they bled, burn marks and sores all over her fingers. Skin clung to her bones for dear life, as pale as death. Her eyes, when open, were a serene gray green, but even those had lost their expression. The motion of her torso, up and down, up and down, remained to be the only evidence that she was still alive and not simply a corpse. I remember she had a beautiful laugh. Her laugh was rich, golden as it rang out past her perfect teeth. No mouth could match the smile in her eyes. She was tall and willowy, with modest breasts and long, slim legs. She smelled of sandalwood.
This is what Janice looked like before we went down the Rabbit Hole.
I stepped across the debris of empty bags, dirty glasses, bottles, crumbs, dust of the living room floor and opened the cabinets above the sink. Host to countless bottles of whiskey, vodka, rye, gin, tequila, a can of expired tuna, a box of half-eaten crackers somewhere in the back. We don't eat much. I grabbed a Jack Daniels and swigged it as I made my way to the bathroom. The paint was peeling on the walls, cracked and leaking on the ceiling, the toilet in too disgusting of shape for even an ass to look at. We had a shower a regular-sized man would have trouble turning in, but for our skinny bodies it was more than enough room. We could even comfortably fit in there together, those rare times when we were feeling romantic and horny and shit. I walked through the doorway with no door, removed because of the time I got wasted and kicked a hole through it. I forced myself to look in the mirror.
The entire bottom half of my face was covered in hardened blood. From what skin you could see underneath, my nose and cheeks were blue and swollen to the point that I sooner resembled a koala than a human.
I ran the cold water tap and waited for the initial spurt of brown liquid to pass before clear water started to run. Tenderly I rinsed the blood off, allowing the cool temperature to soothe the pain.
When I was finished, I did not look back up at the mirror. Instead, I took another shot of whiskey to take the edge off the pounding in my face. When I came back to the living room, she was laying in the same position, but her eyes were open and staring at me.
'Hey,' she rasped.
'Hey,' I replied.
There was a short silence. She sat up.
'So what happened last night? All I can remember is buying booze,' I said.
'We went to Anita's, her boy got some stronger shit from this connection in California. She said she'd get us in touch with him.' Anita was an extremely wealthy upper-class middle aged New York woman who snorted cocaine and had frequent luxurious parties at her penthouse suite with glass walls and ivory everything. She peddled girls to men for money, in exchange they could stay at her place and get high for free, twenty-four-seven.
'And-and what happened to my nose, d'you know?'
'You picked a fight with some goon from New Orleans, told him to fuck his mother. He punched ya square in the face, you were bleedin' all over the place like an embarrassment or somethin'.'
I felt my nose and tried to imagine the carpet cleaner's face as he steamed the blood out of Anita's white shag carpets.
'Then ya left with Charlie and them, I dunno what after that.'
I gulped the bottle in my hand in response.
She lit a cigarette and I walked back over to the cabinet. I was starting to get the buzz back and didn't feel so nauseous. I replaced the bottle on the shelf, only to notice that it was empty. So I threw it on a pile of clothes on the floor instead and then reached my arm way in the back of the shelf. A metal tin where we kept our dope. I grabbed for it and prised open the lid. Only two baggies left. There were six yesterday morning.
Angrily I shoved the jar back on the shelf and closed the cabinet door hard, turning back to Jan with her red lips, white skin, puffing her cigarette.
I composed my emotions. 'Jan,' I said, 'what happened to the stuff.'
'I sold it.'
The flame of anger ignites inside of me, my voice remains calm. 'And why the fuck'd you sell it, huh? I spent three hours freezing my fucking ass off outside to get that shit.'
'I needed money.' Exhales a stream of gray.
'Money for what, for Chrissake? What else you fuckin' spendin' your money on, Jan? Christ!' My temper was rising.
She became suddenly apprehensive. 'Why'n'cha come here and sit, Elie. Come here and sit so I can talk to ya.'
I was still breathing harder than usual. I debated going to sit. I kicked the wall. I swore. I sat next to Jan.
She put down her cigarette. 'Hey, baby,' she spoke softly, placing her skeletal hand on my leg. 'Don't be mad.'
I turned my head the other way, sitting on our barely-green sofa, fingering a cigarette burn in the seat. This was the couch me and Jan first had sex on. It was the couch we bought when we first moved in together when we were 18. Jan was still 17. I was done school, she couldn't stand living at home anymore, so we bought this small place in a sketchy neighborhood. And we were happy. We bought this little couch and a little coffee table and a little fridge. We used to have a twin bed in the corner since the place was so small, but it was okay with us. We painted the walls ourselves, her sweatpants speckled light blue like a robin's egg. We kept it clean, I made her breakfast sometimes.
This is what our lives looked like before we went down the Rabbit Hole.
We sold the coffee table, the chairs, the bed. Anything for extra cash. We stole a mattress from a lawn to sleep on.
Back on the couch, I turned to look at her beautiful but empty eyes, lined with shadows. We wanted a baby. Two years after we moved in, we wanted a kid. The couch was our first time together. For some reason, Jan couldn't get pregnant. The doctor said that she had a lame ovary, so even on the occasion that out of my zillions of sperm, one singular sperm managed to pull through to the Fallopian tubes, it had only a fifty percent chance of choosing the ovary that would produce a fertilizable egg. Our chances were still plausible, he said, but don't count on it.
Janice was crushed. She wouldn't eat, sleep, she'd only cry or stare. She wouldn't talk to me for a month. I just kept kissing her and telling her we'd have a baby some day. Anyway, I guess while I was worried about her I started drinking a little. It wasn't until I was drinking a lot that I found out Jan was doing crack. Since then we've been getting wasted every day. Booze, chronic, crack, anything. Our bodies will never become as polluted as our minds.
For a moment I forgot why I was mad at her. I wanted to take her icy hand, kiss her, allow her hipbones to cut me as I hug her. I wanted to accept her into my arms, into me. If we eliminated all the space between us, if we got close enough, maybe we could go back in time and love each other again.
'Elie? Don't be mad, hey?' she said. For the first time in a long time, I pulled her into a hug. My face rested in the crook of her neck, shaded by the shelter of her black veil of hair. She seemed uncertain of how to respond, finally resting her spindly arms on my back. We sat like that for a minute or so, then- 'I'm leavin' with Biggie, Elie.'
I pushed her off me. 'What,' I muttered.
'He knows this girl that can really-'
'Who the fuck is "Biggie"?' I hissed.
'He gives me money,' she squeaked.
I took a breath. 'And how do you get the money, Janice?' I asked shakily.
She was silent.
'Janice, how do you make the money?' She was stoking the flames. I was getting scared. I shook her arm. 'Tell me!' I shouted.
I composed my emotions. 'Jan,' I said, 'what happened to the stuff.'
'I sold it.'
The flame of anger ignites inside of me, my voice remains calm. 'And why the fuck'd you sell it, huh? I spent three hours freezing my fucking ass off outside to get that shit.'
'I needed money.' Exhales a stream of gray.
'Money for what, for Chrissake? What else you fuckin' spendin' your money on, Jan? Christ!' My temper was rising.
She became suddenly apprehensive. 'Why'n'cha come here and sit, Elie. Come here and sit so I can talk to ya.'
I was still breathing harder than usual. I debated going to sit. I kicked the wall. I swore. I sat next to Jan.
She put down her cigarette. 'Hey, baby,' she spoke softly, placing her skeletal hand on my leg. 'Don't be mad.'
I turned my head the other way, sitting on our barely-green sofa, fingering a cigarette burn in the seat. This was the couch me and Jan first had sex on. It was the couch we bought when we first moved in together when we were 18. Jan was still 17. I was done school, she couldn't stand living at home anymore, so we bought this small place in a sketchy neighborhood. And we were happy. We bought this little couch and a little coffee table and a little fridge. We used to have a twin bed in the corner since the place was so small, but it was okay with us. We painted the walls ourselves, her sweatpants speckled light blue like a robin's egg. We kept it clean, I made her breakfast sometimes.
This is what our lives looked like before we went down the Rabbit Hole.
We sold the coffee table, the chairs, the bed. Anything for extra cash. We stole a mattress from a lawn to sleep on.
Back on the couch, I turned to look at her beautiful but empty eyes, lined with shadows. We wanted a baby. Two years after we moved in, we wanted a kid. The couch was our first time together. For some reason, Jan couldn't get pregnant. The doctor said that she had a lame ovary, so even on the occasion that out of my zillions of sperm, one singular sperm managed to pull through to the Fallopian tubes, it had only a fifty percent chance of choosing the ovary that would produce a fertilizable egg. Our chances were still plausible, he said, but don't count on it.
Janice was crushed. She wouldn't eat, sleep, she'd only cry or stare. She wouldn't talk to me for a month. I just kept kissing her and telling her we'd have a baby some day. Anyway, I guess while I was worried about her I started drinking a little. It wasn't until I was drinking a lot that I found out Jan was doing crack. Since then we've been getting wasted every day. Booze, chronic, crack, anything. Our bodies will never become as polluted as our minds.
For a moment I forgot why I was mad at her. I wanted to take her icy hand, kiss her, allow her hipbones to cut me as I hug her. I wanted to accept her into my arms, into me. If we eliminated all the space between us, if we got close enough, maybe we could go back in time and love each other again.
'Elie? Don't be mad, hey?' she said. For the first time in a long time, I pulled her into a hug. My face rested in the crook of her neck, shaded by the shelter of her black veil of hair. She seemed uncertain of how to respond, finally resting her spindly arms on my back. We sat like that for a minute or so, then- 'I'm leavin' with Biggie, Elie.'
I pushed her off me. 'What,' I muttered.
'He knows this girl that can really-'
'Who the fuck is "Biggie"?' I hissed.
'He gives me money,' she squeaked.
I took a breath. 'And how do you get the money, Janice?' I asked shakily.
She was silent.
'Janice, how do you make the money?' She was stoking the flames. I was getting scared. I shook her arm. 'Tell me!' I shouted.
Anita.
Anita.
She looked me in the eyes with her dead ones. 'I fuck.'
My fears were realized. I stood up, spun, put my head in my hands. I heard her keep talking, explaining, defending herself, but I couldn't collect my thoughts. My feelings crashed together like two drops of water and ran together, my heart crashing into my stomach. My every breath made a thunderous sound in my ears. I was overwhelmed, I did something I haven't done for years: I cried.
A pale spider on my shoulder tries to console me. 'Elie, I'm sor-'
I spun and hit her. She fell to the floor. I had never hit her before. The buzzing in my head had stopped, I felt clearer, I hit her again. And again. It felt good. This wasn't Janice. It wasn't her anymore. This was some cracked out prostitute. It wasn't Jan.
I hit her for making me start drinking. I hit her for the drugs. I hit her for the baby she couldn't have. Every blow held a different meaning.
Finally, I stood again and caught my breath. I looked down at her sprawled figure, shaking and broken on the ground. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, already there were purple bruises developing on her frail body. She was shaking, but not crying. All the while I beat her, she did not make a sound.
But her eyes. Her eyes were no longer dead. Through the hair that clung to her face, under the arm that feebly shielded her, she looked at me and I saw, like a whirlwind, every feeling in the world pass through her to me as if an electric current bonded us both in the space that separated air to floor. Shock, sadness, regret, understanding. She knew what she had done to us. 'I love you,' she whispered from the ground. I didn't look back as I slammed the front door behind me. No consequences.
I took the whiskey with me. I drank and vomited in turn, smashed the empty bottle on a church. I stumbled all the way to the bridge that divides New York from Brooklyn. I stepped between the bars in my drunken stupor and stood hanging off the side of the bridge, staring into the black currents below. My own putrid, alcoholic breath stung my nostrils. My face was swollen from cold and my broken nose.
It was dark outside, no one could see me. My body wouldn't be found until tomorrow, maybe not even for days, I thought. If I jumped.
She looked me in the eyes with her dead ones. 'I fuck.'
My fears were realized. I stood up, spun, put my head in my hands. I heard her keep talking, explaining, defending herself, but I couldn't collect my thoughts. My feelings crashed together like two drops of water and ran together, my heart crashing into my stomach. My every breath made a thunderous sound in my ears. I was overwhelmed, I did something I haven't done for years: I cried.
A pale spider on my shoulder tries to console me. 'Elie, I'm sor-'
I spun and hit her. She fell to the floor. I had never hit her before. The buzzing in my head had stopped, I felt clearer, I hit her again. And again. It felt good. This wasn't Janice. It wasn't her anymore. This was some cracked out prostitute. It wasn't Jan.
I hit her for making me start drinking. I hit her for the drugs. I hit her for the baby she couldn't have. Every blow held a different meaning.
Finally, I stood again and caught my breath. I looked down at her sprawled figure, shaking and broken on the ground. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, already there were purple bruises developing on her frail body. She was shaking, but not crying. All the while I beat her, she did not make a sound.
But her eyes. Her eyes were no longer dead. Through the hair that clung to her face, under the arm that feebly shielded her, she looked at me and I saw, like a whirlwind, every feeling in the world pass through her to me as if an electric current bonded us both in the space that separated air to floor. Shock, sadness, regret, understanding. She knew what she had done to us. 'I love you,' she whispered from the ground. I didn't look back as I slammed the front door behind me. No consequences.
I took the whiskey with me. I drank and vomited in turn, smashed the empty bottle on a church. I stumbled all the way to the bridge that divides New York from Brooklyn. I stepped between the bars in my drunken stupor and stood hanging off the side of the bridge, staring into the black currents below. My own putrid, alcoholic breath stung my nostrils. My face was swollen from cold and my broken nose.
It was dark outside, no one could see me. My body wouldn't be found until tomorrow, maybe not even for days, I thought. If I jumped.
Right.
Now.
I thought of Janice. I thought of my mother and my father and my sister Maryn. I thought of a small, dark-haired boy with gray green eyes and my lanky build. "Dad," he mouthed. My right foot slipped slightly, sending ice particles floating down, down into the blackness. I did not lower it. I let my leg hover over the abyss. I leaned forward.
'Hello?' A groggy female voice answered.
'It's me, it's Elie. I'm coming home, Maryn.'
I heard my sister's voice through the receiver as I shut my eyes and leaned against the phone booth wall.
Flashback: a laugh. A golden laugh, the brightest smile, the fondest memory.
I thought of Janice. I thought of my mother and my father and my sister Maryn. I thought of a small, dark-haired boy with gray green eyes and my lanky build. "Dad," he mouthed. My right foot slipped slightly, sending ice particles floating down, down into the blackness. I did not lower it. I let my leg hover over the abyss. I leaned forward.
'Hello?' A groggy female voice answered.
'It's me, it's Elie. I'm coming home, Maryn.'
I heard my sister's voice through the receiver as I shut my eyes and leaned against the phone booth wall.
Flashback: a laugh. A golden laugh, the brightest smile, the fondest memory.
