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dream a little dream for me
#WritcoStoryChallenge
The footsteps following me sounded closer. I ran through the empty corridors of the hospital, my heart pounding with terror.
I turned a corner and stopped short. I had reached a dead end. The Dreamer by Lex Parise
The head was almost obscured by the big black bee stung hands; but if one looked closely one could make out the panic ridden face of a soon to be deceased....chicken.The sound that started to echo from its flapping beak was not a shrill scream but a soul-searching screech,that started low and started to build, until it startled me awake on the sudden turn at 77th street subway station where poultry became real.I blinked twice.... once.. rubbed ....and then muffled a sickness yawn...across from my now semi focused eyes was the most out-of-place ...blue-eyed blond haired boy , his hippie coiffure straying lazily down one side of his almost laughingly gorgeous face.The humorous almost macabre part of this angelic visage is that in three short years he'd be in prison for the murder of a young mother ....he would take a lamp; when surprised suddenly during a b and e and bash her brains to a sickening silent halt but for now he was my partner ...one of two.....he was Peter... My eyes were sick- flowing tears with a mixture of a need and unspoken sadness. My blond associate became clear ...he was giving me the headtilt to the right ,a non-verbal way of saying "look at this".I looked... it was an old man scratching his nose rubbing his face in a half nod which embodied a lifetime of so many disappointments..I smiled. I understood what he meant... it was that hope that we too would be soon in that glorious condition .That tragic dichotomy:
Of why have you forsaken me?..and do this in memory of me. The clatter clash of the broken and bruised subway car almost knocked our junkie Jesus to the floor and woke us to the here and now .......I closed my eyes in a futile attempt to relax my legs and stop the incessant banging of my knees....my uncle thought this was the secret to keeping thin... in fact it was one of the features of a unstoppable anxiety that had been with me since early on in my life. The waiting, the going, the getting was the way of the modern Burroughs.... when we looked back in future years... going would be romanticized, waiting would be pushed far back into our memories and the getting would be the silent enemy never defeated.
The hallway was plaster filled poverty.Smelling of dinner,supper and dirt.It made it clean.The young lords the Spanish answer to the black Panthers had a store front next door.
We started up the worn out steps made quieter by the early morning ,we needed and the third floor was holding out the hand of bliss ;as long as your hand had the money ...I shouted Peter.. the money ...he seemed lost in a story of my design ....what ?he awoke .I have it in my hand ...ok gimme. Peter knocked..... a short pudgy woman dealer answered.We copped 35 capsules(first and last time ever had capsule dope).Took 3 apiece for our own private cookers. I hid 19 in my sock while the rest we stuck in a hole in the wall...Peter and I calmly took our works from their respective receptacles...The eye dropper with a pacifier attached to it ,with a rubber band to give it whoosh....I tore a piece of a dollar bill a small strand and handed to peter and did one for myself ..I placed it in my mouth, wet it and wound it on the tip of the glass dropper ,this "collar" would keep the needle secure......that done I placed the hypo down gently on my pants leg and started to empty the 5 capsules into my spoon ;while peter used his old bottle cap with wire handle, it was a matter of preference...Even though our Spanish lady would not allow us to get off in her apt;she had supplied us with a glass of water ,generosity knows no bounds.My spoon full. I carefully sucked up the water into the dropper....and squirted it slowly into my white blacken covered spoon.....I raised the mixture with a surgeons care, lit a bic and slowly cooked my concoction....the white became a lite Brown water.....picking up the dropper I sucked the liquid up using a tiny piece of cotton to collect all the germs,all the disease,all the hepatitis,all the dreams,loves and innocence;The small dirty white ball protected us from it all.After a flicking of the finished product to remove any death-dealing bubbles I slid the piece of dulled steel into my belt wrapped arm .I was waiting for the bubble looking at the glass tube, for a bubble of blood a delicious bubble of blood ; So I would know that I had a hit and then I could slowly squeeze the pacifier and shoot the brown liquid and wait for the warmth of the drug the all-encompassing warmth of "the"drug...because nothing could replace the feeling of no more worries no more problems no more dirt no more lost loves no more shattered dreams no more dead grandfathers no more .....
....we booted the liquid a half a dozen times sending the blood back into the arm to maybe capture a glimpse of the initial rush...but eventually we pulled the dropper from our scarred pit and hastily sanitized it with 2 or 3 squirts of water...... It was time to go and I went to retrieve the other caps from the wall but they had fallen behind ..I shouted at the wall.FUCK...I knocked at the door ...Our dope fell behind the wall ....sorry nuthin I can do.. you have to go ,too much in hallway ...go now ..I protested...I need to get the ...No she screamed..you have to go now...Peter said c'mon lets get out of here.....We scurried sleepily down the steps at the almost bottom we were greeted with....
Whose got duh dope.? .....A machete wielding Spanish take off artist said with an angry sing-song accent and a anger intensified by a craving and a little jealousy at theses white boys copping and getting high without him........the brown handle cutter that was raised in one motion to Peter's throat....again with a more throaty guttural snarl came "who got duh dope"?......Wait I said... looking into the pinned pleading eyes of peter ....stop ok stop I was about to reach down into the sock hideaway..when a wonderful George Harrison obscure album burst upon the my thought process, the wall ...I said triumphantly. The dope is behind the wall I pleaded.....the blade dug deeper into my almost bent backwards partner's now bleeding skin.. ..no! no really! it's behind the wall ,upstairs; I looked skyward with an encouraging nod... it fell behind the wall; come on I'll show you..our attacker looked puzzled pensive..... should he cut deeper or go take a look...
The wall fell like the Roman empire to the huns....screaming Spanish and English combinations of what the fuck are you doing.... my delightful dope dealer was livid...my new machete man told her in spanglish to shut the fuck up...And behind that shattered wall sitting on a cross beam was that playtime bag of capsule dreams.....Machete man grabbed it and as I tailed him down the steps I heard in ever decreasing shouts.... don't you ever come back...my mind didn't give a Fuck about that. I was buzzing incessantly in my nemesis ear ...trying to reason with my new knife compadre....hey! part of that dope is mine.. hey! we need to split THAT...hey, we're partners on that.hey, you know I told you in was in the wall...hey, hey, hey !Where are we going...hey! hey! .. he turned to me with an exasperated look.. ok just shut up! I smiled inside, motioned to peter to come on and followed my new-found friend into the abandoned house to become blood brothers in a heroin kind of way.So the ritual was repeated; it is not worth describing .Suffice to say the bargain between the new-found friends was along the lines of ...The bags were divvied up. The works,the belts, the blood, the booting ,the head bob and then the head nod; that melted into the silent, soulful
sleep......The room smelled of alcohol,misery,and shattered dreams.Behind the blue curtain of emergency room 13 stood a group of shadowy figures all moving and gesturing like a Chinese shadow play.Suddenly a head pops out of the shadows and looks matter of factly at me.....She's dead she says.....I feel the scream come to my mouth but nothing escapes ...a rush of memories shoots by on rapid machine-gun film screen and then I hear the scream but realize its coming from somewhere deep within the earth....As I come to grips with these oddities the same death dealing nurse speaks again ...Wait we got her back she's alive...I hear myself telling myself alex its ok......which morphs into lex we have to go then we got her back alex......the words floated in these 3 second durations. As the word "Alex" morphed into lex it became " lex let's get out of here" ....I raised my wonderfully half closed eyes shook off the daymare and slowly rose to my feet ...On the way home we were comrades with holes in our arms...The train ride was a mixture of dope-fiend tall tales... and half nod laughs...By the time we pulled into Newark we were sorry to see our new-found friend go...two hours before he had almost cut Peter's throat but now the misery of addiction had us in a hug swapping hand slapping nose itching goodbyes....So our journey was now almost complete.My eyes half closed,a quick nod smile at Peter and then.... The street was filled with kids:laughing yelling and playing.From out of the crowd came a single voice "first to see the street lights go on".I waited for the whistle, my father's signal that is was time to come home....I waited.. but instead the street turned dark .I was alone.Except for a single shadow across from me on the other side .It was illuminated by a flickering, spitting fire burning in a trash barrel.Slowly it came into focus it was my grandfather,my dead grandpa.I called out ;what are doing here .Where are you going?He pointed down the road..I started towards him .He waved both hands pleading with me to stop.I just wanted to hold him one last time kiss him on his weathered cheek; feel his warmth that I felt so rarely in my life.I asked "can I come with you?He nodded no.He pointed towards the night sky and slowly walked away.From behind I heard a voice" next stop Asbury Park".
The train slowed to a dream ending halt.....I gazed over at Peter, he looked at peace ...at peace with the present ...at peace with the past ....at peace with the old man nuzzling his head on his blond locks...cmon Pete let's go were home ...Peter I softly screamed... he finally stirred gave a disgusted shrug to the old man .pushing him roughly off his shoulder....and stood up smiling he was still fucked up...I jumped down the four steel steps to the dirt of asbury park......glanced down the street where it's a "hard to be a saint."..and saw coming closer with a jersey city walk our third partner ...Gary ..he was a sport specimen turned addict, still with the muscle that said "don't fuck
with me" but with a grizzled street look that comes with the constant chaos that a heroin run demands......I wanted to tell him of our trials, of our death machetes,of all our troubles but I thought for one second that I saw worry in his eyes ...was he glad we had made it home ..because we had been gone so long had he thought we had been busted or beat or had been hurt ...I hastened my steps Peter lagged sheepishly behind ..and as Gary threw his big hands over my shoulders his mouth came inches from my ear.he was my partner he was my friend he was going to give this tired worn out dreamed out man a glimmer of compassion He whispered softly with a sardonic smile....and a slight Spanish accent.... Who got duh dope ?
The footsteps following me sounded closer. I ran through the empty corridors of the hospital, my heart pounding with terror.
I turned a corner and stopped short. I had reached a dead end. The Dreamer by Lex Parise
The head was almost obscured by the big black bee stung hands; but if one looked closely one could make out the panic ridden face of a soon to be deceased....chicken.The sound that started to echo from its flapping beak was not a shrill scream but a soul-searching screech,that started low and started to build, until it startled me awake on the sudden turn at 77th street subway station where poultry became real.I blinked twice.... once.. rubbed ....and then muffled a sickness yawn...across from my now semi focused eyes was the most out-of-place ...blue-eyed blond haired boy , his hippie coiffure straying lazily down one side of his almost laughingly gorgeous face.The humorous almost macabre part of this angelic visage is that in three short years he'd be in prison for the murder of a young mother ....he would take a lamp; when surprised suddenly during a b and e and bash her brains to a sickening silent halt but for now he was my partner ...one of two.....he was Peter... My eyes were sick- flowing tears with a mixture of a need and unspoken sadness. My blond associate became clear ...he was giving me the headtilt to the right ,a non-verbal way of saying "look at this".I looked... it was an old man scratching his nose rubbing his face in a half nod which embodied a lifetime of so many disappointments..I smiled. I understood what he meant... it was that hope that we too would be soon in that glorious condition .That tragic dichotomy:
Of why have you forsaken me?..and do this in memory of me. The clatter clash of the broken and bruised subway car almost knocked our junkie Jesus to the floor and woke us to the here and now .......I closed my eyes in a futile attempt to relax my legs and stop the incessant banging of my knees....my uncle thought this was the secret to keeping thin... in fact it was one of the features of a unstoppable anxiety that had been with me since early on in my life. The waiting, the going, the getting was the way of the modern Burroughs.... when we looked back in future years... going would be romanticized, waiting would be pushed far back into our memories and the getting would be the silent enemy never defeated.
The hallway was plaster filled poverty.Smelling of dinner,supper and dirt.It made it clean.The young lords the Spanish answer to the black Panthers had a store front next door.
We started up the worn out steps made quieter by the early morning ,we needed and the third floor was holding out the hand of bliss ;as long as your hand had the money ...I shouted Peter.. the money ...he seemed lost in a story of my design ....what ?he awoke .I have it in my hand ...ok gimme. Peter knocked..... a short pudgy woman dealer answered.We copped 35 capsules(first and last time ever had capsule dope).Took 3 apiece for our own private cookers. I hid 19 in my sock while the rest we stuck in a hole in the wall...Peter and I calmly took our works from their respective receptacles...The eye dropper with a pacifier attached to it ,with a rubber band to give it whoosh....I tore a piece of a dollar bill a small strand and handed to peter and did one for myself ..I placed it in my mouth, wet it and wound it on the tip of the glass dropper ,this "collar" would keep the needle secure......that done I placed the hypo down gently on my pants leg and started to empty the 5 capsules into my spoon ;while peter used his old bottle cap with wire handle, it was a matter of preference...Even though our Spanish lady would not allow us to get off in her apt;she had supplied us with a glass of water ,generosity knows no bounds.My spoon full. I carefully sucked up the water into the dropper....and squirted it slowly into my white blacken covered spoon.....I raised the mixture with a surgeons care, lit a bic and slowly cooked my concoction....the white became a lite Brown water.....picking up the dropper I sucked the liquid up using a tiny piece of cotton to collect all the germs,all the disease,all the hepatitis,all the dreams,loves and innocence;The small dirty white ball protected us from it all.After a flicking of the finished product to remove any death-dealing bubbles I slid the piece of dulled steel into my belt wrapped arm .I was waiting for the bubble looking at the glass tube, for a bubble of blood a delicious bubble of blood ; So I would know that I had a hit and then I could slowly squeeze the pacifier and shoot the brown liquid and wait for the warmth of the drug the all-encompassing warmth of "the"drug...because nothing could replace the feeling of no more worries no more problems no more dirt no more lost loves no more shattered dreams no more dead grandfathers no more .....
....we booted the liquid a half a dozen times sending the blood back into the arm to maybe capture a glimpse of the initial rush...but eventually we pulled the dropper from our scarred pit and hastily sanitized it with 2 or 3 squirts of water...... It was time to go and I went to retrieve the other caps from the wall but they had fallen behind ..I shouted at the wall.FUCK...I knocked at the door ...Our dope fell behind the wall ....sorry nuthin I can do.. you have to go ,too much in hallway ...go now ..I protested...I need to get the ...No she screamed..you have to go now...Peter said c'mon lets get out of here.....We scurried sleepily down the steps at the almost bottom we were greeted with....
Whose got duh dope.? .....A machete wielding Spanish take off artist said with an angry sing-song accent and a anger intensified by a craving and a little jealousy at theses white boys copping and getting high without him........the brown handle cutter that was raised in one motion to Peter's throat....again with a more throaty guttural snarl came "who got duh dope"?......Wait I said... looking into the pinned pleading eyes of peter ....stop ok stop I was about to reach down into the sock hideaway..when a wonderful George Harrison obscure album burst upon the my thought process, the wall ...I said triumphantly. The dope is behind the wall I pleaded.....the blade dug deeper into my almost bent backwards partner's now bleeding skin.. ..no! no really! it's behind the wall ,upstairs; I looked skyward with an encouraging nod... it fell behind the wall; come on I'll show you..our attacker looked puzzled pensive..... should he cut deeper or go take a look...
The wall fell like the Roman empire to the huns....screaming Spanish and English combinations of what the fuck are you doing.... my delightful dope dealer was livid...my new machete man told her in spanglish to shut the fuck up...And behind that shattered wall sitting on a cross beam was that playtime bag of capsule dreams.....Machete man grabbed it and as I tailed him down the steps I heard in ever decreasing shouts.... don't you ever come back...my mind didn't give a Fuck about that. I was buzzing incessantly in my nemesis ear ...trying to reason with my new knife compadre....hey! part of that dope is mine.. hey! we need to split THAT...hey, we're partners on that.hey, you know I told you in was in the wall...hey, hey, hey !Where are we going...hey! hey! .. he turned to me with an exasperated look.. ok just shut up! I smiled inside, motioned to peter to come on and followed my new-found friend into the abandoned house to become blood brothers in a heroin kind of way.So the ritual was repeated; it is not worth describing .Suffice to say the bargain between the new-found friends was along the lines of ...The bags were divvied up. The works,the belts, the blood, the booting ,the head bob and then the head nod; that melted into the silent, soulful
sleep......The room smelled of alcohol,misery,and shattered dreams.Behind the blue curtain of emergency room 13 stood a group of shadowy figures all moving and gesturing like a Chinese shadow play.Suddenly a head pops out of the shadows and looks matter of factly at me.....She's dead she says.....I feel the scream come to my mouth but nothing escapes ...a rush of memories shoots by on rapid machine-gun film screen and then I hear the scream but realize its coming from somewhere deep within the earth....As I come to grips with these oddities the same death dealing nurse speaks again ...Wait we got her back she's alive...I hear myself telling myself alex its ok......which morphs into lex we have to go then we got her back alex......the words floated in these 3 second durations. As the word "Alex" morphed into lex it became " lex let's get out of here" ....I raised my wonderfully half closed eyes shook off the daymare and slowly rose to my feet ...On the way home we were comrades with holes in our arms...The train ride was a mixture of dope-fiend tall tales... and half nod laughs...By the time we pulled into Newark we were sorry to see our new-found friend go...two hours before he had almost cut Peter's throat but now the misery of addiction had us in a hug swapping hand slapping nose itching goodbyes....So our journey was now almost complete.My eyes half closed,a quick nod smile at Peter and then.... The street was filled with kids:laughing yelling and playing.From out of the crowd came a single voice "first to see the street lights go on".I waited for the whistle, my father's signal that is was time to come home....I waited.. but instead the street turned dark .I was alone.Except for a single shadow across from me on the other side .It was illuminated by a flickering, spitting fire burning in a trash barrel.Slowly it came into focus it was my grandfather,my dead grandpa.I called out ;what are doing here .Where are you going?He pointed down the road..I started towards him .He waved both hands pleading with me to stop.I just wanted to hold him one last time kiss him on his weathered cheek; feel his warmth that I felt so rarely in my life.I asked "can I come with you?He nodded no.He pointed towards the night sky and slowly walked away.From behind I heard a voice" next stop Asbury Park".
The train slowed to a dream ending halt.....I gazed over at Peter, he looked at peace ...at peace with the present ...at peace with the past ....at peace with the old man nuzzling his head on his blond locks...cmon Pete let's go were home ...Peter I softly screamed... he finally stirred gave a disgusted shrug to the old man .pushing him roughly off his shoulder....and stood up smiling he was still fucked up...I jumped down the four steel steps to the dirt of asbury park......glanced down the street where it's a "hard to be a saint."..and saw coming closer with a jersey city walk our third partner ...Gary ..he was a sport specimen turned addict, still with the muscle that said "don't fuck
with me" but with a grizzled street look that comes with the constant chaos that a heroin run demands......I wanted to tell him of our trials, of our death machetes,of all our troubles but I thought for one second that I saw worry in his eyes ...was he glad we had made it home ..because we had been gone so long had he thought we had been busted or beat or had been hurt ...I hastened my steps Peter lagged sheepishly behind ..and as Gary threw his big hands over my shoulders his mouth came inches from my ear.he was my partner he was my friend he was going to give this tired worn out dreamed out man a glimmer of compassion He whispered softly with a sardonic smile....and a slight Spanish accent.... Who got duh dope ?
