D¥ING OUT ₩€ST

Part 1: You Say God, I Say Satan

"GUS!" Lil Trey stuck his head out of his bedroom doorway and looked down the hall. The walls vibrated to the beat of Gus' stereo. Lil Trey could hear Gus sing- screaming along with the Marilyn Manson song through their paper-thin walls. Trey made a fist and banged on the wall again, louder this time. Gus popped his head out of the doorway, still wearing the massive earphones he used while recording. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was as white as the sheet he had wrapped around his body.

"What time is it?" Gus mumbled, blinking wearily underneath the hallway's florescent light. His hair, which was parted in the middle and dyed purple on one side and black on the other side, was pulled into a rough set of pigtails.

"It's almost midnight, my man," said Trey. He studied Gus' face for a moment, making a mental note of the deep bags beneath his eyes. "You good, bro? You still wanna hit the Twilight Lounge tonight?"

Gus nodded slowly, without taking his eyes off of the stained white carpet in front of him. "Fuck it, sure. There's nothing else to do in this fucking city. Lemme brush my teeth and I'll be ready to go. Where's the white?"

Trey fumbled in his sweatshirt before gently extracting a tiny ziplock bag. He tossed it across the hallway, and in complete silence, both boys turned in unison and sauntered back into their respective bedrooms.

▪︎▪︎▪︎

Trey paused after closing the door behind him, as if intently listening for some noise on the other side of the door, although the hallway remained empty. Gus hadn't been, well...GUS lately. He'd broken up with Lolita...for the third time this month. Something had changed in their relationship ever since Lolita had divulged private details about their sex life; and although he swore he had forgiven her - and Trey believed he was being truthful - it hadn't stopped Peep from sleeping with literally EVERY single hoe that threw herself at him throughout the course of his relationship with Lolita. He hadn't even tried to hide it from her, either. It was as if he literally had zero energy left to fight temptation anymore, especially for something that was bound to fail anyhow. But Trey could tell that Peep missed her; Gus wasn't used to being on his own. He was highly, highly codependent...on drugs, on girls, on music...anything to temporarily  fill that deep, empty void in his heart.

Speaking of drugs, Trey thought, How much black do I have left? He flipped up his mattress and pulled out a small canvas satchel and unzipped the top of it. Listening intently for a moment to make sure Peep was in his room, he pulled out a wrinkled piece of tinfoil, a straw and a lighter. Fumbling in the canvas bag one more time, he clumsily opened one of the tiny black balloons and plopped the sticky brown piece on the foil and lit up.

Immediately, the anxieties of the world melted around him and he found that place of calm within him. Everything was perfectly still, as if muted by a fresh blanket of snow. 

He sat down on the edge of the bed, flicking the lighter absent-mindedly. If he could feel his emotions he would feel guilty, because he had promised Peep he'd never touch this stuff again. Not after he overdosed six months ago and was declared legally dead before being resuscitated. It was a memory he didn't like to think about. They'd found drugs and paraphernalia on him when he overdosed in the bathroom of the public library that day, so after he'd become stable in the hospital, his judge issued a warrant for him. Sixty days jail time for violating probation - that was the deal. He ended up serving 45 of those sixty days after getting a job at the jail library, but the entire incident had significantly halted him and Peep's musical ventures.