John had been in rehab for 25 days. In that time, he'd been pronounced dead and woken up with a catheter in his dick, received multiple blood transfusions and antibiotics, been force-fed meals to get his body back up to a healthier weight, had the rest of his teeth removed (replaced with dentures) and jaw reconstruction surgery, along with skin grafts to replace the necrotic tissue in his arms and legs. Most notably, he was off of all recreational drugs, for the first time in over a decade.
He'd had many reasons to finally stop, not least of which were the voices in his head telling him that if he didn't stop, he'd die. They'd been encouraging him to keep doing drugs for all of these years, egging him on, telling him that they were the seed for all of the creativity that bloomed from his mind and body. But then, they'd changed course, and they'd given him a deadline. This deadline happened to coincide with losing his last five thousand dollars and being kicked out of his last "home." There was nowhere else to go, no more money to fuel his habit. If he didn't give it up, he might make it as a bum living on the streets for a few weeks, but the voices had been clear. "You're gonna be dead by your birthday unless you get clean," they'd said. It was stop, clean up, or die.
And so he stopped.
John did his best to stay distracted while at the facility, but his mood was low despite starting to feel healthier. He was lonely and bored and didn't feel like himself. He didn't even look like himself anymore. His jaw was swollen and his features were out of proportion and he didn't have the same Bowie skinniness he'd grown so fond of during the worst of his drug addiction. He avoided mirrors and spent a lot of time chain smoking cigarettes with other patients and staring at the walls of his room, wishing he could see through them to the outside world, even though he didn't feel ready to be a part of it. The thought was terrifying, really. He'd been a creature of the night, a lone ranger, mostly, for so long. He didn't know how to reintegrate into the larger world or what he could offer it, or what it had to offer him. This dimension wasn't the one he wanted to live in.
He'd been on the fence about giving up drugs, even as he'd walked through those doors. Drugs gave him feelings that music used to fill him with- he knew they were killing him, but it didn't seem worth living if he had to be empty. That's all he was without drugs or music or art to charge and animate him, wind him up and keep him moving like those chattering teeth toys they had at the dentist's office. He'd rather be a chattering toy than an empty nothing.
Visitors had floated in and out, his parents and Flea and Bob and Perry and other faces he'd seen but could hardly remember. They'd all felt like apparitions as they'd visited early on in his recovery, when he was in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he wasn't sure if they'd really visited at all, but Flea would call and remind him, and the nurses would, too.
Despite his bettering health, John was depressed. Dispirited. The nurses and doctors had been giving him constant shit about the condition of his body and his refusal to take care of his skin grafts. Something about gangrene and limb amputation, blah blah blah. He was too listless and unmotivated to care. He wasn't sure what he cared about anymore. He hadn't touched a guitar in years and hardly felt strong enough to play, though he thought he might like to. It didn't matter- he didn't have any guitars anyway.
On this mild winter day, he sat alone in his room and drew pictures in his notebook. In group they'd encouraged all the patients to sketch or paint things that made them happy. He used to be happy, many years ago, but it was hard to conjure up the exact feeling as it was so alien now. He put pencil to paper and chewed on his swollen lower lip, absently sketching a set of crooked teeth. Once it was finished, he cocked his head at what he'd drawn, recognizing that mouth immediately and smiling to himself.
Anthony approached the building with trepidation. The last time he saw John, he was a skeleton in human form. Drained, tired, drugged, almost spent. The light behind his eyes burned so low it was nothing short of a miracle he was alive. Anthony had no interest in seeing him like that again, but something in him was urging him on. Their mutual friends had visited and reported that he seemed to be over the worst of it, so Anthony was optimistic he'd find John in better form. He feared the sense of responsibility he knew he'd feel over John, feared its uselessness, feared its usefulness. Either way, he felt somewhat on the hook for John's downfall. He'd been thinking about it a lot since they'd seen each other- John had joined them when he was so young and they hadn't taken care of him properly. They'd introduced him to a huge world he wasn't ready for and egged him on and used all of that manic energy to take advantage of his talent. And it had been too much and burned too bright and driven him low, and Anthony was more closely involved than even that and it left a seed of doubt and greed and shame in him that bloomed just enough to set him on his course today. He'd picked up a pastrami sandwich and some Gauloises for John on the way, hoping he'd have an appetite.
