The Hole Within

CHAPTER 43

A year passed. Snapshot of me driving home from Salt Lake, so hot because we fixed before leaving. I was driving with my shirt off, singing along with the radio, arm out the open window as Tyler slept in the passenger seat. Snapshot of me in the kitchen with Roxanne, Tyler trying to find a vein on her skeletal arms. Blood running down her black skin from failed attempts. Me with an alcohol swab soaking up the blood and trying to disinfect before Tyler tried again. Roxanne screaming, "Get da fuck off me bitch!" as her need and desperation grew. 

Snapshot of me cleaning and cleaning Roxanne's kitchen so coked up and unable to get it clean enough. Snapshot of being at their house, once again in the filthy bathroom, shooting up as a man in the back room moaned and cursed, in withdrawal because he had run out of money. All of us feeling bad, but not badly enough to share our dope. Snapshot of talking to Diane on the phone, telling her of my life now and hearing her heart break for me. She had begged me to get back into therapy, to go into rehab, anything to get my life back together. She was afraid that I was going to die. Get in line, I thought. 

Snapshot of me lying on Tyler's rumpled bed, him trying to fuck me with a half limp dick from the narcotic. Too high to realize that he could not get hard enough. Me too high to care. Snapshot of the endless hours waiting for Friday and Salt Lake to come. Finding some relief at the end of a lit cigarette as it burned my skin. Snapshot of sitting in Liz and Wayne's kitchen, crying to Liz and her crying for me as she looked at the tracks on my arms. She took me in her arms and stroked the back of my head as we cried, then she quickly pushed me away as Wayne came in. Snapshot of the .357 hallow-tipped bullet I kept in my nightstand drawer. The bullet I always knew I would use to end the pain.