Winter, 2008
It felt like days since I'd moved. The threadbare coverlet I'd cocooned my body within was like a rumpled second skin, and if I stayed deathly still in this position I could almost pretend to be cosy instead of cold. The aching emptiness of my gut had woken me, eyes flicking open like a blade.
The room was all early morning shadow with the light discoloured and grey where it fell through the window and onto the wall. Beside me Lou shifted, the faint warmth of his shivering body a welcome source of heat.
Despite shooting up only a few hours ago, soon enough his last hit would entirely leave his system, and he'd jerk awake in agonising pain and anguish. He'd grab at my clothes, whine in my ear. He'd grind his teeth and cry for more like a mewling kitten begs for the milk of it's mother, and I would cringe and cower and hope that he would leave to get more skag sooner rather than later.
It was easier that way; wanting something real instead of that old fantasy I used to have of him getting clean. Better a selfish hope than a foolish one.
Once more my stomach growled ravenously, setting off a fresh pang of aching. I had to eat something soon or the starving organ would probably begin eating itself. Pushing myself to my feet, blanket still wrapped tightly around me, I left the fetid mattress lying bare on the floor and padded out into the main room of the squalid shoebox apartment. There were only beanbags for furnishings, set up in front of the blank wall where the television had sat until a few weeks ago, when Lou had pawned it to pay back DeWitt for the heroin he had used out of his dealing supply. The kitchen was set into the corner nook just beside the front door, scrappy carpet turning suddenly into greasy linoleum tiles with no attempt from whoever had built the place to make the transition easy on the eye.
Dishes stacked up high on the bench beside the sink, the food debris left on them beginning to reek. I made a mental note to get my shit together and at least clean half of them sometime soon, but between graveyard shifts at the local Tesco Express and bookkeeping for Lou I was hard-pressed to find the energy for anything most days.
It was a sore point between Lou and I; my refusal to do anything other than add up sales figures and inventory when it came to dealing. Even after I'd managed to land the job at the shitty supermarket restocking the shelves and bagging items for minimum wage, money had never been so tight. Lou had to be out constantly trying to push product for us to even come close to keeping both him and his addiction afloat, and the loss of me as his partner in crime had meant multiple muggings and rip-offs.
Living in Crawley was expensive, more expensive than it had been in both Hastings and Horsham, yet here we at least had a roof over our heads and a steady stream of clients needing supplying. The increasingly bitter and violently resentful man couldn't understand why I no longer wanted to have any part in it all. Neither did I. It may have had something to do with a blue haired boy. A promise I had to keep. Something silly and sentimental, that even the thought of made my jaw clench.
Enough of that. Enough now.
Pushing fairgrounds and long-gone friends from my mind, I instead reminded myself of the gruelling journey out of Eastbourne all those years ago. The hours of running, walking, limping, bus rides and hitchhiking to make it to Hastings. Hiding out until the world had gone quiet and forgotten us; Birdie, blue-haired boys, and the Eastbourne police force alike. There was no room in either of our lives to regret anything we'd left behind or had to lose in order to survive. There was only the two of us running until we had gotten too tired to go any further.
Despite the stirring memories of months roughing it back in Hastings, and then later on, Horsham, I couldn't help but grit my teeth as I stepped barefoot onto the perpetually sticky and pockmarked linoleum floor of the kitchen. The refrigerator door first stuck and then jerked open to reveal empty shelves and a pervasive stale smell. The air that wafted from the space was room-temperature, signalling that we'd had our power cut off yet again.
YOU ARE READING
The Trapeze Swinger
Fanfiction"Him. 2D. I could see him even now, his goofy grin while holding the water gun like a hunting rifle, lining me down the sight. His hands ruffling my hair, one eye closed in a squint as if sizing me up, as if looking into the sun." The year is 2003...
