Looking Down the Barrel by Matt Mann

Looking Down the Barrel

Alone, on the faded grey couch sitting in the living room of the tiny one bedroom apartment that I call home. In front of me is the battered brown coffee table I've owned since childhood. It's littered with papers, books, a pack of Newports, a glass ashtray filled with butts and a mound of ash, a .357 revolver, and one .357 bullet. Picking up the gun I put the bullet in a chamber, spin the cylinder and slam it shut. After placing the barrel at my temple I pull the trigger.

CLICK.

"Fuck!" No such luck again; having done this once a night for the past three nights to no avail. After placing the gun back on the table I open the middle drawer to pull out a burnt spoon crusted with old heroin, a new needle and a decent sized bag of dope. I walk to my kitchen, grab a glass of water, and return to my couch to begin the ritual.

The flame puts me in a trance as my heart slows down in anticipation of getting high; bringing the water close to a boil, I then carefully place the spoon down in front of me. I roll up a little piece of cotton and place it in the spoon, remove the caps from the needle and place the needle on the cotton, then pull back on the plunger. Eyes widen as the chamber fills with the hot, clear brown liquid. Ridding the chamber of any air first I then proceed to stick the needle in my arm, pull back on the plunger and fish around in my arm until the red flag appears. As I press down on the plunger that friendly familiar warmth starts to take over my body along with pins and needles.

"Uhh-Agghh," I shudder as the high levels off. Pulling the needle out I drop it on the table, lie back on the couch, and close my eyes. Even though I feel fantastic I am immediately ashamed of my actions. This feeling is nothing new; I'm so used to this shitty cycle of my life that I just don't give a fuck anymore.

Life wasn't always like this, I wasn't always like this, wasn't always alone and depressed; I didn't always want to die. I used to have a family, a beautiful wife named Allison and two daughters. Ashley's the oldest, she's ten. Katie is my adorable little seven year old. They both have beautiful blonde hair like their mother's and move around in such a lilting way. I never get to see those girls and it tears me apart. Their mother won't let me see them because, to her, I'm a piece of shit junkie ... and I completely understand; a drug addled father isn't something children need to be around. I tell myself every day that I'm going to quit but the agony always becomes too unbearable.

I used to have a great job, loved my occupation and the income was great. But an accident at work left me with two fractured vertebrae and a left leg held together with plates, pins and screws; causing me to walk with a serious limp and if the weather is right I needed a cane.

Because of the accident I won a lawsuit, ended up with $800,000, a lifetime of disability payments equal to what I used to make, a serious addiction to pain pills and a shattered family. I'm still on the pills, sixty Oxy a month, but with a tolerance like mine I need the heroin as well; the pills don't really do shit anymore and the heroin doesn't do too much either, both of them are used so I feel good and don't get sick. It's been three years since the accident, two since I won the lawsuit, and a whole year since I've spoken to my family. I still send the ex-wife money every month for alimony and child support, always sending the kids extra money so they can have a little bit more than I had as a kid.

Growing up I had nothing. My mother died in labor. My father was a drunk with a viscous temper, but he tried his best. He worked two jobs but still we barely had enough to scrape by. He loved me but I always felt that he blamed me for my mother's death. Learning how to take care of myself at a young age was inevitable; I had to because my father was always working and couldn't afford a babysitter. So at the age of seven I was allowed to stay home alone and pretty much lived off cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.