A work of fiction, a book I'm working on....
I'm driving down an old dirt road in Nowhere, Alabama,on a night ride through a pine thicket with the windows down, Neil Young blaring on an A.M station that barely picks up, with a beautiful long-haired girl riding shotgun, my right hand resting on her thigh, our hair blowing in the cool southern breeze. I can see the reflection of the star-lit sky illuminating in her beautiful eyes, who stare at me with an intensity and subtle innocence that makes me smile in spite of the shape we've both let ourselves fall into. As she crawls over to the driver's seat, bracing herself on the console, she kisses me on the cheek, as if to say "Everything's going to be all right". She smells of flowers, which for a second drowns out the aroma of cigarette smoke, and as I place my hand on her face, it's softness reminds me of my pillow at my parents' house, where I slept on every night the first 18 years of my life. It made me think of a time when I was at home by midnight every night, when I had to hide cigarette packs in my socks and spray air freshner in my room after every smoke. My mind went back even further, to a summer day when I couldn't have been more than 8, playing childish games with my brother, waiting anxiously to see what my Daddy had brought me home after work - then later on at dusk, catching lightning bugs and putting them in a jar. Now I can't even talk to my dad without getting into a fight and the man my brother was is gone. As I return to the now, I look into the girl sitting beside me's eyes, and for a split-second I think everything is ok. Then the inevitable happens; "Baby, want one more hit?" I look at her, turn my head back and look in the rear-view mirror, and close my eyes momentarily. One more hit won't hurt, I try to convince myself. One more hit. One more time. I've learned that one more anything is a lie. Even though I know better, even though I know she does too, I give in. Judgement and conscious went out the window a long time ago. The will to live never disappeared - I just stopped caring either way. So did she, so did my brother... I try to remember if I stopped caring before or after I became an addict. I know once I took that first hit, that light, that spark, in my eyes disappeared. It has in everyone's. It makes me believe we're all running from something... although I don't know what it is in my case. When I look in the mirror or in someone's eyes who has the same problem I do, there seems to be this false hope of outrunning yesterday. I can imagine it's no different than the look in the eyes of a pirate 300 years ago, or homeless down under the overpass. I can't remember who wrote it, but someone explained it as "Nothing is quite as fascinating as the freedom, the tragedy, the passion and the sadness that comes from having nothing to lose in a society that judged mercilessly without wanting to know what they were judging." And that's why people like us don't change, we just burn out, we either die or we end up in prison. I wonder if every junkie realizes the futility of their plight like I have. As she loads the pipe, I pull over to the side of the road, at an old clearing where a house once stood, the only thing left remaining being a chimnee. She hands me the pipe.....