Tuesday, January 20, 2009

You died in the arms of your favourite prostitute

"Here," you said. "How much more do you need?" as you kept flipping notes from your wallet onto the bed, and she just sat there waiting for you to finish. "Not like I'm giving it to anyone else. You think I got any kids from this?" and you placed one foot flat on the bed and pointed to the single malformed testicle left hanging inside that scarred violaceous bag of skin, and this wasn't the first time you'd made a scene about it, and so she just gazed lovingly, not even the slightest wince, not even inwardly, or maybe if she did it was only for who you were that night. How she had seen you worsen.

All you'd asked for a was a little bit of smack, well not just a little bit, but at least enough to slow your respiratory system down to a sensation of overwhelming warmth, something so pleasantly inviting which you'd kept familiar in your dreams from the moment of your fluorescent parturitious welcoming. Death, specifically. You really had no idea how much you'd be required to "score" for that fatal ingestion (your concern of variables such as street purity made you think you'd probably overthink it and make a right mess of yourself), but she would know, and so you kept going until you were holding your wallet upside-down in front of her, still presenting your genitals in open spread, and saying "there, is that enough now? Cause I can go to an ATM whatever."

"I've told you baby--you think you can just come in here and throw around some money because you wanna do a thing?" And there must have been $1700 laying around her, and she just brushed it aside and invited you to sit.

"My arms are clean if you ain't never noticed," and her arms crossed gently around your neck, and there was no longer a tone of hostility in her voice, she just kind of whispered it, like complying to a wish, and she began doing all the things you wished for, exactly how you most perfectly would have them, even though there was never any strict order to it; she simply knew.

* * *

You ran into some bad luck with George Doery. Nothing that could've made it your fault and his parents knew that and they weren't really going to sue. It was George Sr.'s brother being in the business is all, almost exclusively malpractice is what he dealt with, so he was there telling them to have a crack at it no matter what it looked like. What was there to lose? But in the end they would have backed down anyway. They were good people. And you saw little George through so much that it would be wrong of them, they felt--so very wrong of them, to just throw that in your face after so many years.

The bad news took years to be uncovered from the results of initial trials: 12% of patients using the acne medication Nahutal are hit with serious side affects, something similar to toxic leukoencephalopathy. For a topical cream no-one could've seen that coming. Younger patients in this minority generally experienced less severe clinical side effects (retention loss, some equillibrioception dysfunction, mild aphasia &c) but George Jr. copped the full brunt of it beginning with a heavy onset of dementia that progressed rapidly (even following the immediate discontinuation of the topical agent), accompanied by chronic regression of the vestibular system, incapacity of cognitive and motor neuron functions &c leading to an eventual comatose state, at which point chances of recovery are rendered, in the medical sense, an impossibility.

* * *

After you were both finished, after she had told you how many times you had made her come, and you were too polite to tell her that she didn't need to say those things to make you happy, no you didn't say anything because you knew that's what she needed also, not only to establish herself in soliciting an ephemeral joie de vivre, but to express some merit of return, that the only reason he paid for it was because that was how these matters simply were and it would be improper (or even an inconvenience from his P.O.V.) to disrupt this routine or. . . tradition by questioning why it couldn't be another way, and she knew the only reason he'd keep coming back was if he felt like it made him worth something--after this, you lay back and next to you she tapped you on your shoulder and mouthed the words "wait here".

You weren't worthless. Her body had told you so. So many times before, and that night, and that's why she was better for you than anyone else. Your wife had left you because of what, some bullshit about your "addiction" to pornography and some advice she'd received from that Amazon message board? What a sack of crap she was.

"I think what it is is our planet has subconsciously hardwired us to marry the wrong person in an effort to slow the population count" she said having emerged back in the room seemingly from the thick clouds of smoke she was blowing in your direction. Her intuition terrified you, and at the same time you feel more deeply in love. "But people still have kids" you said, and she said that certainly it wasn't a perfect system.

* * *

Not only was it potentially lethal as a stand-alone cream, but Nahutal also contained what turned out to be an aggregate of chemicals found in common party drugs, which if placed on the skin should pose no direct effect, that is unless one takes into account the Doery effect, also known as Murphy's Law. Before George Jr. went comatose, he spent a good 48 hours in the grasp of a wild chimeric psychosis, and not the kind you paid for in college with that money your parents sent you for textbooks and a new geometry set. If only you could have seen what he'd seen in his last days. Imagine localising the nation's population of puking fratboys' rainbow bile from every Friday night since the release of "Animal House" on VHS into a matchbox then launching it towards the crushing gravity of Jupiter. Then running the whole thing through a jarring isotropic filter. Something like that.

* * *

She leant over the bedside table and set the alarm for 8am. Along with the pot she had brought booze, and to fill out the night you played Scrabble together, at first thinking you'd let her win but then realising that only ever having gone against your dump-truck slow nephew, you'd never had to grasp the strategy of the board and you just kept giving those triple-word scores away.

It turns out there were a bunch of board games under the bed, evidently not all of them even of an erotic nature. You dragged out The Game of Life, and stuffed in with the board and the rest of the bits was a loaded revolver. "Oh that's protection" she explained, and slid the box aside. "Boring game anyway."

After a few jovial romps with naked twister (though it would have been better if the last people using it would have wiped the mat down) , and scratching your heads over that book of suggestive New York Times Crosswords, you were deep into the liquor when you had the idea of doing something that would pretty much guaranteed kill you.

"I know how to get us fucked up" was pretty much all you said, and you ran over to your pants, and in your pocket (why was it in your pocket? Had you really planned to go this far all along?) came out a small wrinkled tube, and you crawled under the bed to grab Fuckopoly where you found a small metallic player piece in the shape of hollowed-out butt cheeks.

You filled the cheeks with the cream from the tube labeled Nahutal, and with the tweezers from Operation: Hello Nurse! Edition, you were able to hold it steady in place while she cooked it with a cigarette lighter. It had been common knowledge in medical circles that the drug could technically be broken down to create some fairly nasty, potent chemicals, however this would require an extraction process beyond, say, typical meth lab know-how, and the price of the acne cream would far outweigh the marketability of Nahutal to dealers.

What no one had bothered testing yet were the effects of simply free-basing the otherwise unprepared solution out of a metal ass. Well you certainly pioneered that one with flying colours (if you would be so kind to excuse the pun). Did you think about that poor sex worker, the one who was dearest to your heart, who stayed by you until the ambulance came? She cried for you, as you huddled up shivering, puking up what looked like gravel, eyes in the back of your head. In your last moments she whispered you her real name. And about growing up on the farm. About her father's genuine understanding.

* * *

George Doery Jr. passed away the same night as you, and your funeral was on the same day after his. His parents came along to say a prayer for you or to just blankly walk past your coffin, because anything to stop them from going home right then felt so awfully pleasant.