“Now you know what it’s like to get f–ked for money.”

This, left on the answering machine. I guess she means the eighteen hundred bucks for rent and cable to start clean and stay clean. No such luck — she’s off the wagon now, tricking again, heading back to the outskirts of hell.

No one is spared, rich or poor, abused or shallow, broken hearted or holy. The party keeps going, there is always more.

You can hear the city whimper.  Another day breaks to a rollin’ steel rhythm, a last minor chord. One more morning with the “can’t get no more, answer the f–kin’ phone” blues.

My city is dying from the inside. The suburbs keep sending the brightest and the best to fill in the ranks. Nobody knows nobody or so they say. The smoke rises, the bodies break, the hometown football warriors, the homecoming queens become ghosts. The war on drugs is just about over. All that remains is the body count and  next week’s order.

“You ain’t no addict til you got no dough…”

Aloof, with their blond hair and empty eyes, they were hard muscled, lithe, gymnasts or dancers, before it all changed. Crack, strawberry licorice, cheap whiskey and salesmen from out of town become the daily protocol. The once hard bodies  are now host to cold eyes and colder hearts.

_______________

God appears to the broken and the worn and offers his only answer. Faith is what is needed. Faith? they say, You want faith? Just go down the stairs and give the dude on the corner a twenty. Come back up here and we’ll cook that shit. Do you know the dude? No, but I hear he’s got good stuff. These soldiers of god have been on the road to paradise since the day they quit tenth grade and took up residence on the sidewalks, in the doorways, in the cheap hotels, seeking out the holy rock, crack cocaine.

Innocence dies but the body carries on, crumbling to the unsteady beat of a broken heart. Dreams die hard out here. The dead are the lucky ones.

On the stroll the nightly litany begins, “Hey mister…”

One day they start showing the client the ropes and before the sun rises on the next day these beautiful and not yet broken dream queens find their fates. Suck it in slow, steady. Puff, twist the pipe, Pull, long, slow. Get it, hold it. Eyes closed. Lean back. Count to five, let it go. Blow it out, the rush begins.

It’s all high speed, everything moves in slow motion. The streams of blue smoke fill the room. Watch for the small smile, the uncurling, lengthening bodies ready to catch the light, feline, predatory, at the top of the stretch. Her eyes find yours. Relax, she says.

I don’t why I do it. I hate it…Pass me the pipe

The armies of the night take in a new angel of death. Before their twenty second birthdays they have the certain knowledge that the only heaven they will ever know is the kingdom of  the fallen children of a merciless god.

You never know when the phone will ring.

Hey, you busy?

No, but I don’t have any dough.

Got any product?

No.

I’ll see you in twenty minutes.

_______________

What do you give the man who has everything, they say. Give him a crack pipe for Christmas. Next year he will have nothing and he will want everything.

Look into their eyes, feel a graveyard wind. Behind ice cold gaze you see them kneeling down in desperate prayer, lost daughters, children, dreaming of proms and homecoming; wanting to go home despite the long worn out hope that one day they will be released.

Will you stop all this lying?

No.

You will be dead in three months if you keep hitting it this way.

I know that, she said.

Photo Credit

“Strung-out” AbigailGeiger @ Flickr.com. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.