JASON, ROSE, AND JOSEPH
VILE SELF PORTRAITS, CHAPTER TEN
Jason and Rose made me turn around whenever they shot up, but I always looked. I recoiled when the spike sank into their skin. Saw their blood rush into the chamber. Their instant relief. I wanted to know how it felt. The real way. They told me I couldn’t go back to sniffing after. It’d be like using microscopic drops to fill a dope-fueled ocean. You needed to fill the entire ocean.
Or you’d get sick.
Bigs and smalls. Bigs were $60, smalls were $30. Being a broke seventeen-year-old, I liked that there were options.
"Yeah, two bigs and a small. Yeah, we’ll be there in like thirty-five. Yeah… yeah," Jason said into his cellphone. He sucked down 27s and complained of the sickness with one hand on the wheel of his father’s Buick. Rose didn’t say much. Maybe she said nothing. Her head rested against the passenger window. Curly blonde hair tangled and spilled out of her black hoodie, which was speckled with dead skin. Her body bobbled with each bump in the road. I sat in the back. The middle seat. The radio droned classic rock. 100.7 WZLX Boston.
Jason stuck to the side roads. He never needed a GPS. Within minutes we went from immaculate shops and baby strollers to liquor stores and fast food. Walpole, Norwood, Dedham, Hyde Park, Mattapan. It was like steadily slipping into an alternate dimension. But none of us noticed. Our minds were stuck on brown. Imagining our Savior. The seductive rocky powder that would translate our aches into love.
Jason called the dopeman when we made it to Dorchester. Two cigarettes later he pulled up behind us in a jalopy and flashed his lights. Jason hopped out and I slid into the driver’s seat of the Buick. Rose didn’t move. I let the dopeman lead and trailed them for several streets, finally stopping and watching Jason leave the jalopy with frenzied eyes. "Just go," he said, slamming the back door shut.
I drove off and checked the mirrors for cops. We were now breaking the law. The three baggies we had could’ve landed us in jail. It didn’t amount to much.
Neither did we.
"Right here." I pulled into a seedy strip mall and parked. "All right, get in the back."
I did, and Jason reclaimed his place in the driver’s seat. He handed me my meager double knot and they urgently got to work. I ripped the outer bag off and tugged at the second with my teeth. They were drawing liquid dope into their needles, using their seatbelts as tourniquets. The bag unraveled and I scooped a mound into my right nostril. It smelled of vinegar. Caked like clay. The drip was bittersweet. When you sniff dope, it takes two or three minutes to hit. They were already nodding. They had completed their acts in thirty seconds flat.
"It’s… good," Rose said.
"Yeah… Joe… you… you good?" Jason’s head was practically in his lap. His cigarette was about to burn his knee. The smoke shrouded his face.
Rose was dead.
But content.
"Yeah, I’m good. Hey"—I grabbed his arm—"you good?"
"Yeah… yeah… listen… if I go out… just kick me outta the car… just kick me out and… and move on…"
Paperback/ebook here.
VILE SELF PORTRAITS© AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO DRUG ADDICTION
Wow…that was intense and frightening at the same time. Joseph and Rose had a bit too much, and Jason sniffed it while the others injected it. Rose and Joseph were content but dead. Jason made it through but was silent. How much more could these guys take?
Hell of a short story!! ✨🌹
It didn’t amount to much.
Neither did we.
man.