Recognize...

Every single word written here is an extraordinary exaggeration of events that have played out in my head... based on the stories I have heard from people I have met in jail or while I was dealing with my own stupidity and carelessness, resulting from my own addiction to alcohol and drugs. This is in no way a glamorization of drug use, but a tool to lend some humanity to a subculture that has been demonized and written off as a hopeless and worthless part of our human family. I do not condone or promote any of the behavior or activities herein.

Chapter Nine

             Dayna was still pulling four-leafed clovers from the patch of ground I left her in when Bull and I had finished smashing cat litter into the blood stains on the garage floor.  We swept up the mess and finished the pile of dope on the broken piece of glass on the workbench.  We were walking towards the front of the property in no particular direction when we happened upon her. 

She was wild-eyed and sleep-deprived… Bull double-stepped past me and made a quick approach for the ground she was sitting in.  She looked up at me and glared before she relaxed her position to put a four-leafed clover in Bulls hand and rest her eyes on him.  He put his hand at the back of her neck and ran his hand through her thick brown hair.  She sighed and shook his hand out of her hair. 

            “Did you take care of that prick?”  She turned her glare to Bull, and he pulled his hand back and started looking through the clover patch.

            “I think so…” His aim turned to me, “I'd say that covered our issue with him, wouldn't you?”

            “Fuck, if the issue was him telling people where he gets dope… I don’t think he’s coming back.  I hope that covered it Boss...  I’m gonna go wash this toxic mix off of my skin.  Should I use the shower in the house, or the water truck?”  I was alluding to a trailer with a 500 gallon tank on the back that Bull used when the well on the farm ran dry in particularly dry periods of the year, or when winter froze the pipes to the house.

            “Guess you better use the shower.  Scrub it down when you’re done, I need to take a bath.”  Bull was particular about the bathtub, and made Dayna scrub it each and every time we got done cooking dope, so he could cleanse his skin of the chemicals we absorbed while we were in the process.  He usually started to pass out during the first bowl of a new batch being passed around at the round table and called it ‘Hum Drunk.’  He claimed to be hearing a hum in his ears that would only be relieved by a bath followed by a shower to scrub the residue from his skin. 

            “Now he’s cleaning your bathtub??  Guess you’ll just need me for a piece of pussy now and then, huh?”  Dayna barked.

            Bull hung his head.  He shook it several times and looked up at me and said, “Don’t clean it then… Dayna will cover it.”

            “I’ll just use the tank.  I need to get home anyways.  I haven’t been there in…”   I had to think for a minute.

            “Man, you haven’t been home in about two weeks.”  Bull said, he and Dayna both started laughing.

            “Fuck… what day is it?”  I started to feel a little more weak in my knees than when I thought Bull was going to burn Zoloft.

            “I don’t fucking know man… but you haven’t slept and you've been here since I got the last tank of Anny...  Now, how do you think you’re wife is gonna feel about that?”  Bull and Dayna looked into each other’s eyes and she went back to brushing the clover, looking for more mutant weeds.  I felt like they were laughing at me, in their heads... between each other. 

            “Well, I’m gonna clean up, and make sure it’s safe for me to go home.  I’ll call her when I feel a little better.”  I turned to walk towards the tank.

            “Sure brother, I’ll see you at the house.”  Bull didn’t look at me.

            “Hey fucker… do you want your pipe?”  I turned around to see Dayna waving my glass above their heads still pawing at the clover.

            “Yeah.”  I walked a few steps and grabbed the glass pipe.  I held it up in the sunlight and saw a welcome sight.  The crystals were thick and there was enough dope at the bottom to keep me high for a couple more hours.  “Thanks, Dee.”

            “You stink… get clean.  Cook us some dinner”  Dayna laughed and went back to pawing through the weeds.

            I guess I wasn’t going anywhere today.

This work is the intellectual property of Jerome J. Panozzo