I’ll
never be able to explain where the strength came from to answer the door, but I
managed. I hadn’t gone more than ten minutes without a needle. I knew Benny’s
knock by heart, even over the blasting radio. It were as if some spirit had a
handful of my hair and weeded me from the table. My hands pressed on the table
as if to keep it from flying away. My feet dug in to the floor and pushed
upward. My entire body flexed in a last attempt to live. The fifteen feet to
the front door may as well have been a mile. Anything I looked at had a purple
aura. My body tingled as if a stampede of roaches chose my body to cross over.
Each step towards the door felt like I was playing a childhood game, like I was
skipping around on a mattress, like I was an angel stepping through the
thickest Heaven.
My right hand reached for the door knob.
When I gripped the cold metal, it felt perfect. With my left hand, I peeled the
shade back slightly. At first, I saw the snow. It was deep, at least over a
foot. It twinkled like some kind of starry cloud. Then I panned left to see
Benny and his warm smile. He was rubbing his hands together and shuffling left
to right in what I could only assume was a feeble attempt to keep from freezing
in a denim jacket and hooded sweatshirt and jeans. Benny moved towards the
door, reached for the knob. His smile told me he couldn’t wait to hug me. His
eyes sighed in relief to be home.
“John” Frankie demanded “Who is it?” I
couldn’t speak. I took a deep breath and prepared to answer when the radio
began to lower. Lori appeared on my right side, parted the shade wider, and
looked at Benny. She didn’t even notice how high the snow.
“Dammit!” Lori exclaimed.
“What, Lori? Who the fuck is it?” Frankie
was always paranoid. Everyone at the door was SWAT as far as he was concerned.
“Hold On, Benny” Lori told him, then went
into the kitchen to have some sort of whispering match with Frankie. Benny and
I flashed smiles at each other, like his teeth missed my teeth. I know mine
missed his. I stared at Benny’s face full of hardship; lesions, bruise under
his left eye, a missing tooth.
“John, can you open the door?” Benny asked
and though I didn’t think it possible to smile wider, I did. My fingers managed
to let go of the knob to turn the tiny lock in its center.
“John!” Lori screamed my way. “Wait. Don’t
open that door, yet.”
“Nah” Frankie added. “Matter-fact, don’t
open that door at all.”
“But we can’t leave him out there,
Frankie.” hissed Lori in the kitchen.
“But it’s Benny, man” I managed to say,
and again, tried my hand at turning a lock. The purple aura around Benny’s face
was faded. I knew that mean I was coming down. I could feel the cold coming
through the glass panes.
“John! Don’t open that fucking door”
thundered Frankie. I jerked back.
“But it’s Benny.” I responded. My ears,
still ringing loudly, could barely hear Benny bargaining.
“John, please? C’mon, bro. John, yo, you
gotta open this door, man. C’mon John.” and he slightly giggled “It’s fuckin’
cold, man” And Lori appeared again at my side. She placed her hand over my hand
and whispered
“John, c’mon over to the kitchen. You can’t
open that door.” And I couldn’t believe what I heard, what strange lexicon that
was to use against family.
“But it’s Benny.”
“I know, John, but he’s really sick.” I
knew he was sick. I understood the hysteria. People were dropping without
explanation. Junkies were dying just months after finding out. Hospitals were
turning junkies away unless room was available in isolation. Reporters couldn’t
find a single doctor to guarantee the virus wasn’t contagious in a cough, a
touch, a smile.
“But it’s Benny.” and I proceeded again
to turn the lock. But Lori firmly took my hand and walked me away from the
door, back to the kitchen.
“He’s sick, John. He’ll get us sick. He’ll
get you sick.” And Frankie buck shot the air with
“Yeah, and Ma’ll never forgive us for you
dying!”
Benny continued to knock. Lori went back to
the living room; the radio grew louder than usual. Frankie handed me a
base-pipe while Lori returned and lifted a spoon from the table.
Lighters flicked. Drugs cooked. A belt
buckle jingled. Feet shuffled beneath the table. The sounds bounced off the
stove and across the room, off one wall then another then the ceiling. Someone
cleared their throat. Another whispered something and snickered to themselves about
it. I shot glances at the front door; maybe
the shade will move from the thrust of a loving knock. Plastic rumbled over
the table. the clink of a base-pipe
or a razorblade or a coin—used to scrape cocaine out of a spoon once it’s
cooked and hardened for the pipe—could be heard landing. I gawked at the door.
“John” Lori said “Nobody’s there. Stop” I
looked down at the table, at my palms; cuts from razorblades across fingertips,
black residue pressed into every finger, smudged bloodstains the size of flies.
I turned my hands over; coke-quivers, black residue beneath every fingernail,
more blood. I shot a glance at the door “Stop, john” Lori didn’t even look up.
She just knew. She knew. Maybe because she felt the same hurt. Perhaps the
guilt of bending to Frankie’s will killed her as much as it did me, as much as
we may have killed Benny. Where was he
going to go? “Stop”
“God! Lori, I know already”
“Okay” she didn’t flinch.
“Both of y’all shut the fuck up” Frankie
screamed. “I can’t concentrate”. I put the pipe to my lips and pulled smoke. I
felt the warm wash of smoke fill my mouth and the back of my throat. My lungs
began to tingle. I held the pipe out over the center of the table for whoever
was ready for another hit. Lori and Frankie both reached slowly for it. Frankie
put his hand down in impatience.
“I’m going outside” Neither of them
responded. I had more energy to raise
up. I didn’t grab a hat or coat. My t-shirt and jeans would be fine. My
sneakers would do. I opened the front door, hoping Benny would surprise me;
maybe he was still shivering in place, sessile. He was gone. There were
footprints. In the entire courtyard, there was only one set, a path leading out
the back towards the parking lot. The wind was welcomed. Snow tapped my cheeks
and vanished. I followed the footprints around the side of our apartment
complex. I failed to notice the snow falling into my sneakers. I didn’t realize
how wet my socks were getting or the fact that I no longer felt my own hands. I
had had so much coke, my teeth kept banging together like a metronome. I
stepped where Benny stepped, turned right towards parked cars. His footprints
led me to the center of the lot. Then, as if by some magic, the footprints
vanished. He was gone. I turned in place, in one direction, in the other. I
heard the high pitch chorale whine of streetlights, felt my hair mat to my head
as it dampened by snow. The night was on high alert. I knew better than to yell
for Benny. Frankie would probably storm outside and drag me in. I knew Lori and
Frankie were inside; pocketing coke to keep from sharing, possibly arguing over
who gets to hit the pipe next, one ready to cook more, the other just wanting
to snort. Benny was gone. I looked back to where I walked from. Maybe he backtracked and went another
direction? I could hear everything; snowflakes thundering onto cars, the
song of streetlights, the soft press—like ginger fingers on high noted piano
keys—of snow splashing on top of snow. Benny was gone. Benny wouldn’t get into
a hospital. Benny was a junkie. Benny had the virus at least six months by now.
Benny was gone. Benny was gone.
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