This, That, and the Other.

I haven't written anything about me for a while. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here because my life really isn't that fascinating anymore, but I feel compelled to keep you all in the loop.

This very moment I'm in the break room at work. I have just finished a sandwich I made before I left the house, and I am at a table listening to two people devouring their microwaved lunches. It's a catastrophe.

Human lips serve many purposes, one of which makes it possible for things to stay in your mouth like food and noises. Neither of the two employees at this table are using their lips properly, but I can't help being fascinated by the situation. It's like they're having a contest to see who can make the worst noise and they are both in first place. But I digress.

Me. So I've been either going to the gym or running for about 40 days straight.... Shit, I skipped Sunday. So I've been going to the gym or running every day since yesterday and I am seeing some results. I don't mean that I can see new muscles, I mean I can see a change in endurance and strength. On Friday I ran a 5K in 29 minutes, that's twice around Como lake. Now that's not going to get me in the Olympics, but it's pretty damn good compared to where I started (again) a month ago. Also, for the first time in my life, even at boot camp, I can bench press my body weight. Actually, I can bench about 20 over my weight, and I keep going up. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

The Quandary: I have heard a lot of comments from you folks and I am happy to keep going with it. It's quite an experience making something out of nothing. It brings me to a dark place, but I know it's fantasy and I can take myself away from it when I choose. Although each post is connected in some way, I like to think 1-10 have their own uniqueness and a story that only belongs to it. That sentence makes sense to me, how did you do with it? I’m starting to see that I’m straying away from reality a little more each time, and I think that’s forward progress.

Hey, I’m home now! What a long day at the laminating factory. I went to the gym after work and ran on the treadmill for a bit and now I have no plans for the rest of the evening so I think I’ll take Willie out for a stroll or out back for a little fetch, who knows.

I really can’t think of anything else I think you need to know about yet but I promise to let you know anything important. But for now, I will keep on writing the Quandary, and see where it goes. Peace.

Quandary 10

This is the tenth in a fictional series of posts that starts here.

I parked in my usual spot less than twelve hours since my previous arrival. Mason and I had a predetermined amount of cash that would prompt the phone call for my visit, and I was well over the line. There was nothing I could do to hide the bruising, and I hadn’t spent any time coming up with a story to explain it and there was no time left. I knocked on the door.

He opened it up and pulled me inside with brute force. He slammed the door shut and pushed me up against the wall, grabbing me by my throat. “What the fuck is wrong with you coming here like this!?” I replied with a lie, “I got into a fight man, it happens!” Quizzically he looked me up and down, “That’s it?” I nodded. I felt his grasp loosen and finally he let go of me. I wondered if I had made a stool in my pants. Mason said with tension in his voice, “Shit man you scared me, I thought you were gonna tell me you got robbed or something. I’m sorry, people are fuckin’ me over left and right lately, I should have known you were good.” More like amazing, I thought. “You look like shit though. You get in a fight with a girl again?” He beamed, I returned the gesture less proportionately and retorted, “Yup. You should see her, not a scratch.” I laughed at my shot at comedy.

I pulled a well-organized wad of folded money out of my pocket. He liked how I always faced my money, and how the number I gave him always matched what was actually there. He always counted it anyhow, it wasn’t a sign of disrespect, it was customary in the drug trade when dealing with any number over $100.

While he was counting the money, I was recounting the evening in my head. What the fuck was I going to do? I had been threatened, beaten, tossed around, and put in a trunk. Twice. My mind was full of half ideas, fractured thoughts, and vengeful plans. None of those would get me out of this mess. There was only one way out. Murder.

And just as my head rolled back in the same direction as my eyes, the burn phone in my pocket that Driver had given me vibrated. It scared me and my whole body jolted awake. Mason could hear the vibrating but it was expected that I wouldn’t answer the phone while I was there so I let it keep going. Silence. I really had to answer that phone, but I couldn’t. Why would they be calling already? I just wanted to sleep. I got up to use the bathroom and when I shut the door behind me I reached into my 5^th pocket and grabbed the last meth-filled capsule and washed it down with a handful of warm tap water. I stood and gazed at the man in the mirror. He was sweating and his eyes were a solar eclipse; two giant black marbles circumferenced by two bright white rings. I realized at that moment why sunglasses were really invented.  He had been through a rough twelve hours, and the pressure would not be relieved anytime soon. The only thing he could not do was fall asleep.

I went back out to the living room to find Mason weighing out a bag for somebody I had never seen before. It was a small bag so I assumed it was nobody of importance. We greeted each other with a simple bow of the head. I sat there patiently and I felt the phone begin to vibrate again. Shit. I looked at Mason and asked with a gesture of the thumb if I could leave and he gave me the thumbs up. I stood and exited his house and reached into my pocket for the phone.

It was Dumpy. “Why didn’t you answer yer fuckin’ phone?” I cringed at the sound of his voice. “I was busy, what do you want?” He spoke very clearly, “We're at your hotel room. We need to talk.” Fuck.

Quandary 8

It was snowing in my mind. The size of the little white dots would vacillate with each bump on the road. I had the windows down and the radio cranked to keep me from falling asleep. Before I left the room I had made a few capsules filled with meth so I could eat them on the move and I swallowed one down with a chug of cold coffee I had from who knows when. Ingesting meth would add on to the visions but keep my body stirring.

I knew a girl in Chatfield and I had the thought that maybe she might know Driver because all tweakers in small towns seem to know each other. Her name was Crystal, all of their names are Crystal. We knew each other from working together at an old bar in the small town of Fountain a few years back. I knew right when I met her that she was a heavy drug user, and my instincts were spot on. I knew her only fifteen minutes before we were smoking a crack pipe in the bathroom. She had a weird habit of clicking her teeth repeatedly after a good hit. It reminded me of those wind-up chattering teeth with a face around it. But she was cool and she was a loyal customer, and I helped her transition from crack to meth which was a considerably less expensive habit. I selected her name from my contact list and tapped.

About a minute later I caught myself drifting off and cursed the man who made the lines so fucking straight on the road. I looked at my phone and understood why I didn’t hear any ringing; I hadn’t actually pressed a button. I hate smart phones. This time I clicked the green send button and stared at the screen until I knew the call had sent. It rang. Enthusiastically she answered, “Hey!” Too cheerful for my mood I thought. I replied, “Hey, Crystal. I have a question for you. Do you know a guy on Union street up toward the hill?” I knew the city well enough to describe the location in a way as to not give up an address quite yet. “Uhhh. Do you mean like us?” She was a paranoid person and would only ever allude to drug use over the phone. “Yes. Like us.” She continued, “Well I know a couple people over that way but they aren’t like us.” She then continued in a whisper as if that were somehow safer, “I mean they don’t get high.” I understood the first time. Fuck. I suppose there was a chance that Driver wasn’t a user, or that she just didn’t know him, and I didn’t want her asking anybody else anything so I cut off the line of questioning and proceeded with the usual conversation. “You want to meet up?” She screamed, “YES!”

I met her at a little gas station between Chatfield and Rochester, she didn’t bring up our other conversation so I assume she had already moved on. Perfect. It was a dead end but it was worth a shot I thought. Anyhow, an hour had passed and I was still awake. I had to get through day five. It always seemed easier to stay awake after you crossed a certain threshold, but this was always the worst. My muscles were on fire from being constantly tensed. My senses were all jumbled in a state of synesthesia, and my stomach was aching from two full days without so much as a drop of water or bite of food. Eating now would surely put me to sleep, I had to put that off for at least another day. There was one thing I could eat, another capsule. I did, and I could feel the burn of the meth when the thin dissolvable container burst open in my mouth. It made my teeth hurt and I winced in pain.

I drove around for another hour until the time came for me to call my guy. I had enough money in my pocket to make it worth a trip to his house. I looked like I had been in a fight with a dump truck, and he would be pissed that I hadn’t slept. But I had to keep things on a normal schedule or he would worry. You don’t want to make dangerous people worry.

Trying desperately to stay awake behind the wheel was often a losing battle, but I pushed on.