H: Chapter Twenty-Three

We had gotten the van back. I laid awake on the cold dirt, sweating profusely, and clenching my teeth. I could absolutely not get out of my head. My thoughts swarmed and shoved and pushed, until there was nothing left but one single thought alone: Sure, I had had a couple drinks at the bar, but no one knew about it, so it’d be okay. Yes, I had promised to never drink again, but what was I gonna do? Go my entire life without partying? I’d be fine if I only had one drink a week, maybe with friends and family. Hell, I’d be okay if I drank every night and smoked half-a-joint each night. God, I really want some oxy, maybe even H. But only a drop. A quarter-gram would be good enough, I just need to find it. Yes, only a quarter-gram, maybe even an eighth. I’ll be fine.

I sat up. My sleeping bag crinkled against my body. My clothes were immensely itchy, and sticky against the sweat pouring down my body. God damn it, I had just gotten over the withdrawals. Why the fuck am I sweating? I’m such a stupid piece of shit. Stupid piece of shit.

“Thomas?” I softly whispered, gazing over in his direction. “You awake?” Thomas did not respond, he was fast asleep. I turned my body over to where Travis was sleeping and called his name out in a harsh whisper. He was asleep too. The coast is clear. I’ll only get, like, one gram, and I’ll be fine. Just one gram, and I’ll be okay. I won’t relapse. I won’t relapse. I, will, not, relapse.

I slowly slid out of my sleeping bag and stood up. My gaze was directed at Travis and Thomas, snoring softly like two piglets. I crept slowly to the trees, leaves and twigs crunching under my feet. As I walked, the snores of my friends repeated aloud in my head. Honk, honk, snnhhhhh. Honk, honk, snnhhhhh.

“Payte?” Thomas said.

Shit, I’ve been found out.

“Payte, don’t… don’t go there. That door is…” Just as panic began to flood into my chest, Thomas rolled over and continued snoring. He was just talking in his sleep, I’m good.

I took a deep breath and continued walking through the woods. My heart raced like I was in the middle of a marathon. Saliva gathered at the corners of my lips and dribbled down my shirt. I could almost see that one gram of H in my hands, right at that very second. It seemed magical, healing, beautiful.

It seemed that I had lost the ability of direction, a god given right so we wouldn’t end up lost or stranded in the wild. I walked for what felt like hours with no sign of getting out of the woods. I blame it on the fact I was delirious with desire, but who really knows. Anytime that I thought that I had made some progress, I’d see the same fuckin’ tree or rock and realized that I had just gone in a circle. Normally, I would’ve grabbed my cheap knockoff iPhone made by some poor Chinese kid strapped to a desk, but I had forgot it. And I didn’t want to risk going back and waking anyone up.

I don’t know where the fuck I was, but I had soon come to an eerie clearing. I looked around and felt chills down my spine. I exhaled, and my breath had become icy cold.

And then… Jack stepped out of the trees, staring at me with cold dead eyes. This was it, I had officially gone insane. I would soon be sent to mental hospital and scream, saying, “I saw him! It was him!” as the sexy nurses try to strap me down to the bed and insert a needle, loaded with opiates, into my left butt-cheek.

I stared back at Jack and tears welled up in my eyes. I collapsed to my knees and sobbed hysterically. I felt like such a little bitch. “Jack…” I said, stretching my arms out at him. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so, sorry. Can you ever forgive me? I killed you, Jack. I killed you. I just want this all to end, I want to be better, but I can’t. I’ll always be me, I’ll always destroy people. I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sorry…”

“This is… depressing.” A voice called out behind me. It was Thomas.

“Should we do something?” Another voice said, this time it was Travis. “Or just let this happen?”

“Eh, just let him process it.”

* * *

THOMAS’S REPORT OF THE INCIDENT

So here I am, sleeping in the middle of Central Park, next to two of the most fucked-up people I’ve ever met, with a raging hard-on in my jeans, because I’m in the middle of a dream where I’m getting a blowie from this hot Italian porn-star, named Isabella Marquis. Imagine my anger when I awake suddenly to the sound of Payte, walking around next to me. I knew he was heading for more drugs, cuz’ it had been on my mind for quite a while, though I never said anything. I just controlled it, unlike King Asshole, Patience Harring.

Absentmindedly, I turn onto my side and try to go back to the dream, but I can’t fall asleep. So I just imagine Isabella’s mouth around my cock. And, if you don’t mind, I’ll try to write this as if I’m a forty-year-old man who’s wife dead in the bedroom and has never written a book in his life: She wraps her warm, succulent lips around my cock and caresses the tip with her tongue, which has a piercing. My core liquefies as she does that all-too-familiar sucking and pulling motion. Then she stands back and takes the strap-on dildo and ties it around her cunt. And this is when, I realize, that I’ll definitely have trouble walking in the morning. Her tits are warm, with one nipple slight larger than the other. She walks over to me and I bend over, spreading my ass open with my hands, goatseeing the poor woman. She begins to peg me and I have to bite my lip as she rails my ass. Tears stream down my face and I try not to concentrate on the pain. This definitely isn’t what I want my wife to do with me! Haha!

But sadly, since the area of my brain responsible for reasoning isn’t shut off from death being shy, I am unable to get the same effect from thoughts alone. I toss and turn, I snore, I moan, nothing puts me back to sleep to be with my brown-sugar goddess. I lay awake, staring up into the stars when I decide that the best course of action would be to follow Payte. Maybe I’ll push him off a rocky cliff, or get him lost. Maybe once I get him lost, I’ll gather Travis and we’ll steal the van.

Whatever thoughts may or may not have been going through my mind, I had made a decision. I slowly slid out of my sleeping bag and walked over to Travis, who laid on his back, snoring softly.

“Travis? Wake up.” I lifted my foot in the hair and kicked his side softly, the tips of my toes digging into his side. Almost immediately, the poor fucker jolted awake. It was like a light-switch had suddenly been flipped. He stared up at me for a second with a grimace on his face.

“What the fuck is it? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kinda sleeping here.” He attempted to shove me away with his hand, and rolled over onto his side.

“It’s Payte.” I said softly. I could see Patience wandering off somewhere into the woods out of the corner of my eye. He shambled around like he was delirious. Something had set him off. Though what that was, I have no clue. It’s not like he would’ve told anyone anyways.

Travis sniffled and wiped the corners of his sticky lips with his thumb, and pointer finger. “Yeah?” Travis said, kind of half-groaning. “What’s he doing this time?”

I sneaked a glance over at Payte’s direction. This time he was a little further out, but still in eyesight. “He’s sleepwalking or something. Maybe, you know, just maybe, we should fuck with him a little. Give him some payback.”

Travis sighed and rolled back over onto his stomach. He reached his hands up and rubbed his eyes. He let out a great yawn, the type of yawn that kind of hurts the ligaments in your jaw. “Fine.” He said, looking straight at me with pinpoint eyes. “Let’s do it.”

Travis crawls up and out of his red sleeping bag. There’s little holes on the sides of it, created by the munching of mites, and regular wear-and-tear. Normally this would be a problem, but the weather in New York City is a cool forty-seven degrees.

“Is that him right there? What is he doing?” Travis points over to Payte who is shambling and mumbling to himself like he just escaped from a mental hospital.

I shrug half-heartedly. Now is the time to direct Payte in a certain way. I carefully tiptoe over to him, trying not to make any noise. But even if I did snap a twig or fall to my knees screaming bloody-murder, I don’t think the poor bastard would’ve even noticed. Something was fucking him up to a great extent.

“Hey…” I whisper as I get closer to Payte. “Go left..”

Payte turns around, and this when I expected him to notice it was me. Instead of him snapping out of his daze, he just mumbles incoherently again and continued left.

Travis and I begin to follow him, chuckling to ourselves, and giving Payte directions, which just so happen to lead into a circle. This continues on for a good while and soon, Payte starts freaking the hell out. I can tell that he’s about to snap at any moment. He’s seen the same rock, tree, whatever, over and over again. At this point, I don’t even think he realizes I’m right there with them.

Just as I’m about to stop this charade, a deer comes out of the bushes and just stands there, staring at Payte. And what does Payte do? He falls to his knees sobbing and petting the deer, saying, “I’m sorry Jack,” over and over and over again.

“Man, this is… kind of depressing.” Travis says. “Should we do something?”

I shrug. “Eh, let it continue on for just a little bit longer.”

“Alright.”

* * *

I woke up, lying on the dirt, to the sound of cars zooming by. My eyes slowly slid open and I stared up into the sky. Once I had regained the sense of my surroundings, I made my way back to camp and saw Thomas sitting against a tree, reading. Travis sat to the right of him, staring down into the ground.

Thomas placed his book in his lap and looked up at me, “Hey buddy…” he said in a half sing-song voice. “Were you sleepwalking last night?”

I rubbed my head to stop the aching pain and said, “No… why?”

Thomas snickered and said, “You don’t remember do you?”

I sighed and clenched my fists. “Just tell me, already. Stop this game that you’re playing.”

Travis rolled his eyes, and before Thomas could speak, he said, “You got up during the night and stumbled around, then you ended up apologizing to a deer.”

“…I thought that was a dream.” I squinted and turned around, trying to collect the mess that was my thoughts, into one singular bubble. “Wait.” I said. “I thought I saw Jack.” Then it hit me. I had a dream about Jack. That’s what caused me to freak out and hallucinate Jack standing in front of me. I really had lost it.

I sighed and took a seat against a tree. I looked around at Thomas and Travis. I knew they hated me, I could see it in their eyes. The only thing stopping them from leaving was the fact that we still had to bury Jack in Maine. After we did that, I’d be alone again. Just thinking about it made me panic, but it was what I deserved.

But I still wanted to have one last, good time, with my friends. That would make everything better. Yes, it would. “Well, we haven’t eaten, and we still need to get shovels.” I said. I looked up from the ground and met Travis’s and Thomas’s disdain in their eyes. “You guys wanna grab lunch and then go to the hardware store?” My voice was shallow and cold. It was broken in a way.

Thomas nodded softly, “Sure.”

We gathered our things and headed to the van, walking in cold silence. We got to the van and headed on the way to the diner. No word was said to each other on the way there. Only the turning of pages, grunts, and sharp breaths could be heard.

About halfway through the drive we entered into a steady flow of traffic. The plan was to get on the highway, and take that to the other-side of New York. But once we reached the highway, traffic became completely congested.

We were bumper to bumper on that shithole road. As I sat there, the walls seemed to close. We were pushed by an unmovable force, shoulder to shoulder. My chest tightened. Sweat poured down. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. God, I can’t fucking breathe!

“I CAN’T TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE!” I screamed, pounding the steering-wheel with all my might.

Travis looked up at me wide eyes, but he didn’t say a word. I mean, of course he didn’t. He didn’t like me. Thomas didn’t like me. Jack didn’t like me. I had fucked everything up. I was king shit.

I took a deep breath, opening the driver’s door. I stepped outside, and started walking.