H: Chapter Two

I woke up sometime later, with my face in the dirt. My head was wicked sore and tiny pieces of glass were lodged inside my skin. A tree branch had landed on the dirt just a little bit away from my nuts. If I had been thrown out the windshield just an inch further, I would’ve been castrated by mother nature. Imagine me, a eunuch sterilized by a tree. There’s a strange feeling when you cheat possible un-kid-ilization for the first time. You’re suddenly aware that you’re not as invincible as you think you are, but on the other hand, you get a real fuckin’ insane ego boost.

The first thing I did after waking up, was reach for the pack of cigarettes in my pocket. I pulled a cigarette out and put it in my mouth. I lit it and groaned as I stood up. There were a million tiny shards of glass in my body. There was one big one in my back, about an inch in length and a few centimeters buried into my skin. I winced and pulled it out, then I flicked it onto the ground. And then, finally, I saw it.

I shit you not, Bessie was parked directly on top of the fucking tree. I have no idea how that happened, and frankly, I don’t want to know. There’s always a logical explanation for things. But once you know that, it takes away from the mystique. Sometimes it’s better to remain ignorant just so you can be happy.

The bad part, was that a tree branch had pierced the bottom of the engine. I opened the back of the van and climbed inside to check the damage. It turned out that the branch had pierced the battery, and the acid inside was leaking everywhere. I climbed out and started swearing under my breath. The last thing we needed was a fucked up van.

I looked around at my friends. Thomas was sitting under a tree with his face buried into a book. It was about the size of the bible, and it’s text was just as small as, well, the fuckin’ bible. He had been reading it for two months, and had gotten it after stealing it from a bookstore in Albuquerque.

Travis was laying on the ground, sleeping with a porno-magazine covering his face from the sun. He had originally stolen it from a bookstore in Albuquerque. The front of the store only sold turquoise. The back of the store was dedicated to novels and books of all kinds.

Jack sat in the dirt, lighting a joint with his lighter shaped like a rifle. He had stolen it from a turquoise and bookstore in Albuquerque. The part of the store, behind the books, sold weaponry of every form. You could only access this area with a pass-code, as all the actual guns had their serial numbers shaved off.

I looked around at my friends. Their sullen faces, their acne, the saliva dripping from the corners of their lips, I took it all in. We were the defeated, demented, and damned, constantly struggling.

“Everyone alright?” I called out. There was no response.

I pressed my palm to the small of my back, and popped it. Even moving my body in the slightest way hurt. Luckily I hadn’t broken anything, though it felt like it.

Thomas looked up at me and put his book down. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up. Thomas was always the quietest of our group of misfit toys.

I walked over to Travis and lightly kicked him. “Wake up.” I said. “Wake up. Wake up.”

Travis smacked the porno-mag off his face and sat up. “I’m awake, asshole. What do you need?” Travis yawned and stretched his arms out into the sky.

“We need to get a new battery for Bessie, the old one’s completely shot.”

Travis rubbed his eyes and said, “And how are you gonna go about that?”

“I got a plan, just follow me.”

* * *

We walked along the highway. Bullets of sweat dripped down our sunburned skin. It’s times like these where you need to learn to embrace the suck. The heat, the pain, the struggle, it all teaches you how to walk through the fire. One day you’ll look back on all the shit you went through, and you’ll learn form it.

We were heading away from Des Moines. Together, the four of us decided that we would only go there with each other. It was weird to think about the fact that we had been traveling for six months. Thinking about that always gave me a weird feeling of déjà vu.

If you look back on your life, you’ll realize that everything has led up to this moment. This kind of thinking can put you at ease, at least for a little while. But too much of it can tend to drive you crazy. And that’s probably because the answers just tend to lead to unanswerable questions. I don’t have time to be driven insane by the pursuit of knowledge. I’d rather sit on my ass and smoke a joint while music blares.

As we walked Travis turned to me and asked, “Who would you rather do it with: Selma Hayek, or Natalie Portman?”

I shook my head, “They’re both so old, they probably queef out dust. So, neither.”

“Queef?”

“Yeah, it’s like girl farts or something.”

“Weird…”
“Yeah.”

Cars zoomed by us. One of them was a red Ford Explorer and tossed out some coins onto the side of the road. We picked each one up and continued walking.

I hadn’t told Travis the plan yet, I wanted to see if he would follow me in whatever I did. It was a test of his loyalty.

Eventually, an old guy driving a Honda Civic stopped next to us. “You two need a ride?” He asked. The guy was wearing a white tank-top with tattered jeans. He had a white beard that stretched from the sides of his bald head, and to his chin.
I gave a fake smile and waved. “Can your car battery get to fifteen volts?” I asked.
The old man paused, taken aback. “Uh… no?”

“Then we don’t need a ride.”

We continued walking.

Travis turned to me and asked, “Fuck, marry, kill: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, or Ana De Armas.”

“First of all,” I burped and continued talking, “I’d fuck Ryan Gosling cuz’ I wanna see what it’s like with a dude—“

“You’d be the top though, right?”

“Oh yeah, totally, I don’t want a dick in my ass. Then I’d marry Margot Robbie and kill Ana De Armas.”

“Why kill Ana?”

“Because she’s like forty-years-old dude. Margot Robbie still has few good years left before she gets all wrinkly and stuff. There’s only so much that billionaire makeup can cover up.”

“Shit, that makes sense.”

We walked in silence for quite some time until I asked, “What about you?”

“I’d kill Ryan Gosling and have a threesome with Margot and Ana.” Travis said.

“Damn, that’s smart, I wish I would’ve thought of that.”

“Yeah,” Travis laughed.

“Wait, have you ever had a threesome?”

“Uh, no, I’m still a virgin. What about you?”

“Oh yeah, tons of times, man. Tons.”

“Really?” Travis said with a wide grin on his face.
“No, dipshit, I was lying.”

“Oh…”
The silence returned with it’s cold awkwardness. Many cars passed the two of us, and some even slowed down to stare at us. Judging from their stares, we must not have looked very pretty. You know, not showering or cleaning your clothes for four months straight will do that to you. We must’ve looked like total hobos, is all’s I’m saying.

Travis scratched at his nose and then said, “Would you rather do so much DMT your brain explodes, or be eaten alive by fire ants?”

“DMT can make your brain explode?” I asked.

Travis shrugged, “I don’t know man. But let’s say, if it could, what would you choose? Brain explosion, or fire ants?”

“Brain exploding sounds pretty painful, but it’d be quick. Being eaten alive is also painful, but really, really, slow. I’d have to go with my brain-exploding.”

Travis nodded, “Me too.”

“…”
“…”

“…”
“…”

Travis stopped walking and sat down on the ground. “I need to take a break, man.” He stretched his arms out and yawned. He hadn’t asked about the plan yet, so he was passing the test.

I nodded and sat beside him. We relaxed in communal silence for some time until Travis looked over at me and asked, “Have you ever done heroin?”

I shrugged, “If you count my mom doing it while she was pregnant with me, then sure.”

Travis giggled, “Cool.”

“Not cool.” I said.

“…”

I sniffled and said, “Do you think Jack is still doing heroin?”

“You mean H?” Travis said. He clenched his teeth and exhaled through them. “I hope not.”

* * *

I haven’t told you this, but Jack started doing heroin sometime during our stay in Los Angeles. He would often disappear for hours at a time, only coming back to the van when he needed sleep. We would ask him where he’s been, and he would always say the same thing. “It’s none of your business, leave me the fuck alone.” Jack would then fall asleep for a good hour-or-two, just to repeat the cycle again.

One time as we were driving through Arizona, he would spend a really weird amount of time in the trunk. I mean, many of us stayed in the trunk to jack off. You know, typical young-male behavior. But we wouldn’t even hear the thump, thump, thump, thump… ahhh. It would be dead-fucking-silent. For hours. We didn’t think a human being could jerk off for that long (or that quietly) without dying of a heart attack or something. We thought it was impossible.

So what was he doing? And why did he spend so long in the trunk? Well, one day Travis decided to open the trunk to see for himself. We tried to convince him not too, nobody wanted to see Jack jerking off. That would be an image that we would never forget, and bring along very disgusting feelings with it. But Travis did it anyway. Jack wasn’t laying there, military pants around his ankles, or dick-in-hand, no, he had a syringe in his fucking arm.

“Hey, man, you can’t shoot up in here!” Travis yelled.

Thomas put his book down and turned around, “Jack! You’re shooting up in there?”

“What the fuck is Jack doing?” I shouted from the driver’s seat.

“H! Jack’s doing H!”

Jack ripped the needle out of his arm. “Leave me the fuck alone, alright?” He shouted. “It’s none of your fucking business what I do with my life!”

“That shit is gonna kill you one day!” Thomas said.

Travis stretched his arm out to grab Jack and said, “We care about you man!”

Jack pushed his arm out of the way. “No, you don’t!” He slammed the trunk door. “Don’t you EVER, open this trunk again!” His screams were muffled from inside the trunk, but you could still hear the panic in his voice.

* * *

We didn’t know how Jack got the H, but we all figured it went something like this:

Jack walks down a dark alley as the moon hangs above in the sky. The alley is located in between the McDonalds and Chick-Fil-A. Trash litters the alley. Broken bottles, used condoms, unused condoms, and drink receptacles all decorate the ground. The dumpsters are overfilled with bags of trash, and graffiti is painted on the walls.

The dirtiness of the food establishments come as no shock to Jack. When he was sixteen he worked as a dish-washer. This job taught him that every worker in the kitchen are murderers and madmen. One time, he even found lines of coke on the toilet seat in the employee bathroom. Without weed and coke, there would be no restaurants in the world.

Jack walks to a dumpster and stands next to it. A dude that looks like a total train-wreck walks towards him. He’s dressed in a hoodie that covers the top of his head. His hands are clenched and buried in his pockets. You can see warts around his mouth and nose, they’re all oily and leaking fluids. His sleeves are rolled up, revealing a myriad of track marks. “Hey,” The man says. The man must be really, really, blasted. His voice has that type of slur you get from hitting a DMT cart everyday for a year straight.

Jack notices the drug-dealer’s fucked up teeth and grimaces. They look like someone rolled a tractor over them, then painted them baby-shit green. Standing next to the dealer, Jack gets a whiff of one of the worst body-odor he has ever encountered. It’s absolute debilitating. Jack takes a step back, away from the dealer.

Jack does a double-take, making sure there’s no one around him. He looks up and says to the dealer, “You got the stuff?”

The dealer nods, “Yeah, of course I got it. You see any other guys in hoodies in this alley?”
Jack looks around, “Uh, no.”

“Then of course I got it man, what kinda fuckin’ question is that? How old are you anyway?”

Jack shrugs, “Old enough, I think. So, how has your day been?”

The dealer stares at Jack with wide eyes and his mouth agape. Even in the dark, Jack can see the manic glint in his eyes. “Yeah, man,” The dealer says after a lengthy pause. “It’s been good. Real good.”

Jack smiles, “Oh, yeah? How has it been?”

The dealer pauses and licks his dry lips. “Just give me the money, man. No funny bullshit.”

“Right, sorry.” Jack feels his pockets, searching for his wallet. He pulls out his leather wallet, and looks up at the dealer. “Do you accept cash or credit?”

The dealer sighs and takes a deep breath. “Does it look like I have a fucking card reader on me?”

“No…”

“Then what do you think?”

Jack nods and reaches into his wallet and pulls out a big ol’ wad of cash. He flicks through it, using his thumb, and pretends to count it. “Is three-hundred okay?” He asks, sheepishly.

The dealer wrinkles his nose and scratches a pimple on it. The pimple breaks and a few drops of pus leak out. “For a single gram? Yeah, yeah, totally, man.” He says with a wide smile, and hopeful eyes. He’d feel bad for scamming a kid like that if he wasn’t already planning on spending it on fentanyl.
Jack smiles, “Awesome, here you go!”

“Cool, thanks.” The dealer swipes the cash away. And in one single movement he throws the gram of heroin at Jack and runs off. Jack stands there in the dark, looking at the tiny baggy. The heroin looks like sand lifted straight from the beach. Jack opens the bag and takes a tiny sniff. It doesn’t smell like sand, so that’s good at least. He thinks to himself about how expensive H is. He asks himself why he even bothered spending three-hundred-dollars on it. Jack shrugs, stuffs the bag into his pockets, and starts walking away.