junkie

And now, for something a little different. Welcome to the variety hour, boys and girls. (Part 1)

junkie

by Ishmael Hodges

The smell hits me before I even open the door. Only one thing that could mean, only question is who. If it’s Rex, no great loss. If it’s Alice, and Rex is fucking off somewhere, gunna be pissed. Hopefully it’s not both of them.

I pull the door to the ramshackle open slowly, but the warm breath of rot still hits me in the face like a punch, makes my eyes water. I peer inside. Rex lies folded up in the corner in a heap. He looks small now, diminished. When he was kicking, and juiced up, he’d been a sight to behold. But now he lies in the corner, almost blending in with the rest of the trash strewn about the dirt floor of the hut.

I turn and retch onto the ground next to the door, only a spattering of bile hits the dirt.

Haven’t eaten in two days.

Where the fuck is Alice? I hadn’t seen her inside, and goddamned if I was going in there anytime soon to make sure. From the smell of it Rex has been dead a couple days, maybe more. I prop the door open to let out some of the stench and a cloud of flies, then lean against the side of the hut, wipe my mouth, spit on the ground.

Did Alice kill Rex? I shake my head to clear the fog. Don’t think so. Always felt like they cared about each other, as much as two slipheads can anyway. God I can taste Rex in the back of my throat.

Somehow or another, these two had come into some weight a week ago. Don’t know where, they knew better than to tell me, and I knew better than to ask.

Good shit too, they let me taste it.

Could’ve let me actually have a proper go. Cheap fucks. Only reason they even let me taste it was I said I’d help them move it. After they stepped on it, of course. Shit like this only came around once in a blue moon, made no sense to waste it on the freaks. Fucking savages. I told them not to step on it too hard before they gave it to me, told them it was because I didn’t wanna catch any blowback from some angry sliphead who didn’t get as much dazzle as he thought he paid for.

Truth was, I didn’t give a fuck about that. I’d put my share of troublesome slips in the ground, I’d do it again. Truth was I planned to step on it myself.

I collect myself, and creep back to the open door. Sun’s up a bit higher now, and I can get a proper look inside. Definitely no Alice. But her bag is gone too. Fuck.

Maybe the greed got to her and she merced Rex. Doesn’t really matter. She’s gone, along with the bag, and my hopes of getting any sort of satisfaction.

Sun makes my head hurt, so I shift myself toward the outskirts of the Burg. If I know Alice (and I fuckin do), and she did kill Rex, there’s only one other place she’d go to move the gear.

Faxon’s.

It’s maybe a twenty-minute walk from Alice and Rex’s to Faxon’s, but it takes me thirty. Head is pounding like a drum. If I don’t get well soon, it’s gonna be a problem. Maybe I don’t even give a fuck about helping move that shit now. Whatever Alice got bound up in, I want no part of it. I just need to get well, to get right before I can even think about anything else.

Pathetic. I’m no fucking sliphead, goddamnit. No captain of industry either, but if I am a freak, at least I’m a functional freak. Not like these scumbags that litter the streets around Faxon’s. More and more of them the closer I get. Drifting around like the zombies from those shows I watched as a kid. Shaking like leaves. Teeth chattering, a hellish bony din.

The living dead.

Missing that sun now that made my head hurt. Streets here reek. HiRises above block all sun from reaching the hollows and corners here, no matter the time of day. Shit here hasn’t been dry in decades, not since the old Burg burned to the ground. Only time I ever seen mushrooms grow in a city is here. They sprout from the gutters, crawl up the sides of crackling tenements. If I stay in the street, I’ll be good. In the dark ends of alleys is pure musk and rot, dead freaks stacked in drifts like piles of dung, becoming one with the pavement. Gods they stink. The glowcaps cover their corpses, food for the ones in the sewers who weren’t fortunate enough to die.

I try spit, but my mouth is dry. My lips curl as I weave my way through the densifying crowd of freaks as I approach the rear of Faxon’s. This is the end for those who get stuck in The Burg. Hundreds of ex-suits drift down from the HiRises every week. Those who once could afford a Slipstream habit settle to the bottom of The Burg like so much silt when their funds inevitably run out. From there all oads end at Faxon’s.

Or the sewers. When the shakes start, the glowcaps offer a temporary but welcome reprieve. But it’s a devil’s bargain, and I’m no fool. I’ll eat a gun first.

Need to get the fuck out of here, but not before I find Alice. She owes me, a deal is a deal. Or least she can fucking do is get me right, get me streamed.

Need to get into Faxon’s first though. Could be a problem.

Faxon and I have…history.

The stars start up in the corners of my vision. My throat feels lean, raked, stripped, like I just swallowed a shot of varnish. I taste pennies on the back of my tongue.

It’s starting. Maybe ten more minutes before the shakes start and I’m fucking useless. I quicken my pace as I approach the rear entrance to Faxon’s, shouldering aside several freaks who stand quivering, chattering, staring at the door.

Faxon’s main attack dog Reggie stands by the door, arms crossed, a mountain of meat.

“Sup Reg?” I say, feigning casual.

Reg seems to inflate as he turns my direction.

“The fuck did Fax say last time you showed your face here, you piece of shit?”

“Come on, Reg, that was a year ago. Don’t tell me he’s still fucking mad about that?”

“You know good and goddamned well he’s still mad.”

“Just let me in, Reg, and I’ll square shit with him. I’ve got an offer he can’t refuse.”

I don’t.

“Likely tale, Bill. Now fuck off before I snap your neck and leave you for the fungals.”

“Just tell me, is Alice in there? I just found Rex. Dead, folded up like a lawn chair. Fax know ‘bout that?”

Reggie’s eyes narrow.

“Rex is toasted? How?”

“The fuck should I know? That’s part of what I’m tryin’ to figure out. Now let me talk to Faxon, or do you really want to tell him you turned away the guy who knows where the weight went?”

This is a long shot, but it works. Reggie snorts and stands aside from the door.

“Go in. But if you’re lying, even the capheads won’t touch you when I’m done.”

“Yeah yeah.”

I slide past Rex through the door, he slams it behind. I hear a meaty thud as his fist smacks into the head of one of the freaks who had slowly sidled too close, but his subsequent curses and the freaks garbled screech of pain are cut off by the door.

I blink rapidly, adjusting to the sickly wash of neon and smoke. Faxon’s Dive is always a haze, far bigger on the inside than it seems it could be from outside. The smell of sweat and sundry fluids mixes with the incensual stink of the barrow-weed puffing in great clouds the smoketap tables that litter the floor. I pick my way among the tables where the barrowers loiter, past the couches that rim the edge of the room, couches where gods know what and who are lying comatose, entwined. An unholy blend of mechanical whirring, murmuring, and the sounds of sex and pain muddle together, as the curtains to the siderooms move and sway.

Curtains sway and move in rhythm, a unison dance.

Breathing.

Move and sway.

Swaymovementispullinghypnauticalwavestowardstheblackshoreandwemustsailbeyondthe……..

I shake my head. Snort.

Goddamn-ed second-handed barrowsmoke. Fucking un-toward.

Gotta get the fuck out of here.

But not before I get what I came for.

(to be continued)

(maybe)