dragged... (Part 27)

         The Soul of a Black Man   

When I woke up it felt like someone had beaten the shit out of my head with a hammer.  I saw the first light of dawn creeping across the distance, peaking beneath the blanket of darkness, and the chill of morning was causing my bones to ache and it was numbing. The last thing I remembered is that I was scuffling with Sunny trying to recreate that night of passion I had experienced with her during our scandalous, brief, affair, but then something happened; someone had intervened and halted what was likely to be another forced attack. 

I pulled my coat together to ward off the cold that seemed to be slowing the flow of blood in my body.  My hands felt like ice, and my nostrils burned when I breathed through them so I had to alternate, opening and breathing from my mouth periodically.  Each time a gust of air hit, it brought the temperature further down and I knew that I had needed to get myself out of it before I succumbed to the rigid cold. 

I reached into my pocket so that I could take a whiff of my medicine to create some instant warmth for my brittle bones.  I searched my two shirt pockets, and then all four pockets of my trousers, front and back, but couldn’t find anything. I had run out.  I hated it when I ran out of my medicine because I hated the effects of withdrawing from it – I could get real mean and nasty.

The battery of my cell phone was dead, so I started hastily walking along side of the country road.  Apparently I had been dumped beside it at some point during my blackout.  The further I got down the road, the more I started thinking of how badly I had treated Elixir Calhoun.  My actions were not warranted and the consequences of them were hitting me with the impact of a speeding locomotive, and in my mind it kept crashing against the wall of my soul. Everything that was happening to me, I deserved, because at some point in time the devil always came to collect. 

I had become a shell of the man I used to be; the life I was leading showed in my glassy eyes, on my blemished skin, and in my unpolished overall appearance.  The beginnings of a belly were starting to form because I hadn’t worked out in over three months, and I was eating any and everything – unlike before when I used to monitor what I put into my mouth.  I was consuming high sodium foods like fried chicken, chips, and sweets like ice-cream, candy, and drinking a boat load of sweetened sodas like a madman.  Whenever I crashed from my cocaine high, I could literally sleep for two straight days, and when I woke up, the cycle started all over again. 

Liquor had also become a daily thing with me too, because I couldn’t snort coke without having my “drank” along with it.  In a two hour sitting I could easily consume, six beers, and a half a pint to a pint of hard alcohol without stumbling in the least.  The tailored shirts that Elixir had purchased for me were all fitting me snuggly, so rather than hitting the gym, I started hitting shop-for-less stores like Ross and DeeDee’s to find affordable clothing to mask my weight gain.  Towards the end of our run, she would sometimes ask why I wasn’t wearing this or that, but two weeks before I started fucking around with Sunny she had stopped inquiring.  I guess she had stopped caring.

The worst mistake I ever made was taking that first toot of cocaine with one of my crew.  I promised myself that I would never get into drugs or drinking because I saw for myself how quickly they could overtake your life and consume you first hand.  It destroyed my father and mother’s marriage (they both were users), and it took down my brother too (he had been laying in Alta Mesa Cemetery for about the last five years).  He had a heart attack at 24 years old after a night of boozing and getting high on crack.  It was so sad, and after all of that you would think that it would have been enough to deter me, but here I was, broken down, and looking like a god dammed shame.

After my brother passed, I cut off communication with my parents because I had gotten tired of all of the fighting and arguing, as well as, all of the low-life’s that they associated with.  They each had a crew that they ran with and they were all lost souls.  My father was the first person to turn me onto drag queens because there was this one who ran with him in his circle of friends, named, Nicole.  Nicole had a nasty heroin addiction.  My father took it hard when her body was discovered floating around in the bay by some local fishermen one early, Saturday morning.  Apparently he had just partied with her the night prior and, I could tell by how distraught he was that they must’ve been involved. 

I was living with him at the time and his life really took a nose dive after that incident.  I’d come home from work and there would be all kinds of druggies laying sprawled out in the living room, but the night that did it was when I was sound asleep in my bedroom.  I was awaked out of a sound sleep, by the hands of this fat, slouchy, greasy ass queen who had entered my room.  The fat motherfucker was stronger than an ox and when my father heard me screaming, he busted through the door and beat the shit out of him. 

I thought to myself, finally, now we’d have some peace, but then I came home the next day and saw the nasty bastard giving my father a blow job on the couch, while my father was hitting the glass pipe.  My father looked at me in shock, but instead of making him stop, he winked at me and asked me if I wanted to hit the pipe.  I was horrified.  I waited until they all passed out, packed my shit, and left quietly.  I shacked up with a few friends over the course of six months until I had saved up enough money to rent my own apartment. 

It was one of the worst years of my life.  I had lost my brother who was 1 year younger than I, my parents, and my home.  I was out on my own at twenty five years old, without anyone to fall back on.  I had this one female I was messing around with at the time, her name was, Vonda Curtis, she was a tall statuesque stunner.  She had dark skin, model like facial features, and she dressed like one too.  Our thing ended though the day when I met Elixir in that shoe store.  I suppose I had more in common with my father than I realized. 

We dated for a year before I moved in with her, and she spoiled the hell out of me.  I cannot lie and say that the attack of Queen-zilla had anything to do with my love for “he-males”, because I found myself attracted to feminine men early in life.  I suppose who you are eventually comes to light during the right situation, and the moment my eyes locked with Elixir Calhoun’s, I threw caution to the wind.  She loved me so much, but all I could do was think about my own sexual needs.  I’m sorta of surprised she had put up with me for as long as she did, and Sunny Skies’ distraction was lethal to our relationship. 

After about an hour into my walk, I stumbled upon a lone payphone sitting out in the middle of nowhere.  When I couldn’t find any change, I lifted the receiver and made a collect call to my boy, Nick.  As I listened to the ring I decided that it was time to get my life back on track before I lost everything.  I was going to stop fucking around with Sunny Skies, get myself cleaned out, and once I did, I was going to win Elixir back.  I just had to. 

He answered on the third ring and accepted the collect call. 

“Nick, man, I need you,” I said. 

His answer, without missing a beat was, “Where are you at my brotha?”

I was relieved; I hadn’t cashed in all of my chips just yet.