Misery, Lust, Company

Alexis Luna

November 2005

The Two Crack Heads

I opened my eyes to sunlight. And whereas I had gone to sleep alone, I was now laying next to Kunda. I stayed motionless in bed, staring at the back of his head. His neck. His body. I wanted it to work. I knew now, from our two years apart, that I could live without him. But I did not want to. Before I even knew he was awake he said, "I'll be right back," and was up and gone within two minutes. I knew where he was going so I didn't ask. I snuggled into the pink satiny comforter and hoped that, if he was going to drink, at least we could have a good time.

Kunda returns carrying the telltale sign of liqueur stores everywhere. A plain brown bag. Only his was pretty big, and it was only an accessary to the twenty-four pack of Natural Ice Beer he held in his hand. "I don't want to hear anything about it. I wanted to take you out for a nice dinner last night and you made me snap. I had to run around the house keeping knifes out of your hands." He opened the bag and took out two Mad Dogs, and a Spark's alcoholic energy drink.

We sort of mopped around all morning, staying out of each other's way, until our cigarette breaks coincided. "They say I'm no good, 'cuz I'm so hood/ Rich folks do not want me around..." Kunda rapped continuously. I noticed his mood had undeniably perked up when I saw him dancing around the house. Then I realized he had changed his tune. Now he was singing, "I'm gonna get some crizzle," over and over again.

"Kunda, no." I knew him well enough to know he wasn't kidding. "Last time I was here, in January, you said if you ever gave me crack that meant you didn't love me." I waited for some response. Not getting one I added, "Remember?" quietly.

"You don't have to come," he answered as his tall frame moved to the unknown beat in his head.

"Well, you can't drive."

"I don't care, I'll drive," he shot back. We argued back and forth about the crack for a couple of hours. As I was getting dressed to go cop, I wondered at what point did my inability to ever say no to Kunda, hurt him more than it helped him? And what about me? Crack was one of the two drugs I had never done, I wanted it to stay that way. It has such dirty connotations. The phrase, "rock bottom", danced in my head as I struggled to get my arms into my jacket.

Is this, could this be, my rock bottom? "You don't have to do any, homie," Kunda said mockingly when he saw that I really did not want to go to Del Paso Heights.

"I can't not do it if it's in my face!" I shrieked.

"We're gonna get some crizzle, we're gonna get some crizzle," sang Kunda. I didn't even try to argue anymore. A part of me wanted to do it with him. Whereas other people are alcoholics, cocaine addicts, pot heads, ect; I wasn't too picky. Anything to numb the pain worked fine on me. A part of him wanted me to do it with him too. So he wouldn't feel so lonely.

It was raining and Kunda was bothered by the fact that the streets would be empty. Once in the ghetto, we stopped for gas. I instantly spotted a crackhead, and a second later, Kunda was asking her where to go. The car next to me appeared to be full of meth addicts, and they wouldn't stop looking at me. I was nervous Kunda was going to say something to them and get stabbed, or shot. He looked them up and down, then got in the car with me when they drove away.

"We go to Tractor St. But first, take me to the deli, I gotta get some Pyrex, baby." I obediently pulled into a muddy parking lot and Kunda dashed inside the broken down deli. It's a good thing I have borderline personality disorder and suffer so greatly from disassociation. If I was inside myself right now, I'd be pretty upset. With this trusty mental disorder, I appeared to be present... only on the inside, I could barely pick my own face out of a mirror.

Kunda motioned me to pop the trunk and he placed his purchases inside. It made me sad to see that Kunda was skilled enough in drug use to single handedly create our own glass dick. Tractor St. loomed on the dark horizon and I made a right turn onto it. The streets were empty. The rain had run all the dealers indoors. After slowly driving up and down Tracker street a couple of times, we turned and drove aimlessly around the ghetto.

I took a deep breath and tried to relax, hoping we would come up empty handed. Then Kunda proudly exclaimed, "Who can smell out some rocks, baby," and pointed up ahead at a thugy kid moving quickly down the sidewalk. "Pull over," Kunda commanded. I obliged; while doing so I drove up the sidewalk and scraped the side of the car. "Shit Alexis," he said in what sounded like disgust. That was his parting comment; he was across the street in a second, and him and the suspect crack dealer were strolling along the side of the road together.

Halfway down the block Kunda turned and waved me forward. I had no idea where he wanted me to go, what he wanted me to do, so I drove to the end of the road, turned right down a side street, and parked. Apparently I had done the right thing because my crack head boyfriend soon turned the corner with his new friend. It was raining and I had worn a velvet jacket that was slowly getting ruined while I smoked a Newport. I hated Newports, I enjoy one Newport occasionally, but Kunda smoked them, and since I had no money of my own, I could not beg and choose.

The door opened and Kunda said, "Alexis, this is Sean."

"What's up?", I said and smiled.

"What's up?" As he answered, he slipped into the backseat. He was dressed in an NFL Starter jacket, a blue hooded sweatshirt stuck out of its neck, and baggy jeans. In one hand, he held a discman, and in the other, a Philly cigar.

Kunda jumped in the car next, apologizing for the fact that the inside appeared to have mold growing in it, and asked where we were off to.

I was directed to return to Del Paso Heights and to make a right. The entire time I held my eyes tightly to the road, scared to look at Kunda; scared to admit to myself we were both drug addicts. Kunda and Sean were talking about his plans to leave this place; to join his baby and her mother in Arizona. After making a left and parking in front of run down apartments, Sean jumped out and promised he would be right back. I rolled the window down and began smoking another Newport. The rain continued to stain my jacket.

"We're not supposed to park here, Kunda," I said in an annoyed voice that was meant to hide the fear brewing deep inside me. Within my stomach lay a hard knot, and I would not let myself think about the pathetic predicament I had placed myself in.

"Look, if the cops come, just say we got into a fight and that we pulled over," Kunda was nervous, I could tell by the stress in his voice.

"No, I'll just say we're looking for crack," I rudely replied, without looking in his direction.

The bottom half of a white and blue Starter jacket, and the top half of baggy jeans appeared in front of the passenger side window. Kunda opened the door and they gave each other the indiscrete handshake, the "no, I'm not taking drugs from this person", hand shake. Whenever I had to do the handshake, I always got paranoid. Like the times I had to go to Jersey City, Grove St. Path Station, to meet my dealer for meth or coke. But watching the handshake between Kunda and Sean, I wasn't paranoid. I was ill.

"Later homie, good luck in Arizona," Kunda said in parting to Sean. To me he said, "I feel bad for black people, the cops always fuck with them, whether or not they sell shit."

"Well, I'm sure we're not improving their situation by coming into the ghetto for crack. If people like us didn't buy it, who would sell it?"

"So, you feel I'm contributing to the problem?"

I rolled my eyes. "How do I get out of here? Where are we going?"

"This is How We Do" by Game came on and Kunda turned it up full blast and started rapping along. He was moving his shoulders to the beat and I couldn't help but smile at him. He looked at me and sang, "I'll give it to you just how you like it, girrrl," I don't know if he was trying to or not, but he always made me laugh. I drove to Arden Way and we decided to go to the Extended Stay hotel right off of 80.

Well, drunk Mukunda's mood had certainly changed. And now that we were out of danger of going to jail, I tried to lighten up. I tried to forget that in a few minutes, we would be on crack. What the hell was I doing? Where was my life going? What had happened to my baby? Tears welled up in my eyes and obscured my view of him as he stepped inside the doors to pay for our hotel room.

The door to room 605 slammed shut behind me and I stepped inside our crack den and took off my coat.

"If we're going to smoke crack, then we're going to have dirty, nasty sex all night long," I said and smiled suggestively at Kunda. He wasn't even listening, already on the bed stuffing his plastic dick with a piece of Brillo pad.

"Kunda, we don't have to smoke it. It hurts me that you do this," I was pleading with him to no avail.

"You don't have to smoke any," he said, not even looking at me, but gently placing small rocks into one end of the makeshift pipe. He was right, I didn't have to. But if it could help me escape this fucked up reality, and was in front of me, then I was definitely smoking some. I took off all my clothes, except for my thong, and climbed in bed with him.

"Take your clothes off," I commanded.

"No," he said, annoyed that I was distracting him from his current task of heating up the rocks.

"Kunda! Take your fucking clothes off. I want to smoke crack naked. Then have crack head sex. Take your clothes off!" Finally looking at me, he quickly ripped his shirt off, stood up, and pulled his pants off. "You can get hard on this, right?" I asked.

"I don't know. I never had sex on it before."

"Ya, right."

"Okay, but only with prostitutes."

I was shocked. Then he said, "I'm just kidding. Why would I buy crack, and give it to someone I didn't even know? I love you, baby, that's why we're sharing."

"Yeah, you really love me. You said before, if you gave it to me, that meant you didn't love me," I reminded him yet again. I thought that if I made him feel guilty enough, he would stop, we could throw it away and go home. I should have known, from personal experience, addicts love nothing more than their drugs.

"I want the first hit because I've never done it before."

"No, it's mine, I bought it, I'm taking the first hit," he answered.

"Nooooooooo!" I wailed. "Me first." I had resigned myself from thinking this could be avoided, and I wanted to "feel it" as soon as possible. So I could stop feeling the heavy feelings of failure at my life, which seemed to be weighing me down. I felt like I couldn't move. Intense defeat engulfed the hotel room; practically tangible. Soon it would be visible as smoke. Soon it would be coming out of my lungs.

"How do I do it?" I asked.

"Just let me go first, and I'll show you," he said. I shook my head and grabbed for the pipe. He deftly kept it out of my hands, for fear some pieces of rock would fall out. "Like this," he demonstrated by putting the empty end of the plastic in his mouth, while holding the other end at a forty-five degree angle with the ceiling. Then he took the lighter and began to light it. I swatted at the lighter, and managed to snatch it out of his hand. With an impatient look, he handed the pipe to me and watched. I mirrored his actions, and as my thumb began applying pressure to the orange button on our lighter, purchased at the deli specially for this crack, he said, "I'm so happy you're doing crack with me, baby."

I ignored his grin and comment, and began turning the pipe back and forth threw the flame. Looking down at the pipe, I watched the smoke coarse through the plastic into my body. I continued to inhale until I felt I would burst, handed Kunda the pipe, and waited. I held it in for as long as I could as he watched expectantly. Finally I exhaled, and a huge billow of poisonous smoke filled the air.

"Shit Alexis!"

"I don't play around, baby," I said, happy now that I was high. Crack's not that bad, I thought, it's just a drug, like any other drug, it just has low class connotations. And aren't all drugs bad anyway?

As Kunda took his first hit, I fell against the fluffy pillows and pulled the blankets up over me. A calm feeling had passed over my body and I no longer cared about being in a room, smoking crack. That's not true. I still cared. Only now I liked it. I stared at Kunda and didn't see an alcoholic drug addict. I didn't see a college dropout; a homeless man... I saw my soul mate.

He passed the pipe back to me, and I took another hit. He laid his head on my naked shoulder and I stared down at his beautiful face, able to ignore the feelings of despair which lapped at the corners of my mind. I love Kunda, no matter what. I'll never leave him. I'll either end up on the street with him, or end up a famous writer with him. But either way, I'll be with him.

Finally putting the pipe down, he laid on top of me, propping himself up with his elbows. He stared directly into my eyes. "I love you, Kunda."

"I love you too," he answered quietly, and covered my mouth with his. I wrapped my arms around him and gently rubbed my tongue against his. Soon our hands were racing over each other's body, feeling the curves and ripples which were indented in our memories. The love we made was sweet and gentle and slow. He stopped and began to pleasure me. "You know, I've never tried to make another woman feel good. I've never cared about making another woman feel good. Only you. And with you I feel I try so hard."

"You know you make me feel good, Kunda." I sweetly replied.

After more sex and the rest of the crack, the mood changed.

"It wasn't that good," he said, referring to the crack.

"I know, I didn't really feel anything," I claimed.

"Look, Alexis. Look at me," he urged, and encompassed both of my hands with his. "I'll never do this again. I promise. I can't make that promise with alcohol, but I can make it with this. Never again."

"Please don't Kunda, I don't...I didn't.." I couldn't finish my sentence. I was empty, with no words. The high quickly wore off, and the two of us were left to deal with the reality of our situations. I felt bad for Kunda. I was worried about him, I didn't want him to end up like this forever. I still didn't have the courage to worry or care about myself.

"Will you go buy me some alcohol?"

"No," I said, seriously annoyed.

"Fine, I'll go." And he stood up and began getting dressed. I stood up and headed for the bathroom. The hotel room was nice, and two walls in the bathroom were covered with mirrors. I avoided them, and turned on the shower. I was shaking, and sweating from the crack. All I wanted to do was take a hot shower, and burn this day away. As I was carefully selecting shampoo, conditioner, soap, and face wash, the heavy door to the outside world slammed shut, and I knew Kunda was off to another liquor store.

The shower was small, and once inside, there was no escaping the scalding beads of water. Without hesitation, I stepped directly under the shower head, and turned my face up, permitting the water to beat against it. It burned, but I deserved it. Once I was saturated I stepped back against the wall, and slipped down, almost falling, to the floor. I laid down inside the small shower in a fetal position. My skin was red, I wanted to cry, but the tears would not come. Too exhausted to even wash, I just laid there, until I heard pounding on the bathroom door.

"What?" I managed to utter. I suppose it wasn't loud enough because the pounding continued. "I'm okay," I yelled. The pounding stopped, I turned off the water, and wrapped a towel around my hair, and one around my body. The bathroom was foggy and hot. As I opened the door, cool air bombarded me, shocking me back to reality. Kunda was on the bed, shirt off, drinking a green Mad Dog.

"Come drink with me," he ordered.

"You know I don't drink," I responded. "I hate drinking, it doesn't taste good, and I either don't feel it, or I get completely wasted, and end up with tattoo's on my ass." Kunda held his hand out towards me, and I moved closer to the bed and to take it.

"I'm sorry, Alexis. I really am. I'm sorry about everything."

"It's okay. I love you. You'll get better, we both will."

"Please drink with me; I'll feel less like an alcoholic and more like a social drinker," he prodded, again, this time with a huge smile on his face. Not being able to resist him, I held my hand out for the Mad Dog. I took a small sip and grimaced.

"Don't be a baby, just chug it," he urged. I tried to comply, tilted my head back, and let the liquid flow into my mouth and down my throat. "That's it, baby, good job." Silence filled the room and after the green Mad Dog, he opened up a red one.

"I used to have potential," he began, "I was a prodigy, really."

"I know baby, I remember," I knew this was the beginning of another drunk monologue.

"I was so smart. Everyone thought I was going to do such great things... And look at me. I'm a failure."

"Don't say that. You're only 25. You've had the most shitty life of anyone. You can still do great things, you just have to pull yourself together," I climbed onto his lap, placed a hand on each side of his face, and gently kissed him.

Pulling away, he continued, "I was supposed to go to a good college. I wanted to teach; make math fun for people. I had a gift. Now look at me- I have no vocabulary. I fucked my brain up for good with drugs."

"That isn't true. You're drunk all the fucking time! How do you expect to regain your intelligence through this fog of alcoholism?"

"No! I'm done, it's all over. I fucked up, there's no going back. I hate drinking, I hate it. But I can't stop. I don't know how. I have too much anxiety about life. I can't make it through a day without feeling like everyone's staring at me, talking about me."

"You're so egocentric," I tried joking with him, but the distant look in his eyes told me he could not be reached.

"I'm never going to be anything Alexis. I had a chance, I did. A good one, and I blew it. I blew it up my nose, I swallowed it in the form of a pill, and I drank it. I can't stop. I'm scared. I'm scared I'm going to die, I'm scared I'm always going to be homeless. I have no one. Everyone left me."

"I'm here," I said, softly, to him. It hurt me that he constantly complained of having no one. When I have been there since he was seventeen, and planned on staying there. Always.

"You still have a chance, you have a degree from NYU. You have a chance, I don't." He took another gigantic swig from the bottle and nestled himself deeper into the blankets on the bed. "You're going to get published. I don't have time anymore for fake compliments. I'm serious. But not me, not anymore. I could've been a writer too, I wanted to. But not now. Now, I'm nothing." Then he looked deep into my eyes and said, "If I kill myself, will you write about me? If my story can help just one person, I want it to. Please promise you'll write about me."

"Kunda! Don't fucking say you're going to kill yourself! How could you do that to me? Do you think I could deal with that?" Then, either since I was drunk, or simply because the thought of living without him was too much, I began to quietly sob.

"Baby, baby, no. Don't cry. I'm sorry, I won't kill myself. But I worry about you doing it too." He turned my wrist upwards and traced the long, deep, scar on my wrist. He kissed it, and I took his hand, and turned his arm so his forearm was facing me. I kissed his self-inflicted cigarette burns. Then we kissed each other.

After drinking more Mad Dog, I wandered my drunken self into the bathroom. This time, I looked directly into my own eyes, staring back at me from the mirror. I was naked and holding a bottle in my left hand, and a cigarette in my right. I plopped down on the closed toilet seat, mere inches away from my reflection, and took a deep drag from my Newport. I leaned my head back on the wall and took a long swig from the bottle. All the while staring at my reflection. Wondering, who is this person? It is hard for me to put a face to my thoughts, my actions. Crying, I looked around the room for comfort. For glass that could be broken, could be used to cut skin. Because that is the only way I feel real. To see my skin break and pull apart from itself. To see the blood run out from underneath the broken skin. Then I was real. Then my pain became tangible. I finished the bottle and slammed it against the sink, trying to break it, to make the shards useful. It was too thick, and it would have to be slammed much harder against the counter.

I raised my arm high above my head and was ready to use all my force to break the bottle, when Kunda's hand grabbed my own. "Stop," he said. "Don't do it, it doesn't help you."

"Drinking doesn't help you, but you do it," I answered spitefully. "And I have to watch you do it! You won't fucking stop!" Then I dropped the empty bottle and ran from the bathroom. "I hate you sometimes!"

"I can't stop, I don't know what to do!" he yelled back.

"How did this happen? How did we get like this?" I sobbed. He came towards me and I pushed him away, he moved back a few steps, almost bumping his head against a low outcrop in the ceiling.

"Don't fucking touch me like that!" He was screaming at me, I was screaming at him, he threatened to pour the contents of his third Mad Dog on my head and I pushed him again, this time his head did hit the ceiling. He rushed towards me and grabbed me by the hair. Then he slammed my head down onto the bed. I went limp and fell to the floor, crying.

This is so dysfunctional, so unhealthy. I didn't know what to do. So I got up and started getting dressed, "I'm leaving. I don't need this shit."

"You know I used to get beat, I can't take getting touched, I just snap," he was still yelling at me and I was still crying. "You're not going anywhere, you're not taking my car."

"Fine, I'll walk."

"Alexis! Stop!" Then he came towards me.

"Get the fuck away from me!"

"Fine, go back to New York, go back to your man. Your man who pimps you." I rolled my eyes and continued getting dressed, trying not to look at Kunda, trying not to think about how deeply I loved him.

"Look, let's just go, I don't wanna be here."

"I paid for this room, we're staying here."

"I'm not staying in this shit hole for another second."

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