When he was a little kid, Arnie's mom used to wrap him up in a blanket, lock them both in his room, and rock him. She'd hum to drown out the screams and threats coming from the other side of the door.
He's a long way from Mom, but he still wraps himself up in a blanket and rocks back and forth. Especially after he's had a hit. It's familiar and it's comforting. The rhythmic movement drives away the self-loathing, drives away the worries of judgment, drives away the nausea. Okay, sometimes it makes the nausea worse, but it helps with the other stuff.
The phone rings. Akani.
He kind of hates her. She has an attitude, she gets the best jobs, and she has this way of talking to him that makes him feel about thirteen years old. There's also the fact that he's gotta crush on her and knows she'll never sleep with him. She reminds him of those really pretty girls in middle school who used to pick on him.
He goes into the dingy bathroom, still clutching the blanket around his shoulders. The medicine cabinet with a rusty hinge and stains all over the glass creaks when he opens it and takes out the little bag with the powder in it. He stares at it, feeling the barely there weight in his hand. Oh dear God, he wants to take another hit. He wants to stop feeling miserable, he wants to stop remembering those bitches in middle school, he wants to…
He slams the bag down on the counter and throws up. This time he at least gets to the toilet before emptying his stomach. There's not much, he didn't eat dinner. He can hear his cell phone singing out that he's got another call. He ignores it, spitting the remnants of the bile into the bowl. He closes his eyes, squeezing out a couple of tears. The smell is horrible. He flushes, grabs the bag and stumbles back into the main room of the apartment.
If the others could see him now they'd spit on him. He's sure of it. Darnell would just look at him. He doubts there would be any rage, but…disappointment? Yeah, disappointment followed by the announcement that drugs don't sit well with the Lord. Swenton's hasn't read up on his bible recently, he knows there's something in there about forgiveness in there. But he figures that he's kind of used up all his forgiveness chances.
He rips open the baggie, gets his pipe and lights up. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn.
Where was he? Oh yeah. The unforgiven. Great song. Metallica was bad ass back in the day.
He takes another hit and hacks it up almost immediately. That one went down his throat. It burns and he spends the next few minutes coughing, trying to get rid of the harsh, scratchy feeling. He misses her next phone call.
If he talked to her now she'd know he was using again. And on would come the mean comments, the eye rolls, the sarcastic remarks. He doesn't want to deal with that, doesn't want to try and explain himself. Just because she comforted him and let him cry earlier today doesn't mean she'll do it again.
He doesn't want to deal with it so he spends all night getting high and rocking back and forth. Eventually he runs out of escapism and has to focus on the cold and how wretched he feels.
William…William would be worst of all. He's so damn strict, so demanding. He dragged Swenton out of his addiction, away from the sleeping in park, away from the meth lab, away from that life. He doesn't think he could handle the yelling. He's not a kid, he doesn't need a lecture. He's a grown man, he can make his own life decisions.
Except his life decisions have historically been not so good. Which is why he has William and Darnell and even Akani. To tell him to get the new cell phone before he gets the boots. William keeps him straight. Keeps him sober.
He's come down from the high. The phone rings for the fourth time. He slumps down on the couch and angrily kicks at it, knocking the phone off the table. God, it pisses him off so much. He's an adult. He should be strong enough to resist. He's fought this battle before and won, why can't he win now? Why can't he accept that the gun forced him to take the hit and then move on? Why does he have to start using again?
Arnie Swenton stays up all night hacking up a lung and throwing up. He misses the last two calls and finally falls asleep around six in the morning. He doesn't sleep long or well.
He spends the next day denying everything and humming to himself. He's trying to drown out the screams in his head and the threat of abandonment he thinks would come.
Finite.
Author's notes: Yeah that's right. Swenton's fuxxored. Y'know, it's kind of hard to write about drugs and using when you don't know crack from meth and are too poor to find out and too apathetic to look it up. So if I got anything wrong, just fix it in your head or something.
Um…I don't think they'd abandon him or anything that harsh. But this is in the mind of someone who is pretty high at this point and dealing with a lot of angst. Boy ain't thinkin' too clearly.