Junk
Craig Manning woke up and was immediately disgusted. Disgusted by his fiending urge to go into the drawer of the nightstand next to him and take out his next fix, disgusted by the sleeping redhead next to him and all of her drama and shit that drove him to his next fix faster than anyone or anything else. He lay back in bed shirtless as he tried to stall before he let his mind give into his body's screams for more.
He reached for his pack of cigarettes and took one out and stuck it in his mouth. He pulled the covers off of him, slowly and prayed he wouldn't wake up his wife as he got out of bed. He lit the cigarette and exhaled deeply, relishing the burning in his lungs. The sudden rushes of nicotine to his brain momentarily hushed the withdrawal symptoms he dreaded every morning. He made his way over to the adjoining bathroom and took a good look in the mirror.
He was, for the second time that morning, disgusted. He examined his pale bony physique and lamented the lack of meat on his body and shuddered at his face. There was no fat on his fat; not even enough to look healthy. His skin stretched over his face and created a look that was eerily skeletal.
He tried to remember the last time his body craved food as much as it craved the dope he greedily poured into his veins and he couldn't remember. He couldn't remember the last time he felt hunger. Actual hunger not hunger for the next fix. He laughed at how fucked up that was and inhaled another lengthy drag of his cigarette.
He pulled on a pair of pajama pants and went down the hall to find the one solace in his life. The one thing he truly cared about. Alice. He smiled as he thought about his daughter. As much as the thought of that whore Ellie made his violently ill and brought back all the memories of his mental illness at it's peak; he loved Ellie for providing him with the most beautiful thing in the world. Four years ago, when he first started doing dope and before Ellie even touched the stuff was when Alice had entered his world and completely turned it upside down.
Sometimes when he lay in bed at night when Ellie was passed out and he was coming down from his last fix, he toyed with the idea of becoming clean. God knows, what all these drugs and dysfunction was doing to Alice. Maybe he wasn't beating her physically but by being strung out all the time; he was beating her emotionally. But then the drugs called his name and he was in love with them. And when if there ever was a contest between Alice and heroin; he was completely wrecked to admit that Alice wouldn't win.
He turned the knob in his daughter's room and found his mother-in-law and Alice on the floor watching television. Some stupid Disney Channel shit that he knew his daughter loved and the evidence was written all over her face as she smiled and giggled at the antics of the show. He smiled at her joy and his whole body untensed. It was the Alice effect; he thought smiling. Almost better than any drug. He frowned when he realized what he thought. Almost.
His mother-in-law jerked her head abruptly and saw her dirty junkie son-in-law looking like death standing in the doorway smoking a cigarette and frowned as she noticed the ashes were falling over the pink plush carpet.
"Craig," she addressed him firmly but not as firmly as she wished she could. She still had a four year old granddaughter to protect from her strung out parents.
Craig snapped out of his trance and looked at his mother-in-law. He knew he was in for a lashing.
"Yes?" he asked as innocently as he could.
"I have asked you a thousand times not to smoke near Ali's room. Haven't I?" She said sweetly.
Craig glanced down at the cigarette in his left hand and at the pile of ashes on the floor.
"Sorry, I forgot. I just wanted to get Alice up and ready for school." He shrugged. Craig prayed she wouldn't start with him. Not here and not now.
"It's Saturday." She replied coldly.
A wave of self resentment washed over him. How the fuck could he not know what day it was? He was mentally kicking himself in the head when he noticed Alice was dressed in a yellow summer dress and her red hair was scooped into two neat pigtails held into place by two yellow barrettes.
"Um why is Alice all dressed up?" He asked, raking his hand through his dirty dark curls.
"We have a barbecue to go to today, Craig. Don't you remember? Your friends? The Hogarts? In fact, we're leaving in twenty minutes. I would have woken you and Ellie up but I didn't want to disturb you or anything you were doing."
The last sentence was said with such discontent and disgust that it only fueled the fire of self resentment that had been growing all morning.
He knew he was a junkie fuckup married to another junkie fuckup but to be reminded by his mother-in-law in front of his four year old daughter was another story.
"I'll get Ellie up and we'll be downstairs in ten minutes." He said, trying to smile and pretend like he couldn't sense the disappointment in her demeanor.
"Okay, Craig." He didn't have to face her to know she rolled her eyes.
He practically sprinted to his room and burst through the door to find Ellie dressed in a black summer dress, black heels with her stringy hair loose and on her shoulders. She started to lean over her dressing table and inhale the white lines in her nose. She wiped her nose and sniffed heavily. She turned and smiled.
"Hey babe. I thought we might need a little bit of this to wake us up after last night's party." She laughed and tossed her hair.
He looked at her. She attempted to hide the dark circles under her eyes with makeup and she didn't look any better. Or cleaner. He wondered silently if she showered.
"Babe?"
He looked into her big hazel eyes that were staring up at his with deep questioning and he tried desperately to search for any of the life and principles that he fell in love with were still there. Her eyes were dead. Completely glazed over and dead. The drugs had taken all of her quirky cynical idealism and turned it into nothing. She was nothing now.
He slowly stepped away from her, cringing as he saw her bend her head over one line after the other. The urge, the need, the screams for his fix grew louder and louder. He felt himself become nauseous. He yanked off his pajama pants and pulled on a pair of jeans; not caring if they were clean or dirty. He thrust his closet doors open and yanked on a Jethro Tull shirt and a leather jacket. His standard uniform.
He went into his special drawer after yanking on a pair of shoes and locating his rock star sunglasses. He looked at his needle, all pointy and metallic. He examined the liquid inside, clear, poisonous and life giving. He located the vein he usually shot up and closed his eyes as he injected himself. His pupils dilated and all of sudden, he was at peace. He could think easily in a syrupy flowing motion. Thoughts were no longer separate fragments but winded together in one fluid movement of his brain.
Alicemusicellierecordcompanyfansgigsconcertscokespeedheroininjectmoremoremoremoremorealice
The only thing he could hear when he got into the car that his annoying mother-in-law insisted on driving was Alice's preschool babble. He smiled as she babbled on and on about the puppies she saw on television. He couldn't hear Ellie's nasal nagging or her mother noisily grind her teeth. It was happiness.