Addicted
My Friend Charlie
Sometimes, his mind regressed back years and years. It repeated old, grey images of his childhood. Images he didn't really want to see, thank you very much. Not that he'd had much of a childhood, of course. Sold up the river (almost literally, but it had been the ocean) for a few Gil and a bag of smack. I love you too, Mother.
Sold into slavery, at first, but then he'd made it ten times worse by running away from that and having to rely on prostitution to survive. Tseng the rent-boy. He laughed harshly, dispelling the memories of fragmented words and pictures. After all, he was the leader of the Turks, was he not? Weakness wasn't an option.
At first, he'd only tried it because he was given it. Set out the little white lines on a mirror and snorted them, not knowing what to expect. The rush he got of new-found talkativeness, confidence and increased energy was intense- no longer was he the shy little boy from the backwaters town, no longer the poor little rent boy, he was Superman. Or something like that. He felt like he could live forever in those lines, block out all the hurt and join the beautiful people with their fur coats and champagne. At least for thirty minutes, anyway. Then he came down fast, back to his mundane, horrible existence and his scars. All that was left was the mirror in which he saw a gaunt, desolate face and lacklustre eyes, the razorblade with which he cut deep lines into his thin arms and the banknote with which he'd invariably buy more coke. It was a vicious circle that would last most of his adult life.
Even though he had one of the most sought-after jobs on the planet, he was still unhappy. There was little satisfaction in the repeated killings and subsequent paperwork being a Turk brought, at least for him. He was no sadist, and he did not revel in the soul-crushing assassination he went through each day. The coke was a happy escape for him- wrapped up in its ebullience he was free from the daily grind. Everybody loved him. Shame they only knew the cocaine and not the helpless little boy inside that was so meticulously concealed within.
He sighed and for the first time noticed the tears blurring his reflection in that bloody mirror. It was going to haunt him for the rest of his days, the well-established routine of cutting the lines so neatly and breathing them in through the well earned banknotes that seemed to be omnipresent in his jacket pockets.
Afterwards he felt like shit, though. No appetite or energy, no lustre, no sparkle. He snapped at anyone and everyone and he didn't sleep. He couldn't. Because without the cocaine, they could get him. He hated his memories, wished he could just erase them forever because they weren't part of the new life he'd tried so hard to build. Tseng the respected leader of the Turks was not Tseng the downtrodden and downright abused rent-boy. There was no way they were the same person. The coke made sure of that. And so he had to keep following the circle round and round, and slowly but surely the past faded. Thirty minutes of tranquillity was the only thing he lived for these days, the blessed escape from his for-shite reality.
As his pupils dilated, he laughed again, less harshly. Because now the tables were turned, weren't they? Now he was the one with the buying and selling power, and not the one who was bought and sold. As his past drifted away from the bubble coke put around him, he felt at peace. He could do anything, have anyone he wanted to. He smiled, gratified by these lovely thoughts and their implications. All for thirty minutes and all because of the little white lines on his mirror.
But…it wasn't the powder itself Tseng was dependent on. Well, it was, but more than anything it was the powerful rush that came with the drug, the feeling of happiness, confidence and success that he could never experience without his designer drug, his friend Charlie.
Fin