Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize. The arrangement of the words, that's my choice, so yes, I sort of own that. But nothing else.
Mark was lying awake at four o'clock, staring into the darkness. Beside him, Maureen was snoring slightly more than gently. Mark's hand slipped beneath the bed to touch his camera. AZT. What is that, anyway? At least when he was taking heroin I knew--no! That's not right. Roger's better off with the AZT. At least he's alive. Both seem to be hell for his digestive system, though… The nausea had yet to subside. If Roger ate the wrong thing or even drank too much coffee, he was coughing it into the sink within minutes. Mark groaned. The difficulty was that the single physical side effect of heroin was rather inconvenient in a single-bathroom flat.
Collins had taken the best approach to it, when he started his crusade to make Roger quit. "It's a timer," he said, proud of himself, amused at his own cleverness as he held aloft a kitchen timer. "You get five minutes."
"Aw, come on," Roger whined. "What about time with my wingman?" he asked, indicating his groin. Mark, observing this, had brought his camera up stealthily. Some day the boys would appreciate the humor of the situation.It was strange, he noticed, that although Roger and Collins had very different senses of humor, both constantly seemed to be laughing, mostly at themselves.
"Roger Junior doesn't need more than five minutes."
"Don't call it that!" Roger protested. "You know that's a suggestion of reproduction. We're happy, just us two."
"Do you realize that you just referred to your penis as a separate entity?" Mark asked, baffled. He was ignored.
Collins set the timer by the bathroom. "I dare you," he told Roger.
"You could just eat more vegetables," Mark suggested hopefully. "You know in the West they have vegetables all year? In California--" At that point Roger had turned stormy, and Mark shut his mouth.
The following weeks were filled with comedy and humiliation as Roger, who would suffer constipation until he kicked the heroin, bought a girlie magazine so that whenever Collins began to knock on the door and sing patriotic ballads or the score from 'Fiddler on the Roof', Roger responded with the sounds of a man pleasuring himself.
"Come on, Roger, how long can you spend on two inches?" Collins once asked.
Roger retorted, "You mean in my colon, or are you insulting Shannon again?"
Mark shuddered. "Please stop calling your penis 'Shannon'," he said. "It makes me uncomfortable."
From the bathroom, Roger called, "Sorry--so, Collins, was that my colon you were referring to, or Marky?"
Now the AZT. From Roger's room, a hopeful name for the semi-private cubbyhole in which he slept, came one short, electronic beep! Immediately Roger silenced the contraption. He awoke every day at four a.m. to shut that thing off, and then rolled over and caught the four hours' sleep until the eight o'clock warning.
Mark listened. He heard no running water, no match struck to light the flame under the coffee pot. He heard no footsteps, but that evening they had been sitting around the table with bowls of cereal when, at eight o/clock, Roger took his AZT. The bottle had been left on the table. It had been there when Roger went to sleep, and when Mark and Maureen lay down in their bed. She slept, but he only shivered.
"Take your fucking AZT!" Mark cried. I won't let you kill yourself, Roger. Take your fucking pills.
Roger did not stir. In the industrial loft, everything echoed. The squeaking springs echoed, footsteps carried. Mark heard neither. "Take your AZT!" Mark called again.
Maureen sighed and stood. "Maureen? What--"
She mumbled incoherently at him, then left the room and settled herself on the couch. Mark fell against his pillow and punched himself in the face. "Take your AZT," he whispered, so low the sound would not carry. "Take your fucking AZT."
It was ten o'clock that morning when Roger dragged himself out of the bedroom, scratching his head in a vain attempt to comb his hair. "Hey," he told Mark, then grabbed the box of cereal and swallowed a handful dry. He was jonesing. He had been through rehab not to need smack, but nothing could make Roger not want it save Roger himself. Roger wanted it. He let himself want it.
"'Morning," Mark replied. Maureen had gone out. He couldn't say where because he didn't know.
Roger sat on their excuse for a kitchen counter, cereal box in one hand. He filled his mouth with yellow globelettes and water, both of which he took from his palm."Sorry about Maureen. She'll come round, I'm sure," Roger lied through a mouthful of cereal and tap water. He could think of no better way to make amends for his blunder, discussing Maureen's leaving Mark as though it was written in stone. After all, who could leave Mark?
"Thanks," Mark said. "And you have quite possibly the most disgusting eating habits--" He bit off the end of the sentence as Roger bared a mouthful of yellow sludge not unlike the goo spilling out of undercooked corn muffins. Mark shuddered. Roger swallowed and grinned. "Look, I can't hang around here all day, so… you know, do whatever you want, but don't do anything stupid, okay?" Mark wanted to add, Take your AZT. The words were on the tip of his tongue before he thought, Don't. Don't baby him. Roger won't like it, Roger doesn't need it. Don't hurt him with that. "Take care," Mark said instead, a bland aphorism.
Through another mouthful of cereal and water, Roger mumbled something that sounded very much like "Thuck oo, ooped dthakas." Mark grabbed his coat and left, laughing.
Roger tumbled another handful of Cap'n Crunch into his mouth and sucked a gulp of water from the tap. The loft seemed bigger without Mark. Roger shook his head, shaking out the thought--he didn't need Mark.
Yet, when he considered, it was strange being out of the clinic. There wasn't much to do inside, but support groups to go to, and as a rule every inmate played sports for an hour each day. That had been a good rule. Roger had hated it until he saw the staff try to cajole Joey, who weigh about three hundred pounds, outside. After that day, Roger never needed anyone to tell him it was time to go outside and kick around a soccer ball. He was first in line.
Roger leapt to the ground. The sound echoed through the loft; guiltily, he looked at the floor. "Sorry!" he called to the downstairs neighbor. Maybe he could still catch Mark. Why not, after all? Mark hadn't said not to follow him. He hadn't exactly invited Roger, but since when did Roger need an invitation? They were friends. Mark wouldn't mind.
Roger grabbed the faded green little-more-than-canvas jacket that kept him covered if not completely warm. He opened the door, jogged to the stairs, and froze.
There were rather a lot of stairs, and suddenly Roger felt dizzy. He grabbed the rail. All he could think of was falling.He felt his feet slipping, the ground falling away. Death forced itself into Roger's life; death stalked his conscience at night when he silenced his beeper without swallow those aggravating pills. Roger had accepted death, but he had accepted it from AIDS when his HIV, inevitably, exploded beyond control. He was prepared to die from the first cold he caught.
But that death existed everywhere, that Roger had been unprepared for. That the inevitablecould strike anywhere terrified him.
"I won't fall," he told himself, and stepped on to the first stair.
Roger's veins were itching. He knew where the junkies could be found, the dealers. Roger's hand slipped into his pocket. He hadn't much, only enough. He didn't need smack, but then who ever needed anything? Since starting rehab, he hadn't had any feeling as purely euphoric as that he experienced from the drugs. One hit couldn't hurt.
One hit. That was all it had taken. For all he knew, that first hit with April was the one that had given him the sickness eating away at his blood. One hit.
Only one! It was enough. It could bring his spirits up again. Enough for a high, not enough for addiction. He could smile again. That would please Mark. One little hit.
Did he have any needles? No, he didn't need any needles. He wouldn't inject it--the high would be less, but the addiction also. Yes, just a little… all he needed was a spoon, heat, and the fumes--
Roger vomited.
TO BE CONTINUED
NOTE: Constipation is the single physical side effect of heroin use. Other effects, like chills and nausea, are of withdrawal.