Kathryn

Kathryn:    Standing next to Andrew’s shitty white hatchback, outside CVS, waiting.

Heat rises off the blacktop in wavy lines, almost like a cartoon.

I’m in a cartoon.  You know the one, where Bugs Bunny waits for Elmer Fudd to bring him a balloon of meth.  While he waits, he melts in the heat.  Ears droop, and his voice is dry and scratchy as he whispers, “What the fuck is up Doc?”

Okay, now I’m getting delirious.  Lighting another cigarette, I watch a couple go into CVS holding hands.  She’s got those Suburban, chunky high and low lights in her shoulder length blonde hair, and she’s all thin but curvy.  He’s got gelled hair that’s just right, and tattoos on his arms, and because I’m delirious, he makes me think of one of the young guys on Top Chef, and I wonder what he’s doing here in Milford, Connecticut.

Then I wonder why Andrew didn’t come with me, or even meet with Fred himself.  Why did I have to come?  Why am I melting out here alone?  Why does everyone look at me as if they know I’m some kind of druggie.  Fuck them!

Fuck the fat mommy holding hands with her little boy, swinging arms.  Fuck the old guy with his walker who edges away from me, giving me wide berth as he passes.  Fuck the little girl who makes a show of smelling the smoke from my cigarette as she passes, and even has the nerve to say to her mother, “Yuck.”

“I know,” her mother responds, not even looking at me.

Fuck Andrew for sending me to pick up our drugs alone.

Fuck Fred for being late, and while I’m at it, for always putting the dope in a rubber balloon that he ties and wraps with some kind of weird meth head rubber origami so I can’t get at it, not even a taste, until I get back home.

Well, not home exactly.  Andrew’s apartment over his mother’s garage is what I mean.

I guess you could say I’m living there.  Not like I have my own key or anything, but I sleep there when Andrew and I do sleep, and aren’t up doing drugs and fucking.

He always wants to fuck for hours and hours when he’s high.  I always want to go draw all night, let the drug focus my hand.  I’m a really good artist, given the chance.

Andrew doesn’t usually give me time to draw, or else he laughs at me, trying to get a portfolio together to go to art school because he already has a job doing computer graphics and making lots of money, and I should be grateful he pays for the drugs.

Felix pulls up, and I feel sleazy passing money through a slit opening of his car window, and then taking the balloon.  My mouth waters when the drugs are in my hand, but I don’t feel grateful.

Soon it’ll be my turn to suck the pipe, and the white, bitter smoke will rush into my lungs and my body will tingle and my mind will light up, and then I won’t have to feel anything at all.