Interstitial

ONE-2

Oliver screwed the cap to the top of the empty bottle, and placed it gently, like an old friend, underneath the driver seat. He glanced again at the house. He struggled to smother the images of his previous life. He forced himself to turn away. Squinting into the approaching headlights burned the images out of his recollection. He punched the accelerator. Wet gravel struck the undercarriage of the rusty Ford. The metallic impacts evaporated as Oliver reached the pavement. He narrowly missed a car in the lane into which he accessed.

Oliver drove frantically in a misguided attempt to leave the images of another time far to the westward winds sweeping through the town. He batted away tears that imperiled his vision as the Ford sped down the curves of Terwilliger Boulevard. He slammed the brakes as the stoplight marked a temporary end to his flight. Traffic weaved on Barbur Boulevard as the city skyscrapers pierced the night sky with illuminated windows scattered inside the tall buildings. Oliver drove into the downtown core. The faces of the passersby were a diverse collection of souls searching for direction, whether physically or emotionally.

Stopping at a red light on Burnside, Oliver surveilled the cityscape. His eyes recognized the streets and the buildings, but they seemed to exist in some alternate reality. He rubbed his weary eyes. Suddenly, a group of youths dressed in black, wearing masks that shielded their face, lunged at the car.

“You should be ashamed to drive a Ford!” screamed one of the youths through a mask that revealed only two slits for eyes, and a large hole for the mouth.

“Henry Ford was a capitalist who exploited the labor of dispossessed people to reward shareholders!” shouted another youth.

“Did you know he was a Nazi sympathizer and a racist?” demanded another masked youth.

The first youth slammed a baton on the hood of the car, adding to the dents that permeated the vehicle. “Filthy capitalist!”

Two other masked individuals joined the angry troika whose adherents had assailed the old Ford. They all began to shout obscenities at Oliver. He quickly punched the accelerator to roar through a red light to put a distance between him and the collective of youths dressed in all black clothing. In the rear view mirror, he watched the group which had accosted him join another group of youths who began to taunt him from the distance. Several of the youths threw bottles at the speeding Ford. Oliver soon reached the industrial core on Yeon, and expressed a sigh that he neared the end of his day. He pondered the illuminated totem as he drove to his home.

Oliver brought the rusted Ford to the side of a darkened street in the moonlit shadow of the St. Johns Bridge. Winds carrying the smell of the river pelted Oliver as he got out from the car. He shut the door, paying attention to the sounds of the dilapidated part of town. The door caught a piece of his trench coat, resulting in a clog of the door mechanism. He ripped the coat from the doorway, and slammed the door shut.

Oliver walked on the chipped sidewalk to a screen door hanging limp on the doorframe. He forced it aside to reveal a door with no knob. A metal plate signaled the prior existence of the doorknob. He wriggled the Ford ignition key into the lock, and turned it to release the door. An overwhelming urge began to consume him. His body craved something to take the memories of Richard, Camille, and the violent and masked youths dressed in black, away. As the key reached the lock release, Oliver forced the door open, and entered the darkness in the room. He closed the door quietly as an afterthought. He crept into a cluttered kitchen, ignoring piles of dishes and cups in the sink that received an eternal drip from a leaky faucet. Cravings from his mind imposed a definitive action from which he could not abstain. He opened a cabinet door to reveal a syringe, a tarnished silver spoon, a small baggie containing a white crystalline substance, a lighter, and an elastic band. He grasped the items in one hand, and reached to a counter with the other to pour a splash of whiskey from a bottle into a glass tumbler. He immediately drained the contents of the tumbler. He put the tumbler on the counter. He poured the remainder of the whiskey into the tumbler, and then rummaged through the collection of three other bottles consisting of whiskey, rum and vodka to find just a little bit more to nurse his wind-down for the day. He succeeded in draining the vodka into the mixture in the tumbler. He grasped the drink firmly in his hand, and tiptoed his way to a ragged sofa in the middle of a cluttered living room. Oliver placed the drink in the middle of the table, and spread the other items on a pockmarked coffee table upon which three small baggies littered. He opened the baggie, and delicately poured the crystalline substance into the basin of the spoon. His eyes widened with anticipation. He spat into the spoon before irrigating the substance with sprinkles from a nearby coffee cup that still had a remnant of liquid. He quickly gathered the cigarette lighter in his right hand. The sparks from ignition leapt across the rutted coffee table. Finally, a flame arose from the cold metal housing. Oliver passed the flame beneath the silver spoon. He watched as the crystalline substance began to melt and bubble. An unmistakable odor of cat urine mixing with sulfur wafted throughout the room. He watched the boiling substance reduce to a clear liquid form, marked with a tinge of brown from the remnant of coffee.

Oliver delicately placed the spoon onto the coffee table. He began to tie an elastic band around his arm. He watched as a vein pulsated below the surface of his skin. His eyes glimmered at the thought of what was to come. The man picked up a syringe. He dipped the point of the needle into the warm substance. The needle filled to a mark that Oliver had meticulously drawn onto the measurement scale. He clutched the syringe. He brought it slowly toward his skin. He watched as the needle penetrated the skin into a pulsing vein. He pushed the stopper, sending the warm substance into his body. Oliver closed his eyes as he leaned into the sofa. He concentrated on the warm substance flowing into his arm. It was as if it were a tiny warm ball, growing larger as it slowly coursed up the arm. When it reached the shoulder, the substance exploded, sending powerful bursts of energy throughout Oliver’s body. He rode the wave of ecstasy as it carried him away from the shrouded memories of a past that weighed him like an anchor into the deep sea. He sunk into the sofa to absorb the high that transported his body away from the dim room to a place where he could numb the pain and the memories. Oliver reached for a bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. He lifted the opening of the bottle to quell parched lips starved for the liquid. He closed his eyes as the substances transported him away from the quagmire into which he had sunk.

Oliver drifted away into a fog. He glimpsed through eyes at half-mast at a sliver of light crawling into the room. A shadowy figure staggered toward the sofa. Oliver observed a slender woman with unkempt hair approaching. She wore a tee-shirt into which her breasts pressed tightly. The bottom of the frayed tee-shirt ended just above an elastic waistband adorned with lace of a brown undergarment.

“You didn’t leave any for me?” The woman sat next to Oliver. She fixed her gaze toward the empty methamphetamine baggie and used syringe lying on the coffee table.

“I thought you were asleep,” replied Oliver, plainly disoriented from the drug coursing through his veins.

“I waited up for you, Ollie.” She placed her head on his shoulder.

Oliver released his head backward. I wish she would just go back to bed! thought Oliver to himself.

“I missed you today,” she said as she placed her hand on Oliver’s thigh.

Oliver leaned toward the table. He opened one of the two remaining baggies on the coffee table. “I can make a little hit for you, Cyllvia.” He smiled at the young woman at his side. She was a slender woman with blonde hair, blue eyes, and taut muscles in her abdomen that she maintained for profitable tips in money and drugs at The Cabaret, which was the exclusive gentleman’s club in the center of Portland.

“Where did you get this?”

“One of my regulars at the club brought some in,” moaned Cyllvia. “He told me that he knows some people who are making a special kind of product that is very popular in Europe right now.”

“Maybe it will be in Portland soon,” said Oliver. He fidgeted with the remnants of the baggies to squeeze every crystal into the spoon.

“They call it the Blue,” said Cyllvia, “and it’s coming here real soon.”

“The Blue?” queried Oliver. He put the spoon on the table. “Why do they call it the Blue?”

“It has special qualities,” said Cyllvia.

“Such as?” tested Oliver.

“It’s the closest form of pure methamphetamine ever produced in a laboratory,” said Cyllvia. “The high is unlike anything we have ever had.”

“Are you sure this Blue isn’t some urban legend?” asked Oliver.

Cyllvia shook her head in the negative. “It’s not an urban legend, Ollie.” She reclined into the sofa. She placed her leg over the thigh of Oliver. “You’ll see,” she pouted.

Oliver dismissed the suggestion. “When will this Blue be available for Zippy to sell to us?”

Cyllvia nodded her head. “All I know is that the Blue will be here soon.” She pointed to the baggies on the table. “Until we get the Blue, this is the best I can do.”

Oliver chuckled. “You should perform poetry more often.”

“Maybe I will, after you do something for me.” She nodded in the direction of the spoon, the lighter, and a syringe.

Oliver squeezed the remnants of the second baggie into a spoon. He melted the substance, and then drew the contents into the syringe. “Are you ready?”

Cyllvia giggled. She put her leg on the wooden coffee table. Oliver watched as she spread her toes. She separated her hallux from her long toe to reveal a reddened divot in the skin. “You can put it right in there,” she said.

Oliver inserted the needle into the small space of flesh. She leaned back into the sofa, absorbing the intense rush of ecstasy into her body. She rode the intense pulsations of pleasure that the drug produced.

Oliver consumed the remnant of the whiskey from the bottle on the tabletop. He placed it gingerly in the center of the table. He reclined into the sofa with Cyllvia at his side. Her shoulder rubbed against his.

Cyllvia began to gather some of her senses after the intense high that the drug produced. She turned to Oliver. With an exaggerated wink, she moaned, “I think I’m ready now.” She staggered to her feet, and turned to face her man. She placed her fingers inside the waistband of her undergarment, and pushed it to the carpeted floor. She sat on the waist of Oliver. She began to unfasten his belt. Oliver pushed her hands away.

“Don’t you want to?”

Oliver grinned. He gently maneuvered Cyllvia off his lap and onto the sofa. As she reclined onto the surface of the textured sofa, Oliver stood to release the snaps of his trousers. They fell to the floor. Cyllvia lay on the rumpled sofa. Oliver joined her, settling in place on top of the young woman. He plied into her soft flesh. After only a few penetrations, he reached an early and familiar denouement. Wordlessly, he withdrew from the woman. He stared at his lover. She had surrendered her body to somnambulist relief. Her breath purred as her chest rose and fell from the effort. A silvery signature glistened in the dim moonlight that entered the room from a window with no covering.

Oliver rummaged through a collection of bottles at the side of the sofa. He located a bottle of rum next to the edge of the sofa. He poured the liquid into the coffee cup at the side of the syringes. Unsated from the drugs he had consumed, he rustled through the last small baggie on the table. He squeezed the remnants of a crystalline substance into a spoon. He frantically melted the crystals into a liquid, into which he inserted into a syringe. He looked one more time at his lover before bringing the needle into his arm. He closed his eyes for the pulsations of ecstasy to take him away, if only for a moment.