Tom meth head junkie, key guitarist of ocean spitfire.

He read the note and rolled it into a mini roll to snort his next jolt. His band will be on in the next ten minutes and he hadn’t yet gotten all the laces of his boots done. The jacket’s snug over his one bicep, and the wax he’d placed in his hair’s lost its hold. He pretends the mascara smudge is from a drippy drip pen. The band’s being introduced, he should be out there – waiting for the cue. He stands. He sits back down again. He made it big, didn’t he. He’s only twenty-one, and swimming in it all; the cash, the women, sometimes the men, and all the drugs he can ever want. If you’re dealing, you ain’t using. He chuckles dryly and nearly slides himself off the couch. Leathery pants leathery couch, and leathery legs. He swipes the tabletop clear and clean of his misuse and he licks the remnants off of his palm. He tucks his favourite guitar pick into his pocket and he stuffs his undone laces into the side of his boots. For a punk rock artist, he’s got on socks with unicorn prints. It’s his last show and there’s no one in the audience whose name he knows. Was it all worth it? The fame, the infamy, the strife and the recordings, the albums and the snuffles; the hustles, and the clinches of half a dozen deals of a lifetime. He lives in a penthouse. It overlooks the Manhattan skyline. He laughs at his bandmates’ smile. He had walked out with his knapsack slung upon his shoulder, his guitar case with guitar and what cash he could stash, and headed out towards nowhere and everywhere.

He laughed a laugh he hadn’t in years. A full bellied, deep throated, tears by the side of his face sort of a laugh. A memory of chocolate cake covered fingers and burst water balloons across the backyard’s remembered. He used to have such simple fun with his sister. He didn’t think he’ll have the courage to remember her after all the years. The tips of his fingers strum across the strings of the guitar and the crowd cheers. He’s chased highs all his life. The skateboard slide down the sloped driveway, the tree tyre swing that went way too lopsided once; and that first taste of heroin. That sweet sweet high and yet – some firsts should never be had.

But wasn’t it Jimmy, his drug dealer, who first allowed him that strum across guitar strings. The sweeter high of melodies aloud and alive. Of course, an electrical guitar’s got more of a bite and amp than the classical acoustic piece that Jimmy had, stowed away under his bed. Was it all worthwhile. The gateway drug to a life of crowd surfers and alcohol fueled good times. He’d never know.

He played till well into midnight, and crashed back home smelling of sweat and beer. There’s no company for the night. The hollowness in his chest, a subtle steady ache. He chases sleeping pills with a swig of beer and awakes a groggier self at half past two. He has no perception left of time – the Sun high in the sky. He has a meatball sub and he sits in the driver seat of his Camaro. He drives towards home.

He passed six towns, and two burger joints. He stopped only once for a milkshake – strawberry flavoured with rainbow sprinkles all over the whipped cream. She used to love these. His little sister. His judgement and errors of ways leading to absence. He’d left so she’ll never be tainted. He’d been an example by just not, being present. There’s the scent of weed about his car. Its smoke embedded in his clothes. He looked ahead, remorse setting its course. Licking at the scent of a hallucinogen.

The roads stretched on ahead as he drove. His foot tires, his arms ache; he sets the car on cruise control and fought the nodding spells and cold sweat. It’s been near twenty hours since his last hit. His tomorrow’s stretched a little thin. Recalling vaguely the years before when he would be by the side of these same very roads. His scrawny build, with sockless trainers on; he stuck out his thumb and hoped by the side of the road with all he owned. A trucker stopped. A trucker offered him a ride right to the doors of his first show. The competition not quite as prime and yet enough for a band amiss a guitarist to grant him chance.

At the very last moments, do we not all seek home? The radio’s just white noise now. For the better, he supposes. His head throbs and his throat’s dry. His knuckles white. His grip’s too tight. Back there by the last border line, he had noted an hour till his last midnight. His honks echoed off into the distance, and birds resting in trees near barren took flight. His stomach lurches and needs his next high. He had stopped peeling his nails. Hadn’t he managed to fight off at least an addiction once before. Angry tears flow alongside his honks into the dark quiet night. He wonders if their – the – mailbox was still bright yellow, with glitter all over. Just dropped two handfuls of glitter, his fairy princess, all over the mailbox once. His adorable little sister who had clung onto him so desperately with both her arms and her legs locked around like a koala that smelt of the last bubble bath he ran her. There’s still 2 miles too many to go. He’d never know.

And a little ways down the road, a tyre swing from the past of a life no longer here, sways a little in the wind over a crashed burning Camaro. The mailbox a running jog of about but sixty seventy steps away, glitters in the light of dawn. The porch light, left, ever on.

(1000)