Futureproof (27 page)

December

It's been three days since I got loaded and the pain is constant and so is the guilt. But I have to get high if it means breaking into one of these dealers' houses and taking the shit.

I'm contemplating crazy possibilities like that when I see Paul, or rather he sees me. I hear him calling me just as I'm turning off Proctor Street.

He breathlessly comes to the window, says he can get me a bag if I throw one in for him. I tell him I trust him and all, but that I have to taste the shit before I give out any money because this is the last of my cash and I have no way of getting more, and he says he'll take care of me, and when he comes back with the two bags and puts 'em in my hand I hit the gas. I don't know why I do it.

Paul runs after me for a long time, I can still see him in the
rearview, running harder than he has in years, harder than when he was a teenager and had his whole life ahead of him and had energy for more than a fix, believed he could be the first black president or whatever it is poor black kids fantasize about, all that Horatio Alger bullshit that gets shoved down the poor kids' throats in school, all those Abe Lincoln and Frederick Douglass tales of rising above the bullshit and making something of ourselves.

But now Paul's in his forties and his heart's probably feeling like it's about to explode and his life's probably flashing before his eyes as he sees that this is what it amounts to, this is all everything added up to, this is his life, chasing some fucking lowlife junkie asshole he thought he could trust down the street, and now he's going to have to go back to that gold-toothed nigger in the run-down house and try to tell him that it wasn't him, it was this kid he thought he could trust and can't he just do him a solid just this once, let him have another bag for his trouble, for his
pain
.

I'm at the light and about to turn when Paul, way in the distance now, bends over and puts his hands on his knees. I can see him heaving. And then I can't do it. I can't carry on the junkie MO of everyone and everything being expendable except for the next hit.

I throw the car in reverse.

Paul's still bent over when I pull up beside him. He looks at me, his chest heaving.

“Why, man?” he asks, breathless.

“I don't know.”

“Are you…tryin' to…git me killed?”

“No, Paul. No. You're my friend. I just—I didn't have the money to pay for both bags and I'm real sick, so the only way I knew I could get you to get me a bag was to take it from you. 'Cause all I have is ten bucks and I was afraid you wouldn't hook me up if I told you I only had enough cash for myself. I just need to get high, man.”

That's when Paul starts crying. He starts fucking
weeping
. He's sobbing and his words are unintelligible, caught up in the back of his throat like they're being gargled.

I tell him to get in and we'll work this out. He opens the back door and slides in and for a minute I wonder if I should worry about him killing me from behind. But he's truly fucked up by this latest betrayal, which is somehow really endearing because betrayal is a junkie's stock-in-trade. We traffic in it. Nothing is sacred to us. The ripping off of our families, the wholesale theft of high-dollar electronics and everything else under the sun from every store that sells anything worth anything, the abandonment of our friends, the denial of everything we ever thought we cared about—all in the name of feeling better, pushing back the darkness of our inner psyches for just a few hours longer.

And then there's Paul. Paul weeping, his head in his hands.

I pull in behind the Lizard Lounge and park by the dumpster.

I get out of the car and reach under the dumpster for my kit but it's gone. I look around and find an old syringe from the last time I was here, when I decided that I was done for good and threw the work out the window and drove off, assured that that action of throwing the needle out the window would ensure the following through of my decision, my determination solidified by that one action. But no decision is final when you're a junkie. There's no final straw until you're dead. We keep coming back for more.

“Five fucking years, man,” Paul says, between sobs. “I spent five fucking years in prison, from the time I was twenty-four until I was twenty-nine, and I couldn't think of nothin' other than the fact that when I got out I wanted to shoot up and get higher than I ever got. I didn't make no plans to rehabilitate myself. I didn't care about nothin' but gettin' high.” He looks out the window, his eyes glazing over as he travels back to that place.

“And now, sitting here with you, man, I wish more than anything that I'd at least tried to imagine a different life for myself. 'Cause that would have been somethin', ya know? If I'd at least tried to clean up, get a job, maybe go back to my babies' mama and do right, that woulda been
some
thing. And now I'm runnin' down a fuckin' street at six o'clock in the morning, chasing down some kid and for what, man? So I can stay tight with some asshole who don't care about me one way or the other?”

“Don't say that, Paul. I do care about you. That's why I came back.”

“Not you, man. I ain't talking about you. I'm talking about them drug slingas up in them houses. You think you the first person to rip me off? You think I ain't ever ripped a nigga off?” He smacks the top of my seat with his hand and a cloud of ancient dust rises from the upholstery.

“I realized a long time ago that the ones who burn the bridges, who take the stupid chances, are either tryin' to get clean, give themselves reason to try livin' again—or else they just don't give a fuck anymore, are ready to take whatever fate come their way 'cause a they careless actions. Me, I ain't neither a them. I'm caught in the fuckin' middle. I'm
still
tryin' to make this work. 'Cause I don't have no reason to get clean, got nothing to go back to, no job possibilities, don't know where my kids are. But at the same time—I ain't ready to die, neither, so I keep my shit clean as much as I can because I gotta somehow keep this shit goin' until I'm ready to give up on everything.”

I finish fixing the first bag and hand the work to Paul over the seat back without turning around. There is a pause, a quiet settling over the car, and then his calloused fingers, rough as twigs, brush mine as he takes the syringe.

“Thank you, Dread.”

We sit in silence for a moment while I fix the second bag. I use the same syringe. It doesn't matter anymore. If I'm gonna catch something I've got it already, because Jonas, Andie, Karen, and I have been sharing syringes for months.

The bag of dope is one of the best I've ever had. I don't know if it's because it's been so long since I shot up and was in so much discomfort before the welcome, familiar warmth enveloped me, drained the ache from my legs, but it feels like a final hit. I
want
this to be the final hit, here with Paul, one lost soul to the other, and then drive away from here without ever turning back.

I pass Paul a cigarette and we smoke in silence as it starts to drizzle outside.

January

Jonas is coming with me to sell the T-Bird. I figured I'd sell the car, fill up on dope for a few days, and walk into treatment with nothing but what I can hold in two arms. I won't look back. I'll be completely free of all connections to the past, my face toward the sun.

Alex set it up for us with these black guys that are into restoring old cars with the money they make slinging crack and dope. They don't like how the two passenger doors are all fucked up and use that as an excuse to give me next to nothing for my prize possession.

After fifteen minutes of haggling, the one nigger threatening to walk without my “piece of shit,” we settle on nine bags of dope and a ride to the closest MARTA train station. I sign the title over to him and it's finished.

We kick the locked bathroom door open and shoot up while waiting for Kevin to arrive. It's basic junkie psychiatry. You can always get a junkie to do your bidding if you wave a big enough bag in his face.

Kevin drives us to Mom and Victor's house and I try my best to make my peace with them, even Victor, if for no other reason than the fact that Jonas is going to be living with him for God knows how long. He's run out of places to run to.

Animal Mother picks me up a couple of days before I'm due at the recovery center. I crash on his fold-out couch for ten hours straight, the deepest sleep I've had in ages.

The day before I go in I smoke a twenty-rock of crack and a dime bag of weed. Animal Mother refuses to go downtown, even if it's for one final hit, so I convince him to let me try the closest suburban ghetto to his apartment. There's no way to get another bag of boy so this will have to be my final hurrah. And it's good that way because final hits that are planned out,
known
to be final hits, are never actually final hits. There's always something else, some other “final hit” creeping up.

So in that way it's a good sign.

My last time shooting dope ends up being in a Baskin-Robbins bathroom, where Aaron, Adam, Jonas, and I go for ice cream in celebration of Aaron's thirteenth birthday. I give him my last two comic books for the occasion. They're in pristine condition, limited editions, so it's not like I'm stiffing him or something.

I watch him eating his sundae, all of us laughing about the good times, wonder what we would have been like, the four of us brothers, if we'd had a chance to actually grow up normal. How we might have fared together. How we could have gotten to know each other, trusted each other. I realize that I barely know my two youngest brothers. They are strangers to Jonas and me both. I wonder if they'll hold that against us one day. More guilt, more to pay penance for. Such as al
lowing Sativa to end up in the pound when we had nowhere else to put her. Like leading Andie to believe we would ever continue past the day I dropped her at her treatment center and kissed her eyelids as she cried for everything we'd been through. There's no way for us to ever go back to the way it was in the beginning. We've destroyed everything and all that's left for us is whatever life we can make on our own, trying to become better human beings, learning how to be parents, and most of all moving past the horrors we've inflicted on ourselves and each other. It's all over and all that's left is our little boy, my little Ben.

 

Animal Mother pulls up to the entrance of the rather stately looking treatment center. It was a prestigious hotel a long time ago is what the nameplate says next to the front door. A few guys stand beside the building holding AA manuals and smoking cigarettes. Mother and I hug, strong and steady, and he helps me grab the three duffel bags that contain everything I own.

I already have to piss even though I just went right before we left his apartment. Early this morning I drank a gallon of this nasty tea that cleans out your system because I can't have the crack and weed from last night showing up on the piss test. I've come too far to be turned away now.

I've got my copy of
Black Boy
in my back pocket, worse off than ever, the pages barely holding on, entire sections coming unglued, the spine held fast with duct tape. In my t-shirt pocket, carefully wrapped in a sheet of notebook paper, is the one picture I have of my son.

This is it. This is the moment.

My path awaits me.
Every
thing comes next. And as Mother pulls away and I drag on a cigarette, I remember it all. It all comes back to me in flashes and brilliant color. That was my life. This is my life
now. I
need
to remember. Because I can never forget. Because every time it comes down and it seems like there will never be daylight again, I have to remind myself what I know to be true: we are born to be
re
born. No matter how many times we die, we are given another chance to meet our destinies. We just have to grab them.

We live again.

I could not have written or seen this book published without the help of so many different people. My editor, Michael Signorelli, has an eye that has made
Futureproof
the book it was meant to be. Jenny Bent is not only a great friend but also the most incredible agent I've had the pleasure to meet and (finally!) work with. There are numerous persons whose contributions to the success of
Futureproof
are immeasurable: Ali O'Rourke (still my Only), my perfect Jake and Wrenn!, Brandon “The Terminator” Stickney, Berea College, Dr. Libby Jones, Dr. Richard Sears, the Skidmore Writers Workshop, Samantha Dunn, Dan Pope, Deena Neville, Christie Webb-Gibson, Black Arrow Studio and Press, Luca DiPierro, Nick and Isaac (finally true believers), Amelia Madison, Leah Pfeiffer, Ryan Scott, Billy Jacobs, Rose Koch, James Frey, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Tony O'Neill, Brad Listi, Will Clarke, Kasey and Dolly Relford, April Sprinkle (yes, her real name and, no, she's not a porn star), Doug LaVigne, Christie Petersen, Ansley Fowler, Lefty Jones, Dakota LaCroix, Mike Smith, E. Nichols, and Atlanta's own
Creative Loafing.

Finally, thank you to
The FutureProof 500
, the first supporters of
Futureproof
, who saw its potential and supported it from its inception. Thank you. You are truly the heroes of this story. Without your undying support it wouldn't have made it this far. Onward and upward!

WORD.