The Knowing: Awake in the Dark (11 page)

I
knew
from the beginning my actions could not continue. For the first time I feared ignoring the voice.  The truth was, I didn’t feel anything special for Angel, I didn’t like having sex with him, I didn’t find him interesting and I felt no real attraction or affection for him.  He was kind to me and supplied me with drugs for free and I escaped the negative environment that was home. That was it.  It was a tradeoff and nothing more. I
knew
I had a window of time before my choices would bring consequences I could not bear. I told no one I was using a needle for my high, especially not Maggie. I knew she would disapprove, I could hear her voice ringing in my ears.
Are you a complete idiot? Don’t you know better than this?

For much of my teenage life I lived peripherally, not fully connected with my experiences or choices. I had sex I didn’t want with partners I did not like or barely knew and engaged in behavior day after day that brought no joy.  I limited using a needle for my high afraid of the consequences the voice warned me of. When I stopped using intravenous drugs, it was a direct result of heeding my own inner voice and the
knowing
.  The final event was ordinary, no different than the ones that came before it except for the
knowing
it carried. 

Angel had reverently unfolded the leather satchel that held the tools for his high. Veins bulged in the soft white valley of my forearm from the rubber tourniquet tied over my bicep. I pumped my fist open and closed. He’d already mixed the cocaine and speed with drops of water and filled the syringe. He gently pushed the needle into a large awaiting vein. I felt a pinch and watched as it silently disappeared into my flesh.  As my heart began its race - I had
pictures
and the
knowing
.

I saw a
picture
in my mind’s eye of a room that was dirty and smelled like decay and human feces. A gold couch so filthy it was almost brown was pushed against a wall, its stuffing spilled out through open tears like a bleeding wound. Several people were in the room, some sprawled on the couch, some on the floor in various states of intoxication. I
knew
they had no homes and the need to be high was like a putrid film that covered their skin. There was a jumble of frenetic energy in the room, silent molecules of death screaming into the void which I heard with my skin. My stomach clenched with fear and my body tingled with the certainty of where I would go if my behavior continued.

I felt the vision was a warning and I took what the
knowing
told me seriously. I didn’t know if the
pictures
showed me a life that lay ahead or if I viewed the life of others who were trapped in a drug-induced capsule. Either way I didn’t want that life.

In that same instant, I saw Angel in a new way and the life I lived was suddenly unappealing. He repulsed me and I repulsed myself. There was no dramatic break-up, I simply stayed at home more and stopped having contact with Angel and for a while stopped using a needle.

The man abandoned any sentiment of boyhood ideals and shed notions of fairness or integrity. Instead, he crawled on the ground, a predator in the dark. He smiled as he recalled a warning to his girlfriend, “You better be careful in the dark,” he’d said. “You never know who’s out there.”

It was his way of telling her who she was dealing with, but the stupid bitch didn’t get it. He moved, lying flat against the dirt, immune to the sharp rocks and shards of glass. He imagined himself a snake, sleek and stealthy. He no longer feared the dark as he had in boyhood, rather he embraced it as the giver of transformation. He’d discovered that he could be anything in the dark.

He reached for his binoculars to have an up-close and personal view and watched the woman through the window where the light was bright behind her giving expression to her every move.He knew her and he had feelings for her, but women were cunts and couldn’t be trusted, this one was no exception. As he watched her he felt his excitement rise and harden against the earth.

His mind wandered back to a couple of weeks before. He’d been watching another cunt and surprised her by sneaking quietly through an unlocked screen door late at night. He had been ready with his mask and gun but things went south and he regretted his fuck up.

He’d been surprised by her boyfriend lying half asleep on their bed. The man hadn’t seen him;
motherfucker did not have his car parked in front
.

“I’ll kill her, you dumb motherfucker,” he warned when the boyfriend tried to stand up. “Put the pillowcase over your head, and leave your arms at your side, lie face down. The woman was as silent as a corpse when he pointed the gun at her and said, “Take your clothes off and hurry the fuck up.”

When she was naked and shivering with fear, he couldn’t get hard, no matter what he did. Things hadn’t gone like he planned, the boyfriend wouldn’t shut the fuck up saying,

“Hey man, you don’t have to do this. Just leave and we won’t tell. Seriously, man, please.

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up,” he’d yelled.

He’d panicked and realized he had to get out of there. He snatched a handful of the woman’s hair smelling the flowery fragrance of it and forced her on the bed. “Stay face down and don’t move for a half hour or I will come back and kill you both.”

The boyfriend found his balls and chased after him. He’d swung a bat that narrowly missed his head and connected with his arm, breaking it. The man had to go to a doctor that night to get a splint on his arm. He made up a story for his friends that he’d whipped some ass at the local 7- ELEVEN. Everyone knew what punks hung out there.

The boyfriend ruined everything, it was disappointing, but he had learned from it and wouldn’t make that mistake again. He was embarrassed with his mistake as he lay in the dirt, but turned his focus to the woman in the window.

A young woman hummed as she dried her dishes and moved toward the wall where her telephone was mounted to answer its ring.

“Hello,” she said happily. Her friend, Honey was on the other end.

“Oh hi, Honey.”

“Yes, I would love to go to the fair. That sounds fun. What time did you want to go?” The woman asked shifting her weight to the other foot.

“Six would be perfect.

What’s that?

No-no, he has to work, it’ll just be me.”

The woman massaged her pregnant belly as she hung up the phone and the hairs at the back of her neck rose on a wave of goosebumps. She spun around wildly; her heart racing, certain someone was behind her.

“Oh, my, god,” she breathed as her hands shook and she gulped in air. “Oh, my, god, I felt someone breathe on my neck,” she whispered to an empty room as she stood shaking in front of her window.

I fell backward and my mind spun like a top. I felt the soft fabric of the beanbag chair embrace me and across the room, I saw the
light-body
. It was hovering again, its light calm and peaceful, its presence a regular occurrence. Again, nobody else saw the light that was like a giant beacon for me. I closed my eyes and when the boy’s hands awkwardly caressed my body, I left it. That was how my life went. I got high, cut school, avoided home and engaged in one dangerous activity after the next. Most days I felt like a ghost standing in my own dead shadow.

My eyes looked bloodshot and ragged in the mirrored glass where I snorted my line of “Crank” quickly up my nose. It seared its way through my nasal passage which was like raw pulp. I gagged as it hit my throat leaving a horrid taste of a bitter chemical waste in my mouth.   
Snorting Draino could not be worse than this shit
, I thought. I needed the speed though to counteract the Quaalude I’d taken earlier. Downers weren’t really my thing, but they were free.

The outline of my butt was displayed perfectly in a tight pair of hip hugger pants, my smooth, flat belly exposed by a middriff top. Behind me a stranger massaged my butt, taking his liberties.
What a dick
, I thought.  I had shared a beanbag chair with him - I didn’t know his name - I didn’t care. Thick marijuana smoke hung in the air and Peter Frampton blasted from the stereo’s speakers.
Shadows grow so long before my eyes, and they’re moving across the page. Sudd-en-ly the day turns into night, far away, from the city….ooh baby I love your way.

I was barely there.

Acid became my drug of choice, although LSD made my already growing psychic abilities more apparent instead of less. I didn’t view that as a positive. After dropping acid one night Maggie and I went home to ride out our high. Our mother was getting ready for bed. She had no idea we were high as we flopped on the couch and waited for “Saturday Night Live” to come on TV.  As my mother trudged upstairs I was overcome by her immense sadness. I felt submerged in it. I actually saw the sadness in a giant bubble surrounding her, as thick as syrup. It cut through my high, boring its way into my soul. I
knew
the sadness I felt was not a result of the acid because the
knowing
was present and I recognized it. Her sadness weighed heavily in my heart and I wished I’d never felt it. The thing was, I
knew
the sadness was old and new. The old sadness had emptiness, an aloneness I could almost hear.  There were so many pieces to the sadness it was like giant roots that snaked from the gloom into her body. It scared the shit out of me.

The
light-body
hovered in the dining room nearby and I could no longer ignore its presence. In the past, closing my eyes could make the image disappear. Now, I would see the energy in my mind’s eye and I couldn’t shake it, high or not. Wherever I went, it would hover and watch me and my inner voice grew bolder.

Are you waiting
?
What are you waiting for?
It would question.
Are you living your destiny
?

Oh, my, god, I
thought,
I’m so full of shit
, but my doubts didn’t silence the voice and a few weeks later the voice had more to say.

We’d cut school to go sledding in the snow with Maggie’s new boyfriend, Robbie. Peter and Allen who were friends of Robbie’s went with us.  We dropped acid and headed for a place to sled. Robbie drove his old beat-up station wagon that smelled strongly of pizza and cat piss.  We passed around a joint and a “bota bag” filled with cheap wine. We were laughing.

“Check out the colors in the snow, man- it’s cool, like Picasso threw up, man,” Alan said laughing as snow-covered hillsides sped by.

Maggie held a book of matches in her hand and, giggling, she said, “Listen to this.” She read from the matchbook cover, “shape up or ship out.” Uncontrollable and hysterical laughter followed. I laughed so hard, my stomach and face cramped. I pulled my knees into my chest sucking in air gasping for breath. Everyone howled with laughter harder when, Alan released a loud, long, fart and we laughed tears. We were a pack of wild hyenas, out of control. We arrived at our destination high and unaware of what lay ahead.

The area we chose was not a slope used for sledding, there were large jutting rocks and scattered trees making sledding dangerous. Snow was an unnatural event in our area, in fact, none of us had ever seen it there.

I was standing with Maggie and Peter near the top of the ridge preparing to slide down. Robbie and Allen were somewhere below us.  It was shocking when Robbie let out a murderous scream. The pain in his voice echoed off the hard surfaces of the mountain.  We scrambled down the hillside toward our friends.  When we found, Robbie his right leg was twisted at odd angles and he gripped his thigh with both hands and cried.  Allen lay on his side in the snow nearby trying to right himself.

“Oh my god! Oh my god, it fucking hurts.”  Robbie’s breath formed clouds of panic in the air.  His leg was sickening to look at.

“What the fuck are we gonna do, man?” came the frightened response from Allen who now stood wide-eyed clenching his fists as though breaking invisible rocks.

We stood immobile, paralyzed with fear.  I experienced a flash in my mind’s eye and saw
pictures
of what’d happened seconds before the accident. I saw Allen, drunk and unstable laughing like a mad-hatter and flailing his arms awkwardly, like a baby bird leaving its nest. He fell sideways off the back of the speeding sled causing Robbie to turn slightly, careening him into a tree. The disturbing “crack” echoed in my mind.

I felt the collective panic circling the group when I heard the gentle voice in my mind,
Don’t worry
, it said,
he will be alright, help is on the way.
I felt the
light-body
hovering although I never saw it.

Relief poured through me because I
knew
Robbie would be okay, but I said nothing. We all pitched in and managed to make it to the top of the ridge carrying Robbie while he screamed in pain. Allen babbled the entire way, “Holy shit man, this is so fucked up. Shit, what are we gonna do? Fuckin-A man, this is bad.”