Love Induced Trama

I think im done with it...made subtle changes...

 

The orange and red hues of sunset are shining through the broken blinds. The windows are slightly fogged yet my body is on fire; cindered to numbness. I peel my hair from my face and grab a rubber band off the glass table. I blow the white powder from it and use it to fasten my hair into a ponytail. It hangs low and some pieces of hair fall back into my face, but still, it’s a ponytail. I walk out unto the veranda, well what BJ calls a veranda. The broken floor boards covered in rickety tables with thick slabs of glass covered in chemicalized cocoa and razors, and half dead bodies dressing the rails hardly deserve the prestige that a veranda embodies. You’d expect to look unto the horizon and see a spectacular sunset, full of oranges and reds playing as a backdrop to the orchestra of waves. Instead, the sun beams between high-rise project buildings and all I see is brick.

 

I’m startled by a girl who bumps into me as she holds her bleeding nose and runs back into the apartment. I follow her, not sure why, but I do. She runs to the bathroom tripping over coke induced sleeping bodies in the living room. She bursts through the bathroom door and I enter behind her. She grabs the commode, screaming obscenities of a life lost, engrossed in her self destruction. Her blood mixes with her lack of an appetite. Her dry regurgitation pains me and I’m almost disgusted. I take seat beside her as she pays homage to her porcelain god. Her stringy, bleach blond hair falls into the toilet and I softly slide it behind her ear. She flinches at first, defensively. She stares at me with scornful eyes assuming I will judge her, but how can I? I’m here too. I try to show as much empathy as I can and she realizes I’m a friend. Her dark eyes soften and her skeletal face widens. Her lips crack as they spread to make a smile and she says softly, “Hey, I’m Jessie.”

“Tanya”, I reply simply, and the bond is formed. Jessie’s gray eyes speak to me and I wonder how she got here. I constantly ask myself the same question.

           

            I remember my first coke party, something I never wanted to try, but something Damian had done for years. I imagine most women would’ve left after she realized her boyfriend was an addict but, I love him. I remember the numbness I felt, followed by the mind-blowing intercourse. It was fun at first. But over the last five hundred twenty…oh I forgot about today…five hundred twenty-one days, the excitement has faded and I’m officially an addict. Most women at twenty are in college beginning their family, starting their life. Yet I feel more numb than alive. I survive more than live, yearning for my next encounter with her, my love, cocaine.

            I’m flushed back to reality as Jessie continues to throw up. She brings her head up slowly, wiping the vomit from her lips. She chuckles and I smile with her. We exit the bathroom back into the living area and a new brick has been cut. The sharp razors screech against the glass as lines are formed and the loud inhaling and snorts indicate that another session has begun. Jessie and I walk to the table and we sit next to a brunette. She winks at me sliding her razor to me and Jesse and I share a line as long as the Nile. Starting from opposite ends our noses touch and Jessie licks the residue from my nostrils. We engage in a childish giggle and I feel her hard chapped lips touch mine. Her cold hands palm my face and I relax. She glides her cocaine wrapped tongue against my gums. I recognize the instant numbness of my gums but also what tastes like smoked sausage; obvious ruminants of her vomit. She calms me, like I’ve never been calmed and for this split second the air is clear and I believe that life can be different.

You nasty b***h!” rang in my ears from a voice that was all too familiar. Damien’s rough hands tighten around my neck and I feel my breaths shorten. Jessie’s lips are torn from mine and her face collides with a mirror from the force of Damien’s thrust. She falls to the floor with her face shattered and her blood dyes the cheap carpet. She screams. I know not if in my defense or in her own pain. My head bobbles from side to side from the hard shaking of my neck. I feel a migraine coming. Dizziness enters as I gasp for random breaths. I close my eyes and pray for help, because I know no one here will. Life has become so impersonal, only space and time between beatings and cravings. My face hits a soft cushiony area and I believe it’s over. My face is stuffed deeper and deeper into the cushion unit becomes suffocating. Air leaves and all I inhale are the stale fibers of the sofa. I swing my arms, hitting only air, wanting to scream but cant. I’m getting weak. I feel a cushion thrown on top of my head and the pressure is unbearable. I hear mumbling but can’t make it out. Right as my last breath seems to leave the cushion is taken from my head and I’m dragged by my hair to face him. He speaks but my hearing doesn’t recognize the sounds. I now know how the Peanuts kids felt when adults spoke to them. Once my hearing does return I hear BJ’s demanding voice.

 

“Damien, kill your b***h on your own time.” Following BJ’s words is Damien’s hard hands to my face. First as slaps then upgrading to punches after each word he screams.

 

“You better leave that gay s**t to your sister,” he continues to beat me; now throwing me into anything nearby.

 

“You hear me b***h?” I’m afraid to answer so I remain quiet. Irritated by my silence he grabs my neck and throws me toward the door. I trip over a boy, laid on his back barley moving with his lips lined with cocaine as if it were done professionally. He doesn’t seem to be breathing. His eyes just stare at the ceiling, not flinching, nor blinking. As much as I want to check, I have my own life to worry about. I hit the floor where my mouth bangs against it and I taste my blood. My body aches. Damien grabs me by the neck and throws me out the door. I stumble but manage to keep my stance, but not for long. I’m pushed, obviously not walking fast enough for him, as he slams the door behind him.

 

“Walk faster, I have s**t to do.” He pushes me toward the steps and this time I am unable to keep my balance and I tumble down the flight of steps and slam into the concrete below.  I hear his feet running down behind me. He pulls me from the ground by my shoulders slowly, not yanking me like before. His voice has calmed and I think I even hear a giggle.

 

“Baby,” he begins sounding jovial, “how did you manage to do that?” Baby, the love I remember. He helps me into my car, the Mercedes purchased by my father. Damien climbs into the driver’s seat, slams the door, starts the ignition, peeling out of the parking lot, and my head bangs against the window.

 

            How did I get here? My mind yearns for my mother; the cardiologist who knows nothing of her daughters breaking heart; or for my father, the powerful circuit judge who protects the city of Los Angeles but cannot keep his own daughter from the crimes imbedded in her own distorted visions. I wonder if in their plans for my life, along with world travel, classical training, and etiquette class, could they imagine pissy halls, cold sweats or venom stronger than love?

 

            We arrive at my apartment and once again I am dragged. I feel as a woman should as her caveman pulls her across a parking lot up twenty nine stairs. That migraine has arrived. He throws me against a door which as I slide to the ground I recognize as my own by the blood staining the knob. Last week; I meant to clean that. I lay on the ground, admiring the plush carpet in the hall for it is the only comfort that I feel. Damien turns to face me as he emerges the stairwell.

 

“I love you baby,” he states, pointer fingers toward me, thumbs in the air with a Chuck E. Cheese smile, “see you later.” He runs down the stairs and I know he’s gone when I hear the tires ripping over asphalt and the obnoxiously loud Fifty Cent hardcore rap, blaring from my Bose stereo, fade into the night. I don’t move… I can’t. I just lay here, in front of my door, hoping not to frighten the passing white people, in love.