Sean's Four-Thirty

A conflict between Drug Addiction and Conscience

    The four-thirty from Philadelphia always ran late, and the hour long drive in heavy traffic left everyone feeling restless, wishing they could walk part of the way. Sean skipped second period study hall, to catch the twelve thirty from West Haven to Philadelphia. Once there, he called “Jazz,” and met him outside of a SEPTA station with fifty dollars in pocket. Sean scored his heroin and returned to the station to catch the bus (the four-thirty) from the city to the suburbs. When Sean would return home, he lied, claiming he was at football practice, even though the coach cut him last month. What began as occasional became routine. Sometimes, an entire week would pass as Sean lay in his bed, weeping, fighting.  But, somehow, he always found his way back to the four-thirty.

    Late in the afternoon, on the Ides of March, Sean walked the streets of Philadelphia to the station, took a seat in the back of the bus, and put headphones in his ears, being the first in line. The four-thirty hit the highway ten minutes later, and a funeral possession blocked the expressway; dozens if not hundreds of people amassed to bury the deceased, remembering the good times, ignoring the bad. Whether it was a man or a woman, a doctor or a janitor, today it didn’t matter. Whether the person lied, stole, committed adultery or squatted in laziness, today was theirs. Today, even the murder would be remembered for his poetry.  As the procession passed, Sean said a silent prayer to himself, feeling the synapses in his brain burning, feeling the burn only those who lived to see their life spiraling out of his control know, powerless to stop. He looked to the left side of the four thirty and saw another bus jammed on the Schuylkill Expressway, advertising Hamlet for the Philadelphia Theatre. A play Sean loved but a favorite quote forgotten.

    Sean modeled the standard Catholic High School Uniform. He had a white polo with a red rose on the left side, signifying Sean attended Saint Michaels in the middle of West Haven, near the police station and courthouse. A black hoody, with “Saint Michael’s Football” scribed across it, covered his polo, rendering the polo nearly invisible, for the exception of his white collars protruding out of the hoodie. He had black, Ralph Lauren suede shoes with Gucci socks and sported Tommy Hilfiger khakis. With the exception of a nine millimeter Berretta (stolen from his father’s gun collection), gangster-stashed in the front of his pants, Sean was the spitting image of wealth and the promise of success.

    Passengers sat two by two, with the exception of Sean, having a seat all to himself. The lady seated in front of Sean had a small German Shepard, thick black glasses, and a white cane. “Excuse me,” she said, facing Sean. “Do you have the time?” Sean sat forward, removed the headphones, and said, “I’m sorry what?”

    “The time, sir,” she said.

    “Oh yeah,” Sean said, pulling his phone from his bag, “quarter to five,”

    Sean began small talk, noticing her purse under her seat. Staring into her face, covered with wrinkles, Sean reached under the seat, grabbing for the bag. “What street did you say you lived on again?”  Sean asked, glancing over the bus. No one was looking. The woman responded, “Fourteenth Street, on the corner of Delaware Avenue,” as Sean pulled the purse to the seat next to him, still talking to the woman.

    “That was my son’s funeral,” the woman said. “…He died, last Tuesday, in a car accident…” she said, tears dripping from her glasses, covering her sunken face and wrinkles. “God Bless you,” Sean said, thirty dollars in his hand. “He was a good man,” said the woman. “But so are you, I can tell,” she said, as Sean pocketed her phone. “Thank you,” Sean said, hesitantly. “But I know it’s alright because I know he’s with Jesus,” she said, wiping her face with a napkin, turning toward the front, as Sean placed her bag under the seat, ending the conversation.

   Sean sat in silence after the theft. Guilt terrorized his body worse than the sickness in his stomach, crippling his limbs. Trees lines the road, cars passed with a swoosh. Trees gave way to farmland and farmland to overgrowth and overgrowth to trees. The fellow passengers appeared busy-bored, toying with smartphones. “Paint in Black,” played over the bus radio. After an eternity, the bus came to a crawl. Ahead, two cars were on the right-hand shoulder, destroyed, smoking. Three paramedics circled a man on the pavement, stiff as a board, pumping his chest. As the four-thirty passed the accident, the blind woman gave her dog a treat, reaching into her coat pocket. At this moment, a simple phrase rang in Sean’s head, “Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.” A passage he learned in children’s Bible school, before he hit the party scene, before innocence died, before he took the four-thirty. “I have everything I need,” Sean thought and then grabbing the lady’s bag, he returned the money to her empty, torn, leather wallet and  returned  the phone to a compartment on the side of the purse, zippering it, placing the purse back under her seat, then sitting back with ease let out a long-winded sigh. Tomorrow Sean would have to scrape for money---a friend possibly---before he caught the bus again.

    As Sean’s conscience eased, he began tapping his feet nervously, feeling the sweat drip from his head, feeling a knife through his stomach, feeling a slight migraine begin. He grabbed his stomach but nothing would stop the pain, and then combed his hand through his shaggy, blonde hair. When the bus stopped again, Sean stood up, disembarked, exited the station, and walked the downtown streets.

    Conscience is the dope fiend’s worse enemy. The dozens of people Sean owed money, the janitor he stole two hundred dollars from, the debit card that his father closed, the car he broke into, the neighbor’s wallet taken from the garage, and his empty room deposited at a Philadelphia pawn shop left Sean living in the nightmare of social disgrace and isolation. Friends disappeared one by one and people he never met gave him avoided his stare, purposely,  students and teachers alike. He sat alone at lunch, the ones he stayed for, when he wasn’t begging or manipulating for money. Semiconscious of the truth when called a scumbag, yet still left with the unquenching thirst. It kept Sean awake at night, but here he was again, robbing the poor, quenching his thirst, rinse and repeat.

    Sean reached Main Street. This time of year, Spring was alive. Trees budded with white flowers and grass emerged from hibernation. All over town life bustled, free from the gloom of winter. Sean, oblivious to the new life, made his way off Main Street and began walking downtown, the streets crowded. Sean passed pedestrians and restaurants, numerous townhouses and yards with dogs, bumping into his father’s business partner, isolated in the midst of the commotion.

    Eventually arriving at strip mall, on the outskirts of town, Sean walked through a parking lot, vacant with the exception of two or three cars, resembling a scene from the apocalypse. Many of the shops had “For Rent” scrawled on the windows. As if, hopeful someone would invest in the space and the owner could recoup his losses. Sean cut through the middle of the lot and behind a closed CVS pharmacy, on the left side of the mall. Once behind the CVS, he climbed up a steep dirt incline and macheted his way through overgrown weeds and trees, to a playground, surrounded by overgrowth in bloom. It was a lonely, restless walk there. It was a lonely, restless walk back,

     The park was deserted, the lone remnant of ancient Elementary school. Weeds immersed everything but a wooden picnic table and a swing set. Graffiti covered any equipment still standing, and the jungle gym collapsed inwards. Everything, rusted and dirty. The playground served the old West Haven Elementary School, which stood in the adjacent field (now reclaimed by nature), before it was finally demolished, becoming a haven for teenage drug use.

    After emerging from the undergrowth, Sean walked to the picnic table, sat down and grabbed a water bottle from his bag. Sweat poured from his scalp, drenching his dirty blonde hair, his eyes felt as if they bulged from his head, and his stomach began to twist itself, giving Sean the sensation of drowning. He took a drink and washed his mouth out, spitting on the ground. Then, with pupils dilated, he grabbed his backpack, opened it, and his gun fell from his pants, landing softly in the weeds underneath the table.

    “Damnit,” he said, kneeling down, picking up the gun.

    With the gun in hand, Sean took a seat on the bench, almost too weak to move, feeling as if he had suddenly come down with the flu, placing the weapon on the table next to his bag. A sudden wave of agony nailed Sean with the force of a tidal wave, jarring the quote he forgot, ’To Be or Not to be.’ To live in eternal restlessness or to sleep eternally. “Why did Hamlet ever chose to be?” Sean thought to himself. Then with palms sweating and his seventy dollar Gucci Socks now drenched, Sean stretched across the table and retrieved his bag, slipping his gun back in his pants. Then standing up, he made his way to the shallow grass, by the rotted seesaw and sign that read, “Guardian Supervision Required: Play at Your Own Risk.”  When he got to the sign, Sean reached for his gun and sat down, feeling the grass prick his leg through his pants, placing the Berretta to his right. The park had a damp, rain-like smell, giving it the impression of a rain forest. Sean (at 13) wrote his name on the playground sign, in black over “Risk.” Now, the lettering on the wooden sign was barely visible, almost washed out of history, yet Sean’s graffiti remained bold.

    Reaching into his bag, Sean pulled out a small bag, an elastic rope, a spoon, and a syringe; then he lined the paraphernalia on the top of his bag. Sean drizzled water on his spoon and cooked the heroin with a cigarette lighter. When the liquid on the spoon appeared milky, Sean rolled his left pant leg to his knee, revealing a mass of red and swollen dots sliding up his leg, resembling wasp stings. Then Sean sucked the poison into his syringe and tied off. The moment the drug hit his bloodstream, Sean nodded off, losing consciousness. When he awoke, the physical pain subsided, but “To be or not to be,” still sung to him. To live as a dope fiend, robbing widows, mugging mothers, overdosing, and dying of AIDS or to die as human being, sleeping gracefully, dying with class, saving untold victims and ending the unending restlessness. Before unconsciousness hit again, Sean explored the inside of his backpack, blindly, finding a black sharpie. Then he stood tall, wobbling, shaking, writing “R.I.P.” atop “Sean.”

    Sean stumbled to the ground again, his mind racing, crying: “I am worthless. If I died now would anyone miss me?” Sean knew the answer to this, no. His parents would place him in the dirt with a granite tombstone, saying their prayers as he was lowered. “Noone would care. I deserved it. Maybe I did deserve it,” he thought to himself, to be unloved. “I am worthless,” he thought again, wiping his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. His mind drifted to freshman year, the last time he received an A in anything, the last time he caught a touchdown: the simple things in life, now dead. “At least at my funeral people will remember the middle schooler with the nerdy cut. My mother will remember the infant she gave birth too. Maybe my father will remember something too. Never the junkie,” he thought.  Sean stopped crying and wiped his face again, a moment of peace came upon him. Suddenly everything seemed so rational. Sean knew there was no place in the world for a junkie and he knew there was no way out: Remembering George giving him a ride, unwittingly for him to pick up drugs, remembering stealing from his grandmother, remembering purposely forgotten gym shorts, and every slimy manipulation he perpetrated. Of course, none of that will matter at his funeral.

    Standing up, grabbing his gun from the grass, Sean walked to the swings, sat down, held the skinny metal chains, leaving his Berretta in his right hand, placing it against the temple of his head. The swings were Sean’s favorite childhood past time. He could fly higher and jump further than any kid in the neighborhood. If there was a way to go, this was Sean’s: he was going to do it when he reached the maximum height. The height where you jump or fall. Sean moved his feet outward and began to move. Slow at first, but momentum began to build. Sean made a small pass and then climbed higher. After a second pendulum-like motion, the chain from the swing was at a forty-five degree angle with the top bar. Sean stuck his feet behind him when the swing came down, thrusting them back out when he swung forward. It amazed Sean how much he remembered from childhood, remembering almost instinctively that he had two more full motions before he reached the top.  The chain screeched as Sean began his descent. A gentle wind blew, as the gun lay pressed against his head, motionless. The downward decent ended, and he began motioning forward. His feet straight, cutting through the air like a jet fighter. The chain clinked again, and Sean began swinging backward. This was it: jump or fall. The swing reached the maximum height at the rear of the set. As Sean cut through the air, the world passed by at light speed, reducing the debris of the field into rushing colors. When Sean reached the top, he felt the inertia of the world suck him back, resting momentarily, leaving Sean feel weightless. At this moment, the world seemed to stop, and Sean closed his eyes, screamed, and pulled the trigger.

    The gun clicked but didn’t fire, causing Sean to lose his balance and fall, landing on his back. Unbeknownst to him, he left the safety on, rendering the weapon harmless. After a minute or two, Sean found the gun and headed home with a stiff back. Tomorrow Sean’s mother would force him to fill out college applications, go shopping, and get his hair cut; right after Sean skipped study hall and caught the four-thirty home. 

Reviews

[PhoenixWhite]

Amazing imagery. Thank you for sharing.