The Dreamer by Lex Parise

The head was almost obscured by the big black bee stung hands; but if one looked closely one could make out the panic ridden face of a soon to be deceased....chicken.The sound that  started to echo from its flapping beak was not a shrill scream but a soul-searching screech,that started low and started to build, until  it startled me awake on  the sudden turn at 77th street subway station where poultry became real.I blinked twice.... once.. rubbed ....and then muffled a sickness yawn...across from my now semi focused eyes was the most out-of-place ...blue-eyed blond haired boy , his hippie coiffure straying lazily down one side of his almost laughingly gorgeous face.The humorous almost macabre part of this angelic visage is that in  three short years he'd be in prison for the murder of a young mother ....he would take a lamp; when surprised suddenly during a b and e and bash her brains to a sickening silent halt but for now he was my partner ...one of two.....he was Peter...                                                             My eyes were sick- flowing tears with a  mixture of a need and unspoken sadness. My blond associate became clear ...he was giving me the headtilt to the right ,a non-verbal way of saying "look at this".I looked... it was an old man scratching his nose  rubbing his face in a half nod which embodied a lifetime of so many disappointments..I smiled. I understood what he meant... it was that hope that we too would be soon in that glorious condition .That tragic  dichotomy:

Of why have you forsaken me?..and do this in memory of me. The clatter clash of the broken and bruised subway car almost knocked our junkie Jesus to the floor and woke us to the here and now .......I closed my eyes in a futile attempt to relax my legs and stop the incessant banging of my knees....my uncle thought this was the secret to keeping thin... in fact it was one of the features of a unstoppable anxiety that had been with me since early on in my life.                  The waiting, the going, the getting  was the way of the modern Burroughs.... when we looked back in future years... going would be romanticized, waiting would be pushed far back into our memories and the getting would be the silent enemy never defeated

The walk from the subway to the house was uneventful.Except that the two hippies stood out like a cellar in Oklahoma.My dark Italian complexion made deeper by the days at the beach ,playing the pocketbook game,helped a little.The pocketbook game was the source of our new found wealth and the reason we were able to make this junk chasing excursion.The game was simple....It took three theives,an unexpecting trustful beach- going public and a pocketbook or better still a beach bag.One of the trio stationed themselves at the water's edge...he was the lookout for unsuspecting victims....when they left their blanket unattended and ventured into the water he would raise his hand ......this would start the lead accomplice running towards the bounty on that lonely Blanket...he had a blanket in his hands he was being chased my the last man of the trio and would be pushed down on the target bag or wallet and as he feigned anger he'd scoop up the ill gotten gains and chase the fake antagonist off the beach...We pulled that over 2 dozen times ....and now we could use that Bounty to cop.

The hallway was plaster filled poverty.Smelling of dinner,supper and dirt.It made it clean.The young lords the Spanish answer to the black Panthers had a store front next door.

We started up the worn out steps made quieter by the early morning .The sounds were more of a reflection of my wanting heart.....As the destination came closer my mind wandered to the plaster wall with its holes and graffiti....one passage stood out...in black scrawl "Why do you think they call it dope"I smiled a 17 year old Fuck you...to myself.....and shouted at Peter.gimme . the money ...he seemed lost in a story of my design ....what? he whispered.the moneyI said .I have it in my pocket ...ok.. gimme. As he handed it to me.he knocked..... a short pudgy woman ;her light blue house dress stained with a dozen meals.Papi what you need?Her voice had that sweet tone that the money in my hand had manufactured.We copped 35 capsules(first and last time ever had capsule dope).Took 3 apiece for our own private cookers.  I hid 19 in my sock while a more paranoid peter stuck his in a hole in the wall...Peter and I calmly took our works..The eye dropper had a pacifier attached to it with a rubber band wrapped tightly around the neck ,to give it a whoosh....I tore a piece of a dollar bill a small strand of in god we trust and handed to peter and did one for myself ..I placed it in my mouth, wet it and wound it on the tip of that glass dropper ,this "collar" would keep the steelback needle secure......that done I placed the hypo down gently on my pants leg and started to empty the 3 capsules into my spoon ;while peter used his old bottle cap with wire handle, it was a matter of preference...Even though our Spanish lady would not allow us to get off in her apt;she had supplied us with a glass of water ,generosity knows no bounds.My spoon full. I carefully sucked up the water into the dropper....and squirted it slowly into my white powered blackened covered spoon.....I raised the mixture with a surgeons care, lit a bic and slowly cooked my concoction....the white became a lite Brown water.....picking up the dropper I sucked the liquid up using a tiny piece of cotton to collect all the  germs,all the disease,all the hepatitis,all the dreams,loves and innocence;The small dirty white ball protected us from it all.After a flicking of the finished product to remove any death-dealing bubbles  I slid the piece of dulled steel into my  belt wrapped arm .I was waiting for the bubble  looking at  the glass tube, for a bubble of blood a delicious bubble of blood ; So I would  know that I  had a hit and then I could slowly  squeeze the pacifier and shoot the brown  liquid and  wait for the warmth of the drug the  all-encompassing warmth of "the"drug...because nothing could replace the feeling of no more worries no more problems no more dirt no more lost loves no more shattered dreams no more dead grandfathers  no more......

 ....we booted the liquid a half a dozen times sending the blood back into the arm to maybe capture a glimpse of the initial rush...but eventually we pulled the dropper from our scarred pit and hastily sanitized it with 2 or 3 squirts of water..from the wound in my arm flowed a river of blood slowly making its way towards th cliff of my forearm dripping 1 2 3 4 5 drops onto my jeans it made pattern a silly deliberately recognizable face of despair thec6th and 7th drops changed the face to a pool of blue dirt ...which my wrist swiftly smeared into a distant memory .... It was time to go and I went to retrieve the other caps from the wall but they had fallen behind ..I shouted at the wall.FUCK...I knocked at the door ...Our dope fell behind the wall ....sorry nuthin I can do.. you have to go ,too much in hallway ...go now ..I protested...I need to get the ...No she screamed..you have to go now...Peter said c'mon lets get out of here.....We scurried sleepily down the steps at the almost bottom we were greeted with....

Whose got duh dope.? .....A machete wielding Spanish take off artist said with an angry sing-song accent and a  anger intensified by a craving and a little jealousy at theses white boys copping and getting high without him........the brown handle cutter that was raised in one motion to Peter's throat....again with a more throaty guttural snarl came "who got duh dope"?......Wait I said... looking into the pinned pleading eyes of peter ....stop ok stop I was about to reach down into the sock hideaway..when a wonderful George Harrison obscure album burst upon the my thought process, the wall ...I said triumphantly.   The dope is behind the wall I pleaded.....the blade dug deeper into my almost bent backwards partner's now bleeding skin..   ..no! no really! it's behind the wall ,upstairs; I looked skyward with an encouraging nod... it fell behind the wall; come  on I'll show you..our attacker looked puzzled pensive..... should he cut deeper or go take a look... Ok show me ...lets go show me.We walked slowly up the steps like a coal miners after a long day....filthy with hope but tired with the tragedy of it all.

The wall fell like the crumbling ideals of the Roman Empire..screaming Spanish and English combinations of" what the fuck are you doing."... my delightful dope dealer was livid...my new machete man told her in spanglish to shut the fuck up. behind that shattered wall sitting on a cross beam was that playtime bag of capsules of no-pain....Machete man grabbed it and I tailed him down the steps I heard in ever decreasing shouts...." don't you ever come back"...my mind didn't give a Fuck about that. I was buzzing incessantly in my nemesis ear ...trying to reason with my new FRIEND....hey! part of that dope is mine..  hey! we need to split THAT...hey, we're partners on that.hey, you know I was the one told you in was in the wall...hey, hey, !Where are you going...hey! hey! .. he turned to me with an exasperated look.. ok just shut up! I smiled inside, motioned to peter to come on and followed my new-found friend into a abandoned house;to become blood brothers in a heroin kind of way....

So the ritual was repeated; it is  not worth describing .Suffice to say the bargain between the new-found fiends was along the lines of  ...The bags were divvied up. The works,the belts, the blood, the booting ,the head bob and then my head nod; my nod melted into a silent, soulful

sleep,that finally turned black without my knowledge. Then a bright light a white bright light made me take notice that this brightly lit room smelled of alcohol and misery.

Behind a blue curtain stood a group of shadowy figures all moving and gesturing like Chinese shadow puppets.Suddenly a head pops out of the shadows and looks matter of factly at me.....She's dead she says.....I feel a scream come to my mouth but nothing escapes ...a rush of memories shoots by on rapid machine-gun film screen. and then I hear the scream but realize its coming from somewhere deep within the earth....As I come to grips with these oddities  the same death dealing puppet nurse speaks again ...Wait we got her back.. she's alive...I hear myself telling myself ....alex its ok......which morphs into lex we have to go.. then into ... we got her back alex......these words floated in these 3 second dueling back and forth and back and forth . Then finally the "Alex" morphed into lex which became a pleading... lex let's get out of here" ....I raised my wonderfully half closed eyes shook off the daymare and slowly rose to my feet ..Peter stood before me a twinkle smile in his pinned eyes.Cmon lets go. We stumbled laughingly through the broken furniture rat feces a d shattered glass,bursting free into the quiet morning of the neighborhood.On the way home we were comrades with holes in arms...The train ride was a mixture of dope-fiend tall tales... and half nod laughs...By the time we pulled into Newark we were sorry to see our new-found friend go...two hours before he had almost cut Peter's throat but now the misery of addiction had us in a hug swapping hand slapping nose itching goodbyes...The brain drain train started slowly again and whacked us back into our seats then slowly lets us move on.I stared out the grime streaked window... thinking of all the lives in all the houses that whisked by.....what was happening in the little apartment so close to the train that the noise must have been part of the family and what evil was being done in that yard with the leaf-filled dirt encrusted pool.and so on and so on as the real lives melted before me.My eyes slowlyhalf closed I gave a quick nod smile at Peter and then my head slumped in sleep banging gently on the glass.It was suddenly white not the sunfilled joyous white of the morning no it was the bland awful white of a sheet covered body at the morgue that was slowly morphed into a grayish black and that fog filled darkness opened up into a street ; a street filled with kids:laughing yelling and playing.Suddenly I was there and from out of the crowd came a single voice "first to see the street lights go on"I turned to see you had won the night contest with no prize felt the knowledge that it had been youI smiled inside and then;I waited for the whistle, my father's shrill signal that is was time to come home....I waited.. but instead of my call to get the fuck home..... the street turned dark .I was alone,all alone.Except for a single shadow across from me on the other side of the street.It was illuminated by a flickering, spitting fire burning in a trash barrel.Slowly it came into focus it was my grandfather,my dead grandpa.I called out ;what are doing here .Where are you going?He pointed down the road..I started towards him .He waved both hands pleading with me to stop.I just wanted to hold him one last time kiss him on his weathered cheek; feel his warmth that I felt so rarely in my life.I asked "can I come with you?He nodded no.He pointed towards the night sky and slowly walked away.From behind I heard a voice" next stop Asbury Park".

The train slowed to a dream ending halt.....I gazed over at Peter, he looked at peace ...at peace with the present ...at peace with the past ....at peace with the old man nuzzling his head on his blond locks...cmon Pete let's go were home ...Peter I softly screamed... he  finally stirred gave a disgusted shrug to the old man .pushing him roughly off his shoulder....and stood up smiling he was still fucked up...I jumped down the four steel steps to the dirt of asbury park......glanced down the street where it's a  "hard to be a saint."..and saw coming closer with a jersey city walk our   third partner  ...Gary ..he was a sport specimen turned addict, still with the muscle that said "don't fuck

with me" but with a grizzled street look that comes with the constant chaos that a heroin run demands......I wanted to tell him of our trials, of our death machetes,of all our troubles but I thought for one second that I saw worry in his eyes ...was he glad we had made it home ..because we had been gone so long had he thought we had been busted or beat or had been hurt ...I hastened my steps Peter lagged sheepishly behind ..and as Gary threw his big hands over my shoulders his mouth came inches from my ear.he was my partner he was my friend he was going to give this tired worn out dreamed out man a glimmer of compassion He whispered  softly with a sardonic smile....and a slight Spanish accent.... Who got duh dope ?