Almost Sober

caughtwithweed


Jules is taking care of me while I’m sick. I’ve had fevers and a river of thick snot running through my head. I maintain that the infection began in my bladder, after holding it so long that night with the border police. Up until yesterday my piss was still coming out brown. I brought Jules in to look, as she didn’t believe there was anything seriously wrong with me.

“Not brown—I’d say the color is more of a monkey shit orange,” she said, peering down into the toilet before pulling the cord to flush it. The expression on her face was of an exaggerated boredom.

“Look, sweetheart, it’s just the drug residue coming out.”

For some reason this caused me to flinch. I held onto the sink for support. She clucked and wrapped her long arms around me.

“You’re my little crystal ashtray, getting rinsed out in the sink.”

“I’m rattled by the rush,” I sang, running a hand through my hair. It stuck up wildly after days of being slept on.

Shit’s been bone dry since we got to the UK. The cops got our number; I don’t want to take the risk. Therefore, no coke, no speed, no weed (OK, well a little of that). For strictly medicinal purposes, we’ve got bourbon (cuts through the phlegm), muscle relaxers (my arthritis has got my shoulder muscles pulled like a trigger) and Demerol (I have a hard time sleeping in England).

I stay rolled up in the covers, spending my days sweating it out on the big metal bed in the attic. Jules brings me green tea, DVDs and my papers. She calls me her little pancake and tells me to be good. Then she heads out for the pub.

Goddamn these fucking crooked ass rafters. Goddamn these fucking flip-up windows. Actually, I kind of like the way they open, I just wish they weren’t streaked with bird shit.

I don’t know why I’m here. I keep waking up thinking I’m in Amsterdam. South London feels like a dream to me. Patches of bright green grass wink up at me when I look down out the window, instead of the deep, blue glistening Amstel that I’m used to. Everything appears wet, even the concrete. I hear children playing in the streets and while I understand what they’re saying, their accent makes them strange. In England, nothing is what it seems, everything that should be familiar and warm is tilted slightly in a way I don’t understand. The people are cold, I find there’s something grimly purposeful about them. Just before I got sick, I took a walk down Portobello Road. It was sunset, vibrant patterns of early spring light fell all around me. This city is so old I thought, becoming somehow emotional at the sight of a satellite dish sitting fat and awkward on a rooftop. In the next moment a wave of loneliness threatened to knock me down. I pulled up my collar against the damp and the cold. I looked people in the eye as I passed, but very few looked back.

At least on the continent they showed a little curiosity.

It’s funny because all my life I’ve tried so hard to blend in and when I finally do I want to be noticed.

The last time I was here there weren’t these Starbucks all over the place. That’s how long it’s been since I dare come back.

When we pulled in at Victoria, I lit a cigarette and spoke enigmatically to Jules:

“Well, here we are, the so-called scene of the crime.”

“Which one?” Jules shot back, snatching my cigarette to light her own off it. Those were the last smokes we’d have before getting pulled aside at immigration.

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