by Forish, E.
~21~
For
By E. Jayne Forish
CHAPTER I: A LESSON ON LYING
“I got a little buzzed; I went a little crazy. Said everything I said… because of my buzz
[i] .”
I ALTERED THE REALITY OF MY increasingly tumultuous situation with drugs long before I destroyed it with a complicated series of lies, consuming a wide range of intoxicating substances — weed, alcohol, nitrous, ‘cid, ‘shrooms, hash, opium, blow, speed, more speed, 5-MeO
[ii] , AMT
[iii] , GHB
[iv] , Sally-D
[v] , triple Cs
[vi] , benzos
[vii] , K-pins
[viii] , Z-bars
[ix] , Oxies
[x] , and so on — for seven solid years before I celebrated a rather low key twenty-first birthday on Sunday, May 22, 2005. That night, my mother treats me and several friends to dinner at an upscale Italian restaurant in Northampton, Massachusetts.
The maitre’de seats us by a window that overlooks Main Street. A new generation of jaded hippies congregates on street corners. Lesbians dressed in button-down flannel parade the crosswalks. Homeless extend tattered coffee cups to passersby. The stale summer air suffocates all their spirits as they sluggishly migrate across steamy pavement and towards unknown destinations, but I could care less.
I sit inside the air conditioned restaurant, gripping the stem of a martini glass while waiters bustle around us like monkeys in tuxedoes. Dinner arrives quickly, various pasta dishes served in heaping portions, but the meal fails to hold my attention. My apple martini needs a refill.
We indulge, and time skips forward. We pour outside and into the humidity. My mother parts from the group as my friends and I join the socially unacceptable in their quest for meaning, or, at the very least, tolerance.
I search for such ideals in a bottle of Parrot Bay. I sift through the ashes of dozens of joints in search of the truth. I swallow candy-colored pills by the handful and chew on ‘shrooms ‘til my teeth turn blue, and still nothing, yet I continue this serious excavation for months. I never make any discoveries. I just keep digging downward until my head grows dizzy in that spiraled chamber, until that structure finally collapses and I know then that my mind is fully blown. Time to return home with nothing but a trunk full of withered remains, baggage filled with all the ghosts of memory, fighting for one last chance to truly live again.
* * *
Sun rises, hovers there in the sky for hours, as dream visions saturate my mind, a manipulation of the subconscious thoughts into symbolic imagery. I doze through the dawn and allow the outside world some time to subsist without my presence, for I possess a tendency to catalyze the malfunction of equilibrium
[xi] . Such instability causes me to inhabit only unbalanced spaces, for I am pure chaos.
Morning passes, and I arise to begin the Routine by sprinkling ‘phetamine powders inside chipped coffee mugs found in the cupboards of another’s apartment. I promptly switch over to Magic Hats or Smirnoff-based mixed drinks by the early afternoon. I use the same chipped mug. No one notices, for no one gives a shit anymore, myself included.
My right hand perpetually possesses a lit joint except during the intermittent periods when it clutches a Camel Light cigarette. I spend the afternoon in solitude, drinking, smoking, and bumping lines, mostly content, but eventually the mind grows restless with the desire for something more.
I escape to downtown
[xii] in search of the same handful of people whom always seem to have some decent pills in their possession, including my favorite varieties of both benzos and stimulant-based study drugs
[xiii] . Sun shifts to moonlight, and I relocate to the consolation of downtown bars, where stolen road signs and amateur artwork create a tasteless ambiance. I drink until the room spins like the abstractions inside a kaleidoscope and then continue onward into the witching hour with straight shots. Last call arrives and falls away, and, unsatisfied, I seek out alternatives – pills on a nearby college campus
[xiv] or lines of blow inside hotel suites or timeshare condos.
But if fate will allow it, I skip out on the bar scene in its entirety and instead pummel my mind with mushroom flesh, sauntering across secret sidewalks in solitude as silver lights sparkle behind the sockets of my eyes. There’s a certain truth in those sparks that whispers, “Everything’s gonna be alright,” so I listen and I roam, for the vacancy of a fragile mind seeks fulfillment inside such delicate moments.
* * *
The Routine has this inherent tendency to perpetuate lies, and I speak only in thinly veiled euphemisms — hanging out with friends means going to the bar; being tired means too many sleepless nights on amphetamine; going grocery shopping means robbing Price Chopper blind; filling a prescription means visiting my dealer; going to the bank means pawning my possessions — but refer to them not as “lies;” rather, label them as weak excuses utilized to justify my erratic behaviors.
Not that the distinction between lies and excuses even matters. My locations and actions mean little to the lives that I infect, for I manipulate my stories into such bizarre versions of actuality that no one seems to question their authenticity, thereby validating my words under the general principle that facts are stranger than fiction.
Besides, the language of lies often involves a certain element of truth, mere embellishments of the life that I dream to live – all-night hotel parties, never-ending supplies of coke and meth, hundreds of dollars to spend frivolously, high-class bars at expensive ski resorts, private chemists and personal chauffeurs, fame and fortune, and immunity to the consequences of my behaviors.
My exaggerated persona causes the subsequent lifestyle to flourish by providing me with the strength and faux confidences to survive under a variety of circumstances and, thereby, also continue onward through the weary ins and outs of daily existence. It permits me to seek salvation from my thoughts and emotions while hiding from the basic truth of my character: I lack self-esteem with a debilitating intensity. I despise the person that I am but thrive on the person that I wish I was not. I create a new existence inside my mind’s eye and project it unto the world, living in that fantasyland until the kingdom crumbles down, but if I fall, I know then that some king will provide me with the encouragement necessary to regain a point of confident optimism.
I allow Blake Madison to enter my life in the early fall of 2003. I sense that this unknown agent with questionably simple appearances — unkempt dark brown hair, tall but scrawny figure, and a stained, white t-shirt — will eventually prove himself a useful diplomat within the monarchy of my life.
He wanders down the hall and into my dorm room at Potash College during a small but lively gathering. We barely speak a word to one another but share a few hits off a joint circling the room. We all get high, he exits, and I think nothing of it.
Two years pass before I quantify my relationship to Blake as a cosmic kinship, a preordained connection to one another that the universe deems necessary for both of our survivals. Over time Blake and I share more marijuana moments, telling stories of our exploits over many more bong hits and bowl packs. Although his stories often possess elements of sensationalism — such as the time he witnessed a group of heavily-armed drug dealers raid his friend’s place, which just happened to be flooded with MDMA, back when he lived in New Mexico
[xv] — their level of verisimilitude outweighs my doubts of their authenticity, for in my mind Blake Madison is a legend, and like all living legends, he deserves a certain level of respect
[xvi] .
But despite the strength of our friendship, in the end I feel completely alone regardless of the bodies that surround me, and I shadow my shameless actions in a web of deceit, embodying the motto that if life wasn’t good
enough, then simply reinvent it. Soon everyone becomes a victim caught within the threads of my fragile webbing as I replace the reality of my existence with exaggerated truths, a technique designed to evade confrontations regarding my behaviors — be it stealing prescriptions, living out of the trunk of my Toyota, pawning various possessions, begging for spare change, or consuming toxic levels of any and all mind altering substances — and through such actions, the facts are increasingly substituted with lies, thereby permitting me to succeed in the lifelong goal of generating a slight sense of hope, however false, for my future.
I fight to obtain a dream that can never possibly be fulfilled, thriving on irrational beliefs that I would make it to California; that I would become a published author; that I would rediscover my sense of self; that I would find financial independence; that I would eventually achieve sobriety; that I would fill the voids of my tattered soul; that I would truly change and become a better person, but in order to do any of that, I first needed a foundation of lies, a chain of unrelated falsehoods that would provide me with reasons, regardless of their credibility, to have faith in myself.
CHAPTER II: ON ELLIOT STREET
“Let this become memory; the worst is yet to come… Believe the lie, and it will all come true
[xvii] .”
JANUARY 2, 2006. IT’S SUNDAY. I travel northbound on I-91, darting other vehicles like a bandit on the run. I consider my precision to be perfect, even with the refusal to employ a turn signal and at speeds exceeding 90 M.P.H., but others on the roadway seem to disapprove of my defensive, yet stylized, interstate conduct. One driver slams down on the horn; I turn up the stereo. Most just wave their middle fingers in salute to my driving; I return the gesture out of common courtesy.
The yellow moose-crossing sign comes into view and then disappears in a blur behind me, signifying the approach of the imaginary line that divides Massachusetts and Vermont. My ’95 Camry, which, although in terrible disrepair, will seem commonplace in Vermont with its rust, dents, and missing hubcaps, bolts across that line, and in less than ten minutes I escape the expressway and its idiot drivers down the ramp of Exit 2.
Northward rests sugar shacks, covered bridges, country stores, and deteriorating barns, the stereotypic landscape that spreads across the Green Mountain State like a virus straight out of a tourist guide, but the brochures fail to mention the abundance of front lawns littered with junk cars and dismantled tractors. They advertise the weekly Farmer’s Markets and homemade cheeses but exclude the trailer parks and dilapidated houses. Ignore the poverty; exploit the quaintness.
But I travel southbound instead on Route 9, passing pristine Victorian houses that have been converted into Bed and Breakfast inns and commercial office spaces. A rundown mini-mart, a farm house remodeled into a multifamily home, a law firm advertising free consultation all loom beyond uneven sidewalks and leafless maples. Unavoidable potholes litter the streets like the dozens of misplaced youths in wool caps and dreadlocked hair, roaming the town in search of a nonexistent nightlife, a reason to embrace the wild freedoms of an age that lacks serious responsibilities.
I turn right onto Main Street and into downtown Brattleboro. Rays of the setting sun ignite the exteriors of industrial buildings, which flank both sides of the roadway, with the light of the magic hour. A variety of businesses occupy the ground floor, renovated apartments and studio space on the upper levels. Canvas awnings shade the plate-glass windows from the bonfire hues of a falling sun as shopkeepers lock their doors, blocking potential customers from purchases of thrift store clothing and used books, both musty with the scent of discarded irrelevance.
Although the early twentieth-century architecture, complete with flat roofs and rough brick siding, clashes with twenty-first century ideals, it allows the humble city to revel in its sustained simplicity. Clydesdales pull ghost carriages across cobblestone streets, echoing the faint whispers of distant decades, an era of minimalism and civility, while local businesses keep family names alive amongst the new generations of excess and insolence.
Streets and sidewalks slip into silence as the push of early winter’s night herds the crowds indoors. Pedestrians meander down cement pathways stained with rock salt, cracked and weathered from age, as I survey the behaviors of stragglers from the flock.
A man in flannel climbs into a pickup truck splattered with mud. Two women hold hands, pause for a kiss, and disappear inside Moca Joe’s. A cluster of college kids huddles under recessed doorways, smoking clove cigarettes and discussing the intricacies of Nietzsche. High schoolers congregate on the adjacent street corner, laughing as a Cadillac Escalade attempts to parallel park; the vehicle bears New York license plates.
Last traces of light surrender to the all-encompassing shadow of the night as I watch the blazing orb in the sky flicker away, retiring into nothingness beyond the snow-dappled mountaintops as the moon rises amongst the dazzle of distant stars to take its place. A standstill moment of blank meditation splinters throughout my neural receptors until the traffic light flashes from red to green, and I then return to motion, steering my vehicle onto Elliot Street and into Harmony Lot.
Harmony Lot has an infamous reputation for various criminal activities, from loitering to public intoxication to intent to distribute. Despite the inconsequentiality of the crimes committed, the Lot has transformed into a police state, equipped with Big Brother-esque security cameras and the frequent occupancy of police cruisers, yet tonight the Lot seems equally abandoned of both lawbreakers and its enforcers alike.
I park in an empty space and quickly shove my wallet, cigarettes, and composition book into an oversized satchel that contains enough pills to open a pharmacy. I lock the car door and ignore the parking meter, knowing that the meter maids are off the clock until 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. I walk down Elliot Street with the intent to drown, for I have a hundred dollars in my wallet and plan to drink it all away.
I meander past the Weathervane with disinterest. The proprietors of this new neighborhood bar care more about artistic expression than alcohol, and I can’t be bothered. Live bands and DJs perform a minimum of five nights per week, blazing the baroque bass and boisterous beats into the cochleae of audiences ripe with sweat. They never dance, just sort of sway and flow to the repetitive rhythms of instruments and turntables like shamans lost inside hypnotic trance. Wall space serves as a faux gallery for local artists. Their paintings illustrate scenes that combine the styles of Picasso and Monet, abstract and impressionistic, and although they project obvious talent, they simultaneously lack the crazed perception of pure genius.
I stroll by an Indian restaurant and one of three bookstores that inhabit the storefronts of Elliot Street and then reach Metropolis, the second bar on the short stretch of road. I hear the bass of monotonous dance music through the heavy wooden doors as I make a sideways glance through the plate-glass windows. The interior is entirely black — the tables, the barstools, the walls, the patrons’ attire. A single candle lights each table. The bar itself sits on the back wall, decorated with a full-length mirror that reflects the bottles of high-priced liquors. Five ceiling lights hover above the bar, each with a different colored bulb that the glass bottles catch, casting iridescent rays of blue and green and pink across the customers’ faces. People seem willing to pay for the ambiance, buying cosmos and martinis that start at $8.00 and continue to climb significantly in price.
I walk a few hundred yards past Metropolis before crossing the street, finishing the last few puffs of my cigarette as I enter my preferred bar in all of New England. The sign attached to the barn red, wooden paneling reads, “McNeill’s Brewery” in gold letters that rest against a black backdrop. Golden lions in the style of the British coat of arms flank either side of the lettering. Icicles like daggers dangle from the sign and the eves of the building. A large glass window sits to the left of a wooden door that looks oddly modern compared to the building’s worn siding. To its right a small mural depicts a French waiter wearing a white unifor
m with a red bowtie, balancing a tray of booze above his head. Next to him a recessed doorway swings opened and closed as patrons exit the bar for a brief moment to smoke Marlboros in the frosty night air.
Flashback to a time period where settlers move westward under the guise of divine ordinance, but back East the town of Brattleboro decides to continue the development of its own sovereignty and commences the construction of its first fire department. Unbeknownst to the townspeople, over the course of the next century, that old fire station would undergo a series of alterations, transforming from municipal property into an award-winning microbrewery.
Shift forward to 1873. The town constructs a second fire station, and as the firemen move out of their current location, deputies and town officials move in. Decades pass, and like out west, Brattleboro eventually experiences its own surge in population. To accommodate the increase in citizens, new municipal offices are erected, and the town’s political entourage abandons its current location, leaving a vacant building in its wake.
Years pass, world wars occur, technology advances, and the building remains unnoticed until 1989. That year Ray McNeill
[xviii] purchases the lot with dreams of brewing bubbly beer in basements below and drowning away the days’ difficulties of dehydrated denizens above. After a year’s worth of renovations elapses, this man’s vision of heaven opens its gates to parched patrons and ale enthusiasts across New England.