by Stacy Buck
Contents
Title Page
Chapter One
Title Page
Users
My Angels Have Demons
Book 1
by Stacy & Jennifer Buck
Copyright @ 2014 Stacy Buck
This book is dedicated to addicts, recovering addicts, and those whose lives have been affected by a loved ones addiction.
#
Part 1
Prologue
It never ceases to amaze me, how life can be so fragile yet at the same time so tenacious. In a brutal attack one man can get stabbed fifty seven times with a butcher knife and miraculously survives; while the next accidentally falls asleep and drowns in four inches of bathwater. One man is mauled by a grizzly bear, walks twenty miles while holding in his guts with his bare hands and survives; and then another is punched in a street fight, falls back hitting his head on a curb, and dies instantly. Who knows why one body can take such punishment, and struggle to hang on, while another lets their life simply slip through their fingers like grains of sand. Why is Mick Jagger still rocking it at seventy something after decades of rock star partying, while Heath Ledger overdoses and dies after a single night of too much medication.
These are the types of things that keep me up at night. Wondering why, after all I've done to myself, am I still alive.
"Carter," she said, bringing me back to reality.
She caught me spacing out again, my mind wandering, as it seems to so often.
"Did you hear what I said?" she asked.
"Um...I...," I stammered, struggling for the right thing to say. The clock was ticking away on our hour.
She sighed.
Not wanting to make eye contact, I stared off at the mostly bare wall behind her. The only thing hanging from the wall was a framed diploma from the University of Texas A&M, reminding me of my lack of even a high school diploma, just to ensure I felt inferior to this dark haired woman. She sat cross legged, peering down at me from behind her glasses. She was slightly overweight and just unattractive enough to make me comfortable with having to spill my guts to her, week in and week out.
Papers that held notes on god only knows what and who were stacked in two neat piles, one on each side of her desk. I tried to sneak a peek to see what she may have been writing about me, but she immediately caught me, and I slumped back down onto the far too firm couch. The cushions felt like bricks against the bones of my ass.
"How is the medication? Any side effects?"
"No, it's been fine," I lied. I was good at this. I've had a lot of practice lying to doctors over the years to get at the prescription drugs I some times needed, but mostly didn't.
In truth I'd been suffering from prolonged ejaculation, also defined as a struggle to climax during sex. If you call that a struggle. Some men would call that a blessing. Here they are premature ejaculating all over the place and I'm going strong like a bull, but I didn't want to tell her that. The last thing I needed was her to take me off my meds just because I was struggling to cum once and awhile. Trust me, these ones I truly did need. I was a mess without them. Shit, I was a mess with them, but without them my life was just plain ugly.
"You look like hell," she said, and I couldn't deny that fact.
The scratches and bruises covering my arms, and the black eye I could hardly see out of were the type of damning evidence that would hold up in court. Nervously, I tapped my foot repeatedly and rapidly on the wood tile covering her office floor.
"I had a rough week," I said, looking away to the window, I showed her my good side, the one without the black eye.
"Carter, you've got to get yourself together," she said, "I thought we were making real progress here, but this seems like a major set back."
"I got into a fight."
"I can see that." She leaned back in her tall backed leather chair. It looked expensive, and it better have been at the three hundred plus dollars an hour I was paying her, but with my particular problems it took a particular kind of shrink to deal with me, and that didn't come cheap. "Tell me about it."
"The fight?" I asked.
She folded her arms over her chest and for a split second she stared at me as if I had just asked the world's dumbest question, but she quickly shifted in her seat, a true pro, to hide her disdain for me.
"Yes, tell me about the fight," she confirmed.
"It's a long story." It always was with me.
"You've still got fifty minutes on the clock. We're not going anywhere, so start at the beginning."
I smirked, lifting my cheek on the left side, the side with the black eye, and it stung as the puffed up purple skin squeezed tight.
"Okay," I said, "It all started with a phone call."
#
Chapter 1
2 weeks earlier.
The cell phone in his front pocket rang again. He didn't have to remove it to know whose name would be on the caller I.D.. It was her calling for the third or fourth time, wondering where he was.
"You need to take that?" the officer asked.
"No," Carter said.
The police officer wore a puzzled expression, but continued to scribble away with a note pad and pen.
"So can you tell me again what happened? You say you saw them exit the alleyway and approach the car from the rear?"
"I did. The tall one in the hood was holding a gun. He approached the passenger side, while the shorter one in the ball cap went to the driver side to distract her."
"And how did you disarm the man with the gun?" the officer asked. His nameplate said Hoover on it.
"I grabbed his arm through the window when the man with the gun entered the vehicle and sat down in the passenger seat. Then I punched him in the face and tore the gun from his hand," he said.
"You do this kind of thing often?" officer Hoover asked.
"No, this is the first time," he lied.
The officer, wearing his neatly put together blues, stared at him questioningly.
"Here's my card. If you remember anything else, anything you can think of, feel free to give me a call."
"I will," Carter said knowing he would never, ever, under any circumstance be calling this officer of the law again.
"You're free to go." Officer Hoover waved him off, and as Carter turned away the phone in his pocket rang again.
He casually strode to the end of the street and as soon as he turned the corner, he ran in an all out sprint toward Mercer Street. He didn't wait for the crosswalk to signal him to go as he approached the next street down, he just ran straight through. A Buick honked as he was almost clipped from the side.
"Watch it!" Carter shouted despite his jaywalking.
He was almost there. The corner cafe's sign hung, swaying in the breeze, over the open door. A slight drizzle, the kind Washingtonians were so used to, made his slide to a stop interesting. The damp concrete was slick and he nearly slid past the open door. The sky was nowhere to be seen, just a blanket of gray as far as the eye could see. He glanced at the waterfront past Pioneer Square, at the ferries lined up at the pier, waiting to take passengers away from this dreary city, and he felt a pang of jealousy.
A wave of steamy air slapped him in the face as he entered through the open portal and into the cafe. The espresso machine behind the counter was boiling hot, he knew how it felt.
"Carter," a voice called, her voice.
"Nancy, I'm sorry," he said recognizing the look of agitation written all over her face. She shook her head and chuckled as he approached.
"You're almost an hour late," she said sliding her coffee away from her to the center of the table in disgust.
"I had to stop a carjacking," he exclaimed.
"You had to? No, you didn't have to, but ya did," she said, "
and now you're late as usual."
"There was this cop, and he-" She stopped him with an upraised hand.
"Save it for someone who cares."
"Oh, so now you don't care? Is that it?"
"Yes, that's it. That's all of it," she said. "I'm leaving you."
"That can't be it." Then it hit him. "What do you mean you're leaving me?"
"I've had it Carter. I'm sick of you coming home with black eyes, I'm tired of you always being late, and most importantly I'm through with you putting me second, behind you're pathetic obsession with trying to save the world," she said.
Carter's blood began to boil. A decade of using drugs and alcohol had left him with a void he needed to fill. A decade of lost time that he desperately needed to make up for.
"You...you can't do this to me," he said, "I need you." And he most certainly did, she had been key in getting him clean.
"Carter, there's someone else," she said.
There it was.
Slowly, he slumped into the seat on the opposite side of the table from her. Carter hung his head in his hands. A clink on the table made him look up. She was standing over him with her hand on the table.
"Here's your key. I already cleaned my stuff out of the apartment," she said, "Goodbye, Carter."
He didn't respond. His stomach was a flaming inferno. Fumbling with the button on his jacket pocket, his shaky fingers finally undid the button, and he reached for his pills. He squeezed the cap down to undo the child safety lid and poured a few tiny white pills into the palm of his hand. He didn't bother counting how many as he slammed them into his mouth, reached for Nancy's discarded coffee cup, and poured the lukewarm liquid down his throat. Taking a deep breath, he fought his anxiety for a brief second, but lost.
His insides were ablaze. His heart, the source of the flames, pounded so hard it was like someone was beating a snare drum inside his skull. Up from the seat, through the door, he stumbled into the alleyway. He fell to his knees behind a beat up, grease covered, old dumpster. His throat burned, not like the acid reflux from the bile of a normal persons stomach, but like true acid was searing his insides.
Molten hot vomit exploded past his teeth. The fiery liquid flamed to life as it hit the pavement. His lips caught on fire, but he hardly registered the pain. He had an extraordinary tolerance when it came to burns and his skin was almost flame retardant.
The lava roiled like a river of fire under the dumpster, and it too was soon ablaze. The flames bit at the coffee shop's wall. Carter wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and the skin sizzled. The smell of burnt hair and charbroiled skin, like melted plastic, assaulted his nostrils. No matter how many times he smelt it, he would never get used to that horrid smell.
He checked the hair on top of his head, it was still there. It had finally grown out to a decent length and his day would have gone from bad to worse if his hair had been burned off...again.
*****
He stumbled into his dingy apartment, full of rage and despair. His gaze darted around the now mostly empty living room. The pictures hanging on the wall, the sofa, the coffee table, all hers, were now gone. A stain ringed the carpet around where the couch had been like some kind of fucking cartoon. She had cleaned the place out of all her belongings, leaving only bare, yellow smoke stained walls.
It only fueled the fire within him. His heart beat five times faster than a normal heart, super heating his blood. He had seen his heart via an x-ray once as a child. Its exterior was blackened with a layer of charcoaled crust with veins of red hot lava between the cracks like a flowing volcano. He had not been to see a doctor since.
Anger, depression, anxiety, all negative emotions only made controlling it worse. He grimaced in pain and gripped at the burning inside his chest. The power that welled within him caused discomfort at the best of times and pure agony at the worst. He struggled to hold in the fire, to keep it from bursting out his pores. His extremities, feet, hands, and head were the most vulnerable. The points where his magma like blood reached its ends.
He had to get to his pills. He slammed open the bathroom door and practically dove to the medicine cabinet. His fingers trembled as he pulled back the mirror, but he was still careful to avert his eyes to avoid his own reflection.
"Pills, more pills," he said.
Always more pills. Bottles of all sizes lined the shelf, antidepressants, benzos, stimulants, and even a medication for nerve pain. He popped them open one by one, spun the handle on the faucet, and cupped his hand to scoop the pills and water into his mouth.
He swallowed hard.
Taking a deep breath, he swung the cabinet to a close, and from the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He turned to face it fully, his face was flush, his veins showing red hot. Fire danced in the pupils of his eyes.
"Agghhh!" he shouted, and as he punched the mirror his fist burst into flames.
The glass shattered and melted under the immense heat. Molten liquid fell into the sink and caught fire.
"God damn it!" His energy spent, his fist returned to normal.
The closet door swung open and without looking, he reached in and grabbed the first thing that ran across his skin, pulled it forth, and stomped back into the bathroom. Carter tugged out the pin, pressed down the lever, and aimed the nozzle into the sink. White clouds of smoke sprayed from the fire extinguisher, quickly dousing out the flames. Confident the fire was out, he let the red canister hang limply at his side as the smoke cleared.
He made the few short steps it took to get from his crummy bathroom to his dilapidated kitchen and, leaning against the wall, slumped down until the seat of his pants hit the faded laminate floor. He let out a great sigh as he slid the fire extinguisher across the floor. It hit a crack in the cheap linoleum, and clanged loudly as it crashed into the pile of empties.
Carter sat there, the pills taking effect, his emotions as hollow as the dozens of drained red canisters strewn across his kitchen floor.
#
Chapter 2
The rain pounded the city streets, giving it a thorough beating the way only Seattle rain could. The awnings and overhangs that protected him in the nicer upper part of town quickly turned to the crummy uncovered entries of the lower less desirable part of the city. He hardly registered passing the ball fields as he entered the Sodo district. Tromping through puddles of the uneven sidewalks of South Seattle, he found himself in his old stomping grounds.
Letting his subconscious do the walking for him had lead him to this place. A dark, warehouse filled, rundown business park on the edge of town just west of the shipping yard. The kind of place that was ideal for the seedy underbelly of society to congregate. Carter hadn't stepped foot in this part of town in ages, but it hadn't changed a bit. A lady of the night passed by on her way to her corner. A cop car rolled by, but with the rain as it was they weren't getting out for anything less than a felony. The buildings loomed overhead like dilapidated concrete monsters, and no one was coming to save you, not in this part of town.
Right on cue, a lanky silhouette approached from underneath an overpass. Nope, the place hadn't changed one bit. His internal thermometer began to rise again at the sight of what could be danger. The mild discomfort he was so used to feeling quickly turned to a burning sensation. It felt akin to the worst sunburn a normal person could get.
"You lookin'?" A street light illuminated the lanky silhouette to reveal a sickly white man, covered in scraggly facial hair, bits of sweat dotted on his brow, and with dirt or possibly ash from smoking too much dope, smudged on his fingers and cheeks.
Carter froze, unsure of how to answer. He wanted the pain to go away, but he had five years under his belt. The excitement at the possibility of using only made his heart pump all the faster, which in turn only made his discomfort all the worse.
She did this too him anyways. She left him alone in that crummy apartment. No job, no car, and no life. Fuck it.
"You holding?" Carter did his bes
t impression of the shady scumbag he remembered being at multiple times in the past.
He was rusty, but he had plenty of past experience in dealing with the dredges of society. The junkie's hood was low, exposing only the lower half of his face. The business end with the blackened gums and rotted teeth.
"I'm not, but I know a guy who is...if you're willing to pass on a bump," the lanky man with the rank teeth said.
A bump, that was something Carter hadn't heard in awhile. Not unless referring to an actual bump at least. There were all kinds of bumps in druggie slang, but this particular bump was for a junkie, which meant enough dope to bump a damn needle into his arm, or between his toes, or wherever he could find a vein that wasn't clogged and dead already.
"I can do that," he answered, and the junkie's face lit up like Christmas.
The way he smiled, Carter was surprised the junkie didn't hop into the air and click his god-damned heels together.
"Follow me," the junkie said, hurrying Carter along.
Carter followed him down an alleyway between two warehouses. The building's windows were covered from the inside with cardboard or boarded up with sheets of plywood where the glass was completely missing. Both buildings were brick and only two or three stories. There were almost no buildings south of Sodo over three stories, but there was a few and Carter was being lead right for the tallest of them. A nine story apartment building with no lights in the windows, that looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time.
"We've gotta go around to the back," said the junkie.
The pair slipped under a loosened flap of the metal meshed fence surrounding the building, through a yard with waist tall grass, and in through the back door, which was little more than a sheet of plywood on hinges. The smell was horrendous. It was something between bad body odor and burnt chemicals, probably more sweaty junkies and their heroin roasting over a dirty spoon somewhere nearby. A light, the only light in the stairwell, flickered overhead.