Narcisa

by Jonathan Shaw

  He stepped into the back for a minute, then came out, still grinning.

  I took the bottle of liquid morphine and stuffed it in my pocket.

  I went home and sat on the sofa.

  The little brown bottle sat on the shelf, looking at me. I looked back at it.

  Then, out of the darkness, Sister Morphine started to speak.

  “You know, Ignácio, what you’re doing is all fucked-up! Feeding the sick young girl morfena now? End justifies the means? Really? Where does it end? When she’s dead? What are you gonna say then? You did the best you could? Ha! You really believe that shit? What do you think your fucking AA program has to say about all your self-serving bullshit?”

  My mouth fell open. I sat there, squinting at the bottle in horror.

  “What? Don’t you even know you’re full of shit anymore, Ignácio? Are you really that delusional now? You aren’t helping her! You’re just strung out on that fine young pussy, and now you wanna control her—just like you wanted to control ’em all! Cuz you couldn’t control your momma, right, little boy? What a joke! If she wasn’t a slave to the crack, she’d never have nothing to do with a washed-up old whore-chasing loser like you, Ignácio. Ya know that, right?”

  I stared at the bottle.

  “Maybe you better just use me for yourself now, eh?”

  I stood up. “Lissen! Por favor! It’s just . . . I need her! You don’t get it! She’s my soul-mate. Look, I just need you this once, to help me bring her back. It’s important this time! I’m not trying to hurt her, see? If it wasn’t me, it’d just be someone else, someone worse. I wanna help her so we can be together, don’t you get it? I just gotta get her to come back to Rio somehow, that’s all . . .”

  I bargained with Sister Morphine, pleaded with her, reasoned with her.

  “I don’t wanna listen to your tired old junkie horseshit, Ignácio! I’ve heard all your limp-ass excuses a thousand times before!”

  And indeed she had.

  “But this time it’s different, I swear . . .”

  Sister Morphine cackled like the very voice of spite. “You swear? Ha! Hahaha! Don’t make me laugh! Your word means nothing! You’re a sick, cowardly little loser, Ignácio! And you always were, all your miserable life! Hah! Born to lose, that’s you! So don’t kid yourself, Ci-ga-no-oo! You’re no better than Doc or any of the rest of them stupid gadji bloodsuckers, and you know it! You’re dead inside! Dirty. Tainted. Mahrime! You don’t know what love is! Never have! That little piranha really got your number, boy! Takes one to know one, eh? Hah! You’re just using her anyway, the way you always used everybody! You’re a taker, Ignácio, not a giver, remember? Once a taker, always a taker!”

  Her words cut into my soul like an evil surgeon’s scalpel, again and again. And still I listened on, powerless to make it stop.

  “Just forget about the little whore! She’s got nothing to take. She’s finished, dying, washed-up. And she’ll never give a shit about you! Whore’s just a fucking whore, remember? You might as well just pop this bottle open and drink it down right now to kill the pain. Then you’ll feel good. Isn’t that all you ever wanted out of life? To feel good? Don’t you want to feel good right now? Huh, Ignácio?”

  Tired of listening to the morphine, I cursed it, screaming in outraged disgust. “Ya don’t know shit about what I want, ya backstabbing, lying old bitch! I’ve changed! This is my fuckin’ life now! My soul! You got nothing I want! Nada! Go fuck yerself two times! Once for me, and once more for Narcisa!”

  The bottle stopped talking. It sat there on the shelf. Looking at me.

  I heard a rooster crow off in the distance as I passed out.

  When I woke up around noon, the morphine was still there, looking at me in silence. I threw a change of underwear and a toothbrush into a plastic bag, stuffed the bottle in my jacket pocket and bolted out the door.

  Flying through the countryside, my thoughts were on Narcisa.

  I’d seen it all that last time: how she’d managed to draw every lowlife, small-town drunk and drugged-out creep in Penedo right to herself, like magnetic shavings in some cheap, sordid little puzzle game. I’d lost a week’s sleep back in Rio, thinking how it was just a matter of time now before she got herself into some tragic, subhuman shit-water jam down there; the kind of jam you don’t get out of.

  If I didn’t get her out of there now, away from Doc’s greasy clutches, I’d never be able to live with myself and all the nagging what-ifs in the wake of whatever horrible calamity would befall her next. I knew I’d always blame myself for not going back. And there was still a chance; still hope for Narcisa. After all, she was still alive. And she was still my cross to bear. Like it or not, Narcisa was my Twin Flame. I knew it, and now I had to act.

  I thought of her ending up drunk and destitute, pregnant from some blacked-out, passed-out, stoned-out hillbilly gang rape, spending the rest of her life raising chickens, or locked up in some backwoods nuthouse with weekly visits from Doc and her mother. It was slow, insidious torture . . . Arrggghhh! I can’t fucking take it! My brain’s gonna explode! Narcisa! No-oo! Hold on, baby, I’m coming!

  Halfway there, I was hit with another wave of nervous anxiety. My stomach freezing and churning, flipping and sinking, I pulled into a truck stop to call her. I needed to hear her voice. But I knew I was mostly calling to avoid catching her by surprise and walking into something I didn’t want to see.

  I fished out the scrap of paper and dialed the merceria down the road from her shack. As I stood there, waiting for them to send a boy on a mule to tell her there was a call, I swallowed hard, again and again. I knew I’d called her bluff by splitting last time. Narcisa surely missed me as much as I missed her.

  I stood by the highway, chain-smoking, waiting, feeling the sweat creeping down my back as the big trucks barreled by on their way to São Paulo. São Paulo. Thinking of that endless, heartless urban sprawl to the south, I saw Narcisa; my poor, lost little friend wandering the cold, soot-blackened alleys of Crakolândia, like a sick, lost zombie ghost, crazed and crying, frightened, demented and dying.

  It was too much to bear. I had saved her life. There was no turning back. I was responsible for Narcisa now. Standing there with the heavy plastic receiver pressed to my ear, waiting, I knew I had to finish what I’d started.

  Finally, her voice came on the line. My mouth went dry. My heart did a little fluttering death dance as I stammered that I was on my way.

  “Porra! Why it take you so long, hein, Cigano? I think you gone away again forever! All these days I waiting for you come back, bro! I am sick of these e’stupid e’sheet place! My bag all pack up. I wanna get de fock outa here fast! Out! Right now! Come now, Cigano, go, go!”

  Looking up at the dark thunder clouds rumbling across the mountain range like shadows of giant, roving black cats, I told her I was a couple of hours away still, if it didn’t start pouring and slow me down.

  “Duas horas? Porra! Is too long time! Hurry now, hurry, go fast now, anda logo, cara, vaa-aaiiií, go go go!”

  I told her to wait for me at the merceria. I was clear about that. No way, I said, would I ever go back to that miserable little hell-pit she’d been staying in.

  I hung up. I got on the bike and gunned it through a booming, apocalyptic lightning storm, till I thought the whole fucking world would explode.

  When I arrived, sopping wet, an hour and a half later, Narcisa was sitting in the dirt by the mercado, eyes closed, sunning herself with her back against a tree.

  As I pulled up, I noticed she didn’t have her ever-present purple knapsack with her, or anything else . . . What the fuck? Where’s all her stuff?

  I got off the bike and strode over. She didn’t get up to greet me.

  “What’s up, Narcisa? Ya just gonna sit there?”

  Silence. I tried again. Nothing.

  Offering my hand, I heard my voice, a lost, dry-mouthed little croak. “Ya gonna get up? Where’s all yer stuff, baby?”

  Silence . . . Aw
, shit! Now what?

  I tried again. “Hey. Are we gonna get going now, or what . . . ?”

  Finally, without taking my hand, Narcisa started to rise, moving in agonizing slow motion. Saying nothing, she glared at me defiantly, defensively, as she stood with her back to the tree, her arms folded across her chest like a pair of shotguns.

  Scowling, she spoke at last. “We gonna go, ok-ey, but only to de waterfall. That de most far I gonna go with you . . .”

  I felt my stomach going cold . . . What? And I just rode all the way from Rio to get her! What the fuck? I stood looking at her like an injured dog.

  “Lissen me, Cigano!” She began opening the chess game, setting up the pieces. “I am in a very bad humor, okey? I didn’t get no focking droga these whole focking day, an’ I no gonna just jump up an’ run off with you to somewhere!” She was shaking her head back and forth like a stubborn, superstitious old donkey. “No way I gonna go nowhere now, no way, no without I got it first some drugs, porra!”

  I gawked at her. “Can’t ya just wait till we get to Rio?”

  “Rio? An’ what de fock gonna happen if I go away from here, hein? What if you wanna take me somewhere bad, for do some kinda bad thing to me, hein?”

  I stood staring at her in shock. “Bad thing . . . ?”

  She glowered back at me. “I don’ trust you no more, Cigano.”

  What?!? She doesn’t trust ME!?!

  Stung by her words, I spit on the ground. “Well, fuck! That must be what a guilty conscience looks like, huh Narcisa?”

  Silence.

  I stood there, bewildered, looking at her, thinking, my heart plummeting south like a dropped bucket of shit. It was Doc! Desperately afraid of losing her to me again, he must have been back there since I left, poisoning her mind.

  I seethed inwardly. A painful silence reigned. Narcisa didn’t move.

  Finally, sick of waiting, I got back on the bike and started the motor.

  I was about to ride off when she began inching toward me, just like that willful old donkey. Without a word, she got on.

  As we took off, she sat in silence, stiff as a mannequin, arms hanging limp at her side, like a distant stranger. Baggage. Off we went, up to the fucking waterfalls.

  Ten long, depressing minutes later, I parked under a giant purple jacaranda tree and followed her down the little dirt path. I could hear and smell the mist of raging water as we hiked toward the falls. Flying insects hummed and buzzed around my face. When we got to the pond by the rushing cascade, Narcisa stopped.

  I looked at her. Crowned like a queen by a misty little rainbow glimmering in the sunlight behind her, she turned around slowly, hands on her hips. She stood eyeing me with a pouting look of regal challenge.

  There was a truculent tone in her voice as she held out her hand, palm up.

  “Give it to me, these morfína you e’say you got, Cigano, go.”

  I hesitated.

  Her fingers quivered with impatience. “Give it to me these e’sheet now, go! Gimme de focking bagulho, an’ then go sit over there an’ leave me de fock alone.”

  She pointed a stern finger at a big rock by the stream.

  A dragonfly hovered over the water, skittering wildly across the surface, all hyperactive and frantic and jittery. It reminded me of Narcisa when she was high. I smiled, feeling that familiar old wave of fond tolerance.

  I reached in my jacket and pulled out the little brown bottle.

  Narcisa reached out and I dropped it into her hand. The fingers stopped quivering. She twisted the cap off and sniffed it with a suspicious little grimace.

  Watching her, I remembered how Narcisa had always been so entranced by all my junkie war stories—all the gruesome tales of failure and humiliation in the grips of my heroin addiction; miserable accounts I’d only shared in a well-meaning attempt to inspire her to get clean. But, no matter how ugly a picture I ever painted, it was still attractive to her. Every dark, deadly detail.

  It made sense. Having taken every other drug known to man, and delved into every demented perversion of the human spirit, of course Narcisa would need to add opiates to her curriculum vitae.

  I’d always refused to get it for her. I’d never been able to stoop so low.

  Until now.

  I thought again of my predawn crisis of conscience with the morphine bottle, even as I rationalized my actions with a flurry of new excuses.

  Well, at least it’s not as quick a death as crack . . . Maybe it’ll even slow her down . . . If I could survive it, so can she . . . If I don’t give it to her, somebody else will.

  My addiction was progressing, right along with hers. There was no going back. I knew I’d do whatever the Crack Monster and the Pussy Monster wanted.

  I watched her as she examined the bottle, like a caveman with a handgun.

  Then, finally, she shuffled away, shouting back over her shoulder. “Okey, now don’ make no more talk in my ear, hein? I don’ wanna hear one more focking thing from you e’stupid mouth, Cigano, got it?”

  I got it. I looked on in silence as Narcisa went and sat on a rock downstream.

  After a distrustful little pause, she shouted over to me again. “ An’ you better no give it to me some kinda poison, hein!”

  Shaking my head, I walked over to another rock and sat down, thinking . . . So she does have a conscience . . . She knows she did me dirt last time I was down here.

  From a distance, I watched as Narcisa uncapped the bottle and upended it, pouring the bitter elixir down her bottomless gullet. She sat there for a while, just staring off into space. Finally, she lay back on the rock and stretched out like a long albino lizard basking in the sun, waiting for the long-anticipated opiate kick.

  After a few minutes she felt it.

  I guessed it must’ve done the trick as she sat up again, looking relaxed. She flashed me her crooked grin—the sneaky kid I loved and waited on hand and foot.

  Slowly, she rose, and that delinquent shit-eating smirk approached. She took me by the hand, like a dog tied to a leash, waiting for its master.

  I wagged my tail and followed her up the little dirt path.

  “Okey, Cigano! Boa, mermão!” She was slurring her words as we got to the bike. “Is pretty good, these e’sheet! I like de buzz. You got some more, hein?”

  Before I could reply, she tugged at my arm.

  “Eii, lissen, bro, now I gonna trust you again! Let’s go now. ’Bora, Cigano! We gonna go for another ride together now, go, go, go!”

  “Where to this time, princesa?” I asked, hoping she’d say Rio.

  “Resende, Cigano! ’Bora! Go, go, go!”

  Resende. I knew just what that meant.

  97. BACK IN THE SADDLE

  “EVERY MAN HAS INSIDE HIMSELF A PARASITIC BEING WHO IS ACTING NOT AT ALL TO HIS ADVANTAGE.”

  —William S. Burroughs

  Resende, the next town over on the highway, was more like a miniature metropolis, with plenty of crack cocaine for sale in the surrounding ghettos.

  We tore through the city center, then out into the familiar favelas.

  I handed over the cash, and Narcisa stocked up on the rock.

  I didn’t care anymore. If she smoked us both into a smoldering pile of ashes, no problem—as long as we were together.

  If she was telling the truth, she’d been off the stuff for more than a month now, appeasing the Curse with whatever booze, weed, pills, coke, and other random shit she could get her hands on.

  Narcisa was well overdue for a rendezvous with the Crack Monster.

  Drugs in hand, we checked into a roadside motel. She turned the lights down low, and it was on again. We dove right back into our old routine of marathon sex for marathon drugs . . . More more more! Go go go . . . Old-time rock-and-roll music blasted from the bedside radio, as Narcisa danced her way back into my heart.

  Soon enough, the old crack psychosis kicked in again too, sending her straight into the good old, familiar, jittery panic attacks. Everything was jus
t like before as she skittered around the room in jerky, paranoid little circles.

  “Lookit, Cigano!” She gestured, whispering, pointing, wide-eyed, to her shadow creeping across the wall. “I got de two shadow now, no only one like de normal peoples! One of them no from me! Is come from them, de Shadow Peoples! Olha! See it there!”

  I sucked my teeth and sighed. Narcisa was literally scared of her own fucking shadow now . . . Shit! Why even bother pointing out that there were two light fixtures causing the double reflection? What would be the point? She was already gone.

  It was amazing how fast the stuff converted her into a state of bug-eyed terror. Perversely, it was thrilling to me, watching her bugging out under its lash. Seeing that wild, untamable, hyperactive womanchild rendered instantly helpless, frozen in fear, was an unquenchable source of lust for my own dark compulsions.

  Yes, we’d both gotten sicker over time.

  As soon as the pounding fright of her last hit died down enough for me to approach without giving her a heart attack, I grabbed her and held her fast, pulling her panties down under her skimpy denim miniskirt. Narcisa went limp and stood frozen, wheezing and panting, like an undernourished greyhound run half to death. I could feel her heartbeat fluttering like a captive bird in her scrawny rib cage as I backed her against the wall and worked it into her slobbering wet cunt. Drooling like a hungry jackal, I put her down onto the bed and fucked her like an animal. I climaxed with a piercing scream from deep inside, then I started to go at it again right away. Narcisa clawed at me like a drowning cat as I rocked her back and forth on the sweaty sheet till I came again, screaming like a drooling demon in hell.

  Finally, I went limp in her arms, sweating, panting, exhausted.

  Narcisa didn’t stay still for long. She spent the rest of the night up, smoking and pacing the room, while I fell in and out of a troubled, uneasy sleep.

  The nightmares were cinematic, frightful, unforgettable:

  Walking down the stairway by the Love House in the still of night, from the corner of my eye, something indistinct, rustling in the shadows, moving in weird freeze-frame slow motion, like a silent movie. Something spooky. Sinister. Surreal.