twist of foil.

For reasons known only to himself, Aidan uses kitchen foil to hold heroin. It is talismanic. It shines like a promise, even in the darkest hours — what she said is true.

"World must be dark now, you must be flying high right about now."

Flying is, at any rate, where Aidan wants to be. Flying on drugs, on an anonymous cock, on memories.

On the woman who cruised him today, wanting — apparently — a skinny, bruised, dirty, smoking and coughing, dark haired, dark-circled-eye boy who looks illegally young.

Untwist it like candy.

For her boyfriend, she said, and took him back to a nice flat in a good part of town.

He expected a nightmare, once he saw that the boyfriend was real, a beating or worse. Risks and rewards of the game, though. They pay and you play and never mind if you've always hated that song. It isn't real and it scarcely matters if it is.

It will remain a bright jewel in his memory, that early evening of gentility, simply because it never twisted into a horror of noise and fucking, and he wasn't as high as he could have been. Nor enough to understand this.

The first thing Aidan did when he came of age was figure out how to abandon his other life, full of mysteries.

Pour heroin into the spoon.

There was a shower, then, ashamed of the dirt and unable to pretend because that is a lie.

He craves cleanliness, but wonders why they give it to him.

It is all part of the gentleness and he wonders for a moment why they haven't gotten someone like him from the newspapers and the thought sparks fear of blood and memories of people he never saw again because they misjudged the trick and entered their territory.

But it doesn't matter. He doesn't know what to do with kindness, only with want and lust. If others are unimportant — as they are — there is no reason for them to be kind, because he doesn't see the point of it at all.

Add water, hold the lighter and watch it all dissolve.

Kindness pays double for the pleasure. Presumably it is the sense of risk for all three of them as the bodies move, no one sure where or how they will stand at the end of it.

Kindness pays double again for the two hours of he and she and he, hands moving, sighs and moans and — surprising — the most genuine sex he's seen this week. He suspects it is her and that this thing is happening as dusk becomes twilight becomes dark and is not hidden.

Anyone who has seen a city, a needle, a car, a trick at night knows beauty is only found where the edges are removed.

Kindness is a surprise. Its simplicity, its real presence, these people are all surprises.

The needle, sharp and full, cleared of air and held a moment, then placed on the ground.

Kindness buys enough heroin to make things all right.

Kindness always brings pain in an unbeatable pair. There is no trump for kindness and pain.

Kindness brings the heroin that brings the man in the BMW, who says he wants Aidan to suck his cock. He's really starting to come down now and wants nothing more than his fix, because he is so broken and kindness never works in the end. What he knows is the needle, and it is so ironic as to be past irony that needles and cocks are the things that fix his pain.

He gets in the car anyway. It's money and his body and he doesn't have much respect for either at the moment. Unreality is not to be respected. And there are few things on this street more unreal than he feels himself to be, in the need of a rush and the need of pain.

Tie it off.

It is a night of surprises.

Unlike so many others, this man knows where he wants his hands as Aidan sucks him off, and that place is a caress of his neck — more kindness — that turns hard and grasping when it reaches his throat.

Aidan sees stars as the man fucks his mouth brutally. He is starving for air and all he can do is pray to a god who is surely not there that he will stop torturing himself and make this man go away.

He does, and Aidan is grateful. His mouth is bitter as he stands by the road trying to decide where to go.

The vein is raised. So is the needle.

There is a newsagent's where he is standing, so he goes in and buys a couple more packs of Camels. By now the rush is long gone and the questions are driving him around the twist.

Then he realizes no one is talking to him. His lungs hurt again, and he thinks this time it might be the near-throttling.

Going back to the Quay, as soon as he sits and lights a fag, a man asks if he has the time. There is no discussion of the fact that they are standing under the largest clock in Ireland.

There is an alleyway — one of the numerous courts and places that exist as the back side to things — and the man fucks him against the wall while inside one of the flats screaming becomes hitting becomes screaming again.

The needle slides in unnoticed, the rush of heat filling the vein.

It is probably coincidence that the man behind him comes to the sound of a blow that renders everything silent and shocked.

Even the man standing behind him is silent as he presses money into Aidan's hand, does up his trousers and leaves.

Aidan feels a scrape from a brick where he'd rested his cheek trying not to fall asleep. His back is to the wall now as he fishes in a jacket pocket and he is so tired it takes four fumbling tries to grasp it and bring it out.

He slides down the wall and stares at nothing for a long moment.

The twist of foil is a tiny star.

 

[END]

© 2004 C.J. Marabetta - Contributor's Bio