As Fate Would Have It

by Michael Louis Calvillo

  How in the fuck was she going to make it through?

  After the high displaced and evened out, Ashley floated from the bathroom and lowered onto the couch besides Henry. He was locked in battle with some freaky video game beastie, eyes glued, lower jaw tense. Ashley ran a few finger tips over the couch cushion beneath her. Sensation tingled. The couch was definitely not long for the county dump, but it had a nice tactility. The things she appreciated while under the spell of opiates were abstract to say the least.

  Henry continued to mash buttons. Ashley settled in and waited for some sort of greeting. Her mad dash from the car to their stash box to the bathroom left little time for hellos.

  Was she being rude here or was he?

  She felt too good to get mad, so instead she let the drugs do their work and stared off in the general direction of the TV.

  What this place really needed was some color. Flowers?

  What this place needed was a whole new place. It was an ancient apartment. 1950’s she figured. Oh well, it was chea–

  The digital bloodbath ended abruptly with Henry screaming “Fuck!” at the controller gripped in his hand. He stood up, dropped the multi-buttoned thing on the floor and shook off his frustrations.

  “Hey?” He looked down at her as if he was surprised to see her. To be fair, he was high (as evidenced by the condition of the stash box he hadn’t waited for her for his evening fix) and probably didn’t notice her (much) until that very moment, but this pissed Ashley off nonetheless.

  “Hey?” She fired back, ambivalent, angry, but trying to let it go.

  “Did you bring tacos?”

  Anger was beginning to win out.

  Either the look on her face or a respect filter deep inside of Henry’s irregular beating rhythms registered unease. His demeanor changed and he softened. “How was your day?” He sat next to her, stroked some errant hairs out of her face and gently tucked them behind her ears.

  Silence. She was beginning to feel a little better.

  Henry waited a few more seconds for a response and then went in for a quick, soft kiss.

  Motherfucker, that did it.

  The sly fox melted her down and recovered from his rudeness winningly. Ashley relaxed and it felt as if all of her senses were tingling with electricity.

  (How could she ever quit?)

  “Work was work, Henry. How are the songs coming?” When she said this she slightly nodded at the television screen. It wasn’t her intention to make him feel guilty about playing games, nor was she trying to bring back any tension or bring on any impending arguments, but there was an album to finish and videogames, if anything, sucked away time like an infinite void.

  Before he could answer she softened the question a bit. “Are they sounding right?”

  This was a hard query for a freakish perfectionist like Henry. To him, the songs never sounded right. Ashley enjoyed watching him struggle with it though. A cute, little furrow appeared between his eyebrows and his lips tightened into blue white lines. He looked like a wizened old man.

  A few moments longer and then she let him off the hook. She couldn’t wait to hear what was causing so much expository trepidation. Pointing to the car keys on the kitchen counter she answered his initial question. “The tacos are in the car.”

  Eating together they casually talked about their day. Ashley dealt with a few weirdos, Henry fought with his band mates continuously. Casual talk flittered in and out until half way through her second taco; HEATHER hit Ashley big and sick. Immediately her appetite disappeared and she felt extremely nauseous.

  The reaction manifested itself physically, visibly even, and drew a concerned look from Henry. “Is everything okay?” He reached for her and put a hand on her shoulder. In doing so he accidentally upended the taco he was working on. Lettuce and debris rained down. “Shit, sorry. Shit.”

  “Have you heard from Heather?” She asked hopefully (hopelessly).

  Henry continued to struggle with his collapsing taco. After he got things marginally in order he shoved the hugest bite Ashley had ever seen into his mouth. While chewing, he tried to answer, but words could not seem to breach the mountain of food somersaulting about in his jaws. Two hard swallows later he recovered and then asked, “Heather?”

  “She hasn’t called has she?”

  Henry shook his head no. “We saw her… when… a couple of days ago, right?”

  “We got in a fight about some idiot she was going to date–”

  “The guy from the mall?”

  Though she was still feeling ill over Heather’s whereabouts, the fact that Henry actually listened to her when she vented made her feel good. A warm little surge threatened to absorb worry.

  “Yeah, the dumb ass from the mall who careened into her. Anyway, I haven’t heard from her since so I kept calling her cell but got nothing but voicemail.”

  “She’s probably just mad.”

  “Probably, but she never holds a grudge. I went ahead and called her mom–”

  “You called her house?” Henry’s eyes went wide and he shook his head from side to side.

  “I know she trips, but I was worried, Henry. It’s not like her.”

  “Maybe she’s in love. Damn those were some good ass tacos.” Henry balled up his wrappers and threw them into the El Taco Hut bag.

  “No. If she were in love she would have called to let me know how wrong I was. Besides she never even went home. Her mom hasn’t seen her either. She always goes home! I’m worried about her, Henry.”

  “She’s fine. She’s probably just into this new guy.”

  Ashley gave him a weary look and nodded, “Maybe.”

  “Not maybe, definitely. Let’s go watch TV?”

  TV (more drugs). But it worked. The opiate of the masses calmed her down a bit and allowed thoughts of Heather to diminish. Henry was probably right. She was probably stuck on this new beau. She was probably getting engaged or something foolish.

  Retard.

  Mindless show after mindless show until the heroin started to wane a bit. This was when they generally cooked up, a before bed fix that (generally) propelled love making and whisked them away to dreamless slumber. Not tonight. Henry began to get antsy. A worried look glistened and darted in his eyes. Ashley knew exactly what he was thinking. He wanted to give in before things even got started, but he didn’t want to be the first to say it.

  She felt the same way, she wanted to let go more than anything and there were still a few blasts in the stash box. They could finish it off before actually settling in and quitting; maybe tomorrow, or even the next day, after they were completely out. Maybe. The words danced around her brain and tickled the insides of her lips. Maybe. They fought for birth, pushing, hammering away at her will and urging speech. But Ashley held strong.

  Instead of letting them off the hook she looked Henry in the eye and shook her head no. “Tonight is the night, Henry.”

  He took a deep breath and shook his head yes. “I know.”

  They flipped around the television a bit. Ashley got out her sketch pad and began drawing a dress that quickly morphed into a spider which in turn spread its inky legs and became a gothic cathedral. Henry picked up his game controller and gestured at her. Ashley nodded affirmatively and he got to it. The bloody, fighting game he was playing earlier wiped away whatever TV program was losing them.

  A few more hours found them in bed making love.

  Or at least trying to.

  Their bodies burned and melted into one another. Sweat was flowing rampantly, salty rivers, distractingly, too much, and Ashley was quickly losing her desire. Something inside felt wrong – minor stomach cramps, dizziness – the onset of the true comedown, and it made it difficult to focus on the intimacy trying to blossom between them.

  They rolled away from one another un-sated and tried for the solace of sleep. Ashley managed a bit. She didn’t dream so much as fade into a deep, dark red, her essence to blood, heroin tainted, flowing like an infernal demon th
rough her screaming veins.

  When she awoke an undetermined amount of time later, Henry was laying on his side staring at her. His pale skin was beaded with sweat and the contours of his face looked more gaunt than usual. Ordinarily, his features were very sharp, he was a fairly skinny guy, average thin, with a tall Mohawk that gave him a very imposing look, but by a trick of moonlight, and perhaps the drugs warring within, he seemed downright skeletal. Ashley imagined his eyes drying away and crumbling to a fine white powder upon their duvet. A shapeless, formless mass of black seeped from his hollowed eye sockets and began to take dominion over the stale bedroom air. It continued to spread, inky, dread personified, until Ashley could see nothing but the impenetrable darkness. Panic rose. She looked about for something to ground her vision, anything, her hands, her body, the bedside table, anything, but all that met her gaze was the infinite abyss.

  Imagination and reality merged and within an instant, Ashley felt as if she were drowning. Air constricted. The tangible disappeared. She began gasping for breath and thrashing about wildly for a sense of corporeality.

  Where did everything go?

  Was she dead or dying?

  Was heroin, that motherfucking bitch master, the lack of it, actually killing her?

  Henry’s voice called her name and shattered her little freak out.

  She was back just as fast as she had been sucked away, but it took her a few seconds to get a grip. Henry was holding her and trying to calm her nerves. When at last he succeeded and the struggle died, they fell gently against one another, his arms cradling her, her small frame buried within his embrace. There was a surplus of sweat slicking between them, and of course there were the accompanying smells, sour and sick, but Ashley didn’t pull away and Henry didn’t ease off. They needed to feel the other’s body, their breath rates and haywire pulses and unsavory smells too. They needed to ground one another and fight through the too warm warmth, the fire that ravaged their skin and defied all reason because at their cores they felt as if they were made of ice. Their bones glass. Their minds infernos. Their wills rattled, fracturing, resisting as they shivered in unison and gritted their teeth.

  “I can’t do this, Ash.” Henry’s voice was small, distant, as if it was traveling on some faraway wind. “I’m flipping out. I can’t think straight. It fucking hurts.”

  Ashley nodded into him and bit her lower lip. Sleep and weird visions evaporated. She felt more herself, almost normal, and with the return she could feel the pain Henry was referring too. It emanated from her stomach, cramps, not much more serious than her period, but there was a particular bite to them that promised worse, much worse. Even now, while she thought about it, while awareness shook off slumber, it seemed to get exponentially worse. Ashley took a deep breath and held it.

  How were they going to get through this?

  What had they done to themselves?

  They were only a couple of hours in at the most. Ashley studied up a bit. The comedown was going to get consistently worse over the next seventy-two hours. Once they made it through, they were looking at weeks upon weeks of cravings and insomnia and general distress. She read somewhere that it took about a month’s time to get completely clean. Always the overachiever (except in life where it fucking mattered), she figured they could knock it out in a couple of days. No problem. Easy. Done and done.

  They were seriously fucked.

  She held onto Henry and told him everything would be okay (liar).

  Sleep wasn’t coming back.

  Not tonight.

  Ashley tossed and turned and ground her teeth, but the cramping and runny nose and hot /cold flashes wouldn’t let up. Henry had completely broken down. By four-thirty he was up pacing and crying. At five he went to try and play some videogames, but came back to bed ten minutes later. Again, they tried to take comfort in one another, but this time their skin went from slick (and a little smelly) to slimy and untouchably clammy (and a lot smelly).

  Not long after daybreak, the beast took things to a whole new level. Henry began puking uncontrollably. Ashley had yet to give into the ever-mounting nausea, but she knew that she was close to kissing the bowl herself. She braved the smells and leaned against him, brushing his hair out of his face as he wretched over and over again into the toilet.

  This went on for over an hour with no signs of letting up when Ashley finally broke.

  He was suffering so much and in a few days he had an album to finish and a video to shoot and this just didn’t seem fair. More than anything she wanted to get clean, to break this ruinous addiction, but there never seemed to be a right time. Each past attempt was a half-assed undertaking, lasting a mere few hours. But Ashley swore to herself that this time would be different. This time they would emerge triumphant and this wild phase of their lives would fade away like the dying voices of history.

  Success was crucial. It was hard to pinpoint and dissect the damage as the changes in their lives moved at a gradual pace, but if she could move back through time and get a look at herself a year ago, six months ago even, the contrast would be startling. They looked lost and ghostly. Heroin chic – they could probably walk a mean Euro-runway, sidled up with bird thin supermodels and emaciated rock stars, but in the real world, harshly lit and critically unforgiving they looked like the soulless junkies they were.

  This had to stop.

  But the man she loved was practically turning himself inside out and he had obligations that wouldn’t survive the withdrawal process. Ashley was an idiot to think kicking would be easy, to think that two days was enough time.

  She stepped away from her aching man and went for the medicine cabinet. There, on the top shelf, sandwiched between a crusty bottle of mousse and a value pack of BIC razors, was their stash box. It was a beautifully carved, Indonesian style wooden incense container that fit their paraphernalia perfectly. It was long and skinny with a pair of dragons fittingly etched into each side. It accommodated their syringes, a cooking spoon, cotton balls, a rubber tourniquet, a mini bottle of rubbing alcohol, a few lighters and, of course, a baggy containing the drugs themselves.

  Fighting through a fit of shivers, Ashley prepared a fix. Her whole body pulsed with anticipation and she could feel her injection points itch. Focus. Focus. Precision. The amount was important, no ODs, no comas.

  Once satisfied, she grabbed the box and kneeled beside Henry. She reached under him and cleaned his dope arm with rubbing alcohol. The many tattoos covering his arms, nearly full sleeves minus a patch here, a spot there, hid his tracks and made getting high that much easier. Ashley didn’t have the benefit of conciliatory ink. Instead she had the unfortunate displeasure of having to shoot the smack between her toes in order to keep the world from catching on and ostracizing her.

  She pulled the tourniquet from the box, tied him off, and then sat him up. Henry’s eyes had trouble focusing, they looked lost, his face a deathly mask. It took him a second to notice the gift she presented and that lost look fractured further, fragmenting and spiraling downward into a stare of utter madness. Dry heaves continued to wrack his frame. Vomit flecked spittle coated his lips and chin. When his eyes adjusted and alighted on the syringe, on the warmth and bliss encapsulated within, a bit of normalcy flittered back into his gaze. He reached for the needle and with zero trouble guided it home and inserted it into a bulging forearm vein situated an inch or so below the crook of his arm.

  Steel in place, he depressed the plunger.

  For a few seconds he hung between worlds, frozen, stiff, a conduit of pain, a conduit of pleasure, until the drugs raced with his blood, grew wings of salvation and infiltrated the entire body. Henry moaned softly and went slack. Smiling weakly, one with the rush, he gave himself over to the beast yet again.

  Now Ashley.

  After she prepared her blast she wavered a bit. This was hard, but there she was thinking and reacting. Everything hurt. The puke was coming soon. The worst on the horizon, but perhaps she could get through it. Perhaps she could kick
first and then in a few weeks when all of Henry’s business responsibilities were wrapped up she could help him through it. The thought turned over in her head a few times. She could keep busy. Focused. She had to find Heather and make up. The apartment needed a serious cleaning. There was lots of organizing to do. But what if the process got so bad that she couldn’t do any of those things? This was only the beginning. She was tougher than Henry, but in another day or so the heroin would break her down just as it had him. What then?

  But freedom.

  She pictured her and Heather hanging out like they used to – going to bad movies and the mall and wherever, but healthy and glowing and young and vital and ready to take on the world. Ashley always felt like she wanted more than such frivolous trivialities, but after bowing to the beast and spending the past year cooped up in their musty tomb-like apartment, she missed the mindless excursions. She tried to go with Heather to the mall a few days ago (where the seed of their stupid fight was planted), but it was horrid under the influence of heroin. It was too bright and loud and peopled. It was too garish and commercial and… Stop. It was freaking normal and the fact that it seemed so alien to Ashley freaked her out. It illuminated the severity of her drug problem. It displaced her, alienated her and officially cast her out of society.

  But freedom?

  What did she really want? Did she want delusion? Did she favor drug-addled fantasy to reality?

  But freedom?

  At her feet, Henry was curled into the fetal position. He was still covered in puke and still looked pasty as hell, but there was a brilliant calm spread across his face and he looked as if he was floating, serene, safe, and content.

  Taking a deep breath, gritting her teeth and fighting with her roiling stomach, Ashley wiped the sweat from her eyes. She sat on the lip of the bathtub, rested the calf of her left leg on the quadriceps of her right, positioned her foot and then pushed the needle into the webbing between her big and index toes.