MY ROCK #4
Chapter One
Tristan
I promised myself before I went to sleep that I was going to clean up the pigsty I was living in. Being that I was semi-sober, it wasn’t as easy to tolerate as it was before. I pulled my tired ass out of bed and, after a quick shower to wake up, I went to work. I started in the kitchen. I didn’t have many dishes, but I realized when I was trying to wash out the bowls I’d used for cereal, I’d have to buy more. The cereal was dried to the sides of it and there was no way it was coming off. I tossed three of them, along with the spoons that were sugar-glued to the sides into the trash. Luckily, most of what else I ate came in foam or cardboard containers that I could throw away.
After the dishes were taken care of, I found an old rag and wiped down the counters and cleaned off the refrigerator. It was funny when you sober up enough to realize how you’ve actually been living. I opened the refrigerator and saw that there were three beers and two bottles of water in there. Other than some ketchup and hot sauce, that was it.
I took out the beer and opened all three of them. I was sorely tempted to drink them, but I didn’t. I poured each one down the drain and tossed the bottles in the trash. I realized then how nasty the kitchen floor was. It was amazing I ever got girls to come over and have sex with me. Besides Elly, it spoke volumes about the type of girls I was dipping my wick into. Most of them had been too stoned or drunk to notice their surroundings. It took much longer than it should have to scrub the six by three foot kitchen and I was actually winded when I got done. I’d forgotten what the floor even looked like.
Next, I went to work on the little beat up dining room table. Every piece of mail or paperwork I’d received or brought home with me in the past few months was piled there. I couldn’t even tell you what most of it was. I sat down and started sifting through it all. I found a lot of past due bills that indicated soon I’d be living without heat or lights or water. I also found a nasty letter from my landlord. That month would be three months late. He was pissed and he made insinuations in the letter that he would be looking into eviction proceedings soon if I didn’t get caught up. He was basically a nice guy…thus, the letter. He wouldn’t be one that would enjoy telling me that to my face. I was surprised that he let it go that long. Him being a nice guy was probably all that stood between the street and me.
I sorted the bills into piles of ones I needed to pay—although I had no fucking money to pay them—and trash. The electric, gas, and water bills were all pink. I knew that was a fucking bad sign. The trash I threw away and the ones I needed to keep, I put into an empty drawer in the kitchen. Then I turned back to the table. There was still a mirror on it, covered with powder of course, and a couple of half straws. The box I kept my weed in was there too.
I went over and looked at the mirror first. There was enough loose powder there that if I used the blade to scrape it into a pile, I’d almost have a full line. A couple of days before, that and the beer would have thrilled the shit out of me. I had dumped the coke I had in the cabinet a couple days ago; I knew if it was there, I’d be too tempted. As I stared down at the mirror, I wondered if I’d be able to do this, knowing that was all there was.
I picked it up and carried it over to the sink. I stood there, turning it over in my head for a while before finally just turned it upside down and letting the powder fall off of it. I ran the hot water then to wash it down and I washed off the mirror. I wondered if it was true about all drains leading to the ocean. If it was, there’d be some happy fish later on.
The straws went into the trash and then I opened the box. There were papers and a baggie with enough weed for another two or three joints. Personally, I didn’t consider marijuana to actually be a drug, but I’d been down that road before. At rehab, they were going to extoll it’s evils to me and talk about how it led to other, harder drugs. With a heavy sigh, I took it into the bathroom and flushed it down the toilet. I threw the papers away and washed out the box. It was all gone. I wondered if tobacco was a bad thing. Maybe I’d buy a pack of smokes before I got locked away in no-drug land.
I cleaned up my bedroom and the living room, throwing away the bong. The crack pipe was already taken care of. I’d broken it to pieces the day I kicked it across the room. I carried a load of clothes down to the laundry room. Mrs. Stromboli was on her way out. She hadn’t made eye-contact with me once since the day she saw me naked in the hall. I tried smiling at her and saying hello, but she just walked quickly by like I was going to rape her old fat ass. I really didn’t give a shit if she liked me or not. It was easier that way; if people don’t like you, they don’t bother you. I remember how many people used to pretend they liked me, when I still had a little money and my name still meant something. I sure didn’t see those bastards around anymore.
I put a load in the washing machine and went back upstairs. It was weird, opening the door to a clean apartment that actually smelled decent, too. I had to use the broom on the carpet in the living room—I didn’t own a vacuum. That resulted in a huge pile of crap that I swept into the dustpan and threw away. Then I had to clean the kitchen floor again because I’d swept everything in there.
I saved the bathroom for last. It was so disgusting that they wouldn’t have even allowed it at the Chevron station down the street. I scrubbed for quite a while, finally giving up and telling myself it was going to take some bleach to get all the stains out. I didn’t have any bleach, so I’d have to come back to it. When that was done, I went into my room and got my guitar and the notepad I use to write my songs. I sat down on the couch and strummed the guitar a few times. I was spending so much time alone that I was running out of inspiration for new music. I thought about all the songs that other artists, like Elton John and the Eagles and the like had written and performed and made a billion fucking dollars off about drugs. I wondered how well one by me would be received. Maybe something good would come out of all of it.
I picked up the pen and started writing. I wrote and scratched out and changed the whole thing about ten times, and when I was satisfied that I was on the right track, the song I was writing turned out to be about addiction…and how it affected your whole life. It was pretty depressing, but it was a good song and it was true. So kind of cathartic.
I got a good start on that and felt like I was satisfied with it so far when I realized it was getting late in the day. I needed to start working on my music for round seven. I got that music book out and started marking the changes I wanted the musicians to make. As I worked on it, I played it myself on the guitar to see what it sounded like and sang it through a couple of times. I made changes here and there as I went, and just about the time I was really jamming on it, someone was banging on my fucking door.
Pissed at the interruption, I slammed the guitar down and went over and pulled open the door. Shit! It was my landlord.
“Hi, Tristan,” he said. He had a neat little stapled pile of papers in his hand. It looked like legal paperwork and I was already pretty sure that I knew what it was.
“Hey, Buck, what’s up?” I leaned against the door jam.
He didn’t make eye contact with me. “I like you, Tristan….”
“Shit, Buck, just tell me what the fuck is up,” I said. At that moment, I didn’t care how it was making him feel to kick me out of my home. I obviously had enough problems of my own.
“Okay, fine. I need the rent money. You’re three months behind. I would have evicted anyone else by now.” He handed me the papers and said, “I’m gonna give you thirty days to come up with it and then the eviction process starts.”
Fuck! I hadn’t had a gig in weeks. I had like a hundred bucks in the bank and no prospects on the horizon. I didn’t even know how the hell I was going to pay for rehab. My very first thought was that a hundred bucks would buy me enough cocaine and weed that, by the end of the day, I wouldn’t give a shit.
“Okay,” was all I said to the landlord. I closed the door in his face. I wasn’t about to grovel to that slumlord motherfucker. I know I’d just been saying what a nice guy he was, but that was before I was actually looking at living in the fucking park.
I walked back over to the couch and tried to finish working on my song. I couldn’t concentrate though. All I could think about was calling my guy and seeing what he could hook me up with. Shit! I had to get out of there, but I didn’t know where else to go but a fucking bar. I suddenly thought of Elly. I thought a ride on my bike might do me some good. Seeing Elly might do me better. I sent her a text.
“I need to get out of here. I’m thinking about scoring. Text me your address.”
A few minutes later, she did.