Prologue
Pools of rose reflect the scarecrow; chunky Technicolor piles tell the story of his life. What is that story? Oh, I could tell you in the process, but it's really quite simple: Paul likes Pills, and pills, smokes, and syringes. Pills, well, Pills needs Paul and Paul needs Pills. Why, because the other choice is life (work, wife, children, hate, love, respect, responsibility) and who wants that? Paul knew how to keep it simple. He had free-flowing money to buy happiness in a solid, liquid, or gaseous form, with the help of his pal Pills. I mean, sure, he felt like shit afterwards, but, then again, that's life. Anyway, he could just make himself happy again, easy as pie. Of course, life's a tricky SOB, but you'll see?
"Livin' Paul?" Pills stood in his great coat, a great looking figure, but Pills was un-great, Pills was a Sandman.
"Is that mine?" Paul was a scarecrow, in all ways; thin, brainless, and yet somehow frightening in a helpless pitiful way.
"Yeah, you were gone man, but?"
"It looks so beautiful?" Paul cut in, or, rather, Paul hadn't heard anything at all and was just finding his tongue again, his voice velvet and jaded. Oddly enough it did look gorgeous, and smelled oh so sweet. The blood pooled perfectly in a circle, gently rippling in the wind, and the vomit consisted only of brightly colored candy and equally bright pills (the Swedish Fish were especially visible, bright fish in a druggie sea).
"I managed to stop the bleeding, but maybe you should get some real food in you." Pills still had a heart; the city hadn't eaten all of it.
"Or Heroin?" Paul held out a $100 bill and smiled a stupid smile.
"No problem, I'll get some take out on my way back" Pills still had bills; the city certainly hadn't eaten those up.
Chapter 1: Pills Goes To Market
Streets in disgrace, broken glass, bloody walls, vomit concrete floor, art of the hoodlum in spray paint on broke-down cars, and the "people". People, ha, no tongue, no brain (or do they just like to mumble/ramble, shudder in the sun, "how's the kids?", "Is the guacamole still in the volcano?", and jazzy-jazz of that sort). Reach out, throw up, corpses and junkies (future corpses) side by side. Who walks supreme in this kingdom of carnage? The dealer of course! Pills was impressive in normal company, here he was God.
Pills met his man Sam in his cardboard office under the third broken streetlight. A beat-up boom-box was blaring "I've got sunshi-ine on a cloudy day" etc.
"Sammy, I hear you've got sunshine; how about passing on a few rays;" Pills tapped the inside of his elbow "Paulie wants a cracker, dig? A little prick."
"A couple Jackson's aught-a do it, Pills my pal." Sam cracked a piano smile. Sam was a classic small-time dealer; he was like a street cat, lean, hungry, skittish, and unclean. He adored his own wares and paid the price for his love. Pills could've snapped him like a twig, but Pills wouldn't do that.
"Is that any way to treat an old friend, Sammy? Now I know you've got tubs of that shit in the back, I bet you bathe in the stuff" He restrained himself from adding 'When you bathe' "I think you could bare to part with a fix for, say, thirty?" His voice asked, but his eyes burned through Sam's glazed eyes, insisting.
"Suresure, since we're friends and all" and he disappeared into a 'back room' (a burlap sack suspended off a clothesline, just something to hide behind, no form of protection), quickly emerging with a brown lunch bag. Pills looked inside and handed the alley cat $30, gave him a chuck on the shoulder, and left. Walking to Jade Palace for some grub he did some quick math in his head; 30 for the drugs, 10 for the Chinese, and then 60 profit; not bad?
Pills came back to the alley with drugs, food, and money. That wasn't a problem. The problem? No Paul, only a note on the pavement: "Paul is gone. He won't come back. Why? I'm not going to fucking tell you WHY, so fuck you. Keep the heroin and food. -Allmighty Bog (as far as you're concerned)".
Baffled, pissed, fucked? Yes, yes, he was. Fist the walls and kick the floor, sailor talk; I believe you know the scene; left with bloody knuckles and a feeling of dejection.
"Okay? okay." Air sacs ballooning, slowly, releasing, "Okay, so what we know:" What did he know? "Paul is gone, possibly for good. Someone knows or might know where he is, or why he's gone. This person probably kidnapped him. This person also knew that I'd come back with drugs, no, heroin, and food. This person also seemed pissed, for unknown reasons." His words, like a shrink's, met no foreign ears, in fact they barely reached his own. "This person is certainly nuts." He pulled the syringe out of the brown paper bag and jabbed the needle in his arm while depressing the plunger and managed to leave the all this shit behind and catch some sleep on a bed of cardboard.
