Extracts
Break On Through - Americanized Version 1998
Written by LA VADE aka Rapsodomy © 1998
Chapter 25 - Opening The Doors
A week later, Libby and I sat in the parking lot of the cinema and slowly smoked a joint while we pondered that evening’s movie, The Doors, I’d been very impressed. The parking lot was unusually quiet and it didn’t have security cameras so we weren’t worried about being caught.
I always worried about getting caught. I’ve never been nonchalant about drugs. I’ve always believed, rightly or wrongly, that they are bad, irredeemably so. But, then, that’s also what a Catholic education teaches you about a lot of things, including sex. I still suffer from copious amounts of guilt after indulging in the deed and bask in integrity and moral strength for abstaining; both of which I succumb to in equal amounts.
I’ve stripped it all down to mental self-mutilation, self-torture and self-destruction; religion that is, not sex. Sex should be what we are here for, what we’re born for.
To perpetuate the species by doing what comes naturally, (all puns intended). But, I still hear the whisper as it filters through, telling me I’m a malignant sinner to be cursed and damned all the way down to hell where I’ll dance with my lord and master Beelzebub. Which just happened to be exactly where I wanted to go. My education had hit a milestone, it was slow going but I’d finally learned that life could truly suck.
What’s more, after having seeing the movie, I now knew how I was going to get there. I was going to kill myself. Die young like Jim. Drink myself to death; overdose on drugs or maybe roll my car into a ditch. It didn’t matter which just so long as the pain, the wretchedness and the misery ceased.
And, just at that point in time, fortunately or unfortunately depending on your outlook, along came Drazik, who not only resembled the late Jim Morrison but who just happened to be a drug dealer too.
He was so cool. He was the kind of guy I felt totally superior to but at the same time, paradoxically, inferior to. Sure, I may have come from the nicer side of town, had my own car and career, but he had something else. That ephemeral quality a person, who’s lucky enough, just has. It can’t be acquired, it just is. I’m talking about the phenomenon known as Street Cred. He had total street credibility and everyone knew and respected him.
It was, I imagine, like being with a Hollywood super star. Whenever there was a party, he was always invited. He knew all the doormen of Dade’s multitude of night-clubs and if the bars had after hours drinking, the landlords would always open up their doors to him.
He wasn’t much to look at; he was just tall and drug skinny with dark brown eyes and had a stack of half-finished body tattoos. He always seemed to command obedience and compliance.
There was at a party one night and I was sitting on the floor talking to a guy who playfully flipped the peak of the cap I was wearing. I was wearing the hat to disguise a bad hair day and squeaked at the guy to stop it. Suddenly, the guy started apologising to Drazik. I looked around and saw him standing over me and realised that with just a look, and not a word spoken, Drazik had warned off a prospective male, and, marked his territory. Me! At last, someone who made me feel I belonged.
Drazik and I were mostly complete opposites. I was the health freak goody-two-shoes, (at this stage I was still training), and he was from the wrong side of town, on the wrong side of the law and on the wrong side of God and sanity. Somehow we meshed together, bringing our united talents to create a smooth roller coaster ride down to hell, but for me at least; there was a return ticket.
I may as well have had my brain enucleated for all the good it did me through those brief exciting weeks. I did things I could never have imagined I was capable of. I broke the law. Not once, but umpteen times. I even broke laws I didn’t even know existed. I took stupid risks. Some of the stupidest ever. I risked my life, my health, my future, my family and my career. And it felt great. It was liberating, exhilarating, and addictive. I‘d hopped onto a moving carousel.
I was spinning. Whirling uncontrollably like the little silver ball on a roulette wheel. Throwing the dice with a too high ante and with all the odds stacked against me. Feeling freer than I’d ever felt before or since. It felt so good to be in control of something, to be the one calling the shots, spitting in the face of fate or luck. Whatever the result I’d know it was me who’d made it happen. All my own doing or undoing. It was ecstasy. And that ecstasy was the driving force behind my insanity, pushing me further and further down, into filth and depravation.
I didn’t know that much about Drazik’s past. I’d heard he’d spent time in jail and that he had a couple of kids with an ex-girlfriend who he had been living with. I never found out much more than that. I knew all I needed to know. I knew he was domineering and aggressive. I knew he was also pensive and serious. I knew not to chatter girlishly in his presence because I knew he’d find it irritating. (In fact I kinda spoke when I was spoken to, which added to the illusion.) I knew I needed him. I knew I needed him like a dirty fan needs a dirty rock star and, what’s more, I knew he needed me.
Total clarity of memory of those few weeks is impossible. I was almost permanently wrecked, but I know it was good. I believe that only through experience can a person determine his or her own morality. It’s not good enough to believe something just because that’s what you’ve been told all your life. Finding things out the hard way is paramount in the quest for true self-knowledge. It’s only when you find yourself so far removed from your original orbit, like an aphelion distanced form the sun, that you discover yourself.
Drazik loved to fuck. He was insatiable and demanding although he really didn't give a damn how I felt about it. It was always on his terms and he never allowed me to express myself. I didn't really care so much, I just sorta went along for the ride so to speak. Maybe I hoped I could change him some day.
During sex he wouldn't speak or make any sort of noise really, he'd simply stare at me, unblinking, it was incredibly unnerving and, at the same time, glorious. While he penetrated me, his eyes penetrated my soul. Sometimes, I imagined he could see straight through me, see me for what I really was. A fraud, using his world to escape from my own.
It was a Thursday and we were at yet another wild party when he told me that the local police wanted to see him. I didn’t ask why and he didn’t say, but he did say that he wasn’t prepared to go.
The next morning we woke late and I was supposed to be at work. I got dressed and left him in bed while I went into town to phone in sick. When I got back Jane, a friend of Drazik’s was on the doorstep. While I’d been gone the cops had arrested Drazik and hauled him off to the station. I was so frustrated. I’d only been gone ten minutes. I felt terrible. I knew there was nothing I could do and I was so hungover that I just went home and crashed.
I had planned on staying at home that night but Jane turned up and dragged me back to town. As soon as we entered the club we noticed there was a buzz in the air. Drazik had escaped from his cell and every cop in town was looking for him. This was, to everyone but me, seemingly good news. I figured that, whatever trouble he was in, this wasn’t going to help. I was just so close to getting to know him and people were starting to accept we were together and now he was getting further and further away from me. It was then that I knew, instinctively, that my time with Drazik was going to be short.
That night, I drank whiskey and snorted speed till I couldn’t take it anymore.
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Written by LA VADE aka Rapsodomy © 1998