#( title from nitrous gas by frightened rabbit )

[remiwarner]

THE BLUE MINOR MISERY

     His father’s house stood, unchanged, on a somnolent, grey street of similar homes, plain and hollow-looking. The past slept there, cocooned in the evening quiet, and, walking down it, Remi felt no time had passed at all. He was seventeen, on his way back from a sweltering day on some corner, to take a shower before heading out for a night at some club, and his father was waiting for him in the living room or in the kitchen, to shove another bundle of baggies at him with that disapproving, impatient look of his. He’d already dropped out of school. His friends would be at home, having dinner with their families, doing homework, playing video games, and he was working. Day in and day fucking out.      Dusk tinted everything purple: the fading paint on the walls of every residence, the flowerless clumps of oleander that in daylight were pops of green in plain flowerbeds at the end of each monochrome yard – rows and rows of stony ochre – framed by the yellow desert grass sprouting around their cobbled edges. Warm light flooded from a few of the windows, and he wondered as he passed, not for the first time, what the lives of the people inside were like. Mundane. Happy? He couldn’t imagine it. Not in Battery – nor anywhere else, for that matter.

     Remi wondered, pacing slowly up the driveway to his childhood home, whether life would always be like this. Thirty-odd years of drawing breath, and he’d lived in shadows – his father’s, the Government’s, the city’s, his own; they crowded around him, untouchable, encroaching, and even the flashes of light that speckled his past – stars glimmering in the void of the black firmament of his existence – never quite chased them away. Flashes of warmth that felt illusory in hindsight, just as fake as any other kind of joy and as easily extinguished. One thing dressed up as another. He unlocked the door and slipped inside, closing it noiselessly behind him out of habit before turning the lock again, leaving the key on the side-table in the hallway. The Arellanos: pity. That poor kid, that poor kid, that poor fucking kid. Silas: necessity. He’d never had an easy time making other friends. And Charlie… A hand dipped into his pocket, a plastic case landed on the worn coffee table in the living room, and he was turning away, headed for the kitchen. He’d bound her to him; sickness and health when it was mostly the former. For better or worse when worse was all shit ever got. She deserves better. Colie deserves better.

     Graying white countertops under grayer cabinets – clean, but he could see the drained bottles cluttering the empty surface. The cigarette packs, the lighters, the ashtrays, the baggies, sometimes bricks, the folds of crumpled bills. The dirty plates littered with crumbs or stained with dried sauce or grease, thrown at his head if he left them there too long. It didn’t matter if he hadn’t been home – if his father saw him in the kitchen and there were dishes in or by the sink, it was too late. He flipped the tap on and washed his hands.      Fuck you.      A stray, instinctual thought. Words he’d never gotten to speak to his old man; words he’d spoken to himself every day for… years. His entire adult life. A thousand times he’d pictured it, and it was never the vengeful moment it should’ve been, even in his imagination. Look at yourself. Ungrateful brat. Your ma’d be fuckin’ ashamed. Oh, y’got somethin’ to say? Speak up, kid… The fuck y’say to me? Huh? C’mere. Think you’re a man now, do ya? Y’aint shit. Stop squirmin’, I said come– Remi! Y’get your ass back– Remi! The soles of his sneakers pounding concrete, the door wide open in his wake. His father rushing out to the front yard and then stopping, silent, and Remi knew what he’d see if he turned around – a wordless promise. He wouldn’t go home that night, probably not the next, but he had to eventually, and all he could do then was hope to find his father too drunk, too high, passed out – something, so he wouldn’t remember.      The promise was a grip like a vice on his arms. Screaming that made his eardrums vibrate and sent dull stabs of pain into his head. Punches that radiated heat and sent throbbing waves of hurt far beyond their point of impact, and the taste of blood in his mouth. The promise was a break in the middle of a scolding, a look that he was too slow to recognize followed by fingers suddenly encircling his wrist and yanking, his palm landing on the table with a smack, and the glowing cigarette that had been hanging between his father’s cracked lips a second earlier searing the back of his hand. The promise was plates breaking, cups, bottles – shards of glass flying, razor sharp projectiles that cut when they grazed him.

     And so help him if he made a fucking sound. A shout, a yelp, a whimper, a fucking gasp. He’d been told, for as long as he could recall: he was too old to cry.

     At his side, his left hand was curling in and out of a fist, slowly, forcefully – mindlessly, over and over and over. He’d gotten distracted, and he hated this fucking house. He hated the street, and he hated himself, so he supposed he belonged. Remi could feel all the shit building, expanding, consuming him, and if he didn’t move, he was going to be the one throwing something. Hitting something. Fucking caving in on himself and imploding, exhaustion and hatred decaying him from the inside out.      So he moved. Step by step into the living room, where the windows were shuttered always, thin strips of yellow painted across the furniture and the pale green wallpaper from the lamps outside now that the last of the natural light was gone and the dark of night was creeping in.

     Gone. That’s what he needed. Everything gone for a bit, and he could get his head straight. Just… A rectangular black case. Its contents wrapped individually, in clear plastic.      Ampule of sterile water – cap off, white powder in, cap on (don’t touch the inside), shake. He pulled his hoodie over his head and left it in a pile on the threadbare cushion next to him. Wrapped the rubber tourniquet around his bicep and held it in place with his teeth, tightening it – felt the slight numbing tingle that crackled towards his fingertips. Dragged an alcohol wipe over his skin.      The syringe came out of its packaging, needle breaking the seal in the cap of the ampule before he pulled the plunger back, slowly. Half? Two thirds? What a waste. All of it. He tilted the small capsule, making sure not to draw up any air, but still double-checked when he’d taken the syringe out, a couple of drops landing on the wooden surface in front of him. Angling the needle, he carefully inserted it into a vein on the inside of his forearm, near the crook of his elbow, and nudged the plunger back a little, watching with fascination as his blood seeped into the colorless liquid. Go away, go away, go away, go away… Remi lowered his head, letting the half-twist, half-knot around his arm slip loose, then spat the tourniquet onto the floor next to him and pushed down on the plunger until it touched the bottom of the barrel.

     Needle out. Drop the syringe on the table. Antiseptic adhesive fucking bandage – a white square he pressed to his arm and then forgot to let go of because he was busy melting into a puddle. Indescribable, all-encompassing warmth flowed through him, sweeping every other thought from his mind in its current and dissolving every feeling that wasn’t unadulterated euphoria. He hadn’t registered sinking into the cushions, but he was looking at the ceiling now, and his arm glided slowly across his torso and then dropped, settling limply at his side.      Fuck the fucking neighbors, he thought deliriously, drawing a slow, blissful breath, I know happy.

     It’s this.