Hair o' the Dog - Part 1 of 3

Sound is first to return. Shuffling. Moans. Grunts I don't care to know the cause of. Next I feel the mattress where it contacts my body. My skin crawls. Heart sinks. Breaking the seal of sandman's glue I peel open reluctant eyes. Dishwater gray light crawls through windows that haven't seen a cleaning this side of the Reagan administration.

The place is even more disgusting under the meager light and I hate myself for being here. Again. I struggle to sit up and wipe at my face. Drool paints my cheek and it suddenly occurs to me how awful it is that my mouth was open as I slept. What might have crawled--worse, been stuck--in it?

Never mind. It can't be any dirtier than I feel.

I'm looking for my wallet. Pushing detritus about the floor around me. It's a good two minutes of my remaining life before I realize that--of course--I don't bring my wallet here.

I rise and risk putting my face close enough to the streaked pane to just make out the bank clock up the road. Huh. Eleven-thirty in the morning. Exactly when I first dragged my ass in on Sunday. Now it’s Wednesday. Three days since I walked back through that door. Thirty-six hours since I took the path I swore never to again. Two thousand one hundred and sixty minutes since I decided to do the right thing...wrong.

To kill myself...slowly.

The problem with committing this meandering, cowardly suicide in a flophouse for junkies was almost immediately clear. I can't bring enough cash along to actually pay for more than one fix. If I crash with money anywhere but stuffed up my ass (and maybe not even there would be safe) I'm going to wake up to no money at all.

So this will be my third unfortunate trip home to retrieve my bank card and take out enough money to keep me flying for awhile. Or maybe this time I'll buy enough to fly me all the way to her.

Who am I kidding? Wherever she is, I hope I’m not welcome. I don't want her to have gone to anywhere that would let me in. She deserves the wings and a cloud and the whole nine yards. And if I'm there, it sure as hell ain't heaven.

I make my way down to the ground level with utmost caution. Between my lingering insobriety and the condemnation-worthy state of the building, the stairs are not my friend. I survive the descent and am nearly to the exit out of this Hades of my own choosing, when the “proprietor” catches sight of me.

“Yoyoyo, my bruthuh! Wayoo goan?”

It takes a moment for my frazzled brain to translate the last bit into ‘where you going,’ and the pause this gives my feet is enough time for him to make it from the chair he’s been lounging in to my very personal space.

“I hook you up, bro. I knowutyou need.”

I’m sure he does. But I brush past him to make for the door. He has what I need but I don’t have what he’ll want in return. As I pass, he grabs my arm.

“Yo.” His voice is softer now. A toxic confidante. “You be a’ight, m’man. Jus’ need a little hair o’ the dog... dawg.”

This last syllable he echoes through a malignant grin. Teeth bared, broken, and even more yellow than his sallow, pocked complexion. His eyes blaze with malice. He can’t know what he’s said but in this frozen moment I could believe those holy-rolling pastors of my southern youth were right. That there is a Devil, and one of his minions is clinging to this junkie’s back, unseen. Whispering in his ear the word he knows will cut me deepest:

Dog.

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To be continued...

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Many thanks to @mariannewest...

...and her wonderful #freewrite group, for today's fantastic prompt: Day 75: 5 Minute Freewrite - Prompt: dog hair. This feels a little like a cheat, because it's more than what I wrote in the five minutes, but I DID get all the way to "And if I'm there, it sure as hell ain't heaven" before the time was up, but I hadn't yet introduced the dog hair. The concept for this story came in a rush and kept growing as I wrote. It may grow into a monster, but I at least had to get the dog hair in before knocking off for the night.

I hope this entertained and I thank you so much for reading. If you feel it's merited, please upvote. If you think others might enjoy this, kindly resteem. And if you want to know what about a dog has this man ready to kill himself or that jaundiced junkie, why not follow?

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Image courtesy of Pexels on Pixabay

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