Sodium Arches (2020)

Do you remember the lights? The sprawl of golden Arc-Sodium bulbs stretching out in a sloping grid beyond the back fence, slowly obscured by distance and the rising skyline of the Downtown core. Do you remember watching at dusk, the sun disappearing behind the distant monuments to rich white men -50 stories tall and named things like The Macallister Building or The C. Stevens Institute- and row after row of city suburb blocks lighting up from east to west in that anthropogenic orange glow?  

We’d stand on the back porch and watch our slice of the City get encased in amber. Time stopping from then until dawn, the spin of the stars and path of the moon hidden behind light pollution and smog.

Your hand would slip into mine, a comforting warmth and tightness, a reminder of the lives that don’t stop when the sun dips; the million ongoing stories within the rolling grid that stretches out beyond our wooden slat fence.

Some nights I still feel your grip. I wonder if you ever miss the view.

Dawn arrives. A ripple runs across the sprawling skyline beyond the fence we took three weekends to build - now rotten and collapsing - as the artificial radiance clicks off, row by row, subsumed by the sun slowly rising at my back, making the sky blush pink and coral. The overgrown grass under my bare feet is soaked with dew, the condensation climbing well past the cuffs of my stained and ragged grey sweats. Grass seed clings to my knees. The ache in my spine creeps back into my nerves, pushing through the morphine derived haze that keeps the constant sensation away from my brain for eight hours at a time. 

The low chorus of traffic floats in from the freeway, invisible from anywhere here besides the roof. The drone of those awake and out the door before dawn, on their way to turn the wheels of The Land of the Free for eight to twelve hours. 

I don’t miss the commute.

The single hinge still holding the worn screen door whimpers out a protest as I retreat from the dissonant concert of the world waking up. 

It’s dark in the den. The ceiling lights are long burnt out, and the glow from the solitary standing lamp is suffocated by a piece of thin red silk that Terry threw over it at some point. She’s going for atmosphere, or fung shooey, I don’t know. 

The dirty white plastic blinds are pulled, sealing us off from dawn’s slow encroach. Morris sits in front of them on the oversized leather couch, his white XXL t-shirt - a thrift store find that reads “I’m still hot, it just comes in flashes now” - caught between his stomach folds and stained with sweat. 

He doesn’t look up, his muddy eyes and stubbled jowls are too engrossed in the cigarette he’s pulling apart and mixing with bud on top of an old magazine. 

The room stinks like old cigarette smoke; roaches and butts overflow the ashtrays -one glass, the others improvised out of old beer cans- and spill onto the coffee table. The hints of pot, dust, and body odor are mostly overwhelmed by the remnants of smoke that stains everything from the walls to Morris’ fingertips and upper lip. 

A low throbbing bass line reverberates through the floor from the basement; one of our other roommates, Chuck, either starting or ending his day, it’s hard to tell with him. Chuck mostly keeps to himself, it’s rare to see him outside of the basement, but you can always tell whether he’s up from the sounds and vibrations coming up from below. He’s the only one who ever pays his rent on time, and since he works from home he foots the internet bill, so I don’t complain. Some days it feels like he’s single handedly paying my mortgage.

Morris pauses his ritualistic dismembering of the coffin nail, and leans across the couch’s arm rest to pull a book off the dusty floor-to-ceiling shelves that take up two of the room’s walls. It’s a cheap faded paperback, with pages thin enough to be mistaken for a bible or a phone book. The spine says VALIS. 

I step around the cluttered island counter that separates the den from the kitchen, rinse a dirty mug in the sink and fill it with cold coffee that’s still sitting in the pot from yesterday. Nothing a little nuke won’t cure. I should probably sleep, but I’m supposed to meet Klinger later, and powering through the next few hours is easier than getting up and out of the house after a morning nap. Besides, needing to sleep and being able to sleep are two very different beasts in my experience. 

45 seconds later the black sludge is too hot to drink. I hunch over the sticky island counter and nurse the mug. The first sip burns my tongue. 

Morris’ hands tremble slightly as he flips to the back of the Philip K. Dick novel he procured from my collection, and rips out one of the blank onion-thin slices of paper. His hands aren’t shaking out of reverence for a classic or fear of reprimand, just years of bodily substance abuse and self harm. He takes the abducted page and pulls it apart until it vaguely resembles a zigzag. 

He twists the makeshift spliff together on his fourth attempt, struggling with his tremors and the lack of adhesive. He lights it, takes a pull, and finally acknowledges my presence by holding it out to me.  

We sit on the couch and take turns hacking up our lungs as smoke hangs and curls throughout the rooms. The tobacco makes my head light and the THC burns the back of my eyeballs. Coffee and pot battle for control of my nerves, stimulant and depressant wrestling like the proverbial wolves in our hearts. When you feed them both at the same time it’s affectionately called the hippie speedball.  

There’s still traces of you here, even now. Our portrait with the girls, eight year old Sandy doing her best to look graceful and composed, Kels barely still a toddler with that goofy grin she was doing before she even started talking. The baseball I had bronzed as a joke when you hit that homer in beer league. Both are collecting dust on the shelves among the gaps left when you took your parts of our library. The empty spaces are a reminder of you in and of themselves. Even this mug that’s half full of day old coffee says Supermom with a giant cartoon heart, the one Kels “got” you for mother’s day when she was two. 

She’s what, ten now? Eleven? Almost eleven? The portrait is an old one, the mug even older. The gaps between Asimov and Baldwin smirk at me toothlessly.

“Jakey, hey, I meant to tell ya. I’m gunna need another couple days on the rent.” I blink, Morris’ words don’t so much snap me from my reverie as they tug me from it. 

“Oh, right, yeah, no - no problem.” I’m only one payment behind, not the end of the world. “It’s the ninth today?”

“Eleventh.”

“Right.” Okay, two payments behind. There’s something else about the eleventh. A neuron fires but there’s no follow up.

The makeshift spliff lays in an ashtray, spilled open and half unsmoked. I offer to pick up some rolling papers for Morris when I head out to meet Klinger.

I pry myself from the couch and head upstairs, in need of a shower and something to dull the pain that’s fully re-established its domain over my lower back.

Terry is still asleep, a shock of auburn hair poking out beneath our thick, worn out duvet. I leave the light off as I make my way around the mounds of dirty clothes and scattered junk that dots the bedroom floor like a minefield. I suck in air between my teeth in pain as my toe connects with the corner of the bed frame; Terry rolls over and mumbles a protest in her sleep.

I hobble to the ensuite -the pain in my foot momentarily distracting me from the pain in my back- and close the door as quietly as I can. The string of incandescents above the medicine cabinet mirror are mostly burnt out, the surviving two flicker dimly. I open the cabinet, rooting around the huge collection of pill bottles looking for one that’s still got something rattling around in it. Vicodin, empty; Avina, finished; Percocet, devoid of salvation; OxyContin, bingo! One soldier still on duty, fewer than expected but I’m meeting Klinger later anyway, I’ll bring an extra $50 for my own stash.

Down the hatch. 

The shower takes a minute to warm up, I crank the knob left towards “scalding.” It’s not a proper shower until my skin is pink and the mirror’s fogged. 

The tub is faintly ringed in green and flecks of glitter, and a subtle Sour Apple scent begins to pervade the bathroom as the hot water briefly reanimates the desiccated remains of one of Terry’s overpriced bath bombs. 

You’d like her if you met her, I think. Well, not if you met her as she is currently, passed out in your old Queen size, amongst the remnants and dusty relics of the life you left behind, wearing one of my old intramural softball shirts. 

Maybe in some alternate reality, where you met in the basement of All Saint’s Methodist after Al-Anon. Where you’d get to know each other over styrofoam cups of crappy coffee or orange pekoe, eating cream cheese pinwheels Pastor McJesus’ wife brought in, then I think you’d like her.   

Terry is propped up on her mound of pillows when I vacate the bathroom wearing nothing but a pink towel; her eyes are glassy and still full of sleep.

“Morning baby,” she says, smiling drowsily. She leans across the bed and pulls me into it. 

Afterward my back still hurts. The Oxy would be working by now if it had gone up the nose instead of down the hatch, I add that decision to my list of regrets. 

The sheets tangle around my feet and legs as I try to climb out of bed, clinging to me like a paisley toga. Terry covers herself with the duvet, pulls out her phone and begins to scroll.

“Hey, uh, did you finish the ket?” I ask.

“No, there’s lots.” She doesn’t look up, just points at the dresser. Amongst the clutter of makeup, books, magazines, and makeshift ashtrays is a small plate with a mound of white powder and an empty dimebag. An expired credit card is propped against the plate, lightly dusted. 

I take a little bump, careful to keep it small. I just need to dull the ache until the pill kicks in, not jump into a full on K-Hole. ‘Don’t get high on your own supply’ was never really a mantra I stuck to. As long as you do the math right there’s always a bit of overstocked product - a perk of the trade.

My body floats as I scrape some of the ketamine into the empty dimebag -one for the road- and my back abates its protest slightly.  Terry says something from the bed that I miss.

“Huh?”

“What did you say you’re doing after you meet Klinger?” she asks again.

“Uh, nothing? Just coming back here.” That one neuron disagrees with me but I ignore it.

“Oh, I thought you said you had something else going on after.”

“Did I? Probably not important,” I say, grabbing a shirt out of the dresser and pulling it on. My head ends up in the arm, I struggle blindly for a second before getting it on backwards. Getting dressed is hard when you’re hovering up near the ceiling. Terry hides a grin behind her phone, she’s always the cutest when she’s laughing at my expense.

I float downstairs, properly dressed and feeling giddy. Morris is still on the couch in the den, his head craned back, mouth wide open, snoring. I make sure the cigarette in his hand isn’t lit before grabbing my keys off the kitchen island and heading for the front door.

In the front hall I pull on my boots, my head bobbing to the beat coming from the basement. Having Chuck downstairs makes me feel like I’m in university again; like I live in a dorm instead of pushing forty. Whether that’s a good feeling or not really depends on the day.

I grab my pack from the closet and leave the door unlocked.

It’s clouded over since dawn, but the grey isn’t thick or dark enough to start dropping from the sky just yet. At least I hope it’s not, I’m not wearing a jacket. 

The used silver Corolla we bought as a “temporary” replacement after the Grand Caravan got broadsided and totalled sits in the driveway, its faded yellow headlights staring at me. I briefly consider driving, just in case the heavens open, but end up leaving the car in the driveway. I know better than to drive on no sleep and a chemical cocktail. I don’t have that far to go anyway. I glide along the sidewalk.

You thought Flinders Street was just perfect when we moved in. Houses cute enough that it was okay they were identical, smiling faces that waved from their patios, kids yelling CAR and pulling their hockey net out of the street. It was up and coming, said the realtor, the perfect place to raise a family. For a while it seemed like the Joneses were worth keeping up with; I like to think I did a pretty good job of it. Right up until the accident. 

The neighborhood doesn’t look the same as I imagine you remember it, our old yard isn’t the only one unkempt and gone to seed. 

You were packing the day the market crashed again. I was doped to the eyeballs and locked to repeats of 30 Rock on NBC, not yet understanding that my three girls were on the way out the door and my house had become less than worthless overnight.

It took awhile for the rest of the neighbourhood to go to shit, I guess I was a trendsetter in that regard. The houses I float past now are vacant more often than not, with no faces, smiling or otherwise, on any porch. An army of faded For Sale signs flanked by dandelions and grass that’s measured in feet instead of inches line both sides of the road. Most of the City recovered eventually, but not Flinders Street. 

Part of me is grateful, my weedy lawn and faded paint job blend in. Keeping up with the Joneses still, if only on a technicality. The other part of me is bitter that I’m still paying into a mortgage that’s practically ten times more than the damn place is worth. All of me is grateful Chuck is handling most of it from the basement.

It takes fifteen minutes for me to get to the McDonalds Klinger and I meet at. Oh yeah, they turned Sarino’s Burgers and Malts into a McDicks, rest in peace to your favourite blue cheese burger. If you look close enough you can still see the cartoon face of the titular Sarino above the door under red paint and golden arches. 

I push the door open and stand under the buzzing fluorescents, scanning the lobby and glancing at the menu. Klinger isn’t here yet and my appetite hasn’t shown up either, but I grab some fries and a Coke so I can hunker down at a table in the back. 

You’d always joke about your university pot dealer in the late 90s going to CIA-esq lengths to hide his deliveries - sliding manila envelopes between the shelves from one stack to another deep in the bowels of the NYU Library - so you’d probably think McDonalds is a stupid place for a drug deal. Ninety nine times out of a hundred you’d be right, but Terry worked here for a couple months and let us in on the fact that the indoor cameras are only for show. Besides, no one making eight bucks an hour is going above and beyond to maintain the sanctity of Ronald’s place of worship; they can barely keep the floors mopped for Christ’s sake. 

I munch on fries and nurse my Coke while I wait for Klinger. The Coke is thick and extra sweet, too much of the concentrated syrup from the plastic bag under the machine, not enough soda water. The salt on the fries stings the roof of my mouth and my gums. My butt hurts, firmly attached to the moulded plastic seat, a suggestion of pain rooted at my spine starting its protest again. I leave my tray and walk over to the bathroom, my feet once again secured to the floor as I enter the lone stall. When I exit I’m floating again. I remember to check my nose in the mirror, squeaky clean.

I’m finishing my soda when Klinger sits down with a tray and a Big Mac, sliding a backpack off his shoulder and putting it under the table next to mine. 

“What’s cookin’ good lookin’?” he says, bumping my fist. I shrug and give him a dopey grin. 

“Same shit, different day.”

He laughs and bites into his burger, dripping with grease and Mac Sauce.

“We aluh ghood?” he asks, mouth full.

“Yeah, totally.” I think for a second. “Uh, well, actually,” I say quietly, leaning in. “I put an extra fifty in there, I need more Oxy. Percocet if you got it.”

Klinger winks at me and reaches in his jacket. 

“You know I do Jakey.” He hands me the pill bottle under the table and raises an eyebrow. “We all good?” 

“All good,” I say, sliding the soldiers into the pocket of my jeans.

I sit with him as he finishes his burger, eating the last of my now cold fries, shooting the shit. I ask him how his wife’s doing, he asks me if Terry is still around. We chat about the Yankees dropping the ball again, and how the world keeps losing its mind, joking that we’re following suit. The back of my eyeballs start to feel fuzzy and a glowing softness starts to wrap around me; my medicine kicking in at last.

Eventually Klinger stands, the pack I brought on his back. I grab his from beneath the table; same brand, different contents. We walk out the door and turn in opposite directions down the street. He gives me a cheery wave over his shoulder and heads off into the grey afternoon.

I smile to no one as the void pulls me in.

I’m floating down the sidewalk with my eyes closed, feeling the dampness of the air on my face as the clouds slowly open up and start to drizzle. I’m in no rush to get home, when the pain vacates is the only time I can convince myself to meander through the burbs. All the houses look the same, so it’s easy to get lost if you let yourself. I let myself, wandering with the void for what could be minutes, hours, or lifetimes. 

I’m back on Flinders Street when my phone starts to vibrate. I pull it out of my pocket and squint at the blurry display, struggling to read it.

Oh, fuck. It’s you.

“Uh, hello?” I ask, finally answering after letting it ring.

“Where the hell are you?” You’re whispering into the phone, but the anger in your voice is coming through loud and clear. I can’t remember the last time we talked.

“Wha-,” I start to ask, before you cut me off.

“Fucks sake Jacob, you told Kelly you’d be here! You promised her!”

“I, uh, I-” Words fail me, the void laughs at me. My mind flails wildly, searching for answers.

You sigh, the sounds of exasperation triggering a nostalgia deep in me.

“I told you this was your last chance. I can’t believe it.” She pauses, the words hanging. “What am I saying, of course I can. Mail her a card next year since you won’t bother to show up.” The line goes dead with a click. My mind finally clicks with it, that single neuron raging triumphantly.

It’s Kels birthday today you moron, it screams. June eleventh. 

I don’t feel my ass hit the pavement as I slump to the curb, or much of anything at all as the drizzle slowly soaks through my clothing and plasters my hair to my forehead. My head is in my hands, skull empty except for the faint reverberations that float down Flinders Street from the invisible freeway, the flow of vehicles reversed as their occupants flee the Downtown core until tomorrow’s dawn. The potholes at my feet fill lazily, turning from divots to puddles to ponds as the grey light starts to fade.

The grey water turns to tarnished gold as the Arc-Sodium bulbs click on above me, one by one.