Andy scratches his shoulder because the itch is teethingon his pale skin. The itch retreats in defeat but it will return: it alwaysdoes. He tosses his paperback of ‘Catcher in the Rye’ on the coffee table andlights a cigarette. He sinks into his couch and sighs. This luxurious couch isquixotic when compared with the rest of his dingy apartment. The walls aretinted yellow from nicotine. The floor is clad in brown, shaggy carpeting whosefibers are permeated with alcohol with a dusting with ash. The apartment isperpetually musty. Its windows are foggy with grime. Dirty dishes hide thefilthy countertops. Take-out containers are scattered around the garbage pailthat is too full to hold them. The living area contains everything his old roomonce contained but it has become ragged and worn. Inside the living room isanother room hidden in plain sight, it is in his corner where his mahogany deskis and on top of it, is his lockbox. Yes, this is the ideal domicile for aself-actualized junkie; it is ideal for the mere fact it is cheap because it’s nothingmore than a habitable drug den. Andy is content with it. However, Andy canafford to live anywhere he wants yet he chooses to impose poverty upon himself.He gets up because there’s no sense fighting the itch when he can scratch it.
Andy enters his sanctuary and sits at his desk. A keydangles around a chain that hangs down from his neck and he uses the key tounlock his lockbox; the chain belonged to his mother and the lockbox, that oncehoused a pistol, was his father’s. One July night nine year’s before there wasa loud knock at his front door. Andy’s parents had gone to Toronto to see anopera so Andy invited over some friends. Needless to say he was shocked to opento the door to two police officers holding their hats to their chests. Therewas an accident, a drunk driver veered into oncoming traffic and drove head-oninto Andy’s parents: no one survived. Andy the chain beside the lockbox andopens it.
Inside there is assorted paraphernalia: packagedsyringes, squares of tin foil, cut straws, alcoholic wipes, spoons caked withdark brown resin that are bent back in the middle, butane lighters, rubbertubing, and what remains of his supply of heroin. The days following hisparent’s death were an incoherent blur of nameless condolences and gripping embracesfrom relatives he barely knew. Andy couldn’t face the funeral without gettinghigh but he forced himself to. Andy spent the entire night prior, high,preparing his parent’s eulogy. When he delivered it he stumbled over eachsyllable and sweat poured down his face, but tears did not; he couldn’t read itand those in attendance chalked his convulsing composure to grief. But the daywasn’t over when his parents were in the ground; no, he had to placate hisgrief to every Tom, Dick and Jane who ever met his parents and after about thetwentieth stranger who called him ‘Randy’, it took every ounce of will not toattack them. The day of the funeral was a twelve hour marathon of willfulsobriety when all he wanted to do was turn it all into static. But hiswell-meaning aunt and uncle ,who had given him no breathing space from thefuneral arrangements till this point, still wouldn’t let him spend a nightalone. First chance he got he crushed up some Oxycontin and snorted some lines.It got him high but it didn’t help him any. So he sniffed another pill when hegot another moment alone. Not even two pills were strong enough: neither wasthree. When his aunt and uncle finally fell asleep in front of the television,he slinked into the bathroom. Andy’s mother was a doctor so their first aid kitwas really a first aid center and from it he got a needle and a tourniquet.Andy pulls all the necessary paraphernalia from his lockbox and he places themin their designated spots on the desk.
Preparing his fix is ritualistic. It’s all very surgical.He removes the syringe from its package, rubs the needle with an alcoholic wipeand returns it to the desk. After the funeral, Andy attended meeting aftermeeting with his parent’s attorney, flanked by his aunt and uncle and it was anendless parade of documents and jargon. When all was said and done they’d lefteverything to him; over half a million in life insurance, half of which waslocked in a trust fund inaccessible until his twenty-fifth birthday, along withthe house and everything contained within not including items otherwisebequeathed, as well as ownership of all stocks and bonds. A week after his parent’sdeath, Andy was stupefied. The quiet, after the hustle bustle that accompaniesdeath, suffocated him so he replaced it with the sweet sound of static. Andytaps heroin into a spoon. He licks his lips. He takes a butane torch to thespoon and thin strands of dark smoke rise as the powder shrinks to a brown,bubbling puddle. Andy draws the heroin into the syringe.
He ties arubber tourniquet beneath his bicep and makes a fist. When he finds a vein hegives it a few swift smacks. Andy’s parent’s owned a house in a posh suburb ofAshton; it had four beds, five baths, a pool, a two car garage and its propertywas lined with a white picket fence. Surrounded by a picturesque neighborhoodwhere luxury vehicles are no stranger to its driveways, he was in disarray. Despitegrowing up there he sees it as artificial and mundane. Its inhabitants areslaves to the redundant superficialities of society, more concerned with theaesthetics of their landscaping than anything of substance. For months andmonths he attempted to co-exist with his fallaciously considerate neighbours asthey brought him home cooked meals and volunteered for yard work, all whilelending counterfeit smiles and inane proverbs of wisdom and consolation. Andy eventually loathed the sycophants helived amongst but he continued wearing a fake smile while he feigned small talkwith them. A month after the funeral they ceased approaching him, which he wasfine with. Time alone became a tremendous succor. In the afterglow of the drugwhile sprawled motionless across his parent’s bed, he wondered what life couldpossibly offer him. Almost a decade removed from his parent’s death Andy he islocked and loaded and he knows exactly what life has to offer: euphoria in itspurest form. Andy flicks the syringe, wipes his skin with the alcoholic wipe,and softly pushes on the plunger until a small amount squirts out. He touchesthe needle’s tip to his bulging vein. Andy takes a deep breath and pierces hisskin. The twinge is delectable. He draws blood into the syringe, exhales, andpushes the plunger down.
Andy isshaken awake by Lloyd. He fell asleep on the couch. Andy acknowledges him with glazed eyes, not reallyrecognizing his roommate at first but he shakes the the cobwebs loose andsmiles at his friend. “How’s it going, Lloyd? I wasn’t drooling, was I?”
“I’ll bebetter once I get a drink in me. And no, you weren’t drooling.”
“That’sgood to know. Never know when a pretty girl might go walking by, right?”
Lloyd ispleased to see Andy, even in his bedraggled state.
“Words to live by," Lloyd saysand absently readjusts his toque. Lloyd walks into the kitchen to make himselfa drink.
“Get me abeer, will ya?” Andy calls out after him. While Lloyd made his drink Andylights a cigarette. The clock says it’snearly ten-thirty yet he hasn’t heard from Darren. On Friday nights Darren, who’sbeen Andy’s best friend through half his life, is a staple at the apartment.Andy called him a few hours earlier and it went straight to voicemail, whichwas odd since Darren is always available because he’s always looking to eithermake a score or make a sale.
Lloydhands Andy a beer and sits in a tattered green recliner, its fabric is fadedand loose in spots and it radiates a yeasty odour of spilled beer. This chairis the only piece of furniture Lloyd bothered to bring from his old apartment;as Lloyd moves place to place he takes less and less with him and now, whatlittle he still has, is tucked away in storage. He takes a long sip of his drink and lights a cigarette.
"So, how was work?" Andyasks.
"Same old shit. We’re having asale on orange juice! Whoopdie shit, ya know? It’s a nothing job but I don’thave a choice. I gotta make money to pay off the ex. You know how it is inAshton. Here you literally have to find a job, just stumble across itaccidentally like a goddamn four-leaf clover. That’s how I got this job. I stumbledacross it.” He laughs and sips his drink. “Ain’t I the lucky one?"
“How long you been there for now?”
“A year and a bit, I guess. Couldget fired tomorrow and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.”
"True that." Andy replies."Glad I don’t have to worry about that shit.”
“Yeah, now you are the real luckyone. And because you’re so damned lucky you’re going to roll us up a joint,right?”
“Call me lucky. Call me skilled. Call me ugly,you gonna get killed.”
“What?”
“Nothing, just something my fatherused to say.” Andy brings his lockbox to the table, unlocks it and pulls out somepapers and an Altoids container and he locks it back up.
“So where’s Darren? I can usuallyhear that mother fucker blathering when I get off the elevator.”
“I was actually wondering thatmyself a minute ago.” Andy piles weed from the Altoids tin into a paper andartfully rolls a joint. Even before Andy lit it, the potency of the bud punchesLloyd in the nostrils. Dense smoke waftsin front of Andy’s face. After a few hauls he coughs his lungs out and passesit to Lloyd. The first hit he takes makes Lloyd sputter and has to slap his legit’s so strong. Andy laughs. “That’s good shit, eh?”
“This isn’t what we smoked the othernight.” He coughs out his words and passes it back. “Tell me when I’m about toinhale razorblades, will ya?”
“This is Lemon Kush. Francis said itwas a one time deal so I bought a bunch up. We finished the Northern Lightsyesterday, just ground this up a few hours ago. It’s delicious, isn’t it?”
“I can’t taste it over my ownblood.” Lloyd says, still coughing.
“You got virgin lungs.”
“I don’t smoke the stuff that often,you know that.” Lloyd says.
“I thought it was a little strangeyou asking me to roll one up. Think it’s the first time it’s been your idea tosmoke up. What gives? Work got you down that much?” He passes the joint.
“No, work is work.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Lloyd chuckles. “Yeah, I guess youwouldn’t. I may as well tell you. Youknow that I’m divorced and everything, well, tomorrow would be mine and Kate’ssixteenth anniversary.”
Andy throws up his hands and says,“Stop right there. No need to go into detail, I understand completely. I’m notgoing to make you dig up anything you’d rather leave buried.”
“If tomorrow I seem different or, yaknow, angry or something, that’s why. Italways finds a way to bubble up. Iusually spend the day alone,” he passes the joint, “not that I mind you beingaround or nothing. Hell, you’re letting me live here for practically nothing.It’s just that I sort of want to apologize in advance if I’m a complete dicktomorrow. It’s not you, it’s me.”
“You’re giving me the ‘it’s not you,it’s me’ routine?” They share a laugh and Andy passes the joint. “I get whereyou’re coming from, Lloyd. The anniversary of my parent’s death always finds away to get to me too. Let’s make a little deal with each other. I got your backtomorrow if you get my back in July.”
“Deal. But why ask me and notDarren?” He passes the joint.
“I love Darren. We’re bros andeverything, but he’s completely unreliable. Also, I think their death waspretty hard on him too. He lived at our place half of the time just so he wouldn’thave to face going home. I doubt he even remembers the date so I don’t like toremind him.”
Lloyd stares at Andy in awe. He’s athin, straggly with a long and pale face who can just as easily live in a cave.His long, dirty blonde hair hangs in front of his face but he never looks to behiding. Beyond that stained Pink Floyd T-Shirtlies an altruistic heart. Lloyd looks at the worn copy of ‘The Catcher In TheRye’ on the coffee table and, anxious to abscond from the topic of grief, hebrings up the book as Andy passes him the joint. “You’re reading that again?You were reading that when I moved in here.”
“I read this book twice a year.”
“Why? It’s just some whiny rich kidwho gets chance after chance and throws them away because he’s too busybitching about how miserable he is.”
“Maybe you just can’t relate to it.”
“Believe me, I can relate just fineto being miserable. I have had plenty of misery in my time, my friend.”
“Misery ain’t a contest. Misery ismisery. Rich people aren’t allowed to bemiserable or something?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. It’sjust there is no tragedy in the book.” Lloyd says and passes the joint. “Imean, at all. It’s teenage bitching about how the world is shit and all thatjazz. Nothing happens. It’s like he’s miserable just for the sake of beingmiserable.”
“I’ve never understood how peoplecan view the book like that.”
“Most people do, from what I know.Ever think there’s something to that?”
“Yeah, most people used to the thinkthe earth is flat.” Andy says.
“Touche.”
“I suppose if you misunderstandHolden Caulfield, you misunderstand the entire book.”
“What is there to misunderstand? Hethinks everyone’s a phony when he’s the real phony.”
“You’ve got to look behind hisbitching, or rather into his bitching. Holden feels pity and empathy foreveryone, even Ackley Kid who irritates the hell out of him, because he canunderstand why he is the way he is.People are phonies, Lloyd. They become the people they think they should be instead of the person they actually are.” Andypasses the joint. “Finish that. You see, all Holden wants when he leaves schoolis to have a real conversation.”
“A real conversation? What does thateven mean?”
“We just had one. A realconversation is when people are who they are and a connection is made. It’swhen you realize the humanity in the someone else just throughconversation. Holden does get the realconversation he craves, but he had to go home and talk with his little sisterto get it. She is one hundred percent genuine with him. Holden is so miserablebecause he understands the terrible truth about aging, that we lose our identitiesas we age because we create one for ourselves. That’s why he thinks everyone isa phony.”
“I don’t see it.” Lloyd puts out thejoint and stands. “I’m going to make another drink but I’m listening so keeptalking. Talking about the book is more interesting than reading the damnthing.”
“Just think about the title of thebook. Holden said if he could have any job, it would be to be the catcher inthe rye, the one who catches the children who can’t see the cliff because therye is too thick and too tall. It’s not the children he wants to save, butpurity and innocence but most of all, he wants to save identity. But he understands the circle of life by theend of the novel, that as we age and as we question ourselves over who we areor our place in the world, that children exist so they can tell us who weactually are.” There’s a crash in the kitchen. “You okay, in there?”
“Just dropped the ice tray.” Lloydcalls. He didnt say he dropped the ice tray because Andy’s last sentence was adagger in Lloyd’s heart because it was awful and true. “You need a beer?”
“No, I’m good. See, Holden viewsschool as a place where identity is murdered so he doesn’t apply himself as away to save himself. He’s miserable, I think, because he’s terrified of losinghis identity and becoming a phony himself. Isn’t that a common fear? Waking upone day and thinking ‘who am I and how did I get here?’”
Lloyd plunks in his recliner andsips his drink. Though he doesn’t want to admit it, Andy is plucking some truechords. Lloyd has no idea who he is anymore. He isn’t a husband. He isn’t afather. And until he met Andy he wasn’t a friend, either. Lloyd is stubborn andto salvage his opinion he deflects the conversation, “They say men identifythemselves by their jobs. I stock shelves, so does that make me a stocker?”
“That’s terrible.” Andy chuckles.
“I know. I love my corny jokes.”Lloyd says and drinks half his drink in one sip.
“That you do. A moldy oldie isalways a goldie.” When Lloyd looked at him strange he said, “My mother used tosay it. She loved obvious puns.”
“While I won’t say you changed mymind about the book, you make some very good points. How come you never went toschool or anything?” He lights a cigarette and Andy does as well. “I mean,you’re passionate and you sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“Didn’t I ever tell you? I did go toschool.” Andy goes to his desk and pulls something out of the drawer and handsit to Lloyd: it’s his Bachelor’s of the Arts degree for American Literature.“When my parent’s passed most of the money was locked in a trust until I wastwenty-five. By attending school I could access the funds. I’ll probably neverdo a single thing with it but I felt as if I owed it to my parents to get adegree. I’ve tinkered around with writing but I’m more critic than artist.That’s why I never read back anything I write.”
“How can you not read it, I mean, while youwrite it. Isn’t that hard?”
“It’s freehand associationwriting. A guy I knew from Uni taught meall about it. You know about it?”
“I’ve heard of it, don’t know whatit is though.” Lloyd says and reclines, awaiting Andy’s explaination because itbrings Lloyd joy to hear Andy explain things with fervor: Zachary, hisestranged son, was the same way.
“It’s simple really. You just take apen in your hand and touch it to the paper. Then you close your eyes and sortof medidate. If you can get into the right state the pen will start to move.What’s difficult is ignoring what the hand is writing and just letting it work.It’s theorized that the unconscious mind takes over. To put it elegantly, yoursubconcious takes a big shit all over the page.”
“So you have no idea what you write?Like, at all?”
“Nope. Part of me is afraid to knowwhat’s going on in there, ya know? It’s a therapuetic exercise more thananything. It unmuddles the mind, let’s me think clearer. I think when I fill upmy journal I’ll read it through or I might just burn it. I haven’t really decidedyet.”
“You’re a queer fellow. You knowthat, right?” Lloyd titters.
“Excuse moi?” Andy says and raisesan eyebrow.
“Peculiar, is what I mean.”
Andy laughs and finishes his beer.“Ain’t it the truth of the whole matter?”
Lloyd downs his drink. “I’m hungry.You want to head down to Patsy’s and get ourselves a pizza?”
“I can’t remember if I ate today.”Andy says, sort of frowning.
“Well get ready, I’ll treat. I’m going to make one for the road.” Heleaves for the kitchen. From there he calls out, “Hey!”
“What?”
“Maybeyour dream girl will be there!”
Andy blushes but doesn’t sayanything. Whether or not she’s his dream girl remains to be seen, but Andylikes her just fine. Truth is, Andy just doesn’t have the patience for arelationship. And besides, Andy only has room for one love in his life and hislove, as unconventional as it may be, gets under his skin more than any humanever can; though his love is squalid and undignified it does what conventionallove cannot: it pumps through his heart. Shooting heroin is intimate, venereal.What need does he even have for human love when he has heroin? The women of theworld have lost out on this venerable man because his heart has already beenclaimed.