The Passenger: Chapter One

It’s a funny thing, really. When I was younger, my parents told me that when I turned thirty, or forty, or fifty even, I would still never have the world completely figured out. It’s very possible that they’re right. Yet, at the age of twenty one, and even as my mind’s eye began to fracture, everything slowly started to become more lucid. If there’s one thing I do know as a universal truth, however, it is this: people are capable of anything. Every single person you will ever meet in this life has the power to amaze, dumbfound, and utterly devastate you.

And above all others, that includes yourself.

I was raised on the Boulevard in West Hartford, Connecticut, and I know what you’re thinking, but trust me it’s not what it sounds like. Oh “the Boulevard,” and “in Connecticut.” How glamorous and high class, and actually, it was. But let me tell you that I had my first taste of heroin by the age of sixteen, and I got it from the wife of a city councilman who lived three houses down from me.

My father was a Congressman who worked in the capitol and my mother, who made her way raising three kids, had become a minor celebrity after writing a series of high-profile cook books. She even made guest appearances on the Rachel Ray Show and Good Morning America. We appeared to be the perfect family- my father a do-good politician; my mother the perfect housewife. My sister was the runner-up for Miss Teen USA and my brother joined the navy right out of high school. Then there was me.

I graduated high school with high honors, and no one really knew about my experimentation with drugs, though I’m quite positive many people suspected. Sure, I’d had a few scandalous incidents over the years, but what exactly do you expect from a pubescent homosexual? I got accepted into Julliard with practically a full scholarship and had big dreams of becoming a world-renowned cellist. The future looked exceedingly bright for all of us.

Then three years ago my father was accused of forging government expense receipts in order to collect on people’s unclaimed taxes. I think they called it “felony embezzlement.” Apparently our family vacation to Bora Bora was paid for with the public’s hard earned social security. Now, I don’t follow politics much but I’m pretty sure that’s frowned upon at best. Jason, my dad’s defense attorney said that he could have gotten away with it too, but dear-old-dad was caught attempting to flee into Mexico three days before the final verdict. Why he chose to escape to our time-share in Cancun was beyond me, but I digress. It was quite the scandal. Now he’s serving up to seven years in Northern State Penitentiary.

After that, my C-List-socialite mother’s reputation was leveled and she took an overdose of Klonipin, landing her in the CRMHC after she woke up from her two-month coma. The doctors said she might never be the same. I went to visit her once and she didn’t even recognize me.

My brother Devon was one of the few men left in Iraq after Obama supposedly ended America’s “War on Terror.” But one month after his declaration of military withdrawal, we got a letter from the United States Navy saying that Devon was never coming back. And Natalie, my sister, went from beauty pageant queen to landing a spot on the front cover of Playboy’s November issue. The wealthy sixty three-year old insurance agent she married paid for her boob job.

And her nose job.

And her lip enhancement.

And her liposuction- all three of them. Now she’s divorced and he’s found a younger woman who’s a natural blonde from Sweden, and now she’s on the cover of Playboy’s November issue.

Then there was still me. I didn’t make it a full year through Julliard before I was kicked out for possession when the campus security raided my room. I didn’t have much on me at the time, but apparently one of my teachers “suspected” me of selling drugs out of my dorm. Ironically, it was the same teacher I had given a blow-job to in order to keep from failing his class. Mr. Morgan’s wife left him after I let her know what kind of a husband she had. I was out on the street for quite a while after that, travelling from city to city, hooking up with strangers, always looking for love in the wrong places. All the while my drug use spiraled out of control. It was a constant Novocain to numb all the bullet holes my heart had endured over the years.

I suppose that love was ultimately my life’s motivation. Or rather, the lack thereof, but if you asked me I’d just prefer to say the former. I’m pretty sure that I found it once- a couple of times even. I ought to have because there wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for it.

I found it the first time when I was fifteen, in a boy two years older than me, whose father was the pastor at St. Michael’s. I remember his shiny porcelain skin, dotted with acne that made him so self-conscious in a way that I thought was mildly adorable; the one dimple that formed on his left cheek when he gave me that awkward half-smile; the little blonde hairs that ran down the back of his spine. But my favorite part about him was the way that his eyes closed, and the full-smile that came across his lips when I touched him. Seeing that smile was the first time in my whole life that I felt completely perfect. A single moment of perfect.

I remember when his father discovered us fooling around in the church confessional. I was fifteen, and all my mother could say was, “Wow, you went to church?” My parents were “equal-opportunistic-agnostics,” or so they called themselves, having sparsely attended irregular services at temples, cathedrals, and mosques alike.  They simply couldn’t decide on what religion to claim was theirs. They treated spirituality like it was a walk down the Boulevard- a window-shopping experience.

The boy’s father, or rather the Father, was disgusted at the sight of two young men engaging in such acts, and in the house of God no less.

“You are a travesty of nature!” he screamed at me, pronouncing me a succubus that had defiled the sanctity of his son’s immortal soul. I tried to tell him that the succubi were female and that therefore, I was an incubus. But I guess he didn’t find the humor in it that I had because he had the entire congregation chasing me out of there with nothing short of torches and pitchforks. He had ruined my first perfect moment, and a part of me hated him for it. But mostly I felt afraid for the boy, who came into school the following Monday covered in bruises. He told Mr. Rhatt, our United States History teacher, that he had gotten into a fist-fight with a couple of other kids.

“You should see what they look like.” He was a bad liar, and yet somehow, nobody managed to see through it. But I knew differently. I knew that his father was a snake, much like my own, hiding behind the pretense of his profession. I knew that like so many other young men in our precarious positions, he had become a tragic victim of both God and society.

And the following Tuesday he put a bullet between his eyes. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard in my entire life. After his funeral, I never went back to church, not even for my brother’s.

After that, I don’t quite know how many times I found love although I’m positive there was at least one more time because the very act of meeting this man completely turned my whole world upside-down. And afterward, there was no turning back over.

John Sadie was a sadist, and I can still remember the first time put the Gun to my head. I felt the cold steel sting against my cheek, made colder by the singe of his Boston accent. “If you ever leave me,” he hissed, “it’ll be the last goddamn move you make.” I remember the fear and the tension in my muscles finally subsiding after the Needle numbed the spot on my temple, still ringing with exhilaration long after he took the Revolver away.

In spite of his madness, Johnny was always my favorite because he made me feel special. Out of everyone, I knew that he loved me the most. He loved me so much that he’d kill me if I left him. He made me feel safe, and yet, I was too blinded by pain to realize that what I really loved was the Needle he kept sticking in my arm. Maybe I knew it all along. Maybe Johnny wasn’t really in love with me and he was just too cracked out to notice. Maybe he knew that I was the only person who could even stand to try and love him back. And maybe that was enough. Regardless, our relationship was the wildest ride I’d ever been on- and I’ve smoked a lot of meth.

I remember our last Christmas together- probably because it was also our first. It was the autumn after I had turned nineteen when I first met him, and it was also the first time I had met my good friend Tina Turner (our codename for meth) who didn’t exactly improve my overall state of mind. Not that it mattered with Johnny. He had a way of altering reality all on his own.

 Johnny never liked to stay in one place for too long, and I would have followed him anywhere. I was his passenger, he said, because I was always letting him take the wheel. Sometimes I thought he saw me as nothing more than a pawn in his scheme to utterly destroy his own life. Little did he know, I was actually the one driving.

“Sammy,” he whispered, pressing his lips to my ear, tracing his finger up the definitions in my stomach, “you got the most beautiful ribs.” I felt his tongue slip inside, and I cringed at its clammy touch. He loved to watch me squirm. I grasped at the cheap polyester sheets, trying to ground myself against his advances, but it only made him hunger for more. He reached his bulging arm around and seized my throat, smacking my head into the wall. “Don’t you ever get fat on me.” His eyes burned bright as I watched his pupils dilate.

I laughed. Yeah, right. I didn’t eat enough to gain weight. I barely ate enough to support my skin from caving in on me. I didn’t have much need for food anyway- Tina took care of that for me. Besides, the taste of anything other than gasoline or chocolate made me sick to my stomach. And like he had just said- I’d better not get fat. We all know what happens when someone pisses off Johnny. I would undoubtedly find myself eating the rest of my meals through a straw.

My eyes broke from his gaze and scanned the dingy, smoke-stained walls over to the Revolver he had laid on the nightstand. His massive palm grabbed my face and snapped my attention back to him. I watched his fire grow brighter and he pressed his lips firmly against mine, digging his clammy tongue into the roof of my mouth. The force of the gesture caught me off guard and I gagged.

“Babe,” I coughed, “you play too rough.”

He laughed. “I thought you liked it rough.” He dove back in, this time trying to choke me, and I gagged even harder. Gasping for air, I shoved him off of me, mustering the will to not slap him as he cackled wildly.

“Fucking asshole.” I muttered, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, slowly getting up to go to the bathroom. He obviously wasn’t paying attention. I heard the click of the Lighter and the prolonged ignition of the Torch as Johnny hit the Pipe. There were few sounds that scared me as much as that did. Because I knew what it meant. Johnny was getting ready to do something stupid, and he needed a little boost from Tina to do it.

I could smell the stench of fuel even from the bathroom. I stared into the mirror above the porcelain sink, trying to ignore the footsteps coming closer. But alas, my brief window of solace was abruptly closed shut as he swung the door open. I glared at his reflection and he returned with a toothy grin, his eyes bulging out of his head like the arteries in his neck. I pursed my lips together- my usual “what-the-hell-do-you-want-now?” look- and his Cheshire cat-smile extended even further. He didn’t have to say anything. I knew he wanted to boost something- probably something stupid like more Swiss Rolls- or maybe worse- and he was going to take me along for the ride.

He wrapped his galvanic arms around my bare waist and squeezed against my frail abdominals. I watched as the small infinity sign tattooed on his bicep flexed along with his muscles. I always loved that tattoo. “You want somethin’ from the store?” He nibbled against the side of my neck- my weak spot. I cringed.

“How about a new Prius?” I smirked, nuzzling the back of my head into his chest. I loved the fact that he was a good six inches taller than me. But even though I acted warm and caring, he could hear the undertones of annoyance in my voice. “To replace the one you totaled.”

“Aw babe,” he whined, “I told you I was sorry. You know how I get when I’m in the zone.” He bit his lip playfully, as though it would stop me from getting irritated. Sadly enough, he knew me all too well.

“Meaning,” I turned to face him, “’you know how I get when I’ve had too much tequila.’”

He snickered, and even though I shouldn’t have been amused, I laughed out loud. I remember that night when he crashed the car Dad had bought me for my seventeenth birthday. He had used my mom’s checking account to pay for it, which was lucky for me I suppose, because the asshole investigators couldn’t prove that it was paid for with dirty money. I remember him dancing in the driver’s seat-his self-proclaimed seat- swigging the bottle, not paying attention to the road. And I was in the passenger seat, only paying attention to him. I remember thinking afterwards, What kind of a dumbass buys a teenager a Prius? What a waste of the public’s perfectly-embezzled tax dollars. Well, they’re all certainly saving money now that I’m taking the bus.

“You know what I mean.” Johnny gleamed. “I said I was sorry.”

I kissed him on the lips, disregarding his sad attempt at an apology. “I know you are.” He ran his hand down the small of my back and slapped my ass. I let out a small shriek as he grabbed me, forcefully lifting me up off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he dug his hands into my naked skin, and our lips became one again.

These were the moments with Johnny that I like remembering the most. Maybe it was all the dope, but they were moments where time had literally stopped, and our souls bled into one another. These were the moments that made me really think that in spite of our unyielding spiral into self-decimation that things were actually going to get better.

And boy was I horribly wrong.

∞

The wind stung against my cheek like the Gun and I struggled to keep up with Johnny through the pelting snow. I could feel the blood rushing to my cheeks as my body tried to keep me warm.  The lavender silk scarf that my mother had bought me three years prior was wrapped tightly around my face and I could see the shallow smoke of my breath seeping through with every hurried step. I kept hoping that maybe the garment would help. It didn’t. Contrary to popular belief (or rather, my mother’s), silk scarves serve almost no purpose other than to look extremely chic or extremely gay. Or, as was in my case, extremely both. Johnny trudged through the entourage of passers-by, narrowly dodging their on-coming stampede. Boston was never my favorite place, especially not two days before Christmas.

I rushed to catch up with him, and when he was just within arm’s reach, I lost my footing and slipped on a patch of ice. The world came out from under me and I landed hands-first onto the sidewalk, scraping my palms along the cold, jagged cement.

“Jesus!”

There was nothing I could do but sit there as the boots of the barreling pedestrians threatened to trample me. I glanced upward, trying to scan the masses for him, but Johnny was nowhere.

He left me, I thought. Not that it really mattered. We were only a few blocks from the hotel and I had one of the key-cards in my pocket. But right then and there, I felt like Simba right before Mufasa died: powerless and about to be crushed by a horde of charging wildebeest. And if you’ve ever been stuck in the direct path of a bunch of New Englanders during the holidays, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The city-folk have little regard for their peers, especially if you can’t keep up.

Out of nowhere, I felt a familiar hand grasp its fingers around the top of my jacket sleeve, pulling me upwards and back on my feet toward salvation. There he was- my knight in shining armor- smiling heroically as though he had just rescued me from the top of the dragon’s tower. He drew me into him and kissed me hard. I almost pulled my head back in shock. Johnny never showed affection in public. He thought that being gay was a blow against his masculinity. I don’t know why. He was always on top.

That meant that he was really fucked up. And we all know what happens when Johnny gets blasted. I suppose it was rather fortunate that there wasn’t another Prius for him to crash.

I pulled my head back and he held me in place as the traffickers swarmed around us with looks of disdain or total dismissal. I never cared about people’s opinion of me.

“Babe,” I uttered graciously, burying my hopeless face into his jacket, “you saved me.”

There was his smile again. “I’ll always be there to save you.”

In that smile there was something oddly familiar. It felt something like hearing a song I’d once heard when I was five, and again for the first time since. I felt a glow in my stomach that nearly made me vomit. It travelled up and into my brain and a wave of nausea washed over me. I hadn’t eaten a meal in two days, and Tina had finally worn off. Time for another Swiss Roll. My knees buckled and I grasped onto him. My bloodied hands nearly slid off the moisture and the slickness of his jacket but he caught me, yet again.

“I’m sorry.” I muttered weakly. “I think I need to eat something.”

“You definitely need somethin’.” His response was smug and I rolled my eyes, pretending to be annoyed.

“It’s always got to be about that with you.”

He shrugged and gave me a look, playing at ignorance. “No idea what you’re talkin’ about.” His eyes resembled the moon. In fact, his pupils were so big that I could see its entirety reflected in them. There was nothing I wanted more in the world than to watch Johnny’s pupils grow. It meant that he loved me, if only for a moment. But all the same, I knew what came with that love.

We stood there staring at each other, our eyes penetrating the other’s like the way David Aames beheld Sofia in Vanilla Sky. I was sure in that moment there was nothing that could have broken our silence, until someone decided to smash it the only way that it possibly could have been.

“Fucking faggots!” a voice stung my ears. My vanilla sky fell hard like an avalanche, and I was very aware that we were still surrounded by a crowd of bustling strangers. The instigator was a stupid college kid with his rag-tag group of loyal butt-buddies. He was wearing a UMASS letterman jacket. I knew it- some steroid-shooting varsity jackass.

What’s with that comb-over? You’re calling me a faggot? They had just walked the opposite way past us and were only a few feet behind when Johnny’s focus broke from me. His eyes narrowed and his pupils grew even larger. I knew what was going to happen.

“Babe, don’t worry about them. They’re a bunch of fucking retards.” I tried to bring his attention back to me. But the idiots kept taunting him, laughing and looking back at us, making obscene gestures with their mouths that made me think they had more experience giving fellatio than I did.

Johnny was not amused, nor was he about to let them get away with that crap. Nobody makes a fool of Johnny. Nobody, except Johnny. He let go of me, and pushed me back when I tried to stop him. The jocks were not intimidated, though if they were at all intelligent they would have been.

“You got a problem fuck-face?” Johnny marched up to the kid who had shouted the first insult and I saw him reach into his back pocket. Comb-over laughed with a bold confidence that would serve him absolutely no purpose in the coming moments.

Because Johnny already had the Pistol pointed right between his eyes.

The kid was frozen in trepidation and his friends cried out their respective ‘Oh fuck!’’s and ‘Holy shit!’’s as Johnny cocked the Revolver into firing position. An overdramatic, middle-aged woman- with really bad highlights- screamed for dear life, alerting everyone and their mothers within a two-block radius. It was very apparent to me that she couldn’t have been married to anyone, male or female, and immediately, the disinterested pedestrians became desperate and frantic. The whole scene became a hot mess in all of three seconds. They should have known better. I certainly did.

“Hey man chill out!” Comb-over whimpered. “I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t mean to what?” Johnny towered over the guy, who suddenly felt oh-so-small in comparison to his wrath. “You didn’t mean to be a mouthy douchebag?”

“Y-yeah man! Really! I’m sorry!” the kid’s voice cracked like he had just started puberty. I could see the dread building up behind his eyes. It was a feeling that I was all too familiar with.

I bolted to stop him before he did something even more stupid. My hand grabbed his arm, trying to pull it away from the kid’s face, but my efforts were in vain. Johnny was an ex-marine, and his bicep was at least four times the size of mine.

“Babe!” I cried out. “Let it go! He’s just a kid!” I realized the folly in my own words because the “kid” was probably around the same age I was, if not older, and Johnny had no problem pointing that thing in my direction. I closed my eyes, trying to block the frustrated and terrified tears that were about to come flushing out. “Let it go. Please.” The plea was pathetic, and the image of the suicide boy came rushing through my brain. Why did everything in my life seem to revolve around Bullets?

The nausea came back and my knees began to buckle again. The thought of Johnny shooting this boy, whose life was flashing before his very eyes, and potentially having us both get locked up- him for the obvious, but myself for possession and, more than likely, with the intent to sell- was almost infuriating. I couldn’t distinguish between love and hate, fear and utter repulsion toward the man who, for the rest of my days, could offer me the moon.

Time once again became futile, and finally, after the seconds passed like decades, Johnny lowered his weapon and pointed it toward the ground. Reprieve washed over everyone whose eyes were fixed on us, and I swear Comb-over pissed his pants. I watched as the snowflakes clumped onto Johnny’s strawberry-blonde eyelashes like Manna falling from Heaven. He grabbed at my arm and the feeling came back to my jellied legs.

“Don’t let me EVER catch you ‘round here again!” Johnny’s warning was more of a war-cry, and the index finger he pointed at them was almost as menacing as his Gun. “You ‘ear me bitch?” He took my hand and we ran, the elements still pounding against our faces. We sprinted a few blocks past the bodega, where Johnny was probably headed in the first place, before we dipped into a nearby alleyway. My heart was beating so fast that I thought it was just going to give out. My lungs ached with a horrid piercing that almost made me want to quit smoking. Almost.

He went to pull me into him but I pushed away as the queasiness came on again, and emptied the contents of my stomach onto the snow-covered pavement. Nothing but water and OJ that burned my esophagus in a way that was almost liberating. I spit the remaining stomach acid out of my mouth and turned to face him.

I punched him in the shoulder with what little strength I possessed. “You dumbass!” I cried. “What the HELL is your problem?”

I was even less tickled when he burst into frantic and maniacal laughter. I rolled my eyes and took a cigarette out from the flowery metal case in my jacket pocket and he whipped out his Lighter.

“Allow me m’lady.” He chuckled, lending me his spark.

Though there was nothing at all funny about the situation, I realized that there was no sense in fighting it. A smile percolated my lips that exhaled a billowing cloud of smoke. Johnny snickered again, knowing that he was victorious. As though I’d had a fighting chance.

Our mild jubilation was cut short by the unnerving blare of sirens as the cops shot on by, their blazing blue and red lights prancing through the whiteout. Johnny turned with his back facing the street and pulled me close to the brick wall away from the droning sounds until they had passed.

“That was sure fast.” His breath was hot against my face, melting the snow that had built up on my nose. Our eyes met in yet another perfect moment. 

This was my life. This was my Johnny. And in no discernible future was there any chance I was getting out alive. Nor did I even want to.