Such a big shot, for something pretty much cast aside. Or so she thought. 

 Middle man to the planet, just as likely to tell you "I love you" as she was to tell you to "cram it". It depended on the temperature of the water that night, so to speak.  Were the schools of mindless dancing fish flickering about in panic;  Eyes wide and glassy in paranoid fear, or were they ambling back and forth in insensate and placid bliss?

The blinkin' light on the ceilings would appease them.  The pill or line to be had with a quick exchange of sweaty wads of money. Shit some of them were even silly enough to bring beer.

  just ask nicely, is that too much to expect? Running her ass off all night, in heatsweats and cold chills of exhaustion.  she gets to dance the night away intermittently .  the jarring interruption of the shout of her nickname or its short form makes her snap to attention and come forward.   Everyone has something to peddle or something to ask for and this chic isn't making a dime for the dozens of felony charges she holds within two hands.  She's just trying to drown it out. Him.  Him, again, always Him. He cannot be replaced.

her first line, her favorite icebreaker to anyone is "so, baby, what is it that you're running from?"

The endearment was not a come on.  She meant a conspirational tone with it.  What can one have as a thief, if there is no honor among thieves?

"Just ask nicely," she would think, with a roll of her eyes and a groan of  misery as the ass kissing from total strangers commenced. 

 "Who do you know," question one.  "How many, how much?"  she ducked if anyone asked "how many" more than like once.  Especially if someone asked how many could be found from one source at one time.  Unless she'd seen your face a good dozen times, you were chalked up internally as a huge risk or an idiot doe among wolves,  not one to be fucked with.

 "How many" asked from a stranger's face and mouth was a snitch question, an invitation to go back and warn others  or laugh and walk off. thank Gods He taught her that.

instead of asking nicely, people would act as if she knew it all, knew everyone, knew something just because she had about twelve numbers she seldom ever called unless it was "that" night of the week.  Fuck it, these people were not long lost best friends. look, all things considered some of them touched her heart forever but the circumstances weren't quite right.  The mindless drone of it all would just about drive her half mad. Demands, expectations, half whispered conspiracy theories against other clubkids from other clubkids…then came on the overstimulation of the rush and the flimsy escape that kept her reeling back in.  Wasting hundreds or even thousand of dollars.  She didn't think anyone else had ever experienced an ejaculatory orgasm minus being touched.  A funky bassline was all it took.  People said to sit on the speakers, but shit, that didn't even work as well as just dancing.

He used to frequent that place with her.  She got such a vicarious thrill out of watching him begin a slow and steady erection.  He'd gently bring her hand down to it and look her in her eyes and smirk.  The gay men walking about would begin to look politely, but not stare,  she loved it, she ate it up. Had she been able to legally, she'd have whipped it out and sucked it in front of the lot of them.     Not for posessiveness, not for a posessive act, it would have been more like a "check this shit out" moment.  Remember show' n' tell as a first grader? She just loved show n' tell!

But oftentimes in a lackluster night of dancing, her mind would return to him. He wasn't coming back. ever.  the drugs were more fun than the thought of fucking, oddly enough, though the drugs did make her libidinous.

One fine starry night, every few weeks or so, some fine bi chic or a happy go lucky lesbian would toss her up against the wall and french kiss her feircely with plenty of teeth. Perhaps cop a feel on the front porch while cooling off from the smoke drenched disco.  that always made her week and made the night a bit more bearable, a bit less lonely. A shiver would run through her body and a litling melody of two voices cooing would tickle her ears. Dissassociation.  She heard the woman speak to her and her own answer but sensuality drowned out sensation, as it were.

how come none of them wantedher telephone number, to call? was it her fault? agh.

*             *              *                      *

He was gone and he was never coming back.  ever. He told her he didn't love her anymore, He got together with a bunch of her former friends to hang out and smoke lots of pot while they all had slam contests on her name…the group of them and He would occasionally call her up to make sure she wasn't suicidal then pump her full of enticing info all about this new girl he had moved in with, how He was fucking her…or possibly He just moved in with her but was dating someone else.

why why why why why? Why would so called friends of upwards of twelve years want to meddle so sickly, to be so disgusting in their emotional treatment of another human being?  It wasn't as bad as a gangrape or a murder, Lord no. One could ponder why people are sick enough to obsess and meddle in another person's relationship until….until the moon finally mates with the sea.  there is no why.  Obsession is what it is, and obsession is sick and occasionally brutal.

He had no idea they were doing this or He just didn't care before he finally bailed.  Instead of making a fresh and healthy start and trying to triumph over adversity, she lost her fucking mind.  Her former friends began to spread rumors that she was delusional and suicidal, her heart was in a gutter riven into shreds and covered with bile.  she didn't get high on anything besides the bit of marijuana  until after the friends offered their heinous brand of constructive pep talks.  It's over. He's over you. You guys are driving one another crazy. Move the fuck on. he has.   

  She ate as much mdma as she could possibly get her hands on.  People fed it to her based on facial recognition and the fact that she ran around and made so many connections for others.  This from a chic who isn't keen on crowds.  He called a month and a half after the dreaded phone calls, she vomited and shook with fear  and something like denial, contrition.  She still loved him, against all logic and against anything anyone could tell her. He wouldn't admit to having done anything wrong and she shook with anger.  She hung up the phone.  He called a week and a half later to cuss her out for not giving him the number of a weed dealer.  This, after people had been telling her the woman he moved in with, who also smoked, was fucking him.  "get your own weed from your girlfriend, you lot of sopping cunts" she hissed.  He called again a fortnight before flying away on a jet across the states.  It was just before her birthday or just afterwards.  he left the message on her answering machine.  It was too late.  She heard the shaking in his voice and how he was fighting tears.

His speech so slurred, thick, shaking with emotion.  He said He still loved her and would always care and thought about her all day on her birthday.  She laughed a shrill brittle laugh, while somewhere far away icicles shattered into a billion pieces causing an avalanche.

  She balled up on the floor, sitting erect and choking back bile as she wept as quietly as possible. No need to make a show of it.

*                *                         *                        *

  What had she done wrong, would she ever love anyone like that again but in a more healthy way?  All her other friends had written her off as a void, nothing without her now absent man. An asshole on a disability pension without a vehicle.  who would be there for her and who could she turn to? 

  Goddamn junkies with bullshit friends, homeless disowned and barreling towards tragic or negligible ends.

Such a big shot, for something pretty much cast aside on all sides or so she thought.

She's not the pusher-man but she only knows like four or seven.  Sadly only four gave a phone number to her and none delivered on weekdays.  What can anyone expect from people who take and peddle edible methamphetamine five out of seven days a week?  These were some nervous motherfuckers.  She was so adept at manipulating situations and putting people at ease, she may have weirded people the hell out for that sheer fact.  An ingenue at mind fuckery.

To what end? Not to snitch or cause chaos but simply to get high for free.  Her will was good, she did not steal or "expect" to get high for free.  It was like a lucky accident that happened all to often and sent her barreling towards a cocaine overdose at least twice.

  She didn't fuck for drugs, but dealers liked her bubbly laugh and dry humor… she was friendly and sweet, silly and deep….it was seldom enough and she'd wander off surreptitiously hand in hand with another woman. cocktease!  she was given drugs for company not pussy, it wasn't she who was to blame if some of the men thought the promise of pussy would be implied.  Her bitter triumphs of disgusting hedonism may have included between twelve and ten hits a night with numerous trips back to the ATM or other clubs or other people's houses. All that and bumps of ketamine or an eight ball of coke.  she prayed when she was nervous around the sausage fests.

invoke often, and inflame with prayer. 

She once grabbed a woman by her arm and begged her not to leave a party. "you are not safe out there," she fairly screamed. People laughed at her, she was just high and paranoid.  The woman, Gina, was running around with two shiners on her face and some cuts on her arms not three days later.  Gina was a victim to a brutal gang rape-or was raped while she was passed out on GHB by three guys and then, in effect,got beat up by her cocksucking closet-case void of a tweeker boyfriend. If nothing else in this page is true, that actually happened and I'd sign my true name-in whole, four names- in longhand with blood from my wrist to fucking "prove" it.  I cannot even tolerate having my wrists touched.

gina, cowardly Gina, spineless Gina, who wore the same grey top with sequins every night, who still came clubbing with the sniffles even while four months pregnant, fucking Gina the perennial victim.  Bit felt bad for Gina but not for long, Bit wept however with an almost sociopathic void of emotion dismissed the Gina situation within four hours. Gina had been warned. 

 God, grant me the serenity accept the things i cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Bit was perhaps an adept, an ingenue at psychic sheilding. if she doesn't want her to see you, you will not, but it's not being the invisible man. it's not the same.

 She truly lost her yinyang, no balance at all.  Tired? Take some coke.  Stressed? Roll another joint, make each one bigger then the last.

Bit pretty much ran around in goth gear yet sometimes wore fuckall whatever she pleased. she'd come out in pajamas or a bikini in tow in a bookbag.  what the fuck ever, just don't mess up her makeup, be a pushy annoying guy, or tell her she has bad shoes. fuck off!

 Bit started telling everyone she had turned into a lesbian, it proved to be a very effective way to get people to talk business instead of blowing smoke up her ass.  Only one woman was a damnfool enough to harrass her about her ambiguous sexuality, and Bit effectively laughed screamed and raved the woman out of the club.  As if in a Zen moment, she spied four people at once who actually helped to run the bar and she shouted their names out in a true ringing voice even above the headbreaking thud of the house music.  In slow motion, they turned one at a time and waved to her.  It may have been real time but she was on 2 hits of acid and 3 or 4 hits of xtc.  she barked "bitch you in a club  chock full of gays and if this you got a problem you could take yo' cunt stink to Grand's…you got a problem with me we can take it outside you flat chested skank."

the man with Ms anonymous homophobe got in Bit's face and said mindlessly in an empty defensive posture "don't you talk to my girlfriend like that" and she stepped in closer to him, lied to him about the severeity of his girlfriend's words, and told him if he put his hands on anyone he'd get maced into next sunday, the cops called and she'd cry and whine as much as she could that this woman with him pushed into her at a gay bar and called her a dyke and a lesbo. That last….was not a lie.

When she got really scared she'd sing Bob Marley…when things got far more drastic she'd chant holy names or spazz out and run up and down the stairs chanting Enochian. She once or twice dropped to her knees on a filthy bathroom floor and prayed but that wasn't over her idiot man who left her hanging.  A close friend died, she'd never dealt with a death before. it left her reeling.

Charles was just awesome.  He shared Bit's more esoterical and mystic beliefs. Charles had a cousin who was once her roomate.  Charles was a bundle of energy, silly and ever a prankster.  A song to life humming and thrumming.  He listened to nothing but grindcore heavy metal.  Charles was at the Wedding of Bit and Don.  Charles got a little bit depressed over some bitch he had been dating all of a month and a half.  Charles decided to try shooting cocaine for the first time.  Don had left about five or six months ago, back to damned Seattle.  Left Bit high and dry.  Charles died.  He'd been Don's friend for at least a decade and Bit's pal for perhaps five years more or less.  Bit found out via the internet, through the cold two dimensional plane of a goddamn flickering computer screen.  She sat for forty five minutes with her stomach in knots and called Charles's cousin Edgar. 

She howled obscenities and proceeded Edgar to forgive her for making him cry. Neither one was truly capable of coherent speech.  She cussed some more and said with conviction at first, in a slow chant as a mantra, "Say it ain't so, Edgar. Say it ain't so."  Edgar told her he'd have given anything if he could say it wasn't so. 

*          *         *

Bit called Don in Seattle, three thousand miles away to give him the news.  "Sit down, Don.  I just…I hate…I've got some bad news."

"Spit it out now please? What the fuck happened now.  What are you so wound up about?"

"Charlie's dead."

"What?"

"Charlie Lance Nelson is dead.  He died on February ninth and I just got the news…."

"bullshit, have you called the Johnsons?"

"yes," as Bit chokes back a moan and tears, "yes I have too. It's pretty late but…"

"Becca, just relax. There's nothing you can do. I'm calling now."

"But, it is eleven oclock our time!"

"I must call the Johnsons now! I have to hear it for myself."

fifteen minutes later ater Don called up Bit fairly shouting. He was told the details Bit was too hysterical to hear about Charlie's passing.  Don was pretty pissed off.  The shouting slowed down into plaintive whining and a drawn out groan and gasps of a man, a man weeping. Bit was angry at Don for being angry but it took less than a few hours for her to understand.  It took Don days to call her without rampant anger in his voice.

Oh, death.

did it help, did it make you more popular or strong, did it wash away the broken heart or the death of your loved one…..

who the hell did you think you were kidding?