Opening the Gate opiates

Someone had placed me on my side which was wise. Looking down I can see the bed lamp reflecting dimly in a puddle of gastric juices, Jim Beam and beer. Discovering your vomit is always a curious thing. More so in a unfamiliar room.

I sit up and look around. Someone's guest room. Comfortable, functional, tasteful. Family portraits on the wall, a Monet reproduction from his lilies series near the window, a made bed with cushions and a quilt. On the table is someone's coke. I thank the Universe for this moment and snort. It bursts behind my right eyeball and my brain crackles to attention. I find my jacket and walk out into the hall.

I clean myself up in a bathroom and peek in the medicine cabinet. Nothing good. Perhaps the owner is aware of my kind. Maybe he is one of us. Or maybe someone like my girlfriend beat me to the punch.

A clock I pass tells me it is 3:33 in the a.m. The Witching hour. I hear distant human noises and follow them into a spacious living room. My boots reverberate off the hardwood floor for this part of the house is silent. A sharp contrast to events earlier. Before music blasted, hundreds of drunken voices rose up in unison as a challenge to the alien night sky. I look outside in the silent gloom. The pool is full of beer cans, cups, lawn furniture, clothes and towels. A fountain nymph has been knocked over and beheaded. Trash is strewn everywhere. From the amount of smashed wine bottles on the patio it looks like they found the cellar. Every door and cabinet on the outdoor bar is yanked open and the contents spewed across the lawn. An outdoor refrigerator stands wide open and is on fire. The flickering flames make the reflection of my face orange and demonic in the window pane.

I keep walking.

The house was locked during the party so inside is another world. Clean and orderly. The smells of an unknown family. Spices, cooking scents and lemon furniture polish. A gas fireplace cheerfully burns. The mantle is covered with a nautical clock collection. An archipelago of Persian rugs over a wooden floor leads me to the theater room where I find my friends. Dev and Jason are playing Mario Kart while Kym and Melo talk with three guys I saw earlier. Melo looks up at and grins.

"There he is!"

"I feel...", I pause because the world blurs for a moment. It retracts slowly and then pops back into focus. I rub my face. "I feel weird."

"Yeah you got knocked out", said Jason leaning into a turn as Dev shrieks something about turtle shells.

Kym stands up and walks over to me. Tonight she wears a red bandana wrapped around purple hair. A white crop top, gold belly chain and black jeans with a wide, silver studded belt. Black boots and her leather jacket. She recently got her jacket spiked to match mine. Her leather features the next star chart on the Milky Way traveling away from our solar system. Kym caresses my cheek which throbs.

"Did I win?"

Kym laughs and kisses me.

"You almost tied?", offers Dev from the floor.

"Almost babe", agrees Kym smiling. "Not much of a fighter are you?"

"That was my second fight. The first was was in third grade with Tommy Melkin."

"Did you win?" asks Melo.

"No. I ran away after he hit me."

Earlier in San Francisco, Dev knocks on our door. I let her in suspiciously. When she is alone there are sometimes spirits and otherworldly entities swirling around her. But she just wanted to take a shower. Kym allows this so I let her in. When she comes out she goes into our room to help Kym paint tiny skulls on her nails. Later Melo comes by.

"Party in Emerald Hills", says Kym.

"Where?"

"Emerald Hills. The Peninsula" says Kym. "Melo we have to hit up a liquor store ok?"

Melo turned 21 first so the poor bastard gets to buy booze for us 20 year olds. The perk is he always gets drunk for free when he hangs out.

"It's my friend Annie from school. She's turning 20 and her parents are in France so...party. Sorry guys. These people are kinda weird" warns Dev.

I look at her. Dev cuts her hands to draw ritual blood magic circles. She talks to spirits and old gods. So I have to ask.

"Weird?"

"Suburb kids. Gap clothes, Jamba Juice wheat grass purges and frozen yogurt...Trust fund drop outs with thousand dollar Beanie Baby collections" she offers.

"What? Like sane versions of you Dev?" says Jason strolling in through the front door.

He lifts up his shirt and pulls a McDonalds bag from his waistband and dumps it on the table. He drops next to it and takes out all the coke and heroin he scored across the bay.

"Not much China white", says Jason. "All tar. Mexicans have a chokehold on the competition. Only the biker guys and Vietnamese dudes have powder. And boy do they know it."

"Maybe I don't want to go", says Dev in a small voice.

We all can see why. Dev was totally that weird kid that never fit in. We have always viewed her as our insane friend and just go with it. But growing up? That must have been cruel.

"Dev! Fuck Monkey is playing your friend's party!" says Kym waving a cigarette around to make her point.

Kym is obsessed with Fuck Monkey because lately she has been on a disco kick. Fuck Monkey is a cover band. Mostly Bee Gees and Abba.

"Fuck Monkey!" she emphasizes again as Jason tears the foil.

"But all those people...they were so-" Dev scrunches into an embryonic ball on the floor with her knees to her chin.

Her fear of her high school peer group is the first normal thing I have ever seen from Dev. So I offer, "We can always go to Slims."

"C'mon Dev!", begs Kym rolling her eyes and clutching Dev's filthy orange gypsy skirt. "I'm from fucking Danville! The suburbs suck! But Fuck Monkey! Please!"

"Oh fuck you Khadja", says Dev still frowning. Then she looks up, "OK. Fine. Let's go but Melo?"

"Hmm?"

"I need the kit."

And we smoke. Dev shoots. The poppy's bloom behind our eyes and time erodes into the Friday night. We do coke as Kym gets ready and Jason orders a pizza. Finally, Melo carries Dev's slumped body to the car and Kym drives us south into the suburbs.

"Who the fuck is this bitch?" yells the largest goddamn talking primate I have ever seen.

I know who the bitch is. But this guy? Holy fucking steroid crazy mutant motherfucking shit! He's not very tall which makes it worse. The short ones HATE me. But he is wide and ridiculously muscular. His arms and neck are thicker than my thighs. I walk into this knowing I am truly fucked.

All night this dominate primate man craps on everything. His name is Baron for fuck's sake. All he talks about is beating up people. He sucks down beer after beer. His face was almost angelic. Blond curls framing olive green eyes. But the eyes were dead. Like a domesticated beast. Dumb. Dull. Reflecting very little human soul. His chin was like the end of a brick and everything below it was solid.

The band was amazing. They were dressed like extras from Les Misérables. Short set but intense with that infectious disco bass. They played on a lawn that was at least a half acre long broken up by fountains and statuary. This type of wealth astounds me. I showed Melo the reproduction of the mosaic depicting Alexander the Great breaking the army of Darius, last king of the Achaemenid Empire. Japanese koi fish swam over it. Kym and Dev walk by smoking cigarettes and talking. Obviously at ease in their childhood surroundings. They never even glance at the beauty and symbolic power of the Alexander mural.

Dev knew the house code to the elevator so we could go inside. On the ground level was a space that housed the car and motorcycle collection. Ride the elevator down to the underground pool and gym facilities. Ride up to the atrium entrance. A spiral stairway led to the bedrooms. Jason complained loudly about this.

"What the fuck Winchester mystery house? Elevator to the subterranean pool but not the bedroom? The architect must have been smoking Mexican tar. Shit makes you lazy. Now if he had the ECP he would have built hamster tube connectors for the coked out fuckers who can't stand being trapped in elevators."

Two smaller houses flank the main compound. One for each sister. A family of four would be comfortable in either structure. I sit in one of these houses and look at yearbooks. Outside is a swarming cluster fuck of bored college-aged suburban kids mingling under tiki torch lights, swimming and getting wasted on expensive liquor. In the yearbook I find a freshmen Devika Liora. A tiny, awkward normal looking girl with a sexless utilitarian haircut. But a glorious fucking smile. Sophomore year she has a dyed black goth mushroom hairdo and a scowl. Junior year she has a shaved head and painted, manic eyes. No senior picture. Then I hear trouble outside.

"Who the fuck is this bitch?" yells the largest goddamn talking primate I have ever seen.

And Kym is toe to toe with the monster yelling back.

"Fuck you! Who the fuck do you think you are? Get the fuck out of here!" she yells as she throws the contents of her keg cup on him.

The crowd holds it breath as the red cup bounces off his enormous, sloped forehead. Baron is the biggest asshole for miles and has been King Bully from kindergarten to this moment. Whoever he was tormenting backed off and Kym filled the spot.

He gapes at his Tommy Hilfiger shirt in disbelief. The beer presses the material against his wide chest as I make my way towards the circle. The crowd sensing violence reacts.

"Hey Baron! It's all good! Let it go dude!"

"Hey c'mon man. Let it go!"

But more frightening:

"Fucking cunt! Get her Baron! Get HER!"

As he looks up I stand between them. His piggy little eyes sparkle. I see joy as thoughts are processed through the smooth lobes of his brain.

"Sorry", I say. "We're leaving ok?"

And he swings. I have a half second to drop back as his fist slams into my shoulder throwing me back into Kym. We both fly back a good three feet and slide across the ground into the scattering stampede of onlooker's feet as they scramble to make way. I jump up and throw myself at him with no idea what I'm supposed to do. Baron catches me in midair. His fingers are like bananas and crush me in the grip as he rears back to beat me. With useless arms I slam my forehead into his face. I feel a CRACK and he drops me bellowing. Now I have chance! I look up...and wake up sideways on the someone else's couch smelling my stomach contents.

"Cheater!", shrieks Dev.

Jason dramatically leaps to his feet while tossing the controller in the air and points at her, "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"

"I think I'm gonna puke again", I announce.

"Have some water" says Melo offering me a bottle.

"Have you considered the possibility that you may have a concussion?" asks the Arabic looking kid wearing an O'Neil hoodie.

"I have no idea what happened", I shrug.

His friend sitting next to him in glasses is rolling a joint and looks up. "Baron just started throwing uppercuts into your body and then he clocked you with a right. Lights out."

"Ah."

Kym puts her arms around my neck from behind. Even this hurts but it's worth it so sag into her embrace.

"Babe this is Mike", the Arab guy nods, "Jeff", the guy rolling the joint waves his hand as he licks the paper, "and Parker." A chubby Asian kid smiles and nods. "Mike dates Annie. They all go to Santa Barbara."

I shrug.

"We're in Annie's house", fills in Kym.

"Oh. Hey sorry for the ruckus."

"Oh dude that Baron guy has been a prick since 5th grade. Steroids made him psycho. It was awesome you guys took him out. Asshole wasn't even invited", laughs Mike.

"Oh yeah? What happened?"

"Melo hit him with a shovel", says Dev joining the circle as Jeff lights the joint.

"That guy was huge, I needed something", grinned Melo. "Barely slowed him down. Guy's a beast. But Jason dropped him. One shot and he went down."

"Good thing", says Jason joining the circle. "This chick told me in high school he lifted like 500 lbs. You do not want to be on the receiving end of that. His fists are like canned hams."

So we smoked. Kym and I were antsy. I could feel Dev and Melo were getting there too but Jason looked zen because he was holding and probably enjoying.

I learned from our new friends that Baron started problems by stealing a keg. His crew just grabbed one during the band and left. Then they came back for another one later. One of Annie's friend's called them out on it and Baron shoved him. In doing so he bumped Kym who got into it. Luckily, someone called the cops.

I looked at Mike, Jeff and Parker. Santa Barbara imparted a laid back beach culture vibe on them. Like even though it was winter Mike and Parker wore rubber slippers instead of shoes. Most of the guys at the party had short hair and backwards baseball caps. These three had shaggy hair like they were debating to grow it out. They looked as out of place at this party as we did.

"Jase", said Kym, "bump me some love."

I watch their faces. Marijuana and drinking is common in their circle. But I sense Kym was opening a gate these three never saw. Alert and interested, the Nintendo was forgotten.

"Uhm Kym...", says Dev looking at Mike.

"Don't worry Dev. Annie's passed out" says Mike. "What? Coke?"

"Naw" says Kym. "Coke AND heroin."

"Whoa!" says Parker looking at Jeff. But Mike sits up.

"Is that like opium?"

"Not really", says Melo. "More intense. Opium is closer to morphine."

"What...?" purrs Kym suggestively. "You boys want to try? I am exactly what your mothers warned you about..."

"Kym" sighs Jason. "This is not exactly the best-"

"Hey it's cool!", says Mike. "I'll totally pay if thats what you mean. I just want to try..."

"Mike!" says Parker, "Dude it's heroin. HER-O-IN!"

"I'll buy some too", says Jeff.

"Boys!" smiles Jason rubbing his forehead. "Look it's your party, you guys smoked us out and you let us chill here when the cops came. I'll get you high if you want."

"I want", says Mike sitting up.

Kym feeds herself first. Then I take a bump, Melo, Jason and Dev follow. We sit there in the unknown house eyes wide open and floating into the other world like a leaf spiraling towards a pond. I nod and feel myself sinking into still waters. I watch Kym offer a tiny bump to them. She rolls the straw across the glass table to Mike. I stare at the skull painted on her fingernail.

Jason stares into Kym's unwavering eyes, shakes his head and silently mouths: Devil's daughter.

Submitted June 25, 2015 at 12:18PM by morbo2000 http://ift.tt/1fDEiOr opiates