Untitled

 This is the Mecca, the holy land of alleyways and avenues. It is
night and the rain washes the streets clean, giving them some vestige of
beauty...
        He stands in a pool of streetlight that bleeds from a lamp
overhead. He waits, for the connection, for Mr. Fixit. For his own
personal "doctor." He shivers in this uncaring half-light, waiting for his
drug.
        ...In this city, this great god of punk rockers and freaks and
vampires and anyone who would dare call themself a rebel or creatrue of
the night. The city is an uncaring and angry god, sick of all these
parasitic welts that have attatched themselves to its backside. They
stream here every day, hoping for their "break;" all of them seeded with
thoughts  of revolution.
        He came like all the rest, hitchhiking down nameless highways
until he arrived. He would have kissed the dirty ground in joy, but that
would ruin his image, his style. He with is hair dyed blood red and his
combat boots laced up tight. Black jeans, leather jacket, black
bandanna...everything just right. His first day in the city he just walked
the streets trying to look like he belonged, but staring like a
schoolchild all the while. He strutted down the street humming along to
the Billy Bragg tune that  rang in his ears. That night he slept under a
stolen newspaper, feeling stronger all the while.
        ...The city takes them and tearsthem like wet paper towels. Hooks
them with its claws of heroin and speed and sex. Drinks the marrow from
thier bones and the life from their souls. The dealers and pimps are the
high priests of this dark religion that accepts all, its only bible a
needle. Its only price, your flesh...
        After the first cold night, he found a home; a two-room apartment
that he shared with ten others. There really wasn't a problem for space;
everyone came and went so frequently. Stopping only for a fwe hours of
sleep or a bite of food or the occasional bottle of beer. This house had
only one rule: don't get hooked. He had been told that on the first day,
"We accomplish nothing in the hooks of a drug. We all cme here to find
ourselves and change this world. You can't accomplish anything with a
monkey on your back." And how he had tried, but the promise of a new
reality, a new happiness, called to him. Finially he gave in.
        ...It starts slowly. One never feels hooked, you always feel like
you can leave. That's the way the city wants it. As they take the needles
into themselves and swallow the pills, the city merley laughs. Yet another
soul to fill its collection. But if one of these lost souls should happen
to escape its addiction, the city's screams of rage can be heard in every
breaking window pane, in every crush of blood and bone...
        They found him one day, as he always thougt they would. They found
him hunched over his little  mirror with his little rolled-up dollar bill.
They found him on his knees. Then they took him. Into the back, into a
room that locked from the outside. They threw him in with a gallon of
water and said he could come out when he was clean and free from the
chemicals that held him. He screamed until his throat bled, until he could
only croak. He beat and kicked at the door, until he could only crawl. And
crawl he did, up to the doorway where he clawed until a single, painted
fingernail stuck in the wood of the door. Then he passed into the
darkness, into a painful, healing sleep.
        ...The city doesn't want its slaves escaping. It makes it hard,
nearly impossible. If the city is a god, then withdrawl is its Hell. Not a
place of flames, but a prison of the mind and flesh. Where all is seen
through the shards of a broken mirror, and the only movement is a
shiver...
        He awoke. Cold, thirsty, alone. He managed to claw the water jug
open with the remnants of his fingers. How long he had been in this room
was a mystery to him. Disconnected images came to him: The door that
wouldn't open, the empty corners of this room. He had heard the voices of
his friends offering support, encouragment, even threats from just beyond
his door. For the first time in weeks he thought clearly. The burning pain
in his fingers was a blessing ot him. It meant he was still alive. It mean
he could still feel. With these tourtured hands, he knocked on the door.
With the scraps of his voice he called out, "I'm ready, I'm done. Let me
out."
        ...The city is not all bad. For every demon that moans in the
gutter, there is an nagel singing on the rooftops. For every dealer of
death, there is a giver of life. For every spot of pollution, a thing of
purity. The city is balance; simple and brutal. The city is a place of
ugliness and torture in the night. But in the morinings, after the early
rain falls and the sun gently brushes its lips against the sky's forehead,
those who do not hide their faces from the light see that even this city
can be a thing of beauty...