Flowers for Cigarettes

The past has got a way of creeping up on you. And that's fine if your past is all dandelions and sunshine, but my life’s been a barefoot race across broken glass and used needles. I’m tellin’ you, just when I thought I’d reached that finish line, it all came crashin’ down on me – Bam! A steel door right in my fucking face. Now, I gotta be dragged back through it all over again. And I mean literally fucking dragged back through all that broken glass and shit. I don’t know. You get into enough fucked up situations, it’s bound to smack you in the ass once you think you’ve buried it deeper than ash and bone.

Am I making any sense here? Shit. I’m only doin’ this cause Elliot said it’d help. Not sure what anyone could get out of one guy’s fucked up life though. Whatever.

The past caught up to me after a kiss that tasted like chinese takeout. It was one of those rare occasions I got Elliot to quit his, “higher than fast food” bullshit and order out. Not that healthy crap either. It was deep-fried delicious heaven. Man, back in the day, Panda Express was a fucking Christmas feast.

We were sitting in Elliot’s student apartment on an expensive couch, watching re-runs of some space shit he liked, and the rain was hitting the window outside. All I did was lean over and plant a good one on him, but he’d just taken a bite of the last egg roll and his lips tasted like duck sauce. Just like that, I was dragged back in time, like that dumb show on the tv.

Jamie Ray was his name. God. Haven’t even thought of him since I cleaned myself up.

Talk about ghosts from the fucking past.

On another rainy day a fucking lifetime ago, in a city more than an hour’s drive from Eliot's student apartment, me and him shared a kiss like that. It happened in a small apartment three stories up the middle of a beat-up city street. We put all we had into getting the fucking dump. That first night, me and Jamie huddled under a bunch of blankets on a cold floor with nothing but the clothes we wore and a backpack to carry. We didn’t even have heat, but we knew damn well it was a better place to be than out there.

A sit-com played on a TV screen not much bigger than the milk crate we had it on. We weren’t even payin’ attention to the static picture cause that Chinese was the biggest meal we had in weeks and we felt like a couple of teenagers sneakin’ a drink in their parents’ basement. I leaned in and kissed him at one point. He tasted like lo mein.

It was one of those surreal moments that knocked me on my ass and it wasn’t about to let me go easy. That’s why I had to go back.

It took almost my whole fucking day to get to the city. Half of it I spent pacing the station before I got the balls to buy a ticket, and the other half was wasted getting' through rush hour traffic on a bus packed with guys stranglin’ themselves in cheesy neckties and grandmas shufflin’ on board with bulging paper shopping bags.

The old neighborhood wasn’t what I remembered. Not like it ever is. A lot of the gutters smelt like piss and the windows were propped open with sticks or grimy old fans. Maybe I’d been sittin’ on my pampered ass too long. I smoked half a pack of Marlboros on the way over. I wasn’t gonna go home for a while, but I bet Elliot was still gonna smell the smoke and chew me out good for it. Man, if he knew half of what I’ve done and where I’ve been, I’m not sure he would of taken me outta the cold like he did.

I lit up outside a brick building, next to an old man in a lawn chair on the sidewalk. Mostly I didn’t want to look up at the apartments across the street. He was wearing nothin’ but a pair of boxers and frowning at a couple arguing across the street and, when he noticed me, just sneered and shook his head.

To be honest, I didn’t expect the old building to still be there. It was condemned shortly after I left. Even back then I thought that irony had a twisted sort of humor about it, but there it was.

Most of the windows had been busted out by rocks thrown by the neighborhood kids. The only money put into the place was some wooden boards crisscrossing the windows, and a, “Danger Do Not Enter,” sign plastered to the front doors. The numbers and names on the mailboxes were scratched off and one of the buzz buttons hung like an eyeball popped out of its socket.

There’re some places in the world where people put flowers and pictures on the street where people died. It was supposed to help the spirit rest or some shit like that. Around here what you got was a bunch of people with their heads down, trampling over your blood before it even got the chance to dry between the cracks in the sidewalk. I bet Jamie would of liked some flowers though.

I lit up and sucked it down. The smoke blew in front of me, clouding the view of the sad, shabby memory from a ghost that still gave me nightmares. I squinted real hard at the roof and could almost see a skinny figure watching me right back. It made my throat catch and my heart get all jittery.

It’s kinda like this— I could of turned around and walked back the way I came. I had a shit job working in the kitchen at Elliot’s school, and that was fuck all better than selling talents on a street corner for nickels and dimes. Even if it didn’t pay as good as selling goodie bags to the kiddies looking for a sweet high.

But I didn’t think of bringin’ any fucking flowers. The least I could do was drag me and my sorry ass bag of regrets back up those stairs. Otherwise, I’d live with the straps of that bag diggin’ into my shoulders for the rest of my life.

I got in from the fire escape but cut up my hands pretty bad jumping for the bottom rung of the ladder and had to kick the board out of the window when I got to the fourth floor. I was a sweating mess by the time I crawled into that dark hall.

The whole place reeked like death. There were tags on the walls but most of them had been absorbed by the rotting wallpaper peelin’ off in tight little curls. I kicked old, used needles, and trampled on dry rat shit when I walked.

One of the doors was kicked in. There was stained mattresses inside. The kind with springs poking out of the stuffing. One girl looked up at me with the glass eyes of a corpse before layin’ her head down to slink back into whatever numb bliss was chasin’ the demons that summer day.

Shit, how many times did Jamie see me like that?

I stepped over a body huddled against the wall and there it was. The old apartment. The number thirty-five was faded, but I could still see the outline.

I didn’t think I could do it. I didn’t want to face what was on the other end. It didn’t matter if the place had never changed or some more of these kids had turned it a den to forget the world in.

After the blood was cleaned off the sidewalk, I couldn’t even bring myself to go inside and get my shit. Officer Ray had to do it for me. But, the same force that got my skinny ass on that bus wouldn’t let me go.

Sometimes in life, you get this little voice in the back of your head, you know? And it, like, nags at you until you do something about it. I think every point of my life converged on that doorstep, and it didn’t matter where the fuck I went after Jamie was gone I was always gonna end up right back here one day. So, I opened that stupid door.

Most the place had been ransacked, but the bed was still there and, fuck me, I felt like I couldn’t breathe when I saw it. I walked on the same wood floors like some kind of fucking ghost. The same line of counters separated the squat kitchen from the rest of it. The TV was gone, but the milk crate we propped it up on was still off to the side.

To be honest I didn’t know what I was fucking doing. Standing in that room smoking a cigarette was the depth of my thinking ability. I used to blame it on the fucker my drunk of a mom used to cling to, cause he beat me pretty good before social services got off their asses. Not that they got me to any place better.

Those people, the ones with their picket fences and garages full of shiny new cars, they’re the real problem in society. They go around looking down their noses at the world and pointing fingers more dangerous than guns at the gutter scum and the kids picking through free clothes bins outside the shelters; talkin’ about the cruel world and hunger and all that shit they know nothing about. Then they go and pull one of those kids out of hell just to find out that the fucked up life they lived actually fucked them up. So they ship them back without even knowing what kind of seed that rejection planted in our heads.

I used to tell Jamie, ‘I'm the result of a society comfortable with shuffling the rejects under the rug.’ He never argued with me, but he’d start to look all sad and shit. I don’t know why. He was in the same boat as me. That’s what got us in this shit hole together- me selling needles, him selling favors. I’d tell him, in a way, we were getting back at the middle class. I ruined their kids, he ruined their husbands and wives. He didn’t like that either.

A car alarm was goin’ off on the street but it was a distant noise to the crackle of the cigarette and the fall of the lonely ashes between my feet. I took two steps and just like that I was standin’ in the middle of the room with a thousand memories swarming my head like flies. A little light came in through the cracks in the boarded window but the glass was so dingy the light comin’ in was a spooky sort of yellow.

I rummaged through the dresser. I knew what I was lookin’ for— not that I thought it’d still be there. People went at this place like ants tearin’ the limbs off dead insects. Some newspaper clippings were left. I used to draw skulls and shit over all the words till the sharpie fumes got me high. I’d sit in bed doin’ it every morning while Jamie made breakfast but it wasn't the shit I was looking for.

My fingers bumped something in the back of the drawer. Pretty sure my heart fucking stopped.

His journal.

My chest got real fucking tight when I saw that crummy old thing. Most the pages were held in by paper clips and it was all held together by a rubber band.

I kicked the milk crate over to the grimy window and took a seat in the sun. It sent up a dust cloud that had me hacking into my arm.

Or maybe it was the cigarettes.

It’s not that he ever wrote in it much. Half the pages were covered in crooked lines and music notes. It could of been computer code to all it was worth to me, but Jamie used to look at those pages and hum along like he was havin’ a conversation with the damn thing. The guy was a genius. He could of gone places.

A picture fell out when I opened it. I picked it up and held it to the light. It was me and him way back when we first got the place and before I started makin’ a habit of dipping into my merchandise. Shit, we looked young. He had his arm around my shoulder, and I stood in the apartment like I’d just conquered a country.

He had that clean cut sort of look and tight red curls springing up from his head. It was summer so his freckles covered his cheeks and neck. I looked like a little shit, pierced right down to the toes and a ring on every god damn finger. Man, what the hell was I thinking?

I thumbed through the rest of it. All of it music notes and little snippets of fucked up poetry. The last page was ripped out, but I knew what that one said. I’d carried it around for years after I saw him fall and finally burned it a few months before Elliot turned up.

His note.

Didn’t matter that it was ashes in the fucking wind. The few lines were etched into my head.

I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.

Fuck, I thought someone’s last words were supposed to be more poetic than that. I mean, didn’t kids usually write lengthy prose describing the horrors of their unfulfilled lives? I don’t know, but it pissed me off every time I looked at it. Kept me up at night. Made those highs even sweeter until they didn’t do a fucking thing anymore.

I leaned my head against the window pane and let the journal dangle in my hand. The silence kind of crept in while I sat there. Crept like the sun sinking behind the buildings.

I lit up again and held the picture out in the blood red light. Jamie had the kind of deep eyes that looked sad even when he smiled, like there in that picture. Guess I really should of been expecting it but that just goes to show what a fuck up I’d been.

I took a long drag, the cigarette crackling. “You’re a fucking shit you know that?” I said to him. No, I said it to the picture of him. I felt pretty stupid talking to a picture, but once the words came out it was like a water pipe busted.

“If you were gonna put an end to it don’t you think you could of done it somewhere private?”

He didn’t say anything in his defense. Of course not. It was just a stupid picture.

“I met someone. He’s nice but such a fucking closet case.” I laughed and snubbed the butt of my cigarette on the floor. “But at least he lets me kiss him cause he likes it and not cause he doesn’t want to hurt my precious feelings like you did.

“I got a job too. I’m all respectable and shit. Kind of sick to put a dumb ass around all those brains, but they only want me to make burgers most the time so it’s cool. Still not talking huh? Wish I knew what you want from me cause you’re kinda pissing me off hangin’ around my head so much lately.”

I flipped his journal to a random spot.

I’m so afraid to wake up and realize I’ll never get out.

“Do you want an apology?” I started pacing. “All right. Sorry I fucked up. Sorry I started using. Sorry I couldn’t pay my share anymore and you had to start fucking around again.” I was yelling but, you know what? I didn’t care. I tore out another cig but couldn’t stop my hands from shaking long enough to get it lit so I gave up.

“Don’t you think you could of talked to me? I mean, I couldn’t read your fucking mind, you know? I was an insensitive dick but I wasn’t a heartless fucking asshole.”

I wasn’t even talkin’ to the picture anymore. I was shoutin’ at the counters where he used to sit every time we argued. Well, I argued. He sat there with his head down while I threw my tantrum because he hid my stash or asked where my share of the rent went.

I could see him there now in the days before he jumped off the roof of the apartment building. He’d lost a lot of weight and I hadn’t even fucking noticed until I got a look at him—his head splattered on the sidewalk near the front steps.

Shit. I can’t even write about this without my hands shaking. I still see it in my head.

I didn’t believe it at first. It was— like, it couldn’t be real. Even though I was standin’ there across the street when he dropped seven stories like a fucking rock. I mean, I heard his head crack on the pavement and I still couldn’t believe it. I don’t even remember most of what happened until the ambulance had me sitting in the back of their truck with that fucking shock blanket around me.

I had his blood on my hands.

I remember Officer Ray though, bawling like a fucking baby on his knees right on the other side of the, “Do Not Cross,” tape.

“You broke that man you know. He wasn’t your dad but he wanted to be. Never fucking understood why you ran away from him. You were a good kid you could of had a normal life.”

His mom had been in witness protection when he was an infant. I never got the full story, but Jamie’s dad was a bad fucking guy and he was after them. Officer Ray was on the case until he kinda fell in love with the woman. Jamie never told me what happened, but I stole Elliot’s student pass and got into the research library. Sure enough, there was an article in the paper about a woman under witness protection found dead in her home.

There was a picture.

She looked just like him.

It went on to slam police efforts. Not much about a baby but I know Ray was gonna adopt Jamie before the dumb ass ran away. Turns out the home that had him for a while was a real bad place that really fucked him up. Officer Ray didn’t say much about it except that he had them dealt with.

It was dark enough outside that the street lights were flickering on and I couldn’t see very good anymore.

The space on the counter was one big empty shadow.

I took the journal and the picture with me back down the fire escape and held up in a motel for a night. I didn’t sleep very good. The stink of the old apartment was stuck to my skin. Have to admit, I thought of buying a gallon of gasoline at one point and lightin’ the whole fucking building up. I was sitting by the window, on my last cigarette when the sun came back.

What I did was I got dressed. I checked out of the room. I found a florist somewhere close by and bought a bunch of flowers. I don’t know what kind they were but there was a bunch of little purple and white ones. I got a vase too with a pack of envelopes and a pad of paper.

I walked back to the old building and put the vase and flowers on the front steps. Shit, it made no sense. He had a grave somewhere. I could of put the flowers there, but I had a feelin’ if he was still kickin around this world, it was gonna be right here. I don’t know. Leaving them felt right.

I left that old journal behind too, propped up against the stairs, and I stuck the picture of me and him to the vase with the gum I’d been chewing since a block over. I could of found a picture of just him, but I kinda died right there on that street too.

The envelope? Well, I had a little trinket on me and I took it out of my pocket right there on the busted street.

I don’t think I ever saw Jamie without it- a white gold necklace that belonged to his mom. There was a charm dangling at the end of a dainty chain. It was a small angel holdin some kind of pink stone against its chest. He said his mom used to tell him angels were watching over him.

Lookin back, I think I took it off of him after he jumped. Long before anyone did anything about my screaming. I must of known he was already dead. Otherwise, I don’t think I would of taken it. I’d worn it since that day too. It was a heavy little weight around my neck and the wings always cut real fitting like into my chest.

The last thing I did was put it in the envelope with Officer Ray’s name on the front. I wrote a quick note there against the bricks.

Sorry I kept this so long. I don’t need it anymore—Jake.

On the way back to the bus station, I had a big guy at the front desk in the police station bring it to Ray’s office. I said he’d know what it was about, but I didn’t stick around to make sure he got it.

Elliot was at the kitchen table when I got home. He had his laptop open and a stack of books off to one side. There wasn’t anywhere to eat cause of all the papers takin up table space but that didn’t stop him from having an empty dish and three cold cups of coffee on top of everything. He was wearin his big dorky glasses.

“I’m home,” I said, cause the fucker didn’t look up when I kicked the front door shut behind me. Most the time it pissed me off that he did that, but not this time. Guess it’s hard to count your blessings until you go back to visit the skeletons in the closet. Instead, some kind of unexplained force brought me across the room and I dropped a smooch on top of his head.

That got his attention at least. He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Where’ve you been? You made me worried.”

“Ya, you really look it.”

“Where were you?”

You know, I was pretty sure it was all over. The city was far behind me and I finally had the balls to go back to that place and say my goodbyes. But I dropped down on the sofa, and I fucking lost it. I dropped my head into my hands and bawled.

Man, I don’t think I’ve ever cried like that before. It felt like my heart was gonna explode right out of my chest. Elliot got over to me real fast and put his arms around me.

I ended up telling him everything about Jamie, the drugs, and all the fucked-up things I did right there on the sofa, where a kiss that tasted like Chinese food started this whole damn mess.

All he did was listen. It’s sort of what he does. Guess I didn’t give the guy enough credit. I was kind of sure someone like him, from a family where the biggest fuck up was a distant cousin smoking too much weed, would leave me for dust once I told him all the shit I’d done. But he didn’t. He held me and for the first time, he was the one who kissed me. I couldn’t even find the words in me to tell him how much that meant. Heh, maybe angels were watchin’ over me. Took them long enough to get off their asses though.

To be honest I still think of Jamie most the time. It still pisses me off what he did, but I guess deep down I feel a little grateful to him too.

I get moments that hit me out of nowhere. Sometimes it’s cause someone who looks like him passes me on the street, or I catch the sound of a piano through an open window. When it happens, a dark closet creaks open in my head, and I remember all that fucked up shit again. Some people say they wouldn’t change anything if they could go back and do it again. I think I would do it all different though.

I don’t know. The past is always gonna be there I guess. Best we can do is use it like a map to chart the future from—Jake.