Lipsick and fucked.

[greedy fly]

Diary of a Junkie. Day one.

Well, Jonny Rockefellar, I guess you aren't really dead, and you probably just skipped town like I thought you did all along. I don't remember quite what happened, but I knew Solomon and Jonny betrayed me today. In some way. In some way they thought they were doing something good and abandoned me at the clinic. They're both hypocrites. They're both cokeheads. They can sit and lie and pretend they're not addicted to shit too, but they are. They just think they're beyond heroin. Well, fuck you two.

They were overreacting. Solomon was already high as a kite from God-knows-what, Jonny was straight. They were acting like I was ODing or something as they shoved me into the back of Jonny's car, and Jonny held onto me and whispered shit I didn't even understand and Solomon drove in that state. I remember Jude once saying that Solomon drove as good as a car of nuns or some shit, and when he's high, let me tell you it's worse. I could hear them talking about me. I could hear Solomon saying: "She's gonna be pissed" and Jonny saying something along the lines of: "Better pissed off than dead." First time I ever saw those fuckers get along. Maybe they felt like they were being good samaritans.

So here I am. I screamed all yesterday, I've been puking all fucking morning and where are the only two men in my life? Not here. I asked the nurse if I was allowed visitors and she didn't even answer me. I want to know if they're being pricks by not showing up, or if they're just not allowed to. Either way when I get out I'm gonna smack Jonny back and make his fucking head spin. Then I'm gonna cut Solomon's hair when he sleeps, and sabotage his girlfriend's panties. If he has one.

[greedy fly]

Quinn wrapped her skinny arm around the back of Glue Girl's neck, tapering with the Joan Jett-coal, unctuous strands, staggering out of tune with her human crutch. V was hissing curses beneath her breath, cherry lipstick almost completely daubed away by underage drinking, and chainsmoking bliss.

"Jesus Christ, Quinn. You'sa'skinny bitch but 'ya fawkin' weigh a lot."

Peering down at the shorter girl with the lunar-glow complexion (perfection) she slurred a string of mutters.

"Babe...we can't all be like you..havin' those nice wiiiide hips and that big fuckin' rack and ...don't call me skinny. Y'know, y'know..Jonny man, he called me Skinny. Tried to force food down my throat but Sicky nah, Sicky would just eat my food...and Sol didn't really care. I don't think he noticed."

Verona's mind was concentrating on one thing: What the fuck is this bitch on about?

"Yeah."

They had three more blocks to go before V could crash on her friends couch and let Quinn throw up all by her lonesome. (Even though Quinn claimed she never threw up.) For a nineteen-year-old girl, she was fairly tough. This wasn't a tough pill to swallow. She used to haul Ryan's queer body (that was skinnier than Quinn's) home on one arm, and 'York Kid on the other.

Speaking of Ryan, he was stumbling right behind them, feasting on a paper-bagged bottle of Jack Daniels, his eyeliner smudged, his tattoos prominent in the moonlight, piercings clattering with the bottle glass.

"ODE TO QUINN!" He shouted, fisting the air, sloppily. "QUINN IS LIKE....QUINN IS LIKE ---YEAH QUINN!"

Quinn started punching the air, too, albeit weakly, before her arm fell limp. "Punk rawk. Woo..yeah. All that shit."

"Quinn, you're not punk rock, shut the fuck up," V scorned her, tossing Ryan a daggered stare. He promptly shut up, staking his forefinger to the crease of his lips.

"Shhh...nnn.." he rasped.

When they reached the stairway of the building, Ryan finally arched low to crawl under the inebriated ashtray girl's other arm to clamber like a sloppy trio up the stairs. By the time they reached the third flight, they almost gave up, and tossed her in Solomon's.

"Quinn's heavvvyy!" Ryan bellowed, as they thundered at sloth's pace up the littered stairway.

Then, on top of the stairway stood Syme and Johnny C. who were looking suspiciously guilty. They probably played 'toss the bunny' again.

"Wot the fuck is aw'the'rackit?!!" Demanded the blonde one. Johnny was raising his own whiskey bottle to Ryan in a tacit cheers.

"She's drunk.. help me out you skinny bastard." Right now, Verona felt like she was going to be nauseated.

Now, there was an official little parade. There were four gangly arms wrapping Quinn up, one from the front, one from the back, and two from the side. All the noise was beginning to alarm the neighbors, considering Syme and Ryan were cackling at one another.

They could hear Solomon storming to his door a flight down and threaten them all within an inch of their lives, oblivious to the fact he was talking two ladies. Syme and Johnny C. never shut the fuck up.

Finally, after Verona plunged her hand into Quinn's plaid pocket, she unlatched the door, and everyone tumbled in together in unison, letting the girl fall flimsy on the floor, unconscious. Glue Girl sprinted to the bathroom to crumble to her knees in tile-prayer, embrace the toilet bowl and vomit, Syme and Johnny C. contemplated over Quinn's body, and Ryan started a strip show on the coffee table.

This was life.

[greedy fly]

April.


"My name's Quinn and I'm a fuckin' junkie."

"Quinn," her smile was worn and trying. Anyone could tell that the group therapy leader with her patient frost-blue eyes and chapstick-balmy lips was struggling to keep her patience. Her wrinkled hands were fringed with winding blue veins, latched chalky and tight together. "We prefer the term 'addict' in Lakeview."

"I'm sorry. My name's Quinn and I'm a fucking addict."

The cynical girl's eyes were tear-sheened, although she'd never admit it. Her gauze-coiled wrist kept batting against the side of her lashes, her jaunty kneecap wavering up and down. The group of cigarette-smoking zombies all launched a 'hello Quinn," in falsely amiable unison.

"Quinn, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself?"

Between switchblade fingers, she stubbed the cigarette out on the table beside her, binding kneecaps into her chest, fastened in a tight fetal hold.

"I'm uh...twenty-five...I live in Center City, work at a tattoo sho---"

"No, how about more along the lines of ...why you came here last week?"

Darting her gaze around the tension in her muscles pinched her nerves. The black guy across from her looked like he was a former crackhead, but he was eating her alive with his eyes. She wanted to smack him upside the head.

"Uh ..cos my friends are assholes."

[greedy fly]

<center>Thirty days, lord and thirty nights
I?m comin? home on an airplane flight
Mama waitin? at the ticket line
Tell me son why do you stand there cryin?


It was the needle and the spoon
And a trip to the moon
Took me away, took me away

I?ve been feelin? so sick and tired
Got to get better, lord before I die
Seven doctors couldn?t help my head, they said
You better quit, son before your dead


Quit the needle. Quit the spoon
Quit the trip to the moon
We gonna take you away. Lord, we gonna take you away

It was the needle and the spoon

I?ve seen a lot of people who thought they were cool
But then again, lord I?ve seen a lot of fools
Well, I hope you people; Lord can hear what I say
You?ll have your chance to hit it some day

-- Lynyrd Skynyrd</center>

She took the scenic route. The ribbon shoebox in the backseat rattled a thousand secrets with the highway gusts of Southern wind teasing at it. Quinn Rosalin had gotten about halfway to upstate New York, when she said ?fuck it? and turned abruptly around. Besides, she was getting loss, and the streets seemed too jumbled for her. Sure, she missed him. Cool Jude, with his mellow attitude, his inappropriate jokes, and his rough, leather charm. It seemed she was the only one who didn?t resent him somehow, and unlike everyone else, she understood why he left, and she wanted to keep their friendship preserved somehow. But, there were other things that were pulling her magnetically down towards the Bible belt, and Jude was tossed to the back burner so she could sort them out.

Her bony arm was extended over the steering wheel, clenching junk bucket leather. It was highlighted with a daft golden drive?s tan. The vapor over the Smoky Mountains played a clever shroud over the ripples of verdant green. The gaping Tennessee road spraying dust circles around her weather-beaten tires. Daylight could barely penetrate her sunglasses; her pixie hair whipping with a helicopter wing?s grace. The truckers were becoming oh-so predictable; grubby hands would bunch at the brims of their coffee-blemished t-shirts and they?d pantomime a flashing, practically begging her. It was too bad Quinn was wearing a dress, or she might?ve considered it. It wasn?t just any dress, but rather, the seashell-white sundress splotched with blossoms that she left Arizona in many years before. Her unlaced combat boot with the panting leather tongue clapped on the accelerator, savoring the 70 M.P.H. speed limit, which seemed like a rarity to her. She had already driven oblivious down the legendary Route 66 and was now officially winding at 82 M.P.H. down 75 South.

Swirling her rusted volume dials higher, she sang alone with squinted eyes to the Lynyrd Skynyrd blaring in her tape deck. When a car zipped by her, the passengers usually found themselves inadvertently smiling at her antics. But, right now it was only her and Van Sant?s voice, and she felt a radiating happiness swelling in her heroin-skinnied ribcage.

That was when she made out a vague silhouette in the distance, crunching along the road lit with the mirages of a ninety-five degree heat wave. She spiked the jerky brake with a stubby heel so hard that her glove compartment flung open, expelling a crumpled road map and tampons on the empty driver?s seat. He was posing with a cowboy hat, a solid, tight-fitted green t-shirt, faded jeans, and dirt-kicked boots ironically right next to a ?Do not hitch hike? sign, his switchblade thumb protruding at the side, a Jansport slung over a meager shoulder.

?Stupid piece of shit?? she growled, stashing it back in place with an impatient clap. Pumping down the window manually with a lean over the seats, he approached, his eyes cutting protective crescents from the solar glare, his arms layering over the roof of the shallow blue, ancient Honda.

?Where ?you headed?? She was inwardly disappointed with his common, generic, Northern accent. Even with his cowboy hat, he was as boring as her vocally.

Her sunglasses took a ski down the perspiring slope of her nose, so she could zoom in on him with better clarity.

?The question is, where are you headed, buddy??

He sliced a poignant grin at this.

?Anywhere but here.?

?Good, hop in.?

And he did just that, springing a mold into the passenger?s side. She debated for a moment on whether she found him attractive or not. He was about as pale as her, lean-boned, with a steep, stern nose, and blue eyes sunken like gemstones in a secret cavern.

?I?m Jim,? he offered, amiably spreading his sweatsoaked hand, before he swatted absently at a buzzing fly that swooped past his ear.

?Quinn,? replied curtly, as his bag slouched on the floor (littered with fast food crinkled paper) and she tilted her glasses back up, conforming to a firm, masculine shake. He already found her cute in more ways than one.

Spiraling the volume so low that it was practically mute, finally hitching into ?park? despite her crooked position, she plunged a hand to the side of her own seat, plucking out an intimidating baseball bat that had been wedged in a hiding spot next to the window. Immediately, he took a defensive posture; spreading out his hands as makeshift armor, shrinking in his seat.

?Whoa, whoa?? He exclaimed with bated breath.

?Now,? unflinching, she bladed her tongue tissue over a thick cotton-candy pink lower lip. ?Let?s lay down some ground-this-is-Quinn?s-car-rules. Rule one: no touchy, touchy. Rule two: don?t give me shit about my music. I like ACDC. I don?t care what anyone says.?

?So if I say ?TNT? or whatever it?s called sucks, you?ll pummel me to death?? An amused sarcasm blended with his bass-strummed voice.

?Yep.?

?Sounds fair.?

<center>After she lets you glide around
Finally hit the ground
Like a paper plane
Take a trip, join me in the sun
But not really though
Cause I ain't having fun
Cause summer here kids
Summer here totally lies
Tourist info said I'd have a good time
Summer here kids
All of them awful lies
Tourist info said I'd have a good time
Do as I didn't do because
I'm a picture of indumbivivity
Stay alone put a record on
Listen to the songs
Keep yourself at home
Cause summer here kids
Summer here totally lies
Tourist info said I'd have a good time
Summer here kids
All of them awful lies
Tourist info said I'd have a good time
I'm not having a good time

-- Grandaddy.</center>


?This is just fucking awesome,? she declared, lolling her head back to stare at the huge Walmart Super Center sign. He stood next to her, unfazed, a hand sliding into his condensed back pocket. They were in Pigeon Forge, and although there were a thousand sights to see, she picked here.

?I need to get some Pop Tarts.? She was rolling her cart inside the automatic doors, practically skipping along. ?They have everything here! A fucking grocery store in Walmart? A video store? Holy Christ.?

?It?s? Walmart, Quinn.? Jim felt the need to inform her of that, dipping a nod at the passerbys as a yellow sticker was pressed to his shirt collar by an arthritis-shaky old man that stood guard next to the entrance.

As soon as they started to skim through the aisles, the girl throwing random things into the cart, and the boy marveling at all the paint ball guns and pellet guns they were just ?selling to sixteen-year-olds, she attempted to idle into conversation.

?So Jim, where ?ya from??

?Jersey.?

?Where in Jersey??

?Wildwood. You??

?I?m from Arizona.?

?So, you?going back home??

?Somethin? like that.?

About an hour later she was loading her trunk with useless junk groceries; Pop Tarts? candy, gum, and a pellet gun just to say she had one?for the sake of credibility. It wasn?t long before she was skimming past trees into the tourist town of Gatlinburg. The mountains were erected high over the shops, mini-golf islands, museums, and bars. When she finally squealed into a parking spot, they wandered around aimlessly, he was picking at cotton candy and taking in the sights, and she was narrowing in on her destination: the ski-lift that must?ve been miles off the ground.

It didn?t even hit him that it was happening until she split open her wallet, and shifted through two ten dollar bills, pushing him along to the platform with the moving seats.

?Uh?.Quinn..?

?What? We?re taking a ride.?

?Quinn, I uh---? The friendly Southern man splayed a hand across the lower hollow of her vertebrae, and escorted her into a seat, and she tugged Jim down beside her. The only thing that was holding them in was a flimsy, yellow-chipped bar that could just as easily be jolted back up.

Despite the numerous signs along the cable lines that pleaded: ?No rocking or swinging? she did just that, basking in nervous white that crept like paste over him.

?What?s wrong?? Painted with a devilish, Persephone smile as they creaked back and forth, slowly creeping up the mountain, he shrank down lower, fanning his cowboy hat over his chest.

?I..fucking hate ..heights, I hate---oh Jesus Christ. How far up is this?? His knuckles flexed white over the safety bar.

?Like, two miles or something. Just think. If you fell right now? You?d land on that red Cadilla---EW. JIM!?

She exploded into laughter, as he struggled to restrain himself from throwing up but he failed miserably. It was nothing but stringy bile since his stomach had been empty all day, so her amusement was riding high.

?It?s not funny.---?

?All over the red Cadillac!?

The howling of horns down below did nothing to sate him. His legs hung limp and he slipped into a miserable void until the ride finally ended. The whole way back to the car she was animated, but kept patting his back.

As they headed towards Chattanooga to escape to Georgia, the only sound was the lull of the highway and a complacent silence. Purple haze left strands over the mountains in their wake as night time rapidly approached. He sat with his arms folded, gnawing at a piece of Trident, with Quinn propped, still thriving with that enigmatic smile.

There were a thousand billboard advertisements for Firework Super Stores, which of course, distracted her, and she pulled into one gas station at a random exit. There was a firework shack nearby that claimed to be open for twenty-four hours, but the parking lot looked shady. He stood in front of the gas pump, watching her trot across the street to the firework store, his mouth wringing a wry grimace.

?Quinn?? He called. ?Why don?t you wait a few minutes till I?m done here, huh?? Because you never know with these Southern-bred boys, baby.

She simply gave him a dismissive wave and disappeared inside. It wasn?t long before he was tripping off after her, after the twenty dollars of regular was nourishing her tank. He stumbled inside only to find her packing her arms with bottle rockets, dynamite, and cheap fireworks. The store owner was a middle-aged man who was smiling fondly at her until he fumbled in, and as Jim regarded him in his peripheral, he frowned in disdain and retreated behind the counter in shadows to read about Nascar.

? ?These your 4th of July plans?? He crept up behind her, signaling to the bundle cramped to her chest.

?Nope. We?re gonna set them off tonight. Just down the street,? she informed him. And she didn?t lie.

Jim knew better than to protest by now ? baseball bat or no baseball bat.

Beaming at the way she flung herself like a ragdoll away from the sparkler, she plugged her ears as the shimmering firework rocketed into the noir sky, and exploded a neon, alien green glow. Trudging over tufts of weeds in the abandoned parking lot, he pushed her aside so he could try the dynamite. It didn?t look very threatening. It was about five bucks.

?Stand back, little lady.?

?Yeah, okay.?

Narrowing a playful glare at her, he descended to his knees, and lit the fuse with a butane lighter, before he sprinted to his feet, and drew back several feet, a cautionary gate of an arm slashing across her waist to keep her back. Instead of producing anything colorful, it just erupted into an ear-splitting boom that left huge dent in the earth, like a mini meteor.

?Oh shit,? they both cried in unison, whilst flailing their arms back to the car. They drove off like two thieves speeding away from a robbed Western Union.

They were on the road again, arrowing for Georgia. ?Pure Morning? by Placebo played like a cryptic lullaby on her mixed tape, and it almost lured him into sleep as the truck lights streamed over his face.

?Come on, you know the words.? She attempted to ebb him with a jab over her scrawny elbow.

?It sounds like?his voice is bleeding,? Jim offered with an almost flustered wrinkle of his nose.

Quinn was about to whip out the baseball bat and threaten like a madwoman but she was sidetracked by a beaten down, tin can of a shack called ?Reamers? that offered ?Good eats? and ?Good drinks.?

?We gotta go there.? She didn?t even wait for him to reply before she started swerving towards it.

?I don?t want to go anywhere that claims to have ?good eats?.?

Once again, Jim found himself lagging behind her, as they passed into a quiet bar atmosphere. Flannel-shirted, hefty men were sporadically decorating stools, the froth of their beer forming moustaches as they all leered on Quinn like she was a piece of meat. Jim felt suddenly protective over her, and even dared to toss one a sneer as he hiked himself into a seat beside her.

?What?ll it be?? She was snickering because the bartender had a towel clapped over his shoulder, and a moustache that resembled Hitler?s?probably by accident. Everyone down here seemed to cherish their Dixie pride with Confederate flags stamped on their bumpers.

? ?Four shots of Jack.?

But this time, Jim infringed.

?Just two, I don?t want any.?

Quinn stared at him like he just stabbed her baby.

?You don?t want anything to drink? I?ll even pay for it. Treat?s on me. We gotta drink some.?

She was starting on her fifth cigarette in the last hour, tugging an ashtray towards her to dangle ash into its amber tint, her long legs lapping over one another. To her, it was an insult when someone wouldn?t drink with her. She was almost Southern-bred in that respect.

?I uh?don?t really drink ??

?Uh-oh, do we have a recovering alcoholic on our hands??

Jim just shrugged. She decided since he was only about twenty-four, he couldn?t have ever been a true alcoholic. In her mind, there were age limits.

When her shots arrived, she clinked them together, as though one of the stunted glasses belong to him, and gulped them down one right after the other, scowling at the caustic taste that she hammered down like a genuine Irish lad.

<center> She puts the, she puts the weights
Into my little heart
And she gets in my room
And she takes it apart
She puts the weights
Into my little heart
I say she puts the weights
Into my little heart

She packs it away

-- Interpol</center>


Thirty minutes later, he gave in, and was on his sixth tequila shot.

?What the hell were y?doin? in Tennessee, Jim?? She asked, strung out over the bar, bobbing her head to Nashville country music. The bar was practically vacant now, save for a few left-behind truckers.

?Just got outta jail ?? He blew a bubble between his lips before slapping his palm to his forehead.

?Oh that sucks?how long??

?Six months, it was a two-year-term. Good behavior.?

?I can?t picture you goin? to jail?.? She started, sucking down another cigarette. Down here, it was about two dollars a pack. In Philly, it was edging six. ?What did you do, man??

?I don?t know? I just fucked up a little bit, y?know? Had a good girl. Had a good, good, good girl, and I fucked it all up.? He shifted and produced his wallet, plucking out a wrinkled Polaroid of an especially exotic-looking girl, with toxic green slits for eyes, black, banged hair, and moles winsomely decorating her chest. ?Her name?s Lola. ?Best and worst thing that ever happened to me. I just ?didn?t treat her right.?

Quinn sighed at the picture, turning it over to stare at the permanent markered plump hearts and ?I love you?s? scribbled in cursive on the opposite side.

?She?s somethin? else.? She handed the picture back, solemnly. But now, it was really killing her. She wanted to know what he had done to land him in jail at such a young age. Now, he had nothing. No place to go, just a bookbag containing the clothes he came in, some toiletries and a meager wad of bruised money.

Fitting her chin into her palm, she swerved to peer out the window at the pale ball of warmth that was the Southern moon, when she realized there was a man hovering over her passenger?s seat. They had left the windows open, unsuspecting.

?Hey, what the fu??

She jumped to her feet, and all of the inebriation hit her like a tidal wave. Bracing herself at the corner of the bar, she started to jog out of the door, with Jim on her tail. The bartender started to bellow at him because they hadn?t paid the tab, but right now, he wasn?t concerned.

Alcohol had slowed the trucker?s reaction time, who was slinging her purse over his shoulder, and flitting through the scarlet-ribboned shoebox in the backseat. When he saw them advancing, he fit the shoebox under his arm, and started to stumble with eyes (as wide as a deer in headlights) bulging towards his monstrous Food Lion truck.

?Give me that, you fucking asshole!? Quinn was shrieking now, her throat cords vibrating as glossy pictures began to slip from the box as he skirted across the gravel. She felt sobered up already as she started to crane down and retrieve the photographs; one-by-one. Jim saw how hopeless she looked. It wasn?t even the purse that concerned her, but rather that fucking shoebox that was dripping windwhipped secrets.

Right before the pudgy man could load himself in the seat, he caught his arm, and jerked the box from him, and threw it on the ground. A sudden nauseous wave of white-hot anger flooded over him. It pissed him off so much to see her upset like that. She looked as though she were going to cry, and Quinn was a tough cookie. Scarecrow-skinny, but pumping with adrenaline, he viciously martyred the man on the side of his car, and slammed his dipping shoulders into it repeatedly, gritting his teeth. Vulgarities spun like bullet chambers from his tongue as he cracked a wrist into his jaw and watched with a violent blaze of glory as he toppled to the gravel. Jim bent beside him, and kneed him promptly in the nose, until he was a flatline of human flesh, fetal-curling himself when his boot collided angrily with his ribcage.

The bartender was loitering at the door, claiming that the cops were on their way, but it was Quinn that tore him away.

?You?re going to fucking kill him, Jim! Stop it! Stop it!?

That ripped him back into reality, and he stammered back, gulping down oxygen, his chest rocketing as he stared wild-eyed down at the man.

?Motherfucker.? With one more final, hypnotic blow, he unbuckled the purse strap from his cinched palm, and offered it back to her.

They drove in more silence, passing the tedious road signs of Atlanta, Georgia, which for once, wasn?t clotted in traffic. Protectively the shoebox sat upon her thighs, the windows rolled up to save the pictures from escaping again. He kept fading in and out of sleep beside her, before curiosity finally piqued him enough to ask.

?What?s in the shoebox??

?Pictures,? responded, without once taking her eyes off the road.

?Of??

?The past.?

?Is that why you?re going to Arizona??

All she could do was nod.

?Who?re they pictures of??

He stretched out in his seat, temporarily contorted with a mapped-out yawn.

?Just people.?

?Boyfriends??

She remained silent, and he just nodded the answer to his own question.

?Are you going to burn them??

?No, that?s too clich?.?

?Can I see?? The tone of his voice resembled a little boy?s. She pinballed a wary glance to him before she passed it to his lap, only because she was intoxicated, and she felt especially close to him right now for defending the shoebox like a slumfucked knight.

He unveiled the pictures inside, and began shifting through them. They were all unprofessional photographs; moments captured by white-framed Polaroid film, or by disposable cameras, but the subjects interested him. The first one he found, he stuck up, and she glimpsed to it.

?Who is this??

?That?s Jonny.?

?Tell me about Jonny.?

?There?s not much to say. He was just a guy that really liked me, and I guess I liked him too.?

?So what happened??

?He was too intense ?way too fast. He didn?t give me a moment to find myself or breathe.?

That explanation was enough for him, so he sorted through more, and found one of a somber-eyed man with sticky black eyes and Indian-tapered black hair.

?This one??

She swallowed and went silent. This lingered for an awkward cliffhanger of about thirty seconds.

?That?s Eli.?

?And what happened with him??

?Bad things always happen to the good guys.?

Jim found an old picture of her and her father, or at least, he swore it must?ve been her father, considering the close features, and he way she was tucked under his arm with mousy dirty blonde hair and a sundress. He passed that one without a word, discovering an almost aesthetic photograph of a man with a suit, looming in a city doorway, with his arms folded business-like, and his peroxide-blonde hair clashing dramatically with his choice of outfit.

?This??

?Sick Boy.?

?What kind of name is Sick Boy??

?..You?d have to know him to understand it. His real name?s Simon. Scottish. They call him that because he scams people. Directs pornos, sells drugs, steals a lot of shit. But the fucker loved me. He did, and I uh, I fucked that up, too.?

?How??

?I was young, and ran away as soon as I started saying: ?I love you, too.? ?

The last picture he discovered was of two men. They were both holding beers on a couch at what seemed to be a party. One had his arm slung around the younger one?s neck, and the younger one with the firm jaw was beaming boyishly into the camera.

?Them??

?Oh, that?s Jude and Sol. They?re my best friends, even if Jude moved away.?

?Why?re you gettin? rid of it then??

?I?m doing it for Solomon?s sake. He loves the hell out of Jude, still, even if he won?t admit it. He still fucking bellyaches about betrayal because Jude moved away.?

?So, they?re fags??

?Nah. Only for each other. Solomon and Jude are like the pussy-machines. They get it anywhere they go. But no, y?know, Jude has kids now, Solomon has a kid on its way, met this sweet piece of Italian ass, and the past just isn?t good for him. It isn?t good for me, either. Y?gotta move forward.?

?Oh.?

He folded the box carefully into the backseat, glancing over at her expression. It had hardened over the course of their conversation, but he swore he saw a sad cushion of something in her eyes. It was probably broken nostalgia. She pulled over to the side of the road, suddenly, and he stared at her, dazed. Her forefinger jabbed out his window, and he spun to stare at the trees.

There must?ve been hundreds of them; they lit up the lush greenery like Christmas stars, flickering on and off, circulating through the shrubbery. The fireflies blazed and illuminated the whole strip. Locusts and crickets resonated a rickety orchestra as a backdrop to the light show.

?We should find some place to stay tonight,? he mumbled, still drunk by the scenery. ?I?ll put us up in a motel.?

?Cool.? Quinn merged back into the road, leaving their pretend constellations behind like it was nothing.


<center>Lips are turning blue
A kiss that can't renew
I only dream of you
My beautiful

Tiptoe to your room
A starlight in the gloom
I only dream of you
And you never knew

Sing for absolution
I will be singing
Falling from your grace

There's nowhere left to hide
In no one to confide
The truth runs deep inside
And will never die

Lips are turning blue
A kiss that can't renew
I only dream of you
My beautiful

Sing for absolution
I will be singing
Falling from your grace

Sing for absolution
I will be singing
Falling from your grace

Our wrongs remain unrectified
And our souls won't be exhumed

-- Muse</center>


The twin beds sang with hangovers and clouded sighs as sunlight dripped into their room, and the owner rapped on the cheap, sleazy door to announce that it was eleven AM and they should?ve been on their way out.

Quinn stood to brush her teeth, the minty foam careening over the glossy isles of her teeth as she hastily spat, rolling deodorant under her arms. Jim wandered towards the bathroom, nearly holding his triphammering head. He had no problem with unzipping in standing and unzipping in her presence, and she didn?t seem to care much. He peeked over discreetly as she rolled off her wifebeater and stepped back into her dress, and if she noticed, she did a good job of pretending she didn?t.

Fifteen minutes later, they were scraping lifelessly across the parkinglot. He halted at a vending machine to tap in quarters into the welcoming slots, disgruntled when it didn?t spit out the bag of Cheez-It?s back at him. As soon as he started to jostle the inanimate machine, she rolled her eyes.

?Come on.?

For days they tirelessly drove on and on, switching spots, cracking their backs at Pilot truckstops, dousing their throats and veins with coffee, poisoning themselves with fast food. Nothing dragged on like the passages through Texas and New Mexico. There was nothing to see but sick, unquenched land, and a buzzing silence that ranged for miles. But when they arrived in Arizona, she drank in the blurring sights with an almost ghastly smile. Jim observed that she was a good driver?woman or not. In the past five days that he got to know her, she hadn?t taken one wrong exit, and only stopped to scroll her eyes over the map a handful of times.

They talked about Philadelphia and New Jersey, compared and contrasted---mostly contrasted, and about Jim?s hitch hiking adventures. She told him about her heroin addiction, and he finally admitted to being an alcoholic ever since he had his first drink at fifteen. He told her about California and Lola, and how disappointed he was to find her stripping. She debated about how it wasn?t a demeaning job, and poked chauvinist sticks at him, but in the end, it was all out of good humor.

Arizona led to a destination, that he was actually expecting. A beaten down house on the end of the hill with a truck in the driveway, and worn tires dispersed over the pavement. He knew her dad lived there the moment she stepped out with a scowl.

?You?re not going to get all Jenny from Forrest Gump on me now, are ?ya?? He swept his visor-like wrist across his brow, smearing away the sweat that had gathered, his shirt billowing in a sickly, mute breeze.

?Nah.?

?Are you gonna go in and say hi??

?Nah.?

She strolled with her symbolic shoebox to the doorstep, and blotted it down there, before she stood back and propped both hands on the curves of her hips. She seemed to be in a trance, so he left her to her own devices, and sat back on the hood of her car, admiring a cancerous dead dandelion?or rather a wishflower, twisting it in the vice of his fingers with a gust of breath to send his wish aflight.

He wished for peace and happiness. It might?ve sounded clich?, but he really meant it. He even wished a chunk of that for her, as well.

Soon enough she pivoted on heel and crunched back to the car. Behind the creaking screen door, stood an aging man with a peppered beard and a hat brim shading his eyes.

?Quinn? ?That you??

Unresponsive, she slid into the car, and Jim batted away the dandelion to sit beside her, staring at the man through the windshield. He kicked back, both knobby knees rattling against the dashboard as she burned rubber in reverse, and shifted back onto the dirt road. For some reason he didn?t think that she wasted anything by coming here. The gas money, the time off of work, the effort. She was burying some things, and he was glad to be there with her.

On their way back to Philadelphia, she told him that she could teach him a few tricks at the parlor, and since he was fresh out of jail, she?d give him a place to stay until he was on his two feet. Somewhere between South Carolina and North Carolina, where this comical peach towered in the azure skies, he let the picture of Lola go out the window, and it was splattered by the wind, and floated like a dizzy butterfly onto a road sign before dwindling to the ground.

[greedy fly]

Tripping down memory lane.

Dylan's comic book-noir scalp dipped back against the headboard, as he watched her trot past him in those stilettos and her underwear. His androgynous face was glowing with smeared eyeliner and nocturnal glitter splotches. He was too high to be hypnotized by the shape of her legs, but he was wearing such a wicked little, boyish smile. She started to clean up, obviously pissed off of the hurricane debris polluting her bedroom carpet. The empty bottles passed on from the night before thrown haphazardly in her trashcan, which she was hiking along at her hip. As always, a cigarette was hanging from her mouth, her long, blonde dreadlocks tripping down the small of her spine.

"Get up," came her moody grumble as she nudged his side, hovering over the bed. "Dill, y'gotta go. I gotta.. go ...man."

"I can't get up, Quinn." He jostled the handcuffs at his wrist. "Unlock me." He was biting his bottom lip, his naked chest (oh, bruised and sore; her nailmarks ran ragged) launching in a reverie-induced sigh.

Grumbling under her breath, the ashes leaked comically over his chest as she struggled with the bonds. There was no key, it was all trick. But, he didn't feel dumb. Rubbing his raw wrists, he stood up, and slashed legs into his underwear, leather pants, and black t-shirt.

"Fix time, isn't it, ashtray girl?"

She looked at him, momentarily confused.

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

Before he left, he grasped her shoulders and blotted a clever kiss to her cheek.

"Thank you."

"Thanks for what?"

"The memories you just left me with."

He departed then in a dazed stroll, as she leered on his retreating figure, the last of her ash squinting against the carpet before she put it out.

<font color="#060101" size="1">[ July 05, 2004 07:04 PM: Message edited by: electroshock ]</font>

[greedy fly]

"Yousa bitch!" Quinn Rosalin slapped Solomon Stills unforgivingly on the side of his head, the sound it made was suprising. He shrunk down into a cower, and used his arm as a shield, batting her away like a pestering fly.

"Fuck off!"

He manhandled her skinny wrists, and she kicked him repeatedly in the calf until he sliced her against her living room wall.

"Come on," he warned, all weathered and intense. His copper hair was in his face, feathering with the launches of his breath.

Prying herself away from him, she slipped out the door, in her seashell-white dress, the straps cool and breezy on emaciated shoulders, the tattoos wrapping her ankles ruining the chaste flavor, making it stale.

"Now, Sol, when we go, you have to call me 'honey' and all that shit, and put your arm around me, and pretend like you love me."

"Ah, I do love yew, Quinn."

"But pretend you love me."

"That's going to be very hard to do."

Before they descended the dusky steps of the ramshackle apartment building, she paused to pull off a stiletto, splicing the air with the daggered heel.

"I'm going to put this through his heart, motherfucker!"

"You're evil."

"I know."

And together, posing as a very dysfunctional couple, they frolicked away together.

[greedy fly]

Days had stretched into months and his absence lingered heavy the way that the clouds did overhead. Dead dry leaves were slick with snow that had lost its powder white in favor of a thin frost. He imagined that she had pressed her fingers against the pane of glass that separated the two worlds and sent a thousand designs spiraling in their wake--not entangling like vines, but just as choking with chill that he counted shards of in her eyes when they were turned away from him. The ink of his own were focused on that window as he stared at it, lost, but completely found if you asked him. Coat tails ribboned when the manmade breeze kicked up (strangers in the sidewalk, passing the strange monument of the fall of Rome.) as wrists were locked by Eyptian sand-banded fingers. He would wait--though parchment skin paled with the weather's freezing of the blood underneath, in hopes that he might catch her fingers before they sent out a new design; one he didn't recognize.

Looming over the plastic jar, she inserted quarters to splatter metallic clangs, one-at-a-time, distracted by the snowflake-white shadows pouncing the corners of her bare-boned bedroom. Solomon was keeping the ashtray girl company, lurking, exchanging words with long intervals of placid silence, accompanied with a serenading soundtrack of Lou Reed lingering in the background canvas. He had his neck craned, his fork jabbing at lettuce in a plastic container, his shoulder grazing the window in passing. He paused, and squinted his eyes to zoom-lense his vision the best he could on the out-of-era figure painting a standstill on the frost-slicked lawn. "Is that...that guy...Eli? He's just standing there." She'd been sitting indian style, chainsmoking cigarettes like a feast, half-dressed, untangling her burnt-sienna hair from its haphazard, rubberbanded ponytail. But he stung her into nothingness. Sternly, she daggered him with her doubtful eyes. "Nuh-unh." -- "Yeh...he's standing right there," he arrowed the window with his fork. Startled by the way she scrambled to her sober feet, and flung herself at her bedroom door, he bellowed after her. "Yew forgot your---!" She was thundering madly down the fourth flight of stairs, until she clasped the railing to not only ditch her cigarette but brake her wavelength of speed. He just watched her backtrack into the bedroom, angrily slashing one leg at a time in her jeans. "Pants."

Elijah was diligent in his window gazing--as if he could see some future hidden on the other side. All of his wondering, all of his questions came to an abrupt halt when he watched as a man materialized in the window, half way, but enough to shake and rattle his spine like a tree shaking out the last of its loose leaves. Feet stood in their out of date boots as he tried to remove them from the ground that had suddenly become like flypaper, freezing him to the spot. He was certain that this was her window. Certain that this was her apartment complex. He had traced it a thousand times in his own language--mapping out its contents in every word he knew. Breath was drawn in while chaos erupted within, he felt his heart begin its rapidly palipitation like a jackhammer against his breastplate as his sigh was expelled like some forlorn lover watching his first sunset alone. Steam billowed forth and created spiraling lines that rose like fingers from the corners of his mouth--he thought that they might float high enough to scratch along the glass and call to the attention of the only person he sought, but as things as thinly veiled as smoke, they dispersed into open air as nothing more than an idle idea.

She dissolved into the rigid mouth of the crumbling tenement, and kicked her way outside, with naked feet that were hardly wary of the urban splinters; shards blistering cement, and other jagged objects. She seemed out of breath, smoking wasn't the most athletic trait in the world. Now, that she was here, so far and so close to him, she stalled and couldn't bring herself to excitedly leap across the lawn and ribbon her plum scab-freckled arms around his neck and douse him in sickly kisses with a chalky-pink mouth. Right now, she didn't even notice the chill sculpting goosebumps all over her arms (which were shrouded in the fitted short sleeves to a black-and-white contrast vintage Creedence Clearwater shirt) or how her toes were numbing beneath the subtle flare of her jeans. Her arms suspended at her sides, as useless as gelatin, as though she were standing at the ledge of a building, waiting for a savior to dawn in the skyline.

The metronome of his body ticking with breath was subdued as it was cut off in his throat when she materialized in the doorway and took steps to him before falling helpless with parlysis. He came and went like a ghost, this was no small surprise that she was skeptical so he broke first. The appearance of 1717 crumbled and cracked into the future as legs moved their joints in a slow walk as if some invisible tide was coming to swallow him and hewas fighting against it. Though she had every sign of sickness, she was just as brilliant as she had been in his mind and went he stopped short of her (just enough to trap heat) he spoke quietly as his coat was shed in an apology that had yet to be defined. "It is cold today Quinn." The coat was offered for her to take as he transformed from dark to light in a matter of minutes. "Please take my coat."

The closer he stepped, the more shaped into a naturally defiant pose, crisscrossing her arms like armor at her ribcage, her teeth chattering, shivering out the broad spectrum of cold before she let it engulf her completely. The amiably extended close earned a quick, hit-and-run glance, one prominent brow leaping up; skeptical. Her arms unfolded, and she ground her fingernails into the back of his neck, and pulled him into a weak hug, that soon took a violent transformation. She didn't want the jacket. For the past few months, she had been a breathing trainwreck, and Solomon was the only person that permanently stood in her life. Elijah had vanished again into pretty-pixeled memory and an unsolved mystery. Her hand jerked loose, and she shoved the heel of it repeatedly in his shoulder, her features screwing up, volunteering emotions for the first time.. in a long time. Hitting shrill, flustered high-notes, she almost caved in on herself, her pillowed lips setting into a grimace. "What the fuck is wrong with you!? Why do you keep leaving like that?!"

The jacket was dropped--left to pool like spilt oil as fingers seared into the back of his neck and wrapped him into an embrace that was matched with grappling hands at her spine. She was the only book whose name still had to be traced in order to ensure its authenticity. The warmth that was shared for its brief time was something that he would keep and draw from like a well--a muse's blessing that ended with a crescendo of fists into his shoulders as she screamed to him for some kind of clarity. "I am sorry, Quinn. I am so sorry." Quiet speech raised notches with inflection as he looked like a wounded hero, struck in his side by a lover's blow only to bleed pomengranate. Hands raised not in defense but out of reflex. "I cannot explain my actions, I know, and I know they are wrong, but I did not mean to cause you distress. I cannot handle myself sometimes, I cannot..." Words trailed at a seeming loss as he watched her in a flurry of frustration.

She had always let him keep his shroud of mystery, and in turn, she kept hers too. But the reaper finally came one day, glinting sieve curled in hand, and broke her down one layer at a time with the attrition of the blade. "You should. You should explain. I haven't seen you in----" Her fingers wrapped in the elongated curtainfalls of her hair, ravaging at the root. "Six months! Six months." It was usually like her to move on, but in his absence, she flirted with the needle instead, and hibernated behind livid walls, and worked her nine-to-fives with a thousand cigarette breaks smuggled in between. "Where did you even go this time, Eli?" There were bits and pieces of memories moth-flitting in her head, she remembered his devastation after the death of his son, the curtailed stories of his ex-wife. "Did you go back home?" Because home wasn't here.

"I will try, if you let me, I will try." To explain that his actions bled into powder and unromantic ideals with his ex-wife who wanted nothing from him that hadn't already drowned in a lake. The kindness of his heart was only hardened in devastation--burned by a loss so deep as part of himself. "Yes. Yes, I went home. To Italy, to the vineyard." To all of the comforts that had kept him thriving in his youth, to all of the things that made his foolish decisions disappear. "I had..to see my son." In the face of a wide mouthed lake that still glittered like the pale eyes of his mother. "I heard him call to me...I heard his laugh." White lines had been his fallback when the pages ran out of ink and he still had things to speak about. Where eyes welled with the sheen of saline, he forced it down, feeling the burn in the back of his throat. He still had phoenix feathers left to fan the ashes of his broken heart. His last tie to a woman he had loved was gone and with that, she died too until he was alone again. Alone, but so very close to someone else. "I tried to write to you, but every time the words failed. A letter is something you send someone when you have no sincerity left toward them, I am still sincere." He still meant every word that fell from his mouth (the cherry chalice of intoxication) like wine. "I intended to stand out here until I saw you again, because I had to, even if you would not see me."

And the melancholy prose leaking from his mouth was so brutal, even though that wasn't his intention at all. She knew he was on a treasure-hunt for old ghosts, because she knew the day that she met him that his mind had run away a long, long time ago. He was the only person that ever shed light on her dormant maternal side. She always wanted to fix him, not with sloppy adhesives and duct-tape, but she wanted to take her time and align every puzzlepiece. Even if she was just as fucked-up. Elijah stammered about letters and waiting, and her face softened, easily gambling with a strange sort of heartbreak again just so she could just take in his scent, and the visually-appealing architecture of his cheeks. "I'm sorry for yelling at you," she croaked, submissively, her shoulders shrinking. It was like yelling at a wide-eyed child.

Just as she wanted to piece him together, he wanted to find her pieces and put them back in place where they had fallen out and misaligned. Fingers moved like a flutter of wings to splay lightly against her face as his mouth twisted in a smile that always made him look like a scarecrow with awkward stitching. "Do not apologize. You should never be sorry for how you feel." He should be the only one with heavy laden guilt, she had never done anything to cause him to take flight the way that he did, and yet, nothing more than a letter was left. A clean break with a trail of ink that he followed back because it seeped into the floorboards and refused to be washed away. It was the only map that he had ever trusted--because even if he lost his way, he never lost his words.

His fingertips fanned over her the vanity of her ghost-white complexion, and cocaine-dusted pores. His smile always infected her, and effected her in two ways; it made her insides feel gutted and laced with ache, and it also automatically furnished her lips with one of her own. Her touch waltzed down the dimples of his spine now that his coat was strewn on bitter pavement, and she printed a kiss to the side of his mouth (the same kiss she kept depriving Jonny of, over and over again.) "I missed you. I really did." Punctuating her affection with a stroke of her forefinger beneath the cliff of his chin, she separated to collect his coat, and thrust it at him. "Come inside."

Her affection both separated from him, and planted at the corner of his mouth seemed to soften the edges of his features--making him less striking and more comfortable despite his appearance. She offered him in as she handed off his coat, which was folded over an arm as he nodded his consent, sending inky strands of hair into his face as he started toshuffled inward. "I missed you as well, more than I am afraid I am able to convey. Have you been well?" That was something that he had silently hoped for in his absence, that she would be happy, healthy, well despite the conflicts that he had produced for her.

When they were shoved together either by cosmic ties or the greedy networks of their own hearts, they were the oddest pair; he was a foreign, soft-spoken poet, who was surely resurrected from some other area, and she was this chainsmoking, vulgar girl with a rough voice and rougher edges, who abandoned her daisy-chains and cracked Arizona pavement for the city. With clipped wings, she shouldered into the junkie-infested angles of her building, her side always brushing the margin of the wall to keep stability as she ascended the stairs. "I'm fine. I've been doin' pretty good." Blunt-edged lies, but he didn't need to know that.

"That is good to hear." Openly, he transcended from the nervousness of this conversation to something happier, lighter, as if he really (and truly, he was) became happy himself at the mention of her well-being. Tattered walls and crumbling floors distracted him only when she was placed before them as he sent feet crashing against the stairs while he followed her like a shadow, creeping only faintly behind as he spoke above the whisper in the hall of machinery that kept the complex alive. "Do you still work for that woman?" Cherrie, whose name escaped him. "Do you still create?" More than clever lines on paper napkins, but images that became real on a canvas of skin.

Unconsciously, her touch was frolicking along her pockets, searching for the dent of cellophane-packaged cigarettes, but there was none, just the promise of a lighter. "Who, Cher'?" Glancing at him as they mounted the third floor, and she swung around for the last dozen patter of footprints. "Yeah, I'm still tattooing with her. 'Still working at the club at night, every weekend, and twice on the weekdays." She worked herself short of fuel, and took nosedives into needlepoint euphoria in her free time, because there was no one else. Prowling through her door into her empty, clammy apartment, she caught Solomon with her phone cradled to his ear. He regarded the shadow of a man behind her with a faint upnod. "Hey, Eli." Quinn never spoke of him, ever, so he just had a name.

"Yes." He nodded To her as she jogged his memory while they climbed to a broken ivory tower in order to gain access into the apartment that he had seen a thousand times before. The man that he had caught in the window was there, holding the phone and sayinghis name and immediately Elijah stiffened. He knew the man only in conversation--Quinn spoke of him fondly and he offered a quiet greeting back. "Hello." Nothing more was said as he dusted his coat and shut the door behind him. It was improper to keep speaking when someone was on the phone because the other end would inevitably hear them and ask all sorts of questions, so instead he kept his comments a whisper to Quinn. "That is good, I am glad to hear that you are still working and that you are happy."

"Well, yew pick her up then, if she can't wait fifteen minutes, Syme---" Solomon rolled his eyes, and abruptly murdered the conversation with a muttered goodbye. He unraveled his wrist free of the persian white cord, zipping his hoodie to his breastplate. "I have to go pick up Jill. Practice for Friday." Quinn just nodded, cradling her pack of cigarettes that were seated atop the tv set, torching a cherry with the friction of her thumb to the lighter, studying the stained carpet. "It was ah..." Solomon really didn't even know what the fuck the polite thing to say to Elijah was. "Meeting yew? Finally? I guess." He offered his hand, though, it was only polite.

The Briton's accent was sharp and slightly jarring to Elijah who very much wished that he could shrink in size and find some place to hide while the conversation was taking place. Instead, he only stepped farther into the room, away from the door and stared at the window with dark eyes until he was addressed in the same startling speech. "It is nice to finally place a face to a name that is spoken so fondly of." He deciphered through the vulgar twist of tongues, the good things about Solomon. That 'motherfucker' was a term of endearment and shook that hand that was offered. "Have a safe trip." As if picking up Jill was a cross country event.

"She speaks fondly of me?" He flashed Quinn a deer-in-headlights, shocked stare, jaw unhinging ajar. "Yeah, Solomon," she orbited her eyes, and blandly ripped an obscene, pumping jerk-off gesture through the air. "I speak fondly of yer uh, good looks and taste in shoes." Snickering, he trailed into the hallway, slanting the door closed behind him. The elasticity of her attention span fought its way to Elijah, again. "You can take your jacket off, if 'ya want." With a cigarette protruding through her knuckles, she threw open the closet door, and there were even some jackets dangling from metal hangers. It was the only domestic thing in her whole entire apartment. "Give me your..." She just flexed her fingers at the air, as though she forgot the word. Coat.

Elijah blinked between the exchange. Wasn't saying nice things speaking fondly? (Even if they were littered with obscenities, he considered them to be fond words.) The coat was drawn from his arm before he pulled it back again and lifted a small tin from the pocket, before he was offering his coat to her again. "Thank you." It was his polite words that seemed to get caught in his mouth before he offered the tin to her. "I did not know how you would be celebrating holiday." He offered her the tin that held cinnamon candles aglow on the edges of its face after she had finished with his coat.

The weight of his coat probably warped the flimsy hanger, but she canted the closet door closed, and turned to face him, idly taking drags, until she had to scramble around in search for an ashtray. She nudged the lightswitch in her bedroom on since the sky had grown considerably darker. There was a heap of silver and copper change on the floor, just waiting to be transferred into her jar. "Holiday? Which one?" Thanksgiving-she ate ice-cream, Christmas, she'd probably wear garland as a necklace or tie it around her bicep to mainline her arm. She took a split-legged seat on her dresser, positioning the ashtray between, accepting the extended tin, peeling it open with a curious inclination of her scalp. "Remember that one time...." She spoke in filter-stifled mutters, and eventually forgot whatever memory she was about to articulate.

Following still as if she had only stitched one foot of her shadow to her and left it to trail after her in an awkward pattern, he watched as the floor was littered with small discs that reminded him of misplaced constellations as she settled herself and asked questions of him. "Well, I do not know which one you practice." He was never sure what her religion was but everyone at some point fell victim to the commercialism of a fat man in a red suit. When she asked him if he remembered, he attempted to follow on her tangent with a nod and a half smile that cut too sharply on his features. "I think I remember...I am not sure." Details had to be fleshed out before he would offer his total consent to her memory. "There were many times."

Candles had a significance in their history. She let the cigarette repose in an ashtray groove, and wrung a sincere smile, a ghastly 'thanks' raining from her pale lips. "I'm a Jew," she added with a quickdraw; too-quick and too-brusque. She wasn't Jewish at all. "Just kidding. I'm a big piece of nothin', but I guess I do that Christmas shit. It's kinda like nailed into my head. Y'can't escape it." There were many times, and with Elijah, it was more good than bad, because he was different. "Do you smoke?" Waggling her cigarette.

"Are you? Perhaps I should have brought more." He was contemplating this before she told him that she was kidding and he dipped his head faintly as if he should have known. "Well, I did not know what practices you had or if you even did anything that involved trees and lights. I like it though, everything is so warm and alive. It is a nice feeling when you see how dead everything else seems. I like to watch the windows..." He trailed off on his own personal tangent and snapped back to attention when she waggled her cigarette. "I do sometimes. I have not in a while." Not since he had stopped trying to find salvation in white lines.

She watched his face illuminate like a fucking Christmas tree, watching him rant with the same brand of quiet, poetic passion that secretly intoxicated her whenever she was caught offguard. "You like to watch windows, huh?" Of course, she chose to respond to the most spontaneous thing that filtered from his throat. "Adopt a bad habit." Withdrawing another Salem from her green pack, she let it loll along the mapping crevices of her hand, and extended it to him. As though she weren't a bad enough habit.

"Sometimes, just when they are lit and you can see the warmth inside. I like knowing that people are warm and happy sometimes." Even if it was a farce and was only created to bring holiday cheer to companies' wallets. "Bad habits are hard to break." He took the cigarette from her though when she offered it because the itching of tobacco had come from her mouth the minute she lit her own cigarette. He examined it as if it were some holy relic before shifting to hold it with two fingers while he looked for her lighter.

"Mn... I don't peer in windows to see that cozy shit, it depresses me." Because she was borderline twenty-seven years old, she lived by herself, was a recovering heroin addict with a lot of potholes in the road to recovery--- balancing two jobs. "I know." And the telltale flicker of her eyes over his face when she agreed spoke volumes. "Think fast." She actually hesitated a moment so he wouldn't fumble, and chucked the lighter towards him, setting the ashtray off to the side, adjacent to her hip. She imagined that Elijah was nostalgic for the Christmases he once spent with his son and wife, beneath a needle-shedding, fragrant evergreen tree, reclining complacently as his son tore open wrapping paper, exuberantly. And there was nothing she could do to make him appreciate the season again.

"I am sorrry." He apologized as thought it were his fault, as he was the one that brought it up. She threw the lighter and he caught it--the flame that hit the end of the cigarette sparked his past in full view. Innocence lost for something much darker that was sucked down into the hollow of his cheek bones as he allowed nicotine to fill his lungs before it was let out in a ribbon of pleasing toxins. "I still enjoy it though, even the snow. In Italy it was always too warm to have snow. I think I like that most. The constant feeling of needing warmth." He paused in his tangent to take another drag from his cigarette. "Everyone needs warmth in some form, but most do not know when they have it. That depresses me."

She half-expected him to just chimney-puff and not exhale, but he proved her wrong, and momentarily he took on a different persona; sucking down nicotine, and exhaling in between the sunsets of his pretty, fever-ridden words. "Are you warm?" Riddling him with her eccentric question, she squinted the embers of her cigarette against the amber-tinctured glass, and flared her nostrils for a final web. Her shoulderblades boarded against the mirror, which was cosmically fractured in some places from god-knows-what -- it certainly wasn't her fist, but it could've been projected inanimate objects. The funny thing is, she couldn't remember breaking it.

Ashes were flicked off into the ashtray as he caught glimpses of her and her reflection in the corner of his eyes, sucking down another breath he paused before answering her. "Now? Yes. Sometimes I am not so warm, sometimes I am freezing and my heart feels like ice. Sometimes I am afraid that if it suddenly kicks to life it might burst into a thousand fragments. I think that is what real heartbreak is, not being able to get warm enough to keep the fractures together." Smoke spiraled as he watched the white paper between pale knuckles rather than her a moment. "Are...you?"

Quinn used to wear the fact that she never let anyone break her heart on her sleeve. She had seen her best friends scarred by repeat-offenders, and was able to offer a detached form of advice because she had never let herself fall in love. But, those days were long-gone. "I can't imagine you ever being cold." But when the question was aimed on her, she writhed with a falter of her pale stare, her neverending legs stirring once, twice, and falling flaccid again. "No."

"When you found me," When they found each other on accident. "I was cold." The cigarette was left in the tray as he turned to face her with a seriousness that he usually exhibited when concentrating on not smearing the lines. "Why?" Why wasn't she warm? Why was she so frozen when it seemed that she branched off pieces of warmth in people that passed through her doorway so easily. He was quiet (quieter still, than he had been before.)

It was the same exact way, he made her so warm, he made her feel so alive, and anticipate the next day and its strange, glowing lullabyes, until he left. And only once did he return, when she was clawing through the dirt, and too drunk to even comprehend his reappearance. But, even in those moments, she was warm. Just like right now. "I don't know, Eli," she sighed in exasperation, pain seeping toxins in every line of her pretty face. "Because you made me happy for a little while, really fuckin' warm. Then, you left.." And it was for good reason: his son's death, and she knew this, and accepted it. "And I haven't let anyone else keep me warm. Too fucking stubborn."

She hit him with an arrow of honesty and his eyelids lowered dangerously close to dying off as he spoke. "I want to make you warm again, Quinn." Quiet words had lifted slightly from their lull of shock. "If you want to let me, because I have not been warm since I left. Just when you let me inside did I begin to thaw." He watched the cigarette burn mournfully as he let the truth slip off of his tongue like honey--too saccharine to be digested alone. "I was never really warm before, just too numb to realize I was frozen." And lost, and a million other things that he couldn't find the words to articulate properly.

Her chin tinted shadows along her collarbone, rue gravedancing over the her bleak features. All these metaphors and stained-glass shattered hearts cycloned around her in the silence occassionally filled with his promising stutters. And all she secretly wanted was to be his again, because he was the most unnaturally gentle man she'd ever known. "I think I'd just... like...." Her nails bit rabidly at the reopened constellations on her forearms, where his words were once markered. "Bring you down, Eli." But didn't she claim she was fine? "Everything's fuckin' falling apart around here." She chiefly meant herself. "I'd run if I were you."

When she struck him with words, his face turned as if she had struck him against the cheek. A thin line for a mouth sliced open so that he could bleed words that came bubbling up from his heart. "I want to be where you are, even if it is laying in the debris of something that is crumbling. I want to be there to help you lay new stones." A hand settled against the dresser rather than slamming into it. "I cannot run, I have no where to run to that would not lead me back here again, watching your window because I have not the heart to throw stones." He was so tired of running as if he had some important message to spread that couldn't be written over open wounds.

He didn't take 'no' for an answer, but he did it in the sweetest of ways. For some reason, she was resilient, and easy to convince (because, secretly she knew that Elijah's presence alone was enough to make her want to clean up, because euphoria could easily come from his lips versus from a needle.) "Just.... " The fact that she was relenting really seemed to burden her; her sharp brows grooved inward, her face was kinked and perplexed until she slithered from her seat, and plucked away his cigarette to burn blank in the ashtray. "I don't get this at all. I never will." Just why she wanted him so bad. Her arms wired around the nape of his neck, and she merged their heartbeats, folding her forehead away in his throat. "Why I feel so fuckin' dizzy when you're around, just for you, and no one else."

He waited patiently for words as she shifted and moved from some immobile untouchable muse into something real that strung around him like garland. Arms wrapped her up tightly as if she needed the support because she might fall lax at any moment. Her voice had that same euphoric feel that she was searching for from him as she spoke and when he echoed her it was a low murmur just above heartbeats. "I will catch you if you start to sway, Quinn. I will always catch you." Even if she was falling from a great height. This was his promise to her even if his happiest moments were marked by a sullen look. "And if... figuring out what it is that makes you dizzy means that you will stop, please excuse my selfishness, but I hope that you do not."

[greedy fly]

?I was waiting for cars to pass today, and there was a mother and her little girl in front of me. The little girl asked where heaven was, and the mother pointed to the sky and said: ?right there.? But the girl wasn?t having that, she kept asking her Mum to explain the exact location and to dig deeper. The Mum turned around and gave me a smug smile, and shrugged before changing the subject and crossing. But, I bet the little girl won?t be content until she receives a proper answer.?

?Is there a ?proper? answer?? Quinn asked, her tone riddled with a cynical underlay.

?I would?ve told her that it was right through the clouds, and right behind the brightest sun beam on the left.?

?She wouldn?t have believed you.?

The stars straddled the velvet blanket of the sky triumphantly above the gaping parking lot. Twenty miles outside of the city and its mainstream bustle meant that the smog melted away enough for them to decipher their constellations. An old ?Super G? with cardboard over the windows and homeless shopping carts lulled by the breeze, provided their backdrop. They were both two bony figures propped up and spread sheeted over his hood, their shoulder blades nicking the injured windshield wipers.

Solomon passed her the joint which she took an ample last hit off of before she sent mystic fourth-of-July sparks flying with the billow of her breath. She was always managed to conserve enough of it to pack it in her trustworthy bowl later on.

Her hair had grown a considerable amount. Her bangs were a varnished black and fell feathery and jagged just along her upper eyelids. The dye glistened in the pucker of moonlight all the way to her shoulders, and her arms were seamless. Her track marks were still defined, but Cover Girl nursed it with a pale white, and gave off the impression that she had only tangoed with a rosebush.

?So where is heaven??

?I don?t think there is one, Solomon.?

?Then wot comes after death?? He ventured, simpering slightly, trying on being a walking Catholic stereotype for size.

?I don?t know, but I had this dream once that?. I died. Then I went to my favorite place, which was this old laundry place just down the street from me when I was a kid. I?d sit in a booth, and watch old women hum to themselves and fold their clothes. I?d play Pac Man for hours and close my eyes, and I really had time to think? so anyway, I died, right??

?Mn??

?I went there, and I watched on the Pac Man machine my life unfold as though I hadn?t died, y?know? Like, I was just watching my life play out like a movie. And I was the star. I didn?t know my own thoughts, and I could only read my emotions on my facial expressions, but I watched it. And everyone acted like I hadn?t just died. As though the accident never happened. What if it?s like that, Solomon? Like a big movie??

?Then, that?d be hell. We?re talking about heaven, I thought.?

?I said I don?t think there?s a heaven or hell.?

?If there was a hell, would it be in the core of the earth, then??

?I guess.? She lifelessly shrugged.

?Quinn??

?Yeah??

?I feel like I?ve known you all my life.?

?Maybe we were friends in a past life.?

?Maybe.? He shuffled around, to nudge his side profile into the glass, lolling to face her with a quiet gaze.

?Maybe we were just two caterpillars eating off of the same leaf. Then, we morphed into butterflies.?

?And two children got a hold of us,? he started in a throaty whisper, casually reeling his eyes over the moon, once more. ?Tore our wings off, and we decided we?d meet in the next life as ??

?Fuckbuddies,? she finished.

?Yeh.?

[greedy fly]

It was around seven am, and he still had two hours to kill before his shift. Solomon Stills skirted into Quinn's seemingly deserted apartment, muting the door behind him. She was always awake at unholy hours, and he had some advice to ask of her. Prowling past the sleek laptop glowing on her ash-freckled carpet, his boots impressed a trail down the stunted hallway. Before he could round into her bedroom, he blankly took wind of the mangled body of Charlie Cavanaugh unconscious the threshold of her doorway, his inkwelled eyes preying on the girl martyred to her trashy, unkempt mattress that was an island in a disheveled ocean of empty bottles, and sloped incense burners.

Shrugging it off with a dim slant of his bristled chin, he rounded back into the living room. The monitor's technicolor halo strangled his frail attention span, and lured him over with a quirked, mechanical finger. By the time he slammed his weight down the carpet, his denim-masked, lanky limbs shuffling, he locked on the webpage loaded on E-Bay.com.

There was a portrait of him centerpieced just below the lively website logo, and the tagline read: "The British second coming: he heals he blind, talks dirty and has a big penis. Questions? For futher detail contact Charlie Cavanaugh at 215-555-7322."

He scrolled lower, his brows sewn in a horrified contortion. There was already one bid from a woman in Alabama for four-hundred-dollars.

Bolting up to his feet, he skid around the corner and nudged Charlie's ribcage with the toe of his boot.

"Yew cunts were trying to sell me on E-Bay? Wot the fuck were yew on?!"