TWO STORIES
by Tony O'Neill
HAMMERSMITH
Sickness comes screaming into Hammersmith – bright clear autumnal evening, 2003
– where do all the old dope fiends go when the scene moves on – all with their
own spots, they become just another feature of that park bench, that section of
wall outside the job centre – Me? Holed up in the rank piss stinking stairwell
of the Kings Mall waiting for T.J. to drop 20 pounds of normality into my hand –
haven’t had a hit in almost two days and the sweat is running off of me in
torrents – desperately punching redial in agonized disbelief for most of the
first day – “The mobile customer you are trying to reach is currently
unavailable…” – Double boiled my last cotton and shot the murky mixture into my
foot with no discernable effect – cursing him – imagining him dead or in prison
(oh god no, not already, in this lousy city one month and my only connection
vanishes!) – sores and lumps on my feet, backs of my hands and my arms –
sleeping on the floor of a Narcotics Anonymous freak with no teeth called Byron
in his one bedroom flat in Tufnell Park – me trying to hide my tracks and my
sickness in case he realizes I’ve relapsed and tries to kick me out –
motherfucking god botherers – piss stained stairwell drops twenty pounds of
normality – 2002, all the old dope fiends on park benches – every figure that
opens to the door to this stairwell crushes me with disappointment – too sick
and nervous to fix in a public toilet – one asshole starts hammering on the door
and I am liable to blow the shot – better to fix back at the flat now that Byron
has gone job hunting – smell of piss and bleach – door opens, another family
looks and shudders – fucking junkie – disgusted white eyes slitted – distrust
sucks air through teeth – start to feel sad about being back in this city –
bouncing from mistake to disaster in an attempt to stay alive – the only
constant is the sadness and the heroin I inject which at least dulls the sadness
– jesusfuckingcuntchristshitfuckingbastard – so sick today why the fuck did I
leave my syringe at the flat, what kind of bullshit bravado was that? – 20 stops
from Hammersmith to Tufnell Park, I could collapse puking and screaming
obscenities in the carriage – look at my watch which seems to have stopped – two
day old black blood caked over injection site on my wrist – I’d quit for 4
months so how did my veins get so bad in 4 weeks? – distrust sucks air through
teeth – piss and bleach and 20 stops – misfortune to jesus fuck – As the door
opens T.J. appears in his shabby sports coat, spitting the wrap into his palm
and taking my money – I’m too sick for small talk and so is he – “There’s a
fucking drought” he pants “Nobody’s got nothing. You’d better make that last…”
– Sickness comes screaming out of Hammersmith – the pavement is covered with
dead leaves – the sky is almost faded into amber-red – scream of train-whistles,
childhood summers 1989 – walking on to the glow of fried chicken joints and pubs
serving warming glasses of brandy – the sharp sting of nostalgia – I have
something in my pocket better and stronger that nostalgia – as powerful as
memory – where do I go? – I retreat inside of myself – where will I go when the
scene moves on? – somehow not worried – people tell me I think too much –
- I will soon solve –
- all -
- of -
- that.
© Tony O' Neill
Reproduced with permission
LIVE BED SHOW
Lights, lights… city lights… there goes the connection, nodding out in sad
motels…
So there’s this guy and he all fucked up on crystal meth and he picks up this
girl at a party… The talk is coming smooth and easy and they’re rapping about
music and films and they are snorting more and more crystal and he’s starting to
look pretty good to her after almost 48 hours with no sleep and the ecstasy and
the coke and the crystal and she is horny so why not? and so they decide to go
home and fuck… He drives a big white Plymouth and he veers in and outta traffic
with her laughing in the passenger seat with no seatbelt sliding over towards
him every time he swings the left and back into the door when he screeches to
the right, her skirt riding up and he is watching in the mirror her bare legs
and a flash of her underwear…
She is telling him about her father who is an Egyptian diplomat and her mother
who is Saudi and how she cannot deal with them but how the money they send each
month is a godsend, and he is rapping about his family in the Midwest who are
Mormon and did you know those fuckers don’t even celebrate Christmas for
Chrissakes? So I don’t have much to do with them…
No money sent each month though, ha, ha… Thass OK… I’m in films, I design sets
and the girl is intrigued and asks him about specific films but the names he
reels off don’t mean anything to her and she can barely hear him over the sound
of the Plymouths roaring engine and the blood roaring in her ears and they are
on the freeway… White lights flashing over their faces and the music, some
rockabilly band she has never heard before blasting from the gleaming tape deck
set in the dash, and the way the lights refect on their faces make it seem like
some kind of movie, lights, lights, city lights…
Making the turn off for Bonnie Brae and he’s asking her if she’s sure she wants
to come home with him. After all he could be some kind of pervert and she’s
laughing I hope so, and the car roars further into the night up winding streets,
passing Spanish boys lurking on front porches and drinking wine, to a metal gate
which screeches and clangs as he pulls it back and then pulls the car into the
back yard.
Inside they drink beer and snort more crystal and he unbuttons his jeans and
takes out his prick with is painfully hard from the effects of the speed and she
gives him head on the couch before he takes her into the bedroom and plays some
music and undresses her and watches her lie back and spread her legs, opening up
her cunt with long thin finders and she says “come on then, fuck me” and asks
“what’s your name, by the way?” and he says “David” and she says “Hi. My names
Sofia” before he rams his prick into her and they thrust and squirm against each
other for what seems like hours, her on top of him pushing her weight against
him, him biting and scratching at her tits and flipping her over fucking her
from behind. Unable to come he tries to jam the hard on which doesn’t want to
die into her asshole while she is in position but she says “no” and turns
herself over to face him. He kneels infront of her and smiles as she spits onto
her palm and lifts up her legs and rubs the saliva into the open asshole and he
starts to do the same against the head of his cock and then he starts to work it
in… She sips from an open can of Colt 45 by the bed as he screws his way
further and further into her ass and she says “That’s it… that’s it” and they
are pounding against each other again and he is still finding it hard to cum,
brutally hammering into her ass but she doesn’t care because she is drunk and
high and it doesn’t even hurt and he is focussing on the image of her spread
cheeks and his prick buried in her hole but orgasm remains just out of reach…
goddamn crystal meth, motherfucker… and he suddenly pulls out of her ass with
the intention of ramming it back home again but when he does he watches her
asshole remain open and red raw for one second before with a large ripping sound
she shits all over the bed and they are frozen there in shock, him still holding
his prick, her with her legs still hooked behind her arms with the stinking drug
and booze shit lying between them, daring them to comment.
“Oh… my… God!” she moans jumping to her feet and trying to grab her clothes, and
he is trying to stop her getting dressed, that fucking hard on still refusing to
die and he’s yelling “Its OK… its cool, don’t worry” and she is yelling “I godda
go now! Call me a taxi! Please!” and reluctantly he does and she will not even
meet his gaze for the endless 15 minutes before the cab honks outside and when
it does she is gone without even a goodbye.
4 in the morning with a relentless hard on, no girl and a pile of shit on his
bed. He heats up a calzone he ordered from the local deli this afternoon in the
microwave and half heartedly tries to fuck that while focussing on the visual of
the girls asshole the moment before it evacuated the contents of her bowels on
his bed but it was no good and now he had burning hot mozzarella all over his
joint and is still no closer to relief…
So he cleans himself off and hits the road looking for a prostitute he can come
into but at 4 in the morning the closest he can find to a girl is a Dominican
crack head transvestite on Santa Monica Boulevard dejectedly waiting for someone
to pick him outside of a rolled Taco joint. He picks the kid up and figures ‘oh
well. There’s a first time for everything’ and screws the kid in the back of
the Plymouth and trying not to think about the cock and balls taped to the kids
belly he finally comes into something warm.
After they are done he hands the hooker forty dollars and almost as an
afterthought the transvestite pulls out a blade and threatens to cut his
motherfucking throat if he doesn’t hand over whatever else he has. A hundred
and forty dollars down and a little shaken up he heads back home after watching
the crack head sprint in his heels across the parking lot of a 7-11 and into the
warren of apartment buildings were his dealer operates from.
Lights, lights, city lights… the dealer is sleeping in a sad apartment… And
David, David
is going home…
© Tony O' Neill
Reproduced with permission
Leave a message for Tony on the Site Forum here
DAN FANTE
WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS
LENNY BRUCE
CHET BAKER