Easton Park

My day started, as most do, with the smoke alarm going off like an alarm clock. I groaned as I opened my eyes, squinting at first, before I opened em all the way. Yawning, I threw on my bathrobe, the one that my grampa gave my dad before he went off to Korea, and I got when my dad kicked the bucket, and searched the room for a towel. Still, half asleep, I marched down the hallway towards the kitchen, the shag carpeting warm on my bare feet. I could see a faint haze of smoke spewing out the kitchen and the sound of laughing. More than one person laughing, which is a problem, cause I only have one roommate. And there they were, Miles and his pothead drug buddies, sitting on the kitchen floor, their drug smoke slowly turning the white ceiling and white walls yellow.

“Crap Miles, we can’t have people over,” I said, waving the towel in front of the fire alarm, attempting to clear the smoke. “It’s five in the morning and its Monday. And you can’t smoke whatever it is you’re smokin’ in here. If the dean catches you again, we’re both outta here. You’re staining the ceiling yellow, and that’s darn noticeable.”

Miles bowed his head, his dark hair falling over his eyes and looked like one o’ them dogs that gets scared and puts its tail between its legs. He looked up suddenly and stared at me with his dark brown eyes, which reminded me of a deer in headlights, the way his eyes were glassed over. He opened his mouth, but no words came out, just a pile of vomit. After a minute, a minute I wasted just standing there watching him barf, he was able to speak, though he slurred his words together.

“I . . . I . . . I’ll getthem to, to leave if . . . if you, youcan get me what . . . what Ineed,” he said, before vomiting a little more. Through the vomit, I could make out “drugs”, “school”, and “black coat”. And that’s where my life went bad. I should have said no. I should have called the cops. I should have turned the faucet on and used the hose-thing in there like I was a cop breaking up their hippie protest. But I didn’t. Hey, hindsight is a darn perfect 20/20.

I picked up a hundred dollars from the counter and stormed out of the house. We’d, or actually Miles, the loser, had been caught before, smoking weed or something outside the house, so he’d moved inside to do his drugs. I’m not surprised that he got caught, cause the outside of the house is white just like inside. He’s kinda stupid, Miles, and I think it’s from the drugs otherwise he couldn’t a gotten in here. It’s a prestigious school, Roosevelt Prep. Only top of the line families and child geniuses allowed. It’s the slogan. It’s even on a darn plaque in the front office. It’s everywhere. No mediocrity here. Top o’ class place.

I had no idea where I was going, and it’s easy to get lost in this place. The houses are all white and have flowers outside of em in the planter’s boxes. Even the grass is the same color and same height. The only visible difference is the sidewalk. Walking along the sidewalk, which was painful cause I had forgotten shoes in my rush, I tried to guess where the druggie would be. I guessed dark and shady, where we could make the trade without outsiders seeing. Outside the cafeteria, in the parking lot, or by the athletic center were my guesses cause they were normally empty and the most in the shade.

First I checked the athletic center, white walls, no black coat. Next I went to the cafeteria, white walls, no black. I was down to my last option by the time I got to the parking lot. There were only six cars in the lot, but near the large, black creepervan stood a dude in a black coat. He was smoking something out of a pipe that was producing purple smoke. He had a goatee that came to a sharp point at the end of his chin, and had long greasy, blonde hair that ran down the back of his coat, though the top of his head was covered with a black hat. Typical druggie. I walked over to him slowly, cause, to be honest, I was scared as crap. I had a 4.0 and had never gotten in trouble. They say when life becomes hell, like your mom dies or something, you remember every detail of the day. I remember there was cloud like a boat in the sky, and spare tire on the back right axle of the car. Random crap like that.

Anyway, I walked over to him and was unsure of what to do. I’d never bought drugs, over even been to that side of the tracks. Looking around, making sure no one say me, I reached my hands into my pockets and spoke to the druggie.

“Um . . . I’m here for Miles, Miles Davis, He lives in my –“

“Yeah, I know,” he spoke in a raspy voice like he had been smoking in the womb. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small packet about the size of a ketchup packet.“Hundred dollars.”

“Hundred dollars? Darn, that’s a bit steep right?”

“Hundred dollars,” he said again, pulling out a syringe.

“Okay, okay.” I passed him the hundred dollars, hurriedly, and he gave me what I assumed were narcotics.
My palms were sweating and my breath caught in my throat. “I just want to let you know that I don’t buy drugs because-“

“Crap,” he screamed. He was no longer looking at me, and following his eyes, I saw a kid, who I assume had been walking through the almost empty lot and was no stopped with his eyes popped and jaw on the floor. I knew the kid from somewhere, let’s say 3^rd period physics. And if I knew him, he knew me.

I don’t know what I was thinking, I wasn’t, except that I realized that this would be the first time that I was in trouble. I mean deep crap. I could get suspended. Expelled, even. I guess this came to mind and I didn’t want to get expelled. I liked Roosevelt Prep. I mean, it was kinda home to me. So I followed the druggie and we began to beat the kid.

It was slow at first. The dealer tackled the kid as he tried to escaped and bashed his head into one of the cars. He let out a pained gasp and I kneed him in the small of the back, making the air escape from his lungs. I really didn’t know what to do from there, so I sat on the kid’s head while the drug dealer used his fists and went to town on the kid. I didn’t see what happened, but I could hear muffled screaming coming from below me. Then the kid went limp.

“Oh, crap,” the dealer muttered. “I think he’s dead.”

And then he ran. And I ran, too. I looked over my shoulder and saw the kid rolling over. At least he’s not dead. But I didn’t stop to help him, and I just kept running. On a deeper level, a psychologist would tell me that I was running from the evil within me, blah, blah, blah. I don’t need that stuff; I just choose to think of it in first level terms. I ran from the injured, back to my life.  And back in my dorm, I broke down, sobbing.

I had just injured someone. Not directly, but then again, I didn’t stop it. Normally, I’m a goody-two-shoes, but now, I don’t know. This is the deepest I’ve ever sank, considering my old low was getting drunk at a party and throwing up on Nigel’s lap. I could go to jail for this. Then I realized that the lot was empty and that no one would have seen us, or suspected me, at least, when he was found, because I had never been in trouble before. I decided to just ride the waves and let the situation cool before I panicked. And with that I looked at my watch and found that I was late for economics, so I picked up my books and ran out the door, worried about getting a demerit for tardiness. The real thing that scared me was how much my hands were shaking, as they might give me away without meaning it.

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The rest of the day passed without any significance. Besides jumping whenever anyone tried to talk to me and staring at the clock like a suicide bomber, school was school. The last class of the day – math – seemed to take an eternity; an eternity in hell. During the beginning of class, I got this unbearable headache that knocked me down. Mr. Carter, the math teacher, gave me some Advil and continued the class. Luckily, the pain subsided enough to let me continue, but it was still there, just in the back of my head. I’ve heard those are the worst kind, the back-of-the-skull headaches, cause they can mean meningitis. I waited it out, though, gritting my teeth in agony waiting for the class to finish. As soon as the last bell rang, I ran outside and threw up in the bushes, staining part of the white walls yellow.

This is when I got scared. Meningitis is common in college kids because they live in dorms, and that was the extent of my knowledge on meningitis. I didn’t know if puking was a sign of meningitis, but it couldn’t be good. I moved to the trash can and regurgitated some more crap, and probably a pancreas or something, at that. The trash can was one a those cylinder ones that you just put the bag in and leave it there, no lid or anything. That was good for me cause I could take the bag out of the can without a hassle, and take it back to my room in case I threw up again.

I made it to my room in like five hellish minutes, but I threw up again, twice, before I got there. I almost kicked down the darn door trying to get in and threw up again on the entrance, falling onto the rug. I didn’t even know where this bile was coming from but I couldn’t give a darn. I was really freaking out, so between spasms, I called out to Miles. I took the silence to mean that he was out, higher than a kite, with his buddies, the loser. And it stopped as suddenly as it started. I guess I had no more in me, and so it stopped. I didn’t really stop to ask it where the crap it went.

I got up off the floor and slowly walked to the bathroom just down the hall to take another two Advil. I sank down to the rug with the bottle still in my hand. Three minutes later, I took another two. And then another. I couldn’t get rid of the headache. It was like I was getting mauled by a bear that was riding in a semi and throwing lightning bolts while hitting me with a baseball bat. I don’t know any of these feelings but I can imagine them. They’re a true loser.

Another two Advil went down, then another two. I was popping them like French fries or gummy bears or something. Nothing could combat the darn headache. I was starting to see spots at the edge of my vision, when there was a knock at the door. Honestly, I hoped it was the police so they could take me to a hospital, it was that darn bad. I’d give up my freedom to stop the pain.

My vision was filling with spots, like a Dalmatian had walked in front of me, or something. My ears were ringing like church bells, drowning me in there darn music. Then, breaking through the roaring, came a knock, I assumed on the door. My vision was almost completely gone when the knob turned. The last thing I saw was the door opening, and then it went black.