Lethe Bashar’s Novel of Life

When Lethe returned to the Backpacker’s Inn, Louie was sitting in the lounge area, talking to the bartender.  They were sharing a couple laughs.  Louie turned on the barstool with the top buttons of his Hawaiian shirt open, and his blond, suntanned chest showing.  His gut came out and jiggled when he laughed.  It appeared as if he was on intimate terms with the bartender.

 

          Upon seeing Lethe, Louie excused himself from the bar.  He popped up from the stool and waddled out to the pool deck, his drink spilling over the sides.  An aura of dazed amusement surrounded him, a private merriment.

 

          “So, did you get the stuff?”  Louie asked.

 

          “Yes, I got it,” Lethe sighed.

 

          “Don’t say anything here.  Let’s go to my room.”

 

          Louie’s room was on the third floor.  They took the stairs because the elevator wasn’t working.  Tracy was hovering around the broken elevator, assuming a pose of vigilance and responsibility.  “An elevator mechanic will be coming early tomorrow morning,” he said.  Louie brushed past, barely acknowledging the janitor’s presence.  Lethe smiled half-heartedly. 

 

They climbed three flights of stairs and Louie panted as he pressed his hands onto his thighs.  He appeared a bit drunk, climbing in zigzag. 

 

          The room smelled like burning sage or clove cigarettes.  The pungent aroma filtered through the darkness and humidity.  The makeshift blinds were closed.  Once Louie turned on the lights, Lethe could see that he was not the only person staying in this room.  A Chinese woman lay on the bottom bunk, robed in a decorative fabric with her face down into the mattress.  Apparently she was sleeping but she looked dead.

 

          “Don’t mind her.  We’re sharing a room.”

 

          Louie went to his suitcase in the corner of the room and removed a small glass pipe.

 

 A word or two about the pipe.  Depending on the reader’s background, “pipe” might evoke a number of colorful associations.  The pipe that Louie removed from his suitcase was not the antique tobacco pipe that your grandfather smokes out of.  Nor did it look like the psychedelic smoking utensil college kids use these days.  Rather this pipe was closer in relation to something you would find in a dirty alleyway, beside a trash can.  Essentially it was a piece of broken glass with sharp ridges and blackened on the ends.

  

          “Are we going to smoke right in front of her?”  Lethe asked.

 

          “She’s asleep–”

 

          “What if she wakes up?”

 

          “I smoke in here all the time; she’s never said anything before.”

 

          “You’re telling me this woman lets you smoke crack in her room?”

 

          “I don’t think she can speak any English–”

 

          Lethe groped inside his pockets for the stash that Mammon sold him.  He handed it to Louie who wore the blithe expression of a cherubic angel. 

 

“Who sold this to you?”

 

“A man.”

 

“What kind of man?”

 

“A man I met on the street.  Near the bus stop like you said.”

 

“I’ve never seen dope like this in my life.”

 

“Why?  What’s wrong with it?”

 

Louie paused and dipped his finger inside the seran wrap. 

 

“Nothing’s wrong with it.  It just looks too damn pure for you to have found it by the bus stop.”

 

“I told you everything I know–I got it by the bus stop.”

 

“Did he happen to mention the name ‘Mammon’?”

 

“No.  Why?”

 

“Mammon sells a lot of dope in this town.  My brother used to work for him.”

 

Louie rubbed the rocks between his fingers, greedily.  His bottom lip quivered as he dropped a couple morsels on top of the pipe.

 

 “I need you to hold the lighter for me.”  He said.  “Make sure the flame is directly on the rock.”

 

The glass filled with whorls of chalky smoke, giving off the ammoniac smell of the chemicals in the crack.  Louie’s face turned from peach, to orange, to crimson-flame. 

 

Then Louie held his face away from the pipe.  The color in his cheeks deepened in shades until he spewed the smoke from his nostrils.  His eyes lowered, receding into a remote darkness behind his lids. 

 

And then he revived and brightness came back into his eyes.   “Now it’s your turn,” he said.

 

Lethe poised his lips to the glass pipe.  At any other time Lethe would’ve been concerned about catching germs.  Undoubtedly the pipe held its own shady history and furthermore the thought that Louie had been putting the dirty thing between his lips sickened Lethe.  But for some unknown reason, Lethe didn’t care and that not-caring was part of the intoxication.  When Lethe used drugs, he was given to key to oblivion and freedom from himself.  For a split-second he thought of his Novel of Life and then the lighter kicked out its flame.

 

“Suck,” Louie said.

 

“Suck harder.”

 

Lethe could feel the cool column of smoke entering his lungs.  Here the reader will have to use her imagination if she has not smoked crack before.  Imagine a shock of bliss.  Your body feels as though it were above ground, or perhaps not even there at all. 

 

“Did you get it?” Louie asked.

 

“I think so.”

 

“How does it feel?”

 

Lethe looked around the room.  The Chinese lady was still sleeping.  “It feels like my brain is numb.”

 

“Good that’s how it’s supposed to feel.”