Ashke
Bluelighter
I remember when I was first swallowed whole by the rave scene. It happened so quickly. One night I was mingling on the tassels of a crowd that intrigued me, and the very next I found myself woven into the very tapestry of it all. My first experience wasn't with the weekend ravers, the middle-class kids who have jobs and classes, a life that has parties on the side. These were the ones who were ravers as a lifestyle.
Most of them minors and parentless, had nothing but the party scene for comfort and acceptance, a family. Their rents were earned through drugs and 'spanging' ("Got any spare change?"). Those street drifters that couldn't keep down homes would migrate between those who could, in exchange for friendships, drug connections, loyalty, physical protection... There is still much you can offer even when you're broke and carry home around in a backpack.
So day two in my dabbling with a group that had vaguely intrigued me, I found myself in the heart of it, among these kids who lived for nothing else. And they were some characters. Beautiful souls on some of these children, and there were times it just poured out of their eyes as they spoke to you. I found myself sitting in this squatter house in the heart of the slums that surround campus, and it was packed with all these people who lived like lost boys.
The furniture fell into two categories; something to sprawl on, or something that looked cool while you were tripping. When I first met Punky, I was perched nervously on one of the former watching her be hypnotized by the latter.
She was beautiful. She was lost in one of those lightning balls, the purple globes that send white fire racing at your fingertips. Her face was pure little girl wonder streaked with ultra-violet shadows. I asked very timidly, "Are you tripping...?" for I never had tripped, but just watching her made me think I might better understand what LSD was like. She took a very long time to nod, and longer still to drag her focus away and look at me.
I murmured, "What do you see...?"
And she just smiled at me with distraction and said, "It isn't visual." That baffled me, because I didn't know there WAS anything to it but visuals. However her attention returned to the globe before I could question it.
She answered me anyway, without speaking another word for the rest of the night. I think the globe was captivating because of the thoughts I saw racing behind the focus her eyes. I wonder if she was lost in the magic concept of white fire rushing to greet her touch, or maybe the thought of being caught inside that glass prison, braving an insane violet storm?
The glimpse I got of her that night was a precious and rare one, and it wouldn't be til later that week that I met the Punky most of the world saw. Yet that side intrigued me too. She was so *strong*! She fiercely protected those close to her, watched with guards up on those in the distance, and refused to take shit from *anyone*.
Punky was every bit as short as me, but it never stopped her from being intimidating to anyone who knew her. She was lovely, but she saw this as an obstacle to overcome in expressing her real self. She did what she could to downplay or harden her looks: her jungle kid gear... her shaved head with bangs kept in long spikes that fell in angles to sharpen the soft curves of her pretty cheeks and round face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note to the reader: At this point one might notice slight changes in Ashke's tone, or wordchoice, or whatever... It's because at this point her sweetheart of a boy very suddenly started to trip balls and required the whole of her attention. The story was picked up again the following day at work after absolutely no sleep, entirely too much caffeine, and the mental exhaustion of keeping up with Loupy's acid-wired discussions and leap-frog thought process all night long. Thank u drive thru.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ever felt that you've fallen in love with someone you could never really touch? Punky was like that. Untouchable. She considered me a friend, and I knew she'd always have my back, but I knew I would never be allowed to really know her. I would never learn her secrets, get past her guards. I'd never see her cry.
But I suppose it doesn't matter. I think back to that summer and even now, a full year later, my memories of that girl are still so bright in my mind! She was every bit the stronger woman I had always wanted to be.
I remember the lewd, playful sparkle as she praised a passing college student's, er, feminine assets. She spoke with a crude, bold candor that managed to surprise and impress the all the nearby straight boys chagrined to agree with her.
I remember the night I went to campus and was eagerly told the tale of this magnificent showdown between Punky and a seventeen year old runaway turned dealer by the name of Shawn. He got himself in a financial "situation", and in his desperation tried selling bunk pills to the campus regulars. When a bunch of kids got sick off his shit, Punky hunted him down, thoroughly kicked his scrawny white ass, and made sure he understood that those were HER kids and she wasn't going to put up with shit like that. They say he's still in Ohio somewhere but no one I've talked to has seen him since.
I remember the compassion in the way she held my face this late summer night when I ODed on K. I remember how Punky's face swam in and out of recognition, but in those rare moments of focus it looked so stricken with the knowledge that she'd been the one who'd sold it to me. Her calm soothing words would reach me like some white noise I couldn't logically interpret as words... I could only grasp that I wasn't alone, and that someone had decided I wasn't allowed to drift away tonight. And dying, well, that was just out of the question.
I remember one night at a rave, how surprised I was to see Punky there... and taken further aback when she stumbled up to me with effort. She was rolling SO hard... off ridiculously too many pills, I'm sure. And I might have been concerned but she got up real close to my face and just studied me for a moment. It was clearly hard to focus on my face, but she forced it, and then mumbled something intensely heartfelt. Heartfelt.... and unintelligible. And then someone had snagged her arm from behind and she was dragged off. I've shyly wondered many times what she might have said that night, or if she remembers at all. Honestly, I doubt it. More than anything, I wonder if the truth would be disappointing compared to all the possibilities my over-active imagination conjured up just because of the way she locked that intense, unsteady gaze on my face.
When winter comes, the campus is like a ghost town at night. Between late August and early January I never saw her.
~*~*~*~
There are downsides to making friends with the campus rats. I mean, I don't regret the time I spend among them. As I said, I met some beautiful souls and lived out so many accidental adventures, found myself in the craziest situations and had some wildly fun moments there. The boring, milk-fed suburbia that I sprung from, well it never made me feel anything but restless, bored, sedated. But the price I pay is the understanding that I every day I watch some of these kids I love fiercely embrace their own self-destruction.
I guess I thought Punky would survive it somehow, you know? I admired her strength and her sense of honor and loyalty so much...
As the days got warmer, I found myself visiting campus more frequently. It was so exciting to see old familiar faces crawl out of the woodwork, and soon almost the whole crowd from last summer was accounted for.
She's not the same. I don't know what happened this winter, but she's lost something. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but each time I see her I feel its absense with an increasing sense of loss and gravity.
She's thinner, but it's so much more than that. I don't see the others walk eggshells around her like they used to. I don't see the hearty laugh or the spark of mischief. They say she doesn't sell as much as she used to, and a little investigation revealed that no one trusts her enough to front her anything these days. I heard she didn't party anymore. Though she was always friendly with me, she only seemed concerned these days with getting fucked up, scoring drugs for others, or trying to regain control on whatever insane chemical combo was overwhelming her at the moment. It was all about drugs now.
I remember how it stung me to overhear that the pills she had to offer this week were green clovers and cross-tops. I looked her dead in the eye and murmured numbly, "Clovers are DXM, aren't they? I've researched them..." And god, the way her eyes flared up with shame and defense as she mumbled, "I dunno, maybe, I heard they were smacky or something..." Oh god. I wanted to take her shoulders and shake her. You fucking bitch, you know exactly what fucking robotrip is, you know how much damage that shit does. Can you be the same wrathful angel that chased off that slimy fucker Shawn? Can you be the same girl I wanted so badly to be only a year ago?
It really ate at me why she had changed so much. What did it? I almost wanted to put blame with the kids who still saw her throughout the winter, but the answer I got was the same. "I try to tell her she oughta be good to herself, but you know Punky, she ain't gonna fuckin' listen."
Nobody really wanted to talk about it. I speak of my own sense of loss, but I know they felt her slip away too and that it must have pained them somehow.
These days I realized that the more I learned, the more I realized that deep down I was furious at her. How dare she let me down when I had looked up to her so utterly. I was so angry that I still missed her so much. Most of all I hated that I couldn't hate her. It would have been easier, but I remember when by chance last week I came across her all alone, curled up and disturbingly pale. It took me a moment to realize that she was miserably, violently ill. Coming down? I had no clue. I didn't want to care. She fucking did it to herself.
Right...?
Of course, what else? FUCKING BITCH! Do you know how badly I wanted to know you last summer? Do you know how honored I was that you called me your friend and always said you'd 'have my back'? Me, who was so shy and meek. I wanted to mold my own courage and dignity after your shining example. And now you come to me another skinny little corpse with all the smolder in your bold gaze gone ashen and dead. YOU KILLED THIS BEAUTIFUL PERSON I TREASURED AND FOR WHAT?
Fucking drugs. *laugh* You'd think that at some point I'd just get used to it. I swear to god I'm a junkie magnet. These motherfuckers win my heart and then they give it back and forget me in favor of pining after needles and chemical bliss.
Needles, yeah... She's shooting meth. I'm too daunted to even plot a rescue for this girl I'd loved. It's too plain to see that she's consumed by it. She doesn't seem receptive to help, and quite frankly I'm done risking my sanity trying to bring back the spiritually dead. It's too hard. Too unlikely. So fuck her. FUCK HER.
Right?
But as she huddled there so sick and all alone, I couldn't be angry at all. I crouched down beside her, and it all just slipped away. At that moment I could only brush her long bangs back as she emptied her stomach over the half dead grass she knelt on. I opened my mouth, and could only fill the awful silence between wet choking and gasps with my own murmured comfort. I could only remember that night I'd been so sick and alone... distantly, quietly terrified at the certainty that this mental detachment and numbness I couldn't escape was my own death's approach. And knowing that she held me then, that at the time it was noble and real, quiet acknowledgement that in her own gruff way she cared about me.
It's only a few days now that I've known the whole truth, really. But it still hasn't fully sunk in. It's so strange... In a way it's almost comforting to me. I mean, meth...? My brave friend has been ruined by meth addiction? My old demon? I don't know... It's fierce powerful stuff to be sure, but somehow *I* managed to struggle free. It was this battle that I somehow conquered, and continue to conquer to this day when I must. And Punky, she sells DXM to the very ones she used to defend with her life.
It's no less tragic of course, losing a friend, but it does give me some perspective. Maybe I'm not so lacking in strength after all. Maybe I'm doing alright for myself. And though it doesn't make me miss the girl she used to be any less, I think I should maybe look inside before returning to the false idol of strength I worshiped last summer.
~*~ Ashke ~*~
[This message has been edited by Ashke (edited 09 May 2000).]
Most of them minors and parentless, had nothing but the party scene for comfort and acceptance, a family. Their rents were earned through drugs and 'spanging' ("Got any spare change?"). Those street drifters that couldn't keep down homes would migrate between those who could, in exchange for friendships, drug connections, loyalty, physical protection... There is still much you can offer even when you're broke and carry home around in a backpack.
So day two in my dabbling with a group that had vaguely intrigued me, I found myself in the heart of it, among these kids who lived for nothing else. And they were some characters. Beautiful souls on some of these children, and there were times it just poured out of their eyes as they spoke to you. I found myself sitting in this squatter house in the heart of the slums that surround campus, and it was packed with all these people who lived like lost boys.
The furniture fell into two categories; something to sprawl on, or something that looked cool while you were tripping. When I first met Punky, I was perched nervously on one of the former watching her be hypnotized by the latter.
She was beautiful. She was lost in one of those lightning balls, the purple globes that send white fire racing at your fingertips. Her face was pure little girl wonder streaked with ultra-violet shadows. I asked very timidly, "Are you tripping...?" for I never had tripped, but just watching her made me think I might better understand what LSD was like. She took a very long time to nod, and longer still to drag her focus away and look at me.
I murmured, "What do you see...?"
And she just smiled at me with distraction and said, "It isn't visual." That baffled me, because I didn't know there WAS anything to it but visuals. However her attention returned to the globe before I could question it.
She answered me anyway, without speaking another word for the rest of the night. I think the globe was captivating because of the thoughts I saw racing behind the focus her eyes. I wonder if she was lost in the magic concept of white fire rushing to greet her touch, or maybe the thought of being caught inside that glass prison, braving an insane violet storm?
The glimpse I got of her that night was a precious and rare one, and it wouldn't be til later that week that I met the Punky most of the world saw. Yet that side intrigued me too. She was so *strong*! She fiercely protected those close to her, watched with guards up on those in the distance, and refused to take shit from *anyone*.
Punky was every bit as short as me, but it never stopped her from being intimidating to anyone who knew her. She was lovely, but she saw this as an obstacle to overcome in expressing her real self. She did what she could to downplay or harden her looks: her jungle kid gear... her shaved head with bangs kept in long spikes that fell in angles to sharpen the soft curves of her pretty cheeks and round face.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note to the reader: At this point one might notice slight changes in Ashke's tone, or wordchoice, or whatever... It's because at this point her sweetheart of a boy very suddenly started to trip balls and required the whole of her attention. The story was picked up again the following day at work after absolutely no sleep, entirely too much caffeine, and the mental exhaustion of keeping up with Loupy's acid-wired discussions and leap-frog thought process all night long. Thank u drive thru.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ever felt that you've fallen in love with someone you could never really touch? Punky was like that. Untouchable. She considered me a friend, and I knew she'd always have my back, but I knew I would never be allowed to really know her. I would never learn her secrets, get past her guards. I'd never see her cry.
But I suppose it doesn't matter. I think back to that summer and even now, a full year later, my memories of that girl are still so bright in my mind! She was every bit the stronger woman I had always wanted to be.
I remember the lewd, playful sparkle as she praised a passing college student's, er, feminine assets. She spoke with a crude, bold candor that managed to surprise and impress the all the nearby straight boys chagrined to agree with her.
I remember the night I went to campus and was eagerly told the tale of this magnificent showdown between Punky and a seventeen year old runaway turned dealer by the name of Shawn. He got himself in a financial "situation", and in his desperation tried selling bunk pills to the campus regulars. When a bunch of kids got sick off his shit, Punky hunted him down, thoroughly kicked his scrawny white ass, and made sure he understood that those were HER kids and she wasn't going to put up with shit like that. They say he's still in Ohio somewhere but no one I've talked to has seen him since.
I remember the compassion in the way she held my face this late summer night when I ODed on K. I remember how Punky's face swam in and out of recognition, but in those rare moments of focus it looked so stricken with the knowledge that she'd been the one who'd sold it to me. Her calm soothing words would reach me like some white noise I couldn't logically interpret as words... I could only grasp that I wasn't alone, and that someone had decided I wasn't allowed to drift away tonight. And dying, well, that was just out of the question.
I remember one night at a rave, how surprised I was to see Punky there... and taken further aback when she stumbled up to me with effort. She was rolling SO hard... off ridiculously too many pills, I'm sure. And I might have been concerned but she got up real close to my face and just studied me for a moment. It was clearly hard to focus on my face, but she forced it, and then mumbled something intensely heartfelt. Heartfelt.... and unintelligible. And then someone had snagged her arm from behind and she was dragged off. I've shyly wondered many times what she might have said that night, or if she remembers at all. Honestly, I doubt it. More than anything, I wonder if the truth would be disappointing compared to all the possibilities my over-active imagination conjured up just because of the way she locked that intense, unsteady gaze on my face.
When winter comes, the campus is like a ghost town at night. Between late August and early January I never saw her.
~*~*~*~
There are downsides to making friends with the campus rats. I mean, I don't regret the time I spend among them. As I said, I met some beautiful souls and lived out so many accidental adventures, found myself in the craziest situations and had some wildly fun moments there. The boring, milk-fed suburbia that I sprung from, well it never made me feel anything but restless, bored, sedated. But the price I pay is the understanding that I every day I watch some of these kids I love fiercely embrace their own self-destruction.
I guess I thought Punky would survive it somehow, you know? I admired her strength and her sense of honor and loyalty so much...
As the days got warmer, I found myself visiting campus more frequently. It was so exciting to see old familiar faces crawl out of the woodwork, and soon almost the whole crowd from last summer was accounted for.
She's not the same. I don't know what happened this winter, but she's lost something. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but each time I see her I feel its absense with an increasing sense of loss and gravity.
She's thinner, but it's so much more than that. I don't see the others walk eggshells around her like they used to. I don't see the hearty laugh or the spark of mischief. They say she doesn't sell as much as she used to, and a little investigation revealed that no one trusts her enough to front her anything these days. I heard she didn't party anymore. Though she was always friendly with me, she only seemed concerned these days with getting fucked up, scoring drugs for others, or trying to regain control on whatever insane chemical combo was overwhelming her at the moment. It was all about drugs now.
I remember how it stung me to overhear that the pills she had to offer this week were green clovers and cross-tops. I looked her dead in the eye and murmured numbly, "Clovers are DXM, aren't they? I've researched them..." And god, the way her eyes flared up with shame and defense as she mumbled, "I dunno, maybe, I heard they were smacky or something..." Oh god. I wanted to take her shoulders and shake her. You fucking bitch, you know exactly what fucking robotrip is, you know how much damage that shit does. Can you be the same wrathful angel that chased off that slimy fucker Shawn? Can you be the same girl I wanted so badly to be only a year ago?
It really ate at me why she had changed so much. What did it? I almost wanted to put blame with the kids who still saw her throughout the winter, but the answer I got was the same. "I try to tell her she oughta be good to herself, but you know Punky, she ain't gonna fuckin' listen."
Nobody really wanted to talk about it. I speak of my own sense of loss, but I know they felt her slip away too and that it must have pained them somehow.
These days I realized that the more I learned, the more I realized that deep down I was furious at her. How dare she let me down when I had looked up to her so utterly. I was so angry that I still missed her so much. Most of all I hated that I couldn't hate her. It would have been easier, but I remember when by chance last week I came across her all alone, curled up and disturbingly pale. It took me a moment to realize that she was miserably, violently ill. Coming down? I had no clue. I didn't want to care. She fucking did it to herself.
Right...?
Of course, what else? FUCKING BITCH! Do you know how badly I wanted to know you last summer? Do you know how honored I was that you called me your friend and always said you'd 'have my back'? Me, who was so shy and meek. I wanted to mold my own courage and dignity after your shining example. And now you come to me another skinny little corpse with all the smolder in your bold gaze gone ashen and dead. YOU KILLED THIS BEAUTIFUL PERSON I TREASURED AND FOR WHAT?
Fucking drugs. *laugh* You'd think that at some point I'd just get used to it. I swear to god I'm a junkie magnet. These motherfuckers win my heart and then they give it back and forget me in favor of pining after needles and chemical bliss.
Needles, yeah... She's shooting meth. I'm too daunted to even plot a rescue for this girl I'd loved. It's too plain to see that she's consumed by it. She doesn't seem receptive to help, and quite frankly I'm done risking my sanity trying to bring back the spiritually dead. It's too hard. Too unlikely. So fuck her. FUCK HER.
Right?
But as she huddled there so sick and all alone, I couldn't be angry at all. I crouched down beside her, and it all just slipped away. At that moment I could only brush her long bangs back as she emptied her stomach over the half dead grass she knelt on. I opened my mouth, and could only fill the awful silence between wet choking and gasps with my own murmured comfort. I could only remember that night I'd been so sick and alone... distantly, quietly terrified at the certainty that this mental detachment and numbness I couldn't escape was my own death's approach. And knowing that she held me then, that at the time it was noble and real, quiet acknowledgement that in her own gruff way she cared about me.
It's only a few days now that I've known the whole truth, really. But it still hasn't fully sunk in. It's so strange... In a way it's almost comforting to me. I mean, meth...? My brave friend has been ruined by meth addiction? My old demon? I don't know... It's fierce powerful stuff to be sure, but somehow *I* managed to struggle free. It was this battle that I somehow conquered, and continue to conquer to this day when I must. And Punky, she sells DXM to the very ones she used to defend with her life.
It's no less tragic of course, losing a friend, but it does give me some perspective. Maybe I'm not so lacking in strength after all. Maybe I'm doing alright for myself. And though it doesn't make me miss the girl she used to be any less, I think I should maybe look inside before returning to the false idol of strength I worshiped last summer.
~*~ Ashke ~*~
[This message has been edited by Ashke (edited 09 May 2000).]
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MD/DC/VA Krew
