Bum-bumbum-bumbumbum-bum-bumbum-bumbumbum… bull moose washed out. Loose meat. Feather burnt, cloaca clamped. My beak’s broken but barely screaming and I’m in pain. Monica got me back on heroin and we’ve already run out. “Come on, Bennington, stop being such a fucking pussy—just shoot up with me. Come ON! It’s special. We’re in Times Square, we don’t have a hotel, and it’s freezing, so let’s get high.” Bum-bumbum-bumbumbum-bum-bumbum-bumbumbum… I can’t believe I let that bitch get me back on the stuff. She thinks she can keep it together but she can’t, she’s a hardcore addict if I’ve ever seen one, and I used to live beneath this city. Monica can’t stop something once she gets going. I once saw her eat a bear just because Rooster said she couldn’t. It’s one of her biggest regrets—Monica got rabies and almost turned into a bear. Another story for another time, when I’m not high.
Wait, I’m not high now. Fuck. Monica ripped me off and tried to leave me to die in the gutter after carpet-surfing the Union Square Loews and getting kicked out for being too “dusty.” What does that mean? “Too dusty.” I don’t get it. Are there new slurs for “chicken” that I’m not yet aware of? I’d like to know them, for my friends and enemies. Monica’s one of my enemies, and as I write this, she says she’s found some dope and is cooking it up right now. Life is good. I like her again. Drugs are powerful and, perhaps, good, because they can make otherwise unpleasant and even miserable people, situations, feelings, and memories disappear into a golden haze of painless floating. Monica is tying me up right now and telling me to relax, keep typing, you’re doing just fine.
I’m not like Rooster—I can work when I’m stoned. Us working class “chickens” are always on the job and we get high too, so I’ve been on the job at the railroad, at the bus mall, at the Gap, at the Smoothie King, at Merrill Lynch, everywhere I’ve worked as a bouncer and fluffer. No one can stop me once I get going, not even my raging addictions or Bitch Monica. She’s telling me to call her that again and I refuse to even acknowledge her. Jesus. This woman is my cousin’s wife, and instead of nodding out like a normal bird she’s making googly eyes at me in the Chelsea Hotel while I try to earn a living so we may make our daily bread and our daily score. Is nothing sacred even in this sick, profane world?
I got a message from Rooster just now: “COME HOME IMMEDIATELY. WHAT THE FUCK.” Where has he been? He can afford a ticket. I told him to come down. I told him I had “golden brown.” He knows exactly what that meant, and I’ll make sure you know he knew exactly what I meant, because within hours he was on a train to New York with a bag of Narcan, Valium, and a gun. He doesn’t have a license to carry.
“Anything to worry about, Benny? Heard from Roo?”
I turned to her. “No.” I turned back to my desk and deleted the email from Rooster. “You should stay here for now. I’m going to the movies to catch some strange.
“Alright, I’ll be here.”
Good. Bitch Monica is going to get it.
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