Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil—EM Cioran
In the night Anna wailed. I heard her shit a noisy shit. She was whispering to herself—which I couldn't understand—then she was talking to herself, saying something like, "Man of war caught me in a cave and took my selves apart piece. By piece. By piece." It was very poetic. Then she was screaming at the ceiling of the crate.
"HALP ME!! HALP ME!! Since you're the only one who can hear me then I guess it's you I'm asking for help from!! God dammit, Matthew, Mr. Temple, Mr. Simple, whatever the fuck your real name is, I'm asking for something simple, and that's a shot—fuck me I don't believe I'm asking for this! We don't do crystal meth in Lehighton—but give me a shot of the crystal so I don't have to think of the pain!!"
I get out of bed. I'm wearing sweats and a Basquiat shirt my sister got me. Obviously no one knows where I live, but I have a PO box in the city.
I unlock the crate and go in.
Anna is awash in light.
Her clitoral area is just a blur of red.
She follows me around the chair as I come into her view.
"Please," she says. "Please."
Her nose is red and her cheeks are red and she's got saliva and snot and tears coming out of everywhere.
I get a paper towel and wipe up her face as she's sniffling, breathing in sharply, almost making herself choke.
I toss the paper towel into my biohazard trash.
"You want a shot of crystal meth to ease the pain?"
She nods wildly.
"What pain? Your clitoris or some other kind of vague emotional pain?"
"BOTH, OK? BOTH!!"
"I find it highly unlikely that no one in Lehighton does crystal meth."
"Ok, yes, some people in Lehighton do crystal meth."
"But not you."
"I never did any drugs before I met you. The only people in Lehighton who do crystal meth are poor people, literally from the other side of the tracks, who let their kids play in the dirt all day outside the front of the house while they've got the door locked and the adults are inside smoking crystal."
"How do you know this?"
"Because. I worked for Jimmy John's and I delivered hoagies to their house and I had to knock on the door for like forever while they realized the knocking they were hearing was real and it was the food they ordered and whenever I went inside I had to stand in that cloud of crystal and wait for them to look through all their pockets to find enough money to pay me."
"Usually people on crystal don't eat."
"It wasn't for them. It was for the kids."
"Oh, conscientious meth heads in Lehighton, PA. You do have to take me on a tour. Your story barely holds together but promise me when we're done here you'll take me on a mini-vacation to your home town and introduce me to all the local characters."
"I thought you were gonna kill me," Anna says pleadingly.
"I'm starting to like you," I say.
"No, you have to. At this point you have to," she says.
"I don't have to do anything. Now what is it you want, a shot of crystal meth to help with physical and emotional pain?"
"Yes."
"How 'bout I put on a movie instead?"
"I DON'T WANT ANY MORE MOVIES!!"
"Ok, not a movie person. Do you need food. I see you had a number two. Do you want me to spray you down?"
"NO! I'm sick of you spraying me down. Just leave it!!"
"You really think drugs are the answer to your problems?"
"I think you owe me—"
"What?! Numbness??"
"Some relief!"
"What good is relief if tomorrow and the next day and the next day are worse? Just more of me fucking with you emotionally and physically. Am I supposed to drug you up at the end of each day so you can forget? I mean what do you think the purpose of this is? To numb you out with some white trash drug so it's pain then pleasure then pain then pleasure then pain? What's the point of that. Look around. You're in a torture chamber. Just 'cause I'm friendly with you doesn't mean we're friends."
"You crossed the line," she says.
I politely inform her that there is no line.
"Just kill me, then."
"I'm not gonna kill you. The mouse is still having fun with the lizard."
"Can we get a cat? A real cat?" She sobs, "I just want a cat."
"You know what this is, Anna—tonight? You know what tonight is?"
"What?"
"No, I want you to tell me."
"I don't know."
"Yes you do. You're smart. You're one of the smartest people I'll have the pleasure to kill. What is tonight?"
She waits a long time before answering.
Then she says, "My breaking point."
I'm beaming.
I can't help myself but I clap—once—before I get myself under control.
"I love a smart girl, Anna."
"You love to kill a smart girl?"
"I love to do anything with a smart girl. Fuck her, make her cum, kill her. I just love a smart girl in general."
"Oh, god," she says, and takes a deep, deep breath in. "I just never thought. I mean I never imagined.."
I put my hand on her thigh.
"No one does," I say.
"Can I have the shot?"
"Look, if you're to have this shot, I feel compelled to remind you—out of what, I don't know, some sick emotional connection I've allowed myself to develop with you—that if I give you this shot, it will be—like everything in this crate—for my enjoyment. Ok? I don't know why I'm telling you this, but..you're going to think it's for your enjoyment—or to numb your emotional and physical pain—but it won't be for that purpose. I'm going to get more out of this than you are."
"Just do it."
"You really don't know what you're asking for."
"I need a little help here."
"Anna. Remember who you're asking that from. At what point did you delude yourself that I am someone who is here to help you? Listen to what you're saying."
"Just please."
"Ok."
"You will?"
"Oh yes, I will. Just give me a second."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you."
"Don't thank me."
"Thank you so much, I appreciate this."
"Really. Don't thank me."
I fish in one of my tool chest drawers and pull out a portable heart rate monitor. This isn't the $4,000 Welch Allyn one, either—it's a $300 generic one I got off Amazon.com with some gift card points. By the time Amazon Prime kicked in—with free shipping—I prob'ly paid $3 for the thing.
I swing my stool around and suction the three leads to Anna's chest and abdomen (the leads are red, white, and blue by the way—lol).
Anna's like, "What the fuck is that??"
"That's a heart rate monitor."
The display hangs down the side of her body, resting in the scoop right above her left hip. I can see the display from where I sit.
I pull out my phone and open the timer application. I have it inform me at ten minute intervals.
I mix the first shot.
I give it to Anna, in her left arm, pit of the elbow, using my right hand as a tourniquet and the other holds the needle.
The second I shoot her it hits her whole body and she has exactly what she wants.
A different kind of tear rolls out of her left eye as she turns her head to me.
"Thank you."
I mix the next shot.
Anna flexes, rolls her pelvis, thrusts, stretches her fingers. I can only imagine what her vagina is doing down there.
My phone informs me that ten minutes have passed.
I give Anna shot ##2. Same hole. Same procedure.
She whispers, "Thank you."
After shot ##3 she's telling me I can fuck her if I want.
It makes my dick hard but I stick to the plan.
After shot ##4 she's begging me to unclamp her hands so she can touch herself.
"You're a little sensitive down there right now so I think we're gonna leave the clamps on."
"You don't know the torture, she says, of being clamped down like this and unable to get myself off."
I just look at her and wonder if the irony of that statement will ever hit her.
I give her shot ##5.
Her eyelids flutter, eyeballs roll back in her head.
I check the heart monitor.
Still within limits.
Anna starts talking all this sexual nonsense which I'm not going to repeat here because my purpose in telling you this story is not to excite you sexually. My purpose is quite different and if you haven't guessed now then I think you will have by the end of the book. But anyway she talks all this nonsense—not to me, not to her, not to anyone except maybe the cat she wants us to get to cozy up the crate. Like I'd have a cat in my torture container—I mean think of the germs!
When I give Anna shot ##6, she is hardly aware it is happening. She's tripping out on the halogen flood lights above her, experimenting with keeping her eyes wide open and staring right into them. You will find, when hallucinating, that you can look into exceptionally bright lights and the lights don't disturb you—they only enhance your trip. And after shot ##6 Anna was definitely tripping.
I know because she stopped responding to my presence in the room. I could walk around, stand on any side of her, touch her, even do things like interlock my fingers with hers in a lovers' hand hold, and she made no reaction.
I kept a close eye on the $3 heart monitor—according to that she was fine.
I mean aside from the psychosis I was inducing by releasing massive amounts of dopamine into her brain using crystal methamphetamine.
She asked for it.
One hour in, Anna seemed to be stable and hallucinating.
I pulled out a giant book, sat close beside her, periodically checked her heart monitor, and read bookmarked sections of the First Folio.
I was in my own kind of trance with the blank verse when Anna started talking about "a covered sniper" who kept chasing her and setting up on her from "an elevated position." I assumed this was some shit she heard on TV. But her eyes were open, and she was moving side to side as much as possible given that she was clamped into a gynecological examination chair.
I stood up and she looked at me and said:
"You are the sniper."
Which was simple and weird and shouldn't have gotten under my skin but after all I'd been through, it did.
I put my hand on her forehead and centered her head, then locked down the neck clamp. I didn't want her hurting herself with those wild head movements.
Her condition worsened, partially because I sat with her all night and applied as much crystal meth to her system as the heart monitor would allow.
For long periods she was silent, moving as much as she could through a series of tai chi-like movements, and I was glad I did not know what she was seeing in her mind's eye.
But there were times when the apparitions chasing her were close, with handguns, posing as police officers—she thought she was in her childhood house in Lehighton and she couldn't tell the difference between the police who were set up on rooftops to kill her and the police who responded to her 911 calls—everyone she met wanted to shoot her. And her conversations went from logical conversations with the police where she said:
"No. I don't take medication! I don't have a mental illness!! Are you sure he's not there? My mom will be home in a while. She works at the marriage chapel. Ok. Are you sure the premises is safe? Ok, but I'm gonna call you if I see those guys again. Ok. Ok. I'm sorry to have bothered you!"
Then there was a period of silence.
More tai chi-like movements that lasted the course of an hour.
Then Anna would scream:
"HE'S ON THE ROOF!! DON'T YOU SEE HIM?? I NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO—"
Then she let out a blood-boiling scream and shook in the chair like someone having a seizure.
I checked the heart monitor—she was totally fine from that perspective.
But whatever world she was in was filled with something chasing her that didn't have a face. She was running the streets of her home town but instead of being the safe place it probably really was for her it had turned into a land of—I couldn't tell what, exactly, but—things so scary that Anna would let out a single note, serving as a scream, eyes wide open staring into the halogens, and in what she had no idea was just her imagination, she stared into the faces of gods, devils, aliens, angels, modern warriors, and evil itself—at least that's what it sounded like from the outside.
At first I remembered my experiences in training with drugs far more powerful than the one she was on, but quickly I was so deep into my favorite parts of the Shakespeare that I hardly heard her screams.