The Junkie Tales Read online

  Her door stayed closed.

  Pressing the lobby button, the elevator doors slide shut, closing on our future.

  Fuck her.

  I didn’t need Jodie. I didn’t need anyone.

  A couple of blocks from her place I found salvation in a neon glow, a means to mend my shattered life. Sure, I’d quit seven years ago. Seven long years. But there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t want it, desire the burning and instantaneous calm the first hit always provided.

  My drug of choice was easy to find, even with government intervention and after school specials. I plunked down a twenty, and in a few seconds, my fingers clutched a foil wrapper to my chest.

  ******

  Two days later, I sat on my couch in front of a widescreen TV, smoking yet another cigarette from a foil wrapped packet. Staring at the burning tip, I hated myself for my weakness. Nevertheless, deep inside me I hated Jodie more for hers, for tossing away what could have been.

  My cell phone, sitting on the table next to me, rang but I ignored it. Who called me anyway? Only bill collectors and telemarketers.

  After thirty seconds, my phone beeped warning of a new voice mail message. Instead of checking the message I lit another cigarette and continued to stare mindlessly at the TV.

  A pretty-boy newscaster popped on the screen, his face projecting empathy and caring, which appeared at odds with his hundred-dollar haircut. He stood in front of a string of yellow police tape. Red and blue lights reflected off the lens of his stylish, non-threatening eyeglasses.

  In the background, the camera captured the grieving faces of the crowd. A child grasped her mother’s hand, tears splashed down her cheeks. A teddy bear stayed firmly clutched in her hand. The child looked so sad, and familiar.

  “I’m here at the Glen Grove Lofts,” the newscaster said, “reporting on the apparent suicide of the famed Hollywood actress—”

  I knew it was her even before he spoke her name.

  “Jodie Dean was pronounced dead at the scene.” Pretty-boy wiped his dry eyes as Jodie’s beautiful face flashed across the screen. She smiled at the world from a glossy headshot photograph. The image looked nothing like her.

  Oh, God. Please, no.

  But my prayers came too late. Jodie was dead, obliterated by an eighteen-story dive from her loft to the cement below. The newscaster repeated the gruesome details of her final flight, as if his career depended on it. Maybe it did. Maybe all this was some sick joke to boost ratings.

  But it wasn’t. A fresh wave of horror at her death hit me, and I fell to my knees. Tears burned my eyes and I struggled for breath.

  Why Jodie? Why kill yourself when you had everything to live for? It didn’t make sense. Millions of people adored her, loved her sparkling smile, and little girl laugh. I loved her. She was an icon, a star, burning bright as she crossed the night.

  “Sources closest to the actress say,” the reporter paused for effect, “Ms. Dean was devastated by her recent break up from her long time beau.” Through the television screen the reporter’s eyes burned into mine, damming me for an eternity.

  ******

  A week later, standing in front of Jodie’s headstone, I blew out nicotine-filled dioxide. A cloud of smoke formed around my head. As quickly as the cloud formed the Santa Ana winds swept it toward the setting California sun.

  My mind flickered with memories of our time together, of days spent laying in her bed, and nights that I prayed would never end. But end they had, leaving me with nothing but the fading taste of her skin on my lips.

  Time healed all wounds, but time also ran out.

  I lit another cigarette from the butt of an old one. After seven long years of abstinence chain smoking felt like a gift from the heavens, a parting gift to be more precise.

  Glancing to the sky, I smiled bitterly as the smog-filled air charred my lungs. The cigarette burned brightly reminding me of a shooting star.

  I wish I may, I wish I might mend this broken life.

  Helpless anger swelled inside me. Jodie’s death weighed heavily on my mind, on my heart, on my soul. But what I felt mostly was rage. Violent, cold anger. But not at last desperate act of a fading star. No, my fury had another target. An easier target. Staring at the cell phone in my hand, I listened for the seventh time to the voice mail left a week ago.

  “Hello, Mr. Coleman,” a clinical voice said. “This is Dr. Jones.”

  The good doctor was a man without a soul, a man in a white lab coat untouched by human emotions, a man who’d never know the pain of loss. I hated him and his robotic tone.

  “We have the...,” he droned, as if reading from a note card.

  No emotion.

  No regret.

  I had plenty of regret. A list growing far too long as the doctor’s message played again and again. I closed my eyes, and pictured Jodie. I thought I knew all there was to know about her, like her favorite color or that she craved Chunky Monkey ice cream after sex, but in the end, I didn’t know her.

  Not at all.

  I failed to ask the important stuff, like why she wore socks to bed, or why her eyes sometimes appeared glassy and unfocused. To me none of that mattered. Staring at her grave, I realized how much it had.

  Today, I learned my beautiful star’s final secret. A secret she’d taken to her grave. A shared secret I’d now carry with me for the rest of my days.

  “Mr. Coleman, I regret to inform you...,” Dr. Jones intoned, his voice cold. “You’re HIV positive.”