TFW CH 34 Lines Drawn In The Desert

From Can To Can’t   by From Reel To Real  

I followed Big Bryan to his stolen, big black rig that was rumbling against a pile of smashed-up vehicles against its front grill.  He was carrying the huge man Tellesco over his shoulders, you know.

I felt like I had a savior. 

Finally.

I just didn’t know that I was supposed to contribute.

As we rounded the huge mess of smashed metal, he pointed at the front of the rig.

It steamed from the top and also spurted various liquids all about on the ground.

He said, “Will, I fucked this bitch up.  I think we have another twenty minutes before she gives up the ghost.  I don’t know what we can do after that happens, before her heart melts.”  Then he set Tellesco down on the grass nearby.

I said,” Hah? Her heart melts?  What d’ya mean by that?”  I wasn’t thinking right because I was in panic mode.

Never Panic.

He pulled his hand back from the cab door handle and turned around and he looked me right in the eye.

He said, “Will.  I came back for you guys.  You guys are why I came back here.  You are why I have been in jail all this time.  You did all of this, here.  You started a war.  So what is the next step in the plan?”

I stepped back.

I remembered all that we had been through, and it had been kinda harsh.

I didn’t have a solid answer for all of his attempt to come back here and save us and all that shit.  All I could think of was Joseph, the Little Lion Man who had run off.

I found my self saying the following words, “I have no clue.”

My friend, I saw him lose all faith in me.

It was a flicker in his eyes.

I can’t even begin to describe how that felt, so I won’t.

Big Bryan said, “No clue at all?”

I shook my head. 

And then I reached down into the hidden inside pocket of my leather jacket and brought out the last remnant of my desert dust, in a tiny bag with a straw inside, and I whispered to him, “Maybe we can find out a way.”

I held it up.

I thought:

We could do a line of the white powder.  It would make everything better.  Everything had always made sense when we had done it.

I had been saving it for such an occasion.

Or course, you know that was a lie.  I simply hadn’t had enough time to snort a line from it, all the way back from when we were at the Hostibal and then we’d lost Sean.

He looked at it and said, “That’s all you got?”

I shook my head. 

I said, “Dude, no. I can get more.  Let’s do this.  A welcome back home present.  I can get more.”

I opened it up, and the straw fell out and down onto the tar.  I dropped to my knees and grabbed for it, and my fingers scratched around for it in the widening puddle of hot oil and radiator coolant, mixing as they had in the engine of my Matilda.

I had rebuilt Matilda with my bare hands.  I had given her a new heart.  I had bored her out and thrust my gleaming crankshaft in deep, and when she was finally roaring, I killed her in my lust for a tig bittied bitch.

It was a bit much to remember all of that.  I stopped fumbling for the straw.

I found mettle, somewhere down on my knees in hot liquid from a broken-hearted big rig that was willing to give her last breath up for us.

Big Bryan had come back for us.

I felt like shit.

I looked over at the bag of desert dust I’d dropped.

I had dropped it, scrambling around for the straw.

I did not make any sense at all anymore, even to myself.

Drop a bag of my savior to scramble for a straw?

I snatched the bag up and got off my knees.

Tellesco opened his eyes and said, “Whew.  Where am I?”

I looked right up into Big Bryan’s eyes, and I said, “O.K.  I get it.  I fucking get it.”

I turned the bag over, upside down, and I shook out its contents.

I looked down at the mixture of the white powder in the oil and coolant, and felt sad.

Comedown was a bitch.  You love your addiction, and you hate to see her leave you, for even an instant.

But that look in Bryan’s eyes…

I had failed him.

I had failed all of my friends.

I had failed myself.

I had failed my little sisters.

I was supposed to protect them and take them away from that ugly, mean megalopolis.

Failure.

For a moment, I recovered.

I looked back up into Big Bryan’s eyes and said, “OK.   Let’s go get Joseph.”

Ya know, that ugly look in Big Bryan’s eyes went away just as quick.  He whispered to me, “You just burned your last line, huh.  You just dumped that shit down.”

I shook my head.  I said, “It won’t be long before I’m looking for more.”

He said, “That's how it goes with recovery.  But you took the first step, Will.”

He clapped my arm, the hurt one.  I winced.

He said, “I got your back.”

Fuck.

I was afraid he’d say that.

It meant that I had stepped up.

I guess I would have a hard time ahead.

I guess all of us would as well.

But,

what he’d said,

well,

It meant something.

I meant that we might have a chance if we fought in this war.



It's just that none of us had a clue what that would mean at all.

God Help You.

God Help Us All.

---willies out.

B3   by Placebo