Stupidity, not Insanity

My family tried to get me clean multiple times. I did not thank them or accept it at all.


Between Shain, Clair, and I we had pooled enough money to bail Dexter out of jail.

Dexter was my dope dealer. He's a little bit taller than me, pale and scrawny with heavy blue eyes. The lids are always drooping, making his pupils look like shining half moons. His light hair is shaved almost all the way down. Dexter has tattoos on his calves and upper and lower arms. He seems to always wear a white t-shirt and a pair of low jean shorts that he holds up with one hand, a Newport usually in the other. He has a child-like smile and a low drawl that squeaks when he gets angry or joyful. Dexter's only family is his grandma and his uncle, who both know he's a drug dealer. Gramma finds rigs and baggies in the laundry she does for him. His mother was a crack whore who left him with Gramma and his father was incarcerated for drugs most of Dexter's life. Shortly after he was released and formed a relationship with Dexter he passed away. It seems almost as if Dexter was destined to be a narcotics business man.

Clair is Dexter's girlfriend. Shain and I went to high school with her. She has always been stunningly beautiful with olive skin and shockingly blue eyes. Clair usually keeps her black, straight hair long. She's taller than me and fairly thin. She has perfect teeth and freckles all across her nose and cheeks. She never laughs, she chuckles from her belly.
Clair and I realized the day we worked to get Dexter out of jail how much we had in common. Her mom and my dad died suddenly, both when we were nine. Our relationships with our remaining parents are identical, along with our relationships with our siblings. Our reasons for using dope are exactly the same. Our lives are mirror images. I love Clair's name. She told me as we drove to pick up Shain from work that night that her parents chose that name for her because they loved Debussy's "Clair de Lune" so much. She hummed the melody and I smiled. I play classical piano. I know my Debussy.

I coughed and managed to open my eyes to the sound of someone banging on the door at ten in the morning. The four of us had been up all night, laughing, joking, shooting. I fell asleep on the beaten leather couch in Dexter's living room. I looked around and saw Shain on his elbows, staring at the door, on the love seat perpendicular to me.
"Who the fuck is that?" I asked, groggily. Within a minute Dexter wobbled himself into the living room. He was shirtless, in only boxers, and walking like a 65 year old crippled man because he was muscle pumping dope in his thighs.
"I swear to fucking God, man, if this is another bitch just stopping by to get some shit, I will fuckin kill them, man, I swear."
He brushed the sleep from his eyes and peered through the peep hole. The look on his face was that of confusion as he unpadlocked the front door.
Three large men pushed past Dexter and stepped into the living room.
"What's up, man?" Dexter squeaked.
"Who else is here, Dex? Is this it? I know this isn't it. Where the fuck is your bitch?"
"Clair!" Dexter yelled. "Come out here!" Clair stumbled out of the back bedroom, looking bewildered.
"What the fuck, Dexter. What the fuck is going on." The man who had spoken first told Clair to sit down next to me on the couch. I pulled the blanket tight across my chest and looked worriedly at Shain.
"Where are your guns, Dex?" The man asked.
"I don't have any, man. Had to sell em about a month ago."
"Dexter, I know you have some fucking guns." The man raised his voice. "Where the fuck are your fucking guns?"
"Dude, I swear on my father's grave I don't have any. On my father's grave." Dexter's voice cracked and shook like an earthquake about to rip a whole in the ground. It terrified me to see Dexter nervous. To me he was God, he was immortal, he was undefeatable. Knowing that he was just as scared as I was caused me to shiver.
"So," the man said. A night stick slipped from his shirt sleeve and fell purposefully in his hand. The other two men mimicked his action and raised their weapons. "I could fucking kill you all right fucking now and nobody would be able to do shit about it? Is that what you're fucking telling me?" Nobody said a word.
"Yeah," Dexter nearly whispered. "That's what I'm telling you."


That evening my family took me to a mental health and drug addiction center called NetCare. By that night I was back at Dexter's, the three of them waiting for me with some laughter, a joke, and a shot.