Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Nine

“What are you talking about?” I said to her, my eyebrow still raised. She cocked her head slightly sideways and narrowed her eyes, staring right into my eyes. I hate when she gives me that look. She can always see right through me, like an x-ray. “I could smell the smoke when you opened the door boy. Don’t try to bullshit me.” She said, her head still cocked. I laughed nervously, and unlocked my door, waving her inside. She walked in after flicking her cigarette out the hallway window. I closed the door behind her, and locked it, looking at her. “Now, no more bullshit sweetie. What did you do?” she asked me. I laughed nervously again as I threw my jacket over the back of the couch and sat down. “Alright, so I was over in the West Ward. Some house blew sky fucking high when I was in the pub, cops said it was some kind of gangland attack.” I said casually, stretching out. She sat down in the recliner, crossing her legs, staring at me to continue. “Okay, you caught me. I did it.” I said, laughing as I fished a cigarette from the pack. She narrowed her eyes at me again. “Why the hell did you do that?” she asked sternly. “It wasn’t like I blew up a church or a bus of old ladies or something doll, it was just Antonio and his goons. Poof, nothing left.” I said, lighting the cigarette and taking a deep drag, exhaling into the air above me. “Some cop got creamed by a burning roof beam when the fire department tried to hose it down, but that wasn’t my fault at all.” I said, laughing. “Where the fuck did you even get the shit to do that? I saw the mushroom cloud from my apartment building. I swear I felt the heat from it.” She said, pulling her own cigarettes from her bag and lighting one with a flick of a match. “Where do you think doll? The hammerheads down by the docks. They always have an assortment of anti-social party favors for the fine denizens of Newark.” I grinned at her as I took another drag on my cigarette. She sighed and shook her head at me. “You’re something else. You know you smell like you were in the heart of a fire right?” She crinkled her nose, taking another drag of her own cigarette. If you haven’t figured it out, we both love to smoke. “You need a shower.” I grin and take a final drag from my own cigarette, stubbing it out in the glass ashtray. “Yeah, I know. Care to join me?” I say, standing up and waggling my eyebrows at her. She smiled at me, but stayed seated. “I’ll pass honey. Go get yourself cleaned up. You need something to eat too, by the looks of you. Go shower, I’ll make something.”

I grin and walk into the hallway, pulling my clothes off and tossing them into the basket. She’s right, I do smell like a fire. Nothing a little Lava soap won’t take care of. I glance into the mirror as I turn the water on. Running my hands over my scalp, I realize I need a shave again. Damn hair grows too quickly. Ten minutes of ice cold shower later I feel like a new man, and hopefully smell like one too. Freshly scrubbed and shaven, I towel off and step into my bedroom pulling fresh clothes from the closet. Black jeans, crisp white t-shirt. I pull my boots back on and walk back into the living room to see Carla standing at the stove, pouring something from a saucepan into a bowl. “What’s that?” I ask, pulling a bottle of beer from the fridge next to her. “Soup.” She says simply, handing it to me. I quickly drink it down interspersed with sips of beer. Not bad. She was right, I do feel a lot better with something in my stomach other than alcohol and drugs. Sometimes I forget to eat. It’s been happening a lot lately. “So what now?” I ask, wiping my mouth after I take the last drink of beer. “Now, you drive me home and you come back here and sleep.” I grin, and grab my jacket. That’s fine with me. I’ll give her Ivan the Terrible another day.

Ivan the Terrible is my cock, if you’ve forgotten.

I slam the door shut and lock it as we step into the hallway. It smells like her perfume up here still, but as we walk down the stairs the cabbage fart smell prevails and it’s all we can smell. I’m pretty much used to it though. She isn’t, evidenced by her gag as we step onto the sidewalk. I light another cigarette and look across the city over to the West Ward. I can still see the smoke hanging over the crater formerly known as Antonios trap house. Interesting. “I’m not going to ask why you did it, but be fucking careful from now on, okay? Antonio might be dead but if his gang finds out you’re responsible, you’re in trouble.” She says to me as we walk down to the parking garage. “No problem doll, I think I can handle a couple crackheads.” I laugh. I’m still laughing when we walk into the parking deck. “Seriously, they’re just malnourished crackheads, what kind of a challenge could they be? A pretzel rod has more strength than three of them combined.” Carla laughed, and shook her head slowly. “You say some of the craziest shit, I hope you know that.” I nod as I unlock the truck and hop in, waiting for her to jump in. “Yeah, I may say some crazy shit, but I must be doing something right, you’re still here aren’t you?” She smiles as she clocks her seatbelt into place. “You’re a loyal customer and dick me down pretty well, of course I’m gonna keep you around.” I laugh again as I start the truck and pull out of the parking spot. I suppose I can’t argue with that logic. Twenty minutes later she’s safely in her apartment, and I’m pulling back into the parking deck.

As I lock my truck and walk out of the parking garage, I realize that I am still utterly wired. A few minutes later I throw open the heavy steel door to my building and trudge up the worn-out stairwell, my heavy boots thumping almost rhythmically against every step. I stand outside my apartment door for a second, and breathe in deeply. At the bottom of the stairs the cabbage smell is king, but up here, it still smells like her. I love that smell. I sigh, and unlock my apartment door, stepping inside and slamming it shut, quickly ramming the two deadbolts home.

Home again, home again, jiggety jig…

I toss my jacket onto the couch, and walk down the hall into my bedroom, turning on the light at my desk. I let out a sigh as I sit down, and I can feel myself start to come down. The first tendrils of exhaustion are starting to nip at my muscles. Not tonight. I pull open the top drawer of my desk and out comes the silver vial, a digital scale, and a small bag of empty yellow gelatin capsules. Inside the silver vial are a few large shards of ice. In this context, ice means extremely high purity Mexican methamphetamine from the laboratories of the fine folk at We’ll Cut Your Fucking Head Off Cartel, Inc. I open the vial and pour out the shards, selecting one that’s about half the size of a Tic-Tac. I set the scale and place the shard on it, waiting a few moments for the scale to figure the weight. 37mg according to the scale. I’m not a fan of snorting methamphetamine, as it fucking hurts like shit. I’ve already had my nose turn into a blood faucet today, so no thank you. I’m not of those sick fucks that stick the stuff up your ass, and I’m not one for needles either, so that just leaves putting the shit into a capsule. I wrap the shard inside a dollar bill and crush it with my Zippo until it’s broken down into a very fine powder. Opening the capsule and forming the dollar into a small funnel, I pour the now finely crushed methamphetamine in and seal it up. I clean everything off and put everything back where it belongs and step into the bathroom, taking a large drink of water from the faucet. I place the capsule into my mouth and swallow it all with a satisfying smack of my lips. Ah, sweet candy. I sit back down at my desk, and sigh loudly, staring out the window onto the street below. I start to feel the effects about twenty minutes later as I sit there, still staring down at the street. I couldn’t tell you why the street was fascinating me so much, but maybe the combination of everything today is making me paranoid. Fuck. What was that? I whip my head around, and look behind me. There’s nothing there. I swear I saw a shadow in my peripheral vision. God dammit, I don’t need any more shadow people today. I need to go for a walk or something.

I look at the digital clock on my nightstand. 2:30. I walk out of the bedroom and put my coat back on and step out into the hallway, closing the door behind me and locking it securely. With a sigh I start to descend the stairs, but stop halfway down. I can feel something. On the very edge of my awareness, I can feel a presence. Probably nothing. I cough and make it down to street level and out of the cooked ass cabbage scent, into the car exhaust and sewage smell of the city. There it is again. I look up and down the street, but I don’t see anyone. Just a few cars on the street crossing mine two blocks up. I pull my coat closer and begin my walk up the street, away from the parking garage. I pull out the pack of cigarettes and fish one out, lighting it quickly with a flick of the Zippo. Almost out again. The nicotine calms me a little, but I’m still winding up on the edge of being completely geeked. A police car makes the turn on my street and starts creeping down. The windows are blacked out, but somehow, I know they’re staring at me. Keep calm kid, you’re fine. I take another drag as the car rolls slowly past me, and turns the corner. Pigs would just love to turn me into the East Coast Rodney King, I’m sure. I take another few drags and flick the cigarette into the gutter and continue my walk down the block. The Mex-amphetamine is starting to intensify everything. Colors are brighter, everything is sharper. And I have the energy of a nuclear power plant going critical coursing through my veins.

Keep cool, just keep cool. You’re fine. Everything is fine. 

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Eight

The train was always crowded, but aside from the noise the cars made over the tracks, it was fairly quiet inside. For reasons that Carla didn’t understand, people never spoke when they were inside. If there was any conversation at all, it was in muted, hushed voices. She didn’t understand it, but then again there were a lot of things in this city that didn’t make sense to her.

She grimaced, and winced slightly at the shrieking noise the wheels of the train made on the tracks. Carla stared at the floor, a slightly pained expression on her face, remembering the nights work downtown at a show. Carla was a drug dealer for a good portion of the underground music scene in Newark. You wouldn’t think so with her gothic styled clothes and her raven black hair that from afar looked like it need a trim and a wash, but was actually carefully groomed to just appear that way. She stood out in a crowd at first glance, but yet she blended in at the same time. She took pride in that fact.

The punk groups and electronic music DJs that play in clandestine clubs and warehouses around the city are always looking for party favors, and Carla caters to them all. Cocaine, amphetamines, ecstasy, experimental analogues of whatever you can think of, you name it and she probably had it. Tonight had her delivering a packet of 10 Red Bull XTC tablets to a glitch DJ that was playing in the basement of an abandoned church on Victoria Avenue. It had been a Catholic church once upon a time, before the rioters looted and burned a good portion of it out. The city tried to rebuild part of it, but then just quit one day. Her customer tonight called himself Boy of the something or other. Carla didn’t much care for the music there, nor did she really care who the hell he was, her only interest was the crisp $100 note tucked into her black bra for the scant 10 minutes of work. She didn’t even have to deal with the DJ groping her tonight, which came as somewhat of a shock to her. Most of them liked to do that.

She grimaced again as the train slowed and finally stopped at the Military Park station, opening its doors with the atonal bing bong noise and disgorging the riders like vomit on a high school bathroom floor. She rose and slid on her black Wayfarer clone sunglasses and stepped onto the concrete with a click clack of her high heeled boots. The stench of the city hit her like a ton of bricks. Car exhaust, the probably toxic fumes from the river mingling with the factories pouring smoke into the sky, the unwashed sweat and shit smell of the homeless sleeping on the benches. Disgusting, she thought to herself as she took a cigarette from the silver case in her bag, wrapping her blood red lips around it and lighting it with a flick of a match. She knew Erich liked his Zippo, but she preferred the smell and the taste of a common match.

She had one last stop to make before she headed home. Where was home? Pearl Street was home, about 5 and a half blocks from the station, on the outside of the Springfield-Belmont neighborhood, in an on again, off again, sometimes abandoned, thrice renovated office building turned apartment building. In other words, the place was a fucking mess. But the current landlord, a stubby little Asian man with a bowl haircut, asked no questions as long as she was quiet and paid her rent on time. Her last stop was at a small delicatessen about only about 2 blocks from the station.

She drew hard on her cigarette as she left the station area and started the walk down to the deli on Market Street. She wasn’t quite nervous, but not quite at ease either. The area around the former Prudential Center was not a very good place. After a terrorist’s bomb that detonated during a Stanley Cup game turned the building and the surrounding parking lots into a fucking crater, well, the entire area just collapsed into Shitsville. The city sounded a resounding fuck that and just set up fences around the crater, and looked the other way. Technically speaking though, nowhere in Newark was a nice place, so don’t fucking kid yourself. The entire city was one big shithole, if you wanted the honest opinion. But it was home, a far cry from where she was born in Illinois. Nothing there but corn and cow shit, and the occasional meth lab in the cornfields.

She arrived at the shop and saw her customer inside, the owner of the delicatessen, standing at the counter. He was a greasy looking, extremely hairy Russian man in terrible need of a shave. Carla wrinkled her nose in disgust as she entered and inhaled the all too familiar smell of cooked cabbage, fresh bread, sweat, and a little bit of ass smell mixed in. “Ah, Carla! Zdrastvooyte, kak pazhivayesh?” the man said with a smile. She gave him a trademark grin and approached him. “Spaseeba preekrasna.” She replied, still grinning. “You haff what I ordered, da?” the man inquired, wiping his dusty hands on his apron. “Of course.” Carla replied, pulling a small, vacuum packed foil package from her bag. “Three grams of the finest Uzbeki heroin, 100% purity. Absolutely no cut at all, tovarich.” The man’s eyes seemed to gleam then, like starlight. He extended his hands greedily toward the package, but Carla pulled it away and snapped her fingers twice to grab his attention. “Payment first, tovarich, then the goods. Da?” He reached into a pocket of his apron and removed a roll of hundred dollar bills and peeled off five of them, folding them once and passing them to her over the counter. She counted them quickly and added it to the other money inside her bra and patted it with a grin. “Da sveedaneeya, tovarich.” She said as she walked to the door and stepped onto the sidewalk.

She lit another cigarette as she stepped onto the sidewalk and took a long drag, preparing herself for the walk home. She walked up Market Street to the corner, and headed south down Broad Street. Pearl Street was about 4 blocks away or so. She walked, taking the occasional drag on her cigarette, when she stopped suddenly. Something felt…off. The hairs on the back of her neck were tingling. She got a heavy, creepy vibe and a feeling in her gut that something was about to happen. The city was relatively quiet for just after midnight. She didn’t hear any gunshots, any screams, barely any insects. The calm before the storm, she thought to herself. She kept walking until she got to her apartment building. Suddenly, she heard a loud rumbling noise and looked up to see two plumes of fire rise from a spot across the city in the West Ward like twin pillars. Maybe a meth lab blown sky high, she thought. No, that’s not it. Maybe Erich will know what it is, he’s over in that area a lot. She thought. She pulled out her cell phone and tried to call him three times in a row, with no answer. That wasn’t like him. He always answered her. Now she was slightly worried. She decided to walk to his apartment. It was only a short jaunt from her own building.

She arrived at the parking deck down the street from his apartment building about 15 minutes later. The heavyset black woman in the attendant’s booth appeared to be asleep or dead, judging from the complete lack of movement on her part. Carla didn’t much care to investigate, she needed to see if Erich’s truck was there.

It wasn’t.

Now she really was worried. An explosion in the West Ward, Erich not answering his phone, and not even being home? Coincidence? No. This is just too odd. She walked out of the parking garage and onto the sidewalk, deciding she would go up to his apartment and wait. The sudden shrill scream of a police cruiser, followed by several more, momentarily startled her and she coughed and gagged on the last inhale of her cigarette as the line of vehicles sped by toward the West Ward, sirens screaming and lights strobing in an epileptic’s nightmare. “Get ahold of yourself bitch, you’re fine.” She said to herself out loud, as she ground the cigarette out beneath her boot, and walked inside the building.  

How does he bear these fucking stairs, she asked herself as she reached the top, breathing slightly heavily. She wrinkled her nose again as the pervasive aroma of the building entered her nostrils. She pulled a small bottle of perfume from her bag and sprayed it liberally in the air around her. Much better, she thought. She pounded on Erich’s apartment door, but no one answered. She pressed her ear to the door, but heard nothing. “Duh, if his truck isn’t in the garage then he isn’t going to be able to answer the door, dumb bitch…” she said out loud to herself. Best to just wait here for him. She stepped to the window at the end of the hall and lit another cigarette, drawing it deep into her lungs as she looked out towards the plumes of smoke and fire from the West Ward, hearing more and more sirens move towards it.

She heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open almost an hour and 7 cigarettes later, and shut with a heavy thud. She could smell him before she heard him. The heavy smell of ash, the acrid stink of smoke that invades everything he touches. And then, she knew who had caused the incident in the West Ward. She heard his heavy boots scrape up the stairs, and then they paused momentarily. They started climbing again, and stopped at the top of the stairs. She heard the jingling of keys, and she turned. It was Erich. He raised an eyebrow at her, half smirking. But then his face changed when he noticed her expression. It was a mixture of surprise and anger. She took a long drag from her cigarette and blew it out of her mouth in a long plume.

“Boy, you really fucked up now.”

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Seven

Even here, sitting inside the bar, I can still smell the smoke and the acrid, sickly sweet taste of cooked flesh in the air. The smoke filled half the neighborhood once the grenades really got to work, making the street look like a fucking war zone right of Baghdad or Detroit or something. The fire department actually did respond, to my surprise, but by the time they got there, it was far too late. There was nothing left of the house but the remnants of the concrete foundations and a lot of ash and soot. The fire burned so hot it actually turned the concrete foundations to molten fucking slag. The medical examiner was called, but they’ll need fucking dental records and a shitload of time to identify anyone in there now. Hell, I’d be surprised if they’ll even be able to do that with how hot that fucking fire was.

Thermite burns at over 4000 degrees, and white phosphorous burns at over 5000 degrees. The fire department got a fun surprise when they tried to hose down the house. The fire was so hot, that the water just caused a gigantic steam explosion that flattened the rest of the structure, turning it into a molten inferno inside a crater. Wood and fire and molten metal flew everywhere, and hurled a burning roof beam onto a cop that fucking squashed him like the little cocksucker that he is. 

Or was, rather. 

I grin to myself and chuckle as I take a sip of my beer. I’ll shed no tears for a dead cop in this hellhole of a city. It’s almost 1:30 in the morning. The fire department left about a half hour ago, but the cops and the meat wagon from the city morgue are still outside, picking over the remains. I look around as I take another sip of beer. The bar is practically empty, only the bartender and a possibly homeless man remain, sitting at the bar hobbled over their respective glasses. When the ignorant masses inside the bar smelled the smoke and heard the sirens, they just poured out of the doors to gawk, yelling and running towards the whole mess like headless chickens. Most of them are still out there, chattering and posting Tweets and Facebook statuses and Instagram posts about it all. I take another sip of my beer and grimace to myself, thinking of those jackals outside hoping to get a look at a crispy critter of a corpse so they can shout “WORLDSTAR!” or some such ignorant nonsense for their Vine posts. One of them probably called the fire department, trying to be a Good Samaritan. That’s their good deed of the week, so they can go back to their heroin and child pornography and Big Macs without feeling bad about themselves.

I gulp down the rest of the glass, and force my mind to switch over to thinking about Antonio and his goons burning to death. Their skin and organs boiling and finally vaporizing like that one scene with Sarah Connor in T2. I can feel their pain, their suffering, their despair. It makes me happy knowing that I was their Judge, their Jury, and their executioner. I grin to myself. Now they’re nothing but ash. Good riddance, pricks. This city could do with a few less crackhead wannabe gangsters on the streets. I pull my mind back to the present and stand up, throwing a few singles on the table. I walk outside and light a Marlboro, exhaling the thick, blue mentholated smoke as I look over towards the collection of police cars and the crowd of people up the street. Probably time to head home now. I grin again, and walk away, drawing on my cigarette. Sometimes I think that I smoke too much, but considering that I probably won’t make it to age 30 anyhow, I'll quickly dismiss the notion, and then I usually just light up another one. I can’t get cancer if I’m already dead, now can I?

I walk the few blocks to where I stashed my truck and look it over, making sure nobody has fucked with it. I take the last drag on my cigarette and flick it away as I jump in the truck and turn the key. As incognito as I’d like to be right now, that’s just not possible with a Hemi engine. It roars with 8 cylinders of fury as I start it. I wince at the noise. Shit could wake the dead. I creep out of the space behind the liquor store and stop at the sidewalk, making sure everything is clear. I don’t see any crackheads shambling towards me, or any cops with their pistols drawn screaming at me. I pull away and drive the half mile or so to the parking deck down the block from my apartment building and roar into a parking space on the second level, killing the engine immediately after I put it into park. The sound of the engine is magnified even more in here. I hop out and lock it, walking towards the entrance. The heavyset black woman is still in the booth, but it looks to me like she’s in a deep sleep, with her head back against the wall and her mouth open. Maybe she overdosed on fentanyl or something. I smirk and walk out and up the street, drawing my jacket closer to my body. The nights are starting to get a little colder now.

I yank the door of the building open and with a sigh I mount the threadbare stairwell, making them creak with each step. I’m sure you won’t believe it, but, it actually still smells like cabbage and rancid farts. What a shock. I pause though, frowning. I can smell something else. Something much more…flowery. I grimace, trying to decide whether it’s pleasant or not. Intermingling with the cabbage and ass, I decide it isn’t. I walk up a few more stairs, the flowery smell getting more powerful, and see the silhouette of someone standing at the end of the hallway, looking out the window. Probably that Asian kid again. Maybe his art skills have improved? But no, as I approach my door I see it isn’t the kid. It’s a woman in a black dress with fluorescent white skin and black hair, a plume of cigarette smoke hanging above her. She turns around at the jingling of my keys, and I can see who it is now.

Carla.

I raise an eyebrow at her. I can feel a sense of unease creeping over me. Uh oh. She takes a deep drag on her cigarette and exhales with a long breath. Her eyes are wide, staring right through me in what could only be described as a combination of surprise, anger, frustration, and appall.

“Boy, you really fucked up now.”

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Six

My eyes snap open with the sound of the alarm tone blaring from my phone. I roll over and shut it off. 11:30. It’s time. I grin as I roll myself off of the broken bed and pop my bones. I feel much more rested now after my nap. I do a few quick exercises to get my blood going again. Jumping jacks, sit ups, pushups, jogging in place. That’s more like it. I can feel a sheen of sweat on my face as I jump up and down. The blood is rushing through my body, my heart pounding. I make sure my muscles are loose and relaxed. 

I dress quickly and step into my bathroom, flicking the light switch. The fluorescent monster roars and stabs into my eyeballs, dazzling me as it often does. I take a bottle of amphetamine capsules and a bottle of propranolol from the cabinet and down two of each with a gulp of water from the faucet. They will keep me alert, and hopefully not too twitchy. Twitchy is the absolute last thing I need to be on a night like this. On a job like this I need absolute focus. I walk out of my bathroom and into bedroom again, staring outside through the filthy venetians. I put my phone, keys, wallet, and Zippo back into my pockets. The slightly squashed pack of cigarettes goes into my jacket. I roll my shoulders one last time and look outside again. The city never really sleeps, but the people in Antonio’s neighborhood, the normal ones anyway, will be indoors and feeling safe behind their barred windows and triple dead-bolted doors.

Let’s do this.

I walk into the living room and out into the hallway, locking my door behind me and walking briskly down the hallway to the stairwell. There are many good things about amphetamines, but an unfortunate side effect is an increased sense of smell. Maybe I’m imagining it, or maybe it’s true, but this hallway really smells like thrice cooked cabbage and terrible sulfur farts. Eugh. I trip on the last stair and almost smack my head into the doorframe at street level. God damn this fucking building.

As I walk down the block to the parking deck, I can start to feel the amphetamines coursing into my system and caressing my central nervous system with its lovely tendrils. I love the feeling of an amphetamine high. Makes me feel fucking fantastic. I’m sure a few of you can relate, right? Of course you can. A blacked out police SUV rolls by and stops at the streetlight. I can’t see inside it, but I’m sure the thugs inside are watching me closely. I stop outside the parking deck and pull out a smoke, lighting it and flicking my Zippo closed. Exhaling a cloud of blue smoke, I shudder. Nicotine and amphetamine make for a nice combo. The light changes and the police SUV peels out from its dead stop, roaring down the street at 80 MPH in a matter of seconds.

I suck down half of the cigarette by the time I reach the second level of the parking deck. The teenager from earlier in the day isn’t there anymore, instead a heavyset black woman is inside the booth, reading a magazine by the looks of it. Dead end duty. I’d be bored stupid if I had to work that job. I take another hard drag of my cigarette and flick the rest onto the pavement as I come to my truck, parked just as I left it earlier. I hop in and turn the key, hearing the angry, throaty roar of the Hemi engine. I check the box behind my seat to make sure the grenades are still under the jacket where I left them. They are, thankfully.

I pull slowly out of the parking garage and into the street, driving carefully just under the speed limit. Antonio lives in the West Ward, known colloquially as the West Side, off South Orange Avenue. The projects. The marsh there stinks almost as bad as the stairwell in my fucking apartment. It only takes me a few minutes to get into the area. I park behind a closed down liquor store on the corner to hide my truck, and jump out, stuffing the grenades in my pockets. The liquor store is about 2 or 3 blocks from his house, roughly. I make sure to lock the doors of my truck, but that won’t stop some hood with a tire iron if he really wants into it. Most of the streetlights here have been broken or just burned out. Public Works doesn’t like to come down here, and I don’t blame them. But I’m about to perform a little neighborhood maintenance of my own.

I make my way through the alley a few blocks up the street, about 7 houses from Antonios. The entire street is a collection of crack dens and gang hideouts. The burned out hulks of brownstones dot the streets every few houses. There’s the stereotypical burning barrel surrounded by drunks or strung out addicts on the corner of South Orange and S. 19^th Avenue. I make my way past on the sidewalk, nodding to them. They pay me hardly more than a glance. I seem to have that effect on people. Or maybe they’re just hurting for a rock or a stamp, who knows. Antonios hangout is about 3 houses down from a BBQ joint on the corner. I can hear loud rock music and voices inside as I walk past the few people outside dragging on their cigarettes. They’ll draw a crowd when I make a move.

There it is. A stubby, filthy two story house in desperate need of a new coat of paint and a mown lawn, surrounded by overgrown bushes. I can smell the acrid, sickly sweet smell of crack even out here on the sidewalk. I creep into the yard slowly, keeping low so as not to be seen. Surprisingly, there’s no one sitting in the collection of chairs on the front porch, but I can see the lights on inside and can hear the heavy bass thump of trap music rattling the windows. I raise my head slowly and peer into the bottom of the front room window. Antonio and a few other people are sitting on a filthy brown couch each taking hits from a crack pipe, laughing and simultaneously drinking from the collection of liquor bottles on the coffee table. There’s a massive black guy with his back to the window in front of the stereo, on the other side of the room, doing some kind of dance move with an absolutely disgusting looking woman on his side. I grimace, imagining the stink of them all.

Time to cleanse this fucker.

I pull the White Phosphorous grenade from my pocket and slowly take the pin out, slipping it into my pocket. Best not to leave that evidence. I hold the spoon of the grenade to the side of it, and take a step back, winding up in a classic baseball stance and whipping the grenade directly through the plate glass window. It lands on the coffee table, but that’s the last thing I see before I run out of the yard onto the street. With a WHUMP noise and a loud whooshing, I can hear, feel, and see the room light up and fill with sparks and white smoke. I can hear them all screaming as the sparks rain down on them and melt through the skin. White phosphorous burns through just about anything and doesn’t stop until it’s deprived of oxygen. The smoke they’re inhaling is horribly toxic, scarring and burning through their respiratory systems. They’re literally burning inside and out. I grin as I pull the other grenade form my pocket, pulling the pin and throwing with all my strength. The grenade smashes through a second story window, presumably a bedroom, and goes off with another WHUMP sound followed by a loud whoosh and a flash of orange light. Within seconds I can see the living room is aflame and the thermite grenade has set the entire upstairs bedroom aflame. The combined effects of them both will have the house consumed by fire in minutes, and there won’t be anything left by the time the fire department responds. If they respond.

With a grin, I run back into the alleyway and slide into the shadows, watching the grenades do their work. The only thing that emerges from the house is a large plume of thick grey smoke. And the only thought in my mind, is...

We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn…

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Five

I already know who it is. I recognize that greasy voice anywhere. I turn around slowly, and of course who else is it but Antonio. He’s grinning at me with those nasty, crooked yellow teeth. He's got a dirty white bandage on his now crooked nose. He cracks his knuckles and looks me directly in the eyes. I shift my center of gravity preparing for a fight. I can see the murder in his eyes. The sound of a shotgun being racked makes him turn around. The clerk is aiming a worn out Remington shotgun directly at his head. “No trouble in my store! You get out, now you get out right now or I blow you!” he’s yelling in broken English. The whole thing would be pretty comical if he wasn’t aiming a gun at us. Antonio turns around and grins at me again, and spits at my feet. “Your lucky day mang, next time you won’t be so lucky.” Sure man, sure. He walks out of the store backwards, keeping his eyes on Arabian Nights behind the counter. The clerk doesn’t lower the shotgun until Antonio is out on the sidewalk. He turns to me, “You bring trouble in my store?” “Of course not sir, he’s obviously high.” I say, fishing a cigarette from the pack and placing it in my mouth. The clerk smiles grimly, showing his own crooked smile. “Good, I no want trouble here in store, you are understanding me?” he says. I nod, and turn back to the cooler. I select a six pack of Miller Genuine Draft, bringing it to the counter and paying with a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change for the trouble my friend.” I say to him, turning to leave. I have to get home. He smirks and puts the money in the register, and gives me a jaunty wave with his thumb-less hand as I exit the building.

I look left and right as I step onto the broken sidewalk, making sure that greasy fucktard isn’t around. I don’t see him, maybe the shotgun gave him a case of the Hershey squirts. Hopefully, anyway. The wreckage of the Civic is still across the street, half on the curb and half on the street. People are starting to crowd around it. Someone had the good sense to reach in and take the dead woman’s head off of the horn, so we don’t have to fucking hear that anymore. I shake my head and light my cigarette that I had in my mouth, and quickly walk the few blocks north to my apartment building, drawing hard as I keep looking behind my shoulder. That cocksucker has me looking over my shoulder for fucks sake! Me! Looking over my shoulder like I’m some kind of mook. My face contorts with fury as I get to my apartment building. That asshole won’t make a fool out of me. He won’t live to see the dawn. As that one old guy in the suit commercials from years ago liked to say, “I guarantee it.” Even the ever present odor of cabbage and asshole that permeates the hall is lost on me as I fly up the stairs to my door.

I quickly unlock the door and step inside, slamming the door and locking it with haste. I set my beer in the fridge, taking a bottle out and snapping the top off on the counter. I chug half of it as I sit down on my couch, without even really thinking or tasting as the frothy bitter liquid gushes down my throat. I’m too lost into my hatred of that ghetto trash fucktard piece of shit. I slam the now empty bottle on the coffee table and stand up to stretch, working the kinks out of my back. I sit down and take my phone out to check the time, and notice that I have a message. Huh. 

Carla.

I arch an eyebrow as I open the message. Just the passive aggressive message I was expecting her to send me for how I was earlier. I scoff and toss the phone onto the coffee table. I’ll just give her Ivan the Terrible later, if there is a later. Ivan the Terrible is my cock, by the way. A sudden wave of realization washes over me. If I fuck up tonight, I may not live to see the dawn instead of Antonio the greasy cunt. No. There is no margin for error tonight. I will not fail in this. I slap myself a few times to get the blood rushing to my cheeks. It gets me angry again, but the Xanax that is still in my system keeps me sane. I focus and think better when I’m angry, unlike many people. It sharpens me. I stand up again and jump up and down a few times, doing a few jumping jacks to get my blood going. I roll my shoulders again and walk into my bedroom. 

I debate on wearing a mask tonight, but I’m not feeling THAT theatrical. I walk to my desk and take everything out of my pockets. I need an ice cold shower. It’ll wake me up and keep the nerves steady, along with the drugs and nicotine and everything else in my system right now. I walk into the dingy ass bathroom and peel my clothing off, and jump into the shower. I need a cold shower to bring my mind into sharper focus. The cold water feels like needles on my skin but it serves its purpose of washing the days grime off of me and helps center me. Never underestimate the power of a good, cold shower to help keep you alert and awake. You may not be able to get a hot shower in this bullshit building, but at least a cold shower is easy enough. I stumble out after a few minutes and stand there looking at my reflection in the mirror. I’m breathing heavily, the water rolling off of my face and body onto the towel. No matter what, I am always as pale as a piece of computer paper. I always look strung out or like I’m on a bender. Maybe I am strung out. Who the hell knows anymore? I don’t even recognize this gaunt motherfucker in the mirror. I look at the clock on the desk. The red digits glare at me like tail lights in a fog, 5:14. I want to wait until at least midnight to make a move.

I step into my bedroom and move back to my closet to set things out. Black jeans, a plain black t-shirt, and my black leather motorcycle jacket. Non-descript, and easy to blend into the shadows if I need to. Excellent. I set an alarm on my phone for 11:30 and lay on my bed. A nap will leave me rested for tonight. Shit, maybe I should have waited to shower until later. Oh well. As I drift away into Xanax fueled sleep, there’s only one thought in my mind.

Eat shit and die Antonio.

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Four

I turn into the parking garage with a squeal of the tires, and park my truck in the usual spot. I turn the truck off, and sit for a moment as I pull the next cigarette out and light it. I procured two US Army surplus grenades from the Russians, for the low, low price of $2000. Un fucking believable. One grenade is a standard Model 308-1 napalm grenade, and the other is an M15 White Phosphorous grenade. Nasty stuff. Ought to burn that cocksuckers house right to the ground, and take everyone in the house with it. The city could do with a few less cocksucking wannabe gangbanger types. I see another shadow out of the corner of my eye, and whip my head around to look. I don’t see anything. Fuck. I need something to clear out these god damned drugs addling my head. These shadows are starting to wig me out.

If the grenades in my truck were to detonate right now, the truck and my body would be turned into a melted pile of slag and ash. Thermite can melt through an engine block, and white phosphorous burns through skin like it was a match against paper. Burns right to the bone. I grin as I drag on my cigarette, thinking of the destruction, and hop out of the truck, locking it. It’s a risk to keep the materiel in the truck, but it’s a bigger risk trying to carry the shit down the street. People might get the wrong idea seeing a shifty looking bald headed dude in an army jacket carrying a few grenades. I look at the teenager manning the parking booth absentmindedly. Still stuck into his phone. Fucking kids. Go do something. Smoke a joint with your friends, sell Ecstasy, go get laid, spray some better graffiti than that Asian kid. Fucking something.

I walk out of the parking deck and glance at the clock outside the club next to the parking garage. 3:30. I’m going to wait until the middle of the night to make my move against the house. Less chance of anyone seeing me, more chance of Antonio and his dime store wannabe hoods partying inside and burning alive in the ruins of the house. I grin again and feel a shiver of anticipation go up my spine. It’s time someone taught that cunt and his merry band of cunts a lesson. I throw open the door of my apartment building and climb the worn out stairwell with a resigned sigh. The familiar stench of cabbage and rotten ass still hangs heavy in the air. I cough and stub my cigarette out against the wall as I reach my apartment door, unlocking it and stepping inside. I need a fucking drink. My mouth is dryer than the fucking Sahara right now. Common side effect of the methylphenidate analogue.

I step into my kitchen, momentarily dazzled by the intense white glow of the fluorescent lighting and pull my dented fridge door open. Nothing. Shit, I drank the last cider earlier. Fuck me. My vision suddenly swims and flashes, and I nearly collapse, but thankfully the counter is there to keep me upright. Holy shit. My vision is crackling like snow, coming and going in waves of rippling intensity. My vision grays out at the edges and then surges back into ultra-high definition. My eyes are numb. What the fuck? My vision is flashing like distortions on a broken computer monitor. I can feel my heart speeding up, beads of sweat popping out of my forehead. I sneeze suddenly and a mist of blood sprays onto my formerly white cabinets. I’m coming down from the drugs. Or am I fucking overdosing? I shudder as I can feel the muscles in my back tighten and release simultaneously, causing me to shiver repeatedly. But it’s nothing close to cold in here. I sneeze again, causing another red mist to blow forward from my mouth and nostrils. I hang my head over the sink as I shudder again, back muscles tightening, and a deluge of blood starts flowing from my nose like someone turned on a faucet. I’m starting to really wig out. I can see shadows in my peripheral vision as blood pours down my face and into the drain of the sink. It's filling the bottom of the stainless steel basin. My back is arching involuntarily as my muscles continue to freak the fuck out.

I sneeze again, and the torrent of blood suddenly stops. That's fucking weird. My arms are shaking, and now I’m soaked in a cold sweat. I twist and pop my back, shuddering as my muscles release the tension and finally settle into their normal routine. I turn the faucet on and wash the puddle of bright red blood down the drain. Jesus Christ that was some powerful shit. I stumble into my bathroom and flip the light switch on, my eyes twitching and wanting to shut as the fluorescent tube above the mirror sends a million needles into my optic nerve. I cough and look at my reflection in the mirror. Now I really look like some sort of addict. I’m chalk white, my face smeared with very bright red blood. I grab a rag and rub my face clean, scrubbing hard until my skin stings. My face, now devoid of blood but still chalk white, jumps out of the mirror at me. Like a ghost. I’m normally pale, but not this pale. I reach into my medicine cabinet and pull a bottle of Xanax out, popping a 2mg bar into my mouth. I chew the bitter pill and rinse it down with a swig of water from the faucet. I stand at the mirror, watching myself in it. My mouth is already dry even after that swig of water. I need to fucking calm down. Waiting for the chemical to enter my bloodstream and relax me. My arms are shaking as I grip the side of the sink, staring intently at my reflection. It does not change. It does not blink. It does not move. I only stare back at my real self from the mirror.

I stumble out of the bathroom a few minutes later and collapse onto the couch, shuddering involuntarily every few minutes. I stare blankly into the wall for what seems like hours as I feel the chemical bliss finally enter my bloodstream, releasing my tension and bringing me into a state of tranquility once again. I sit up and look at my phone. It’s not even 4:00 yet. My entire psychotic break occurred in less than twenty minutes. Interesting. I pull the slightly crumpled pack of Marlboros out of my jacket and shakily light one, drawing and exhaling quickly until I can feel the nicotine hit me like a punch. I shudder as I can feel the nicotine and Xanax wrapping me in a cocoon of lucidity and calm. I slump back on the couch, drawing on the cigarette. I find myself staring off into space as I drag on the cigarette, letting it dangle in midair, before the ash dropping onto my other hand snaps me back into the present. 

Focus, you fucking asshole. 

I wipe the ash off my hand and my pants and stub the cigarette out, standing up, trying not to fall over. I can feel the weakness in my legs, threatening to tip me over back onto the couch. After a few minutes of standing there my leg strength starts to return. I am steadier on my feet, finally. I gotta go to the store and buy something to drink.

I walk out of the apartment, patting my pockets to make sure I still have everything. I almost fall down the stairs stepping down them. The fat fuck that owns this building needs to fix them but he’s too busy getting his dick sucked by some 11-year-old prostitute to worry about it. Sick fuck. I step onto the sidewalk, smiling at the crimson blood stain in the middle of the street. The corpse isn’t there anymore but the memory still is. A light note of thunder rumbles in from the distance. I look up to the sky. It’s the color of a dead TV screen from years past. It’s going to rain soon, I can smell it in the air, mixed with the grease of the McDonalds down the street and the pall of that Asian dude’s death. I light another cigarette and drag on it, and walk down the block on my way to the corner market, my thoughts still not quite in order. I’m not quite in a state of euphoria yet, but the 2mg of Xanax have me in a cocoon of just…calmness. My muscles are loose.

I step into the doorway of the corner market, as it begins to rain, slowly at first. I take a drag of my cigarette, and the heavens soon open up into a torrential downpour. It’s amusing to watch the ignorant masses of this city react to storms. As in most big cities, people don’t know how to fucking drive in the rain or in the snow. A prime example is the Honda Civic that just smashed into the side of the building across the street, obviously going too fast. I can feel the impact in my bones, can feel the crunch of the distorting metal, and see the drivers head whip forward into the steering wheel as all the glass shatters. The airbag does not deploy but the woman’s head keeps going. I watch her neck break like a twig. Oops. Her head is resting against the horn, making it blare with a solid whine. Reminds me of Grand Theft Auto. I laugh, before I take a final drag of my cigarette and whip the butt into the gutter. The one-eyed clerk is at the window by the counter, staring at the wreck. He does not notice me. Suits me just as well. Another rumble of thunder, closer now, erupts overhead making the building vibrate slightly. The open door lets the breeze come in, mixing the fresh rain scent with the Indian food smell that is always hanging around like it was a crack addict, desperate for a rock. I don’t know how these people can stand that smell. I’m standing in front of the cooler trying to decide what beer I want, when I hear a greasy voice behind me, tinged with malice.

“Hey, pendejo.”

Fuck me.

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Three

I throw on my mirrored shades and slip a cigarette from the pack into my mouth. I feel my left hip pocket to make sure I have my wallet. As I light the cigarette and snap the Zippo closed, I hear a sudden, piercing scream behind me. Like the keening of a thousand banshees reaching delayed intense orgasm. I turn my head, eyebrow raised, drawing on my cigarette, when I see him. A young Asian man, no more than 18 or 19, running down the street in a green hospital gown. His wrists have brown leather straps attached to them, trailing behind him. He’s screaming at the top of his lungs, zig zagging down the middle of the street weaving between traffic, running like a meth fueled Kenyan marathon runner. Some nut on the loose from University Hospital I guess. I draw on my cigarette again, suppressing a grin. Just another day in the city. You’d be surprised to know that things like this aren’t terribly uncommon. As I start walking I can hear the whine of a police cruiser coming up the block, sirens screaming and engine roaring like a pissed off dragon. It slams on the brakes and curls into a turn in the intersection just in front of the Asian man, who collides with the side of the car and collapses. Before he can get to his feet, the body-armored behemoths jump out and hold him at gunpoint, shouting at the man to calm down and stop resisting. Before he can react, they open fire, pumping round after round into his gradually slumping body. They keep squeezing the triggers of their guns until they are only rewarded with clicks. Empty. One officer kicks the dying man in the face, and they step back into their vehicle peeling away down the street. Fucking pigs. But routine cold blooded murder by the city’s finest is just something to get used to here.

As I walk past, his screams wind down and eventually peter out into gurgles as he chokes on his own blood and eventually stops moving, succumbing to the blunt force trauma and rapid blood loss that multiple gunshot wounds tend to inflict. I turn my attention to the parking garage down the street, the now dead man forgotten. I’ve seen stranger things on these streets. But today I have business to attend to. I need to pick up some party favors for Antonio’s house. I enjoy setting things on fire, as many people do. Do I simply want to burn it down? Or do I want to blow it up? I take a drag on my cigarette as I ponder this.

The Russian Mafiya operates a few different business in this city. Your typical immigrant businesses, such as bakeries, bars, cabaret. But they keep stockpiles of equipment as well. Just in case. I am not thrilled about having to talk to them. They are as liable to shoot you as they are to shake your hand. Ruthless is the word that springs forward first when one thinks of them. But at least they always have the types of anti-social merchandise the East Coast black market needs. Guns, ammunition, explosives, various drugs, vehicles, manpower. Pretty much anything you need, the Russians have or can procure for you. As long as you can pay, of course.

I raise a hand in greeting to the teenaged parking attendant in the booth, who merely glances up and back down again, returning his attention to his ever present phone, wearing out his thumbs. That’s all you little cunts do anymore, wear out your thumbs and your eyes on phones. My black Dodge truck awaits me. As I approach, I unlock the doors with the electronic key, giving it a once over to make sure no one has fucked with it. I start it up, and pull the truck out of the garage slowly, watching the crowd gathering around the formerly deranged and now very dead corpse, then gunning the engine and screaming out onto the street with a squelch of tires and a puff of smoke. Time to go talk to the hammerheads.

As I drive through traffic, I take a final drag on my cigarette and cram it into the overflowing ashtray in the center console. I should really clean it out one day. I make a right turn onto Elm Street, laying on the horn as I narrowly miss one of a million fucking petulant homeless children running out in front of cars. A few minutes later I park down the street from the former Delaney Hall. The white building is just one of many warehouse facilities that fill the city. People rent the buildings and store anything and everything here. Collectibles, clothes, musical instruments, drugs, weapons, industrial tools, vehicles, bodies slowly dissolving in drums of lye. Anything. The stench of the heavily polluted river is almost unbearable here. Chemicals, sewage, and the lingering odor of one thing or another that has passed from this life. I resist the urge to gag as I turn the truck off, and think about what I am going to say to the Russians. I see a shadow out of the corner of my eye, and almost have a heart attack. But it’s nothing. God damn these drugs.

I step out of my truck, and light another cigarette. Chain smoking as always. I walk around the corner of the building, and I see a black BMW parked in front of what used to be the storefront, with two very large slabs of beef from the Motherland standing around, eyeing me back. I slowly approach the larger of the two men. “I’m in the market for a few things.” I say to the man, who takes a drag on his own cigarette and raises an eyebrow. “You police?” he says, in a deep voice filled with gravel. “No. Just another customer.” I say, taking a drag on my cigarette. He nods, and beckons me toward the front door. The other meathead watches us walk inside, unblinking.

Have I mentioned how much I hate dealing with Russians?

As the door closes behind us, my eyes adjust to the gloom inside. The warehouse is filthy, stacked with thousands of crates and boxes adorning shelves along the walls, and in rows on the floor. “You wait here. Yuri!” the hammerhead screams. After a few moments, I see a portly, greasy, balding man with a pedophile moustache emerge from a doorway. “What?” he says in heavily accented English, eyeing me. “I’m in the market for an incendiary device. Might you have such a thing?” I say to the ratty little man. He strokes his moustache for a few moments, and then laughs. “I think we might have thing or two my friend.” I grin as the man leads me into an aisle.

Fuck you Antonio.

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter Two

The stairwell in this building is almost as worn out as the stairwell in my building, with what’s probably the same carpet adorning it. Grey and lifeless like a corpse’s asshole. I walk past an incredibly filthy man sitting on the stairs, his head against the wall, moving to a rhythm only his ears can hear, eyes jammed shut. Probably a heroin addict nodding out. I adjust my jacket and rap on the pale red wooden door of Carla’s apartment, my white skin contrasting hard against the faded paint. The door flies open without any warning, her pale face appearing suddenly, hazel eyes gleaming.

Carla is my age, but looks like she looks like a perpetually undead vampire. A gaunt, milk white face, sunken eyes, raven black flyaway hair, in a ripoff Victorian-esque black dress and combat boots, eyes rimmed in black makeup, and a cigarette hanging loosely from her blood red lips. She half smiles and beckons with her head for me to come in. I slam the door behind me and collapse onto her couch. “Hi Carla.” I say, looking at her. Walking around the corner, she grunts and says, “What do you want?” “What makes you think I want something?” I say, grinning only to myself. “You never come over here just to chat, boy. Come on, don’t bullshit me.” She says, laughing. I think about what I want. That’s a good question. I want to die, and she could certainly help me out with that, but not today. I’ve had the taste for stimulants lately. That Rockstar didn't do much for me. “Got anything to perk me up?” I say, as I stare out the open window. I can smell the pungent engine exhaust and burnt oil smell of the streets wafting in, like a heavy fog on the harbor. Disgusting. “Yeah, I got a few things. Know what you want, or do you want a surprise?” she says from the room she calls her office. I have no idea what she keeps in there. She keeps it locked, and keeps everyone out. “Just give me an ounce of whatever you might think I'd like.” I say, as I rip off the cellophane from the pack of cigarettes I bought from the Arab store and shove one in my mouth.

She comes back into the room a moment later, handing me a small black mylar bag. “Here ya are sweets.” She says, as she sits next to me on the couch kissing my cheek. I grin and light my cigarette, drawing hard. Girl loves me. I take my keys out of my pocket, popping open the baggie and dipping a key inside. I put it up to my nostril and snort the bump, feeling it surge into my head. My eyes widen and I shudder involuntarily as I can feel the endorphins surging through my brain in sharp jolts. “Mother FUCKER. What is it?” I ask her, rubbing my nose and shuddering again. She smiles, “Methylphenidate analogue. But better than that ethyl garbage, twice as potent as the real shit, if not more.” I pull out my wallet and slide a $100 bill out, handing it over to her. “Nice doing business with ya.” She says, sliding the money into her bra and grinning. The baggie goes into the inner breast pocket of my jacket as I stand up, stretching and rubbing my nose again. “I’m out of here. I’ll see you later babe.” I say as I head out the door. She doesn’t say anything, but then again she usually doesn’t. She used to, but she doesn’t anymore. Not immediately at least. I’m sure I’ll get a passive-aggressive text message about it later. No big deal.

I step onto the sidewalk and look around, eyes wide, my sense of smell and my vision enhanced by the synthetic drugs coursing through my system. Methylphenidate was supposedly originally discovered by the Nazis in 1944, but that’s just a rumor. Since 2005, analogues of it have been coming out every year or so from black market labs in The Hague. Every year it gets better. I close my eyes and inhale deeply, opening them again. Everything is sharper. It’s like I am seeing the world in 8K Ultra High Definition. Higher definition than life itself. I love this shit. I decide to hail a cab for my trip back to the apartment. I don’t need to get lost on Parkhurst again and have to deal with Antonio and his bullshit. A taxi rolls by going the opposite direction just as the thought enters my head. I whistle and gesture to the driver, who immediately pulls a U-turn and approaches the curb. "Mulberry Street." I say, before the driver can ask. I’m not unduly worried about Antonio, but I’m sure he’ll be able to figure out where I live before the day is out. His wannabe friends may be incredibly stupid, but they’re stupid, violent crackheads in groups aren't a great combo. The taxi suddenly halts outside my building, jerking my thoughts back into the present. “$4.37 my friend.” The taxi driver says to me, looking into the mirror. I hand him a crumpled five through the grate. “All yours mate.” I say, jumping out of the car and through the doorway of the building. It still stinks like cabbage and farts.

I nod at the scrawny Asian boy spraying graffiti across the walls and hand him a cigarette as I step into my apartment. It’s best to just nod at them, give them a few bucks as tribute or something, and go about your business anymore. It isn’t generally worth the trouble of having a pissed off 11-year-old spraying you in the face with fluorescent paint if you say anything to them. Or worse, an 11 year old with a Glock jammed into your nut sack. I step into the apartment, throwing my keys and jacket onto the coffee table. My mouth is incredibly dry. God damn stimulants. I need a drink. I open my fridge and pull out the last bottle of cider, snapping the top off with the end of the counter and walking back into the room that doubles as my bedroom and office. I chug the cider like it was the waters of life and toss the bottle into the steel trash bin. I see a shadow on the wall in my peripheral vision, but it’s gone when I turn my head to look at it. Fucking drugs. I need to focus on how I want to deal with Antonio. This isn't a misguided sense of justice for the good of the city. It's the want of erasing a little fuckstain that annoys me. I sit at my desk, endorphins still burning through my brain like bolts of lightning, coursing through nerves and ricocheting off the inside of my skull, synapses frying like high voltage power lines. I suddenly realize, I know where the prick lives. A grin slowly comes across my face as I know what I want to do. As that old song goes, “Burn motherfucker burn!”

However, as brazen as I feel, electrified by the synthetic methylphenidate analogue, I’m not going to burn his house down in the middle of the day. Not only is that unbelievably ballsy, it’s also stupid and dangerous. Normally I like stupid and dangerous things, but I don’t need Antonio or one of his hoodrat goons “putting a cap in my honky ass” as they like to so eloquently say. Or a cop cruising by and spotting me and shooting me 34 times while his body camera is mysteriously turned off. That happens way too god damn much in this hellhole of a city.

I stand up and grab my phone off the bed, and walk into the living room, grabbing my keys and jacket as I walk out the door. I glance at the door and make sure the deadbolts are securely locked. The Asian punk isn’t anywhere to be seen, his urban art project apparently complete. I look at his mural as I pull my jacket on. Amateur. Withholding the familiar urge to throw myself down the stairs again, I descend them normally and walk into the wall of sound permeating the city once more. 

Cigarettes & Mirrors - Chapter One

My eyes burst open. I can feel the stab of the florescent lights and flickering neon repeatedly jamming into my retinas, like needles. The whine of electricity coursing through the room at a low buzz, just loud enough to overcome background noise and annoy me. Every day seems to start the same for me. My cheap digital alarm clock blaring at me from the nightstand, the annoying, poorly synthesized tone assaulting my eardrums through the vintage tinny Chinese speakers. The sunlight filtering through the holes in the broken, sagging blinds, illuminating the swirls of dust in the air like a Van Gogh painting. I’ve already got a fucking migraine. The amount of sleep I got was a joke. Just like every other night. The insomnia still has its filthy, black gloved grip on me. My mind works overtime, thinking of countless things branching off into other things which all swerve off onto their own tangents. My mind is like a Google Chrome window with 647 tabs open at the same time, with nowhere near enough RAM to handle it. Some days the black gloves have such a tight hold on me, I don’t sleep at all. I’ll go for 3 or more days awake at a time. That's when the hallucinations start. That’s when the shadow people come. Or worse.

I roll myself off of my broken bed, stumbling blankly into the bathroom, bleary eyed and unsteady. My hand shakily flips the light switch, seemingly of its own accord. The other fluorescent demon above the mirror explodes with an electric buzz, stabbing itself into my eyes like dozens of syringes, forcing me into full consciousness. I look into the cracked mirror on the wall, and force down the urge to shudder. I look like a strung out heroin addict. Pasty, doughy skin, gaunt cheeks, red rimmed sunken eyes, shaven head shining like I was Mister fucking Clean. The hairs making up my scraggly goatee curling in all directions. I grimace at the image, tearing my eyes away from the mirror, and start the shower. Maybe the (hopefully) warm water will help. I stumble in, my body still on autopilot.

Barely five minutes later I shuffle out, throwing on the pair of worn jeans from the day before. Fucking shower. With all of the people in this building, there’s never enough hot water, with even less water pressure. I get more pressure from my dick when I take a piss.

I do not look forward to my day, but then again, when do I ever look forward to it? It’s never anything different. Nothing but the same mindless repetitive fucking bullshit. Day after day after day, seeing and hearing and doing the same goddamn thing. I throw my shirt on, feeling the almost paper thin fabric scrape across my back. The shirt is over 10 years old, the fabric worn frighteningly thin and assaulted by numerous washes and chemical submersions. As I slip my boots on, I grab my phone and check it, suppressing the briefest glimmer of hope in the pit of my stomach. No messages, no calls. What’s new? I scoff and toss it back on the bed. I grab my jacket and keys and walk out of my apartment, locking the cheap Chinese deadbolts. Everything in this building is practically Chinese made. I'll eat later, maybe. Maybe not. I don’t eat most days. As I walk out my door, I can only hold onto a single thought. How much I hate this fucking building. 

The hallways look like a crackheads dream of a 3^rd rate bombed out Bowery motel. Cheap plasterboard filled with holes and pockmarks from a million different impacts building up over time, forming a dull patina of damage. Multiple fading coats of powdery whitewash, the garbage that the cheapest bastards paint only the cheapest walls with. The landlord couldn’t be bothered to use real paint. The fat greasy bastard is never here, he never responds to calls, and never bothers to visit the building, unless you owe him money. I'm surprised he even had proper plasterboard installed. He’d try hanging sheets of cardboard or fucking tarps if he could. The sickly sweet tang of sweat and bad cooking is hanging in the air, a smell that never seems to go away completely. Cabbage and farts. The grey threadbare carpet has been worn into wisps by years of footsteps. It’s like tissues glued to a sheet of plywood. You might ask yourself why I continue to live in this hellhole. It’s because places like this tolerate people like me. I can live out of sight here. Away from the mercenaries, the roving groups of street toughs itching to prove themselves, the steroid fueled police, and the drug addicts. It beats the Lincoln Street motels, where you’re lucky if the door even has a functioning doorknob. I resist the urge to throw myself down the flight of stairs and just slink down them, the thud of my heavy steel capped combat boots clunking over and over rhythmically until I’m at the bottom.

I walk onto the sidewalk, and I am hit with a wall of pure sound, and smells even more heinous than the upstairs hallway. Sirens, cars honking, people cursing and screaming, gunshots in the distance, fighting, walking, talking, existing. The putrid stink of engine exhaust and more bad cooking from the street vendors is in the air, laced with pollutants and industrial waste from the river. I could be breathing in radioactive isotopes and arsenic right now, and I wouldn’t even know until I vomited out my liquefied organs into the gutter. That’s life in Newark. The streets are filthy and broken, covered with piles of trash and scraps forever swirling over the cracked pavement by the whisper of the wind. I pull on my faded green Army jacket and fish the crumpled pack of cigarettes out, shoving my silver mirrored shades on at the same time. Only three cigarettes left, one of them half broken. I grimace and pull the broken one out, licking the paper back together, spitting out the bits of tobacco as I slowly roll it back into proper shape. I light it with a flick of the battered Zippo, and inhale sharply. I am 23 years old, and I’ve been smoking since I was 14. At first I started just to be another cool, edgy kid craving to be accepted, but eventually it grew into a crutch I needed to get through my days. Hey, it beats shooting up heroin, right? I shuffle down the broken sidewalk, drawing on my cigarette as the sounds of the city continue to assault my eardrums. I pass crowds of vendors, business people, crooks, thieves, vagrants, cops, and every other kind of person you’d find in a city like this. I instinctively clench my eyes shut as the sound of the subway screams out of the entrance on the corner. I’m still not used to that sound. I’ve lived in cities this filthy all of my life, but this is the first time I’ve lived in a city with a properly functioning subway system. I try to avoid the subway, with all the creeps and weirdos riding on it. People that would just as soon sell their grandmothers for five bucks than ask you the time.

A police car slowly rolls by me on the street, the faceless officers inside undoubtedly staring me down behind the polarized glass as I walk past. Cops always like to hassle people like me. Cops like to hassle anyone, really. If you don’t look like a normal do gooder citizen you’re automatically a target for extortion, beatings, or even cold blooded murder if you catch a cop on a bad day. Or maybe you could be a downtown high-rise banker, maybe they'll still cap you. This city is filled with power hungry psychotic gangs, and the police department is the biggest one. Steroid fueled, power tripping ex-soldier juggernaut types, eager to break apart teeth with their billy clubs and shoot people in the head with barely a second thought, with absolutely zero repercussions from the department or the city government. I’ve managed to escape their unchecked wrath since I moved here a few months ago, keeping below the radar, moving around in the underbelly of the underbelly of the city.

I take a final draw on my cigarette as I get to the store at the corner of Mulberry and Pennigton, and throw it in the gutter with a flourish of my wrist. I raise a hand to the clerk as I walk back to the cooler. This place is filthy, always the same constricting stench of Indian food and cheap tobacco. If the smell had hands, it would have them around my throat. If I’m going to get through this fucking day I’m going to need some caffeine. But of course they are out of the energy drink I like, just like every Friday. I grab a regular Rockstar and take it to the counter. “Anything else I can get you sir?” the clerk asks in his unplaceable Arabian accent. “Yeah, pack of Marlboro menthols.” I manage to croak out, my voice sounding foreign even to my own ears. “$8.42, sir.” He says, ever smiling. God damn taxes. The miserable cunts in power here have raised the taxes on cigarettes almost quarterly. I hand him two worn fives and stuff the smokes in my pocket, cracking open the can and chugging half of it quickly. I’ve been on a steady diet of cigarettes, caffeine and varied other chemical substances since I graduated high school. Then again you’re going to need something to make yourself feel better after you leave the soul crushing hell that is the Newark public school system, short of offing yourself. If you even graduate. I put the change into my pocket and shuffle out again, eager to get away from the ever smiling clerk. He may perennially be in a good mood but something about him rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it’s his yellow teeth, or his one eye, or his missing thumb. I have no idea. I've heard that thieves and adulterers get fingers chopped off in the Middle East.

I'm sure you've been trying to figure out just what I'm doing with my day. Most of the time I have no fucking idea, but today I'll tell you. I’m on my way to see Carla. Carla likes to call herself my girlfriend, but that’s just something she says. Sure, I'll bend her over the couch once in a while but that’s it. That’s the depth of our relationship. There's not really any love there for her. There’s no room in my heart for love and relationships and all of that horseshit. My heart is a blackened oil spot in the middle of the driveway of life staring back at you, mocking you day after day. I have other things to worry myself with. Carla is a nice enough girl, from one of the ever present, maybe Mafia Italian families around here, but I certainly don’t need to be in a relationship with the girl. I don’t like relationships. I haven’t since I was 18. They exist purely to suck you of money and your time, killing your spirit and happiness as you toil to make her happy, and she still fucks the neighbor all while smiling in your face, getting pregnant with a child that isn't even yours, forcing you to stay with her, so she can milk the welfare system to feed her own habits, while she fucks the other neighbor on the other side of you. Why would I need something like that? No thank you.

All of a sudden, with a shake of my head I find myself on a corner of Parkhurst Street. How the hell did I even get here? My thoughts distracted me again. I turned the wrong way coming out of the store, fuck. Parkhurst is not a place you want to find yourself on, even on the best of days with a bullet proof vest and a shotgun in your hands. The entire god damned street is a collection of crack dens and wannabe gangbangers on every corner that would just as soon slit your throat than look at you. The dirtiest part of the city, the very bottom of the barrel of the underbelly in this fucking city. It was nice at one time, sure, but that was probably before I was even born. Even the police avoid this area most days. It might have something to do with the gangs, or it might have something to do with the orders from City Hall. Just let 'em kill each other, come in to clean up the mess. I sigh and pull another cigarette out and quickly light it as I make to turn around and start the walk back to my apartment on Market Street.

“Hey man.” I hear a greasy voice behind me say.

I know that voice. I turn around to see the scarred caramel brown face of Antonio grinning at me. Antonio is one of a million nothing special Hispanic local hoods thinking that he was a big shot gangster, trying his best to look the part in his black jeans and Knicks jacket and backwards turned cap. “Got another cigarette mang?” he says, picking something out of his crooked teeth. “Nah man, last one.” I say, taking a drag. Antonio is not someone most people want to fuck with, but I love messing with the little piss ant. Word on the street was that he cut up a shop clerk just because the store was out of Corona one night. He leered at me, brown eyes narrowing, still picking his teeth. “Come on man I know you got one, just give me one, culero.” He said, finally picking the something out of his teeth, spitting on the sidewalk. “Nah man, this is my last one.” I say to him, about to turn around to leave.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and roughly spins me around, a switchblade appearing out of nowhere in his hand with a metallic snick. “I said give me a fucking cigarette you cracker fool, you want to get cut?” he sneered at me, attempting to look tough. I smiled as I took a drag. I can never resist the urge to be a dick to these people. “Go fuck yourself Antonio. I don’t have a cigarette for your greasy burrito eating ass.” I said to him, exhaling a puff of smoke directly into his face. His eyes widen, staring directly into my own. “Now that’s not very polite man. I just wanted a cigarette. Now I’m gonna have to fuck you up.”

I grin, clenching the cigarette in my teeth, and whip my hand out to grab his wrist, twisting it hard to the right and making the knife fall to the ground. I slam my knee up into his groin, driving the air from his lungs and forcing him to bend over in agony. I let go of his wrist, and grabbed the back of his head driving my other knee into his face. I can feel his nose crunch against my knee. He falls to the ground screaming, his exploded nose gushing blood down his chin onto the pavement.

“You’re fucking dead pendejo, you’re fucking dead!” he screams at me, hawking a wad of blood and phlegm into the gutter and running into the alleyway. Eat a pile of shit you fucking greasy ass churro.

I decide not to hang around and briskly walk north towards Pearl Street, cigarette still in my teeth. I stop suddenly outside Carla’s apartment building, exhaling hard. Fuck Antonio and his wannabe gangster bullshit. I take a final drag on the cigarette and whip it into the street, exhaling the pungent smoke from my nostrils. I grab the dented steel door and throw it open, stepping into the building and walking up to her apartment.