by Rant » Wed Nov 21, 2012 11:36 am
Adam shrugged, watching her eat the granola bar as if it was something special. Had he had more of an appetite, perhaps he would have eaten, however the junk made him both constipated and not very hungry, so he didn't care much to scavenge when he didn't need to. The city was full of food, as it had a massive population, and not enough people to eat it. It was unlikely that in his entire life, he'd never go hungry again, not for food, or not for the thing the monkey craved either. Or cigarettes, for that matter, even if some did need to be left to dry in the sun.
"Okay, you got your self sufficiency and your granola bar. Demanding to know who I am and then chompin in your bar and leavin? Well that's some aspegers stuff right there. Good luck to ya." Adam said, shrugging. It sure wasn't his job to help the girl polish the social skills that had either atrophied or had never been good to begin with, so he just stuck his hands in his pockets. There was no electricity, but it wasn't too hard to lay somewhere and pretend to hear the background noise of the television, the music to his existence on his parent's couch.
It had been a cushy life of quiet solitude, when he lived there. Even when they sent him again and again to rehabilitation clinics where he was pumped full of methadone and sent home, it was an easy life. He would sink into the sofa and cram food into his mouth when he saw it fit, the rumble in his stomach telling him when to eat. Adam was always thirsty, the junk causing him to salivate less, the coke he tried to sate his thirst with, however, only worked with the lack of saliva to rot his teeth even more.
Now, in hindsight, he didn't care. Adam would do it all over again. It wasn't like he was always out at parties and getting drunk. He was holed up on his parent's couch, glassy eyed and glazed over, staring at the television. Just getting up without his morning delivery was impossible, and god forbid if he stubbed his toe, it would hurt for an eternity. His parent's money never ran out, and nor did the chemicals he pumped into his veins.
He was here, in this nondescript part of New York because his parents had had enough. Again he overdosed and was sent to the hospital, all sorts of tubes removing waste and pumping drugs, his clothes cut off and discarded. Adam had to face the inquiries about what he planned to do with his life. Rehabs weren't working for him, and his parents wanted their stupid friends over to watch ancient copies of the show Will & Grace. That's all Adam had processed before he fell asleep then and there.
Adam awoke in a car with his irate father driving him to New York. The funny thing was, both his parents had their legal, more socially acceptable drug habits. His mother, Valium, his father, Prozac. In this nation swimming with uppers and downers, a good time is only a prescription away. Adam didn't want to have a job or friends. He didn't want to kiss the bible or say 50 Hail Mary's before bed. He only wanted to speed towards utter destruction with the monkey on his back.
People forget the fact that the junk wasn't all about bitter isolation. It was good, it was better than anything, it was happiness money could buy. If it was all bad, no one would do it. Adam walked into the Half Way house, saw it's giant crosses and the addicts getting fat on their methadone and three meals a day, getting diagnosed with their bi-polar and getting drugs for that too... and he walked out. Took the crumpled twenty dollar bills and bought something to sate the monkey.
The next day the world ended. Yet here, Adam was in his own little center of the world. His hole covered flannel shirts, his jeans he refuses to change even as Calvin Klien pants float by with the tags still on them in the filthy water, this is all him. He chooses what he does, and for that reason, it is right.
The girl has her camp, her lack of social skills, her granola bar. Adam has his twinkie mush, his dislike of human contact and the monkey strapped to his back. When he crammed his hands in his pocket and let the words linger in the air, what he had done was right because he did it.
And the sore on his arm itched. And Adam ignored it. And the monkey moaned in its sleep.
