Black Cigar Box, A Small

A Small Black Cigar Box
by Shane Waldo
PART ONE: The Discovery

People live from event to event. Some can't wait till the party next
weekend or that fat paycheck on Friday. Some people measure time
between holidays, birthdays or rolling around in bed with their lover.
Me, I can't wait for my next fix. The next high. So anyways, here I
sit, waiting, shaking and anticipating. They were supposed to be here
half an hour ago at least. I wish there was a clock nearby. I don't
have a watch any more; you guessed it, sold it for smack. You know I
wasn't always a two-bit junkie squatting on a curb in the worst part of
town waiting for my next high. No. Not so long ago it was very
different.

I grew up in a suburb of Kansas City, normal everyday kid; white
picket fence, a dog, two loving parents or some shit like that. Well
maybe loving is a bid of a stretch. You know that old saying "If you
don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all" Well my
parents were out to lunch when that one got passed around the water
cooler. I only saw them during drives to day-care or occasionally the
toy store. Oh yea, I had every toy you could think of. He-Man, GI Joe,
Ninja Turtles; I fucking had them all. But no matter how many flashy
toys I got I still wished, even as a child, that my parents would have
paid more attention to me. Don't get me wrong they gave me lots of
great advice. "If you want to be a loser than keep up the work your
doing now." or "You know what an F stands for, it stands for fuck up
and that is exactly what you will be." The basic all American childhood
pep talks.

Flash Forward

High school. No friends, no lovers but I did graduate with twenty
hours of collage credit and a four point one grade point average. I
ranked fifth in my class. My bedroom was a testament to my academic
excellence. Plaques, ribbons, certificates and many other empty
trophies of my wasted youth.

Flash Forward

Collage "Yee, fucking haw!!!" Beer, broads and all night study groups
coupled with meaningless relationships and lots of extremists and fags.
Well that was the hype anyways; I guess it is a lot different for the
nerds and bookworms. I of course was a member of each. I went to MU
then to M.Ed. school. One, two, three, four, five, six more wasted
years all for some certificate so I could be somebody's sawbones. Well
maybe it was more like five and a half wasted years. Even though now it
seems more like even being born was a waste. About half way through my
fourth year of M.Ed. school I met a sexy intern with my lust for the
finer things in life, study, work hard and get good grades. We fell in
love and got hitched after we graduated. That lasted for about six
months; see that is when I fell in love for the second time. Hello
heroin my new friend. The rest should be self-explanatory. Bad heroin
habit = loss of job, loss of wife, loss of life.

Now

Three longs years I have been living day to day, on and off the
street. Right now I got a job washing dishes at the local dinner and a
shitty apartment on the east side of town. In another ten minutes that
is exactly where I am going, to the cold stale air of my little hole in
the wall.
"Suppose to be here an hour ago dammit," I say to myself.
I shuffle my feet in the slush and snow. A thousand pins are pricking
my toes and I must have suffered thirty lashings across my ass. I stand
up, my knees creek like rusty hinges. My spine pops in small electric
jolts sending shivers up and down my body. I wonder how much longer I
can go without having these kind of shivers twenty-four seven. As I
crack and stretch myself out I take in my surroundings. I am standing
on a curb in an ally lit by one frosty streetlight. To my right is a
wider alley made between two paper mills. Nothing like the dry smell of
farts and wood burning to end an already bad day. In the middle of the
alley are milk crates and an overturned oil drum puking out charred
wood and newspaper onto the street. Behind all of this over in a
secluded corner is a large white metal box with blankets over the
front.
"What a shit hole." I say to any one who is listening but no one
is.
I keep imagining that big piece of shit car pulling around the corner,
the small fat man behind the wheel, his big-toothed gangly friend with
him. Just rolling up, opening up that gym bag and handing me the shit I
already paid for. Me going home closing the door then its wham, bam,
thank you ma'am. Hello heroin my old friend. But it doesn't happen that
way. I wait another twenty minutes then decide with a resounding, "Fuck
this" that I am going home.

The walk to the bus stop, from the bus stop to my basement apartment
is too long it seems. I can't stop wondering what the hell took them so
long. So long? Hell they never showed. They had better have a dammed
good excuse.

I turn my doorknob, push, nothing.
"God dammed door," I mumbled.
This door always sticks in the winter, another gift of the holidays. I
push with my shoulder; the door finally opens. The door creeks and
groans like an old man on a rainy day as it swing open. My apartment,
well as much as I can afford anyways. It is one room about fifty feet
deep and twenty across. There is a small stove and frige tucked in the
far right corner. Beside that is my kitchen sink. Back up ten feet and
you are in a small shabbily walled cubical that is my bathroom. A
toilet and tub with no sink. My bed is to the left wall and that's it.
But that is really all I need. Wake, work, get high, eat, shit and
sleep. An enjoyable life if I do say so. And I do.

I shuffle the mail to my right hand again since my keys are now on the
nail to the left of the door. I use my heel to close the door. It lets
out another one of those moaning creeks then bangs shut. The light
reseeds its pyramidal arch and is no more. I flip the light switch.
Florescent lights, they hum like angels. Unless you have just been
stiffed by people who push poison to pregnant chicks and little kids.
Then they vibrate your eardrums and play with your eyes.

As I go to sit on my bed I remind myself how much I hate the color of
the walls. It looks as if instead of painting them they hired the
little girl from the Exorcist to come puke split pea soup all over
them. Those cracks and peeling wet bunches look more like congealed
soup then ever at that thought. My bedsprings hiss and twang as I rest
my ass on the bed. I casually toss the mail to my left on the foot of
the bed.
"Crap."
One of the letters falls, sliding off the edge of the bed. I reach out
to stop it but it's too late; the floorboards have swallowed it between
their gapping spaces. Oh well, I'll worry about that later. Hasta
manyna hombre.

Three pieces of mail left. I quickly thumb through them. Bill, bill,
Aunt Mary, good ole' Aunt Mary she sent me, a two -bit loser, a
Christmas card. How did she get my address? Who knows, maybe this will
brighten my Sunday afternoon a little. I open it. A gaping mouthed
Santa Clause exclaims, "Have a merry Christmas." as he waves
empathetically to the reader.
"Yea, you too grandpa." I say.
I open the card and a crisp twenty-dollar bill obscures the
inscription. Fuck the inscription twenty bucks is twenty bucks. I put
the twenty bucks in my front right jeans pocket.
"If that was worth twenty bucks." I say to myself, "Than maybe the one
the floor swallowed&;#8230;"
Yes of course. It, guessing by my luck was a Christmas card. A little
early yet with turkey leftovers still in peoples firges but yes it must
be. I bolt off of the bed and scurry over to the kitchen. A stray nail
head almost trips me up. Drawer number one, spoon, black from use of
course and a butter knife.
"Perfect" I say as I turn it this way and that in the humming glow of
the florescent lighting.

I almost snap the knife in half but the board in the floor finally
gives and comes loose. Spiders come out along with a rough-dry cinnamon
odor that I can't quite place. I back off until the spiders scat. I am
not afraid of much but I do hate spiders. After I am sure no more will
wiggle their way out I reach my hand in the whole. Cobwebs tickle my
fingers, thud, I hit the cement below me but no this thing isn't cold.
Its warm, I reach my fingers around it and draw it out. Wood. That is
why it wasn't cold it is made of wood. A square box made form ebony
wood, a cigar box. I dust it off with the sweaty palms of my hands. I
almost choke there is so much dust. The black dovetail joints of the
box are exquisitely beautiful. The box only measures two hand lengths
across and about three fingers deep. As I run my fingers along its
corners I notice the only decoration so far. Initials carved into the
lid. LF. It looks as though a chicken engraved the box with its feet. I
slide both my hands to the opposite edges and lift the lid.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a speck of dust lines the black
wooden walls of its interior. I close its lid and set it beside the bed
on the floor. I reach back into the hole until my fingers feel the
texture of the envelope. I pull it out.
"Another fucking bill, won't they ever quit coming"
I toss it onto the floor at the foot of my bed where all the other
mail bounced when I got up to get the knife. I decided to go to sleep
early I have to be at work early anyways. I strip take the stuff out of
my pockets then slip under my covers. Before I slop off to never-never
land I remember to set my alarm. Click, Click done. Then I get the
strangest feeling. It starts like a stray thought in my brain. You
know, like thinking of grandma right before you blow your load all over
some beautiful blonde's tits. It gets there, you don't know how and you
really wish it wouldn't. But here it is. It feels like I am hungry or
thirsty. Greed, no, that's not right either; gluttony sounds a little
more like it. Whatever it was I really wanted to put that twenty-dollar
bill, my only twenty bucks, into that box I had found earlier. So I did
and the alien feeling went away like a summer breeze whisks away a bad
smell. Then I slept.

PART TWO: Forty Bucks

My bed is soft and comforting. I can hear the humming of the radiator
and those wonderful buzzing florescent lights. My back aches from
leaning over a sink all morning and my hands are chapped. I pull out my
relatively small bag of heroin. It sits in the palm of my hand. So much
fun in such a little space, stimulate your mind man. Maybe I will but
first the matter of how the fuck I got the forty bucks I bought it
with.

This morning I woke up, with a bit of a headache no doubt, to my
hideous sounding alarm. I dressed from the pile of laundry in the
corner. Put my keys, wallet and the money out of that black box in my
pockets accordingly. I grabbed the money out of the box never minding
how much was there (Actually I was wondering how much I might be able
to pawn such a nice box.), then off to work.

I wash dishes for a couple of hours then take my lunch with Vinney (He
is a scrawny burn out remnant of the sixties with long silvery hair and
salt &; pepper eyebrows.). I ask him if he has any shit.
"Course I do."
"How much and how much?"
"It's all I got left and forty", he says.
"All I got is twenty can you split it?"
"No!"
I reach into my pocket to grab my twenty. Maybe if I show it to him I
can convince him to do it my way. I fan the two twenty dollar bills in
my fingers and begin again.
"See all I have is-
Forty bucks. No fucking way. Don't over think it, just do it.
"Actually why don't I just take it all." I say.
Reluctant and unsure "Sure man."
We trade stuff. I wash some more dishes then come home.

Now I am just sitting on my bed with a small package wrapped in a
cigarette pack's cellophane.
Duplicated, cloned, doppelganger.
I can't stop wondering. Well there is only one-way to be sure. I
really hope I am not going crazy or that the heroin isn't finally going
to my head, fucking with my conscious thought.
"What to put in that therrre boks." I say in a horrible hick
impression. How will I know for sure? I lean over to look at the box
closer.
"Oww, shit" I mutter as my keys poke into my hip. Yes, of course
that's it. I will stick my keys in there. I pick up the ebony box. The
blackness of it seems to swallow the light. I open it with my thumbs
and sit it on my lap. Kerr-chink, Keys inserted. I close the box.
Wait.
Wait.
I open the box after I tap my feet and twiddle my thumbs for no more
than five minutes. (Some of my friends at works affectionately call my
tapping and twiddling the "Junkie Shuffle".) One set of keys. I really
am losing my mind. I take the keys out and put them on the nail by the
door. To think a box could duplicate stuff. Its like I am a kid
believing if I put my tooth under my pillow that a wonderful glittery
fairy will bless me with a small amount of US currency. Yea right, get
a grip. Well now that is settled. What to do? I set the box to my right
and look to my left. The heroin.

I prepare it just the way I always do. I have to reuse the syringe
this time. I unhook my belt. Tie my arm off. Blue veins, what remains
of them, stand out in a spidery web down my track mark littered
forearm. I load the syringe. I hiss air through my teeth as the needle
punchers my skin. I push the plunger slowly down. Yellow-Clear fluid
drains into my arm. I can feel it working through my veins like small
tingly crystals. I un-strap the belt. Hello heroin my old friend.

PART THREE: Decent Into Madness

I lay back on my bed of clouds prepared by angels in dusk's yellow
light. Pleasure tingles and pulses through my body like waves made by a
rock thrown into a somber pond. I sink deep, deeper into a hole. A
sinkhole. My room jumps back at me on steel springs. I sit up on my
cloud, my throne of majesty. The angels have departed. I look around as
vivid pastel colors fade in and out like far away radio stations in a
thunderstorm. I lie back down and fade into a colorfully wonderful
sleep.

I awaken dazed and still on cloud nine. The heroin has worn off a
little and I can think more coherently now.
"Man I am&;#8230;" I don't know. Something is unsatisfied. What? I
look on the floor beside my bed. Heroin and heroin accessories. I still
have some stuff left but not much.
Put it in the box.
"What" I say.
Where did that come from? An alien voice inside my head; I turn and
look at the small black cigar box squatting on my floor. I look at my
tiny bag of heroin. I imagine a large puzzle, one of those ten thousand
piece ones. But one piece is missing. The piece has a small cellophane
wrapped package on it. Strictly on impulse I snatch up my remaining
stash and put in the box. With the crack of the lid that strange alien
unsettling is gone. I can't wait more than five seconds before I thumb
the lid open again. Two bags of heroin.
"Fucking awesome."
I examine the bags in the zombie light of my stale dry apartment. They
are identical. Another urge, this one not so alien, tells me to shoot
again.

I prep and fix. The accustom sensations fell me to the brink of
utopia.
"Hello heroin my old friend." I say aloud without even being aware. It
works through me and I lay back on my bed, hands propped behind my head
and I fall. I fall deep this time. Reality fades out. I start
hallucinating again as the boiler kicks on.

A train engine revs up. I sit up and don't see anything but tracers and
brightness. I am sweating bullets now and my skin is crawling around on
my bones. This isn't what usually happens, I think to myself. A whistle
blows somewhere; a train whistle.
"All aboard" the conductor, a small man with a black and red uniform,
says. He smiles and winks beckoning me to get on the train. The train
is huge and black as the bottom of a well. Man I am really losing it
now I think from a million miles away. I climb aboard. The steel of the
handrail is boiling hot. I step inside the coach. Heat swells around me
in red pulsing waves. Where am I now? The door I just stepped thorough
is gone. There is no trace of a ceiling or wall, just red pulsing waves
of heat. I hear a ticking rustling sound all around me. Millions of
small black silhouettes swarm toward me from both sides. I step back.
Something stops me dead in my retreat. Something springy and stretchy.
A huge spider web. Holy fucking mother of Jesus I am caught in a spider
web. The black mob is at my feet. There spiders. And just as the
thought solidifies in my mind so the amorphous black shapes. Thousands
of Black Widow spiders make their way up my legs. Their red hourglass
tattoos bouncing up and down. I try to swat at them but my hands are
immobile. I can't move. They now cover my legs. I can feel their soft
weight pressing against my jeans. They crawl to my waist and horde down
my pants and up my back. Pattering legs tickle the hair of my navel,
then my crotch, then OH MY GOD NO, NO. I scream with terror as they
fill my pants making their way in a single file line pushing their way
up into my ass-hole. Swarms of spiders skitter up my back under my
shirt, over my shirt. They reveal themselves running out in small black
and red rivers from my shirt collar. Their legs twinge and scratch at
my flesh as they crawl through my hair, up my chin. Blackness comes in
swatches over my vision. Small black legs tickle and tease my
eyelashes. Sharp pains rip through my gut. The spiders wiggle their
twisted bodies into my ears, more spiders crawl down my arms. More
cover my face, ruffle through my hair. I open my mouth to scream again,
prickly warm legs and bulbous bodies fill my mouth, invade my larynx.
The blackness solidifies. It embraces me with chilly warmth. I swear I
hear the fibers of my sanity breaking. Then I am gone.

The Kansas City Chronicle Dec 3

The police are not letting out the name of a local Kansas City man
found dead in his apartment last night. He was found by the police
shortly after a telephone call was made to report that the downstairs
tenant, a known drug user, was screaming at the top of his lungs. The
police apparently found him sitting at the foot of his bed clutching a
small black cigar box with both hands. Inside police sources say there
were many unusual things about this man's death. Even though he was
only twenty-seven years old, according to his ID, he looked to be
almost seventy with white hair and wrinkled skin. His mouth was dropped
in a slacked jawed scream of terror. Also, he was clutching the box
with such force that the police had to break most of his fingers to get
it out of his hands. The box is rumored to be missing from the police
evidence locker. As of now they are unofficially calling it an overdose
but the autopsy has yet to be preformed.