|
Other essays on this theme
Essay: "On the Edge"by Michael Collier
Yeah I've been there, and over the top too. Sixteen, seven hits of blue shield acid a nose full of heroin and Led Zeppelin crashing out of the speakers of my best friend's puke green seventy-three Chevy pickup truck. Three hundred bucks in my pocket, a warm bottle of grape Mad Dog twenty twenty, roaring out of Dallas Texas with my best friend hell bent for California. A few months later I was forty pounds lighter than when I split for the coast, Charlie my buddy was dead, and I traded the truck for a quarter pound of weed and stuck my thumb in the air with Delta, this smoky redhead Charlie and I picked up in Arizona. She was running from a pervert stepfather and drunk mother and I was just feeling grown and closed in when I split home with Charlie. Man, Charlie, now that was a good dude. We ran together from second grade to high school when we both split after a summer of roofing with his dad. The night he got killed I got cut pretty bad and so did Delta. We did some back, but it was too late for Charlie, and he went, bleeding his life out in my arms and on the hard streets of L.A.! So I called his mom and bought alcohol and peroxide and some bandages at the same Rexal drug store I made the call from. Went to the dealer's apartment in West L.A. got me and Delta patched up and did a bump out of me and Charlie's stash. Sold the truck and got the hell out of L.A. Delta and I saw Oregon, Nevada, and the bad side of life and each other before we wound up back in Dallas. Her with her belly swollen and ready to bust with my son, "or maybe Charlies." Neither of us was sure and didn't care. Pride is a hard thing in a young man and an old one too. My dad and mom staring at Delta and I, me and my dad making hard eyes at each other. Him a tough old paratrooper and boxer, me a younf fool scared and ready to fight the bull of the herd. A movement, what I thought was a swing and murder in my Dad's eyes. On the edge, yeah and over the top too, "both of us," crushing each other in the fierce hug of an old man who's been there and a young one just finding out. Yeah, on the edge, and when the tears came we were over the top and all the way down too.
|