Digging the Vein by Tony O'Neill Page B

was trying and failing. I was just throwing fuel into a dying fire now, feeding a psychological rather than physical need. I couldn't get high and I was slipping into a kind of psychotic half-sleep that made me no use to anyone. Two English guys appeared with Sal, maybe half an hour after Joan and I had gotten dressed. One, a hulking skinhead, was ex-British Army who'd served time in Northern Ireland. He had that look about him, fat sweaty face, alcoholic watery eyes, awful tattoos featuring Union Jacks and bulldogs. I intrinsically mistrusted anyone who served in the British Army, finding the idea that anyone would volunteer to be stuck in a stinking filthy barracks with a bunch of other mentally challenged fools wearing itchy, ugly army fatigues absolutely shocking. Everyone I knew from childhood who went into the army was the kind of violent, bigoted moron that couldn’t get a job sweeping the streets under normal circumstances. So they’d join the army instead, and some genius would give them a gun, teach them how to kill and send them into various political hotspots around the world. Upon hearing that they were army though, I simply murmured, “oh wow, that's cool,” before staring off into the middle distance for the rest of the night. I suppose they seemed nice enough, but whenever I encounter the British abroad I try and keep my distance. They seem to feel that they are under attack from all forms of the new culture that surrounds them, and retreat into a kind of bizarrely ultra - British caricature. I know if these people wandered around Manchester with their flags waving and their soccer tops and their affected accents, people would think that they'd lost their fucking minds.
    Sal left for the shop around three. Everyone but Joan and I were ready to keep the party going. The English guys, sensing that I wasn't up for a discussion about old Blighty, football or politics, started laying into the lager and cocaine with gusto. I felt like a corpse, moving my eyes over to Joan every so often to see how she was doing, before returning my stare to the wall again. My heart raced in my chest and I was finding it hard to swallow. I felt like I had slipped completely into auto pilot and I found myself reciting the words to my favorite songs in my head, trying to stop myself from going crazy.
    “ I'm going to bed,” Joan eventually announced.
    “ Can I crash in your room?” I asked, a little too quickly. Even she looked startled by my desire to be away from the party.
    “ Sure,” she shrugged, adding, “you can have the couch.”
    We somehow made it into her room and locked the door. I undressed and flopped onto the bed, half watching as Joan took off and folded her clothes. She slid between the sheets, huddling next to me.
    “ Goodnight,” I murmured.
    “ Goodnight.”
    As fucked up as we were, we had sex three times before we finally slept, not waking until noon the next day. The last time we did it she lay on her left side - as did I - and I fucked her from behind making small, careful movements. I hugged her throughout, burying my face into her shoulder. I briefly wondered if it was possible that I was falling in love with her. I thought that I probably was, although I had nothing to compare the experience to. Christiane flashed across my mind, and I blocked the thought out as soon as it surfaced. Over the past month she had become a ghostly figure, entering the apartment as I left it, leaving notes by the bed for me to clean the goddamn house, or coming in drunk herself once in a while and shooting me dirty looks as I wrote, before staggering off into the bedroom to collapse unconscious.
    “ This isn't good,” I thought as I came inside her, immediately starting to drift into a contented sleep. “This isn't good at all.”

ALL THERE’S LEFT TO DO…
     
    A week later I turned up to rehearse with my band, Southpaw, only to discover that our rhythm guitar player Chris was no longer in the band. It was