Flowers For Cigarettes

The past's gotta a way of creepin' up on you. Which is nice if you're past is dandelions and sunshine, but let's face it no one's got that. Never in a million years did I think I'd go back. I thought I'd buried it all in a mountain of ash trampled into the dirt. I mean, you get into enough fucked up situations growing up and it's bound to smack you in the ass just when you think you've gotten away.

It took about a day to get back to the old city. Half the day pacing the terminal before I got the balls to buy a ticket, and the other half actually getting through rush hour traffic on a bus packed with guys in cheesy neck ties, and grandmas shuffling on board with bulging paper shopping bags.

The old neighborhood wasn't what I remembered. A lot of the doorsteps smelt like piss and the buildings were wedged like sardines in a can. The windows were propped open with sticks or grimy old fans. Maybe I'd just been sitting on my pampered ass too long.

I stopped next to an old man sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk in a pair of boxers, smoking a cigarette and frowning at a couple screaming at each other across the street. Home sweet home.

To be honest, I didn't expect the old apartment to still be up. It was condemned shortly after the incident. Even back then I thought that irony had a twisted sort of humor about it, but there it was; the sad, shabby memory of a ghost that still gave me nightmares.

Most of the windows had been taken out by rocks thrown by the neighborhood kids and one of the buzz buttons was hanging like an eyeball popped out of its socket. The only money the town put into the place was some wooden boards crisscrossing the windows

I lit up another cigarette from the pack I bought at the corner store next to the bus station. I wasn't gonna go home for a while, but I bet Elliot was still gonna smell the smoke and chew me out good for it.

The whole trip started with a kiss that tasted like Chinese takeout. It was one of those rare occasions I got Elliot to quit his, 'higher then fast food' bullshit and order out. We were sitting in his student apartment watching re-runs of some stupid space shit he liked. All I did was lean over and plant a good one on him, but he'd just taken a bite of the last eggroll and it tasted like grease and duck sauce.

Just like that the past sucked me back to a shitty apartment and a shitty T.V. - way before I met Elliot. Me and the other guy were huddled on a bunch of blankets on a bare floor and knew damn well it was a better place to be than where we'd been. Re-runs played on a TV screen not much bigger then the milk crate we had it on. We weren't even paying attention to the static picture cause that Chinese was the biggest meal we had in weeks and we felt like a couple of teenagers sneaking a drink in their parent's basement. I leaned in a kissed him at one point. He tasted like lo mein.

It was one of those surreal moments that knocked me on my ass. Jamie Ray was his name. God. Haven't even thought of him since I cleaned myself up. But he was in my head and he wasn't about to leave. Talk about ghosts from the fucking past.

I tossed the butt to the curb.

I had to get in from the fire escape down the ally, and kicked the board out of the window when I got to the fourth floor.

The entire place reeked like death and mildew. The rotting wallpaper peeled off in tight little curls. I kicked rat shit and old used needles when I walked.

One of the doors was kicked in. A girl looked up at me with the glass eyes of corpse before laying her head down to slink back into whatever high was chasing the demons. I felt a chill right up my back. Shit, how many times did Jamie see me like that?

I stepped over a body huddled against the wall and stood in front apartment fifty five. The number was scratched off but I could still see the outline.