For the Love of Henry Flynn

I Miss You

Henry came home around one in the morning, high off some sort of drug. He could barely get in the door; I had to come and support him on my shoulders while I helped him through the door and onto the white leather couch we had in the living room.

The white reflection of the moonlight shone on his face, and he sat, dazed.

“So what happened?” I asked. I was used to Henry being strung out; he was like this three-fourths of the time that he was painting. It’s the “only way [he’ll] get anything good,” as he says.

He shrugged, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and reaching for his lighter. I was always surprised at how much he smoked, considering that he told me one night that his ex-boyfriend had died of lung cancer. I still haven’t seen him cry as much as he did that night, when he received the phone call from the hospital. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him drop a cigarette out of his mouth.

“Doll said that she needed money,” he said in between puffs of his cigarette.

“How much?”

Henry shrugged. “Just enough to get her off the ground, she said.”

I sighed. “Did you give it to her?”

He nodded and laid back on the couch, staring at the ceiling.

“Did anything else happen?” I asked, waiting for some amazing story that would make the papers the next morning.

Henry shrugged before unleashing a string of sentence fragments and words that can only be described as revelatory: “We did about three lines of cocaine, each of us. I think Doll ran into the bathroom to do speed for a bit, but I’m not sure. All of these girls kept running into the bathroom to puke, they can’t handle their drugs, I guess. Some band came on and started screaming about social injustice and how we should all be beaten and flogged because we let the government take control of how we live our lives, but I disagree because I think that the government is doing a fine job of making sure that I don’t go anywhere that I’m not supposed to. Did I tell you how many lines of cocaine we each did? Three. Three lines. That’s a lot of lines. That’s three whole-”

“I understand,” I said, cutting him off. I didn’t want to hear how many grams of coke he did. He did too goddamn much as it was already; he worried the fuck out of me. Every time he did even a little bit, his eyes would roll into the back of his head and he’d shake a little. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the amount of drugs already in his system, or if he was just weak to his drugs of choice. Either way, it caused me a lot of late nights and needless worry over whether I had turned him over far enough so he wouldn’t choke on his puke while he was sleeping.

Henry shook a little, and then looked at me with wide eyes, opening his mouth and breathing silent syllables that floated away like smoke, desperately hoping I would understand what words they were forming. I didn’t.

“You need to talk louder,” I said, getting up to go get him a glass of water and a heat compress. That normally helped. He refused to be taken to the hospital, because he was “too famous,” as he said. “The news would have an aneurism when they figured out what I did at that Factory. I can’t let them one-up me. I’ve spent too much of my time crafting my image.”

“I… I spoke to a manager for you,” he said, blinking hard.

“Manager for what?”

“Your music. They’re interested, especially if you’re willing to write a few songs about the Factory.”

I shuddered. That was the last thing I wanted to do. I was already trying hard to forget that the Factory even existed; I didn’t want to dedicate my time to writing about it and the sordid things that my boyfriend did inside.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“It wouldn’t be that hard. Do you know how many songs you could write about Doll alone? How many times she’s brought men back into the bathroom to go down on them for speed money? How many times she’s posed for me for exhibitions? Hell, you could write a trilogy of songs just on her goddamn overdose and the coma she went into. Call it ‘The Speed Trilogy.’”

I shook my head and tilted his head back, forcing water into his throat. He gulped hard, wincing tears back as the water irritated his wind pipe. He coughed water onto his suit, shaking his head and motioning for me to stop. I let his head go and walked back into the kitchen, dumping the rest of the water back into the sink, wincing at the slight shade of red that the water had inside.

“Did you make any more art?”

I waited for him to respond, expecting a no. When he didn’t respond, I rushed over to the couch to see him biting his tongue, blood spilling down his mouth.

“God damn it,” I said, rushing to get a rag. “Open,” I said, forcing his mouth open to keep him from biting his tongue off. I wiped his mouth with a rag, blinking back tears as I watched him silently mouth words that I couldn’t understand.

“Calm down. You can tell me later.”

“I’m worried you’ll leave me,” he muttered, shoving his head into my chest. It was weird to have such an older man rely on me so much.

“I won’t leave you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He sighed, breathing deeply into my chest and wrapping his arm around me, clinging to me.

“I miss you when you’re asleep,” he said quietly.

“I miss you when you’re high.”

“I miss you when you’re right here next to me and I can’t say anything to you.”

“Because of the drugs?”

He shook his head no. “Because you make me nervous.”

“Same thing.”

He laughed. “I suppose.