The climate was somber on East Fireside and Binghamton at 5:40 am on a Tuesday morning. Overcast grey skies, luminous steam billowing out of the street and gloomy tenements surrounded the man walking down the sidewalk, wearing only a garbage bag. He was stoned out of his mind and shivering, leaving maroon blood smudges behind him from the bottom of his bare feet. He darted in and out of alleys, sometimes jumping into dumpsters to avoid marauding police. He finally stopped when he was sprayed by a skunk’s acrid poison in the third dumpster. The rancid smell wafted from him in all directions. Homeless men standing around drinking coffee or wine turned their heads in disgust as he jotted by. He finally walked into an alleyway in the predawn grey and knelt on the ground looking at the earth and shivering. He sat there awhile, and soon small rivulets of blood were streaming down the alley from the torn soles of his feet. He gagged and vomited, he had been vomiting all morning, and was in some bizarre blackout, but his high was wearing off. He could feel it and was getting belligerent. A few drunk and stoned men approached him laughing. "Hey wassup cuz' trashbag man motherfucker”
He stood up, his name was Dean.
"Hi.”
was all he said. The men were passing around a crackpipe and firing it up with lighters whose flames reached about three inches into the air. They had removed a couple of pieces and turned the things into blowtorches. One of the men put a few pinches of chemicals into the tip of the pipe and handed Dean the lighter and the pipe. "Here hit this man”
They were all chuckling and carrying on. Dean was desperate and himself a user so he lifted the pipe to his lips and lit it sucking in the smoke and then gently letting it stream out of his lips. Hitting that shit was like being bludgeoned with a lead pipe. Dean stumbled and fell down. When he woke up the men were gone and so was the trashbag he was wearing over his torso. He stood up dazed. He could see colors festooning around in mid air like abstract fireworks that wouldn’t go out. It was a little later in the morning and people were starting to walk by. He needed clothes. A homeless man lay fifteen feet from where Dean was standing and Dean went over and began pulling off the man’s clothes. The man woke up and stood up, pushing Dean away, and punching him in the face breaking his nose and sending blood spattering against the walls of the building. Dean turned and ran and the homeless man chased him into the busy street but stopping at the curb while Dean stumbled stupidly into traffic. He was hit by a car and slammed into the windshield turning it into a spiderweb of broken glass. Bloody, he managed to get off the pavement and limped down the street. Cars honk and people screamed from their windows at him. A bag of garbage hit him in the face and spilled all over the sidewalk. People crossed the street to avoid him. He limped into the salvation army and was promptly given some very odd clothes. He looked like a street person. The workers there called the paramedics but Dean was already gone. He was on probation for a DUI five months ago and was afraid of being arrested again.
He made his way down the street and into a bar where he sat down at a table. Someone at the salvation army had given him ten dollars for a cab, so he ordered a beer when the waitress walked by. He went and bought a pack of cigarettes from the machine near the door. Dean was working with a temp agency, but currently unemployed. He was smoking cocaine and drinking all night with a prostitute. When he fell asleep, the prostitute took his clothes and wallet and left. He woke up stoned and ended up wandering out into the street. He finished his beer, ordered another, then lit a cigarette. A man came and sat at his table. The man wore torn jeans, a leather vest over a wifebeater stained with grease. He smiled, revealing a set of rotting, broken and missing teeth. His hair was unkempt and he was unshaven and reeked of beer. "Say, I could smell you halfway across the room.”
"I was sprayed by a skunk this morning.”
"Sounds like you’ve had a hell of a day already. I’ve got a proposition for you, a job.”
"What is it?”
"I’ll give you a hundred dollars and a pitcher of beer to fuck you in the ass.”
Dean gagged. He was rail thin and had long hair, but liked women... he was broke and didn’t have much of a choice. Not only that, but he didn’t really give a fuck whether he lived or died.
"One more thing. I’ve got genital warts.”
