The Life and Times of Innis E. Coxman (18 page)

They say that necessity is the mother of all invention.
I
say that’s
a bucket of runny whale shit. Lust for profit is the parent to much of
humanity’s creations, whipping necessity’s ass for cheating on a test and
sending it to its room without dessert.

I
mean really—how many of you know someone who’s ever “needed” a Snuggie?

Necessity
is, however, a leading agent in the modernization of our world. There’s no
denying it. While not everything on the planet is born of need, the idea of
necessity has brought forth such conveniences as the automobile, air
conditioning, gunpowder, the television, and glow-in-the-dark condoms (until
you try it, you have no idea how cool it is to wave Mr. Johnson around in a
dark room pretending he’s a light saber).

I’ve
even heard people argue that necessity is the root of our actions: a guy
“needed” to push that elderly woman out of his way so he could catch that cab;
a mother “needed” to beat her toddler with a wooden spoon because he wouldn’t
be quiet; a husband “needed” to lie to his wife about his addiction to
prostitutes to spare her feelings; and your soon-to-be ex “needed” to rifle
through your cellphone looking at other women’s names so she’d be up on the
competition.

Now
there are people who would say that the aforementioned actions were the result
of some inherent necessity brought on by that individual’s current stimuli. In
a sense, I suppose that’s true, although I disagree with the notion that
necessity is the be-all-end-all behind mankind’s every exploit:

I
didn’t “need” to slap the guy who bumped into me at the orgy, but goddamn if it
didn’t feel good.

***

Yes,
necessity is a strong impetus behind our activities as a species. It’s been
proven time and again. However, one would be hard pressed to affirm its
superiority to the invisible force that is present in all of us from the day we
are born: emotion. The complicated vortex of human emotion can drive a person
to mania, causing some of us to do the most unspeakable acts ever performed
under God’s watchful eye:

Meek
parents slaughter the one responsible for hurting their child.

A
priest beats the man who burned his church to the ground.

Two
friends disagree over a card game; one ends up bleeding out on the green felt
from a bullet wound.

Boyfriends
and husbands who beat their women to death for looking at another man.

A
stepfather shoots his stepson with a .44 for breaking curfew (Justin deserved
better than that).

Two
men go to blows because one pulled into a parking space the other felt he’d
laid claim to.

A
father hangs his two-year old out of a sixth-story window to get back at the
baby’s mother for her infidelity.

Good
Christ in the sky, we’re insane.

I’m
no social scientist, good people, but I don’t think I’m speaking out of school when
I say that human emotion is the strongest catalyst in the universe.

***

Admittedly,
my past emotions have caused me to fly off the handle at inappropriate
junctures.

Contain
your shock.

I’ve
even given in to my hysterics in the workplace. There was the time blows were
exchanged on a construction site. I recall a shoving match on a tugboat in the
middle of the Mississippi River. One day I went off the deep end and teabagged
an old boss of mine at his desk, raking my curlies over his nose with the
balance of a Lithuanian acrobat. I’ve even sacrificed decorum for the greater
good of stapling a coworker’s fingers together and showing him the inside of a
computer as I shoved his face through the screen. (He was looking at child
pornography on his company laptop. It was strange to have the police on my side
for once.)

What
I’m laying down is this: whenever
I
jammed a knee in the groin of
professional behavior, the only tools at my disposal were huge fists, awesomely
braided nuts, and a sense of shamelessness shown only by women in gang bangs.
What I did
not
have during any of these occasions were a metal baton, an
abusive demeanor, weaponry capable of wasting small villages, and a silver
badge to back it all up.

***

I’m
almost certain that some of my readers have never used cocaine or crystal meth.

Bully-fuckin’-hoo
for you.

For
those of you wise enough to have never touched either one of these substances,
I shall explain the alternatives available to an addict nearing the end of his
stash:

When
you’ve whittled the contents of your plastic bag down to the last grains in the
corner, your options are finite, but present. There’s always the tried and true
method of accepting the conclusion of your binge, realizing that you’ve had a
fun night (or five days) of ruining your body and coasting a gentle comedown.
Usually, the synthetic endorphins are counteracted with whiskey, pills, or a
large bag of marijuana that’s been set aside for this very reason. Of course,
if you were a poor drug addict and didn’t plan ahead, having spent all your
money on uppers and leaving none to help diminish your buzz, you have no choice
but to take the second option and do it the hard way: you ride it out until the
end. This route is generally avoided by most cokeheads and speed freaks, as it
leaves your eyes bulging out of your face for anywhere from a few hours to an
extra two days. Sleep is an elusive dream that never seems to come, and I don’t
care who you are—whether it’s a family that needs tending, a job you must show
up for, or your monthly meeting with a probation officer, eventually, you have
to get straight to deal with some important part of your life.

Then
there is the third option that is the most popular, at least among myself and
the people I used to run with: you wave your dick at the idea of going without
your precious narcotics and go get some more, by God.

***

I
recall a time in my youth. I was big, tattooed, devilishly handsome, and
villainously intelligent.

Not
a lot’s changed.

My
old buddy Jay and I had been knee-deep in three eightballs of glass for four
days. That’s almost eleven grams for the squares. Raptious had been up with us
for the duration. She was so strung out that she’d started arranging the coat
hangers in our closet according to size and color (plastic hangers were saved;
wire hangers were either trashed or turned into stem cleaners for our pipes).
We’d gotten down to the last chips in our last bag. Jay and I were in my
kitchen volleying a joint trying to take the edge off the top-notch redneck
speed. We were seated at two of the barstools surrounding the counter. The one
hundred-watt light bulb we’d modified for smoking the glass lay between us on
the beige
formica
next to a straw used for inhalation.
We passed the joint over two ounces of weed and what appeared to be less than a
quarter gram of the clear crystals in a small, zip-locked jewelry bag. It was 1
AM.

“Hey,
man,” I said, “do you have anything to do tomorrow?”

“Not
really.”

“Neither
do
I
. You wanna go see Dude and get some more speed?”

“Yeah.
Sure. But don’t you have to go to work, Innis?”

“Nope.
Not for a couple more days.”

“How
did you manage that?”

“I
told Bobby my aunt neutered her Yorkie. Said that ever since she did it the
little bastard had been trying to kill her in her sleep and I had to go keep
watch over him while he got used to being nutless.”

“Oh.
Cool!”

“Yeah,
no doubt. Too bad it’s all true except the part about me going to visit.”

“Oh.
Well, yeah, that kinda sucks.”

“Hey,
Jay, you think Dude’s even awake?”

“Yep.
Should be. He makes his own shit. Cooks
never
sleep. You want me to call
him?”

“Yep
yep
. How much money you got?”

“‘Bout
a hundred. You?”

“I’ve
got two bills. Three hundred should buy another ‘ball with a little extra.”

“Hell
yeah it will! Does he know your cell number?”

“Nah.
I use the landline when I call him. He recognizes that one.”

“Sweet.
I’ll take care of it. My cell
phone’s
in my car,
though.”

“You
wanna call him from here?”

“Yep.
Is your house phone on this month?”

“Sure
thing. Give him a holler.”

***

Dude’s
real name was Darrell. He lived in the country about twenty miles from my
house. He’d fallen in love with
The Big Lebowski
and insisted that from
then on his friends call him “Dude.”

I
wasn’t his goddamn friend. To me he was a reliable meth connection with great
product. Nothing more. To keep our business transactions going smoothly—and to
minimize the threat of that crazy hillbilly pulling a gun for the smallest
disagreement—I would’ve called him “Bubbles” if that’s what he wanted to go by.

Dude
lived on State 116. It only ran about ten miles from beginning to end, but it
was a long rural highway with minimal side streets. At least minimal for ten
miles of road. Save for a few bends and a ninety degree curve, it was more or
less a straight shot. The benefit of this quality was that you could see police
coming in your direction. The flipside, of course, was that they could see you,
too. One side intersected with State 28. The opposite end came out by some
railroad tracks next to an active army base. There were trees set twenty yards
from the highway in some places, thirty or more in others. Dusk-to-dawn lamps
dotted the shoulder every couple of miles.

For
law breakers, it was an imposing stretch even during daylight hours, for if the
cops hit their lights there was almost nowhere to go. You’d be forced to pull
over. If you chose to run and made it to one of the streets that led into the
woods, good luck—maybe you hit one of the few that was actually paved. A great
number of them were gravel and you’d lose control in a high-speed chase. Most
people who made a break for it down one of these roads realized they were
fucked after the first mile and stopped. Those who tempted fate usually flipped
their vehicles or careened into the surrounding wilderness. At night, the
blacktop of 116 seemed to extend forever. The only way to see any law
enforcement was if they were behind you with their emergency lights on.

It
was almost 2 AM by the time Jay had spoken to Dude. I told Raptious the deal
and left her in our closet with the spider’s web of hangers. We got in Jay’s
new Caddy and set off. Because we were geeked out of our minds, we followed the
speed limits and took the back roads to 116. We didn’t get to Dude’s ramshackle
lean-to until 2:45.

***

He
greeted us at the screen door with no shirt, ripped jeans, and greasy waves of
blonde, unwashed hair that curled at the tips. He invited us in with a jerk of
his head. The trashy living room was filled with overflowing ashtrays,
scattered newspapers, Nixon-era furniture and 90s-era porn on the twenty-two
inch television. He made no bones regarding the manufactured screams of
pleasure blaring from the staticky speakers. Foregoing a “Hello,” he immediately
went into a dissertation about how he’d been up for a week. It smelled like his
last shower coincided with his first line.

His
jerkwater wife had joined Dude in his binge. Everybody called her Swizzlestick.
To this day I don’t know her real name. She was skin and bones and as backwoods
as they come. Her oily red hair clumped together in ropes of dreadlocks as she
buzzed about like a blind mosquito. Through her dirty sheer nightgown, we could
see her rib cage spread under almost-A-cup breasts. She was in the kitchen
making their twelfth pot of coffee in two days. She played hostess through a
lisp and nine teeth in her mouth, offering me and Jay a taste of her
concoction. I felt confident in speaking for the both of us.

“Y’all
wanna cup o’ the good thtuff?”

“Nah.
We’re okay.”

“Y’all
thure? It’th high-po’ered thit! I’been puttin’ new groundth over the old ‘unsth
to give it a
kick!”

“Uh,
no thanks, Swizzle. We’ve gotta be getting on pretty soon. It’s late and the
laws are out there. You know how it is.”

“Awlright
then. Thuit yerthelf!”

Jay
knew Dude better than I did. They went to a back part of the house to take care
of business, leaving me trapped with Swizzlestick for a few minutes. She asked
me if I wanted to bump a line off her tits. I
gagged
gave a polite “No,”
telling her I felt funny about seeing someone else’s wife topless. The lie was
so convincing that I almost bought it myself. Mercifully, Jay and Dude emerged
from the back room a couple of seconds later.