The Life and Times of Innis E. Coxman (9 page)

***

Now I’m back on the streets and my records are clean.....
oh, sorry.
The last thing I listened to was Eazy-E.  

But
I was, in fact, back on the streets. More pointedly, I was walking one of the
busiest streets on one of the coldest nights ever, headed home after bailing
myself out. They let you do that if you act right and don’t try to rape anyone
in holding.

The
day’s occurrences had drained me and the guys in the tank contributed to my
aggravation. I’d spent six hours in a sweltering holding cell with one
talkative second degree murder, two drug possessions who kept threatening to
roll on each other, and an Iraqi gentleman who persisted I was on speed due to
my neverending streams of sweat. Once I hit the street, I required Snapple and
silence.

If
anyone had said a word to me I was going to rip their tongue out and order it
to shut the hell up.

After
paying the bondsman his percentage, I still had two hundred dollars in cash
with no cigarettes. Trying to wrap my mind around
that
laughable irony,
I felt my cell phone vibrate in my pocket. My clenching asshole could’ve
snapped a crowbar when I saw that it was
her.

My
enemy.

My
nemesis.

The
villain in a straight-to-DVD movie.

The
cumshot on a video camera because some moron filmed the scene from the bottom.

And
just so you can wrinkle your nose at the page like it farted on you,
she was
asking if I wanted her to come and pick me up.....

I
told her I’d rather go back and sit with the guy who said I smelled pretty.

***

My
journey home led me through the projects. I found a twenty-four-hour oasis
where I obtained smokes and a refreshing beverage. The place was full of
regular customers purchasing various wares. Menacing eyes bored into me in that
all-black establishment and I couldn’t figure out why, for if slavery, the
civil rights movement, and
American History X
have taught us anything,
it’s that large, tattooed white men with shaved heads are always welcome
amongst their African-American brethren. Much to my relief, I knew the cashier.
She worked at another store down the street from my house. Seeing the cacophony
my presence was inciting, she loudly vouched to the other patrons that I wasn’t
the Grand Wizard. Crisis averted. We made small talk for a moment after she
rung up the sale. As I pushed through a nest of black guys occluding the exit,
she asked as to my limp and the cuts on my face.

I
told her that my wife had found out about me and my cousin at her place the
night before.

In
case you’re curious, Raptious
did
get arrested for vehicular assault
that day. They let her go ROR—Released on Own Recognizance—three hours before I
bailed out (don’t you just love America?). A few more years passed before I
jumped that sinking ship and set about a major purge in my surroundings.

***

Throughout
my ex-wife’s bouts of depression and unpredictable outbursts, there was always
a piece of me that loved her, for no one can be with someone else for any
length of time without lingering affection, even
through
unpleasantness. There remains an inkling of the individual that drew you to
them in the first place. A flicker of the person you once loved sunk beneath
all of the muck and mental illness. Anyone who’s ever been in a similar
circumstance will attest to that. Even after our divorce, I still held a candle
for her due to the gift she’d given me before our split. That’s why it stung to
my core when I heard how they’d found her.

In
addition to a heavy drug addiction, Raptious was anchored with a host of
unchecked health issues. It caught up in her mid-30s. She died in a grimy
bathroom on her knees, her head in the toilet, hair licking the surface of the
water, cold left arm draped over the side of the tub with her body crumpled in
an unnatural position. By that time I’d changed my ways and had a friend on the
police department who told me more details about the scene. It appeared that
she’d tried to call for help.

Her
stiff right hand lay on the dirty tile next to the toilet base, cradling a cell
phone with a dead battery.

***

Ages
ago, a friend and I spent a night inside a bottle of Maker’s Mark. On a drunken
whim, he asked me, “Coxman, what’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?” The
answer came slurred but immediate.

I
can say with concrete conviction that through prison, the passing of a parent,
bad women, fair weather friends, dodging a couple of bullets, being stabbed a
few times, and fifteen years stuck in the mire of hardcore drug addiction, the
most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever done in my life was tell my daughter that
her mother was dead.

I’m lying here under the bane of fever with mucus pouring out of
holes that God didn’t mean for mucus to pour from.

I
know
he didn’t.

Supine
as I find myself on the bed, I stuck the index finger of my left hand up my
left nostril in a vain attempt to clear it out. What I whipped out was a string
of snot resembling a hoary alien beast. It sling-shotted from my nose and
smacked against my finger with a retching
kooeeeck!
I studied it for a
moment, holding it directly over me as I lay helplessly on my back. Dark green
and mildly transparent it was, with bits of chunky green goo embedded in the
middle. It hung from my finger like a monkey on a trapeze, dangling back and
forth, daring me to fling it across the room. Then it fell into my left eye.

I
almost cried.

I grabbed the trash can and held on to both sides as I braced for another
tidal wave.
Every muscle in my body locked like a set of brakes on wet
pavement. My head felt like it was about to explode, and I swayed like the
suicide jumper on a windy bridge. The last gush of bile had been more
voluminous than the previous three, and I was pretty sure I saw Monday’s meal
in the chunky river of red regurgitation.

Good
Christ!
I don’t remember eating chili & chicken
burritos!

What the hell? Red? I don’t drink red beer.

No, wait. Is that
?.....

Fuck me, that’s blood.

Like
all good binges, it started out with the best of intentions: half a sheet of
Timothy Leary, a dash of coke, two eightballs of glass—light bulb and straw
optional—an ounce of weed, and an ocean of beer. All for a party of me
.

As
you’ve gathered by now, I don’t like people.

Those
were
my
narcotics.

After
getting up close and personal with the bottom of my
Sesame Street
trash
can, I viewed the zombie in my bathroom mirror: five layers of body grease
shrinkwrapped my skin, eyes recessed so deep they looked like charcoal
briquets, and my heart was pounding so hard I couldn’t wait for it to splatter
all over the sink and get it over with.

I
was three days into my six-day bender and it felt like I’d been going for ten.
After seeing the mixture of blood and beer splash violently atop the used
condoms and tossed issue of
Big Butt Magazine,
I told the corpse staring
back at me to quit mixing Bud Ice with his acid.

***

I
use to dabble in drugs a little bit.

Okay,
I use to dabble in drugs a little lot.

Well,
to be more exact, I’ve done my fair share of drugs.

If
we’re being totally honest here, one could suggest I’ve endured a hell of a lot
of drugs.

Fine—I’ve
occasionally been known to ingest the inventory of a pharmacy.

Look—fuck
you. At one point my body rivaled New Orleans in toxicity, alright? Your mom’s
snatch
still
beat us both…..

And
that’s a point to the Coxman.

***

So
you’ve never partaken of any illicit substance and you find yourself at a pivotal
crossroads: you’re at a high school party in the woods where you pay some
redneck for a few hits off the joint he’s smoking with six other people. Not
even catching a buzz because now you’re smoking a joint with seven other
people. Next thing you know,
you’re deepthroating a Liza Minnelli
impersonator
you’re reaching depths you never thought possible to feed your
wretched addictions.

This
was my existence for many years. I stole from family and friends. (They were
doing it to me, too. Circle of life.) I borrowed money with the intent of never
giving it back. I sold dope just to skim off the top for personal use—which got
me into trouble more than once when it was on the front. I held jobs by
applying the fiend's logic of “working to buy more dope.” The arrangement kept
me and Uncle Sam happy for years. And—surprise!—I pawned shit. Just not always
my
shit. Including a buddy’s guitar he’d left at my place. Told him it was stolen
by a drug dealer I owed money to and I’ve never told anyone about it. Good
thing I’m taking that one to my grave.....

Fuck!

***

Yes,
yes, yes, I did all these things and more to obtain leafy buds, multi-colored
powders, and trippy hallucinogens, as well as a few things known only to myself
and whatever accomplice joined me in the crime. However, I can look anyone in
the eye and say I never performed acts of sexual debasement to catch a buzz.
Even at my lowest, I maintained a semblance of standards.

But
if your crackheaded ways did
lead you to be the guest of honor at a
bukkake party, whatever, man. It’s cool. You won’t find any self-righteousness
here. Drug addiction is a heavy burden for anyone, and the stiff middle fingers
of judgment shall not extend from my scarred and battered hands.

You
fag. Quit reading and move on. That’s nasty.

***

Point
is, I was a No-Good-Lousy-Drug-User.

A
Wastoid.

Speed
Freak.

Pot
Head.

Drug
Head.

Motorhead
(no disrespect, Lemmy).

Radiohead
(fuck you, Thom Yorke).

Junkie.
 

Tweaker.

Addict.

Those
of you who were unlucky enough to fall into that lifestyle know that’s not even
the tip of the belittlement iceberg. If you’re reading this, then that probably
means you quit all that nonsense and can afford to buy books and other
recreational shit now. Congratulations.

It’s
better on this side, isn’t it?

When
you’re under the influence of psychedelic/life-threatening/fun-as-shit
narcotics, you inevitably put yourself in situations that are removed from the
scope of normal, everyday living. Simply put, you’re going to be exposed to
some volatile people under some horrendous circumstances.

I used to mule for cash and free cocaine.
Nothing
heavy, mind you, just the occasional cookie wrapped in clear, sterile packaging.
I would perform this activity only when it was most beneficial to me, and I
never transported across state lines. Mostly, my routes stayed within the city
limits.

For
anyone unfamiliar with the vernacular, a “cookie” is roughly one ounce of cocaine
molded to resemble a Keebler product with a sugar rush from Hell. At first
glance, it appears to be a white, undersized hockey puck. They’ve also been
known to be oval or oblong, but are typically the shape of a circular,
artery-constricting treat.

That
enables you to curl a fucking Volkswagen.

Muling
for Alfonse was easy and provided me extra funds with a wealth of free talking
powder; anyone who’s ever been weighted with a healthy drug habit knows how
strong the allure of free narcotics can be. I did this intermittently for a few
years until the night Alfonse lined a load of coke into his cock. His
girlfriend had informed him that injecting cocaine into the penis enabled men
to fuck "for a really long time." The amount of yayo shot into his
dick on that evening, however, indicated that she wanted him to fuck her
forever
.

He
didn't.

He
was forced to amputate his manhood after a five-day erection piggybacked with
gangrene. He and my cousin subsequently ended their relationship before he got
out of the game altogether, thus ending our reciprocal arrangement.
  

Now
by and large, smuggling a cookie in your person provides only mild discomfort.
Their modest size and huge illegality dictate they be shoved in your ass. This
may sound difficult, if not invasive, but is really as simple as
ABC
:
A
lways
keep things loose,
B
end at the waist for easy access, and
C
ram it
in like Elton John at a gay pride parade. Depending on how they’re shaped, one
can grab some K-Y and be done in a matter of seconds.

I
never had any issues with shoving a deadly toxin up my starfish. Periodically,
I would even get a wild hair up my ass (ha!) and take on a heavier load in my
supple buttocks. I must admit, though, there were many times when I questioned
whether a free sniff was worth it.

It
was usually when Alfonse tried to turn a single cookie into more of a baker’s
dozen.

***

The
cramps threw me to the cold concrete floor. I was as bloated as that red-head
in the Bendy’s hamburger commercials. The load trying to push its way through
my abdomen didn’t give a fuck-all about the mechanics of human anatomy. My
tummy was dangerously distended, pushing the silver snap buttons to bursting.
Sweat streamed from dirty pores and a thready pulse beat my temples into
submission. From my hands and knees, I strained upward to look at the red brick
wall four yards away. I didn’t know what the hell I expected to see—there
weren’t any clocks in there.

I
figured it was about an hour until I could take care of all this.

Leaking
tear ducts blurred the “FUCK DA PO-LICE” mantra next to the “I (heart) Sherry”
profession written on the cinder block. Some forgotten woman missed by some
forgotten sad sack. Ironically, what came through crystal clear were the five
scrawled sets of chalk, remnants of another unfortunate counting down his days.

Fuck Sherry, that cheating bitch!

I
couldn’t even look at the sink anymore. A lot of places had moved to aluminum
fixtures, but this place was just a step up from Mayberry’s jail. It was
porcelain, with old-fashioned silver twist knobs. One was rusted shut and the
other had been ripped off during a riot. It’d never been replaced, leaving a
serrated shard jutting to the sky. I noticed it just in time before gashing my
palm on it the first night. Neither side was functional, yet the broken faucet
had a constant drip that left a green streak on the oily basin. No water except
for what I was given, not that I could drink anyhow.

If I have to listen to that goddamn thing one more night I’m going
to rip it out of the fucking wall!

They
said they’d ran out of pillowcases the day before.

And
sheets.

Pretty
sure my pillow had lice.

I
didn’t even want to know what the too-white-to-be-piss stains were on the bare
blue mattress.

I
crawled to the toilet and heaved again. The results were the same—nothing but a
sharp belly pain and long lines of drool hanging from my cracked lips. I wiped
my mouth with the back of my orange sleeve and recoiled in disgust as the reek
from the nauseating bowl punched me in the nose. It almost made me faint
headfirst into the brown water.

I
would’ve welcomed the release if I knew I’d drown quickly.  

As
I lifted my face out of the foulest, most disease-ridden shitter to ever have a
stranger’s blood caked to the seat, I silently cursed myself for committing
such a stupid traffic violation, the arrogant pigs who pulled me over for it,
and my own addiction for allowing Alfonse to talk me into five cookies instead
of one.

That
greedy Mexican-Latvian-Irish-African-Norwegian-Saudi-American halfbreed.

***

When
Alfonse asked me to transport five cookies I gave him my best Scooby Doo. I
didn’t really want to, but his offer was most compelling: an ounce of coke and
five hundred bucks for an inner-city trip.

That’s
as sweet as a prostitute doing butt stuff without charging you extra.

I
readily agreed and held my breath for the old grease and go, loading up my
shipment with minimal
bleeding
straining and setting out in my sky-blue Studebaker
while smoking a hooter enroute to the dropoff. I exited I-49 and took a left at
the intersection of Stoner Avenue (I swear to God that’s a real street). So
far, so good. Until I fucked up, of course.

As
carelessness would have it, I ran a stop sign.

As
fate would have it, there were two cops tanning their leathery asses across the
street in a Frisky Dream parking lot, inhaling donuts like they were the last
ones the place was ever going to make. I didn’t even notice them as I drove by.
They saw my violation, driving out of there to fix themselves behind me. We
traveled three blocks, my body a jumble of nerves as I took note of their
unwavering position in the rearview mirror. When the time was ripe, they hit
the lights and pulled me over in a Booger Fling parking lot.

I
would’ve shit my navy-blue Dickies if my asshole hadn’t been plugged with five
ounces of cocaine.

The
first little piggy got out of his city patrol car wearing a pressed blue
uniform, dark Raybans, and a smug exterior. He shifted his duty belt, placed
his left hand on the taser, and kept it there. I saw him eyeing my plates and
rear lights as he slowly made his way to my vehicle. Once on the driver’s side,
he knocked on the window, rotating his melded thumb and index finger in the
universal symbol to roll it down.

What
the hell was I going to do, punch it? The Police Interceptor would’ve snagged
my mammoth Studebaker like a cheetah to a gazelle.

I
sat looking straight ahead and exhaled a deep sigh. Reluctantly, I complied as
I felt metaphorical batons knocking on my asshole for an unwelcomed entry. (I
cannot tell you how much I yearned to avoid this scenario, good people. The
smoke filled my cab like a poker game and I knew I was fucked.)

As
well as driving a fogbank, I’d stupidly left joint roaches in my ashtray from a
couple of days before. It was ajar, and Piggy #1 could see them from his
vantage point. Not that it would’ve mattered; the stench of cow flesh searing
on a commercial broiler couldn’t hide the vapors of fresh Blueberry Kush
wafting from my cab. The funk gave him all the probable cause he needed for a
search.

Piggy
#2 had stayed in the cruiser running my tags. When Piggy #1 realized that their
traffic stop warranted an arrest, he motioned for him to come assist with my
detainment. There was no point in protest. I begrudgingly exited the truck, was
cuffed, charged with possession of CDS I, and thrown in the small back seat of
their Interceptor with knees in my chest because it’s common knowledge that
midgets are the only people to ever go to jail. The fast food joint’s parking
lot welled with gawkers and rubberneckers searching for free entertainment.
Before we left, the first little piggy radioed for a tow truck to come impound
my beautiful ride.

On
the way to parish jail, Piggy #2 informed me that since it was Friday
afternoon, I wasn’t seeing a judge about bail until Monday morning. Upon
arrival to the clink, I was booked, stripsearched—absent a cavity
search—printed, and handed a dapper orange jumpsuit to sport for the weekend. I
was mad, but grateful for what the cops
hadn't
found, thankful I’d
deflected a latex finger jammed up my ass.

So
then.....

I’m
in parish lockup. Sitting on five tightly-wrapped ounces of fresh cocaine.
Hoping nobody tries to force the love. At least with all that coke in my rectum
it’d be numb to the abuse.

***

Friday
night faded to Saturday afternoon without a hitch. The only fight-or-flight I’d
felt was in the showers. I’d shaved my head the evening before my arrest, and my
sleeved arms and painted torso elicited glares from some of the homies.
Luckily, the absence of swastikas bought me a pass.

I
was concerned about the load I was packing, but fortunate enough to have a cell
to myself. At least the grub didn’t have sand in it that time. The weekend
staff treated everyone like humans and accommodated reasonable requests,
allowing rec time to extend pass normal hours if everyone maintained an even
keel. They even gave the inmates extra desserts due to a surplus in their foodstuffs.
Oddly, that’s where my troubles worsened, my weakness for creamy Jell-O pudding
cups teabagging me like a senior in the locker room.

Did
I mention I’m lactose intolerant?

***