When he woke me up it was still dark.
"Get dressed, Baby." He nudged me. "We're going to Austin."
"Now?" I grumbled. "What time is it?"
"Five-ish," he replied. "It will be easier to get out of town before rush hour."
"Did you sleep?"
"Yes." He rolled off the bed. "A little. I'll be fine."
"Seriously, Eric." I squinted at him accusingly. "Are you on crank?"
"A little," he admitted.
"Well, shit," I groused and climbed out of bed, defeated. There was no way that I'd convince him to sleep if he was doing speed. "The least you could do is share."
"Do you want some go, Baby?"
I looked down at my body as I padded toward the bathroom, wondering if my oft abused system could handle the stress. "Yes," I yawned.
"Ok." He followed me into the bathroom. "After you eat something."
"Did you eat?" I asked, emptying my bladder.
"A little," he smirked and left me to my morning routine.
I speculated on how he managed to keep his body looking like that with the rate that he was going. He hardly ate, slept less, and did uppers. It was always such a fight for me to try to prevent my body from becoming grossly emaciated. The way he was living had to take its toll on his body too.
He served me an omelet, which I ate out of reflex, not even paying attention to what it was stuffed with. I was half asleep and trying to focus on what he was doing. Crank was so unstable that street people didn't mess with it so I didn't have much experience with it. He removed an aluminum foil wrapped package from the freezer and opened it. It was full of blue drying crystals. Buried in the rocks were tiny ziplock bags full of an off-white, chunky, powder. He took a mirrored placemat, the kind with the little rubber feet, off the top of the fridge and chopped up two lines for me. As soon as he was ready, I set my plate down. I hadn't finished the omelet but I knew that I had very little time. The drug would start to melt very quickly. I snorted both lines and then stuck my fingertips under the faucet. Bringing my wet fingertips to my nose, I inhaled the water droplets, trying to quench the searing fire in my sinuses.
"Feel the burn," I quipped and rolled my eyes. The taste coated the back of my throat and mouth almost instantly. The taste of crank wasn't as bad as ecstasy but it was harder to get rid of. The taste of coke wasn't as bad as crank but coke numbed your throat and it was impossible to get rid of. I had convinced myself that whoever invented Jolly Ranchers was a cokehead.
The other thing about crystal, the other reason it wasn't as popular as coke among the street rats, it didn't make you fuzzy. It made everything clear and sharp. In my opinion, it didn't make me feel like I was on drugs. It just made me feel AWAKE. Cocaine made me feel invincible and euphoric. Ecstasy was really my poison of choice. It gave me tracers and the same general happiness of cocaine but with the added bonus of amplifying all of my senses. Every sound, sight, and touch was intense and surreal. Pot brought me down gently and provided me with the serenity that I often couldn't find on my own. I stayed away from heroin. I'd seen too many people die on the nod. I had almost no experience with pills. They weren't that common on the street, or possibly, they weren't shared as much. They only time I took drugs was if someone gave them to me. I had never paid for them myself and I wasn't about to start.
After cleaning the kitchen, we headed out. Eric picked up an overnight bag on our way out the door. "What's that?" I asked.
"I figured we'd stay the night. Austin can be fun."
"What about your project?"
"I'm in a holding pattern," he explained. "I want to give the wood more time."
"How long does that take?"
"A few weeks to dry it completely but it was already dried indoors. I'm very careful about where I get my supplies. I want to be sure of what I'm working with. I destroy enough of my work on my own. It really pisses me off when I lose something to shoddy material. Sometimes it can't be helped. There will be flaws in the wood or stone that aren't apparent until you get into it. If you get lucky, those flaws can add to the beauty of the piece, if not, they can destroy the whole thing. If I bring home something that gets ruined because I didn't examine it carefully enough I feel like I deserve what I got. If my work is ruined because the material wasn't handled properly in the first place, it makes me homicidal."
"Can't you eliminate the possibility by doing all the prep work yourself?"
"Yes. In theory," he replied. "It's not very economical. If I only worked in one medium it would make more sense. I could haunt the quarry or the mill yard. I would need a lot more space for storage and it would cause more forced delays on my projects, but it could be done."
I remained quiet until we passed through downtown and got underway on I-35. "Do you ever read?"
Eric visibly flinched. "What number are we at?"
"I have ten left." I smirked at his grimace. "I find it completely fascinating that you can talk about your work all day long but the second I ask anything personal, you panic."
"Not panic," he argued. "I just don't like talking about myself."
"Why not?" I asked.
"If I answer that it counts," he warned.
"Ok. But answer the reading question first."
"I don't read very often and, when I do, it's non-fiction."
"How boring," I opined. "I read to escape life. The last thing I have any interest in doing is reading about reality."
He smirked. "I don't like to talk about myself because it makes me feel like people are just looking for a reason to disagree with you. They're searching for flaws or chinks in the armor."
"I'm not," I told him. "I'm just trying to learn things about you."
"What good does it do you to know if I like to read?"
"If I wanted to buy you a birthday present I now know not to buy you a mystery novel," I pointed out.
"When is my birthday, Rain?" he asked softly.
I knew that he was trying to prove his point but I wasn't going to let him think that about me. "I haven't gotten to that question yet," I told him. "I'm saving that one for later."
"Why?"
"Because it's very generic and it's possible that I can learn that without wasting a precious free question on it," I explained. "It's like asking your favorite color or food. I could learn those by careful observation. I've only got eight more questions and I want to use them to learn as much about you as possible."
"You asked me my favorite food," he pointed out.
"That's because I hardly see you eat. Besides, you didn't really answer."
"Sure I did." He smiled at my raised eyebrow. "Ok. Coffee ice cream," he smirked. "Quid-pro-quo."
