Declivity

"Do you remember Dallas?"
         It seems innocent enough, the question I mean. She asks it nonchalantly, too nonchalantly, and poses it in that way where no clarification regarding what she is thinking of is provided. She just says 'Dallas', not 'that one time in Dallas', just 'Dallas'. And when people only say city names or the name of a place with no defining article or clarifying background, invariably they are thinking of a specific, potentially cataclysmic event, one that would be unmistakable for another. However, when the event is brought up, it's likely one of an uncomfortable nature, hence the innocuous for the question is usually crafted in, like the asker almost doesn't want you to remember even though neither of you could ever hope to forget.
         She caresses my forearm and I can feel the smooth plastic tube of the I.V. resting harmlessly near my wrist. Involuntarily, I look at her face, still weary and puffy and red from when she had been crying so beautifully earlier, and I felt my heart chip and shatter into a fantastical amount of pieces. It's written all over her face that she doesn't want me to remember; I can't blame her. I've tried a long time to scrub clean the moral decay and filth of the past from the annals of my memory. Unfortunately, there are a myriad of things that never get fully cleaned, hallmarks of who you really are in those dark, dirty little moments when you are positive no one is watching and no one will ever find out.
         Staring into her crisp blue eyes, tinged with just the tiniest hint of bloodshot red, I woke up and it all came flooding back, the times when I sank so far down that couldn't even tell I was sinking anymore; my perception changed and I thought everything was fine. Long before all the problems and the blackouts and the seizures and all the damaging thoughts that ruined everything, when it was all mid-coitus(so to speak), we seemed and everything seemed so perfect.
         Fuck perfection.
         I hate perfection. It's in my experience that when everything seems perfect, something irreparably wrong is happening or has already happened. On your honeymoon, I want you to remember a specific moment: you have just finished having sex for the first time as a married couple and now lay intertwined on the tackily-shaped heart bed coated in equally tacky roses; wine bottle sweating in the sterling silver stand and only breaking the silence with a slight crunch and clink from being too heavy for the constantly melting ice cubes; sheets rumpled up at the bottom of the because of their cumbersome nature in flagrante, the comforter discarded onto the floor without a second thought along with your clothes that had only gotten in the way of urgent intimacy. Staring into their eyes, noticing their timid, embarrassed smile at your fixated attention, briefly wonder if they're cheating on you or if they have previously aborted your child. There's always something.
         For instance, in my life, I would consider there to be, perhaps, three driving concepts, although none quite so monumentally destructive as the reveal of having secretly aborted someone's child or cheating on them. Regardless, I rarely share these with my significant other simply because of their morally questionable nature. There is a want, a goal and a pride. Due to my utter contempt for "latex sheaths", I want very much to not wear condoms as they are deplorable and make sex quite lackluster. Due to my utter fear of period blood, it is my goal in life to never "ride the crimson tide", as it were. Finally, due to my utter arrogance and heterosexuality, I am very proud of the fact that I have never sucked any dick. Certainly, that should not be taking as a disparaging remark, nor any kind of slight against the noble practice of dick suckery. Quite the contrary, as, like all men, I am hardly opposed to the notion of receiving it. However, the dick sucking I'm referring to relates to those dirty, shameful shots in the mouth for an extension on rent, because you are forced to in prison, or just another hit of drugs that will probably make you forget the semen in your mouth until you wake up the next morning and the whole world seems saltier; basically sucking dick for any other reason than genuinely wanting to suck dick.
         But looking at her put my personal idiosyncrasies aside and caused the walls to melt and crackle and peel away, my entire falling away around her and reforming again into one of my very own more horrifying experiences. Her face grew slightly younger and her makeup became perfect again, clothes shifting from the bland hospital gown into a The Mars Volta concert tee from the Amputecture tour and short black and gray plaid shorts. No shoes, she hardly ever wore shoes; she was always either barefoot or in flip-flops about to be barefoot. No longer ruffled and disheveled, her hair was straightened to about her chin level.
         The environment had ceased to resemble the hospital room, instead becoming a dingy, dreary apartment in a shady part of downtown Dallas. I forget now how she knew the owner. He/she/it (the owner) may very well have been an old flame, family friend, ex-sponsor, dealer; on second thought, it probably doesn't matter. They weren't there anyway so I suppose their identity and circumstances are of little consequence to me. She knew a lot of people. It intimidated me a great deal, sometimes. Being around her with people was reminiscent of the parties that my grandparents threw when I was younger and I would have to meet somewhere in the neighborhood of seventy-five people with interesting back stories, all of whom I would absolutely never see again.
         Whoever's (or whomever's, if you want to be a dick about it) apartment it was, I wouldn't necessarily refer to it as a shithole, not in the traditional sense anyway. it was readily apparent that, at some point in time (probably not long ago), it was a nice, bordering on respectable apartment. But the passage of time had not been kind to the once pristine studio apartment. The walls, once painted red, although only on two sides, the others being made of dark brick and thusly not needing paint, had now noticeably degraded, becoming chipped and having little fissures running amok across the surface, exposing the white plaster below. The furniture was somewhat modern, made of black wood and polished silver and adopting a minimalist theme, which provided a sharp contrast to the rock posters and venue advertisements and screen prints of famous graffiti in various stages of being hung on the wall, several being in the contemplative stage on the floor. Similarly contrasting to the modern IKEA-esque furniture was the dancing assortment of resin crusted paraphernalia and bottles of varying levels of spirits in them. My least favorite amongst said spirits being the emerald bottle of licorice-liquor, absinthe, next to the computer monitor that wasn't plugged into anything. I hate the taste and that it makes the muscles in my neck twitch.
         As I survey the scummy apartment, she turns on her heels and walks away, barefoot on the previously light brown hardwood floors, now darkened with years of stains and grime. This was one of the few times I did not find her barefootedness cute. I, of course, remained firmly rooted in place, safely secured in my Gold Toe business socks (although I wasn't entirely sure it was business time), an expression of general abhorrence at my situation all over my face. She sits cross-legged in a nest of blankets on the bed, preparing a hit like an adorable MacGyver with kitchen utensils, cotton-balls and a little bit of ice water. Her hands didn't waver once, not like mine typically do when I try to do anything carefully with my fingers, evidence of my constant chain smoking of menthol cigarettes. The cheapest pack of cigarettes I've ever bought (and, I should mention, that I continue to buy) are Golden Bay Menthol 100s for exactly $3.99, tax included. I really want to start smoking Newports, but a part of me doesn't feel quite ready. And while many of my menthol smoking brethren consume Camel Crush's, I do not as, even though they are my favorite, I do not enjoy paying seven dollars and change for a minor comfort when it's been somewhat proven that misery builds character. Many cigarette smokers disparage and belittle me for my conscious decision to smoke menthols, just like many drinkers disparage my choice to imbibe vodka with cranberry juice. On 25 cent well night, when I'm drunk for 2 dollars and my cancer is nice and minty fresh, they can go fuck themselves.
         It had been several days in this apartment, broken up by a shift or two at work, and the evidence attested to my realization that it had been an exceedingly long weekend. My nerves were shot and my hands were jittery and my throat was dry and I couldn't speak even though I had nothing to say anyway. She was talking to me about her day and how much she missed me but I wasn't hardly focusing on the trivialities of her life. Not when I could see the ghost in the mirror, face sunken and pale, eyes bloodshot beyond recognition. It was like a doppelganger with malicious intent was gazing back into my eyes, bent on my own destruction and I was too complacent to care or remedy the situation because to do so would end the love I had searched so long to find. His eyes were dead, almost with some kind of grandiose glamor like, "This is me."
         Well, I hate myself.
         Somewhere behind me, she beckons my presence at the computer desk for more of that disgusting licorice liquor that makes my neck twitch and my face intolerably hot. She says that it looks like I'm blushing. I think I look like an ass-clown. After the shot, she gingerly touches her fingers to mine as she stands on her tiptoes to lightly kiss me. My heart flutters like it always does. I wasn't sure if it was love or a heart attack. I suppose there's little difference.
         "Are you ready?" she asks, an almost sweet, faint smile on her lips as she forms the words with her perfect mouth, although I'm not sure it was really there because of how dimly lit the room was, the only source of light being a yellow lamp in some distant corner and the superficial, hardly illuminating glow of the outside trying desperately to break through the tightly shut venetian blinds. Or maybe I desperately wanted the smile to be there.
         I'm not ready and I feel like it's painfully obvious, but were I to refuse now, everything would have been for nothing and my greatest fear of losing her would be realized. So, instead of voicing my concerns and insecurities, I nod softly in her direction. There's a fleeting pinprick that immediately disappears as trace amounts of my blood enter the tube. She looks me in the eyes and says, "I'll meet you there". She kisses me and depresses her thumb at the same time. I was the happiest I had ever been with her, but it had nothing to do with her. It was my idealism and the poison.
         The memory dissipates, leaving me shaking and sweating cold bullets down the back of my neck as I realize once again that it already happened and she is safely ensconced in hospital sheets and I am precariously perched upon this utterly laughable excuse for a chair. My eyes search the room for anything to anchor my thoughts on. I look back down at my knees, studying in great detail the painfully simplistic lines of my charcoal corduroy slacks. I can't bring myself to look at her. With her thumb, she gently and repeatedly rubs my wrist and, with the other hand, brushes my hair out of my face, asking more quietly this time, "Do you remember Dallas?"
         "..."
         "..."
         "Of course I do."
         How can you forget the first time you do heroin?