Salt and Pepper Night

I should leave this place. Should wash myself clean; forget the debt, let someone else take care of it. “Cut ‘n Run” as Alex would say. Stop kissing the damn rat boys and stealing glass-eyed stares from nervous mothers. I breathe out dust and beer.
 
I catch The Poet drawing stars on a mailbox with a thick black marker. Seven stars. He tells me it’s God’s number. I could use some religion, could use some clarity. I ask him to read me poetry. He tells me poetry is all around me: is in the trees, the stars, in cigarettes. Is in the pen. Is in the body. I shift around uncomfortably. He sees this so he lowers my head. I taste musk. Asking why this is poetry seems like a stupid question. Stupid questions get you nowhere. So I reach my hands around his ass and steal his marker. Payment received.  
 
Another day shoves me down, says, "Leave," but I stay instead. I’ve got payment to make. My debt’s not done. I am drawing stars in the dark now, seven of them. I try to make them even, but I can’t without adding an extra point. I try to loosen up, to flow, but my fist is too tight. Alex would've told me there are only five points. Six wasn’t right. But his opinion doesn’t really count for fuck now. I’m drawing nine pointed stars, stars more circles than angles, just because.  I find The Poet’s stars, on walls, on mailboxes, so I start adding more points.  My lines are thicker, wavy, unsure. So my points don’t blend in.
 
Is this a prayer? Is this religion? I don’t know.
 
I am drawing like this for days, for nights, when I should be sleeping. But I can’t sleep like I can’t stop drawing. It’s all a blood debt and God’s number.
 
I don’t even notice that I’ve been followed until it’s too late. The Poet is angry. I shouldn’t have fucked with his work. I run. 

The next morning, I am pushed down again. Paper-thin cuts on my forearms and shins. Blood saying, “run or you’re fucked.” Woodchips in my shoes.  Mud is caked in my snarling black hair. I pull it out slowly, pinched between fingernails; leaving dust and chalk grey in its place. It’s garbage hair. Night hair. Knotted and wormy.
 
The Poet ties me to dusk, mats me down to the edge where trees and buildings meet the sky, hazy and red. Untying, escaping means running to the horizon, reaching and spreading arms. It means stop drawing stars. But I’m yanked back, pulled back by the scruff of my neck to the night, to street lamps and graffiti covered overpass. 

Neat five pointed stars flare up, smack me down like the days, grind gravel into my knees. I still breathe dust and beer. But mostly I just breathe out paint.

I go to The Anarchist. He’s filthy but he offers up his bed.
 
He pulls me into tented sheets, wrinkled from having sex with strangers. He tells me he likes my name. Better than liking my eyes or bone structure so I fuck him. One, two, three times. One, two, three nights. 
 
The Anarchist is a romantic. Which is fucking stupid to me. He calls me his love letter, tells me I’m ready to be mailed. Tucked in tight. I can’t sleep in strange beds, but I stay anyway. It’s better than the alternative. He knows so he closes the blinds, stuffs newspaper in the cracks. I can't even see the spray paint on the walls. I am not here, he says to the night, she is not home. Only the pulsing red glow of cigarettes light our bodies, faces. We take care not to ash on the bed, on our stomachs, on our thighs. Salt and pepper dust piles on old magazines that tell us of the good life, of Bon Appétit, of basted chickens and creamed asparagus. I forget to notice that he doesn't lock the door. 
 
There is terror in his breath when he sleeps: breathe in, stop—long intervals and I wonder if he’ll breathe out. But he always does. I try to remind myself that heavy chested snores mean life, another inhale, another loud, trumpet exhale. Jubilation. But then I start to worry that he’s too loud, that he’s calling out, announcing, “I AM HERE.” That he’ giving me away.  I open my eyes and the room is full of light. This is not ok. The newspaper has been pulled down. Seven stars are drawn on the mirror. God’s number.

I run. Out of there before The Anarchist even realizes I’m gone. Stupid fuck can’t even lock the door.
 
I pick up a payphone. Call Alex. Tell him about The Poet. Tell him about The Anarchist. Says he knows a place I can stay. Is off of Manzana and Bale. Where the factories used to be. Thanks, little brother.  He reminds me about blood debt. Like I forgot. I hang up; I don't have time to deal with this shit. 

The house is slumped into the earth. The sidewalk is mostly gone, but whatever is left is pointless anyway, it doesn’t really go anywhere.
 
I enter. The door stops before it should. Pink paint and wallpaper curl off the walls like knotted wood. The floor is soft under my feet, like only the tallow colored carpet is holding it together. Newspaper covers half the window; a large cock drawn in dust is on the other half. Behind the door is a desk of drawers. The top is punched in. Cigarette ash, razors, and burnt spoons are scattered everywhere. A bottle of rice vinegar sits out of place. The carpet is matted down with large sticky patches that shine when light wanders in. A mattress lies in the corner, covered in plastic, like the kind they have at kid’s camps so they don’t get stained with piss. Except this one has been cut with knives. And I can’t tell if its from anger or boredom or if it should even matter.

I feel a soft crunch under my foot. A rat has been burned in a pile of cigarette butts. Its jaw is half crushed in, its eyes gone. Foaming with maggots. I get a head rush. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

But I’ve got nowhere else to go so I just close my eyes and put my palms flat against my thighs. This is not a good place. But it’s a place, and my debt’s not paid yet. I’ll stay the night.