bye. baby.

I slammed the door to my Malibu and keyed the engine. It was eight o'clock and the fucker didn't call. Fifteen minutes later, when I was driving down Hancock Street, was when he finally answered the phone.

"What the fuck," I spat before he spoke. "I fuckin said to call me every Tuesday and Thurday. What fuckin day is it?"

There was movement in the background. "Thursday," he slurred after a long moment of contemplation.

"Fuckin h- John. What are you doing now? Don't tell me. For chrissakes, don't say it."

"I had to, baby." His voice was soft. Seductive. The mere sound of his voice calmed me. As fucked up as it was, it calmed me. The anger and annoyance had already escaped. I knew I forgave too easily.

Baby. He said baby too. It worked every time. I sighed. "I gave you my phone for a reason. And it's not to call your dealer."

"I didn't use your phone." His voice became distant. "I promise," he groaned. I could imagine him reaching his hand down the front of his pants as he did. It was an unconscious habit he had acquired some years ago when he began shaving.

"Can I come over?" I asked gently.

A pause. "Now?"

"No, next week, fuckin idiot. Yes, now!"

He panted a couple breaths. "Really?"

"Yeah, I want to see you."

"Okay."

It took me another ten minutes to get to his apartment. Well, it wasn't exactly his apartment. It was more of my apartment which I left for him after three months of him starting his other habit. I still paid the rent. My name was still in the lease, but I lived in Milton. I knew I was perpetuating his abuse by providing for him, but I just couldn't let him wander the streets. Not in Quincy. It was better for him to die slowly than shot, right? As long as he stayed with me, even though he wasn't completely there all the time, right?

From the parking lot in the rear of the apartment complex, I saw the bedroom light.

The stairway still smelled like the shitter. It wouldn't've surprised me in the least if someone had actually taken a shit at the top of the stairwell. It's been done. I've seen it done. It had happened when I had just moved into the one bedroom apartment and saw from across the street a kid, barely twenty, sauntering in an alleyway. I was naive, but not completely moronic. I knew what he was waiting for. His dealer was a older man. Possibly in this late thirties. Black. The kid didn't have the cash. Instead, he dropped his jeans which seemed a bit bulky around the waist and stuck his pasty white ass in the air while the black guy hammered him from behind. It was obvious at that moment, the bulk in his jeans had been adult diapers. The kid had lost all control of his sphincter muscle and required the need of diapers to keep him from shitting in his pants. The same thing happened to the guy who shat at the top of the stairwell.

I couldn't let John be that kid. That guy.

The hallway was the same. The same burgundy, flower print carpet that screamed grandmother. The florescent light flickered, steadied and flickered again. A few doors down, a baby cried.

The apartment was dark except for the light from the bedroom and the street which seeped into the kitchen. There was a low buzz.

"John?"

The buzzing stopped. "I'm here."

The place had become a shithole since I moved out. Pizza boxes, beer cans, cigarette butts - trash was piled in the corners of the room, on the kitchen counter, on the table and in the sink. I came once every couple weeks to clean up, but last month I was overseas. The money I had made pulling overtime at the rehab joint and with my nonexistent social life, I saved up ten grand over the half a year and treated myself to a vacation spot in southern Portugal.

The walls, at shoulder level, were smudge with some blackish stain. It was also along the inner sides of the door and around the door knob to the bedroom.

After seeing everything I've seen up to that point in my life being employed, for a short time, in a nursing home, and then a rehab hospital, I thought I'd seen it all. I shouldn't have been in the least bit surprised at what I saw when I entered the room. Well, no. Anyone would've been surprised, but this one seriously take the cake. To this day, I'm not sure if I was disgusted or if I should've just cried.

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