Chapter 23: Pterodactyl Lady

I continued walking toward Gordo's. The layer underneath my fingernails began to bleed profusely. I continued to pick at them as if I could somehow suppress the bleeding with further manipulations. I hadn't changed my socks in over three days and I could feel my feet were covered in wounds. I began limping and the pain got worse and worse… I needed a hit desperately.

I saw a woman squatting on the sidewalk, picking her fingers at the ground…

"Excuse me, miss?" I said.

The girl stood up and covered her stomach like she was pregnant, but she was skinny as a stick figure.

I remembered what I looked like. "Sorry! I'm friendly!"

The woman dropped her guard. "So you don't bite?"

 I was taken aback. I could tell that in another world, perhaps many years ago, this woman was once beautiful. Same old story: ravaged by drugs, now living on the streets with those demonic eyes.

"I was just wondering if you smoke?"

"Of course. Why, you got some?"

"No, I need some. Just a little bit."

"Well fuck, everybody need some…" She started pulling off a thick scab from her elbow, acting like I didn't exist… "You have money?" she said, keeping her focus on the scab.

"Yeah, I can share a bowl with you. I actually don't have a pipe but we can just do some lines."

Her eyes looked up at me, stars glimmering in the black holes. "Follow me, sweetheart."

We walked to the closest neighborhood which only consisted of studio apartments. Tweakers lurched by the front doors, smoking cigarettes and weed. I saw a few dudes shooting up with syringes. Emaciated dogs walked across the courtyard like a tumbleweed blowing in the wind.

"You ever see a pterodactyl before?"

"Uhh, what?" I began to laugh. The lady seemed serious. "Like, the dinosaur?"

"So you have! Fuck, nobody believes me when I tell them! Check this out." The lady pulled down her jean-shorts, showing me the full extent of her tiny ass. On the left cheek was a deep scar looking like a bite. Then she showed me a bite mark scarred on her shoulder.

"I was walking just right over there and I heard a flying sound come toward me. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh… It made this sound, 'AWWK, AWWK, AWWK', and bit me!" The woman started to scream.

"Wow," was all I could muster.

"I know, right! I was so fucking scared! That's why I'm always looking up at the sky now. You never know when it will come back. Hey, do you believe in aliens?"

My brain was discombobulated from this woman, but I needed her… Just a little bit of dope to keep me going until I got back to Gordo's… In all honesty, I could just tough it out and walk the rest of the way, but I had been up for far too long, hadn't eaten or drank anything… My lips were dry and blistered and I needed some glass.

The girl kept talking about aliens, dinosaurs, progressing to her fucked up stories. "I was living with my mom, but she kicked me out because I fucked my step-dad. It's his fault for coming onto me! I was only 14…"

I felt pity for this girl. I couldn't bear her heartbreaking stories. I was getting frustrated at how slow she walked. It felt like we were in this neighborhood for 30 minutes now.

She stopped in her tracks. "Did you see that?"

This time, I actually did… But I wanted to verify if she saw the same thing. "What?"

"The shadow, it walked right past us."

Chills went up my spine. "Right over there, right?"

She looked at me with horror in her eyes. We walked sideways with our bodies turned toward the shadow people.

"You know what that is? A demon… We see them because we're connected, on the spec-toral realm."

"A demon?"

"If you lock eyes with them, they will possess you, so be careful… I had a friend who got possessed and killed his whole family. Real shit."

I tasted blood on my lips. I licked my sandpaper tongue across my finger and rubbed the dribble of moisture across my mouth, hoping it would satiate the scabs.

The tweaker lady knocked on a door. I stayed a few paces behind her. A swole dude opened up. He didn't look the type to go fast, which was confusing.

"Hey, B. This is my friend."

I raised a timid wave.

"What do you want, Margaret?"

"I got some money this time, I promise." On that note, B let us inside. The studio apartment only had a couch, table and television set with a tiny kitchen and bathroom. It reeked like weed. I pulled out $40 and handed it to B. He climbed the kitchen counter, standing on top of it to reach the top cabinet. He pulled out a bag that looked much too small for what I paid him…

"Thank you so much, B…" Margaret said. B didn't respond. He opened the door and gestured us out. Margaret nearly sprinted toward a building labeled 'Clubhouse'. It looked like the landlords had abandoned the project. There was a broken lat-pulldown machine, that's it. Trash and needles were scattered abroad. A dope fiend's paradise. Margaret led me into the bathroom that had no lights and smelled like stale piss and shit.

Margaret asked me for the bag and I gave it to her. She asked if I had money. I gave her a crusty dollar bill. She poured all the dope onto the dollar bill and folded the bill, then crushed the glass with a lighter. She dumped the broken shards all over the grimy counter and divided it into two fat lines with her pinky, one for me, one for her… She rolled the bill, took her hit and started dancing, stamping her foot against the ground so hard she lifted into the air. I took my hit and felt reborn once again.

Margaret stepped into me. This close I could really see the years of face-picking and scars on her face. She kissed me. She tasted like death. I thought about all the diseases I just had been infected with and tried to push her off, but she was intently leaning into me. 

I am a bit ashamed to relay this part of the story. The thought of Jocelyn popped into my mind, and in anger and reckless abandon, I made out with the crackhead lady as the scent of stale piss and shit wafted around us. I gagged into her mouth but she did not seem to notice. She took her top off and I kissed her chest for a while.

It did not go any farther than that; somehow I regained my sanity…

I pulled my lips away from her saggy tits and made my escape.

"Don't forget about me, handsome! Come back any time!"

I saw a shadow standing in the corner of the clubhouse, but I did not look in its direction. I felt like it was judging me. Yeah, look how far I've gone, I fucking know, shut up!