2nd Person Future Tense

I remember someone, probably a teacher, saying that you can't write a story in 2nd person, or future tense. I took it as a challenge. Of course that person was really just saying it's a bad idea, because it probably won't go well. I was a teenager though, and when I thought I heard a challenge I went for it.

I remember that I was fascinated when someone told me that the little glass tubes with roses in them are used as crack pipes. I don't know if that's true, but I believed it at the time and obviously thought that was great information to use in my ground breaking story.

I also didn't know much about drugs, I still don't honestly. I had never heard of meth; I might say if I wrote this story now I would use meth instead of crack as the drug of choice, but I just wouldn't write this story now; it really seems to take a hard line on drugs. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a bad idea to destroy your life and body with harsh drugs, I'm just really a "you do you" kind of person. If you WANT to do hard drugs that's your call, just don't commit other crimes in the process. If you're addicted and don't want to do drugs or it's destroying your life, but you can't stop, please seek help.

Please enjoy this cringe-worthy story written by a younger me. I resisted the urge to edit it.

Addict

What if your addiction became so strong you couldn't even think anymore? What would you do? Or more to the point, what will you do when that gray morning in September wakes you with its surprising cold.

You will wake with something in your hair that you will hope is chewing gum. The newspaper will be plastered to the length of your body by rain. You won’t be stoned, just bleary eyed and itchy, trying to figure out where your next fix will come from. Your stomach will be achy, your mouth will be dry and your throat will be scratchy, but instead of thinking of food or water you will picture a tiny fake rose in a small glass tube, 85 cents but you will need it, the one you had the night before will be missing. You will sit up and bang your head on the underside of a park bench. Black spots will float momentarily in front of your eyes and you will think how much better you will feel once you get a rock. You will roll out from under the bench onto a jogging path and a jogger will step on your hand. You will distantly hope nothing is broken. That would make it difficult to manage the two handed job of smoking crack.

You will push yourself up onto the bench. You won't know how long you sit, probably over an hour, before your stomach will rumble and startle you. You will empty your pockets looking for money and find only your cheap plastic lighter, twelve pennies, and more of what you will hope is gum. You will stumble when you stand up, and when you try to catch your balance on the wastebasket to your left. Your left hand will catch the top edge of the basket, the basket will tip to the right and you will land awkwardly with your left arm pinned between your chest and the basket, ass in the air. Several teenagers will be walking past, probably on their way to school, and the boys will laugh. The girl will look at you with such disgust that for a brief shining moment, you will hate everything about yourself. This feeling will pass when you stand up and see a half eaten burger wrapped in greasy yellow paper among the spilled contents of the wastebasket.

Later that day you will be standing on the shoulder of the freeway on-ramp holding a sign that claims you will work for food. You will know that's not true, you won't work and will have no interest in food after your half a burger for breakfast, it should say you will do anything for crack. You have before and you will again.

After less than an hour the union will arrive. The union is a group of five alcoholic bums who will control the freeway on-ramp you will occupy. You will be glad when they don't rough you up for "working without a union membership." You will pay them the five dollars they demand for using their spot. You will give them all your small change first, a small victory in a series of defeats.

You will take the fourteen dollars you have left and go to the Night and Day Jiff-e-Shop in downtown. You will buy your small glass tube, drop the stupid little rose on the sidewalk outside the store, and shuffle down to the railroad tracks and the abandoned houses on Jackson St.

You will put all fourteen of your crumpled dirty singles on the sill of a boarded window. A hand will reach out a take the bill, several agonizing minutes will pass and then a small rock of crack will replace your money. You will fumble the rock into the end of your improvised pipe and hold the flame to it, inhaling deeply. You will feel the rush come on strong and then have a coughing fit, spraying bloody speckles onto your sleeve.

Someone will speak from the window, “What the fuck are you doing crack head. Get away from the house.”

Two large men in jeans and stained t-shirts will come out through a side door. You will stumble backwards making warding gestures with your right hand and fumbling the hot pipe and what’s left of your rock into your pocket. “Please.”

The high will be hitting you like a freight train. The men will seem distant, almost ridiculously unimportant.

The one on the left, he will have blond hair and a scar running back from his forehead into his scalp, will place his hand on your shoulder. “You don’t want the cops seeing you smoking here do you? You wouldn’t want to be responsible for a bust.”

The one on the right, who will have black hair, will add, “No, I wouldn’t mind causing something to bust though,” and he will punctuate the word bust with a fist to your stomach.

The blow will cause a fresh coughing fit and a heavier spray of blood, but it won’t spoil your buzz. You will lay in the gutter where they throw you, staring at the sky, and soaring.

This will be how you live, you won’t be happy, and you will eventually go to prison for breaking and entering. You will die in prison when you offer the wrong man the wrong favor in exchange for a rock. He will stab you with a sharpened toothbrush in the shower and you will bleed to death watching your blood spiral down the drain.