THE ADDICTS OF LLANO SPEAK OUTby J. Scott Brownlee And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you. -Denis Johnson We have chosen to scar our skins here in tin shacks where we conjure up more than Christ could on hot plates— full of chemical psalms now and prayer-less waking. We're the dead you forgot. We're the saved and the damned in the First Baptist pews, where repentance is free but can never save us. We buy bottles of Drano we slowly empty in the same way we do Duracell batteries leaking golden acid: an erasure of everything witnessed and felt as the sky opens here, sometimes, during a storm—promising after rain the good cleansing of church or a stiff drink to stave off the feeling of emptiness gathering up. We cough ribbons of blood with each drug-addled breath. You cannot heal us, Lord. You cannot raise us up like you did Lazarus. As he approached you from the grave with insects clinging to his hands, you could not believe it. The first time words became flesh surprised you. You understood symbolically you were the Son of God until you raised a man. Then you physically did. Similarly, the first meth we made surprised us. Our homes each exploded. We stood outside them in the dark—choirs of sirens closing in, bright red and blue light bathing us—and could not believe it. |