SINCE BIRTH DRUGGED
Farzana Moon
“Are you a angel?” asked Timothy, pushing one 3rd grader classmate before him roughly. He was standing in line in the school office to get his portion of Reglin and then go to lunch. His query was directed to one stranger by the wall with coppery hair.
“Yes, I am Gabriel. Straight from the heavens,” Gabriel smiled, his blue eyes blazing with mischief.
“What are you doin’ in this crummy school, crummy office?” Timothy chirped all agog.
“Watching the kids get drugged, Timothy,” Gabriel smiled.
“Eh, how do you know my name?” Timothy challenged.
“Angels know everything,” was Gabriel’s murmur of a response.
“Bah! You no angel. Are you? What are you doin’in here anyways?” Timothy chuckled.
“Watching you all and praying to God,” Gabriel intoned softly, the stars of mischief gone from his eyes.
“Does God listen to kids?” Timothy squinted his eyes.
“Especially kids, if they are...” Gabriel could not utter the word ‘good’, and asked quickly. “What would you pray to God for, Timothy, if you were sure God would listen and answer your prayers?”
“I’ll pray I’ve never, never to come to school,” Timothy chanted wistfully. “And what would you do if you didn’t have to come to school?” Gabriel asked kindly.
“Play with my friends,” Timothy beamed.
“All your friends will be in school. You will have no one to play with,” Gabriel offered thoughtfully.
“Oh, well. I don’t have no friends anyways. I’ll watch TV and sleep,” Timothy was nudging the boy ahead of him once again.
“That doesn’t sound interesting,” Gabriel commented.
“School is boring. I hate school,” Timothy’s tones were getting louder, but no one was paying any attention to him.
“Watching TV, all by yourself, talk of boring!” Gabriel prodded.
“Yes. But I’ll eat all day. I am always hungry,” Timothy’s eyes were squinting on their own this time.
“What do you hunger for, Timothy?”
“What! Food, food, don’t you know? I am so very, very...”
“Timothy,” Gabriel diverted his attention toward the nurse with a mute gesture.
The nurse had been calling him, but he had been oblivious to all but Gabriel. Noticing his turn, he sprinted toward the counter. Swallowing the pills in a hurry, he returned to where Gabriel stood, a perfect statue of immobility.
“Boy, I hate them pills,” Timothy bit his lips as if trying to restrain his anger.
“These pills don’t do any good to you, you...”
“No---ooo, they are very good,” Timothy interrupted. Them drugs, very, very good. The days I don’t take them, I am very, very bad. Devil, my teacher says. Boy, lunch time, I am starving, I better go.”
“What is your favorite food?” Gabriel detained him.
“All kinds. Boy, o, boy. Chips, candy, them French fries, pizza, burgers, spagetti. I better go, or my teacher will be very, very mad.”
“What if I make you invisible, just like me as I stand here without being noticed. Your teacher won’t notice and you can talk to me,” Gabriel invited with a wink.
“Invisible! I know...you are kiddin’, are you?” Timothy backed away suspiciously.
“I am not kidding. If you stay with me you will be invisible,” Gabriel offered in a confidential tone.
“I am hungry though,” Timothy lamented. Wreteched, but intrigued. “You won’t be if you stay with me. Tell me, are you hungry now?” Gabriel whispered softly.
“No,” Timothy murmured reluctantly.
“Why does your teacher call you a devil?” Gabriel’s eyes were caressing Timothy.
“Only when I don’t take them pills. Teacher said I was devil, told me I punched one girl in the stomach, dumped a desk over the head of one boy and punched and punched...”
A whirlwind of mists were entering Timothy’s little head. The last thing he could remember was his wild talk with Gabriel. But now his head was bleeding, the blood spilling over his eyes and blinding him. He had stomped one kid with a rock on the playground, and now he himself was squirming in pain and agony.
Eight long, grueling years and now Timothy was in high school. Not ever forgetting his childhood fantasy with Gabriel. Paradoxically, it was no fantasy. At times, he could reach out and touch that reality, that swath of coppery hair just like his own, that blue gleam, that faded dream, that fading Memory. He had no need of Reglin anymore, but illegal drugs had become his need, his passion. His joy and oblivion. Getting high was his aim in life. Striking rich, his vocation.
Dealing drugs!
Inhaling happiness!
With the burden of detentions on his shoulders, Timothy’s head was drooping over his desk, as he sat serving his nineteenth in-school detention. This small classroom with coffin-size cubicles was housing about eight students. All silent, all consuming mountains of food. This last period was the longest as usual and Timothy’s thoughts were wandering aimlessly.
“What’s the difference? Now and then? I have been on drugs all my life as far as I can remember. Now I need drugs more than I ever needed, then? More than ever. The difference, yes, now I have to pay for them. With big bucks too! And I like them, not them hateful pills,” Timothy’s thoughts were wading through the pools of last night’s drinks and drugs.
Timothy had stayed late in one of his friends’ house, getting loaded with drugs and drinks. As he had reached home, he had noticed his mom coming back from work, and his dad leaving for the late night shift. His younger brother was watching TV, and he had waddled to his own room in some bliss of oblivion. As he sat recalling these misty scenes, his thoughts were splitting and crumbling.
“The girl with pale skin and blonde hair, what’s her name? Why girls, talk money, man. Wasn’t it cool, breakin’ in and stealin’, cool, cool. That old witch...big bucks. Them rookies, po-lice, sirens...” Timothy’s splintered thoughts were hurling him back on the rocks of childhood.
He was in 3rd grade, wild and devellish. Standing in the school office, swallowing drugs with a sense of rage and agony. The shafts of Memory were hitting him on the head. He was talking with Gabriel. Pretending to be happy and invisible. He could not forget, could not forget! Now his stomach was hurting, it was bloated. He had consumed several bottles of pop this afternoon. The restroom breaks were rationed, but he summoned his courage and raised his hand.
“May I use the restroom?” Timothy pleaded with a sense of urgency.
“Yes,” the teacher cosented.
Timothy was returning to the classroom, not even noticing the two policemen behind him, followed by the principal. No sooner had he stepped into the classroom that the policemen hustled him to the side. Clamping his hands behind his back and slipping handcuffs over them.
“Timothy Runaldue, you are under arrest,” one police officer held him rooted to the spot with his hands firmly planted over his shoulders.
“What did I do, what did I do?” murmured Timothy.
“It’s not what you did today, but what you have done before,” the principal expounded tonelessly.
Two days of shock and bewilderment. And with the pangs of hopeless, helpless pain in his head, Timothy was seated on his cot in his lonely cell. This prison ward was dimly lit, bathing the hard floor in ramrod haze of slanting shadows from the steel bars. Timothy was clamping his temples with his hands, oblivious to all but to his inner torment. Suddenly, his blue eyes were sparkling with the light of Memory. He was startled to his feet, his eyes flashing. Pain and shock were his companions once again as he looked into the eyes of the angel who stood leaning against the cold, steel bars. “Gabriel,” a stunned murmur escaped Timothy’s lips.
“Yes, my friend. Here we meet again,” a flood of sadness appeared to pour forth from Gabriel’s lips. “What are you doing here, Timothy?”
“Got busted for stealin’ and dealin’ drugs,” one bitter comment broke through the haze of Timothy’s pain and shock.
“Go on, Timothy. I am your friend. Surely, you can share your pain with me.” “Friend, bah!” Timothy exclaimed in a sudden fit of hysteria and exhilaration. “Where were you, man, when I was lonely and hurtin’? Why didn’t you come before? Where was you all these years? Where, when druggies beat me, when I needed big bucks, where?”
“I was drugged, Timothy,” Gabriel offered softly.
“Drugged!” Timothy was laughing. Derisively and hysterically. “Angels don’t do drugs, dude. They’re good and clean, yes, the good guys. Who are you? Angel still?”
“Who are you, Timothy,” Gabriel asked quickly.
“Come on, man, talk straight,” Timothy’s lips were trembling as if he had seen his own ghost. “I am me, dude, that’s all.”
“And I am you, Timothy,” Gabriel’s voice was barely audible. “You see, Timothy. I mean, you, rather we, have been drugged thoughout all our little lives. The only time I could talk to you was when you--we, were not drugged. So far, this has been a second opportunity. I hope we can be friends.” “Friends!” Timothy was baffled, as if being swept into the arms of fire in the loving eyes of this angel. “You! Me! Stop kiddin’, man. Don’t jive with me.”
“A paradox, Timothy,” Gabriel murmured sweetly. “You are I, me and you in all. And I am you, me and I in all entirety.”
“Some sort of trinity in godhead,” was Timothy’s dazed response. “A mountain of good within all of us, Timothy,” Gabriel’s gaze was smoldering and revealing shafts of sunlight.
“So, are you going to get me out of this hell, dude?” Timothy groaned. “No, Timothy,” Gabriel waved his arm in one desperate appeal. “I will be your friend. I will stay here with you as long as we need to stay. We will both stay, till our bodies demand no drugs but peace and liberty.” “Will you be a friend to my friends too, out there?” Timothy’s own arms were falling limp to his sides.
“Yes, Timothy,” one shaft of sunlight escaped Gabriel’s eyes, and trembled on his lips. “And when we walk out of here drug-free, the only bad guys we meet on the streets will be us? Talking with the good guys, in Us. Us, another paradox, and We? Both of us, we will figure it out somehow.”
