Ease

My brother handed me my first drink. It was a gin-and-something.

I said no, thanks, because that's what I'd been taught to say during Red Ribbon Week in first grade when we'd strangled the chain link around the playground with scraps of red caution tape.

But

"Try it," he said with a grin.

"No, I don't want to," I said.

"Come on," he said.

"Okay," I said.

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We used to smoke pot in the storm drain while other local idiots went and tagged the walls, the bald concrete melting our brains under scorching October sun. It was the cool thing to do--hitch a ride with someone who had a permit, Eminem shouting about his closet and rattling around in our empty chests, filling them with an anger that gave us a searing purpose beyond our despised upper middle class privilege.

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On lazy Saturday mornings before we'd discovered anger, I'd crack open the door to his bedroom. He'd be awake, of course, waiting for me, the sunlight setting the beige walls glowing so it almost felt like the happy homes we'd see on Hallmark cards at Christmas. I'd crawl into bed with him, and we'd snuggle together under the covers for just a little bit, not talking, just resting, all angles and soft corners.

"Can we play Aliens?" I'd ask.

He'd pull the covers up over our heads, burying us in red-orange constellations.

"There's one over there!" he whispered loudly, pointing to something that might, in another world, have been an ink stain.

"Pew!" I whistled, thumb and forefinger extended, "Got it! Oh no, another one!"

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll help you."

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I was embarrassed the first time condoms fell out of his wallet, like somehow I'd walked into the wrong room, that this wasn't the boy I'd shared a bed with, who'd taught me how to shoot a basketball, who'd animated our forks and spoons at mealtimes and made them masters of the pantomime.

"Smoked too much weed last night," he sighed, tossing it all into his top desk drawer and slamming it  shut.

I smiled weakly, turned around, and left, something acrid coiling around my nose hairs.

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My first beer was a Guinness. I bought it with what might have been a fake ID, but then again, I might not have bought it at all. I chipped the edge of my desk trying to get the bottle open without a lever. I've always seen my life as a movie.

Hands shaking, I moved to the counter and sliced my thumb open on the cap when it came off. I ignored the blood when it oozed down the neck to my lips as I took the first pull.

There I had it. Independence.

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I bought my first knife when I was twelve. It was the cool thing to do. Carry it around in my pocket at school, furtively pull it out in class and show my gang. The day I figured out how to carry it in my pocketless gym shorts was a proud one.

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I sat crying on the floor in the handicapped stall for about five minutes, then got up, washed my face, and went back to class.

I walked in a haze for about three years, then decided enough was enough, before realizing that, no, it wasn't.

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Heaviness is how I'd describe it. A heavy weightlessness chasing vapid dreams of satisfaction.

When I decided to go clean and straight, I knew I wouldn't be able to manage it. I knew from the start that I'd fail, like most other things. But I've lasted so long I'd let myself start hoping.

When I got the news at the train station, I knew that, yes, this was the end. I sat outside watching the afternoon sun die and knew my freedom was over. My train left, and by that time, I was miles away, searching out the last vestiges of genuine humanity in a bombed-out world of wars for the soul.

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And how does it feel when someone lets you down

You've got a head full of thorns

When you should really be wearing a crown

But at least a crowded room will never seem empty

With a conscience always siding against me