Another day, another dollar.
Outside the convention are swarms of people, desperation the common undercurrent running through these teeming masses gathered to meet the One-And-Only Pilot of the Yellow Lion, one of the five Great Avatars. How long did these poor schmucks wait in line to see me? Would they turn around and leave if they knew I was still drunk from last night, or that I spent the better part of an hour hunched over the toilet bowl this morning, gagging up the handful of pills my body won’t let me kill myself with?
The young ones make it worse. Swarms of ‘em, crowding around me, let in by security because everyone knows just how much ol’ Hunk loves kids. Every one of them has got your face, too. I wonder how many of them have done what you did just so their families could eat, or just to escape the pain of war for a while.
A kid tugs on my shirt. The suggestion in his eyes tells me everything I need to know. A guard winks at me, and nods. In spite of the fact that I’ve always conducted myself in a professional manner, word gets around after a while if you work with kids. Someone’s always willing to accommodate me these days. There’s a room waiting for me, for him. A room set up especially for us, so I can indulge the bizarre tastes everyone thinks I have.
I just don’t have it in me, Pidge. Forgive me if I can’t use him the way you used yourself. I tell the kid to beat it. I give him some cash, tell him to buy some food for his family. He shakes my hand. He’s obviously relieved. He got paid, and didn’t even have to get drilled in the ass for it.
I guess the worst thing about losing you is, you don’t even write. And that hurts more than anything else. Would you be so surprised if you knew I missed you?
Maybe if I could have at least seen that look, the passion in your eyes when I took you for the first time. I didn’t even get that. I know I was pretty lame by your standards, but what I did was out of love, dammit; I wasn't shooting for the Olympics. I was shooting for a future, a real future with you.
Fuck the future. We didn't even get a shot at having a past.
My hand goes through the mirror. Blood and glass. The razor shards are all over the place, I’m stepping on them, I don’t care. Look at all the pretty lines, crimson lines on my arm, red on white, almost as beautiful as the white lines on the glass of the coffee table. Cut along the bone, you worthless fuck, deep between the radius and ulna, ‘cuz that’s where the arteries lie. Only sissies cut across the wrists. Now lie down and die like a man, and not like the strung-out, washed-up sorry piece of shit you turned out to be.
Suicide attempt number… oh, hell, I lost count. I can’t even kill myself right. Some soldier I am.
So here’s the tough guy, the war hero, lying in a fetal ball covered in blood with tears running down his cheeks and snot running out of his nose. Pretty picture, that. Put that shit on the front of your Interstellar Enquirer. I can see it now. Exclusive: Hunk of Voltron close to death, pals say! Oh, look, here come the paramedics, come to save me, shoot me full of Narcan while the cameras roll. Catch every magic moment, you assholes. Make sure you get a good shot of me barfing all over myself. Put that shit on your “Just Say No” campaign poster.
Hunk of Voltron Says Drugs Are Bad!
There’s some crap left in my bloodstream yet, crap that even the Narcan couldn’t lick. Enough to make me hallucinate. I like hallucinations.
Because, see, I know I’m just lying in a hospital bed, but right now it feels like heaven, because I see an angel coming for me. And that angel looks remarkably familiar, and that angel is stroking my hair and telling me it’s all right, that I’m going to get better, and that everything is going to work out, and not to worry anymore. Funny that angels would come to see me, because I always figured I’d go straight to hell.
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