Niacin Nightmare

The lead singer from another band is smoking his cigarette across the parking lot from me. Large clouds of white smoke plume from his head and hang for a few seconds in the air around him. “Putting those big singer lungs to work,” I mumble to myself. He stands shrouded by the smoke for a few seconds before stepping aside, allowing the air to clear, and raising the cherried cig for another drag. This goes on until he reaches the butt, and tosses it towards a can, failing to make half the distance. I watch as he takes one finalizing breath, looks both ways, and then walks across the lot in my direction.

I’ve been standing in my place for the past twenty minutes, which could really be thirty minutes, or two hours and I wouldn’t know the difference. I get stuck like that, deep inside my own self.  I prefer to watch the world, and to keep myself company.

While I watch Josh, the smoking singer, I fail to notice my brother, Flex, join me at my side. Flex is now standing behind me, just over my right shoulder, and Josh calls out to him.

“Ay, Flex, how’s it going?”

“It’s going,” Flex replies in a voice much too bold to be his own.

“Good to hear it. Hey Ronnie,” he adds.

Josh stops in front of us, and pulls another cigarette from his pocket. With the cigarette, he’s also palmed a lighter, and with one swift move he lights the cigarette and returns the lighter to his jean pocket.

“Fuck,” he says, dragging the word out to match his toke blow. “Last night, I tried this Niacin stuff, and it messed me up, man.”

“What happened?”

“My whole body turned purple and my eyes went blurry. My face puffed up like a goddamn water balloon and I got hot flashes.” He drags long on his cigarette.

“What’s Niacin?” I ask, but before he can answer, before I can finish asking the question, Flex chimes in with something he’s memorized off a website.

“Niacin is a B3 complex,” Flex says, “It can stimulate cell respiration.”

“Yeah, and it fucks your face up.” Josh adds. “It’s supposed to heat you up and flush out all your toxins and bad shit,” he says, “but, man, this shit just fucked me up.”

And with that, he took one last drag on his cigarette and stamped it out on the cement between us. “Well, I’m gona check this place out,” he says, and walks off towards the venue.

Flex tells me that he’s got to check in, and follows Josh into the club.

I settle into my place, and resume my watch over the lot.

***

Later that night, after the show, Flex and I unpack our groceries.  While we were shopping around, I had decided to buy some of the now-legendary Niacin, B3.

I pull the bottle from a bag, and we eagerly swallow a dose. Flex hits the shower, and I start up a yoga tape for a quick, relaxing workout. As the program starts, I laugh alone and aloud at the oncoming adventure.

After a while, I begin to wonder whether or not I’ll feel any effects from the Niacin. Then, about halfway through the routine, I notice something.

My ears are tingling; a hot sensation. They’re burning, now…  They’re burning and it hurts. It feels as if the blood in my ears is not blood at all, but jalapeño pepper juice, and I am painfully aware of each and every heartbeat.

“Let your mind fall inward,” says the yoga tape.

“Fall inward,” I think to myself.

“Watch the relaxation of your sense organs,” says the tape. 

Right.  Relax.  At this point, my sense organs have caught fire.  My breathing intensifies involuntarily, and I try to focus on that.

My ears feel like they’re bleeding, and my face feels like a massive, fleshy wound.  The skin of my neck is swelling, and my eyes won’t open much more than a crack, puffed fat and swollen, too.

“Feel your Body Mind melt,” says the yoga tape.

“Melt, yes.  I can do that.  I’m melting!” 

My back seems to be cracking open like a snake’s skin.  I fight my way through the rest of the yoga tape, and then, sure that I must be red as a sun burnt crab, I check my reflection in the mirror.

My face is swollen to a hideous mess. My eyes are puffy to such a degree that they barely seem to open, and my cheeks are rounded and resolute. I rush to the bathroom to share my shock and amusement with Flex.

“Dude, check it out!” I chime, and he draws the curtain back from the front of his bath.

“Cool.”

“I’m all swollen,” I tell him.

“Yeah, you look stupid.”

“This sucks!  Look at me! Check it out, dude.” 

I can’t force my excitement upon him. I often try, and usually fail. 

“Heh,” Flex checkles, and then sinks back into his tub.

I leave the bathroom, and step outside into the cool night, naked and aflame. It’s snowing, and the flakes melt instantly with their contact to my hot flesh. I stand steaming in the snow for a minute before turning back into the room. Flex is now out of the tub, and he’s also naked, holding the bottle of Niacin at hand.

“I’m gona’ take another,” he says, and then pops one into his mouth. 

“Have fun,” I say. My excitement is exceeding my ability to express it, so I pace around the room, my flaming, pendulous penis flopping between my fevered legs. “I’m on fire,” I remind him.

“Soon to join you,” he says.

“Try this,” I urge, “I’ll bet you can’t finish the tape. Just try.”

“Yoga?”

I play the tape again, and now, having felt some of the heat subside, I repeat the routine with him. We go to Downward Dog, two naked boys in a hotel room, one swollen and red, one dripping wet from the tub. Upward Dog is called for, and I ask Flex if he’s feeling anything yet.

“Nope, nothing,” he says.

“Just wait.”

We’re almost done with the tape when I look over and see that he’s red as an open wound. The whites of his eyes are red, his legs, his torso, and his arms are red. His face, though, and the cheeks of his ass are a deep purple like an uncooked steak, and I stop him from working any longer.

“Dude. Look in the mirror!” I shout.

“I fucking know! Holy shit! I itch all over!” He screams.

“You look like something’s asshole…”

“I feel like diarrhea,” he says, and runs to the mirror. “Shit! Look at me!” He cries.

Flex turns circles in front of the mirror, examining every corner of his body, itching at his back all the while. Every time he looks at a different spot he stops to appreciate it’s own unique inflammations.

“These ones look like cheetah spots,” he says. “And look at this…  Oh shit! Look at my butt cheeks!”

“I know! I know!” I choke, laughing and coughing. I’m thrilled, charged up and finally feeling some relief from my own bout with the blood rush. 

Flex drops to the floor and starts cranking out pushups. I don’t know what’s possessed him, but he’s out to win gold tonight.

“Drink some water,” I tell him. 

“Yeah,” he groans, and reaches for a jug of milk instead.

For the next hour, Flex scratches at his skin and paces back and forth from his bed to the mirror. His purple hue doesn’t dim one bit, from the moment of it’s onset, until he settles into bed and falls asleep. 

Now, the room is dark, the excitement has died, and Flex sleeps a heavy sleep on the bed across from mine. I’m left here, again, in my head, watching people and things float by through my mind’s eye… It’ll be a few hours still until I’ll feel like sleeping, so I relax and replay the night again and again. 

I laugh softly, so as not to disturb the slumbering salami in the bed next to mine. I laugh and laugh some more, thinking back to Flex on fire, and then back further to Josh in the parking lot, seeing now more than I could have then the distant dread in his eyes. Sometimes, I think it’s worth the pain to learn a small life lesson… But then other times, it may be best to leave certain waters untested.

Fly In The Fridge

Sometimes, every once in a long while, I’ll go to the refrigerator for some milk or just to browse, and a mosquito eater or a fly will venture in. Not wanting to kill the invasive pest, I’ll try halfheartedly to lure it outside. I’ll wave a hand about the air, but the damn thing just hides deep behind some yogurt and an old turkey. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I ask the pest, “Want me to lock you in here with all that turkey?” I say. It’s a rhetorical question; I know that’s exactly what he or she wants.

I’ll play God in my head—an omnipotent and vengeful God. The fly, or maybe it’s a mosquito eater, thinks it’s found safe haven, and there’s turkey and Jell-O and old stew to be had. Ignorant is the poor creature to the oncoming darkness, and the cold, and then death; a slow death. 

I imagine the bug will simply eat, until it’s jaw tenses up, and it’s insect thoughts, whatever they may be, lose pace, and then it’s juices inside of it’s tiny exoskeleton will freeze and it'll curl up to die. The bug will have died happy, and I will return the next morning to find it… Only I probably won't find it, but I'll try, and then a couple of weeks later my mom will wipe it out with a sponge along with a bunch of other crap.

Sometimes, every once in a long while, I’m the fly, and I realize that I’ve been short sighted, but it’s usually long after I’ve lost myself inside of a dark refrigerator or a long tour of the Midwest.

State of Things

Bags of garbage crowd my feet. Bottles of piss, sometimes fifteen or twenty of them will tumble out each time we stop. And the boxes, all the boxes full of shirts and posters and albums and all the other shit we’re out peddling—the boxes are constantly falling over and spilling. Then, despite the apparent abundance of clothing, I haven’t a single clean anything to wear. I’ve been cycling a few pairs of underwear, two shirts and three socks for the past month. Flex can’t even keep his bedroom clean at home. How are the two of us to keep a small, overstocked van tidy? 

I’ve started cooking while we drive, too. I’ll cook up eggs, and steaks and chicken while Flex drives, and the mess this makes... Our upholstery is starting to smell like breakfast, and everything is stained with hot sauce. 

I need a day or two at home… Just a couple of days... Then I’ll leave again, and try to sell records to people who don’t buy records anymore… And I’ll sing to rooms full of talking nobodies… And I’ll love it. I swear I’ll love it.