Katherine Moore lives in Memphis, TN. She is often called Kitty by loved ones. She currently works at an independent bookstore and attends school full time.  This is her first publication.  She has always had the fever to write and her room is often littered with unfinished stories.  She is considering an MFA but knows that real writing is not formulas taught in the classroom, it is power that comes only from the heart.

Going to Pensacola to Die (August 20, 2011. Issue 30.)

I thought I was going to Pensacola to die. I was only 23 but I didn't really mind. In fact I looked forward to it. I wanted to see the ocean before it happened. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, we were followed out by the police.  I told him not to use the toddle house bathroom.  Dead of night.  Moon illuminating.  We had a moment where we connected, I glimpsed inside him for a minute. I wasn't sure, but I thought I saw fear. We told our darkest secrets and somehow felt close in all our scars, pain, torment and madness.

Louis drove. I told him horrible acts I had done and that had been done to me. I told him about the night I was raped inside of a crack house. I went home and crawled into my mom's bed and I could still feel the thrust of that man on me, I could hear his voice like he was right outside. I couldn't sleep and kept asking my mom if it was really her laying there beside me. The next day I stole my mom's credit card and went on a binge that I hoped would make me forget. I didn't forget, and my mom kicked me out. Louis told me this made him love me more.

I met Louis in a 12 step meeting after one of my stays at a treatment center. I was living with my mom in her three bedroom house in Raleigh, a rundown suburb of Memphis. My mom and I did not have the best relationship. My mom still kept her purse and her car keys hidden. She knew deep down I would steal again. It wasn't personal, which sounds so cold. I didn't want to hurt my mom, but when your addiction calls, you obey. Starts off as a hobby, an every now and then escape. Then one day you wake up with it on your mind and it won't leave until you do it. It screams inside your head, pounds against your skull. It sounds like your own voice, but you feel possessed, like a dark entity is commanding you to get high. Ashley, you know you want it, you need it.

The meeting was adjacent to a lesbian bar in mid-town Memphis. I liked the 12 step meetings because I got out of the house. Also, even though I didn't really know any of them, I didn't feel judged around those people. The walls were yellow with paint chipping around the corners. On the walls were frames with anecdotes in them like "Let Go, let God", and "Easy Does It". There was a banner on the wall that listed all the twelve steps. I didn't understand any of it. I drank the free coffee and smoked cigarettes. Anytime I was called on I would say "Ashley, alcoholic and addict, I just wanna listen."

I heard lots about "powerlessness" and a "higher power". Louis was there. He was tall and kind of looked like a football player. He had a big head and was not very attractive. He always stared at me and kind of creeped me out. He liked to share in the meetings. He went on and on about pot and video games. I thought he was a hippie stoner and was not interested. He started to sit next to me and strike up awkward conversations. One day I walked in and he very loudly asked me out. I was lonely and felt put on the spot. I said yes.

We went to IHOP, which is where he worked as a waiter. As we walked in he turned and said "Call me Danny."

When we sat down his co-workers came to say hi, all calling him Danny. After we ordered food he explained.

"I used my brother's ID to get the job."

"Why? Do you not have any ID?"

"Yeah, I do, but I have a couple of warrants."

I remember that this excited me. He began to tell me about his past. He wasn't a pot head stoner. He was a down and dirty junky. He had committed armed robberies. He had traveled cross country stealing cars along the way. He started talking about his family. His dad had been in jail for multiple armed robberies since he was 2. I told him that seemed like a really long time for just robberies.

"He keeps getting in trouble and having more time added. When he first went in my mom would hide cigarettes and money in my diaper to sneak in to him."

Louis had also been an athlete, star football player for his high school. It kept him out of trouble. During a game, he injured his knee and was prescribed narcotic pain meds. That was it for him. It set him off on the journey to find the absolute high. He joined the marines for a minute but then went AWOL. He was dishonorably discharged after doing 6 months in a military penitentiary. He loved reading Jack Kerouac and traveling around just getting high. I suddenly wanted to go careening with him recklessly into the dark. I felt electricity pulsing through my veins, a gravitational pull toward him. The air felt thin. His ache called to my ache. His loneliness resound my own. His darkness rivaled mine. He was broken just like me. I wanted to be broken with him. I threw my hand up.

"This is gonna be bad" I said. He just smiled.

Within two weeks we were shooting dope together. In a parking lot I did too much coke with my heroin. I jumped out of the car and ran around and around. Louis taught me the "keep your hands above your heart" trick. I vomited and he wrapped his arms around me. He wiped the sweat from my face and promised me everything was ok. He kissed me not minding I had just hurled, and told me he loved me. Those words were almost as good as the dope. A week later I was kicked out my mother's house and was bouncing from cheap motel to even cheaper motel with him. I even drove the car for his escapades.

The first time, he had me pull over and said he was just going to check something out. He came back running and hopped in the car and shouted "Go". I took off speeding. He had a bunch of cash and stayed hunched down in the floorboard of my beat up Camry. I couldn't talk or say a word. We slept in a field off an old country road that night. I woke up crying about what he had done. I kept thinking how terrified the counter girl must have been. He kept telling me to calm down, and that he didn't even have a gun. He just merely alluded to it and the girl complied. Later that day I drove the car willingly. It was much more money than just shoplifting, which was my usual rouse.

After a day of being stuck in the car, driving from job to dope man and then repeat, we hid out in our field. The car parked behind trees, a stolen CD playing, the both of us curled in the back seat under the dim interior light. He would kiss me and touch me and tell me how he had waited his whole life for me. He took care of me. I felt like no one would harm me as long as I was with him. I knew every day he would get us money, I would have food, shelter and most importantly, a steady supply of dope. I had moments when even through my drug induced haze, I hated what I had become.

Very quickly, our delusional love began to crumble. Louis got paranoid when he shot cocaine. He sometimes accused me of keeping dope from him. He stripped search me once, yelling at me "Take it off!" I removed my clothes and showed him I wasn't concealing any drugs. I stood there naked, exposed, violated. I fell to the floor crying. Knowing him became a mutual insult. I thought about leaving. Going to my mom for help. I couldn't imagine a sober life. I couldn't imagine going to work, paying bills, watching movies, having friends. How was I supposed to walk away and start a new life? I needed a new me. I couldn't imagine life without dope; my skin would hurt all the time and my brain would rattle. I couldn't remember what life was like before all this. I asked Louis if he ever remembered.

"Trying to buy into the American dream…sun and moon and sun again." That was a typical response. Cryptic. I could no longer see inside him. I didn't know if he hated all this, if he suffered, or if it was all fun and games.

Late one night he became convinced that the cops were looking for him. I didn't think they weren't but couldn't make him believe it. There was no talking to him when he got like that. He said we had to leave Memphis. Right then. We took off. Left Memphis. Headed to Florida. That's when I hoped for death, and thought Pensacola might deliver.

Louis drove and I kept snorting coke trying to revive myself from my heroin coma. He kept asking me to slow down. I wanted to shoot it up, but my arms were sore and covered with bruises. It hurt to bend them. I was only willing to go through the painful chore of finding a vein for heroin. Somewhere in Mississippi, my heart began to race and my hands shook, and I felt tension all in my chest.

"Pullover!" I yelled.

"What for?"

"I'm dying!"

"Every time you do coke, you think you're dying."

"Louis, pullover!"

"Jesus!"

He pulled the car over.  He made me walk in circles around the car with my arms sticking straight up.  Then he had to massage my chest. I kept worrying a highway patrolman would drive up and want to know the reason why I was walking in circles, arms raised, like a crazy women. Finally my stomach ached and I puked. I felt my heart slowing down and the pleasant warm numbness of all the heroin I had done in the past few hours, take over. We got back in the car. Louis made me give him the rest of the cocaine. I laid my head against the window and began to nod.

The moon huge, hanging in the middle of the black sky. Stars humming cruel mockery.  A dirt road to the right.  A broken barn.

Nodding out was like having a dream while you were awake. It was like being suspended between sleep and wake, life and death. I sometimes nodded about make believe experiences I had never had. Sometimes I would have nods involving conversations with my dad, who had died two years before of congestive heart failure. We would be in his pick-up truck, an old cassette tape of Hank Williams Sr. playing, filling the empty silences. My dad and I never had empty silences until he knew I was spiraling out of control. We would go riding, as he called it. We piled into his pick-up truck and he would drive down all the old country roads around the little town where he lived. We did this when I was little, when my dad was still proud of me and had hopes for me. We always listened to Hank. My dad sang along, sometimes drowning out Hank. He always had a favorite song that somehow coincided with whatever he was dealing with in his own life. When my mom first left him due to his drinking, it was "Cold, Cold Heart." When he went through his sober phase and began to miss my mom, it was "Turn Back the Years." My dad could sing. His voice was gruff from whiskey drinking and cigarettes, but he could carry a tune. His voice was the perfect fit for Hank's sad songs. I always thought he did them better than Hank.

He would jokingly say "Hey my little junky."

And I would respond "What do you want drunk?"

That was just the way it was with me and my dad. I think he felt responsible, like he had passed me the family gene for alcoholism, only it had transpired as addiction in me.

My dad drank and would embarrass us at Christmas parties. I would hear him and my mom fighting all night. They screamed and yelled but there was never any physical violence. After my brother died my dad drank pretty much every day. He would cry all the time and walk around the house holding a picture of my brother. My mom left him.

One time I OD'd and in the ambulance on the way to hospital, I was dreaming I was in my dad's truck rolling on the gravel country roads. He was still alive then, and when I told him that was what I had dreamed, he cried.

It was the same in my nods. He would stare straight ahead and say "Little girl, I love you. Nothing you can do to make me stop." Then he would turn up Hank and sing. This time it was "Turn Back the Years" but it had a different meaning. It wasn't about my mom, it was about my childhood.

"What are you saying?" Louis snapped me out of my nod.

"What?"

"It sounded like you were singing."

I could tell we had entered Florida, the weather had warmed up. I took a shot of dope and drifted back off.

I knew what I wanted when I was five. I became fascinated with a syringe I found in my grandma's backyard. Her backyard rivaled the magical gardens in children's stories. The trees had huge bases that rose upwards and into the clouds. Around the bases were delicately groomed lavender flowers. There was a swing set that was slightly rusted from rain. Her back patio was enormous to me at five, and filled with antiquated wrought iron furniture. In each corner was a flower pot with beautiful brightly colored flowers blooming. My sister, Heather, and I loved to play in her back yard. The trees rained gumballs and we would wage gumball wars with the neighborhood kids that had come over to play.

Heather's best friend Roberta lived two houses down. I thought Roberta was beautiful and secretly loved it when somebody asked if she was my sister. Yet, I did not like Roberta coming over. She and Heather would exclude me from their games. They liked to play "soap opera" and gave each other names like Mitzie and Beatrice. I would try to play but they never liked my made up names and said my real name, Ashley, just wouldn't work. They would take my crayons and puff on them like cigarettes. I would go swing or just run around in circles until I got dizzy and fell down.

I was being left out on the day I found it. I was on the swing trying to work up the courage to jump off midair. I could hear laughter and "Oh Mitzie, can you believe Rebecca slept with Shelley's husband?" I could see them taking drags off of yellow cigarettes. I held my breath and pushed myself out of the cradle of the swing. I was only in the air a second, but I saw it. I did not know what it was, but I saw something twinkling in the grass. I hit the ground hard and landed on my side. Heather and Roberta didn't notice and kept on pretending to be middle aged rich housewives. I stood up and looked for the sparkle. The wind blew through the trees and the sun peaked through the branches and lit it up once more. I ran over to it. It wasn't like the ones in the doctor's office where I had to be held down and only got a crappy lollipop for my pain. It wasn't cold and sterile. It was old, used, loved. The little numbers on the side were faded. It had an orange cap over the tip. I picked it up. I didn't understand or know why it was there, yet I wanted it.

I ran inside the house, excited and yelling for my mom and grandma to see what I found. They came running into the kitchen.

"My God child, calm down." Grandma said looking down at my hand. "Oh dear Jesus!" she screamed and snatched it from my hands. She threw it in the outside trash, grumbling about the no good neighbors. I was sad she had taken my new found prize.

I don't know why it called to me. In the 80's there were lots of public service announcements on TV. My favorite was the one of the skinny woman with messy hair and dark eyes wearing a dirty hooded sweatshirt and a pink tutu. She was dancing around in an ethereal type trance. You heard a little girl's voice say "I wanna be a ballerina when I grow up." Then it would show a man in dirty hospital scrubs digging through a trash can with a little boy's voice saying "I wanna be a doctor when I grow up." At the end a grown-up's voice would be heard "No one wants to be a junky when they grow up." I was only nine and didn't know what a junky was but I knew I wanted to be the lady in the tutu.

As adolescence hit I started reading William Burroughs. I once caught a severe cold and took Nyquil. I sat on the floral couch in my mother's living room and read Burroughs's Junky as I drifted into a cold medicine induced sleep. I dreamed I was shooting up Morphine. My mom woke me up to tell me to go to bed and I mumbled "I gotta lay off the Morphine." My mom was horrified by her 15 year old daughter uttering the word Morphine. I read all the books about junkies and watched all the movies. I even asked my sister once if it was normal that it appealed it to me so much. She said of course, but not to ever do it. At nineteen, living in a rundown basement apartment, hanging out with punk rockers and bohemian types, I tried heroin. My life was never the same.

I have done a lot of things I am not proud of. A lot of things that I never dreamed I could do. Things that make you feel dirty and cry through the night. Things that make you contemplate shooting up too much heroin at once so you no longer have to feel the pain of each breath you take. The nods used to relieve it, that horrid feeling, but it crept in.
***
I woke up screaming inside a cheap motel in Pensacola.

"Ashley, wake up." I could hear Louis trying to wake me. His voice sounded concerned. It had been awhile since he had shown any affection for me. The last time we had kissed had been weeks ago.

"Ashley." I heard him again, but couldn't quite wake up. I didn't really want to wake up. "Ashley, wake up!"

"Oh God! Louis." My eyes popped open and I sat up.

"You were screaming."

Yeah, I thought, we live in hell. All I said though was "Give me a cigarette."

"Are you ok?" His voice was soft, he reached out and ran his fingers down the curve of my face.

"My dream. Are there any cigarettes?" I was trying to completely wake up. I had a vague memory of checking in to this motel.

"Only the cheap roll up kind."

"Will you roll me one?" I rubbed my eyes and tried to remember.
"
Yes. Are you ok?" His voice was sweet and soft. I missed that sound.

"I don't know. My dream." I looked around the room. It was dimly lit, blue walls, a ceiling that looked like popcorn with water damage. There was an old outdated TV with rotary dials, a wooden nightstand with a plain gold plated lamp on it. I could see the bathroom off to the side. No tub, just a shower and the tiles were chipped and moldy.

"You're ok now, aren't you?" He looked handsome. He had a beard now which made his lips and head look smaller. I liked the beard. He was a lot slimmer than he had been months ago. This made me wonder what I looked like. I did not take long hard looks at myself in the mirror anymore.

"I don't know. It was…Louis, what's today?"

"Um, the 12th, shit I don't know."

"Day? Not date." I had lost track of time and always depended on Louis to keep up with it.

"Wednesday. "

"I'm going to die today." When I said this his face flinched.

"What? You had a bad dream, it's over."

He didn't ask, but I needed to tell him. "I was in a crowded room, and I didn't know anyone. And I could see me on the other side of the room. It wasn't me now. It was me as a little girl. I could see her. I tried to push through the crowd to get to her. To hug her. To tell her how sorry I am that we ended up this way." I could still see her. Little, blonde, innocent, prettiest girl in the whole wide world. She haunted me.

"And she told you were going to die?"

"No. When I got there I reached out to her, but suddenly there was only a wrinkly old man. He said you're going to die, Wednesday is your death day, and I screamed." The old man in a brown worn out suit with a black felt hat and big thick wrinkles in his face flashed before me and I shivered.

"It was just a dream."

"Do you think I will die?" That's when I knew I didn't really want to die; I was just tired of not knowing how to live.

"I think if you want to believe it bad enough you will go throw yourself in front of truck or something today."

"I'm serious. I am freaked out."

"I am serious, too. You are crazy enough to do it." Louis kind of laughed. I felt that old feeling of love enter me for a moment. I knew better, this wasn't love, it was obsession, it was survival. Without him, I'd be alone with nowhere to go.

"I keep feeling like my insides are squeezing in on me. No matter how much dope I shoot, they just keep squeezing me, like they are trying to push me out of me." I could feel them then, pushing in on me. Like a nightmare when something evil is holding you down, but you can't move, you can't scream, and you're just stuck there terrified. Louis just looked at me, not sure what to say so I asked about my cigarette. "Is it rolled yet?"

"Here."

"Thanks. Is there anything left?" He handed me the cigarette and I fired it up. Nicotine withdrawal was almost as bad as dope sickness. Almost, but not quite. I had chills already and was not looking forward to heroin withdrawals.

"No. You could try to get stuff of the plastic. But I think you did it all."

"Me? You did some, too."

"It's gone."

"But we had so much."

"And it's gone."

"Where are we?" I knew we were in Florida but wasn't sure if we had made it to Pensacola. I don't even know why we picked Pensacola.

"Pensacola."

"When did we get here?"

"Do you still wanna argue over who did it all? And why it's all gone?" He was being a smartass. His voice retained irritation which had become normal. Plus, he always held out on me. He always saved some dope and tried to say I did it all. Black outs were usual for me so I used to believe him. Lately I had caught on. I would get sick and he'd be high. I then knew he was keeping some stashed.

"Are you sure there isn't any left?" I needed dope.

"I have a half a shot loaded. You can have it, but no more of that death shit."

"Were you not going to give it to me?" I wasn't angry. If that's all I had left I wouldn't give it to him. I had to act angry so maybe next time he would just be more forthcoming.

"Damn it, you have been in and out of consciousness for two days. Since we left Memphis. You have got to learn to save some." He grabbed the syringe out of his pocket. It was all ready to go, and it was a decent shot. He probably just did one before I woke up and was going to give it to me anyways. I understood then. It wasn't greed, this game he played, it was power.

"Can I have the rig please?"

"Here, hurry up. We have to get going, check out time is in 30 minutes. That really is the last of it." He handed it to me.

I tied his belt around my arm and was surprised at how quickly I got a vein. My arms were bruised and scabbed in certain areas. I thought all my veins had collapsed. It made me sad doing this shot. But I knew I had to do it. I didn't have a choice. I'd like to say I did once, but wasn't even sure if that was true. It was just my destiny.

"You feel better now?"

"Yes, can we go to the beach now?" The warmth of heroin wasn't what it used to be. Something deep inside me told me to go to the beach. I thought maybe this was it. Maybe the end was coming. We packed up our clothes and headed out of the motel.

Where is the ocean?  The trees were all gone, replaced by gas stations and fast food joints.  Louis pointed over to a toll bridge down the road.  What?  Are you kidding me?  It cost a dollar to see the ocean?  We stole gas the whole way here.  Do we even have a dollar?  I thought this was a free country.  God's green earth.  All this way, and now I have to pay to see the ocean.  The smell became stronger. 

White sandy beaches in my sight as we rolled down the other side of the bridge.  Palm trees.  Condos. We parked.  Walked through the sand.  He sat down.  I kept walking.

The waves first tickled my feet, then ankles, then knees.  I kept going.  White foam crashed all around.  Staring off in the horizon, the ocean met the sky.  A storm way off, nowhere near land.  Sharks and seals share this water.  Penguins, otters, octopuses, eels, squid, seaweed....all the oceans connect.  One ocean really, different names for different parts.  I kept going further in.  Or would it be considered out?  I stopped and let the waves crash over me again and again.  I didn't want to leave.  Ever.  I wanted to stay right there.  Maybe dive right in.  I'm ok here.  It doesn't hurt here.  I feel free here.  I have peace here.  Sigh.... he began to yell my name.  He's telling me to get out, that I'm gonna get sunburned.  He looked ridiculous.  Sitting indian style in the sand.  Topless with his goofy hat on.  I called it his William S. Burroughs hat.  He called it his 'I'm not going back to jail' hat.  I turned back to the ocean that's touching the sky.  I'm just gonna stay here.  All the dope is gone.  We may be wanted in Tennessee.  Florida doesn't extradite .  Old people come here to die, junkies flee from state charges.  AA gave me God.  But I couldn't keep it.  But He's here.  In the water.  In the sky.  And now I can't leave this spot.  Longing to get carried away, out to sea.  Be with God.  Touch the sky.  I'm never leaving the ocean.  I look down, the foam, the sand.  Thinking, hoping, at any second I will get sucked under.  He's coming for me.  I'm just gonna stay until He takes me.  Until He rescues me.  Stay right here, wait for God, right here.  Cause I don't know how to take Him with me. 

He, the lesser he-Louis, yelled my name again.  And something about being burned, the way the sun hits the water.  And that I wouldn't want to be dopesick and sunburned.  I sighed....and started to walk inland.  A tear began to form as I looked back and said goodbye to God.

Louis yelled at me. He called me crazy. He told me not to attract attention like that again. I sat in the sand and stared out at the horizon.

"What the hell were you doing?"

"Waiting for God."

"God?"

"Yes."

"What do you mean God?"

"He's in the water, I was waiting for him to take me."

"Shit you sound crazy."

"No, he's out there. I felt him. Louis, I felt him."

"Ashley, look at us, there is no God."

His words hurt. His words felt like a punch in the stomach that knocks out all the air. I started crying and couldn't stop. Tears flowed down my face and my eyes blurred. Other people on the beach and even their children were staring at us.

"Then we're fucked Louis. We're fucked."

"Ashley, calm down. What are you talking about?"

"I don't want to die a junky."

"Yeah, so what. Every one dies. Nothing fucking matters, we all die in the end."

I curled up and kept crying. I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't know how to not do it anymore. I was tired. Louis picked me up and carried me to the car. My hair was wet and matted and sand was stuck all over me. Louis drove me away from the beach. Away from God. I knew then I didn't want to shoot dope anymore, but had no idea on how to stop. Louis stopped at a gas station and helped clean all the sand off me in the restroom. After that we drove around looking for places to rob, we needed money, we had to score.