Burn the Place by iliana

Author:iliana [iliana]
Language: eng
Format: epub

TEQUILA MAKES ME GO TO JAIL. I TELL PEOPLE THIS and they laugh. But it’s true.

January 21, 2001. I woke up in the tank. The lights were a low-wattage fluorescent, a bunch of bugs dead on them. The stench was like sour gym socks and a thirteen-year-old boy’s bedroom, although no boys were present. My face hurt. My nose cracked as I wiped it with the back of my hand; dried cocaine from the morning before flaked off. I felt miserable. Bones hurt, skin hurt, brain hurt. Serotonin long gone. At first, I hadn’t the vaguest recollection of where I was, and I hoped for a second it was all some twisted nightmare. Could I just be in my bed? I squinted my dry eyes. Everything was gray.

I rolled onto my back and it felt like a million nails rather than the buttons of my spine. I dared look down the length of my body. Some of the stench was coming from a bit of dried puke on my new sweater. My pants were torn at the knees with road rash on them. My shoes and socks were off. I wondered if I had killed someone.

I searched my memory, using it like a file cabinet, pulling the drawers out, manila folders flying everywhere. There was the coke; the guy with the red hair I called Ginger; Tammy, my best friend, begging me to leave with her; my refusal. Then the guy’s apartment and him showing me pictures of his trip to Africa. He looked like Sean Penn. His other friend was with him. I thought they might hurt me, but they didn’t. Did I hurt them? The smell of the metal key. Snorting coke. The bar that opened at 8 a.m. The Mexican restaurant, tequila, then complete blackness. I touched my leg and then my wrists.

The police had pulled up outside the restaurant, lights flashing. I had an ache in my wristbones from the tight handcuffs. I had tried to run. As it was late morning by then, it had gotten bright and sunny. This was in Lincoln Park, on Lincoln Avenue just north of DePaul University. Running.

I ran down the yellow line splitting the road. Officially a crazy lady running in handcuffs. It was the first day in weeks that we’d hit a high of forty degrees. Patches of ice were melting, and I fell, facedown, and skidded down the street, my body along the yellow line splitting the road. My hands were behind my back, the flesh over my cheekbone scraped away.

The police car ride, unpleasant. I kicked the seats, shouting names at the officers: “Lesbian cop. Dick-sucking whore. Big fat motherfucking child molester. Doughnut-eating piece of shit. Sticking long johns in your asshole. Killer!”

At the station, I folded forward in a chair across from an officer, my pants undone, humiliated after mug shots and a body check. I guess I was offered a phone call and I declined.

Back in the cell block, I yelled for help. “Can’t I get a call?” I screamed.

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