Time for your pills, Andy, Part 7
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After I called Tony up and instructed him to procure even more liquor from one of his hook-ups I realized how fucking tired I really was. It was only Day 2 of the party week and I was already this exhausted.
I went up to my room. The walls in my 11X 14 room used to be a crisp dark blue. The color of a generic night sky in a cartoon. It was great. The upstairs is formerly an attic so the ceilings in my room slope down and if you wake up too quickly in your bed you’ll thump your head on the angled ceiling. It was like my own little cave. But I came home one day a few months ago to find all my belongings tossed about and the walls a nice, “lovely” beige. My stepmother had decided to make sure I was drug-free by throwing all my belongings about in search of “dope” or anything she could use against me. While she was at it, she hired a painter to “brighten up the dreary place.”
She found a dime bag of pot in my sock drawer. But she never told my father about it.
I think she smoked it with the painter.
So anyway, I went up to my room. Stripped the sheets. Put a blanket down underneath me on the bed (I was much too tired to find clean sheets) and threw another blanket on top of me. After setting my alarm for 6, I lay in my bed.
The digital numbers kept advancing and I kept remaining awake.
I can’t fall asleep without the TV on. I can pass out. But, I can’t have good, real, solid sleep. I’m addicted to plenty of things but TV might be the worst. My parents threw me in front of the television when I was 2. I learned to run the VCR at 3. I had the TV guide memorized at 5. At 14, I ghetto-rigged the cable modem so I got cable on my TV. And now, at 17, I can’t sleep unless the blue glow of the boob tube exists a few feet from me.
The digital numbers kept advancing and I kept remaining awake. When the bright blue digital numbers read 3:00, I decided I needed the TV on. Whenever I slept over at someone’s house as a kid or Kate slept over here, they’d get so pissed at me.
“What the hell? Just turn the TV off and go to sleep Andy!”
“No…I…I can’t,” I’d respond.
I got up and tossed my body over to the 20 inch Sony. Power on.
Ah yes, infomercials. Infomercials are the best to fall asleep to because I have absolutely no interest in watching them and I’m capable of ignoring the TV while it’s presence soothes me.
The infomercial for some Ab machine put me right to bed. It tucked me in and gave me a kiss on the cheek and I was out.
I woke up to the blasting sound of a Nirvana song on the radio. It was 6:15. I turned off the alarm and went downstairs.
There Tony was. With booze and women. Really slutty women. Girls rather. Probably 15 or 16 years old.
One of the girls, the one with a pink tube top and short jean shorts looked at me. I looked back at her.
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