Here's the Hit

It turns out that a moon hit carries a price for everyone.

     His fat black a*s always sat in the window. Day after day he dwelt there, window open, breeze gently blowing through the sheet-curtain, much like a pig at a trough near laundry hanging outside to dry, only his food wasn't food at all. How he stayed so fat can only be guessed; perhaps it was due in part to his severely untreated diabetes. It's hard to say, though, because Kurt was an unusual addict in at least two ways: the first being that he loved both food and crack.

     Usually, when Kurt ate, it was something like disgustingly greasy fried chicken nervously thrown together in the dingy little kitchen by whatever female dope fiend happened to be on deck. Most often she was given no crumb of the crack she'd hustled and hoped for in return, but he always inhaled the food she'd made, much like a hit of crack, while he sat in the back bedroom window waiting to hit his next lick. The only thing he did cook was crack, something he did in a blackened spoon at the little kitchen table situated near that little window where he had set up shop to hit his licks.

     It was mostly white people who would pull into the driveway of his shabby apartment building, and Kurt (eternally posted in that back window) would efficiently cook up some of the rocked-up cocaine with a well-earned, professionally devious grin, much like the eager oversized rat he was. As soon as this latest "customer" had entered the hallway, Kurt would overload his shiny metal crack pipe with some of the now gooey, egg-white drug onto one of his pipe's burnt ends. "To the moon!" Kurt would laughingly exclaim, handing the crack pipe over to his lick while displaying his stunningly white smile, which stood in stark contrast to the tone of his skin and the condition his life was in.

        The land of stupid oblivion would always come to those who took this moon hit, and as soon as the five-minute duration of the hit wore off, the lick would, of course, need more and more moon hits. As the lick would become stuck in blind-peeping paranoia as a premeditated effect of the moon hit, Kurt would be left to do things for the lick, including going to the ATM to get more money in order to procure more drugs for the lick.

     No one was immune to this ingenious hustle, and Kurt would ironically tell each subsequent lick the story of his previous lick by starting off with: "Here's the hit..." It amused him to relay his lick tales all day, every day to his latest unsuspecting chump, and each lick would laugh right along with him about it all. With his perfectly white teeth and hearty laugh, Kurt had a way with people like that; otherwise, the same licks wouldn't have fallen under the spell of the moon hit repeatedly.

     Everyone was initially treated with equal respect, that is at least until the lick's money ran out, and then there were major deviations to the subsequent degradation, depending upon whether the customer was male or female. Most of the women, desperate for "just one more" hit, would be coerced into sexual depravity. "Get naked!" he'd order, whipping out his tiny little dick. The men he simply threw out.

     Early one morning Kurt sat alone in his apartment in his usual ritual - at the little window waiting on a lick. That day he decided to give himself a moon hit. Immediately, Kurt began having a heart attack. Now overcome with death throws on the floor, a customer who'd been to the moon with Kurt before the sun rose arrived to acquire another, and getting no answer at the door, proceeded to climb right through the little window and over Kurt's now lifeless body to get his own next moon hit.   

     A few days later his family cremated the body. No funeral for Kurt.

Reviews

[Cory Barrett]

While I am over come with sadness for this all to common occurrence, i feel the most sad for the family that had to own his body and burn it. For the stained legacy he left behind, that will be burned with his body. With his ashes will go all thing he left for this world to recover of worth from him... compost.

[AMMD]

I love your insightful review. Thank you!

[LJW]

I know of this lifestyle well.
I think there's a dangerous balancing act being performed by you, the writer, right over the body of this story. I felt a lot of trying to keep my balance and a couple of oops I fell.

Inherent to the subject matter, there is almost a need to keep the narrative voice as simply stated as possible. There were a few words that had no comfortable place to sit in a story about a crack house. Too many (asides? in parentheses).

And Kurt's teeth? Must've been false teeth if they were beautiful and pearly white.

This being said, I do think you have good basic writing skills.

[Michael Phillips]

Great portrayal of Kurt and the descriptions of his habits are very well written

[AMMD]

Thank you, Michael.

[Vidya Bacchus]

Oh wow this is so sad but a harsh reality of a wasted life.You have penned this well my friend.

[AMMD]

Why thank you! =)

[Vidya Bacchus]

You are welcome :)

[♔ CrownedDevil &#..]

Such a sad story. I enjoyed reading this. :-) nicely written.

Kaze~ :-)

[DaughterNature]

The opening image is at once funny and upsetting -- love the start! But, shouldn't it be "dwelt"? And I'm not sure, that verb almost feels too fancy or formal for the character being developed, but it's a small matter. I like the idea behind this story, but it feels like I am being told a story, rather than seeing it. I think I would prefer it if I got to "watch" someone in particular arrive at Kurt's, hear his stories, take the hits, and leave, then simply to be told about the lot of them generically by the narrator. The last line, however, is great! I might write "No funeral for Kurt," instead, but otherwise, nice screeching halt to the story.

[AMMD]

Thanks for the read and suggestions!

[rav1209]

This story oddly reminds me of the barber, a short story told in the point of view of the barber who simply thought the character was a hilarious idiot when actually he was an a*****e who didn't treat anyone well including the man who "accidentally" killed him. Still I loved this story very much, please continue to write great work such as this.

[AMMD]

Thank you for the read, review and encouragement! =)

[Ruth]

This is saddening and yet very real...and for some reason, I have a habit of still having compassion for the ones in a story that aren't so good...the ending of this left a heaviness in my heart x

[AMMD]

You had just the exact reaction I was hoping for. Thank you!

[Ruth]

Most welcome hon...I am terrible, they can be the worst villain in the novel and I end feeling sorry for them lol