Chapter 1

A Chapter by Charles Deveaux

First chapter of a book I have been writing. If you do not like it i'm probably going to take a bath with a toaster. That will be on your hands.

If God was half as loving as His followers made Him out to be, then He would have made sure that the angels looked the other way on this beautiful February evening. Their warm, innocent hearts should never have to behold the sights happening in the small dark house shamefully erected on this cracked and littered street. The sky was a cold and hard blue almost like steel and a God who spared the innocent did not exist.

A lone ray of sunlight peeked through the blinds illuminating the swirling dust that saturated in the back room of 6704 Keystone Manor Drive. It was here that we find Teresa Gilbert laying under some mysterious guy that she could not remember a name for. He was a heavy guy and Teresa was sure that he was not wearing a condom, but Lord knows he had what she wanted.

It seemed that the nameless guy either did not notice or did not care that Teresa had not showered in weeks and her dirty brown hair was matted to her head with sweat. She gave off an air of discontent, eyes glazed over and body completely still save for the occasional grimace. After what seemed like three days more than an eternity, but was really only a few minutes of excited pumping, the anonymous man unspectacularly finished his task and pushes himself off of Teresa. She continued to lay there, completely still and in silence.

As the unidentified man pulled up his jeans the only sound that could be heard was the overwhelming thumping of Teresa’s’ heart. That very heart had skipped and damn near stopped when the guy threw down a small bag of heroin on the dresser before making an awkward nod of appreciation and exiting the room.

Somewhere in the background the T.V. could be heard giving a news broadcast about a war with Syria, but to Teresa the newscaster could have said that God was sitting outside her window playing checkers with Hitler and it would not have made a difference. The only thing circulating in Teresa’s’ mind was her score. Impatiently she waited until she heard the stranger get into his car and pull off before scrambling to grab the bag. She then proceeded to grab her rig from under the bed and cook up her prize. Teresa feared that she would die of old age before the heroin could melt into the wonderful brown liquid. Eventually it succumbed to the chemistry and was ready to take the life changing journey through her bloodstream into her heart, mind and soul.

After spending a few minutes desperately trying to find a usable vein, Teresa started to panic. There seemed to be none left in her arm. She yelled "f**k" and started to cry because she knew what this meant. She has no choice but to shoot up in the vein in her neck. For months now she has dreaded this moment, knowing that it would come eventually.

Now, Teresa had no problem shooting up in her neck, for she had stuck needles in more obscure places than that. The issue was that in order to shoot up in her neck Teresa would have to finally look in the mirror, something that she had avoided for almost a year now.

Slowly she got up and dragged herself over to the mirror on the other side of the room that she had purposely avoided for so long. When she saw the ghost of a woman that stood before her she again started to cry.

There was a time when Teresa was a very beautiful woman. Granted, her body was not stacked like that of a stripper but it was decent enough. She was well proportioned with long beautiful hazel brown hair and a smile chiseled by Aphrodite herself. Back when life still had meaning this fact had really bothered the girl. Beauty only brought about unwanted desire and attention. Men would approach her on the streets. They would feign interest in her opinions while ignoring the exact same statements made by less attractive people. Some would even claim to only want to ‘get to know her’. Teresa laughed at the notion. It was a farce. No one ever wanted to acquaint themselves with another person without wanting something more. She once expressed these thoughts with her mother who was convinced that there was nothing wrong with trying to get to know someone. “There’s always a chance that you might fall n love with that person.” she used to say. That was not what Teresa was looking for. Love was nothing more than familiarity over time. That love would inevitably fade as soon as a person stops being the person you want them to be.

At first, it was cool. Her cute face and girlish charms brought about more “free samples” and that was good enough for Teresa. But once the drugs and alcohol had become a more prevalent force in her life, Teresa found that this beauty caused more problems than it fixed. The more free drugs she accepted the more people would start to expect things. What made it worse, it was not like prostitution where there were hard lines drawn in the sand. With prostitution both parties knew their role. Using beauty for drugs was a whole different story. Men wanted more than they were allowed. Things got sloppy. This became a detriment.

In order to combat the constant advances of men Teresa stopped grooming herself. She realized that if she did not comb or wash her hair and just stare blanky and men who looked as if they were about to approach then they would usually reconsider. Every once in a while there was a brave enough to risk an interaction. Maybe they figured that a woman who did not wash her hair regularly must have low self esteem and therefore be an easy f**k. When that happened Teresa would simply chuckle, take a step forward and say the craziest thing that came to her mind. One time she told a man that she was pregnant with Gods baby. Even still once in a while some man who was either brave, desperately horny or both would still play along. Those men Teresa would ask a simple question. “You ever been murdered?” Usually they would just assume that she was a crazy junkie and leave her alone.

Those days of beauty seemed so long ago now thought the young woman as she surveyed herself in the mirror, eyes full of tears. Living on the street and neglecting to eat had left Teresa a walking skeleton. Her face was sunk in and covered with small scratches that had come from everything from scuffles to tree branches. Her arms were full of dead veins that left a black undertone to her pale skin. Having not brushed her teeth in about two months, her gums were black and her teeth yellow. She looked like s**t and she knew it.

Slowly she raised the needle to her neck and stuck it in her vein, tears now streaming down her thin, pale face. As the warm feeling of the golden ambrosia instantaneously spread throughout her body, Teresa suddenly forgot about her ghastly appearance and slumped down to the floor. Everything that had once mattered suddenly became irrelevant.