Tearing a Hole Through Time

The jailbird roommate and bailer crept down the sidewalks in the night. They had already been to four different bars.
Charles asked, “Are you satisfied yet?”
“I’ll give you one last request before I go to jail, one more road that will lead to total satisfaction. Pick up a girl tonight.” Spencer was resolute in this.
“Well, this poses a couple problems, uh, mainly that we are past approaching the 1:00 hour, and otherwise that we, uh, have been very unlucky in that department tonight.”
Spencer started speaking slowly, then came to a frenzied finish:
“You’ve known me for a long time now and you know that I’m not the kind of person that deserves to be going to jail. You also know that I usually don’t make huge demands on anybody, ever. I’ve always carried my load, and I never gave anybody else shit for the things they did. People are going to think I dealt drugs, and they’re going to automatically assume I’m this total creep. Let them think that. Nobody knows except for you, with whom the fault lies. My actions, my intentions, they are not malicious. I’ve been subject to the justice system. They’re malicious. They’re more malicious to me than I’ve ever been to anybody. I see them and the blood in my brain boils. What do you expect is going to happen in a country where all of its citizens get the shit scared out of them by the very people who should be protecting them? These citizens have to fight back! “The People” and “the State” do not agree on a whole lot of issues, and I say it’s time we make our grievances known, I say it’s time we make this country a true democracy and not just an oligarchy calling itself a democracy. The people have to make their feelings known. I feel this way! I don’t like the way you’re treating me! I’ve paid a lot of tax dollars and I want representation! Don’t ignore me again! But people don’t want to act like that, they’d rather pretend like they’re bored than try to make a real change, because change just seems so impossible. You see Charles, this is what I’m talking about, on a microcosmic scale, this same problem presents itself within each and every one of our tiny little cautionary brains—the external and the internal. On the external, we’re the greatest in the goddamn world. On the internal though, I bet, we’re the most at war within ourselves. And this, all of this, leads me to believe, that because I’m going to jail, and because all of this shit just came down on me, I can’t let it keep happening. I’ve been set up for a big fall, and now I need something, one last something, just to make me forget all the horrible things that could happen tomorrow. What girl could argue with that notion? I need an angel, an angel to take me away from all of this.”
“Sounds to me like you want to tear a hole through time.”
“I love tearing holes through time.”
“We should do it then. Let’s go back to the apartment. I’ll pick a little something up stashed away over there. Then we should go over to my cousins. He’s usually hanging out with some kind of girl.”
The two of them walked back to the apartment they shared. It did not take very long. Inside the apartment, Charles grabbed his magic pills, and a couple other small, plastic baggies. Spencer went in to go to the bathroom only.
Charles knocked on the door.
“You want to do some blow before we go over there?”
“Sure.”
“Okay I’ll start cutting it up.”
Spencer Blackwell looked around the bathroom he was standing in, his own bathroom for what been nine months. He looked at his watch. 12:30 AM. He thought about the time, about how he’d be expected in court in eight hours. Spencer had been known to be garrulous, but if anybody were able to see inside his mind they would witness a different beast from the one they knew:
“Eight hours, thirty minutes. A good length of time to sleep. A solid night’s sleep. Eight and a half hours is enough so that you wake up and feel like a new man. All decisions are easy to make after that much sleep. If I stay up all night, I’ll be a mess in the courtroom. But I want to be a mess. I want to go in there all coked up, high, drunk, otherwise catatonic, muster out whatever plea pops into my head, get my bullshit sentence for my bullshit offense, do whatever it takes to finish my time with the justice system, and come back, and be strong, and get a real job, and just start living like a monk. No more distractions. No more apologies for the fucked up things I’ve done. To wit—everyone lies, vice everywhere—to hell I run, twice young. Asceticism. Moderation.”
“Spencer we’re all ready to go over here, are you ever going to come out of there?”
He immediately flushed and washed his hands and went into the living room to join Charles.
“The first is for you, jail baby.”
Spencer snorted it up.
Charles followed doing the second. They stopped.
“Do you realize what’s going to happen tonight?” Charles started to address.
“No Charles, I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight. I don’t know that I’m going to be in court in eight hours. I don’t know that we’re going over to your cousin’s apartment in the hopes that he’ll have a girl over that I can extricate my foreboding through. I don’t know that you probably still have some more surprises in store for me. I don’t know that you’ve also got something up your sleeve. I don’t know that you’re not telling me something. I don’t know that you’ll get laid tonight and I won’t.”
“You realize, that while you were in the bathroom, I talked to my cousin, and sure enough, he has decided to have a party which will allow us to tear a hole through time.”
“He’s aware of the circumstances?”
“I didn’t tell him about your situation.”
“Tonight will be like any other night, okay, you’re just trying to build it up into something it could never possibly be.”
“Well, you’re just going to have to tag along then. You know that third one there is yours, pansy-to-be.”
“Hey, what is up with that?” Spencer asked. He snorted right after.
“Some convict dick is going to be up with that,” Charles said. Then snorted.
“It’s like, you try to make me feel better, and then you remind me how bad it’s really going to be.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be prepared than scared?”
“Let’s be prepared and go over to your cousin’s instead of dwelling on the worst possible shit.”
The two roommates left their apartment and started the trek to Rory’s. The night was all blue black. Still warmer than most nights in October. No clouds visible. No stars really visible from the city. There was that orange fog hanging at the horizon. There was nothing noteworthy visible in the sky, except for the moon, which fell into a sharp crescent white contrasting against the midnight expanse.