179 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
179 lines
7.6 KiB
Plaintext
s$
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$$ .d""b. .d""b. HOE E'ZINE #1106
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[-- $$""b. $$ $$ $$ $$ -- ------------------------------------------- --]
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$$ $$ $$ $$ $$ss$$ "The Nurse"
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$$ $$ $$ $$ $$ by, Kreid
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$$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ 6/28/00
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[-- $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ $$ -- ------------------------------------------- --]
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$$ $$ "TssT" "TssT"
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--(1)--
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I became a nurse so that I could heal. That's not too unusual,
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right?
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"Hi, George, is it? All right. This here is morphine. I'm just
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going to give you a shot of this to dull the pain. Is that okay?"
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"Yes, yes. And you are--?"
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"My name's Doug. Here." I plunge the morphine in and get a huge
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smile. I make so many friends in this business.
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"L-listen... D-doug... I'm gonna need a little more of this stuff.
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I've got a little... tolerance... for this kind of s-stuff... a h-habit...
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understand?"
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I give George a big smile in return. "I more than understand, buddy.
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Just give me a second."
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Driving the needle into his other arm reminds me a little too much
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of myself. I take a coffee break to shoot up in the supply closet, very
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sanitary. It's not like old times. I use cotton and alcohol and a real
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tourniquet, and I throw away the needle when I'm finished. I became a
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nurse so that I could heal. That's not too unusual.
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I'm not too unusual.
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There must be guys like me all over this country. When I went to
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college, I had no direction. It was a small school. Nursing was a popular
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major. I became a nurse so that I could heal, for lack of any higher
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ambition.
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--(2)--
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Around quitting time, Phyllis showed up in my ward. She was the
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newest and prettiest nurse at the hospital.
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Yeah, that's the other reason I became a nurse.
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Phyllis and I had a dinner date tonight at her apartment; she was
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cooking. I do this a lot because I got off work too late to eat out and
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I can't cook for shit.
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"So, how are all your patients doing?" she asked.
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"If any of them could talk, I'd ask." I laughed a little. Phyllis
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didn't. She's still new to the job.
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"Now here's a real tragedy. This guy wrote a suicide note three
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pages long and then parked his car on the train tracks. You'd think
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that'd be a pretty certain death, huh?"
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"I guess so..." she mumbled.
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"Yeah, well now look at him! All burned to a crisp and crippled.
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It's amazing, you know, the resilience of life. The guy gave up on life,
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but his body wouldn't; at least not in time. Now we've got him on all
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these so-called life machines, so I guess his body couldn't give up even
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if it wanted to."
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"Dave, I think you need to calm down..."
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"Nah. I'm okay. I don't care. Let's go."
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--(3)--
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I woke up the next morning around 6:30.
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"Ah, what a beautiful morning," I said to her. "The sun is shining;
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I feel alive! Of all the euphoria in my life, nothing compares to a sunny
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day. Don't you agree, Phyllis?"
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She woke up and looked at me with dread and ten-pound bags under her
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eyes. "Dave..." she moaned, "...you are one twisted motherfucker."
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"Hahahaha!" I beamed at her. "What do you know, you stupid bitch?"
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My smile grew wider and wider still as the sunlight blazed through my
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window.
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Phyllis was livid. "How can you act like this after two hours of
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sleep? Aren't you hung over? Strung out? Dehydrated?"
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"No. Well, maybe a little bit."
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"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
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"Nothing!" I was grinning from ear to ear. I kissed her on the
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forehead. "Listen, baby. I woke you up early so that you could shower
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before I took you to work. I'm sorry I kept you up so late last night.
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I guess I'm a bad influence on you, I'm sorry. I'm a bad, bad man."
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Now she was beaming; a typical woman. She walked silently to the
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bathroom. Thank god!
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Every muscle in my body was in pain. I downed a few morphine pills
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and everything was pleasant. The sun was pleasant. I rolled a joint; not
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because I needed it, but because Phyllis did -- to take the edge off before
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work.
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Phyllis came out of the shower, naked and clean as the new day. She
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got back into the sweaty outfit she wore yesterday and we hopped in the
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car. I lit the joint as we pulled out of the driveway. Tomorrow, she
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would be with me again, only with a change of clothes. With any luck,
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she'll be making breakfast by the end of the week. I'll wake up to see
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the hollow shell of her beauty, making breakfast for her corruptor, held
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up only by the sustaining glow of the sun and by the sustenance of morphine
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and the prettiness of a breakfast that we couldn't eat if we tried. Damn
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it all. She does not deserve this. I do not deserve her.
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At least we'll be happy together. We'll be so happy with this
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life. This horror!
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I'm a bad, bad man. Why won't she listen to me? By the end of the
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week, she'll be on a downward spiral, hooked on drugs, hooked on my love,
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sleepless, hungry and lifeless. I am so fucking horrible. On the way to
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work that morning, she is stoned out of her mind and I am crying silently.
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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TO MY READERS:
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Dave (AKA kreid) here. I'm sure these sentiments are commonplace
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and implicit without me saying so... but I want you all to know -- I love
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you all; by reading my words, you fill my heart; you make me feel as if
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my life were worth living.
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Oh boy, this is sappy. Please forgive me for my
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uncharacteristically blatant display of emotion, but I want you all to
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know how I feel. It doesn't make me sad, now that h0e is dead. I'm glad
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to have been part of this clique. I consider the text files that we all
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have written together the greatest artistic movement of my life thus far.
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The scene was critical of me from the start, but never alienating ... like
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a father to me.
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Anyway, now that h0e is dead, the 'zine scene will continue on,
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I hope, as it always has, in spite of the death of the written word. I
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will continue to write because it is my passion and there is nothing that
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I can do better.
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On that note, I want to thank the 'zine scene for giving me that
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passion. It was not Hemingway or Bukowski or Dostoyevsky or Vonnegut or
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Hunter S. Thompson or Burroughs or Irvine Welsh or Ray Bradbury or Robert
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Anton Wilson or Carlos Castaneda or any of those guys that got me into
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writing. In fact, those guys are barely worth mentioning. No, it was
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Mogel, Eerie, Styx, Jamesy, Jason F., Trip, Phorce, Black Francis, Belial,
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Edicius, Hooch... well, the list is very very long. Anyway, it was these
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people who made a writer out of me. The "scene" is often what makes an
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artist, and what drives him.
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History can only inspire an artist, and while the classics touch
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his soul in incomparable, divine ways, the classics can never move a man's
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life -- can never drive a man the way his contemporaries and his loyal
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readers do.
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Anyway, I feel like I'm going overboard here. It's late and I'm
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getting really drunk as usual. Let me conclude:
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To my readers and my contemporaries: I love you and my writing will
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(obviously) continue on. Look for further chapters of my current works,
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and new work, it'll be around somewhere; I just haven't figured out where
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my future lies just yet.
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And fucking e-mail me, okay? negleyd@hartwick.edu
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-- d.
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[-------------------------------------------------------------------------]
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[ (c) HOE E'ZINE -- http://www.hoe.nu HOE #1106, BY KREID - 6/28/00 ]
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