I saw the best minds of my generation splattered against their skull cages, downing Nyquil mixed drinks or quietly muttering “split this Xanax with me.” It is a hushed invitation between friends or strangers, one that doesn’t persist outside of their personal space as if they know there is something inherently wrong with their behavior. As if muttering the words too audibly would reach their mothers’ ears. Well, junkies hide behind stairwells and crackheads light up in dark, damp basements. This is no different. Wild nights saturated with alcohol and benzodiazepines. They do not understand the science behind their concoction although they know all too well the desired effect. The goal is to relax into blissful intoxication and to wake up without cranial proof of it ever happening in the first place. Frantic children running blindly trying to feel something, anything, nothing. To feel without the responsibility of remembering.
It is their modern morphine, “Xans” pronounced “Zans”, presented in the form of a rectangular, white pill divided into four small sections as if Big Pharma meant it to be shared. Xanax is often prescribed for people who are prone to panic attacks or who suffer great amounts of anxiety. Once swallowed, it takes anywhere from ten to forty-five minutes to take effect. Afterwards it renders the user, who is intended to be a person suffering from said panic attack, tranquil. Users typically report a feeling of intense calm wash over them and then it subsequently makes it difficult for the user to feel panicked for a considerable duration of time. On college campuses, Xanax is considered a party drug. Students with prescriptions often sell some or all of their pills to hungry hands, eager to pair the rectangular pills with some kind of alcohol. Upon taking this concoction, many go about their night with a permeating sensation of drunken calmness and are often prone to extensive blackout periods where the user cannot recall anything said or done during that time.
These days, Xans are washed down with a sip of whatever is in that glass. It is a Friday night. Or a Saturday. Or a Wednesday or Thursday night for that matter. Young adults, brains full benzos and booze, preying upon suburban comforts. But they are inside of a city, or at least a certain part of a city. They wander in packs like muted zombies purposely void of mental processes, claiming their territory like the dog piss so sticky and glued to that red, red hydrant. They saunter through the Arts District of Los Angeles where vows of political freedom and colorful murals litter the walls like the litter strewn across the streets. Skid Row is just two blocks away, filled with blue tents, tarps, and broken chairs. And meanwhile, the chemicals, products of pharmaceutical innovation and wheat cultivation, meet the neurotransmitters as the two fall into some kind of divine waltz. One, two, three, one, two, three. Their eyes glaze as their minds stretch outside of their skin, smoothly, reaching beyond a pile of flesh and cells and stretching into something so intimate and precious as a dream. What happens next is a mystery as they whisper farewell to themselves. “Goodbye brain, I will see you in the morning. Or soon at least.” And they dance through their various evenings, all great words and metaphors sentenced to be forgotten before the sun peaks through the mountains surrounding LA. There is a chance these youths will leave something behind--a relic, a picture, a sentence, a kiss-- like breadcrumbs sprinkled over an otherwise obstructed path. The night may end one of several ways: young naked bodies sprawled over one another, limbs engulfing the elbows of strangers or curled like a fetus, alone and under one’s own blankets. Or perhaps something slightly more sinister such as girls with knees too soft to hold up the body as they bend lovingly over a porcelain toilet, the body rejecting carefully mixed chemical concoctions. At least they found a way to stumble home, perhaps propped up by the shoulders of friends. Their mornings will be full of conversations about who can remember the least. Laughs will echo around the room as they grin through clouded headaches and tired bodies. It becomes funny.
I wonder what it is so wrong with the nights that are now deemed either too great or too horrible to be remembered before they even start. And does the problem remain inside of the people? Or the nights themselves? And are their actions and words encoded in some secret part of their brains or do they disintegrate completely, forever washed away? Perhaps it is out of anger, a rebellion of sorts against the perceived unoriginality of the world they inhabit. It is a means of avoiding one’s own cliché or the insignificance of one’s own life. After all, many things have been done before, said before, snorted before. Perhaps the thoughts inside of the modern mind are too horrific to greet in the moments reserved for pure fun and indulgence. Therefore, no one cares about what they have to say and certainly don’t care to listen. Whatever war is started, whatever brain child is born, is lost to the following day, frozen in time like their gleeful shrieks and drunken dances. Instead they numb themselves to pretend there do not exist such internal horrors and swallow the illusion that they never broke in the first place. The avoidance itself is lost, swirling and swirling with the last warm dregs of a frothy beer or down with a bitter vodka soda.