Angelini - Hummingbird: Essays

this is a genuine rare bird book

A Rare Bird Book | Rare Bird Books
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013
rarebirdbooks.com

Copyright 2017 by Jude Angelini

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address:
A Rare Bird Book | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department,
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Set in Minion
epub isbn : 9781945572944

Cover art by Sage Vaughn
Illustrations by Ruby Roth

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data
Names: Angelini, Jude, author.
Title: Hummingbird / by Jude Angelini.
Description: First Trade Paperback Original Edition | A Genuine Rare Bird Book | New York, NY; Los Angeles, CA: Rare Bird Books, 2017
Identifiers: ISBN 9781945572593
Subjects: LCSH Angelini, Jude. | ComediansUnited StatesBiography. | Disc jockeysBiography. | American wit and humor. | BISAC BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts
Classification: LCC PN1992.4.A2 A75 2017 | DDC 791.45/028/0922dc23

For Thelma and Ev.
For Roger and Laura.
For the drive, for the thought, for the music, for the soul.

Contents

house calls

Im bout to take mushrooms cause the ketamines making me dumb. I thought for my new buzz I could just lay in bed, listen to music, and get gone. But when you do psychedelics you gotta make sure your shits tightyour rooms clean, your bills are paid.

I thought I was good. I wasnt.

Im in bed tripping, thinking about life.

Im pushin forty, living with my sister. Its been four years since Julies been gone. Im still single. Im snorting a gram of K a day, popping pills, running through chicks, and the girl I see the most is a twenty-three-year-old hooker. Fifteen hundred a trick but she fucks me for free.

Im thinking to myself, You might wanna girl and a healthier life, but you are what you do. And Im the fat guy shoveling cake in my mouth crying that I wanna be skinny.

When I sober up, I flush the rest of my Vikes down the toilet and dump the K. I call up all my girls and end it. Im changing; a new leaf. I even go get my own apartment.

That lasts a year.

Im at the dining table with a hammer beating a bag of ketamine. I lost all my drug connects, now Im stuck with some bullshit from Pakistan. It aint even flaky. Its granulated, like salt. Hard to blow, thus the hammer.

I pulverize it into a powder and snort it up. Its bullshit. No visuals, just dizzy. Its like Im sniffing brain damage. I should probably do some more.

The call girl texts me. I havent seen her in months. Shes coming over. I straighten up the place, put on some jazz.

She shows up, her Benz dented and dirty. Shes about thirty pounds bigger than last time, hands shaking, sweating. We go inside. I pour her a drink; were sitting at the table.

Im concerned. Whats up, girl? You okay?

She says, Im fine, its just hot in here.

I got all the windows open with the box fan blowing. I dont say nothing. Shes looking into her drink, fanning herself with her hand.

I ask, You been doing dope or anything?

She says, Nah. Not for a long time, but they still have me on methadone.

She started doing heroin when we stopped fuckingwith her homegirl, full-blown with needles. She was on it for a few months, went to kick and they put her on methadone.

I go to my room, I tell her to follow. I lie in my bed. She starts taking her clothes off.

I say, Leave em on and lie down, were not fucking.

She says, Its cause I got fat, huh?

I tell her, That aint it, you still got ass. Im just worried about you. You look sick.

Were in bed. Shes clammy and trembling, crying in my arms. They got her on 100 mg of methadone a day. Its been a year and they wont wean her off. She cant go nowhere. Shes tethered to the clinic. Every day shes gotta come in for her dose or else she gets sick.

She aint got no one to look out for her and the doc knows it, so shes gutting her, hiding behind that degree.

Her phones stopped ringing. Shes going broke. Nobody wants to fuck a fat call girl.

I say to her, Look man, you gotta pay rent and you aint got no other skills right now but fucking. You cant afford to be on this shit no more. And you prolly was doing dope cause youre miserable and shit, but you gotta get off this fucking methadone now. Its killing you. Figure out why youre sad later.

We come up with a plan: shes kicking it tomorrow, by herself. I give her some Phenibut and kratom for the withdrawals. Shell be alone in her apartment for the next month. She could use my help but this is as far as I go.

Shes on her own. We all are.

She leaves.

That was heavy.

Im rooting for her but I dont know if shell make it.

Ill text her tomorrow.

I got shit to do tomorrow. Im selling a leather midcentury armchair. I thought it was Danish cause I bought it off an old dude with a Nazi accent. Its not. Its just old. Nathans coming over with his truck at eight in the morning to help me move it.

I should go to bed, but I cant get that booty call out my mind. That shit shook me, seeing her like that. All I wanted was some ass and I ended up with an intervention. I tell myself I deserve some more drugs because of what I just went through.

I open up the drawer next to my bed, pull out a plate with the Pakistani K on it, chop two monster lines, and snort em through my left nostril cause my right ones blown out.

Im such a good friend.

Its coming on, the tingle and the vacant feeling. What the hell, lets do a couple more.

I do a couple more lines. I put on Supertramp Crime of the Century . Im at the end of the School song when Im like, I may have done too much .

This happens a lot. I do too much a lot. My head goes underwater. I leave myself. Every time, I dont know if Im gonna come back.

It feels like when I ODed on PCP. That wrecked me for months. Im still not the same. I cant remember numbers, names are harder now, I cant organize my thoughts.

In the drawer next to my bed under the plate of ketamine are instructions of what to do with my writings if I cook myself. I wrote it while I was on K a couple years ago. Andreas in charge.

Next to the instructions, theres a list of traits that Im looking for in a woman. I wrote it after the breakup. Its my girlfriend wish list. Its coffee-stained and soaked in lube.

The song ends. And for a moment in the quiet of my room, Im floatingblank, in the silence of my head. Its lonely there. The next song begins and I dont feel that anymore.

Alex texts me, Yo.

Hes going through a midlife crisis. Hes pushing forty and fucking this twenty-one-year-old chola named Bunny.

I was at his place earlier. They were having a nice, quiet night in. Bunny baked homemade pizza. Im over there talking up 2C-E and how awesome it is to fuck on. I run home. I front him four pills. He took em tonight.