Ultram and Me

My cell phone rings. I roll over and peer, one-eyed, at my alarm clock. 3:45 am. The phone rings again, playing some dopey tune I programmed specially for someone, but I can’t remember who. I lift it with the one hand not entangled in my velvety sheets.

“Ice Dad,” says the screen, all innocent. As if Ice Dad has any business calling me from Portugal at 3:45 am. Someone must have died, I think. I answer it.

“Hello?” I hear nothing. “Hello? Dad?” Background noise. Won’t Dad be pleased to hear his pocket called me, to the tune of $1.75 a minute, with that fancy European inclusive plan of his. I hang up, setting the phone back on the nightstand in easy reach, in case he really wanted to talk to me.

I roll over on my back, looking at the levered city shadows on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of pre-pre-dawn on Sackett St. Someone rummages through the recycle bins for deposit-worthy items. They roll away trailing a squeaky cart. A truck rolls loudly by. A giggle erupts from the last patron at the sports bar around the corner. Someone must have hung out in front even well after it closed. After a week of sleeping in the woods in a tent, all these things sound peculiar to my ear.

I’ll probably have to use the bathroom, now, I think. I do my usual woken-in-the-middle-of-the-night scan of my body to see what it says. I’m dizzy and I itch all over, says my body.

But I. Feel. Wonnnnderful!

What?

Oh, the Ultram. After giving up the one drug which ever made a dent in my pain due to its annoying side effects, (namely nausea, constipation and – shall me just say high -ness), I gave it another try last night. A week of sleeping on the ground, followed by 10 hours in the car and going back to work today just about ground me into dust. I needed a drug. Something good.

What, you don’t have to pee? I say to my still half-slumbering corporal self. Oh, maybe that, says my body. Maybe in a minute… I’m not desperate. But, um, hey Niki wake up! Did I mention I don’t hurt anywhere? I. Feel. Wonnnn-

Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don’t get used to it.

But it is Heaven. I imagine all the vastness of the universe twinkling inside me, in the new space opened up in my body between the sinews, within the joints, inside each cell, at the ends of bones. I took that pill 8 hours ago and I still feel this way. That may be a good thing or a bad thing..

Hey, Hey Niki look at this! My body rolls over to a seldom used position for sleeping because it puts too much pressure on my left hip. Wow, I think, very good, that’s impressive. And check this out! Another position. I feel like I could stay here for hours.

I scratch at another itch on my left forearm. I gave this drug up as a daily thing for everything but the itching. I’d always been so high I’d basically forgotten about the itching. Maybe I’m actually allergic to it. Maybe I feel so good I don’t care.

My body is busy luxuriating in yet another position, not because it had to but because it wanted to try out another one.

You know you’re high, right?

Hell, Yeah! I. Feel. Wooonnnnn-

Go back to sleep.

And I do, and it’s dreamless.