END OF THE RAINBOW

A Monologue

By Cory Zimmerman

Hmm…that’s a really funny question, “How do I like LA?”

Because I am homeless, I am fucking homeless, I am homeless in LA.

When I finally made it to We-Ho, I was like, Okay...

“Where is the gay area?”

People pointed me in the right direction. I walked over there with five dollars in my pocket, no ID, and no idea what to expect.

It was Saturday night, there were lots of people. I was just walking back and forth, and I sat down at a couple places; somebody finally grabbed me and got me into a bar; they bought me drinks, and then somebody got me into another bar. I walked right in and saw some little blonde guy…walked right up to him and started making out with him, practically fucked him in the bar.

Then, two other guys were like, “Come home with us!”

I said, “Okay!”

They lived right there in West Hollywood.

I went and had sex with them, and then I got up and left and walked back up to the strip; another guy walked by.

I grabbed him by the arm, and I was like, “Who are you...?”

We started talking, and then I went back with him to his house, got high with him on meth, and ended up having sex with him all day and night Sunday and left Monday morning.

That freaked me out a little, but no big deal.

So, there you go...I was like, damn!

That night, I went walking around in front of the bars again and ended up getting in this place where I met this kid from London, a really young guy who I thought was really cute. I took him in the bathroom, and I fucked him on the bathroom floor, and then he and I went walking around. We went to his house, and we started getting high and having sex again. I had sex with his roommate that was staying there; we were getting high, getting high, getting high, having sex, having sex, watching porn, getting high…getting high.

Later, I used their internet and got on this website called Adam4Adam… it’s fucking crazy, it’s free.

Within 5 minutes, people are saying, “Hey, Wanna Party? Wanna Party and Play…Wanna P&P?”

“Yeah, sure!”

And, then they give you their address...go there, get high, and have sex! And, so after I got done at that guy’s house, I went and met somebody at their place and got high and had sex for like 8 hours.

When we were done, I asked, “Hey, can I use your computer?”

Then I went on Adam4Adam again, found another one, and went straight to it, straight to it, straight to it, from one bed to one bed, to one bed, from Tuesday evening until Monday morning, and I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t eat for the whole period of time.

As far as drug repercussions go, this was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I remember taking off my shirt and looking down at my arms, which are usually kind of nice, sort of full, and a little worked out. When I looked down, they were like sticks, they were like fucking sticks…my arms were sticks!

And my hip bones were sticking out, my shoulder bones were sticking out, my meaty legs and thighs, they were gone, my face completely sunken in, my eyes, I looked like I was dead, I couldn’t talk, and I kept doing this stuttering thing.

I started having these horrible hallucinations. I was walking around, and everybody was saying my name, “Ricky, Ricky, Ricky...”

Everybody was screaming at me; inside of buildings, they were yelling at me; cars driving by were yelling at me; everything was moving around, and I was jumping and dunking, even though there was nobody around; it was really fucked up.

It’s…it’s really weird.

And so here I am, all brain-fried and freaked out. And because of what happened to my arms, I did something to my nervous system and my hands, like I can’t even roll a cigarette because my hands shake so badly and violently when I try to use them...violently...horribly...the tobacco flies everywhere. I can’t put my belt on, I can’t put my hands in my pockets, I can’t even put them around change.

All I have is my intelligence and personality; in this state, I don’t have either of those things; if I don’t have those, I have no confidence…I have absolutely nothing, I don’t have anything!

All I have to rely on...gone.

A week straight like this....and it was coming out of my eyes, out of my nose, out of my face, out of my pores, and I was getting these red sores all over me and shit.

You couldn’t have talked to me…even this morning, especially not yesterday…and you wouldn’t have recognized me. You wouldn’t have wanted to see me; if anybody who knew me saw me, they would not have recognized me!

I mean, it was really fucking scary. And I didn’t know if I was going to get better. But now that I look at my arms, it looks like maybe I might be coming back a little bit. And I am talking now. I wasn’t drinking anything, either.

Oh, I was also doing Liquid G the whole time, too, you know, the date rape drug, GHB.

I don’t know, I kind of feel, like, I’m going to take it on, maybe…just, the challenge of not having anything, just having to fend for myself, NOT DO CRYSTAL METH!!

I mean, I had the option to do it tonight, and I didn’t. I always have the option to. I mean, that’s the thing about me, I don’t want to now because I feel like shit, but as soon as I feel better, that’s the problem.

That’s why the guy I was talking to last night said, “Go home, go home!”

He was telling me I needed to go home!

He said, “Do not stay here! This place is just going to eat you up! There is nothing here for you!”

That’s why I say it’s a weird question…a funny question: “Do I like it here?”

I don’t even know what is up from down right now.

I have some bus tokens and all of my shit in a bag, and my bag is full.

So, now my issue is that my bag is so heavy, and because of what I have done to my arms and my body, I can’t hardly carry it.

I’m mister so strong, I can carry that thing for days.

I can’t fucking carry it now; my body hurts, my joints, my legs, my hips, and my knees are like old people’s hips and knees, and my arms, elbows, and shoulders are like…I mean, it hurts to walk.

But I know I’m going to recover now. Thank God, I thought I never would.

I guess I am either going to kill myself or not; I’m either going to kill myself or not kill myself.

Well, if I want to, I can.

So, I am really trying to plan my move here. This is just a whole different ball game, West Hollywood.

West Hollywood and the drug scene here, the gay scene, the drug side of that, like what goes on in houses outside of the bars… what’s going on in the houses and the bathhouses, is the darkest of the dark, like the darkest shade of dark on the planet, I’m sure of it…I’m sure of it. And I’ve barely peeked inside the curtain.

I am just, like, in awe of it.

If I do want to stay here, I could see myself finding somewhere to stay if I need to and then, through vouchers and programs, getting my own place.

But I’m going to be lugging it around on foot.

Yeah, it can start right now; today is like my first day of any sort of…ah…the availability of this…what this drug actually is--like I’ve done it before, I’ve done it plenty before--but what this drug actually is…is so, so fucking fucked up, like what it does to you actually, like where you go, these people are walking around in a totally different dimension, on a different planet.

And I was, too, for a week.

It’s weird because you’re functioning, not like a cocaine addict hiding behind a door or under a bed. You’re functioning, but on this meth brain, which is so fucked up. Like, you and another person standing over a garbage can talking to each other with your fingers up each other’s ass, or you’re holding a knife to each other’s throat or lighting a pipe, and it doesn’t seem weird, it’s not funny; it’s normal; it’s just happening.

There is this one house that I went to a couple of times because there is a dealer there that deals this shit, and oh my god…this friend, well, this guy I met, an aspiring actor, 39, looks a lot younger, out of his fucking mind insane, told me about it. He pretty much wanted to use me as an asset at the dealer’s house because he knew they would be into me, ‘little mister fresh from wherever,’ and they would all want to eat me up, and they would all be happy that he brought me over, and then he would be in like that.

He was trying to prepare me for this guy’s house and said, “Uh, it’s weird…”

But I said, “Dude, I’ve seen weird, I can handle weird people, so don’t worry about me.”

He’s like, “Ah…okay…are you sure? Do you trust my opinion?”

I told him, “Yeah, whatever.”

Okay, so we go…

We walk up to this apartment building in West Hollywood. Palm trees everywhere, Mercedes after Mercedes, whatever—just another blank apartment building. We go up to the second floor, go to this door, and knock on it. You hear like ten locks unlocking, click, click, click, click...

We go inside and close the door; every window is completely covered. There are red lights everywhere; everybody’s naked, everybody’s walking around with a fucking sex toy or the glass pipe they are smoking out of, and everybody is doing shit to each other. People have been up for so long and are so fucking high, and the dealer, of course, is back in his bedroom like God, he’s back there holding a hammer, this huge fucking Cuban guy who looks totally fucking insane.

Nobody thinks they’re fucked up, nobody recognizes that they’re high; it’s not like, “Oh, man, I’m so fucked up.”

You don’t say that; it’s like: this is where we are at, and this is what we are doing.

You don’t comment on it; that’s not how it is.

When you are doing this fucking shit...this drug, it’s all in your system, so people do booty bumps, where you take a syringe and fill it with water and meth. You shoot it into each other’s ass, and it gets you super fucking high, and then you can take anything in your ass; people are really into that. And then, if you have to pee, your pee is full of meth, so people like to piss in each other’s asses. People get off on weapons, like holding a knife to your throat or a hand around your neck or a chain while you are bent over a garbage can in case you shit.

So, they’re fucking you in the ass with a knife to your throat, and, then, they pee in your ass to get all the meth piss in there, and your eyes are rolling back in your head; you’re getting off on it so much.

People stay in there for so long and stay up for so long.

One guy I met was starting to fall asleep, so I asked him, “How long have you been up?”

He said, “A month, I think.”

Then he told me about this other house where he was at a sex party.

So, the guy hosting the party, who’s got all of these young guys over, is getting them all high. It’s great; everything is great.

Nobody ever tells you who has AIDS and who doesn’t, and NOBODY likes condoms…which I have been pretty good about, pretty good, not entirely, though.

Anyway, he was sitting there at this party, and suddenly someone came up to him and said, “You know who has a gun with them?”

And why do they think they need to have a gun...?

It’s their brain from this shit.

All of a sudden, you think someone’s trying to kill you or steal your shit because that really happens, or you really think that it is happening, and you think that you need to have a gun.

And so you have it, and sometimes people think they have to act preemptively before it happens.

Someone might suddenly shoot or stab you because they know you are going to kill them 100% know that you are going to kill them. That’s what is happening in their head, so that potential always exists.

So, the person throwing the party is giving everyone drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, drugs, and everyone is like, “Wow, this guy is really nice…well, as it turns out, all of the drugs, drugs, drugs were fronted to him from some guy.”

And the host, who started out with a nice job, a nice car, and a nice house, thinks he’ll make it work, he’ll make it pay…well, he’s not. He’s not making it work, and he is not paying…he’s just not.

And so, eventually, two and three couple thousand fronts later, the dealer knows he’s not going to pay, so he shows up at this party you’re at with a fucking gun and says, “I don’t care who you are, nobody’s leaving until I get my money…who’s gonna pay?”

That’s it.

“What are you talking about? I had nothing to do with this”, you ask.

But he says, “Did you hear what I said? You are not fucking leaving!”

So one person there…he hands over the keys to his $12,000 motorcycle, and he lets three people leave, and everyone else gets…gets killed, just like that.

In West Hollywood, because people out here die so much and overdose because a lot of people shot up the meth, and that makes them crazier than you could ever even imagine. Everybody is so sick of dealing with it, these gay people with AIDS, because they are all so irresponsible; they don’t stop getting high, and they don’t stop having unprotected sex.

So, you know, they just don’t care. They don’t feel sorry for them. They don’t care!

So, they don’t even report it in the news how many people die every night.

They are just like, “Let AIDS kill them all! Let them kill each other! Let them overdose; who cares? Fucking, get rid of them!”

And that is precisely what is happening.

Where does life take you, where we’re all in a room doing this to each other...?

What is up...?

What is going on...?

Is this really real...?

I can’t believe this is actually happening, that these people are here, that this is real.

I can’t comprehend it; I can’t get it.

I don’t understand; it’s too much…it’s too much for me to understand.

Where I came from, I was the bad guy, the one who was crazy. All of my friends thought I was nuts, and I’m not trying to compete with anybody; I’m not.

But all these people thought I was crazy. I was the only one who would stay up for a couple of days. I went to the bathhouse and had lots of sex with multiple people; the only one who did that. I am not even a ripple in the pond here. I cannot even begin to try, nor do I want to try to be on the same level as these people.

I don’t fucking get it.

I’m still standing here, stuttering and rubbing my eyes.

Is this really happening?

Well, I am homeless, but I’m at least good enough to…I’m not going to kill myself, I promise.

I’ll do what I have to do to survive.

But, some really young hot blonde guy with a six-pack and all of his friends want to have sex with me and get me high…you know, and probably half of them have AIDS. I don’t know, and they wouldn’t tell you if they did either, and you wouldn’t know because they all look so good. The sex I’ve had, I’ve been on the bottom because, after a couple of days on meth, I can’t get my dick hard anymore, so now all I can do is get fucked.

But, um, nobody’s come in me. So, I think I’m good.

One of my nights…let’s see…One of the people who got ahold of me and invited me over, what was his name…?

Joe, his name was Joe.

I went to his apartment in West Hollywood…he had a penthouse, the nicest apartment I have ever seen in my fucking life, like something out of a magazine, amazing artwork, all city and cool and new and Zen and huge…huge balcony looking out over the city…

HOLLYWOOD sign right there!

His room had all of these mirrors in it. I had sex with this guy, no kidding, for eight or nine hours straight of him fucking the shit out of me all over, in every position, on his bed, in the bathroom, we pissed on each other, watched porn, and he’s fucking me in front of the mirror from behind, on my back, everything, for hours, and hours, and hours, until like eleven o’clock in the morning. Then he had to go, and I went somewhere else.

He’s a producer; he’s super wealthy.

I didn’t ask until later, “What do you do?” I was looking around all of a sudden, and I was like, “Fuck dude, what do you do for a living?”

He’s said, “Oh, I’m on TV”.

But the whole time, we were smoking meth and doing liquid G, which makes you swirl, and really horny, and not care.

He said he wanted to take me to Palm Springs really soon. There is this gay hotel there where you can walk around naked. And because of my behavior and everything, he is really excited to take me there and show me off. He also wants to take me to a few other places, out of the country, to some weird places to do some weird things.

I won’t say what, but I’m sure you can imagine.

But everyone keeps warning me, “That’s the thing about the illusion of all this…there is always someone who’s in better shape than you. They look better, they’re getting higher than you, they’re maintaining it better than you, they can hold it down better than you, they’re doing it more often than you, and you are always aspiring towards that… it’s all a trick, it’s all a trick, it’s not real…it’s just not real!”

You think it is, but it’s not…it’s not real. Don’t be fooled.

The thing about this drug is you can do a few puffs and put it down, and you’ll be high for two or three days. You don’t have to keep doing it. I just kept doing it, and doing it, while I was high.

So, I totally OD’d on it; I completely fried my system beyond anything.

I have to say, though, downtown, Venice beach…nobody, no scene takes the cake, as far as total debauchery and intensity, like the fucking gays in West Hollywood.

There is nothing like that that I’ve ever seen. I always think that it’s happening somewhere in some city, like, it’s out there somewhere, and this is happening somewhere.

No, this is it; this is where it’s happening at all times, and it’s cranked up to 100 all the fucking time.

Nobody ever turns the volume down.

They say, “You are in LA…remember that! This is not a nice city. This is not an easy city.”

That is what everybody says, “LA is hard...LA is really fucking hard!”

Everybody tells me that; I even heard about places like the Gay Center in West Hollywood, places with resources and good things for the community.

It’s so fucked up, all these organizations for AIDS, everyone working there are all high on meth, and they’re all hooking up with each other and with people who come there, you know they are more fucked up than the people they are supposed to be helping.

It’s just so fucked up, it’s so fucked up, it’s beyond, beyond.

It’s all truly that…

I mean, it is what it is, but you’ll see this young, beautiful person show up, walking around, and everybody likes this person, but after a while, you just don’t see them anymore. People even stop asking what happened to them; they just disappear.

Or, you see them a few months later, only now they are walking around dying of fucking AIDS, so strung out, they don’t even know who they are anymore; it’s so common here.

I don’t know what to do…I really don’t. I can’t handle full-blast.

I can not handle full-blast!

And I can’t take just a little drink at a time, either. I got to fucking dive in, so it looks like what would happen.

I mean, in all objectivity and honesty, is that I am going to bust my fucking ass just so I can barely survive, just to get into the position where it is good enough to fuck it all up again. That’s probably what would really happen. I could pull it all together, but I don’t think I could keep it all together.

I’d throw it all away as soon as I got it, you know...?

I don’t know what to do.

Meth is just too perfect of a gay drug.

Usually, I would just go on Craigslist and find odd jobs, but I couldn’t do anything for anybody right now. I couldn’t shovel, I couldn’t carry stuff, I couldn’t perform two hours of fucking work, let alone a whole day. I couldn’t do what I usually do right now; there is no fucking way. I don’t have the body or the strength to do it.

Not to mention, if you start talking to me, if I even get slightly nervous or uncomfortable, I will lose my ability to speak. I mean, that fucking put my ass in check hard, I promise. I mean, I can usually go on the longest fucking binge I want…and at the end, I feel spent, and I feel burnt, and I feel ashamed, but I just go to bed, and I wake up, and I’m fine. I don’t look in the mirror and see that I am fifteen pounds less with chemicals coming out of every pore…and my teeth are gray, and my fucking eyes look dead, and I feel dead, and I look dead, or like a strung-out retarded person. That’s never happened to me before…ever, ever, ever.

That takes everything from me.

You know, why not just live with the consequences of my own stupidity for a change?

Well…there is nowhere to run. I can’t depend on my looks because they will run out really fast, and if I don’t look good, people will not let me come over and do it for free with them anymore.

No, because they want my muscular body to come over to have sex with me; they don’t want my strung out fucking glazed over fucking eyes and my fucking stick arms, fucking asking for another hit over there. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…you know, I can’t handle it. I cannot; I don’t have the resources…I don’t have the cushion to fall back on. I don’t have a support group out here. I can’t fuck up.

You know, hanging out…hanging out with my sister sounds really nice right now...

And I’ve decided that thinking about the future, which may or may not be there, is a lot more fun than living in the one I thought I wanted and created.

I hate being a failure, but also, it’s like, I don’t feel like I can scratch the…you know, scratch the…well, go to LA and see if you like it, and if you don’t, you can at least say, “Hey, I went.”

But I don’t feel like I did…I feel like…ah…I guess I did; what am I talking about...?

Even now, I find myself thinking all by your own willpower, NOT do drugs, and go through what it takes and fucking pull your shit together; this is what my stupid self is telling myself: Ricky, you owe it to yourself to fucking not fall flat on your face and just run home, you owe it to yourself to...you know, to survive on your own, entirely on your own, on your own resources, by what you can come up with. Not by someone else wiping your ass for you because you party too much.

I found this card from my mom while I was going through my shit…I was looking at it, it said smile on it.

I opened it, and it said, That’s what I do when I think of you!

I’m reading this...I can barely hold the card because my hand is shaking so badly.

Then it said: I hope everything is going well for you. I am so proud of you. Please keep playing your music, smiley face J, call me when you can! Ricky, you will always be right here in my heart every day, all day! I love you and take care. Hugs and kisses, MOM.

He, he, he…well, I guess I’m at the end of the rainbow.

Yep, it is the epitome, the end, and the bottom without a bottom, the bottomless bottom, of just falling, falling, falling...∆