Sunday Scribblings, "The Plan"

The prompt over at Sunday Scribblings is “The Plan.”

“One of the most iconic lines from television history has to be from the A-team when Hannibal says, ‘I love it when a plan comes together!’ Have you ever been able to say that? Do you have a Plan? Do you need a Plan? Have you had a plan fall spectacularly to pieces? This prompt isn't just small 'p' plan. This prompt takes it up a notch with a capital P. This prompt is: The Plan. What's yours?”

Something a little different from me. I think.

The Plan

The thing about addicts and drunks? They’re to fucking stupid (or preoccupied) to know when they’ve hit bottom.
‘Cause at the bottom, that’s it. There’s nowhere else to go, but up, I guess. Most just shuffle out like a candle flame in the wind.
Some have The Gift thrust upon them.
The bottom was reaching up for us, Tommy, Marie and Felix and me, but we were too stupid to know it. Too drunk, too high, to concerned with the itchy jumpiness that next hit conjures.
We sat on filthy mattresses, stains blotting out the cheerless blue stripes, trying to form coherent speech to the plan that formulated in our jumbled, hazy minds.
Tommy was sure Delmar was holding, sitting on a ton of cash and whole shitload of smack. Dude was seriously gone, we figured, one hit away from not waking up in the ER, bagged and tagged as a ward of the state.
All he needed was a push.
And that’s where we came in.
Delmar liked his rides free, and so we pooled the rest of our funds to score. Licking our lips while our skin crawled and itched, wanting the feed in us. Trying to hold it together before Delmar got there, got fixed.
But good. For good.
Where we’d dump him at the hospital on our way to his place, waltz in, be set.
Fuckable plans, man.
He got his hot dose, drifted off, but shit if we didn’t want a bump too. Maria and Felix dropped away, too and that left Tommy and me to and haul all that dead fucking weight into Maria’s rusted Tercel.
We did it and Tommy’s panicked to the point of taking these huge gulps of air and barfs all over the dash, bile-colored liquid that’s got a stench of death behind it. I’m careening all over the place, my nose and mouth jammed into the pit of my elbow and I hit the gas and, well, I don’t remember the rest.
I’m told we rolled six times, ejecting everyone but Delmar, whose head was taken off by a stop sign, the rest of him crumpling into the Tercel’s cramped floor wells. I like to think he was dead before the sign made contact, but it really doesn’t matter anyway, not really.
Tommy lay in a heap like a scarecrow, his neck and back crushed.
Maria never regained consciousness, they said, massive internal injuries. At the autopsy, they told me, her organs had all violently migrated to the left side of her chest.
Felix officially died of “blunt-force trauma to his cranial region.”
I walked away from the wreckage, palms scraped from where I palmed the asphalt puking. Oh, and the six-inch cut directly over my heart, in the shape of a cross. They think it was caused by the rear-view mirror, but I have come to realize things.
It was an exorcism, I guess you could say, a release of demons from my heart, an emptying of the trash.
See, my Lord and Savior had his own plans for than night.
See, there’s only one way to go when you’re a junkie and a drunk and you’re lost.
You go up.
Sweet salvation. The Third Eye.
You don’t have to be a believer.
But I am.
I believe enough for us all.
Take my hand and I’ll you what God’s got planned for you.

Comments

Whoa Dude, great way to climb up from the bottom...
Donna said…
Whoa. It's definitely different. Heavy duty stuff. Wonderfully written heavy duty stuff. Wow.
Not too preachy? I wonder. I feel like I've been stuck for about a week. Not doing what I consider my A game.
Alanna Coca said…
No, not too lame. Very powerful. Great writing sir.
George S Batty said…
nothing like killing all your friends to get you back on the straight and narrow..
sundaycynce said…
Yes, powerful, Thom. I especially liked "the 6 inch cut...shape of cross...release of demons, emptying of trash." Very vivid, very powerful.
Roan said…
Not too preachy. Just right. Great descriptions, I could almost see Dude's head being lopped off by the stop sign. Great stuff!
Tumblewords: said…
Your fiction always feels like truth. Vibrant story, the imagery is overwhelmingly vivid and precise.
Stan Ski said…
When we're lost, it can take something like this for us to find ourselves.
Serena Shay said…
Powerful post, ThomG. Very vivid!
Anonymous said…
Really whoa !! it had a force within !! :)
a different take on the prompt :)

The Bigger Plan
2cats said…
I can't tell if it is fact or fiction. That is a good thing.
If it is real, you made a great recovery. You're right the Lord had other plans for you.
If it is fiction, you really know the inside brain part of an addict. I know.
linda may said…
Your character certainly dodged a bullet, but was left with the knowledge of finishing off his mates.
Daily Panic said…
this is an incredible story, very real.
the guy was left with his purpose of living the life he was given a second chance for.

It is the changes that are made for us that change us forever.
Miss Alister said…
No, not too preachy, just more of your good stuff—a good idea expressed well and written your tough way, just like I like. I’d never have guessed you were in a stuck place, but man can I identify, as you know. I got so many mental bugaboos holding me down it ain’t funny. At all. Anyway, I hope you’re well on your way toward the Esquire thing that Quin mentioned. And if you’re not, if you’re still feeling stuck, I can only assume you’ll be forced toward a new and better idea plane : )
I love the voice you wrote this with. And I agree: not too preachy. Good thing, or I'd have had to run faster than that car must have been going...
Dee Martin said…
Yikes dude! If this had been real, preachy would be the name of the main game for your character LOL. Seriously, I don't think it's too preachy and I have been feeling the stuckNESS monster lately too. Not sure if stuck is the correct term - maybe mental lethargy. If this is you writing through being stuck then look out for when you break loose!
Minnesotascottson said…
Thom,

Treading water, holding pattern, running the rat race. All variations of being stuck? The consolation: After wandering in the spiritual desert, arriving at the Promised land is all the more sweet.

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