Johnny Twilight spent half of each day trying to get up, the other half preparing to get up. Around 4:00 p.m., he’d do some crystal meth and grab a few Budweisers, always adding a note of reduction to his high. This long gray passage became him. He wore ruddiness; that is, he carried a baggage of dark sleepless nights, ramen noodles, and Twinkies.
I first met Johnny at the laundromat two years ago. He was with Chop Suey Marie. Even then it was too late for middle-class tragedy, or tragic white kids, for that matter. Still, when he crouched in the corner of a motel room and nodded off on a moth-eaten pillow like a sock monkey, I was overwhelmed with desire and loss. Rings filled his navel and ears. Tattoos jumped from his arms. Something hummed an obscure Texas punk tune.
Anxious and broke, I walked the motel’s bleached sidewalks. A “Vacancy” sign flicked on and off, locusts filled the trees. The air hit my shoulders, fell in a clump around my ankles.
“Johnny,” the manager said, touching me as I grabbed a free coffee. He flanked the register, silhouetted by plastic ferns and AAA signs. “There ain’t no kid worth less.”
I turned around. Johnny smiled like a half-eaten orange. Then the wreckage began.
David Ensminger was born under a plastic Missouri sun in the skinny shadows of trailer parks. He began self-publishing poetry and music zines with the help of clunky Xerox machines when he wasn't playing drums in punk bands. His work appears in underground chapbooks and journals like Extra Cheese, Subbild (Germany), Lilliput Review, Flower, and many more. He has also written for Cowboys and Indians, Thirsty Ear, Houston Press, and various zines in Europe. In 1999, he started his own music magazine, Left of the Dial, which can be found online. He teaches in the English Dept. at Western Oregon University.