Hello again! Hope everyone enjoyed the heat we’ve been experiencing on the east coast, a scorcher I hear. Of course I am still confined to home care. With a fully functioning A/C and a really awesome caregiving partner, I am all set to heal, bring it on, right now! Since June 18th I have had two days of which I can say I was not in pain. My health crisis (MRSA) is teaching me a little something about pain management and why its called ‘management’ . There are pain ‘levels’ and ‘types’ of pain. There are the pains that make you pay attention and the other pains that aren’t worth the Advil. My doctor says he doesn’t want me to get addicted to the pain pills. Pain pills manage the pain, they don’t get you high or buzzed or anything like that…for me anyway. What it does is it manages the way you process the pain that keeps you merely moaning in discomfort instead of screaming out right.
The pain is physical, the management is emotional and exhausting.
Screaming outright is what inspired my latest offering entitled “Morphine”. (Buy on Kindle here.) I like to compare its inception to William Burrough’s Junky and Naked Lunch except Morphine is not autobiographical in that sense nor are the characters real or even based on anyone that I know. Morphine is the emotional roller coaster ride you experience when you’re on Morphine, which is what the nurses at Woodhull had me on during my first few days after the first operation to remove my infection.
Screaming came just before the tears, unlike in the story where the tears build into screams. For instance, Archie’s love for his brothers physical perfection and the way they enhance his artistry starts outs as a homage that brings tears to his eyes, like while on the drug the pain was at a level that is a fire on low burn. As Archie’s madness increases, the morphine loses its power and the fire rises and you start to scream just as Archie’s brother begins to scream when the ‘art’ on his body is literally cut away.
One more example. My ambulance ride home from the hospital was a wild struggle over New York pot holes and rush hour traffic that had me bouncing madly about the back of the ambulance with sirens wailing. It translates into another scene from the book noted for its sheer violence and brutality, where Arthur is punched and beaten into submission such as I was in the back of the ambulance that brought me home.
There are many more instances where Morphine and reality meet, then go off in all directions, I’ve given just a few examples. Morphine is as dark a tale about sex and all its various forms that can bring out the most vile of emotions while under the influence of any drug, be it morphine or sex (as a drug) or another man who embodies it all. Maybe all that is in me as the writer and the Morphine just brought it to the surface. It took about two weeks to write the story which was started while I was on Morphine. I was downgraded to Vicaden just in time to dot the ‘i’s and cross the ‘T’s and the story mellowed out to its outcome. Dawne’s cover art captures the mood of the story brilliantly and as I look at the cover it comes back to me as I sail onto recovery.
