The Gospel According to My Dealer

He never lied to me.

Not once. Not even when I begged him to. That was the worst part. He could look me straight in my filth-riddled eyes and say you’re not going to stop and he’d be right. Every time.

He had the calm of an undertaker and the eyes of someone who had long conversations with God in basements. Said he found the Bible in a halfway house and kept it for the jokes. Said it was a better read than most people deserved.

He told me one day, between lines,
“Jesus didn’t die for your sins. He died because people like you exist.”

I laughed for forty seconds and then cried for two hours. He gave me water. Then gave me something stronger.

He never called it by name. The product. The hit. Said naming things gave them power. Said that was how demons worked. Said that was why parents ruined children. I didn’t know if he meant chemically or spiritually. He didn’t clarify.

I asked him once if he believed in hell. He said no.

He said “Hell’s too clean. You people need rot.”

The last time I saw him, he handed me a rolled-up pamphlet with the words “Do This In Remembrance of Me” scrawled in pencil. Inside was a gram and a photograph. The photo was of me.

Smiling. Clean. Before the infection.

He said “That’s the last sermon. Don’t call me again.”

I never did.

But I kept the photo.
I needed to remember who he thought I was before I asked him to save me.