Conjunctivitis (good ol’ pinkeye) can be a real bitch if left untreated. I say this because what began as minor irritation and swelling in my right eye transformed over a period of several weeks into a blinding white-hot nightmare in both of my eyes.
Let’s start from the beginning, or as close to the beginning as I can remember. It was late March of 2017, or April maybe, somewhere in the second quarter of that year, and I was shooting up day and night. I’d work, get home, and go out to procure as much crack as I possibly could. Somewhere in my master plan of being a cracked-out loser, I suppose I had forgotten about basic hygiene and cleanliness, and one day, or night, whenever it was, I woke up with my right eye looking a bit puffed up. It was tender and somewhat red. Now, any normal jackoff would probably have gone to a doctor and spent thirty or forty bucks, plus another ten or so for antibiotics right away, but I was far from a normal jackoff. I had real shit to take care of, like getting fucked up. Yeah, that thirty or forty bucks for the doctor? Fuck it. That was dope money. Every last dime spent on, well, anything, cut into my state of being perpetually blasted. And so it was that I simply looked in the mirror and shrugged, I mean, I was reasonably certain that my eye would improve on its own.
I was wrong.
A week later, or maybe two or four, my eye was crusted over with a thick film of yellow ichor, which had formed a sort of scab that had to be picked off every couple of hours or so in order for me to see. I would peel back this layer of crystalized pus, and as soon as I had done so, more would spill forth.
To make matters worse, the infection had now begun spreading to my left eye as well. Why wouldn’t it? I would come home from chasing rock, exhausted, and flop myself down on the same disgusting pillow I had been sleeping on (without ever changing the pillow case) and pass out in in a bed littered with chore boy and used needles, caked in dried fluid from my eye. I was in agony and could barely see.
Still, the quest for more crack continued and, half-blind and exhausted, I drove to meet my dealer. This meeting was different than the previous several. He looked at me and remarked that my eyes looked like shit. I told him I knew, and that it hurt like hell.
“Yeah” he said, “well I’ve got shit coming out of my dick. I must have picked up a dirty bitch.”
“I’ll trade you,” I replied.
“You’d rather have pus dick than pus eye? You’re crazy, man.”
I told him I meant it. I didn’t need my dick to see. I paid him, we laughed and laughed, and I drove off blindly into the night and kept shooting my dope. Eventually I did seek medical aid, but that, my friends, is a story for another day.
Towers of Rust 