The last car pulling out of the back field drew an end to the night, the last patrons of the fight club stumbling off into the shadows with broken noses and whiskey on their breath and Will watched with a careful, cold gaze as they disappeared in the blackness of the night, his own muscles releasing tension for a time. While the evening ended for those who fought as sport, his night was to continue until the early morning. Cleaning, picking up shards of glass and wiping blood off the counter tops; he was his own maid. He didn’t mind it, though, in fact he relished it, anything to get his mind off of things, busy work.
The after effects of the coke hit him like a train once the adrenaline wore off.
He wasn’t an addict, not in the normal sense of the term. He didn’t depend on it in his everyday life, he didn’t need drugs to get him through the day, but sometimes it was difficult to get into the festivities of the night, and he always hated to disappoint. It was for fun, recreational self medication to keep his guests entertained, the way it made him feel in the moment was just an additional plus, nothing more. That’s what he told himself, but as the euphoria wore off he was left feeling something sinister, the emptiness that usually greeted him once he was alone was filled with cold shakes and creeping paranoia pulling at the back of his neck, no longer feeling powerful but powerless. He looked over his shoulder constantly, checking to make sure he locked the door several times within the same hour, practically crawling out of his skin with apprehension.
He did this to himself, and in the hours following the high he always asked himself why the fuck he did it in the first place, muscle tremors and restlessness making it seem far less then worth it, but the memories where always less harsh then the experience itself. Besides, when it came down to it, who was he to refuse? He was known for physical strength within these walls, but as far as his neighbors were aware his psychological strength was still untested, but he knew better. Will had been weak at the core since the day he was born, impressionable at best, no matter how old he came to be, never really being forced to mature past that point.
Will was careful to never think about himself too much because it always upset him, spending too much time trying to figure out whether he’s a fucking phony or not, whether his personality around everyone else was real or fabricated. At night, at fight club, he really felt like a hard ass, he felt like he wanted to kick the shit out of everyone, he felt like he owned the entire fucking world with or without drugs, but he always had the underlying anxiety, that feeling that kept him up at night. The Will who would put a gun to another man’s head and the Will that smiled at pretty girls and small dogs can’t both be real, and if either of those are real, then who is Will when he’s alone? Sad, drunk, and lonely, that surely can’t be fake. Will didn’t know who the fuck he was, and when the paranoia kicked in he felt that with full force.
He scrubbed down the floor on his hands and knees, already bloody jeans getting smeared with the remnants of other fights, tonight had been a busy one, an especially violent one, a tone he knew he’d set. Will had taken to opening fight, and he’d fucked the town visitor up so bad he had to be driven to the ER, and even still he hadn’t felt bad about it, in fact he’d felt invincible. The crowd of people had taken up that energy and the staple gun was fucking abused, shattered bones, gashes, bruises that took up half of people’s bodies. It was night’s like that that really showed the animalistic nature of human beings, no better then wild animals when given the chance. Once you surpass that point of being scared to hit someone, of the fear of pain, nothing can stop you. The human jaw can snap a finger as easily as a carrot, but when you get a finger between your teeth you don’t bite down with the same casual mentality, you’re afraid, scared, but once you learn to snap a finger like that, nobody can fucking stop you. That’s what that fight club was for, and cocaine had become the snap of a finger between his teeth, that straw to break the mold, to take away the fear of being hit.
