They turned off the train this month. The city said, Look, not my problem. City said, Hey, find another way.
So here I am: screaming, pouting, puking, stumbling through the rain, leaning on bus posts, passing out on the side of the road. The driver pulls away and I run after him, shrieking, cursing, throwing my shoe—then I gotta go get my shoe, etc.
The city shrugs. City says, Figure it out.
I rest my head on the bus window, sighing, dreaming, wistful, remembering my last train ride—those were the days. Blue rain running, trying to read something to the beat of the baby in the back watching YouTube. And the man a few seats in front of me, auto-dictating texts.
I’ve got a room for you in the hotel. On the coast. I’m coming in. / We get up on Friday morning, go to the horse races. / Care to join me? Love to see you. / That’s too bad. I feel like Jesus.
I had to call 9-1-1 on a guy the other day. He was lying still and shut-eyed outside, in front of the door to the projector booth, and then stayed that way, even when the theater audience circled around and went, Hey hey hey, and clapped in his ear.
They arrived in fire trucks and vans, holding medical briefcases—men, all men. Dressed in white and blue. The uniforms had me feeling flirty like, Hello boys. Look at all these boys here… because I called them ;)
I got a better look at the dead guy after he stood up. He looked younger on his feet. Had headphones coming out of his shirt. Had blood coming out of his forehead. Had a pair of very serious, angular eyebrows, too. The kind of brows to file taxes on time, send flowers on Mother’s Day.
What are you guys doing here? What were these brows doing down on the pavement?
For forty minutes, he tried to explain his address to the medics.
No no no, he said, no hospital. Take me to my girlfriend.
But who is your girlfriend? they asked. And where does she live?
He looked around, dazed. I don’t know.
Personally, my brows belong on the pavement. I’ve got these thin wispy balding brows that belong dead drunk in the dirt. I didn’t want it to be that way, but the brows pre-determined it.
I tried to do it different this month. No drugs, new year, no problems. I’m just a nice, normal girl who can take it or leave it.
Then I’d get out of bed and rack up some credit card debt. Take some amphetamines. Take a drink. You can have a couple drinks if the day’s long enough. And the days are long, lemme tell ya.
And the mornings are even longer.
We’re pulling out of the drive-thru. Me and the Chad. I’m waving an arm up and down in this way that’s supposed to mean: slow down, slow down. Something bad is happening.
He stops for a second and I say, Okay, and then we keep going. I rip off pieces of biscuit and put them in my mouth, focusing on chewing, on the distance between here and there. He spins a loop onto the highway. I drop the biscuit and throw up into my hands. Then I roll down the window and throw up some more, projectile-style, shooting out this great wide arc of water and bread as we merge smooth behind a silver Tesla.
He jerks us over to the shoulder. What the fuck? Are you okay?
I motion him to keep going. Drive, just drive, just fucking drive.
It’s times like these we can enjoy simple pleasures. Showers, for example.
Now: 20:37: at work: googling pictures of the internal organs; feeling sense of relief that the liver is big; feeling comforted by liver being “about the size of a football.” No clear reason, just thinking: oh, that’s good.
Now: I’ve been talking to a man in upstate New York. I’ve been talking to a man in regular New York. I’ve been talking to a man in Wisconsin. I’ve been talking to a man in Massachusetts. I’ve been talking to a man in Québec.
These are some guys I know from online. I met them online and that’s where they’ll stay. Nothing sexy. Above board. We talk about books and art. Sometimes, I read their writing. Sometimes, they read mine.
An old friend came into the theater and asked if he could send me his life story. 35,000 words.
That’s your thing, you know, he said. You like all that.
He seemed certain. I almost believed him.
You’re supposed to want to read my stuff, he explained.
Well, and yet, I said.
He sent it to me anyway, and anyway, sorry, I’m just not going to read it. I can only do that kind of thing with some distance, with the guys in Québec, and even then, rarely. You understand, don’t you?
The Chad doesn’t like me talking to these men online. Or in real life. The Chad doesn’t like me talking to any men.
But it’s not like that, I explain. And then I say—because the wine’s really working now—Sometimes I need to talk to people who share my interests. Your favorite movie’s Caddyshack, I remind him. You can’t even read.
That gets him riled him. I’m always getting him riled up. We rile each other up. Back and forth, back/forth. I break up with him. He breaks up with me...
Just kidding, he never breaks up with me.
I kiss his forehead. I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong with Caddyshack. And I’m a shit liar, we both know, but I do it all the time.
Then he’s calling from outside my apartment, drunk after his date with a stripper.
I lost my car, he said.
How’d you manage to do that?
It’s gone. They stole it.
Who?
He rattled off some slurs.
Listen, nobody stole your car.
You’re not even home, are you? he said. You’re with another guy.
You can come up, I said.
It was 11pm. I was dragging documents around on my laptop. Fixing my resume. Filing taxes.
He stared at me from across the room.
I hate you so much, he said. You’re just here. Doing your business cocaine.
Doctor’s orders, I said, making a maraca with the prescription bottle.
He passed out with his arms crossed in front of him, zombie-style. I yanked on a lamp and took a picture before he started moaning, Kill the lights, kill the lights. I killed them and looked at the picture some more. And some more since then. And then, since, more. It’s a good picture, I think. Calm, in spite of it all.
Now: I’m standing at the sink, flossing my teeth so meticulous I’m drooling, bleeding, weeping. You guys have been neglected, huh?
I swish some mouthwash around real hard and spit. Thinking to myself—a line from somewhere, something—Although vice is seldom punished, virtue is always rewarded.
I carry it on in my head like an argument… But no, see, the way I see it, vice is always punished. I don’t know about that other stuff. But vice—that’s the punishment.
fantastic
that some renaissance-ass man in that bed