Love & Happiness

THE SNAKE RUN.

There were snakes living in the ditch at the end of the block. I never saw them, but I knew they were there. Why wouldn’t they be? There were albino raccoons. Of course there were snakes.

Copperheads, the neighbors said. Don’t play in the ditch, the damn snakes will bite your ass and then you’ll be in for something you don’t want to know a thing about.

Okay then.

But of course, we played in the ditch. We all did. And not just that one, either. All of them. If there was a ditch nearby, you can bet for damn sure we were in it. And up to all sorts of shit, too.

The ditch with the snakes, the one at the end of the block? There wasn’t much to do in that one. It was shallow, about two and a half feet deep at best. A small thing that fed into a pipe about as wide as your arm, only there to keep the street from flooding in the rains. We used it as a cut through, a way to skip the long way around to the Taco Bell. When you’re young, nothing beats a shortcut.

The other ones, at least the other ones that we were in the most, were the ones just behind school. Those were bigger, deeper, with tunnels you could walk through, heading into the dark – on one end into the who knows where. On the other – into the zoo. It was the way into the zoo that we explored the most, climbing down the concrete walls, sidestepping the thread of water running at the bottom of the ditch and cutting under a few streets until we were inside the city zoo, separated from whatever was above by towers of chain link fencing topped with razor wire. It was all we could do not to climb up and try to find a way to break in, which of course we did, and at times, succeeded at. There was always that one place where the fence would give, or a corner joint where one side of the fence would cut you and the other wouldn’t. But it wasn’t really about going to the zoo, it was about the challenge of breaking into the zoo just to do it, of following the ditch through the tunnel, under the roads, finding the right place in the fence, watching out for adults, security, police, and just doing what we all knew we shouldn’t have been doing just to do it.

So there was that. The zoo thing.

And then there was the sex stuff. Of course. When you’re young and a boy, running with a bunch of other boys and maybe one or two girls, there’s always the sex stuff. There was the porno in the ditch. There was always porno in the ditch. Stacks of magazines left by God knows who so we could find them, soggy with rain, and learn a thing or two about tits, pussy and ass, or at least the airbrushed kind. It was a thrill, the centerfolds, and we would fight over our favorites and who would get to take which one home. That was a thrill.

Or the girls in the ditch. One or two, pinned against a concrete wall in one of the tunnels, hands over their heads. Hot and heavy as you rounded the bases. Stolen moments in the dark, with no one around to see if the girls were pretty or not. Not that it mattered then. It just mattered that they would go down there and let you do things to them that everyone knew shouldn’t be done. Not at that age. Not in that ditch. Not with those damn snakes. B.

JESSICA.

“Have you ever been to jail?”

He looked up at the ceiling, at her, and laughed – at the mirrors, at the question and at himself. He sucked on his cigarette enjoying it like a slap in the face.

“No.”

“No?” She leaned over to trace the tattoo on his back with her hand. “My baby’s daddy is in jail.” She says this almost to herself. “He gets out next month.”

“Hm.”

He ground his cigarette into the ashtray and looked out the window. Morning was breaking bright now, just beyond the airfields. The room was grey. He looked at the matchbook in his hand: Welcome to the Tropicana Hotel & Casino: The Way Vegas Was Meant to Be. He’d gotten a kick out of that when he’d checked in, but considering the room – thick and seedy, with a hot tub within spitting distance of the bed, a bamboo bar, and a shower outfitted with steam jets like something lifted wholesale right out of a retro RV – and the situation, he wondered if it might be true.

He turned to her. “Has anyone ever told you you look like Jessica Alba?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” She was naked, stretched out on the bed behind him, running her finger up the inside of his arm. “Do you like her?”

“Jessica Alba?” He laughed again. “Sure, yeah. She’s Jessica Alba.”

She sat up and pulled him toward her, wrapping her legs around him. She was a professional with a body built to get paid. But this wasn’t work. This was play.

“Would you like to call me Jessica?” she whispered in his ear.

He put his hands under her ass and lifted her onto him, cutting her like a hot knife. She inhaled.

“Would you like me to?”

She put her face on his cheek. “I’d like it if you would.”

He pressed deeper. “If I would?”

“Mmmhmm.”

He grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her head back so he could see her eyes, green and shaded. “What if I don’t want to call you Jessica?”

She bit her lip. “What if you don’t?”

Her head struggled a bit in his hand, like a fish on a line. He held tight. Steady. Firm.

He pushed into her and pressed his face into her cheek, his mouth in her ear. “Tell me,” he said, “tell me what you want me to call you.”

He pulled harder.

“Call me,” she said, “call me whatever you want.” She threw her weight back into him, diving deeper, driving him into her. “I want you to call me whatever you want.”

He put his other hand on her throat and watched the blood flood her face. Her body tightened. She felt the pressure in her eyes. She thought of her husband.

“I want to call you bitch,” he said. 

When he stepped outside the Venetian all he could think about was how silly the girl was that he’d left upstairs. She wasn’t a random, exactly, but she was still an unknown, a passing acquaintance he’d met a few weeks ago in New York who’d just happened to be in Vegas for the same conference that had brought him back to town. He’d liked her then but now he wasn’t so sure. And whatever had happened up in her room hadn’t helped.

“Girl, I don’t really get this,” he’d said, working to disentangle himself from her legs. She’d looked dumbstruck.

“What do you mean, you don’t get this?”

“I’m just saying, you have me up here, get damn near naked, and now you’re telling me to chill.”

She’d curled into the corner of the couch and crossed her arms with a pout, like a child put in time out.

“Chill?” She’d brushed her hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear. “Nick, what do you expect, that I’m just going to fuck you? Like that? Tonight? We just met.”

“I don’t know what I expect, miss.” He’d thrown on his white tee and gotten up to collect his hat. “But it’s not this. This isn’t fresh.”

He’d looked around the room, making sure he had everything while she’d stared at him from the couch.

“It’s cool, though.” He’d pulled a cigarette from his pack and stashed it in the corner of his mouth. “You’re wasted. You’ve got a busy day ahead of you, and I’m beat anyhow.” He’d put on his hat. “It was fun, though. Good luck tomorrow. We’ll see each other when we get back to New York.” And then he’d crossed the room, kissed her on the cheek and left her sitting there, arms crossed, as he’d walked out the door.    

Fucking retarded, he thought, lighting another cigarette. The cab line was slammed and he stood under a heat lamp about 20 back, flipping through his phone. It was a Friday night in Vegas and the energy gave him a rush. Everyone around him, the white girls in four inch heels and micro skirts, the Gs sliding into Bentley coupes at the valet, the meatheads falling out of the stretch Hummers barreling up from the strip, they were all looking to lose their minds. And he was into it. He was ready.

He shot off a text. Ayyo. What it do?

His phone lit up in his hand. Bout to head to Laces. You done with ol’ girl?

Yeah, man, that shit was a bust. What’s at Laces?

Jeff’s throwing a party. We’re gonna get bottles and a table. Come thru!

Already.

Plan set, he slipped his phone back into his pocket, tossed his cigarette and slid into a cab.

You bailing on me, girl?

It was the fourth text he’d shot her way since he’d gotten back to his room. He was down to his last two cigarettes and the sun was threatening to turn last night into another forgotten dream. Fucking typical, he thought. After all of that, she’s not coming through.

He laid back and lit another cigarette, staring at himself in the mirror above the bed. He thought about texting her again. No, I should call, he thought. No, no I shouldn’t. She’s either coming or she’s not, but if I keep blowing her up all I’m going to look is desperate and that’s not what she’s looking for. Not at all.

He stood up and walked over to the window worried that if he lay down for too long he might fall asleep. Outside a wash of sky and desert, milky white. He could see the planes across the highway beginning to stir.

His phone rang in his hand.

“Nick?”

“Hey, miss.” He exhaled a cloud. “I’d started to give up on you.”

“You’re at the Tropicana?” She sounded nervous. He wondered if she was alone.

“Yeah.”

“I’m here.”

“Really?” He turned from the window and searched the room for his shirt. “Um, okay. Where should I meet you?”

“You tell me.”

He tried to think. “Um, well, the lobby’s huge… I’m in the… Um, I don’t know where I am. One of the wings…”

He heard her silence. I’m losing her, he thought. Fuck.

“Uh, I know there’s a long moving sidewalk to my wing,” he said. “You want to look for that?”

“A moving sidewalk? Um, yeah, okay.”

“Okay. I’m coming down now. I’ll call if I don’t see you.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” He paused, trying to judge her silence. “You’re not going to disappear on me, are you?”

“No, I’m here. Just come.”

“Alright, cool. I’m on my way down now.”

“Okay.”

He hung up his phone and pulled on his shirt. He found his hat and did a quick inventory as he checked himself in the mirror. Condoms and cigarettes, he thought. I need condoms and cigarettes.

“You’re cute,” she purred in his ear.

He looked around him, at the black walls, the dancing blue lights, the satellite tables, the stage and the poles. Yes, he was in a strip club. Yes, she was a stripper. Yes, he was drunk.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he said. And she wasn’t, as far as strippers went. Five-foot seven or so in heels, blonde, athletic, with a tight body tucked into silver thong that shimmered with every move. She put her hand on his chest.

“I like your accent,” she said. “Where are you from?”

He smiled and took a sip of his Jack and Coke. They always liked his accent.

“New York,” he said.

“Oooohh! A New Yorker! I love New Yorkers!”

He glanced at his boy. Chris had been right about Laces, even if it was just another party at another strip club just off the Strip. They’d gotten a table, they’d gotten a few dances and they’d gotten bent, and within an hour the Venetian had disappeared from view. Besides, the scenery in Vegas was always top shelf, especially on Fridays. It takes a pro to shake a millionaire down and Laces had a few.

Not that Nick minded the game. He was simply aware. There’s no sex in the champagne room, he reminded himself. It was all a charade.

But still.

She turned to the girl with Chris. “He’s so hot!”

Chris raised his glass in his direction with a sloppy grin. Nick laughed. What a scam, he thought. He knew where he was. If he wanted a dance, he’d let the girls know. But this one was different. She was engaged in a way he’d never seen. Her eyes smiled when she looked at him as if she knew a punch line she couldn’t wait to share. And that the best part was that tonight, of all nights, the joke wasn’t on him but on the whole room, on the whole absurd situation on life itself.

She leaned into him. “I like you,” she said.

He looked at her, hoping to draw her out.

She ran her lips up his neck and pressed her mouth into his ear. “I want you to fuck me,” she whispered. The room went silent and Laces disappeared. They were alone in the desert under the stars. Heat. Sex. Life. Death. It was all there then in her and in him and it was theirs alone. “Do you want to fuck me?”

The music flooded back into his ears. He felt the bass in his bones. The lights played across his eyes. He heard drinks being poured and saw the girls on stage. He saw Vegas and Bentleys and money clips and little girls put in corners in hotel suites. She pulled back and looked at him, searching his face to see if he was that kind of man. To see if he was ready to take the bait. To see if he was ready to take her.

The act hung in that moment between them, fresh and foul.

He could smell her cheap perfume, strawberry shortcake, like every stripper he’d ever known. He put his hand on her waist touching her for the first time. He could feel the cocoa butter on his fingertips. She wasn’t real. She was a mirage.

He put his mouth next to her ear. “Yeah, girl. I’d fuck the shit out of you right now.”

She smiled. “Good.”

She stepped back.

“I can’t leave until the end of my shift. What’s your name?”

“Nick,” he said.

She stuck her hand out, palm down, like the belle of a ball. “Nick, I’m Elise.”

He took her hand. “What time do you get off?”

“Five.”

He pulled his phone from his back pocket and looked at the time. The red light blinked. He had new emails. It was three.

“So, um, what do we do now?” He asked, taking a sip from his drink in the hopes of somehow grounding the situation, even if just in the familiar taste of Jack. “I guess I should buy a dance?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.” She turned to Chris.

“He’s going to buy a dance. Do you want one?”

He looked at the girl in front of him and shrugged. “Sure.”

Elise took Nick’s hand in hers, pivoted on her heels and led him to the private room where a neon sign - Champagne Room - blazed above the door.

She was wearing sweatpants, and he couldn’t help but think the whole thing was classic. The post-shift dressed down stripper. Once she was no longer shilling fantasies, didn’t Tinkerbell always become white trash? Not that he gave a shit. He sat on the bed watching her dress. She was real and tonight she had been his.

“That was fun,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

The sun was high now, setting the room ablaze.

“Yeah,” she said, looking at him as she picked her shirt off the edge of the hot tub. “It was.”

Her phone vibrated on the bedside table and she walked over barefoot to pick it up.

“You’re a popular girl in the morning.”

“It’s my baby’s daddy,” she said. She pressed a button to shut it off and threw it in her purse. “He always freaks out when I don’t answer the phone.”

She sat down next to him on the bed and took the cigarette from his hand.

“You were funny when you came down to meet me,” she said. “Um, I think I know you…?”

She laughed. He did, too.

“I was worried I wasn’t going to recognize you. I’d only seen you in the club and I’d been drinking, and you know, you had clothes on…”

She handed him the cigarette and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “I’m glad you found me,” she said into his ear.

She stood up.

He thought of her on her knees with his belt around her neck. “Me too,” he said.

He put the cigarette out and got up to see her to the door.

“When’s your flight?” She was stalling, not wanting to go.

“In about an hour and a half,” he said. The room was a wreck. “And I have to pack and check out and get to airport and all of that.”

He reached around her and opened the door.

“Do you come to Vegas often?”

“Not really,” he said. “Sometimes.”

“Well, you have my number,” she said. “You should call me sometime.”

He put his hand on her waist, hooking his thumb through the band of her thong. “You, too.”

She kissed him hard as if they’d never meet again, as if this moment now was all they had. Her desperation turned him on. He pulled her back inside, led her to the bed, turned her around, bent her over and stripped off her pants.

Once inside, he pulled her head up by her hair so she could see him standing behind her in the mirror climbing the wall.

“Look at us,” he said.

She smiled. He tightened his grip, raised his hand above her and then he hit her again. B.

ECSTASY.

When he stepped into the cab outside the Venetian, all he could think about was how silly the girl was he’d left upstairs. She wasn’t a random, exactly, but she was still an unknown, a passing acquaintance he’d met a few weeks ago in New York who just happened to be in Vegas for the same conference that had brought him back to town. But that was about where the excitement ended. He liked her, or at least he thought he did. But whatever had happened up in her hotel room had certainly cooled the whole situation. He just didn’t get it. Why the hell would she invite him back to her suite, strip down to a tee and panties and then brush him off with a few kisses and an attempt at being coy. It was a tease. And it was lame. And he’d had to leave. 

So he’d made a break. Something about, Girl, I don’t really get this, but you’re wasted, you’ve got a busy day, and I’m kinda beat anyhow so I’ma skate, paired with a kiss on the cheek and the collection of his hat and he was out the door, free to figure out whatever else might happen before dawn broke without having to worry about her.

He knew there was a party going on at Laces, so there was that. This guy he knew was promoting it, so when John had hit him and said he was headed that way as well he knew the night’s next move was set. But that still hadn’t prepared him for this.

“You’re cute,” she purred in his ear. He stood in the middle of the Laces floor, next to another dude from New York he only knew so well, bullshitting and surveying the scene. Well, that’s what he had been doing before she and her friend had shown up. It was dark and he was already a little slurred, but he could make out some things: she was about four inches shorter than him, blond hair, smooth skin, with curves. And she was leaning into him, pulling on his collar, and trying to get him to talk.

“I like your accent,” she said. “Where are you from?” He glanced at his boy, who stood to his left, in the ear of the friend.

“New York.”

“Oooh, I like New Yorkers.” This was a scam, he thought. She’s going to ask for money. Soon. He knew it and he hated the act. He knew where he was. The way he saw it, if he wanted a dance, he’d just let the girls know. Otherwise, he’d rather be left alone. But this one was different. She was laying it on and if it was an act, it was a damn good one.

“I like you.”

“Oh yeah?” He was trying to play along or to play it off, but at this exact moment, he wasn’t sure which. Where was this going?

“You’re not so bad yourself,” he managed.

“Oh, you like me?” She batted her eyes, bent a little in the knees and put her hand on his chest.

She turned to her friend. “He’s so hot!”

She was ridiculous, but that still caught him off guard. In all of his times in strip clubs, the act had never gone quite this far. She leaned into his ear.

“I want you to fuck me,” she whispered. “Do you want to fuck me?”

The directness was stunning. They’d been talking for maybe five minutes, ten tops. His hand was on her waist. Her bare skin felt like cocoa butter and she smelled like a bottle of synthetic strawberries. He was always telling women that he hated the game. That he hated being in situations where they both knew what it was but some idea of social decorum kept them from saying what was on their minds or doing what they both knew so needed to be done. If you want to fuck me and I want to fuck you, we should just fuck! It was a line he’d found himself saying more times that he’d care to admit, but he believed it. Really, what the fuck? Who was there to judge?

But still. This? This didn’t happen. Strippers didn’t just hit on you without a motive, especially not strippers in Vegas. Especially not strippers as bad as this. But everything told him that was what was happening. It felt like that was what was happening. It felt like that really was all that she was after. That for whatever reason, she wanted to get out of Laces, with him, get naked, and go at it. Now.

Whatever it was, he knew this was the moment that would decide it all. Her breasts pressed against his chest. Full. Soft. His hand, on her back, was inches from her ass. His dick against her thigh. “Hell yeah, girl,” he said into her ear. “I’d fuck the shit out of you right now.”

“Good,” she whispered back. She pulled her head away from his neck to look him full in the face. She was smiling. She moved her hand from his back to his arm. “I can’t leave until the end of my shift. What’s your name?”

“Nick.”

She looked at him, still smiling. “Nick, I’m Jessica.” She stuck her hand out in mock formality and they shook hands.

He slipped his phone out of his back pocket and looked at the time. It was getting close to three. “What time do you get off?”

“Five.”

“So… what do we do now?” She stared at him. “I guess I should buy a dance?”

“Yeah, let’s do that,” she said. She turned to her friend.

“He’s going to buy a dance. Do you want one?”

He looked at his boy. He shrugged. “Sure.”

Jessica took his hand in hers, pivoted on her heels and led him to the private room. Nick followed, watching her hips, staring at the silver bikini shimmering in the club’s blue lights, two thoughts swimming through his mind: damn, she’s bad, and that whole exchange was a set up. It had to be.

THE CALL.

It’s almost 3 AM when she steps outside. The stairs had proven tricky, the metal not really agreeing with her heels, but she’d made it and it felt good to be in the cool, crisp air. The street was quiet, save for the occasional cab, and she took a moment to collect herself. Tribeca. Chruch Street. Yep, she knew where she was. All seemed in check.

She reached into her purse, a tiny thing, just under the width of her hand, and found her phone. God, she hoped he answered. It’d been nearly two years since they started sleeping together, her an intern, him some senior executive of some sort - after all this time, she still wasn’t completely clear on what he did, exactly - but it’d been months since they’d last been together. It had been fun then. He’d called, sober for a change, and cabbed it all the way out to the apartment her parents had bought her when she’d graduated from UMass. He never came to Jersey. She’d considered herself special as he held her against the wall and fucked her like a whore.

She’d been drinking for hours and she thought about what she would say when he picked up. She wouldn’t have to say anything, really. He would see her number on his phone and he’d know what she wanted. They never talked for any other reason. Or, if they did, it was always some poor excuse for a date, feigned just enough to make it all seem okay when she was apologizing repeatedly as he panted behind her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sor-…!!!”

Maybe she shouldn’t call, she thought. Maybe she should just text. Something witty, like, Looking for trouble? Or maybe something slutty. Something completely outside of her character like, I’m sorry I’m not on my knees now with your balls in my mouth. Ugh. That’s gross, she told herself and dismissed the thought. No, she’d just call. It’s simpler. And maybe he’d be in the city and they could meet up for a drink before they went back to his place. He was always rougher when he’d had a few. It made him more fun.

The wind picked up and she realized she’d left her jacket inside. Fall was coming and it was getting cold. A little too cold for this skirt. Better make it quick.

She pulled up his number from her contacts and hit call. It was ringing. And ringing. And… voicemail. She hit end and looked at her phone: 2:53 AM. He couldn’t be asleep. He never was. Not on a Saturday night. Not for her. She tried again and again the line on the other end rang. And, once again, she got the voicemail. An automated message telling her that the person at this number was unavailable and that she could leave a message at the tone. She couldn’t even get the satisfaction of hearing his voice. Fucking dick.

She looked down at her phone, hit end and slipped it back in her purse. She thought about the guys she was with. Friends from college and friends of friends from college. Typical northeastern boys with their typical conversation and their predictable lays. Them on top, asking her if she liked it. “Do you like it? Do you like it? Do you… ?” Making her make them feel good instead of taking it for themselves. Just thinking about it made her tired. Oh well, tonight she’d have to make it work. She didn’t have a choice.

Resigning herself to the situation, she pulled her skirt tight, straightened her top and checked her hair in the window of the storefront next door. Then she stepped inside and eased her way down the stairs ready for whatever lay below. B.

THE KNIFE.

It wasn’t as if he needed a knife. He didn’t.  He didn’t hunt. He didn’t fish. Hell, he didn’t even really open boxes. At least not often.

And yet, here he was, kneeling in front of the glass case on the second floor of Paragon looking over the selection of buck knives trying to find the blade that spoke to him.

“Can I see that one right there? The black-on-black?”

Collin shifted in his feet as the young guy in the red polo behind the counter unlocked the door of the case and waved his hand over the knives on the second shelf.

“That one,” Colin said, tapping the glass. “Nah, to your left. Yeah, that one.”

The knife hit the top of the display case with a heavy clink. Colin reached to take it in his hand.

“That’s black steel, blade and handle,” said the clerk. “It has a spring-assisted opening mechanism”—he pointed at the small steel knob extending from the blade—“and a thumb lock that you push to the side to release when you want it closed.”

The knife had the weight of a roll of quarters in his hand, and the cross-hatched, textured handle grip gave it the feel of something he imagined a Navy Seal keeping close. He thumbed the knob and the 3-inch blade quickly snapped into place. The sharper edge was traced in silver, a highlight rising along the serrated bottom third and then arcing to the point like a lunar eclipse lined in chrome.

“It’s nice, “ Colin said, trying to wrap his head around the idea of holding a hands-on killing machine in the heart of his palm. As he struggled to finger it closed, the clerk leaned across the counter and showed him how to move the locking bar out of the way and bring the blade back home.

“How much is it?”

Back on the street, Union Square buzzed with the energy of an early fall evening.

“So, did you find one?” Fisher asked. He’d waited outside while Colin had run his bizarre errand, shooting off text messages and watching the women walk by rushing to wherever they’re always rushing to.

“Yeah,” Colin said, shoving his fists into the pockets of his Nike windbreaker, his left hand gripping the Kershaw tight. “Where you headed?”

“I’ve got to go meet Kathy for dinner, think we’re going to Houston’s,” said Fisher.

“Ha! Houston’s! You love that place.”

“Yeah, man, you can’t fuck with the veggie burger.”

“Psshh!” Colin laughed. “Cool, though. I’ll walk with you to Park.”

The two friends cut across Broadway and headed east along the north side of 17th Street, talking work as they walked through the pools of light splashing out of Pet Supplies Co, Barnes & Noble and Rothman’s. It was a good time to be them. Still just 24, they were young, rising stars, both already established in publishing and quickly becoming experts in their field. They had a little paper in their pockets and plenty of years left to muddle their way through life before muddling became a liability. Like the city rushing around them, existence brimmed with excitement and opportunity, change for the better always seemingly just a block or two away.

The traffic snarled at the corner of 17th and Park, a tangle of cabs, club girls, businessmen, and ill advised left turns. Colin leaned against the building housing Rothman’s and lit a cigarette.

“I can’t believe I just bought a knife, yo,” he said, looking at Fisher.

“Yeah, you’re fucking nuts.” 

“You want to see it?”

“Sure.”

Colin took the knife out of his pocket and handed it off.

“Yep, that’s a knife,” Fisher said, handing it back. “You really think she’ll be into it?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Colin said, taking the knife back in his left hand, clutching it tightly and returning both hand and blade to his pocket. He took a drag from his cigarette. “I mean, I hope so. Shit, I just bought it, didn’t I?”

“True,” said Fisher. “You gonna see her tonight, or…?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe? If not tonight, prolly tomorrow, but I figure I’ll see her tonight.”

“Aiight.” Fisher looked north up Park. “Well, look, I gotta skate. If I’m late there’s no way I’m having sex tonight, and it’s been days, so…”

“I hear ya, sir.” Colin stashed the cigarette in the corner of his mouth and extended his hand, his eyes squinting against the smoke. “Well, good luck with all that. Tell Kathy I said whassup. And if nothing else, enjoy the veggie burger!”

They exchanged pounds and Fisher turned up the block. Colin took one last pull from the square, flicked it on the sidewalk, and raised his free hand to hail a cab.

THE WASH.

The cities bleed together like cheap watercolors. The red of Vegas, the black of New York, the orange of LA - all melting into a muddy brown.

I drink to spike the hues. Wasted in London (electric blue), hammered in Milan (tangerine), destroyed in Miami (incandescent pink and yellow), at a conference, with a stranger, skinny dipping in the Atlantic, arguing with a hotel employee by the pool, raiding the minibar, and fucking to fuck tomorrow. Portland and quarter strip clubs, Vegas and random strippers, Memphis and everything. It’s all the same: racing to feel alive by racing to die.

I’m smoking cigarettes. Everywhere. A rapper I know tells me I should quit, it’s gonna kill me. I tell him someone has to and he laughs.

At times I think I need to get on my Michael Jackson shit. You know, start with the man in the mirror? And then I’m back in Brooklyn, and the man in the mirror is trying to kill me.

“It’s been one hell of a year,” I tell John. I’m sitting on his fire escape. The sun is setting over Manhattan. It’s summer. Houston St. lays below me. I kick the cigarette onto the sidewalk. I’m pretty sure, though not positive, that no one was hit.

“Yeah, man,” he says, climbing through the window. He’s made bloody marys. They’re weird. They contain antipasta. More importantly, they contain vodka. I want thirty of them. “You really dwell on shit,” he says when he’s settled. “I don’t get it.”

He looks over the city he loves. I look over the city I hate, but remain fascinated by. The women alone are enough to keep me engaged.

“I don’t know, man,” I say. And I don’t. But now that I’ve said it, I feel like I need to complete the thought. “I just feel like I haven’t done anything. Or…” I trail off.

He watches the sun fall.

“I just wanted to do so much,” I continue. “Nothing’s worked out, really. Now I’m just working. I never wanted to come here just to work. I can work at home, make less, and live just as well.”

“What is with you, bro? You’ve got a good job. You’ve done well for yourself. You’re in New York!”

As if his enthusiasm says it all.

I’m in another bar. It’s late. I’m in another fight. Bouncers don’t like me. I don’t like them because they lack respect. Maybe it’s because I don’t respect myself.

Hours later I wake up in Brooklyn. I think I have a broken hand. In fact, I’m sure of it. And I hate myself even more. John shows up and rather than going to a doctor, we go to a bar. In fact we go to several. The next morning, I wake up in the bathtub. The bath is full. The water raining down, no longer even warm. It’s Monday. It’s 6:30 A.M. There’s no way I’m going to work. And yet I still don’t make it to the doctor.

It’s fall. I’m depressed. Perhaps clinically. There’s a girl at my house. And a bay window on my wall. I think about jumping. A running leap, shattering the glass and reaching for the skyline before crashing into a crumple on the brick tiled balcony below. I tell her because I want to feel her touch. I don’t even like her. I just want to feel important to someone other than myself. And the frustration I feel with myself in that moment makes me feel even worse.

To balance the scale I take her into the bathroom, put her in the tub and shave her overgrown bush with the same clippers I use to cut my hair. It doesn’t make me feel any better but it does make me feel accomplished. I assume she’s been abused. I ask. I was right.

This is not a life. This is the absence of it. This is the audacity of despair, a soliloquy of chaos for a forsaken culture full of forgotten souls with no one to blame but themselves. B.

A STORY.

Not too long ago, I was on a date. And it was going poorly.

The woman was one I had known for a few years and we’d been sleeping together pretty much ever since the night we first met. She was a good girl and a heavy drinker. We had had some crazy times. Long story short, she had always wanted more than I had been willing to give and as soon as that became clear our time together followed a familiar pattern: We’d see each other sporadically. We’d fight. Then we’d go home together drunk as all hell and fuck the pain away. Breakfast would suck, her feeling guilty and resentful but still clinging to the idea that letting go would hurt even worse, and me simply trying to make it through the morning with a woman I liked well enough, yet not actually Enough, and a hangover that made me hate life. We’d share an awkward good-bye. And then some months down the line, we’d run into each other again and repeat.

On this particular afternoon we were huddled up at a two top in the back corner of a wine bar on the Upper West Side. It had been nearly a year since we’d last seen each other and we’d gotten together for what we had both thought would be an innocent lunch. Several hours and multiple bloody marys later we’d fallen into our third bar of the day, ostensibly so she could get out of the cold and take a leak but really we both just wanted to double down and keep the ball rolling.

The wines by the glass were quickly adding up and it wasn’t too long before I was on my fifth pint. I think it was a Pilsner. Anyhow, the floodgates were open. She’d complimented my beard. I’d countered with a compliment of my own and upped the ante with a fumbling pass that played right into her hands. Twenty minutes later, I was still dodging darts aimed at my character and only doing such a good job, at that. It was getting old, I was getting tired, and if it hadn’t been for our long history I would have walked out and left her drunk ass dismissed and forgotten a long time ago. But as it was, on this go around, I wasn’t quite ready to give up the game just yet. I ordered another round and a silence settled over the table.

“Tell me a story,” I said.

The drinks arrived and she took a sip. I’m not sure what she was drinking, I’d missed it on the menu. I think it was Italian.

“You tell me a story,” she said. Her lips were stained a dark purple, her teeth the same. She had a habit of waving her hand when she talked, as if she were hurrying the conversation along. She was Southern and I’d always felt there was something genteel about the gesture.

Her hand fluttered. “You’re the one who likes to tell stories.”

I looked at her and then at the beer. I took another sip and turned my attention to the small, abstract watercolor hanging on the wall next to our table. It was selling for $900. I wasn’t impressed.

I looked back at her. She sat across the table, glass raised to her chin, staring at me from behind her thick prescription glasses. She teetered a bit as she looked at me, as she often did when she drank. I was frustrated. And I felt attacked, both personally and by the demands of the conversation.

And so I began.

“So I grew up in the middle of Memphis, in a neighborhood called Midtown, right behind an all girls’ Catholic high school.”

“Of course you did,” she said, her sarcasm ripe with wine.

“Yeah, you’d think it would have been something,” I continued, looking her directly in the eye, my teeth tightening in tune with my resolve. “But really, though, I didn’t make the most of it. I only fucked two chicks out of that school. The girl I lost my virginity to who turned out to be a lesbian and this other chick who lied to me for nine months and told me she was pregnant so she could try to get money off me for an abortion.”

“Nine months?” she said. “Really?”

She was questioning my stupidity.

“No, not really. It was probably more like five. I was fourteen. I found out she was lying to me - actually from this other dude who was fucking the lesbian - at this arcade we used to hang out at on Friday nights. I wanted to kill the bitch ’cause I’d been freaking the fuck out and’d had no idea what I was going to do.”

I took a sip of beer.

“Anyhow, I grew up down the block from this other kid, Jay, who I actually met when I was, like, nine, ‘cause he was out in front of his house when we first moved in selling Garbage Pail Kids to all of the other kids on the block. He was always selling shit. After Garbage Pail Kids, it was candy and then baseball cards, and then comics…”

More beer.

“So we became cool and we did all sorts of shit together. He had a chemistry set in the basement, and we’d make bombs and shit. We made gunpowder out of the encyclopedia once. We made napalm. We’d rake the leaves in his front yard and build giant forts out of them that we’d spend the night in, in the yard, just bullshitting, doing little boy shit. Putting lighters in front of aerosol cans.

“His father was really into Halloween and they’d build this giant set up in the front yard every year, with like dry ice and everything, it was two stories, the whole deal. Me and Jay would camp out all night with BB guns keeping watch over the thing. That was the beginning of my whole horror fascination ‘cause we’d watch movies all year for research. We eventually worked in a haunted house.

“He wasn’t my next door neighbor growing up, but he lived two doors down and we had an old guy who lived between us, Mr. Richards, who was like Mr. Wilson from the Dennis the Menace cartoons, always trying to keep us out of his yard and shit. So when Jay got older, like 13 or 14, his parents turned over the room attached to the back of the garage, basically to me and him. It had been a weight room ’cause his dad was really into lifting weights and they’d be out there with like, Pumping Iron posters on the wall…”

She raised an eyebrow but remained silent.

“…but it was really more of a pool house cause they had a pool back there, too. Anyhow, we were young and they had a little paper so we outfitted the whole thing like teenage dudes do – painted the walls black, put in blood red carpet, got a black leather couch, an entertainment center, put black lights in, that whole deal. And for awhile it was really just us hanging out back there, swimming, watching flicks, listening to music. I remember one of the first times I smoked weed, I’d gotten it off of some dude at my junior high and taken it back there, did the whole Coke can thing and turned Jay onto it.

“Anyhow, it was crazy because Jay started going to the public high school that I’d eventually go to. He was a year or two older, and his place just basically exploded over night. Next thing you know, every weekend there were tons of kids there. Teenagers everywhere, in the pool out in the yard, fucking around on the railroad tracks that ran behind our house, catching rides to the gas station about a half mile away on freight trains and shit. Stealing things off the cars. There was lots of drugs, and lots of…”

“Let me guess,” she interrupted with a wave. “Sex?”

I looked at her.

“Well, yeah, folks were having sex, but I was going to say Zima. Lots of Zimas. I say that just to say how old we were. I mean that’s some shit you drink when you’re young and retarded and we were young and retarded. I met the kid who taught me how to skateboard there – he actually ended up losing his virginity to the lesbian, too…”

She laughed.

“Anyhow, it was crazy. We lived in a historic district and there’d be motherfuckers driving cars all through the median, tearing up the grass, spray painting on the street, and all that. Needless to say, my mother wasn’t into it.”

“She stopped letting you go over there?”

“Nah, she’d try. But she’d just be like, ‘I know what you all are doing over there. I don’t want you being a part of it.’ But I’d still go. And then she threatened to put me in rehab and that’s how I ended up moving out and living on my own.

“Anyhow, eventually Jay’s house died down. He started rolling with the kids who had more money and started getting really into higher end drugs, you know real particular about his weed, growing mushrooms in aquariums in that back room, that snobby hippie shit. He might even have gotten a girlfriend or something, but point being, the scene became a lot more low key and the party moved over to my other boy’s house not too far away. And then when the skateboarders all got a house, that was where we all hung out. Crazy parties there, tons of kids, lots of kegs. It was a crazy time.”

I wasn’t drinking anymore. I was just talking. My past pouring out of me like boxed wine, cheap and thin.

“So I went home not too long ago for my high school reunion and I was running around town just talking to folks or whatever and I ran into an old crew of those kids at the bar we used to always hang out at. One of ‘em was one of the dudes I still watch my back over when I go home ‘cause he’s just fucking crazy and he holds a bunch of shit against me from back in the day.”

“Like what?”

“Mainly that I spent the night with his girl one night, but that bitch was crazy, too, and I tried to tell him that, but obviously that didn’t really do anything.”

She looked at me, waiting for an explanation.

“She’d been selling us sheets of acid, you know about acid right - 100 hits to a sheet?”

Wobbling, she nodded.

“So she was getting us sheets for $75, which we were then selling for $500 at $5 a hit. But she and I had been seeing each other before they got together, and then she starts getting in my ear, like, I’m trying to leave him, it’s over, he just won’t accept it, I’ve told him we’re done and all of that. And then we had this huge ice storm one night, and she comes through and we just go at it. We don’t fuck or nothing, but it’s pretty all out. She’d scratched my back up and everything, easily the wildest shit I’d been through at that age.

“Coupla days later I show my one dude, who tells the other kid, who obviously freaks out and is crazy pissed. Come to find out, the chick was selling sheets to this other kid at our high school for $50 so like I told him, you’re her boyfriend, she’s fucking with me on the side, and neither one of us is getting the best deal! You can be pissed at me all you want, but what the fuck you think is going on over here?!”

She laughed.

“But you know, he didn’t wanna hear that. And then I kinda got his car impounded… and he’s kinda just a pissed off dude anyway, and just a bunch of other shit. So I’m always kinda leary when we’re in the same spot together. He’s the kinda dude that would just clock me with a bottle from behind outta the blue just for the fuck of it. That guy’s a dick.”

I returned to my beer.

“Anyhow, I ran into those guys and one of ‘em told me that Mike was in town, the dude whose house became the second big party spot, which was where I got drunk for the first time and did a shit-load of acid and whatever. So I hadn’t seen this kid in forever, like twelve years, and back in the day we were close. We went to Europe together and everything as teenagers, I mean, we were that close. So of course I wanna see the dude, so I head over to his house and go up on his porch and knock on the little side door that led to his old room and wake him up. I mean it’s late, probably about one in the morning, but like I said, we haven’t seen each other in forever and he lives in Portland now so I definitely wanted to see him while we were both in town.

“So I wake him up and he comes out on the porch, and, man, the guy I saw that night was easily the most cynical dude I’ve seen in forever. He just seemed so broken. We sat on his porch smoking cigarettes at this little plastic table and he’s telling me about Portland and his job cleaning chemical waste out of one of the rivers that I think either Dell or Intel empties its waste into or whatever. And he’s saying things like, ‘I need a wife like I need a mortgage,’ and ‘Portland’s okay, but the city does stupid things…’ and he’s just super dark. He was dark when we were kids, we used to listen to a lot of Three Six together and all that and he was always a kind of gothic punk, but this was something else. It was oppressive.”

Why I was telling her all of this? What was the point? Was it because I couldn’t think of a better story to tell? Was it because anytime I tell a story, no matter what it’s about, at its core it’s always about Memphis and about rebellion and about my inability to move anywhere too far beyond that, both in terms of how I conceptualize myself and how I present myself to others? Was it because, when it comes down to it, all of us are nothing more than a series of stories that all boil down to whatever that thing is that we feel makes us us, and that that thing is either attractive or unattractive to whoever’s listening depending on the weird twists and turns of their own fucked up personality on any given day of the week?

I polished off the pint. This day, it was a Monday. And it was 9 PM. And it was time to seal the deal.

“So we’re sitting there talking, and just catching up or whatever. And then we hear six shots in succession, about five blocks away. Bam, bam, bam, bam… And Mike looks at me, blows out a lung full of smoke and says, ‘That ain’t someone just out here shootin’ for the fuck of it, that’s someone out here shootin’ for a reason.’”

I paused and looked directly at her. You really wanna fuck with me, girl? swam through my brain.

I clinched my teeth.

“And that’s the neighborhood I grew up in.”

She stared at me from behind her glasses. She blinked. And then she waved her hand toward the door and asked me to take her home. B.

SEVEN.

It’s kind of a shock at first. The blood. The face. The pain. But that quickly fades. I mean, how many times can you bust your face open before it’s not really a thing?

So then, she’s freaking out. When is she not, though, right? And not just her, but all of them. Fussing over you. In your face. Touching you. Helping you up. Or at least trying to. How helpful can a 110 pound chick be after all? But there she is. Hands in yours. Trying to get you on your feet. Trying not to fall over. What a fucking mess.

It feels like it’s been years since you’ve been this drunk. But really, though, it was probably just yesterday. Yep. It was. Drunk as shit. Falling over. Some girl in a cab. Some face on a pussy. Some cum on your face. Yeah, that was yesterday.

So back to the matter at hand. How much can a face bleed? A lot, really. Also not news. There was that time you cracked your eye open. That bled a lot. With D helping you down the street. Blood streaming down your face. People clearing the sidewalk because they were scared. Lames.

Then there was that other time. Mouth plus martinis plus face plus concrete equals a freaked out girlfriend and lots of quiet moments in the bathroom. Will it ever be the same again?

There are others. Parking meters and broken skulls and damn near ruined suits. And…. Ehh. Who wants to think about that now? Fucking drama queen.

So here we are again. And who is she? Um. Um. Um. Bartender. Tattooed lip. Jaded. Dark. And concerned.

Women are always the same. No matter how badass they position themselves or how much ill shit you do to them, at some point, they all seem to care more than almost anyone else. None of them run out. And the ones that do can always be reeled back in.

So she’s pretty, you know. I mean, in a tom boyish kind of way. She has great lips at least. And she kisses like she’s sucking dick. Mouth tightening. Tongue flat. Safe money says she drinks cum. Deeply.

That’s a thought.

But right now, she’s not doing any of that. She’s not on her knees. She’s not begging. She’s just trying to help you up. And you’re being charming, as usual. Profanity after profanity after profanity.

Listen.

“Get the fuck off me, girl! I’m fine! I’ll be fine!”

“Shit, though, Alan, you’re bleeding.”

“Whatever, it’s fine.”

“No, no it’s not.” She moves closer. Peers in, searching for a better look. “Jesus. It’s bad. Look at your shirt.”

You look down. You can taste the blood in your mouth. You can feel it, warm on your face. The iron on your tongue. You’re standing now. The snow is behind you in a pile, hiding something sharp that also got your shoulder. But you won’t notice that for days. Your hand goes to your lip. It comes away, warm, sticky, and soaked.

“I’m fine,” you say. Simply tasting it makes you talk slower. “I don’t give a fuck about this shirt. Fucking…”

The blood is covering your boots. They’re ruined. It’s seeping into your jacket, falling into your hands. Your life, leaking, seven drops a second.

She looks at you. Watching. Half confused, half already in love. Then she leans in, takes your weight and starts to walk you home. B.