Black Hole (9 page)

Now, for this . . .
I say.

She turns off the lights and turns on a lava lamp. She joins me on the couch.

What is it?
she asks.

Something new. The new thing. The new high.

She takes it without another word of what it does, what it's like, what's in it. It's the new high. The first time you get high on anything, it's full of promise, potential, probable bliss. Maybe it's going to be your favorite. Maybe it's the best yet. Maybe it's the drug that finally fixes you. But whatever it is, that first time is special. It's the one that feels the best. It's the time that you use to judge all following usages of that drug. She hits it, long and practiced.

In the light, I see some kind of textural problem with her face, like horrible acne or something covered by makeup. It's a bad scar, a huge one, running from her chin up to her hairline. I notice her ear; it's a prosthetic. It's hanging on, slightly off-colored. Her eye is dull, because it's not real, it's glass. Something horrible happened to a side of her face.

Jesus Christ, Chuck. This is good.

She holds it in with the patience of an Olympic diver. She exhales.

Oh my god. Oh my god. This is good. Fuck. This is good. Take your clothes off.

Really?

Yes, really, take them off, now. Oh god, I have to fuck on this.

She passes me the marble back. Immediately, her clothes come off, sliding out of them like a snake molting.

Her body is a mural of every trendy tattoo from the last twenty-five years. Some faded, some added to, some with fallout, some fresh. Tribal. Biomech. Traditional. Pinup. Roses. Fucking angel wings on her back.

There are stretch marks and scars, but it doesn't matter one bit. She still has those wide hips curving out from the narrow waist. I hit the marble and get marble-hard right away.

Come on,
she says.
Off.

She's rooting around for something. I'm trying to get my clothes off so quickly that I'm taking off my pants without taking off my shoes first. They're all tangled up and stuck. My cock looks like it's reaching for her.

She turns around with a bottle of lube the size of a Pringles can. She laughs.

Oh my god. Now that's the cock I remember so fondly. Let me.

She pulls my pants and shoes off. I'm naked on the floor. She opens the lube and pours it on me like she's syruping a pancake.

She sits down, and I'm inside her right away. I know I'm high, but I swear I'm hitting her fucking brain with my cock.

Oh my god, Chuck. Jesus Christ.

We fuck and we fuck and we fuck.

We hit the marble.

We fuck some more. It feels like I'm reaching weird places
inside her with my cock, like she's full of hollow tunnels and my cock is an eel.

Can I get some of that coke?

Yes, of course . . .

She reaches over without getting off me. Her ear falls off. I think I'm tripping. I'm not. She picks it up and puts it on the couch.

Ah, fuck,
she says,
sorry. Lost the ear like ten years ago.

I don't care . . .

She grabs the coke tin out of my jacket pocket and opens it. With her pinky fingernail, she scoops a blast up and snorts it. She hands me a fingernail full, and I take it straight up the nose.

It feels like an hour. There's remote in my system. I almost forgot about it. I haven't had withdrawals. The marble high counteracts it or something.

We fuck some more. Her hair slides to the side.

You don't mind, do you? It's a wig.

Help yourself . . .

She rips off her wig and throws it on top of her ear. There's bald scarring all over that one side of her head. Like a bad burn or acid scar or something, I don't know. Fuck it. Who cares. Somehow, it just makes her hotter.

HUNT'S

I'M DREAMING OF
Twentieth and Mission. It's a completely lucid dream. More so than I've ever experienced. I know I'm dreaming because I'm outside Hunt's. It's the middle of the night, the best time to go. Hunt's was open all night. So many times after the bars and clubs closed, I ended up here. It was the only place in the Mission that was still open. Hunt's closed ages ago. It was my favorite donut place. Ever.

I walk in for a dream donut. I'm going to be a total pig before I wake up.

Buttermilk bar, with chocolate. Cruller. Apple fritter. Fuck it. One of each of each one that you have. Even the maple ones I don't like. One of each. Get a fucking box.

Why do all the donut places have pink boxes? Never any other color.

They're putting the donuts in the box when something disturbing walks by the window: me. It's me, the way I looked in 1990.

Just give me the box. Now. Here's twenty bucks . . .

There's no way I'm leaving the donuts here. Dream or not.

I run out of Hunt's. I follow behind 1990 me.

Hey, kid . . .

Can't help you.

No, it's not like that . . .

Fuck off, short eyes.

There's so many things to tell you about . . .

1990 me turns around, grabs my shoulders, pulls back, then gives a forward shove. I trip backward, dropping the donut
box. Fuck. This hurts. 1990 me storms off, making tracks off to Seventeenth and Capp, where I lived back then.

I gather up my stuff. Shoving stuff back into pockets. Cruller on the street. Leave it. A crackhead in a hurry swoops it up like an owl snatching a mouse. If the crack hasn't killed him yet, a sidewalk pastry won't phase his system. Keys, get keys . . . no phone. Well, if it's 1990, I shouldn't have one.

Then I spot the marble on a dirt patch some damned tree is trying to grow out of. Did I have it with me? Is that my drug marble or a marble marble? Fuck it, take it.

So I need to know. Drug marble or no? Fuck it. Light it and find out.

In 1990 Mission, it's not hard to find a pipe. Walk down the street. Head shops where yoga studios will be. Mexican-farmer bar where the dyke bar shows up later. Used-furniture store will become the old-timey barbershop. The barbershop that becomes a crafts boutique.

Pipe. Torch lighter. Unlit doorway. Hiss of the flame in the night air. I'm smoking a fucking marble marble, a dirty, dirt-covered marble, a mocking little dumbass glass sphere.

Yo, son, what about a taste?

A silhouette leans in. Something hitting me in the gut. No breath. No air. Wind knocked out? Dying? Fuck. Pockets . . . hands . . . tugging. The donuts scattered on Capp Street, stepped on, soaking in drunks' piss. A jelly hemorrhages. Timberland comes closer to the face. The whole scene is a shrinking tunnel, getting smaller, until it's completely black.

I'm hitting the marble. Liza sits across from me. No wig, no ear. Smeared makeup like signal smoke. Orange-peel burn scars.

You okay?
She says with a smirk and a giggle.
Don't forget to breathe.

Yeah . . . fuck, had a really intense moment there. I thought I was dreaming. It was like I was back in 1990.

Trippy. How many hits do you get off this thing?

Don't know. Story is, never runs out.

Bullshit. What is it then?

I don't know, some kind of experimental drug . . .

It's not a drug.

Why?

Drugs run out. It's what they do.

You have a point.

Take coke. It's this thing that makes your life okay, no matter who you are, but the only catch is when this little pile of powder runs out, everything's fucked. You're living in an hourglass, and this magic sand is draining out this hole in your face. Worse. Your friend's face. Fuck your friend. She's the reason the pile is getting smaller and your life won't be okay anymore.

Yes, I see . . .

BUT YOU KNOW, FUCK EVERYONE, BECAUSE YOU CAN JUST GET MORE.

Hey, Liza . . .

I'm sorry. God. Look, if you take away the drugs that run out, then you take away getting more, and getting the money for more. And that's a drug addict's life. You can't just make a drug they don't have to get the money for or have to look for even when they have the money. That's part of the whole deal.

I don't think . . .

No you don't. Obviously. Do you think I would have worked at the Market Street Cinema all those years if I didn't need the money?

Of course not.

Well it's not that simple, asshole. I wanted to do that shit to myself, to lapdance guys who look like my dad, to blow them in the back for a tip, to catch weird shit all the time from wherever the fuck in the world they came from. I wanted to let Japanese perverts on business trips shit on me. Literally. The drugs? They were a good fucking excuse. Because if I had been doing that for any other reason, you would've said I had a problem. That something was wrong with me. But you and every other junkie with a cock still wants to fuck me because I'm something you can save or some shit, save me with your magic cock.

It's not like that . . .

Oh, now you want to mansplain to me what shit is like? Fuck you, Chuck. You act like some nice sensitive guy, but you're a horrible piece of man shit like the others. Fuck 'em and leave 'em. Fuck 'em and fuck 'em.

I should go . . .

First good idea you've had all damn day.

I get my shit. It's like a scavenger hunt. Boxer briefs pants socks shirt jacket wallet keys phone stash.

Leave me a bump.

Fuck, really?

Yes.

I dump out a little coke for her right on the table.

That good?

Yes. Can you get me one of those marbles?

Ha. I knew it.

Shut up. Can you get me one or not?

A thousand bucks.

Jesus, Chuck.

That's how much it is.

Ugh. okay. Fine. Get it. Call me when you get it.

Will do.

I leave.

Chuck?
she says.

WHAT.

It's nice to have you back around.

Yeah. Just like old times.

Jill's bar across from the hospital is a good place to drink in the morning. After the midnight-to-eight shift, all the nurses from the ER come over and tell stories, one-upping each other with who saw the worst shit.

Hot nurses are an old joke of porn no one tells anymore. Are there still nurse porns being made? There's the weird latex rubber outfits on Halloween. That's about as close as it comes. But there are no hot nurses in the ER at General. But fuck it, they're fun to drink with.

There are black girls from Richmond, Filipinos from Daly City, a token white girl, but she acts like a
cholita
, outlined-lip makeup and everything.

Man came in saying he couldn't go number two. That's what he called it. Number two. Can you imagine? A grown-ass man saying “number two”? Well we give him the spiel. Laxatives, you know. The whole bit. Then we check for blockage. Sure nuff. You know what was up there? Barbie heads. That sick faggot stuck a whole load of Barbie heads up his ass and tried to deny it. But when they started coming out of there, he started to cry and confessed everything. Sick faggot fucked himself with a fucking Barbie doll and the head broke off and he came like a rope. Well then he had to get
more Barbies. Had to get off more. Thought he was pooping the heads later . . .

ESPN is showing the previous day's highlights. Dave Kitchell stands in the batter's box and takes a fastball on his arm. Doesn't move. Doesn't flinch.
That's Dave being Dave
, the announcer says. No, it's Dave geeked out of his mind. Followed by highlights of the weirdest moments of his career. Breaking the bat over his leg. The clubhouse tantrums. Charging Bob Saget during a celebrity softball game for MTV. And finally, the barehanded catch.

I need to get out of town. But I don't feel like it right now. There's too many things to do. I need drugs. I need a gun. Fuck. I need a gun. I need to keep someone from taking this shit. And I'm not being taken alive. Fuck that. A guy like me can't function in prison. I know guys who would love an excuse to do nothing but read, jerk off, and work out. Not me. I need my freedom. And I'd miss the biological pussy. I'm shooting my way to suicide by cop.

Vietnam John is at the bar. Nothing like a grizzled vet at a bar when you need to buy a gun. Of course, part of the price is that you have to listen to whatever bullshit he's talking. If you need a self-righteous old man who thinks he knows everything, find a Vietnam vet. You never met a guy who hated combat more who talks about nothing but killing.