Destroy (4 page)

Delirium. There's a few decent girls, a ton of dumb-looking ones, and like three hot ones I've slept with over the last six months. Each of them shooting me some nasty looks.

Whatever.

Destroy.

I head right for the bar, zigzagging past this small circle of girls wearing long shirts sticking out of the bottom of American Apparel hoodies and tight jeans tucked into boots.

I don't see Nina or any of her stupid friends anywhere.

In fact, the only person I see in this place that I care to talk to at all is this super-fine bartender, Carla, who I've known for like a year and who I've tried three times, all of them so brutally unsuccessful, to fuck.

Wedging myself between some kid in a red beanie and some chick with way too much metal shit in her face, I wait at the bar with a twenty in my hand, trying my best to ignore this blond girl with big tits and a red scarf wrapped around her neck. She stares at me from this table directly behind me while talking to this bro with curly black hair and, like, three skull tattoos on his arms, wearing this Wolfmother T-shirt that's way too fucking tight. And although I don't know this sloppy chick's name, she does look vaguely familiar to me. Like maybe I called her some mean shit one night. Or maybe I went home with her and ended up putting my dick inside of her much hotter roommate instead of her. Whatever it was, she gives me the finger, and the homey she's trashing me to flips his head and gets this shit-eating grin on his face.

Awesome.

And what the fuck have either of you ever done in this life?

Carla finally sees me as a Billy Idol song starts blasting from the speakers. She pulls her silky brown hair back into a ponytail and makes her way to where I am and leans over the bar, bracing herself on her forearms, and gives me a little peck on the cheek.

“Hey there, good-looking,” she says with a grin.

“Whatcha got cooking?” I say, grinning back.

“You tell me.”

“Not much, actually. I just got back from LA. What the fuck are you doing working at this dump?”

“I'm trying to go to Cuba and Spain next spring, so I needed to pick up a couple more nights of work a week.”

“That's pretty valid. I can respect that.”

And she goes, “The real question is, what the hell are you doing here? I thought you despised this place.”

“Oh, I do. I'm meeting a friend here for her birthday, though. But I don't see her anywhere.”

“Bummer.”

“Not completely. You're working, darling. I get to see you.”

“Awww,” she says. “That's so sweet. What do you want to drink?”

“Shot of Jameson and a PBR.”

She winks. “All right.”

I wipe my nose and look down the bar and take a satisfying inventory of all the kids staring at me. Kids who've been waiting for drinks much longer than me, all of whom Carla passed over to serve me first.

“Ha ha ha, ha ha ha,”
I believe the Flipper lyrics go, and when she returns with my drinks, she says, “First round's on me, man.”

“Awesome.” I tip her a five and then take the shot, gagging it down with tears in my eyes.

“You gonna be okay?” she asks.

“I'll be fine, darling,” I say, tipping my glass at her.

“Cool.” She walks away, and I take a drink of my beer and step away from the bar.

It's time to find Nina.

I edge my way past this dude in tight jeans and a gold wifebeater telling this other dude with a Robert Smith haircut and a Knife shirt about the penny loafers he's wearing.

He's like, “I saw the shit in
Vice
last month, and I just couldn't help myself, man.”

Moving away from that as quickly as I can, I make it all the way to the pool tables and push myself into the back room, where the super-tiny dance floor is. Still no sign of Nina. Complete bullshit.

Sweating like Gary Busey at some random police checkpoint, I move patiently through the brutal waves of post–New Wave rejects and black mullets and too much makeup. I finally get to where the DJ booth is. But no Nina anywhere. However, I do lock eyes with a couple of pretty decent babes sitting around the table behind the DJ, and one of them starts yelling at me and tells me to go up there, and I nod and make the “okay” sign with my right hand, then walk straight back out of that room and pull out my phone.

I call Nina, and she answers. “James, where are you?”

“Um, at Delirium. Where the hell are you?”

“We left.”

“You what?”

“We're gone. We're at this huge party on Twenty-First and Bryant.”

“Oh—my—god. So I came here for nothing. That's real goddamn great.”

“Well—”

“You couldn't even call me and tell me, huh.”

“I—”

“Ya know, I'm not just a regular somebody. I'm a goddamn international bestselling published author!”

“I'm sorry,” she snorts. “It's just that I got drunk so fast. My roommate Thomas bought us all a bunch of shots, and then Brian made me take this Three Wise Men shot with him, then talked us all into coming to this party at his friend's house.”

“Your ex-boyfriend Brian?” I snap. “That's who you're with . . . who you ditched me for? You're hanging out with that asshole?”

“James, don't start in. Don't do that.”

“Do what, Nina? The guy's a total bum. How many meatpits did he wreck when you two were together? And now you're kickin' it with him again at his friend's house. Good work on life.”

“But he's being such a sweetheart lately. He's totally trying to make it up to me.”

“Ya know, whatever. It is what it is. That's a pretty naive way of thinking. But it's cool. It's your fuckin' life.”

“James,” she snaps.

“What?”

“Will you please come to the party? It's my birthday.”

I don't say anything as Billy Idol gets pushed into an X song from their
Los Angeles
album.

“Pretty, pretty please, darling?” she begs.

“Yeah. Fine. I'll fuckin' be there.”

“Tha—”

I snap my phone shut before she can finish and feel my face turn bright red. Like what an absolute load of shit. I should not have to put up with stuff like this. I just shouldn't. I'm an international bestselling author, for crissakes, and I should never receive the runaround from anyone.

Especially some chick.

Real rad.

If my present for Nina wasn't so absolutely brilliant, I wouldn't even think twice about rolling to the Hemlock instead or dropping down to Zeitgeist or splitting for the Homestead to hang out with people I can actually stand.

But the fact remains that my gift for her is much too amazing to waste, so I roll back down to the bar and wave Carla down and tell her that I'm out.

“Wait!” she yells back. “Come here!”

I elbow my way back against the bar, and she walks over to me and goes, “I have something for you.”

“What?”

“This.” She hands me a matchbook with her phone number written on it. “Call me,” she says. “Let's hang out sometime.”

“Really?”

“I'd love to. But just one thing.”

“What's that?”

Carla leans over the bar and puts one arm around my shoulder, her lips against my ear, and she says, “Don't play this rock star bullshit with me.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, trying to pull away.

Her grip tightens, and she says, “Me and Steven are finished. And now you have a great fucking chance with me, so don't blow it by pulling this ‘I'm a fucking rock star' shit with me and acting like a dick to everyone. It's stupid. It's a complete turnoff. And to be totally honest, you don't always pull it off the best.” She lets go of me and drops from the bar, smiling. “So call me whenever you want to,” she says, before getting to work on a drink order.

And just like that, I've got one of the hottest babes in SF. Easily. I've got her right in the palm of my hands.

Fucking destroy.

• • •

Dudes in tight black jeans. Dudes wearing tiny ironic sweaters and SF hats turned sideways. Dudes with really bad facial hair, sipping on forties, are standing in front of the place where the party is happening, talking about their fixed-gear bikes, when I arrive. A couple of kids are even throwing up tags on this window with their Sharpies.

It's almost like Delirium déjà vu.

Like Delirium squared.

On my way over, I had the taxi driver stop at a liquor store so I could pick up a pint of Beam and a tall can of Tecate, and then I blew three huge hits of coke through my straw in the backseat, which got me pumped up for the party until I saw the actual scene in front of the place and almost told the driver to turn his car around.

But I couldn't.

I just have to give Nina her gift, because it is that good. So like everything else tonight, I deal with it.

Destroy.

• • •

I enter the apartment and walk up these wooden stairs, kids crammed along both walls, while some song by some shitty Irish punk band, Flagging Doggy or something like that, is blasting, which is even worse than listening to some of those trust fund kids outside dressed like homeless dudes and heroin addicts talking about their fixed-gear bikes.

I try to ignore it all as best I can and slip into the first room I see.

A huge mistake.

Not only are there way too many people crammed in here, but there are two white dudes wearing backpacks fucking battle rapping each other in the center of the room while, like, three joints get passed around.

Totally not my scene at all.

I light a cigarette and take out my Beam and slam a huge pull and then notice this pig standing next to me in red running shorts and red tights and a black hoodie. She's staring at me and smiling, and her lips are even smeared red and she asks me if she can have some of my Beam and I tell her, “Um, no,” before pounding another drink and slipping out of the room.

I trickle down the hallway at the pace of an underage fat kid with a smoker's lung fleeing the scene of a backyard kegger.

Fairly consistent.

Yet completely not amused.

Pause.

I start looking for Nina again. Only this time it doesn't take me but thirty seconds to find her.

I walk through the kitchen and into the living room and see her standing on the other side of the room.

My sweet, sweet Nina.

My entire body gets all warm and tingly like it does every time I'm in the same room with her, because she's just that awesome to look at. She just has that certain way about her that makes everyone around her just shut their pie holes and take notice. She's that electric. One of those rare people who can simply transform the energy of an entire room from the moment she steps foot inside of it.

And tonight is no different. Tonight she's wearing this gold satin slip dress with a pair of silver ankle boots. Her sand-brown hair is brushed to the left side, and her upper back has been left partially exposed to show off the very top of her full-back tattoo piece, which is a mural of the city of Havana, Cuba, the place she was born, done in all black and gray ink, with the portraits of Che Guevara and a young Fidel Castro overlooking it.

Opening my beer and crossing the room, I yell, “You're getting fat and old, baby!”

Nina spins around. “You made it!” she shrieks, wrapping her arms around me and kissing the corner of my mouth. “I love you so much for coming!”

“Happy birthday, darling.”

“Thank you.”

Completely ignoring her roommate, Thomas, and that ex-boyfriend of hers, both of whom are standing only a few feet away watching me and her, I latch onto Nina's forearms and tell her that I want to give my present to her in private.

“I think there are some rooms down the back stairs,” she tells me, then pulls me in that direction. We descend that flight of stairs and cut through a hallway, and she leads me into a bedroom with a sign on the door that reads
STAY THE FUCK OUT
. I rip the sign off, crumple it in a ball and toss it on the floor, closing the door behind us and turning on the lights.

Covering the walls of the room are a bunch of these boring illustrations and paintings—George W. Bush being spanked by Cheney—W. paying off voters—Bob Saget driving a garbage truck—there's even a degree from the Art Institute hanging over the bed next to a campaign sign that says
VOTE FOR REAL CHANGE AND REAL REFORM. VOTE CESAR ESTRADA
.

I roll my eyes and take a drink and go, “Fuck that communist pig.”

“Here we go,” Nina groans. “I remember a time not so long ago when you used to be all about far left-wing politics.”

“Yeah, well, that was when I didn't know any better. I mean, the only thing worse in this world than an artist with an agenda is a communist with tens of millions of dollars he made in the private sector, baby.”

“Oh god.”

“But who cares right now? I didn't come here to talk politics. I came here to see you. And by the way, I just wanna say to your face that I can't believe you're hanging out with Brian again. It's fucking stupid.”

“No, it's not.”

“It's fucking insanity, Nina.”

“No, it's not!”

“It is too. You're doing the exact same thing you've been doing with him since I've known you, and you expect something different to happen each time. That's insanity.”

“Goddamn it, James!” she shouts. “I don't need a fucking lecture from you. I'm already getting shit from everyone else, so just drop it! He's what I have right now, and no one else.”

I throw my arms into the air. “What about me?” I ask.

“What about you?”

I step toward her, saying, “You can have me.”

“I'm being serious, darling.”

“I am too.” I sniff real hard and wipe my nose and grab her hands. “We could go steady or something. It would be cool. Just me and you hittin' the streets with our hands in each other's
back pockets, passing secret notes to each other at parties, talking on the phone about our friends every night. I mean, I can get someone to ask you out for me if you'd like that better.”