Absolute Twenty

[Ian G. Marks]

There we are, the four of us, just around the corner from a convenience store like we always were. Where we're standing looks a lot like an alley, but it's not quite an alley. Ben and I are standing with our backs to the brick wall, I'm drinking a Dr. Pepper I just bought and he's smoking an American Spirit from the pack that he bought right after me in line. I'm smoking, too, but I roll my own. John is sitting down across from us, his back resting against the opposite wall, rolling a joint in his machine that Ben and I tease him for using. John doesn't smoke at all except for pot because he's obsessed with death in that way that he's terrified of it. Honestly, there's no better way to begin this story, and I'm sorry.

Also with us is a guy I don't know, a friend of Ben's, and I’m told that he's okay. They hang out a lot, probably when Ben can't find me, but I don't know the guy yet. He's also pretty good friends with John, so I should think he's okay, but I like to make my own decisions. I tend to call him Billy in my mind because I can never remember his name.

So there we are, the four of us, waiting to smoke a joint together on a late Friday night, Ben and me just smoking our cigarettes, John rolling the joint and Billy just sitting quietly for the moment. I know Billy from school, sortof, but like I said, he's not my friend.

“We should get some beer,” says Billy. “We don't need any goddam beer, we're about to smoke a J," says Ben.

I look around without saying anything, not being able to fix my gaze on much of anything at this moment, and they just keep talking. I’m wearing these cheap sunglasses with red lenses and thin metal frames like normal, and before I met up with the guys I took enough pain killers to cure a depressed elephant. My girl gives me codeine for free when I want it, and lately I always want it. She goes to our school too, but she doesn't really know my friends. We have separate friends, which tends to make things easier. Nobody wants to see a couple together, especially when they don't have anybody, and I don't want to make people feel excluded. Finally I'm able to focus and I stare at John fumbling with his rolling machine. Out of nowhere I ask, "Do you want me to do it?"

"No, I don't," he says. "I thought you hated rolling machines, anyway." "I meant that I would roll it by hand for you." "No, that's okay."

So I continue to stare at nothing at all, shifting my burning red gaze to whatever is most comfortable to look at until I grow tired and shift again. It’s hard to see things well through my glasses at night, but I wear them all the time. I’ve been wearing them off and on since high school, and just since the end of the semester I have been feeling badly enough to break them out again. I guess I just need to look at the world differently right now.

Secretly I am glad that John didn't take me up on my offer, because I don't feel like I could concentrate on much of anything at the moment. And just as I'm thinking that, I'm proven right.

"What?" I ask. "I said," says Billy, "do you want to go in and buy some beer?" "Nah, I don't want any right now," I said. I'm the only one without any ID, but I'm usually the one who ends up buying alcohol because I look the oldest. I'm almost a year older than all of these guys, but we're in the same grade. I was held back a year because I lived in Arkansas when I was five, and my mother made it clear that I was not going to be educated in such a place. The only other boy I knew there was nine years old, and the most impressive thing about him was his ability to climb a twenty-foot tree to the top, spit, and suck all of it back into his mouth just before it touched the ground. I know what these guys are asking me- they want beer for themselves and only I can get it- but I hate how fucking dishonest people are. I might get it for them if they didn't try and sneak around asking me to do it.

Before they get a chance to ask me again, John finishes the joint and holds it up for us to see. He sticks his hand out and without saying a word Ben hands him a lighter that looks pink through my lenses and off-white over them. John gets it lit, takes about two and a half hits and passes it to Billy. For the moment I don't have to think as the four of us stand in a circle and share in this moment. That's what we are best at, with our art-school, superpretentious educations. At better schools they might know the law, and they might know their way around the human body perfectly, but we know the way straight to the human heart. We know everything subjective and understand everything subjectively, and we know how to break everything away into that subjectivity so that we are never at a loss for words, no matter what the subject, and no matter how little we might actually know about it.

So we're standing there for a long time, passing the joint around and talking about nothing at all, like always. We're considering buying beer, at least they are considering my buying beer, and I start to get quiet. I'm fixated on nothing and the guys start to see I'm quiet, and finally Ben says he's going home. I'm still staring away into rose-colored space as John and Billy walk off together, saying where they're going, but I'm not listening. Ben watches them walk off for a bit and eventually turns to me and says to follow him.

We walk along silently for a moment before he turns to me and says, "So what's up?" "What do you mean?" I ask him. "You've been quiet for awhile. Are you okay?" "I'm impressed. I can't remember the last time you let down your tough-guy facade long enough to show concern for others." "Don't box me in," he says, and I stop boxing him in. We all say that to each other, to our friends, to anybody at all who ever boxes us in. We will allow ourselves to take on roles for periods of time but we refuse to let anyone tell us who we are and what we are most likely to do in any given situation.

"John depresses me sometimes," is all I finally say. "Hold on," I say, and take out a sandwich bag full of tobacco and my pack of rolling papers. I casually throw some tobacco onto a rolling paper and begin rolling the cigarette with my free hand. I got into that practice when I went to Europe the summer before college. I roll joints the same way, but it’s harder to do single-handed. "You want one?"

"No, they tear up my throat if I smoke those too often. Besides, I got my own." I forget our conversation while I lick the paper and finish rolling. I put the tobacco away and take a lighter out of the same pocket, as smooth as a river, I always say. We're all pseudo-poets, the three of us. "You're almost sophisticated," Ben says to me. "Oh, yeah? How's that?" I ask with more interest in the sophisticated than the almost. "You roll your own cigarettes like that, one-handed and all, but you use lighters." "You use lighters all the time. I've seen you." "Not anymore. I use lighters now." "Oh, I see," I tell him with much less interest. "Well, anyway, John depresses me sometimes." "I heard you. What do you mean?" "He's always so nervous, even around us. Like he’s afraid to talk.” "So?" Ben asks defiantly, pulling out a cigarette from his pack and doing his best to give me the impression that he already knew the solution. He likes to think of himself as the dominant figure in our group, but I think it would be unfair to say any one of us dominated the others, except that John was so timid sometimes. "He's nervous around people," Ben continues. "He's shy. I'm shy. So what?"

I hate feeling like I’m being left out of our group. “I'm shy, too, sometimes," I offer. Ben says nothing and drags on his cigarette. "Anyway,” I go on, “he's more shy than you are. You're outgoing, and you never give me the impression that you care too much what other people are thinking. Just hold on a second," I said, stopping him from interrupting me. "I don't want to hear how you actually feel just yet, I'm just making my point about how he makes me feel. And he gives me the impression that he worries a whole lot about how other people feel about him. Usually, that sort of thing gets cleared up as you go along in life. After you've tried drugs, after you've lost your virginity, after you've moved away from home. All of those things cause a reaction in you, and you change a little bit with each one, usually. And he hasn't. I remember him telling me the night he lost his virginity, and I sat there quietly wanting to ask him if he was sure."

Ben laughs and I start to stare at his hoodie where he must have spilled something before. I can always see stains and things like that through my glasses that people can’t normally see. "Yeah, I see what you mean. The kid’s got problems, sure. He's just a little complicated. But so are we. And he gets frustrated with you sometimes." Slightly offended, I ask Ben why. He tells me that John sometimes thinks I hate him, and he’s always afraid that I was judging him incorrectly, or something. And that's where this all started from, that conversation on that night. I'm convinced that there comes a time in every person's life where they feel they have to write down there life for posterity. As much as I feel that it is self-important bullshit, I'm getting this out of the way now, telling you all this story of Ben and John and I, and how Ben and I talked that night, and how after he and I got to my house I threw up on the sidewalk just after Ben turned the corner.

 

[Ian G. Marks]

Acid Reflex

I wake up the next morning feeling kindof weak, probably from the painkillers I took last night, so ironically I take more. I feel a little better for a little while, then feel much worse for much longer. I’ve been taking a lot of prescription drugs that aren't meant for me lately, and every step I take hurts my head somehow. Probably from the shock of my foot hitting the ground. All in all I’m feeling like a failure, which is what we call being hung-over, my friends and I. We call it being failed.

For the longest time I’m inclined to stay where I am and not to go out at all, but after awhile I get stir-crazy, so to speak, and have to get out. I call over to where John and Ben live, but no one answers. I figure that they must either both be out spending money or looking for jobs. I’m working as a clerk for the summer to earn money, of course, as most college students probably do. Most of the kids who go to our school can simply afford to do it with their parents' money. Ben and I are among the only students there who really have to work to get through school, which we’re able to bond on. There are a number of rich-kids there who inadvertantly make our existences miserable. With all of our open-mindness and objectivity aside, we hate them.

I don't have to work today, which is fortunate for me, but no one else is around. I’m feeling kindof off still, and I actually throw up at some point, and I’m still in no condition to go out, so I roll myself a thin joint and smoke it. Ben handed me the remains of the dimebag we bought last night since he and I went in on it together. We’re always helping each other out that way. There’s a gap between the feeling of last night and this morning, and it always happens that way. You have plenty of drugs and money and everything you want, and the next day it’s gone somehow. When you buy a new pouch of tobacco you feel like it’s going to last forever, until you start to run out. All of us, John and Ben and I, we all share our wealth freely while we have it and then wonder where it went. Somewhere along the line we were all convinced that we are rich men, and no shortage of money or anything else has ever fully managed to convince us otherwise.

I spend the rest of the afternoon there in the apartment, dividing my attention between the television and the internet. Lucrezia's laptop has a DSL line, and she let's me use her computer whenever she's not around. We live together and sleep together, and we even spend time together when our schedules don't conflict like they do now. She's at work, but it's mostly for show. She's just as rich as those other kids, but she's not so showy about it, which is part of what attracted me to her in the first place. I didn't even know she was rich until we had been together for awhile. She's been living off-campus at this apartment since the end of freshman year, and I'm sure that her parents help her out with money from time to time. I don't hold it against her, though, because I don't know a single college student who is any different. Her parents may have a lot more money to give her, but I'm sure it's the same relative amount that my parents give me.

Before I know it, it's 8pm, and I've done enough drugs that I don't really know it. I do drugs all the time lately, but I have gone periods without them. I didn't really see any point in stopping once I had started, but one time Ben said to me, "You want to know what sobriety is? Go a month or two without any drugs or alcohol." So I did, or tried to. By the end, I was smoking so much and drinking so much coffee that I was more nervous and shaky than I should have been sober. So after six weeks, I started up again. That's when I realized that everything we have in life, cigarettes and coffee and soda and television and email and movies and music, they're all drugs, in a way. The point hit me even harder when some guy I knew came back from the hospital one time, after getting food poisoning. He told me that it was amazing, and that he had tripped. I couldn't figure it out, though, until I realized that eating mushrooms was just a deliberate food poisoning. So I realized that all of these things we do are drugs, poisons to our body, and I didn't see any way around them at all.

I watch some bad new sitcom on television just because it’s on and there’s nothing else to do. A few minutes after nine, Lucrezia comes through the door with a rattling of her keys and walks toward me in all of her voluptuous blonde glory. She's always amazing to look at. She's got old-world beauty in her face and a genuine smile. To meet her, you could mistake her for shallow; but once you get her to really talk to you, you find a fountain of wisdom in her mind. I always start to get pathetic and poetic around women I like. She comes right up to me on the couch, kneels down to meet my face and kisses my forehead.

"How was your day?" she asks. "Pretty fine, actually," I say, and feel guilty for lying. "I mean, it was all right because I didn't do anything. I have been sick most of the day, and my stomach and my head still hurt." "Oh," she says with real sympathy and without being too sentimental, "Do you want a codeine?" Like I said, she's got a lifetime prescription to it, and doesn't always take it, and she gives it to me. Her mother is a doctor of some sort, but I never can manage to pay attention when she is talking to me about her parents. Her father I think is an artist.

"Sure, yeah," I say, and she gets up to get it for me. As she's walking over to the bathroom, my first thought is that she has an amazing body. But suddenly it hits me that I am really lucky that such a beautiful body is doing me favors of any kind. I can’t do anything but smile for just a moment and stare into space. My smile must still be there when she gets back. "What?" she asks, and I must have looked confused, so she was more clear when she asked again. "What are you smiling at?" "Honestly," I say and stop smiling, "you. I just felt really lucky." She kisses my forehead and hands me the pill. The familiar little "3" is looking up at me. She doesn't have a response to this, I guess, so she just kisses my forehead for the third time. I reach behind her head, pull her lips to meet mine, and we slowly head to the bedroom.

A little while later, we're sitting up in bed and talking, and I am smoking a cigarette. I feel happier than I can imagine a person should feel, and I haven't even taken the codeine yet. "Hey," I say suddenly, "you didn't eat any dinner. You want me to go make you a sandwich?" "No, I picked something up on the way home. I had a feeling you might jump me, so I figured I had better be prepared." "Well, good," I say, and drag on my cigarette. "God, you look tired. What time did you leave?" Yawning, "About 5am, I think," and the yawn ends. "No, closer to four." "Jesus. Why were you gone so long?" "I got stuck at work," and she bundled herself under her blankets and cuddled a pillow. "Somebody didn't show up and I had to cover their shift, too." "Jesus," I say again, and I suddenly want to do something for her. "Can I get you anything?" "Just a glass of water, actually. If you don't mind."

Without a word I'm up and on my way. I grab a glass and put in some ice cubes, then fill the glass halfway. I bring it back to the room, but she's already asleep. I am completely amazed that anyone can fall asleep like that. I'm an insomniac, though. So I sit at the edge of the bed and watch her sleep for a long time before the phone rings, and I let it ring twice before I get up. As I'm walking to the other room, Lucrezia turns over abruptly and without waking up exclaims, "Just as I thought!" And that pang of luckiness swept over me again.

I pick up the phone on the fourth ring and it's Ben.

"Are you doing anything right now?" his voice asks.

"Nah, not really. You got anything planned?"

"I'll be over in a minute. Be outside." And he hangs up.

...

I'm sitting outside for a good long while, smoking a cigarette and drinking a can of Coke, which is always in the house. It's pretty much all that Lucrezia drinks. I'm smoking a cigarette and I've taken the codeine and I'm not really worried at all, waiting there, if Ben will ever show up at all. He does, though, and his beat up and unwashed brown Saturn pulls up to the curb with John and Billy in the back seat together, leaving the passenger side free. In many circumstances, this would make someone feel really special, but I know what's going on, because the front passenger-side window is open and he hasn't stopped the car. I walk from the stoop of the building and after about four steps he starts to pull away. I break into a sprint and catch the window, diving into my seat as he speeds off on the dead, night street.

"Where are we going, you fool?" I ask him as I try to sit properly in the seat. I put my red sunglasses on because I was going out, even though it’s the middle of the night, and now they were on the bottom of Ben’s car. I was still dangling upside-down in the seat, my head pointed toward the dirty ground that smells funny. I find my glasses and sit up.

"Don't question my motives," he says, and I don't. He says that a lot, and I let him say it. I look back at the others for some sign, some answer, and all I get are shrugs. The peanut gallery, so to speak. "Don't look at them." I turn my head at him sharply. "What?" "Don't look at them for answers. They don't know either."

So I sit back and stare at the world zipping by unwittingly through my window, a favorite passtime of mine. We go along in silence on the road through these woods leading to the highway, listening to music loudly and speeding a lot. The world is bleeding beyond my lenses and I feel safe. I sit and muse to myself in silence for a long time.

"Ben, are you stoned right now?" I ask him suddenly. "Not completely." "Good," I say, and sit back again. He's a better driver when he's a little high. Normally he's too high-strung and agitated to drive well. "You ever been to Chicago?" he asks me. "What? Yeah, once or twice. Why?" "What's your favorite street in Chicago?" "Favorite street? What the hell? What are you talking about?" I stare at him for a long time and finally give up. "Okay, Ben," I say, and watching the others for a moment out of paranoia, "What's your favorite street in Chicago?"

"I've never been to Chicago," he says without laughing. I watch the two in the back again, and they chuckle a little bit but not in any inside-joke sort of way. They still haven't said anything since I got in the car, and it's making me nervous. They seem perfectly willing to let Ben have his solemn moment and let themselves be taken along. I'm mostly used to these games, though, so I'm letting it happen without letting it go.

"All right, you stupid bastard, tell me what your favorite street in Chicago is, already," I say. "You really want to know?" "Yeah, sure," I say with a shrug, without actually losing interest. "Lake Shore Drive."

I know that there's something he's telling me that I ought to be getting, and I'm not getting it. I sit back and think for a moment, and I take another look back at the reverent back-seaters. I'm still at a complete loss when we take a sharp turn and tear down a long stretch that leads to a remote house. It takes me just a moment to realize that the long stretch is an elaborate driveway, the kind reserved for the wealthy.

"Whose house is this?" I ask him incredulously. "Sam's." Then it all makes sense to me. Sam's house. I was hanging out with Sam and his girlfriend once, and they told the group of us that between the two of them, they could get any drug you ask for. Someone called them on it and asked if they could get those toads that make you trip when you lick them. Completely deadpan serious, he took a hit on the joint and looked at the guy, and he asks him point blank if he wants them alive or dead. "Jesus-God, Ben, are we doing acid tonight?" "Don't question my motives."

And with that, he stops the car and opens the door.

We walk up to the house and Ben knocks on the door three times. There’s a moment's pause, and he looks at the three of us for patience. The door opens just slightly and someone looks out at us. It’s Sam's girlfriend, Sarah, this really quiet girl. She's Sicilian, mostly, so she's also short and cute in addition to her shyness. Whenever we went to see Sam, wherever he and she were staying, she always opened the door first because once you got a good look at her, her opening a door slowly didn't ever seem suspicious. When dealing with drugs, you have to be especially careful. Sarah opens the door and lets us in to the hallway, and leads us into the living room where Sam is sitting at a table, leaning back in his chair with a cigarette and a what looked like a snifter of brandy, wearing a fancy robe.

"What in God's name?" I say. "Sam, how the hell are you set up like this?" "It's nothing, really," he says with as much put-up modesty as he can come up with, but I know that he’s joking. "Actually, I know the guy who lives here, and I sometimes sell him drugs. He told me he was going away for the summer and asked me to house-sit." He takes a drag off his cigarette and a sip of what I can only assume is brandy, and resumes speaking to us. "Not only did he not mind if Sarah stayed here, but he said to make myself completely at home and to take whatever was in the house, if I wanted it. He made it completely clear that I could drink anything I wanted, too. Pretty sweet, no?" He always said that when he was bragging about his life. Depending on my mood, I either found him irritating or endearing. "So, I understand that you guys want some acid, huh? Well, I'll get it for you in a minute. Sit down and tell me about your day, first. Sarah and I have been lonely here, since most everyone we know has gone home for the summer. When I talked to Ben and found out that you all were here, I figured I could have some fun with you guys."

"How much are we going to owe you?" I ask, suddenly worrying about whether or not I had my wallet at all. "Oh, no," he says, "No charge this time. The first one's free," he says with a smirk and a slight drug-dealer irony. We only buy from people we know, and they're not at all the pushers that you see in all of those war-on-drugs commercials. We're all responsible enough to know our limits and we know well enough when and when not to exceed them. "Nah, I'm just excited to see you guys, and since I don't have to buy anything for the summer and I am getting a big check at the end of the summer for watching the house on top of it all, I'm feeling generous. I am going to sell it, but before I do I thought I would share some of what I was going to take for myself."

There are smiles all around the four of us, Ben looking directly at me and I turn my gaze to see that John and Billy are still completely silent, like they're in a goddamn church, but smiling from ear to ear. I turn back to look at Ben. "Thanks, Sam. This is really great," I hear myself tell him.

"No problem. Not at all. Now, before I break it out, which of you guys has already done acid?" "I have," Ben says. "I know you have, Ben. I sold it to you. And the rest of you?" "I did, once. It wasn't all that much, though. It worked, but I didn't get too many visuals."

Sam waits for the others to talk but they just shook their heads. "Okay, then." He reaches into the pocket of his robe and he takes out an envelope. He has a bunch of sugar cubes in it, and he takes two cubes and hands them past Ben and me to John and Billy. He takes four more cubes and gives them, two each, to me and Ben. We take them all at once, with so much fucking dramaticism, and just then the clock strikes eleven, I think. I sit down next to Ben on the sofa, between him and John, and Billy sits on an ottoman. I close my eyes.

"Aren't you going to have any?" Billy asks suddenly, startling me so much that everyone laughs for a moment. The moment passes well enough that Sam doesn't have to answer if he doesn't want to, but he does, anyway. "No, that's all right. Someone should watch out for you all," he says, and then to Ben, "especially the virgins." We all sit down for a minute and the clock strikes twelve.

We sit there for what could easily have been, and just as easily not have been, a long, long time. Suddenly Ben sits straight up and says, "I have to go for a walk now." John sits up suddenly too and asks, "Do you need any company?" Ben just shakes his head quickly and walks out of the house.

We sit there still for what I think might be twenty minutes before the clock strikes twelve. Sam stands up and says to the three of us remaining, "Ah, the magic hour! Who wants to come with me for a walk?" I look around me, looking toward John, then Billy, and then I go right back to closing my eyes, which is no easy process right now. I hear them all get up, the three of them, and they leave the room. I'm sitting back, alone on the couch now, and I let them leave. Sam stops and asks, "Aren't you coming?" and without opening my eyes I tell him to go ahead. I sit there for a long time and then the clock strikes one, so I open my eyes to greet it. I'm still there, sitting on the couch, and watching all of these visuals and letting whatever inane thoughts pass through me go right on through. When the clock strikes two in the morning and I’m still alone in the room, I decide that I ought to go for a walk, myself.

As I head out of the room and back through the hallway, I hear a small, still voice say, "Bye." I turn around and I see Sarah sitting there, alone, in one of the chairs. She has until now completely evaded my attention.

"I'm just going for a walk," I tell her. "I'll be right back." "Sure," she says. She seems awfully lonely or sad, and I feel like I should stay with her, but in these conditions it is best to take care of yourself first. I'm not really sure how long I stand there staring at her before I manage to turn around and leave the house, but just as I open the door the clock strikes three. I go outside and start walking.

As soon as I get outside, I realize that I don't have any idea where I am. The drugs, of course, do nothing to help this situation. Other drugs may offset any paranoia you might have, but when you're under the influence of something that breaks away any solidity in your mind, you're stuck where you are. Confused and desparate. But I am expecting this, so I just sit down and stare at the trees surrounding the yard. There are a number of saplings planted randomly, or what looks to be randomly, in the grassy lawn, but there are also a large grouping of evergreen trees scattered around the peremeter of the yard. There's a particularly large tree, the one closest to me, that looks to me to have a face in it. Now, this could as easily be a trick of the light as the influence of the drugs, but when I start to really pay attention is when he starts talking to me.

"What are you doing?" the tree asks. "What am I doing? I'm not doing anything. I'm tripping. You're talking. What more do you want from me?" "Aren't you paranoid? I'm just asking you a simple question." "All right. What can I do for you?" "I want you to find yourself. You don't know yourself, and neither does anyone you know. I want you to figure yourself out, for me. There's a whole world full of what you don't know, and everything you really want to know is inside yourself, right now. It's all in your head. Everything you need exists within you. Every understanding of anything is in your mind already, if you will open yourself up to it."

It just so happens that at this moment I'm particularly annoyed with myself. Nothing says college drug-user better than a heart-to-heart with a fucking pine tree. I get up and start to walk away, but I turn back and say, "I'll think about it." I start towards the house again and as I go around the corner, Ben and I nearly collide, except that we're walking so smoothely and slowly. We just get startled that we turned the corner at the same time, look at each other, and all we can say is, "Whoa." And again, I feel like such a stupid, college druggie, but now that Ben and I are standing together I don't care. Then we start walking.

At some point while we’re walking, I start to notice a strange discoloration among my visuals. There are some swirling patterns, but no matter how fast they swirl or what direction, there’s always this lightly-colored patch on the left side. I mention it to Ben, he takes a good look at me and he takes my glasses off. Then it’s gone. He points out the stain on my left lens, and I take the glasses back and put them in my shirt pocket.

Ben and I are still walking together for a long time, and it seems like this property never ends. These people who really live here must have a lot of fucking money. As we're walking, I start to thinking that everyone has some conception of me, and as I am relating to people I base my actions on their conceptions. I start to think about who I really am, and how I really am, but I don't come to any conclusions. Then I realize that I have no personal conceptions of myself that aren't based on other people. I'm also not liking any conceptions that people have of me, not even Ben's. And suddenly I think of some girl I once knew a long time ago, and I realize that I was always happiest around her, and I only like the conceptions of myself that are based on her, and I don't know why. Maybe it's because she didn't want anything from me, and her interest in me seemed honest. I must have loved her. But for whatever reasons, all of the crazy and loose connections I have been feeling drop, and I start to come down off my trip. And then I feel better, and I look at Ben, and I smile, and he smiles back at me.

"Where are we going?" I ask him. "I don't know. I think that there's a pool house somewhere in this direction." "Why is the pool so damn far from the house?" "How the hell should I know?" he says, but he's not angry. We have a way of speaking to each other aggresively without actually being angry, least of all with each other. He's a funny guy sometimes. I realize just then that I only act like that around him, and that I'm just adopting his ways while I'm around him. I wonder, right then, how much of what I know about myself is false. And suddenly, we're outside of a big fence with a gate, about seven feet high all around. We open the gate and there sits a pool, in the middle of nowhere. And at the head of the pool is a small house, too small to live in for any more than one person, but for one person to live there would be luxurious, anyway. We head over because we hear music, and we open the door. John, Billy, Sam and Sarah are all in the room, sitting together. Sam is sitting on the floor in front of John and Billy, who are on the loveseat together.

"Well, here we all are again," says Sam. He looks at his watch, "And just before midnight, too!" "What?" I ask. "It was at least two or three when I went outside." "Oh, you silly drug addicts," Sam says, smiling at me. "You are aware, of course, that the clock in the main house tolls every fifteen minutes, no?" "Oh, Jesus," I say. Of course. It just plays a melody and doesn't ring a certain number of times. I guess I hadn't noticed that it stopped after a few bars most of those times.

"Anyway, that's not an issue at all, as far as I'm concerned. You're all coming down, I can imagine, so I think it's mostly safe to give you these," and Sam brings over a tray with six drinks on it, what look to be rum and cokes. "There isn't much in here, so you should all be fine drinking this. At least, I know I would be. But don't worry, you'll all be fine again eventually." And here he passed a glass to each of the four of us, one to Sarah that still had a swizzlestick in it, and took the last glass for himself. He looked at his watch. "Cheers," he said simply, and took a long drink, and we all did, too.

Within a half an hour, Ben and I had confiscated the bottle of Rum, still about half full, and we’re drinking straight out of it. John is on the floor talking to Billy and rolling a joint in his machine. Sam is sitting with them but isn't at all engaged in their conversation. He's dividing his attention between watching Sarah for signs of boredom and watching Ben and me for signs of dying. Suddenly he says, "Hey, look, everyone! It's raining out!" Without another word from anyone, Ben and I have our shoes and jackets off and are running around in the rain, enjoying our communion with God and/or nature. Before too long, which I say although I am painfully aware at this point at my lacking in time-consciousness, everyone has come out and we're playing in the rain to some capacity. Ben and I are, at this point, physically beating each other, and no one stops us because we do it every time we get drunk. Billy jumps on Sam's back and is mock-whipping him, and this is the first time all evening that he's been out of his robe that I know of. For the first time, I notice that Sam is wearing dress pants, a white-collar shirt and suspenders. John and Sarah are standing at the door, John with the finished joint hanging out of his mouth, making him feel cool like all the smokers he knows. Billy, oddly enough, managed to pull a cigarette from Sam's front pocket and light it without falling off of his back. Ben and I fight a little longer before we talk about smoking some weed, and then we drag John out into the rain, light the joint and pass it around, twice to each, Sarah declining both times. Sam runs by with Billy on his back and they get the joint away from Ben, who shrugs it off while I laugh at him and hit him in the face. He’s bleeding, so on principle he hits me back. All I know for sure is that we run around in the rain like that for a long time, getting hurt and not caring, and at some point I land at the front door of the poolhouse before I pass out entirely.

 

[Ian G. Marks]

Turnaround

Ah, hell with it. I don't want to do this thread any more. I'll start a new one soon.
- Ian G.

 

[Ian G. Marks]

Bob Dylan

I changed my mind, I guess. I didn't feel like writing any of this out. But then I got bored.

When I came to, I’m on the couch in the poolhouse, alone from what I could tell. I give a shout out for someone, and Sarah enters the room carrying a glass of water. From what I can gather by looking out the window closest to my head, it’s about eight or nine in the morning.

"Good morning," I say to her as she comes into the room. She’s still wearing the same clothes from last night, so I guessed that she had not slept. "Have you been up all night?" I ask anyway. "Yeah, I have. How are you feeling?" She sits down in a chair across from where I’m lying and hands me the glass of water. "I guess I'm all right. My head hurts. My whole me hurts," I say and chuckle to myself, which just hurts me more. "Damnit," I say and put my hand to my temples and massage them. She giggles. "What happened last night?" "When does your memory leave off?" "At the door, coming back in from the rain." "Oh, okay. The door was shut kindof tight and you couldn't get it open, so you pushed against it really hard and just collapsed. We ran to help you up, and Ben was kicking you a lot, and so John pulled him off and I tried to help you up. You kissed me, and then I brought you inside. The others all wanted to run off and play in the rain, and go in the pool, but Ben and you had some reason to come in here. We got you on the couch and Sam was asking you both to come with him, but you insisted that we stay right here. You said a few funny things, but I don't remember what they were, and then you threw up on Ben. Sam laughed and said he always wanted to do that, and if you check your front pocket, I'll bet that there is still a twenty-dollar bill there. Unless Ben stole it from you when I fell asleep for an hour."

As sick and tired as I feel, and as absorbed as I am in drinking my water, I’m completely fascinated to hear her tell me my own life story that I had somehow missed out on. I finish the glass of water and ask, "So, where is everybody now?"

"Well," she says, "I'm sure that they are all in the main house, asleep. It's about 6am right now." My time-consciousness is no better, yet, but I could think of very few occasions where it was any better. "Oh, wait! Damnit, I should get home. Lucrezia's probably wondering where I am, and I have to go to work today." "What time?" "I don't know, actually. I think they were going to call me at home sometime." "Ah. Well, I think that you should stay here for now. You need your rest. When you wake up, then you can call work and find out what time they want you in." "I think I should get up now," I say with an amazing amount of determination when I started that quickly disappears as I try to move the rest of my body. My head falls down at the head of the loveseat and I pass out.

When I come to again, the light has changed considerably. That's always the first thing that occurs to me when I am waking up for the second time. I'm apparently alone again, so I give a shout out. This time there's no answer. I look around the coffee table for my water, because I know I didn't finish it, and I find a note under the glass. It's from Sarah, and it says that she went to get some sleep in the house and I should come back when I wake up. I sit there on the loveseat for a long time, waiting for nothing and thinking of everything. At some point I notice my red sunglasses are on the table, too, so I put them on. I quickly drink my water, go to a sink to wash my face, and then leave the poolhouse and go to find my friends. At the house, I come through the back, through some very decked-out kitchen, and when I get to the living room I see a massacre. There are four bodies sprawled out around the floor and furniture, lying in various positions that may or may not be randomly placed. Just like those saplings outside last night, their randomness is almost too carefully planned. Either a brilliant mind that understands the randomness or an even more brilliant mind that flows perfectly through chaos, only those could have set these up. And as I stare at these bodies I start to feel as though there were never any saplings outside at all. And just then, Ben walks in. "Hey, man," I say. "Hey. How are you?" "Better, actually. Yourself?" "Oh, I'm fine. You want to get out of here?" "Yeah, I have to get to work soon, anyway." "Nah, I'm not going back that way." "Not going back to town?" "I think I want to go see a movie," he says. "Or maybe buy something. But I just want to relax, and so I don't want to go back to town." That's the thing about the town we live in, is that there was always nothing to do in it. I've seen about a dozen college towns, and I've heard about at least a million more, and for some reason the college I go to doesn't have one. Ours is practically a town in itself, with no commerce to speak of, and it's adjacent to a sad city that's mostly dried up but still convinces about seventy thousand people to live there. There's no movie theatre, no book store except the tiny one in the mall, and not a single record store that carries even basic good, new music. Not even fucking Radiohead. And this shithole little town is where we live this summer because we don't know where else we should go. So sometimes, when it strikes us to actually do anything, we have to leave town. And Ben is the only one of us who has a car. And for some reason Ben and I are walking to his car without John or Billy or without even waking them up. And for some reason I know that wherever I am going right now it's not where I am supposed to be going. And for some reason I don't give a damn.

So we get into the car and start to drive off. Ben is tearing down the winding roads like he always does, and I switch on the radio. There are virtually no good stations in this town, of course. But one day we discovered that, for some reason, there is one station that devoted itself to the praise of the rhythm/disco/funk era, and played the worst songs of the genres. It was amazing. The bad that transcends itself and can be reappreciated again. It was just things like that that people like Ben and I devoted our lives to. And so we listen to it heavily, every time we’re in the car together. And so here we are, zipping along on a perfectly reasonably Sunday afternoon, very alive in contrast with those who are relaxing and observing the sabbath. The music bounces off the calm and unassuming sky as we drive through nothingness.

Oddly enough, this act is so entrancing, as it usually was, that we almost don't stop at all. In fact, any plans that Ben had had when he started the car breaks down to his shouting, "I want a pipe!" as we pass a tobacco shop and then pulling over. We get out of the car and go in.

When we go into the store we're almost immediately greeted by a wooden indian, and Ben almost hits his head on it. I'm looking around for a moment, and I walk over to get some more rolling tobacco, but I can't find my brand. I actually raise my glasses from my head for a little while so I can see better. So I'm looking through the tobacco section, which of course sounds ridiculous, but there are relatively huge parts of the store devoted to things that are not tobacco, and some not even directly related to tobacco, but I'm looking through the tobacco section when I come across a really nice looking pipe, displaced from all the others. I pick it up to show it to Ben, who agrees that it is nice, but he wants this other one. It's only twenty dollars, and so I give it a good long look before I decide I want to buy it for myself. Ben shows me a tin of pipe tobacco he's getting. "What should I get?" I ask. "Oh, I don't know. I've never bought pipe tobacco before."

So I walk over and find the brand with a combination of the funniest name and the best-looking package. I also grab some obscure brand of rolling tobacco, think better of it, and put it down. My pipe tobacco comes in a bag, and I stare at it for a moment before I realize that I need some papers, too, but that this bag of tobacco obviously won't have any in it. So I grab a pack and hand all three to Ben. "What?" he asks me. "I don't have any ID, Ben." "Oh," he says and thinks for a minute. "Well, you look like you're at least twenty. Maybe he won't card you." But he does, of course, because this isn't some convenience store. So Ben pays for me and I pay him outside. It's slightly emasculating to not be able to buy your own cigarettes, but it's not usually a problem for me. Most places simply don't card me.

So we got ourselves in the car and drove on, through some country roads that comfort the people who live in the town. They're all very rich people who prefer the bohemian attitude but don't actually want to be poor. Even the homeless people in the town have a certain chic to them, because they know that there's no way that they won't get whatever they ask for. Spare change, cigarettes, a slice of the pizza you're carrying, whatever they want or need, the people have such respect for bohemia in this town that they want to feel like they have poor friends, at least, even if they have all the money they could ever spend. And so they can have their little township that has shops everywhere, and they can boycott the big chains from putting any stores in the town, and as soon as everything closes in on them too much they can take a nice drive in the country and see all of the houses that they could live in if they had ever lost touch with the common man. And somehow, the homeless that come to live here even have pretense. It's amazing to me, but not really in a way that's all that good.

We had been out for hours, and I guess it was enough time to soothe Ben's wanderings because he started to bring me back home. He brings me to my place, and I ask him what time it is. He looks at his wrist and says, "Oh, my watchband broke last night. I have to go pick it up when I go back for the others." "Ah. All right, then. See you later, fool," I say as I get out of the car. "Later," he said. I closed the door and he drove off. I come inside the apartment, feeling quite fortunate that Lucrezia has given me keys, and I see no sign of anything that I should direct my attention toward. I stand there for a minute and then I go to the phone. No messages on the machine, no memos written by the side of the phone. So I called the store.

"Hey," I say when my boss picks up. "Do you need me to work today? I just got in and I didn't get any messages." He tells me that they had called me, but when they couldn't get ahold of me they called someone else. So I’m free for the day. Great. I hang up and go into the bedroom. I’m feeling dizzy, so I feel like I should lie down, at least for a moment or two.

I get into the bedroom and I find a note on the pillow:
"Hey-
I had to go to work. Guess you went out early. Sorry I missed you, but I'll see you tonight. Made you a sandwich. It's in the fridge.
Love,
Lu

PS- Someone tried to call today, but I was in the shower and missed the phone. No message, of course. Maybe it was the store?
-L"

I read the note once or twice and fall down on the bed. I drop the note and curl up slightly to one side of the bed, the side where she usually sleeps. Her pillow smells like her. I’m there for a long time absorbing her scent as much as possible, reminding myself that any time you smell something, there are particles of it that are getting trapped inside your nose. Little tiny pieces of that girl are mine right now, and I am happy. Then I go to eat my sandwich.

I go and get my sandwich and feel some trace of that lucky feeling from the night before. It's not really that I am lazy, so much, that she makes food for me. I really just hate making food. I hate almost everything that goes into preparing food. I was a busboy for less than a week once. The restaurant was also a little too high-class for me, and I don't think that it was really all that classy. Still. I get my sandwich and some Dr. Pepper and I sit in front of the television. I turn on the laptop and sign myself online, even to the instant messenger, but I put up a message that says I was off doing something. It's important to make those messages clever and all-inclusive. Then I sit back and watch television, periodically watching the list on the computer to see who I know online, coming and going, and feeling no pull to interact with any of them. It’s about 3pm, and I hve nothing to do with myself. Life feels really, especially good.

I’m sitting there for a really long time, doing nothing more than occasionally getting up to refill my drink and sometimes to look for something that I could conceivably eat with little or no preperation, and repeatedly failing. Then, all of a sudden it hits me that I want a cigarette. So I pick the bag up that I brought from the tobacco shop, look inside, and remember that I never got rolling tobacco. So I take some of the pipe tobacco and roll it into a cigarette, and dear sweet Jesus, I’m in heaven. It smells good, tastes good, satisfies my habit and looks a hell of a lot like a joint. I sit back with my soda and my cigarette and appreciate life all the more.

After a little while longer, still sitting there and appreciating some movie that had Jack Nicholson in it but seemingly no other good qualities, I see that John comes online. I sit up and start typing to him:

me: Hey, man. Are you feeling any better?
John: Yes, yes. I am feeling quite well.
me: That was a good time, last night. Quite memorable, assuming I ever remember any of it.
John: Really? I have a pretty clear memory from last night.
me: I guess you didn't drink as much as I did, then.
John: oh, no. I drank plenty.
me: Well, I know that you had those two drinks, like everyone, but Ben and I stole the bottle after that. And we finished it. And I think we stole another bottle; Chianti, if I remember correctly.
John: I didn't realize that you guys drank so much.
me: Ben and I tend to drink a lot together when we get the chance. It's a part of our friendship.
John: He and I bond too, you know.
me: I'm sure you do.
John: No, really. I think that we do bond, sometimes.
me: I believe you.
John: okay.
John: So where did you guys go today?
me: to that tobacco shop. the one with the wooden indian. I don't remember the name of it.
John: is that all?
me: I guess so. We just drove around and listened to bad funk.
John: for how long?
me: I guess for a long time. We didn't get back to my place until 3pm or so.

Then for a long time he doesn't respond, so I get up and get something more to drink.

I couldn't remember falling asleep, but before I realize anything of the sort had happened, Lucrezia has come in and is climbing on top of me. That’s when all of a sudden I feel asleep, or as if I had been sleeping. She looks at me with one of those condescending, cute looks as she leans in to kiss me. "Going out tonight?" she asks me.

It takes me a moment to answer. "No, no. I got enough energy out of my system last night. I think I'm going to stay in tonight, mostly."

"You don't have to do that just for me," she says, almost seductively. She has this habit of saying things in a really sexy way without really meaning to, sometimes. She bites my ear gently and between that, her looks and her voice, I’m completely gone. She leads me into the bedroom with her, heading towards the bed and smiling happily. We are both undressing as we gradually reach the bed, both with a slow pace. We’re almost completely undressed when we get to the bed and on top of each other, then side by side, then on top of one another again. We kiss heavily and our breathing matches. She’s on top of me and I’m kissing her neck. I’m reaching down to take off my boxers as she leans heavily against me, sliding down my body, up and down, taking off the rest of her clothes. When we’re finally naked, she slides back down my body and our hips touch. We’re kissing each other and breathing heavily and she’s guiding me, but after a moment I stop her from moving, and I slide out from under her quickly. “What’s wrong?” she asks me. “I don’t know,” I tell her, which is true. “I was just having trouble breathing.” This is also true, but a little less. I was pretty sure for a few moments that I was going to die, which is why I pulled away from her. “Well, are you okay?” she asks. “Yeah, I think so. For the moment, anyway.” I struggle to catch my breath. “Can we just lie back and hang out for a little bit?” “Sure,” she says, kissing me.

In a little while, I wake up from dosing on the bed next to her with our heads at the foot of the bed, and again I take a moment before it really comes to me that I had been sleeping. I look at her and remember what happened, smiling to myself, anyway. I would have stayed there a long time staring if it hadn't been for the doorbell buzzing.

I go downstairs to the main entrance and see Ben through the door. I unlock and unbolt it and let him in. "What's up?" I ask. "Nothin'. Just thought I'd drop by. That all right?" "Yeah, sure. Lu's asleep, but I'll shut the bedroom door." Then as we go up the stairs, "Do you want anything to drink?" "Sure, anything. I'm thirsty, and about to get more thirsty." "What do you mean?" "Bought a gram. Thought I'd come over and share, unless you're too worn out from last night."

"Too worn out for pot? Nah. I'm glad you're here, anyway. I just woke up from a nap and had nothing to do." We get into the apartment and sit down on the couch. Ben pulls a small CD case from his pocket. "Nice," is all I say. He then takes out the bag with the pot in it and hands it to me, so I start to roll us a joint. For the most part, Lu never seems to mind our smoking in the apartment. Sometimes I feel like I've got it made, being with her. She and I have never really committed ourselves to each other, but we're happy enough that we don't really see other people. Honestly, when Sarah told me that I had kissed her, it hurt me more that I had kissed someone else's girlfriend than having cheated on Lu. "Don't put anything on too loud," I say to Ben as he goes to the stereo. He acknowledges my remark without really saying anything. He puts on one of our mutual favorites, the Stones' Hot Rocks album. He's a bigger Stones fan than I am, but I like them just fine, and some of their songs I am blown away by. By the time he comes back to the couch, I've lit the joint and take a few hits before I pass it to him. He's already smoking a cigarette, and he left his pack on the table so I grab them and take one. "What? I never got any rolling tobacco, remember?" "Then what's that?" he asks, pointing to the ashtray. "Oh, that's a cigarette I rolled with pipe tobacco. It's amazing, but too strong for me to smoke all the time." "Can I try one?" he asks me, and hands me the joint, smoke trailing out of his mouth and nose. He looks a lot like a demon, I think. "Sure, sure. I'll roll you one after this joint." "Nah, I got it." And he grabs the bag of pipe tobacco, takes the pack of rolling papers off the table and rolls himself a cigarette like I had earlier. "Is this too much?" he asks me while showing me his progress.

"No, you can even put a little more in, I think, but just mat it down a bit. You know? Straighten it out along the length of the cigarette." He finishes rolling it but I pass him the joint before he has a chance to light it, so he takes two hits and then presses the end of the joint to the end of the cigarette and starts smoking. "Whoa," he says. "Damn." "Yeah," is all I say.

Honestly, I don't remember most of what we talked about that night. We shared our philosophical ideas and other nonsense as we listened to both halves of the Stones' compilation. At some point, we turned the lights off and Ben played with the flashlight, covering it with his hand as he projected odd-looking faces onto the wall for me. I kept getting freaked out about how they all looked like clowns. Then Lu came out and said, "What the hell are you guys doing out here?" "Shadow puppets," Ben said without missing a beat. He's really clever when he wants to be, so to speak. After she leaves the room, he turns to me and says, "You know, you're a lucky bastard, in some ways." "Yeah, I guess so." "Has she asked you for a commitment?" "Nope, hasn't come up."

"Good," he says. In some ways, he’s a mysogynist. Just to hear him talk, I mean, you could get that impression. We’re there for a while, and as I’m rolling another joint I ask him if he wants to go to the diner.

"Sure thing," he says. "We'll smoke that on the way."

We get into the car and we head for the diner. At some point on the crazy, winding, speeding drive, Ben turns to me and he says, "I'm going home for the fourth of July."

"Why's that?"

"Because my parents want me to, and if I go I can do some laundry for free and they'll give me money. I guess I don't mind that much." He turns away for a moment. We have the windows rolled up and the air brushing our hair around feels really relaxing as we drive quickly through the night. I know he hates his parents, even if it is unreasonable. For a long time, I think, part of our society, or maybe I should say growing into society, but a part of it is hating your parents unreasonably for some length of time. It's not really fair to say that it's a phase that should be gone through at such-and-such a time, and that if you go through it when you're any older than fifteen then you're underdeveloped. There's no such a fucking thing as underdeveloped. Everyone develops certain things at different times, whenever they're ready. Even what they would call underdeveloped nations wouldn't seem that way if there weren't such greedy, large countries like the United States and China, having so much man power and land. Sometimes, when I think about it, I wonder why not communism, for the whole world? There are people in this country who are probably completely opposed to communism but still send money for children in other countries, so they don't starve. Not only that, but they are often opposed even to welfare for the poor in this country. Maybe they think that their donations give them more control over their giving, and maybe they even believe that the money they give goes only to that one child whose picture they were given. In my opinion, these people are either stupid or crazy, and Ben's parents are no exception.

As we’re driving along Ben makes a really sharp turn and almost crashes the car, and so he comes to a screaching halt. We both laugh because he does this all the time, and I’m in the car most of the time when he does it. Whenever anyone else is in the car, too, they get terrified and ask him to never drive them anywhere again. One person actually got out and walked the rest of the way home, which was miles away, just because they were so afraid of driving with him. Me, I’m depressed all the time and I’m too much of a coward to kill myself, so I get a kick out of it. I don’t know for sure that I’m hoping we’ll get killed some day, but if it happens I don’t care.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment. “When I die, it’s going to be completely my own fault.” And we laugh as he puts the car in drive again and turns back on to the road properly. I remember the joint in my pocket, and since I’m a little shaken up and all, I roll up my window, and I pull out the joint. Even in the dark, Ben notices and rolls up his window so I can light it. As I’m lighting it, he asks me, "Would you hand me a cigarette when you get a chance?" After I've got the joint lit and it's secure in my mouth, I search through all the things that we've thrown into the car with us and find his pack, knowing to look for a blue box, and I hand him a cigarette. Somehow, though, we got confused in the dark, and I don't know if it's because I haven't smoked cigarettes in a pack for so long and forgot, or if he convoluted his holding of it, but he puts the cigarette in his mouth backwards and lights it like that. He takes one puff before he coughs and throws it away from his face, and shouts at me, "You bastard! You carbed me!" I laugh and figure out what had happened, and apologize just in case it was my fault. A moment later, we pull into the parking lot of the diner and go inside.

When we get inside the waitress asks us if we want smoking or non-smoking seats, and we of course say smoking. We sit down and glance over our menus for a moment. He lights another cigarette, having thrown the other out the window of the car, and he stares at me. I think that this is where we were, this diner, the day he first found out I was smoking. He stared at me now while I rolled one of my pipe-tobacco cigarettes.

"Do you even exist?"

"What?" I ask him, licking the gummed part of the paper.

"I sometimes feel like you're just a figment of my imagination. You know, part of my mind that is trying to convince me that I'm crazy."

"Ben, you are crazy," I say. Then I start giggling, and not for any reason. I never even laugh, really. I just giggle. He's staring at me wide-eyed for a moment, and then the waitress comes by to take our order. He orders a meatloaf-on-wheat, I order grilled cheese with tomato and ham. The whole time, maybe because he's stoned, he's staring at me incredulously, even when he gives his order.

"I'm pretty sure you don't exist," he says after the waitress leaves. "You just sit there and sometimes you listen to me and sometimes you tell me things, and I just can't believe that you are an outside force. Everyone else, it's not so hard. But you," he says, and takes a drag from his cigarette, "you just can't exist."

"Maybe not," I say. I start smoking my pipe-tobacco cigarette and I just sit and stare at him silently, playing along with wherever his mind is going. We eat our meal in virtual silence, which would be peculiar if it weren't for the drugs. After the meal we each smoke another cigarette, I hand him some cash for my portion of the bill, and we head out before we're done smoking. It seems to me that we look really cool right then.

I spent the time eating thinking about Ben, and all of our friends, and even about myself, and thinking about how strong the temptation to see everyone as a future-something is. John's a lit major, so he'll be a writer, Ben's a musician and will presumably always be one, but we want him to be a Bob Dylan sort of figure. It's way too easy to do that with everyone around you with any sort of talent for anything. But I really think it's a bad idea. First of all, why on earth would you measure success by how famous you are? That's not really what makes you great. And besides, you'll just get let down when most, if not all, of your friends don't turn out that way. And even you may just be one of the ones that doesn't Make It.

We drive back to my place listening to Bob Dylan the whole way.

 

[Ian G. Marks]

I mean it this time

Stop reading this post. I'm done with it. I don't care any more.