How to Murder Your Life

by Cat Marnell

  Giving him a Flip cam had been a bad idea. Now Marco always wanted me to film him—and sometimes it got weird when I did.

  “MEN WANT MY PENIS!” he’d shrieked to the streets a few weeks ago. We’d taken ecstasy and he’d handed me the camera. “MEN WANT MY PENIS! MEN WANT MY PENIS!” He’d pulled out his bouncy ball. Bounce bounce bounce.

  A few weeks later, he showed me the stickers he’d had professionally printed from a photo of his body in silhouette—with a huge erection. He slapped these things all over downtown (there’s still one on a stop sign on Broome Street in Soho). I tried to appreciate his “art,” but I was a little . . . perturbed. What did it all mean? Sometimes I felt like my friend was a puzzle I had to figure out.

  Tonight was definitely one of those times—but I was too tired to think too hard about it. I had a beauty event in Connecticut in a few hours. I begged Marco to keep it down, gave him a kiss, popped a pill, and returned to bed.

  I woke up an hour later to rapid-fire camera sounds.

  Click-click-click-click-click-click. I sat up on my elbows. My room was light blue and purple: the sun was just starting to rise outside. Click-click-click-click-click-click.

  Marco was hanging out the window as he shot himself with a thirty-­five-millimeter camera. Click-click-click-click. He had on my Chanel aviators and my leopard-print fur Adrienne Landau vest. YSL Rouge Volupté no. 17 lipstick was smeared all over his mouth. He was vamping like Buffalo Bill (“Would you fuck me? I’d fuck me”) in The Silence of the Lambs—and this was long before selfies were a thing.

  “Are you serious,” I mumbled. It was such a surreal tableau that I wasn’t sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  If Marco noticed me stirring, he didn’t let on. Bitch’s natural lighting was too good. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click click click click. I passed back out.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was morning. Marco was next to me, on top of the covers with his boots still on. I left him and let him sleep. I spent the day in Ridgefield at the opening of a beauty boutique in a flagship CVS store. I made small talk with Kristin Davis of Sex and the City—and applauded dutifully at the VIPs’ speeches.

  I didn’t go back to the office that afternoon. Instead, I came home early with Marco’s favorite sandwich from Sunny & Annie’s—the Mona Lisa—and a green juice for me. But when I opened my bedroom door, Marco wasn’t there. Oh well. I scanned the room for the cute note he usually left me: nothing.

  Actually, there was something. I’d left the room messy, but now it looked . . . different-messy, like someone had been rummaging through things. My drawers, my closet, the papers on my desk all seemed to have been disturbed.

  I walked around the room and took in the odd energy I was feeling—was I imagining things?—and wondered what my best friend could possibly have been looking for.

  * * *

  The next time Marco visited Nev’s apartment, he brought a wee octogenarian. The old man wore a ratty cardigan and appeared to be hunched over his own rib cage.

  “This is my friend Lester Garbage Head,” Marco said, ushering him into the apartment. Nev and his girlfriend were in the kitchen cooking tortellini, perhaps.

  “Nice to meet—” Nev started.

  Marco grabbed Lester and darted into my bedroom, slamming the door in my roommate’s face.

  “Nev, I’m so sorry,” I apologized, and ran into my room after them.

  “Marco!” I said. “I’m not going to tell you again. That’s my roommate! You can’t be so rude! Say hi to Nev!”

  Marco made a big fuss of rolling his eyes. Then he popped open the door and stuck his greasy, handsome head out. “Hi, Nev.”

  Then he slammed the door shut again.

  “You’re the worst,” I said. But I had him over every day, so I don’t know what that made me.

  “Nice crib,” Methuselah said. Upon closer inspection, I saw that Lester was probably only about twenty years old. What was Marco doing with him?

  “Lester’s gonna teach us to fix,” Marco announced. Ah. He’d found a junkie—a real one—to tutor him.

  The junkie was taking a kit out of his backpack: a bag of syringes, a belt . . .

  “I don’t know,” I said. I’d never shot dope before. Also, it was, like, a random Wednesday evening.

  “Need a spoon,” Lester Garbage Head said.

  “I’ll get it—” I said, but he was already out in the kitchen. I followed.

  “Got a spoon?” he asked Nev, who was stirring a pot.

  “Yes,” my roommate said. “Why?”

  “Magic trick,” Lester Garbage Head said.

  Nev shot me a look.

  “He’s really talented.” I swallowed.

  Nev looked suspicious, but slowly reached into his perfect silverware drawer anyway.

  “Here,” he said, extending the spoon to Lester Garbage Head.

  “Thanks.” Lester snatched it.

  “Heh-heh.” I smiled at my roommate. Then I scurried after Lester and shut my bedroom door.

  As I said, I didn’t want to mainline heroin on a work night, but I decided that a little cocaine would be okay. I had some in the house, so I just let Lester Garbage Head shoot me up with that. (I know what you’re thinking, and yes, I always used clean needles. I am HIV free! The ER doctor told me so the last time I overdosed.) I thought it would be awesome, but I didn’t like the feeling at all. It was extremely wild and overwhelming to have a stimulant flooding my body like that. Too much. I felt like a pinball was ricocheting around inside me for like twenty hours. (Injecting gives you hep C. Don’t even think about it, teens.)

  That night after he left, I didn’t see Marco again for weeks. I tried not to take it personally, but it hurt my feelings. He was spending so much time with Carly. And he was my only close friend! My text-­message alert would chime, I’d pick up my phone, expecting it to be my bestie, but it was always Lester Garbage Head. I’d let him come over. I’d watch him shoot up and he’d ask me out. I always declined—the dates, not the dope—but it was nice to have a dude paying attention to me, even if he was a baghead. A guy hadn’t had a crush on me since . . . God, I didn’t even know.

  I was mad lonely. So one afternoon, I hung out with Marco’s “other” best friend, Trevor—who was gay—after work. We watched Ab Fab and smoked weed.

  I missed Marco. When he did finally come around to my house again, I mentioned that I’d hung out with Trevor without him—and Marco lost it.

  “Fuck that faggot!” Marco ranted. “He’s obsessed with my dick!” The penis thing again. “That faggot wants to suck my dick!” He was pacing in my room.

  “Don’t say those things!” I said. I was so confused. Marco loved Trevor! They’d grown up together; he was over there all the time.

  “What did you guys say about me?” He was all paranoid. “What did you talk about?”

  “AB FAB!” I said. “The TV show!”

  “That’s it?” Marco didn’t believe me. “WHAT ELSE?”

  “Um . . .” I couldn’t even remember; we’d gotten so stoned. “Cicciolina!” I cried. “David Lynch! Twin Peaks!”

  Marco glared at me.

  “You’re not allowed to hang out with him again without me there!” Marco barked. “He’s not your friend!”

  “Fine, I won’t,” I said. “I won’t!”

  “You promise?” I nodded. “You swear?”

  “Yes!”

  And just like that, Marco stopped pacing the room and, like . . . mutated—into something soft and doe-eyed. He plopped down on the sofa and started rubbing up on me like one of the cats he hated. “I really love you.”

  What the hell was going on? Whatever; I was just happy he’d calmed down. I gave that weirdo eighty dollars to go out and score us crack, just like old times. Marco hit the streets. I messed around in my shelves, organizing my
art books. Then I lay on my bed. An hour passed, then two. My friend’s phone went straight to voice mail. I felt angrier and angrier. Marco never came back.

  * * *

  It was around this time that I was escorted out of Cirque du Soleil by my elbows at the instruction—I believed—of the Vice President of Marketing for a major advertiser beauty brand. Remember? (I sure do.)

  A few weeks after that fiasco, I was at my desk at Lucky, working very hard at trying on the latest Poppy King lipsticks. It was an afternoon like any other. Simone had been up and down all day, escorting beauty VIPs to Jean’s office with their bags of new products. I listened in on these “desksides” all day whether I wanted to or not, since I sat so close to Jean. She always left the door open.

  At around four, Simone brought back . . . the Vice President of Marketing.

  We locked eyes right away.

  “Hey,” I forced out. The Vice President of Marketing nodded. Barely.

  That’s when I noticed that the Vice President of Marketing didn’t have any gift bags with her—nor her usual gaggle of publicists.

  “Good to see you . . .” Jean air-kissed her visitor.

  “Can I close this?” The Vice President of Marketing gestured to the glass office door. Then she slid it shut.

  “Is the Vice President of Marketing here for a deskside?” I asked Simone.

  “I think it’s just . . . a meeting,” she said. Oh, bloody hell.

  Twenty minutes later, the door slid open again. I looked right at the Vice President of Marketing as she exited my boss’s office. She did not look back at me.

  “Simone will walk you out,” Jean said. The vice president continued to stare straight ahead as she followed Simone back to reception.

  I picked up a press release and pretended to be engrossed.

  Three . . . two . . .

  “Cat?”

  Yep.

  I went into JGJ’s office.

  “What’s up?” I said.

  Jean looked at me.

  “That meeting . . .” Jean said slowly, “was about you.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Were you . . . wasted at Cirque du Soleil?” She sounded like she was still processing what she’d been told. “And at the Mayflower?”

  “No!” I assured her. “Jean, let me explain . . .” And you can imagine how it went from there. All I could do was spin, spin, spin: “That woman has it out for me, Jean! You know I’m not disrespectful!” Deny, deny, deny: “I was late for dinner at the Mayflower because I wanted to skip the cocktail hour!” Lie, lie, lie: “She thought I was drunk at Cirque du Soleil because I tripped on my way to the ladies’ room!” Accuse, accuse, accuse: “She had me thrown out in front of everyone, Jean! It was insane! She’s unprofessional! Not me!”

  “Mmm . . .” Jean said.

  I looked her straight in the eye.

  “It wasn’t drugs or alcohol, Jean,” I said. “I wouldn’t lie to you about that. Not after everything you’ve done for me.”

  She looked at me hard for what felt like ten hours.

  “Okay,” my boss finally said. “I believe you.”

  “Thank—” I exhaled.

  “I’m choosing to believe you,” JGJ cut me off. “But you must do better. Do you understand? You must do better.”

  “Yes.” I was nodding like a bobblehead doll. “Yes. Yes. Yes, I will. Thank you. I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t apologize,” Jean said sharply. “Just do better.” Then she swiveled her chair around to face her computer. Meeting adjourned.

  I went back to my cubicle. Simone and Cristina had heard the whole thing. I sat down in my rolling chair. My boss’s back was to me as she continued typing.

  I’m sorry, I thought.

  * * *

  Gay guys always have better drugs. For this reason, Marco and I drove to New Jersey on a Friday evening to spend the weekend with Trevor and his party-boy friends at his family’s house. Our host popped Molly in our mouths before we were even out of the car! Forty minutes later, we were deeper into the matrix than Keanu Reeves, and we stayed there all night.

  That’s when . . . it happened.

  Ugh.

  Look, I’d never felt sexually attracted to Marco, okay? We’d slept in bed together like children our entire friendship. I’d posed naked for him twenty times; we’d done MDMA just the two of us a hundred times. But we were not like that.

  And yet somehow, on this night, we went to a bedroom and got together. Together-together. I truly have no idea who initiated what, though I do have a theory on why I went along with it: I wanted to feel close to my friend, who’d been so distant lately. I’d been feeling insecure, and Marco knew it.

  And then somehow that dynamic—that energy between us—turned into strange, cold sex. Marco’s icy-blue eyes were blank and glazed as he boned me. In the middle of it, my mind flashed to his sketchbooks full of girls getting fucked up their asses with torture devices. I was relieved when the sex was over. I knew it would never happen again.

  We woke up together in the morning, then got in the Fiat to return to the city. Something was wrong. With Marco. He was hardly speaking at all, and when he did, his affect was very flat. He almost sounded like a robot. I made jokes to lighten the mood, but Marco wouldn’t laugh. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable.

  We drove along in mostly silence. I looked out the window at the highway streaking by. My brain felt fried. I had work the next day.

  “Is everything okay?” I finally said.

  Marco didn’t say anything. He had fully shut down. We got back to New York, and after that, things were never the same.

  Chapter Sixteen

  PEOPLE DON’T JUST CHANGE OVERNIGHT, do they? But Marco did: from a sweet boy into a fearsome predator, a bully, a thief. I’ve spent weeks writing and rewriting the following scenes, trying to make them make sense. The fact is . . . nothing about this period made any sense. If at any time you get confused, well—good. Because that’s what it was like living through it. Except a zillion times worse.

  Back to Marco. Bitch started buzzing at all hours of the night, every night: Big Bad Wolf steez. BZZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZZZZZ. The only way to stop it was to let him in. I was usually awake to hop up and push the button, but one night Nev got there first. The intercom was right outside his bedroom door and Marco knew it.

  I stumbled out in my Xanax haze.

  “I’m so sorry!” I said. “Marco is homeless right now and—”

  “I DON’T CARE!” Nev hollered. He stomped back into his bedroom and slammed the door.

  Enter Marco. He lurched in like a broken machine, hauling his ­stupid Gaultier gym bag. He was wearing a bunch of the rosaries I’d bought in Rome.

  “You can’t keep doing this!” I hissed, closing my bedroom door behind us. “You know you’re supposed to call my phone if you want to hang out!”

  “Let’s do some drugs,” he said.

  “No!” I shook my head. “I have to work tomorrow.”

  “C’mon,” Marco said. “Gimme forty dollars.”

  “No!” I was a little annoyed with him.

  Marco stood there for a second. Then he walked over to my desk, went into my handbag, and just took the money he wanted—and then he left! “Are you serious?” I yelled as the door slammed behind him. Was he literally on crack? It was quite possible.

  He called me the next day at Lucky like nothing had happened.

  “You better not pull a stunt like that again,” I said. I assumed he had been wasted. People do crazy things when they’re drunk.

  But three days later . . .

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked, trying to stay calm when Marco grabbed my money and my Adderall and Valium bottles and stuffed them in his pockets. “You know you’re just going to have to bring
all of that back.”

  He didn’t answer. He just disappeared again.

  * * *

  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

  It was before dawn in Alphabet City, three days later, and Marco was downstairs. I ran to the intercom. Then I set out some lemonades and Rice Krispies Treats from Sunny & Annie’s, sat Marco down on the sofa, and went in.

  “Honey,” I began. “Why would you steal from me when I’ve always given everything to you?” That’s what really confused me. I’d always spoiled him! With drugs, with cash, with glamorous gifts: Dior Homme candles, the cashmere Condé Nast corporate Christmas scarf. Anything he admired, I handed over! “I’m on your side. I’m on your team! We’re on the same team. I’ll give you anything you want! I always have!”

  He repeated back: “We’re on the same team. You’ll give me anything I want. You always have.”

  “Yes!” I squeezed his hand. “Just please be my friend again! Stop this. Just stop!” I thought he needed love. “I love you so much.”

  Marco said nothing. He didn’t even seem to be hearing me. He seemed kind of . . . groggy.

  Then, suddenly, he came alive—and shoved me in the chest! I sort of tipped over onto the ground.

  “Marco!” I should have been angry, but I was more confused than anything. Why was he acting this way?

  Then he stood up, pulled a can from his jacket pocket, and spray-painted “GROUPIE” across my bedroom wall—in hot pink!

  “HEY!” I shouted. I scrambled to my feet, ran over, and tried to pull the paint can from his hand. Marco pushed me away; I kept coming back. Then he shoved me to the bed, grabbed me by the neck, and tightened his grip—choking me for a second.

  Is this really happening? I screamed inside, but it was over so fast I wasn’t even sure.

  Then:

  “WHORE!” he shouted.

  He spat in my face.

  Well. There was no second-guessing that.

  This time, Marco snatched my Adderall bottle off the mantel—oh, I didn’t think so—and . . . my house keys?! I chased him down the stairs. But he was too quick for me.