I have three hundred thousand in cash, here. You can walk out of here with it right now. It’s half of what you were thinking, I know, but time is of the essence. And that’s plenty to get you to wherever you’re going. Truck included.
Deal, I say.
He sends a text. The Raider-butler arrives with three briefcases.
This is more money than I’ve ever seen in my life.
Dave gets a text. He looks at it and laughs. He holds it out to me. It’s the video of Andy.
Look at this. Crazy motherfucker covered in shit.
WHERE TO GO
THE MAIN PROBLEM with this much ill-gotten funds is where to put it. Where can you stash it that other people won’t take it? I can’t travel the world with three suitcases full of cash. I can’t clear customs with it. I can’t throw it in the luggage rack of a greyhound. Right?
How do you sleep with the fear of someone taking a stash off you that big? I can’t carry that around like Gollum’s ring. It will be the end of me. It will make me crazy.
I have to invest it. But I can’t leave a trail, either. So I have to invest it in something like a pot farm. Something else illegal that will pay off in the long run. Something that will give me an allowance and let me live the underground life to which I’ve become so accustomed.
But for now, I have money to spend and drugs to do. Life is good when you have money and drugs.
I buy a van from some jackass on Craigslist. Says it’s his old band van. It’s covered in stickers and has seen some miles. But it’s big and it’s American and it will blend in well enough in any city. There’s a loft bed in the back with the idea that gear can go down underneath it, which is also the perfect hiding place for the cash. And there’s no way that this guy can be sober long enough to report me if my face pops up anywhere.
I am now a man who lives in a van. I’ve come to that point in my life when living in a vehicle sounds like a good option. This is fucked up. But it’s the best way to go right now until the heat dies down.
The back of a van is a womb. The belly of the whale. All that. It’s a sanctuary from everything. The world. Cops. Success. Ambition.
Maybe I’ll just drive until the money runs out. From here to there, one rest stop to another Walmart parking lot, little towns across America where they still look up to a guy who just says fuck it, I’ll drive around in a van forever.
My only hesitation is the sex. I don’t want to be stuck having sex only with women who will fuck guys who live in vans. That’s a whole different world. I’ve lived in some real shitholes, but at least they had addresses and mailboxes. And hell. Somewhere to piss. A lady would have to make quite a few concessions to spend a night in the Dodge with me.
It’s small, but it’s home. And they’ll never find me here.
I come out of a blackout as coke is coming up my nose. I’m in a bathroom of somewhere. Not sure where I am; it’s a bar or club or something. Not sure. Looks familiar, but that doesn’t mean anything.
I come out of the stall. I know this place. It’s the Dog House, an all-night dance party south of Market. It also caters to a dom-sub clientele that’s about being super nice and loving to your “dogs.” It’s not the humiliation kind of thing with the slave set. It’s kinder and gentler, but it keeps the collars and the leashes and the chains. But some owners just love to spoil their dogs.
I’m wearing a VIP wristband, so there’s no way I’m hanging out with the pedestrians on the floor. There’s a mashup playing of “Blue Monday” and “Regulate.” I get through the crowd of eyes and teeth glowing in the black lights, the Day-Glo hair, and the textural bliss of a mass of people. I must be really high. Forcing my way through the crowd feels like fucking.
The VIP area is full of owners at tables chatting with their dogs sitting on the floor. The dogs aren’t wearing much: briefs only in the case of the boy dogs, which most of them are, and briefs and halter tops for the girl dogs. They don’t talk, but they look dumbly happy at me as I walk by. I find an empty table and sit.
I check my phone. Messages and texts from the roommate, many more from former coworkers and MiniWhale clients. A detective handling the murder case. The texts are coming in as I look at them. There are hundreds of them. Shit is blowing up.
A lady owner approaches with a pair of little people dogs. She asks to sit. She says something. I just nod my head, but I can’t hear.
CHUCK? she yells. DO YOU REMEMBER ME?
It’s Liza, a dancer I had a thing for when I first moved here. We had sex once. I had wanted it since I first saw her, and then it was like nothing when it happened. Didn’t feel like a fucking thing. I was embarrassed. I thought I sucked in bed or something, a lousy lay. A few weeks went by. Found out through her friends that she really liked me and was mad that I never called her back. I had no idea why she would like me. But I blew it, and I think about it all the time.
LIZA.
YES. ARE YOU INTO THIS SCENE? YOU DON’T HAVE A DOG.
HONESTLY I DON’T KNOW HOW I GOT HERE. WHAT ABOUT YOU?
THESE AREN’T MINE. I’M A DOGSITTER FOR THIS OLD GAY COUPLE.
I WONDERED.
DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING?
MOST LIKELY.
I search my pockets. About time for an inventory. In my jacket, there’s a Pomade tin. I open it. It’s full of coke.
JESUS CHRIST, CHUCK.
She takes it, taps a little out, and cuts it into lines. I look around. I don’t know who’s watching. She rolls up a bill.
CALM DOWN. YOU LOOK TOTALLY PARANOID.
You’re not paranoid if they’re really after you.
She snorts half a line with one nostril, then switches nostrils and inhales the other. She hands me the bill. I should say no, but I don’t. I can’t feel my face. I took some kind of painkiller before this, from the feeling of things.
Halfway up my nose, I feel my heart punching my ribcage. Fuck. Too much. I do the other nostril. I have to keep things even. I need to come down though. I look up. Liza’s playing with my marble.
DON’T FUCK WITH THAT.
WHAT IS IT? A GOOD LUCK CHARM?
CAN WE GET OUT OF HERE?
She pauses. Her face goes blank, then confused, then happy.
YES.
I follow her through a succession of strobe lights, black lights, and fog. I can’t feel my feet. I see all these women dressed in ’70s punk makeup, Siouxsies and such—must be some kind of retro thing coming back. I like it. None of them make eye contact with me. Just like the punk girls I remember.
As soon as we make it outside, I’m cold and my ears are ringing. There’s a mist falling, a foggy damp towel freezing my bones. It shocks me with momentary sobriety. I feel a pull.
This way, she says.
The little pups pull her in their harnesses toward the car. They’re in a hurry. No wonder, they’re almost naked.
It’s so weird running into you, she says, checking her phone as we scurry down the sidewalk.
Oh my god, she says. So gross.
She hands me her phone. It’s the Andy video. I hand it back to her.
Saw it already.
We get to an SUV. She opens the door and whistles. The dogs scramble in.
How did you get here? she asks.
I don’t know, I say.
She laughs. You are a funny guy.
We’re at some queer house in Twin Peaks. Old-school SF homo. Not any of this new-money, high-tech bullshit. This belongs to some daddy from way back. Probably bought this for a hundred K back in the early ’80s.
The place is immaculate but outdated. Still, it’s a welcome sight compared with the IKEA nightmares going on now. Tom of Finland prints hang in the living room. There’s a trophy case in the corner from some kind of Castro contest, and there’s a leather hat hanging on the one of the trophies. Pictures of men in chaps and whisk-broom mustaches. There’s a big-screen TV, but it’s old, one of those things that weighs a god damn ton, with a VCR and tapes of all the old classics li
ke Auntie Mame and The Rose.
The dogs immediately run for the sofa. Liza yells at them, and they scamper away.
Do you have to walk them, too?
They shit in the toilet, if that’s what you’re asking.
Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.
Liza puts on a record. It takes a minute. It’s Jesus Christ Superstar or Hair or some other ’70s musical soundtrack.
I take out the marble and my pipe.
Now, for this . . . I say.
She turns off the lights and turns on a lava lamp. She joins me on the couch.
What is it? she asks.
Something new. The new thing. The new high.
She takes it without another word of what it does, what it’s like, what’s in it. It’s the new high. The first time you get high on anything, it’s full of promise, potential, probable bliss. Maybe it’s going to be your favorite. Maybe it’s the best yet. Maybe it’s the drug that finally fixes you. But whatever it is, that first time is special. It’s the one that feels the best. It’s the time that you use to judge all following usages of that drug. She hits it, long and practiced.
In the light, I see some kind of textural problem with her face, like horrible acne or something covered by makeup. It’s a bad scar, a huge one, running from her chin up to her hairline. I notice her ear; it’s a prosthetic. It’s hanging on, slightly off-colored. Her eye is dull, because it’s not real, it’s glass. Something horrible happened to a side of her face.
Jesus Christ, Chuck. This is good.
She holds it in with the patience of an Olympic diver. She exhales.
Oh my god. Oh my god. This is good. Fuck. This is good. Take your clothes off.
Really?
Yes, really, take them off, now. Oh god, I have to fuck on this.
She passes me the marble back. Immediately, her clothes come off, sliding out of them like a snake molting.
Her body is a mural of every trendy tattoo from the last twenty-five years. Some faded, some added to, some with fallout, some fresh. Tribal. Biomech. Traditional. Pinup. Roses. Fucking angel wings on her back.
There are stretch marks and scars, but it doesn’t matter one bit. She still has those wide hips curving out from the narrow waist. I hit the marble and get marble-hard right away.
Come on, she says. Off.
She’s rooting around for something. I’m trying to get my clothes off so quickly that I’m taking off my pants without taking off my shoes first. They’re all tangled up and stuck. My cock looks like it’s reaching for her.
She turns around with a bottle of lube the size of a Pringles can. She laughs.
Oh my god. Now that’s the cock I remember so fondly. Let me.
She pulls my pants and shoes off. I’m naked on the floor. She opens the lube and pours it on me like she’s syruping a pancake.
She sits down, and I’m inside her right away. I know I’m high, but I swear I’m hitting her fucking brain with my cock.
Oh my god, Chuck. Jesus Christ.
We fuck and we fuck and we fuck.
We hit the marble.
We fuck some more. It feels like I’m reaching weird places inside her with my cock, like she’s full of hollow tunnels and my cock is an eel.
Can I get some of that coke?
Yes, of course . . .
She reaches over without getting off me. Her ear falls off. I think I’m tripping. I’m not. She picks it up and puts it on the couch.
Ah, fuck, she says, sorry. Lost the ear like ten years ago.
I don’t care . . .
She grabs the coke tin out of my jacket pocket and opens it. With her pinky fingernail, she scoops a blast up and snorts it. She hands me a fingernail full, and I take it straight up the nose.
It feels like an hour. There’s remote in my system. I almost forgot about it. I haven’t had withdrawals. The marble high counteracts it or something.
We fuck some more. Her hair slides to the side.
You don’t mind, do you? It’s a wig.
Help yourself . . .
She rips off her wig and throws it on top of her ear. There’s bald scarring all over that one side of her head. Like a bad burn or acid scar or something, I don’t know. Fuck it. Who cares. Somehow, it just makes her hotter.
HUNT’S
I’M DREAMING OF Twentieth and Mission. It’s a completely lucid dream. More so than I’ve ever experienced. I know I’m dreaming because I’m outside Hunt’s. It’s the middle of the night, the best time to go. Hunt’s was open all night. So many times after the bars and clubs closed, I ended up here. It was the only place in the Mission that was still open. Hunt’s closed ages ago. It was my favorite donut place. Ever.
I walk in for a dream donut. I’m going to be a total pig before I wake up.
Buttermilk bar, with chocolate. Cruller. Apple fritter. Fuck it. One of each of each one that you have. Even the maple ones I don’t like. One of each. Get a fucking box.
Why do all the donut places have pink boxes? Never any other color.
They’re putting the donuts in the box when something disturbing walks by the window: me. It’s me, the way I looked in 1990.
Just give me the box. Now. Here’s twenty bucks . . .
There’s no way I’m leaving the donuts here. Dream or not.
I run out of Hunt’s. I follow behind 1990 me.
Hey, kid . . .
Can’t help you.
No, it’s not like that . . .
Fuck off, short eyes.
There’s so many things to tell you about . . .
1990 me turns around, grabs my shoulders, pulls back, then gives a forward shove. I trip backward, dropping the donut box. Fuck. This hurts. 1990 me storms off, making tracks off to Seventeenth and Capp, where I lived back then.
I gather up my stuff. Shoving stuff back into pockets. Cruller on the street. Leave it. A crackhead in a hurry swoops it up like an owl snatching a mouse. If the crack hasn’t killed him yet, a sidewalk pastry won’t phase his system. Keys, get keys . . . no phone. Well, if it’s 1990, I shouldn’t have one.
Then I spot the marble on a dirt patch some damned tree is trying to grow out of. Did I have it with me? Is that my drug marble or a marble marble? Fuck it, take it.
So I need to know. Drug marble or no? Fuck it. Light it and find out.
In 1990 Mission, it’s not hard to find a pipe. Walk down the street. Head shops where yoga studios will be. Mexican-farmer bar where the dyke bar shows up later. Used-furniture store will become the old-timey barbershop. The barbershop that becomes a crafts boutique.
Pipe. Torch lighter. Unlit doorway. Hiss of the flame in the night air. I’m smoking a fucking marble marble, a dirty, dirt-covered marble, a mocking little dumbass glass sphere.
Yo, son, what about a taste?
A silhouette leans in. Something hitting me in the gut. No breath. No air. Wind knocked out? Dying? Fuck. Pockets . . . hands . . . tugging. The donuts scattered on Capp Street, stepped on, soaking in drunks’ piss. A jelly hemorrhages. Timberland comes closer to the face. The whole scene is a shrinking tunnel, getting smaller, until it’s completely black.
I’m hitting the marble. Liza sits across from me. No wig, no ear. Smeared makeup like signal smoke. Orange-peel burn scars.
You okay? She says with a smirk and a giggle. Don’t forget to breathe.
Yeah . . . fuck, had a really intense moment there. I thought I was dreaming. It was like I was back in 1990.
Trippy. How many hits do you get off this thing?
Don’t know. Story is, never runs out.
Bullshit. What is it then?
I don’t know, some kind of experimental drug . . .
It’s not a drug.
Why?
Drugs run out. It’s what they do.
You have a point.
Take coke. It’s this thing that makes your life okay, no matter who you are, but the only catch is when this little pile of powder runs out, everything’s fucked. You’re living in
an hourglass, and this magic sand is draining out this hole in your face. Worse. Your friend’s face. Fuck your friend. She’s the reason the pile is getting smaller and your life won’t be okay anymore.
Yes, I see . . .
BUT YOU KNOW, FUCK EVERYONE, BECAUSE YOU CAN JUST GET MORE.
Hey, Liza . . .
I’m sorry. God. Look, if you take away the drugs that run out, then you take away getting more, and getting the money for more. And that’s a drug addict’s life. You can’t just make a drug they don’t have to get the money for or have to look for even when they have the money. That’s part of the whole deal.
I don’t think . . .
No you don’t. Obviously. Do you think I would have worked at the Market Street Cinema all those years if I didn’t need the money?
Of course not.
Well it’s not that simple, asshole. I wanted to do that shit to myself, to lapdance guys who look like my dad, to blow them in the back for a tip, to catch weird shit all the time from wherever the fuck in the world they came from. I wanted to let Japanese perverts on business trips shit on me. Literally. The drugs? They were a good fucking excuse. Because if I had been doing that for any other reason, you would’ve said I had a problem. That something was wrong with me. But you and every other junkie with a cock still wants to fuck me because I’m something you can save or some shit, save me with your magic cock.
It’s not like that . . .
Oh, now you want to mansplain to me what shit is like? Fuck you, Chuck. You act like some nice sensitive guy, but you’re a horrible piece of man shit like the others. Fuck ’em and leave ’em. Fuck ’em and fuck ’em.
I should go . . .
First good idea you’ve had all damn day.
I get my shit. It’s like a scavenger hunt. Boxer briefs pants socks shirt jacket wallet keys phone stash.
Leave me a bump.
Fuck, really?
Yes.
I dump out a little coke for her right on the table.
That good?
Yes. Can you get me one of those marbles?
Ha. I knew it.
Shut up. Can you get me one or not?
A thousand bucks.
Jesus, Chuck.
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