Exit Here.

by Jason Myers

She takes a pull from the bottle. “Do you know what you’re going to do in the fall?”

  Not yet. But things are becoming more clear to me. I feel like I’ve got my feet under things again.

  “You’re staying in the city though, right?”

  Yeah, I have to. Leaving again would be a bad idea. I don’t even know why I left in the first place.

  “To experience other things. That’s what you told me. You said you could only go so far living here. That kids are supposed to leave home and go to college.”

  I know that’s what I said. But I don’t know.

  I take the bottles from Laura and drink.

  It was bullshit. I lost everything when I left.

  “What did you lose?”

  I take another drink.

  Everything.

  Laura puts her hands on my face and turns it so our eyes are even with each other.

  “Do you love me?” she asks.

  Yes.

  “Do you promise?”

  I promise.

  She smiles. “Let’s go then.”

  Where?

  “Let’s climb to the top of the slide and fuck.”

  Laura jumps off the table and runs for the slide. I do the same.

  She gets there first and starts climbing the ladder while I stand at the bottom and take more drinks. Once she’s at the top, she looks down at me and goes, “Come on, baby. Hurry up.”

  I start climbing, and when I get to the top, Laura grabs me and we kiss again. She grabs onto the bottom of my T-shirt and pulls it over my head and off, then pushes me onto my back after taking the Beam from my hand.

  She straddles me.

  I slip her navy blue top off and squeeze her breasts.

  “They’re a lot bigger than they were when we were fifteen.” She laughs, then takes a huge pull from the bottle and leans down and starts kissing me. Jim Beam runs everywhere—down my chin. Over the sides of my face. All over my chest—and right before I close my mouth, Laura spits some more booze into it and I swallow it.

  “I want you inside of me,” she moans. “Get inside of me, Travis.”

  I sit up and put my hands on the sides of her waist and roll her over, pinning her back against the cool surface of the slide. Then I unbutton my jeans and push them down. Laura does the same with hers. Then she wraps her hand around my dick and begins massaging it.

  I lean closer to her, planting my hands above her shoulders, and we rub the tips of our tongues together.

  “Spit in my mouth,” she says.

  I draw a glob of saliva to the front of my mouth and drop it into hers.

  “Awesome,” she swallows. “Now fuck me.”

  I push her legs farther apart and rub the tip of my penis around her vagina until she grabs the back of my neck, pulling me closer.

  “Go ahead, Travis.”

  I slide myself inside of her and start thrusting her as hard as I can. Our skin going smack, smack, smack.

  Digging her nails into my back, Laura goes, “I want you to stay inside of me. Do not pull out.”

  Okay.

  We fuck for like a half an hour, until I can’t hold it anymore, and I come inside of her.

  Laura removes her claws from my skin. “That was really good,” she pants. “That was fucking amazing.”

  I roll off of her body.

  Thanks.

  She wiggles her jeans back up. Puts her shirt back on. Grabs her purse and digs through it, pulling a tube of lipstick out.

  “Watch me,” she smiles as I button my jeans and reach for my shirt.

  What are you doing?

  “This,” she says, then draws a big heart on the plastic top covering the slide.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Laura looks at me, grins, then turns back to the heart and writes “Laura + Travis” in the middle of it.

  “There,” she says, sticking the cap over the lipstick. “We didn’t do this last time. We never wrote our names on anything.”

  32.

  THE DAY I TURNED SIXTEEN I was in la with my parents and my sister. We’d all flown out a few days earlier so my father could be honored during some alumni banquet at USC. It was one of his “proudest moments,” he told a packed audience of his peers as he accepted his big achievement award.

  After the whole jack-off and pat-myself-on-the-back ceremony was over that afternoon, my father took me around the central campus with one of his old college buddies, who also sat on the board of trustees. The two of them took turns telling me how wonderful it was to go to school there. They told me story after story about their “glory days” as “Trojan men” and when the tour was over, my father’s friend looked me square in the eye and said, “Come here when you’re done with high school. You won’t be disappointed.”

  Two days later it was my birthday.

  My mother wanted to do a nice lunch with just the four of us, but my father had other things planned. An investment partner of his was having a barbecue at his house in the Hollywood Hills. “We have to go,” my father told my mother. “We were invited and we all have to go.”

  So we all did.

  We went to my father’s investment partner’s house and were there the entire day, which meant I spent all of my birthday that year watching my father getting wasted, hitting on young blond girls in bikinis, while my mother just sat there, giving cigarettes to my sister, pretending not to notice.

  These are the things that smash through my head as I apply to USC, the last school I apply to after City College, State, and Harrison, on the very last day that my father gave me to get my shit together.

  When I’m finished, I send an e-mail to my father telling him what I’ve just done and then I walk upstairs from the basement.

  I hear my mother talking with another lady in the kitchen. My mother must hear me also because she yells for me to come to the kitchen.

  She’s sitting at the table across from this very pretty and much younger girl.

  “Travis,” my mother says slowly, holding a cigarette between her fingers, “this is Rachael. She works for Gucci and is doing all of our outfit measurements for your father’s ceremony dinner.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Rachael says, turning around in her chair.

  You too.

  My mother takes a sip of red wine. She stares at me and I feel embarrassed because I’m not wearing a shirt, only sweatpants, and this Rachael girl, this complete stranger, is watching my mother stare at her shirtless son.

  “Let’s get started,” Rachael blurts, reaching into a small bag sitting on the floor next to her chair. She pulls a piece of measuring tape, a pad of paper, and pencil from it.

  I go and stand by the table and watch my mother pour herself another glass of wine and light her cigarette.

  Rachael gets to her feet and walks around me.

  “Hold your arms out,” she says. “Thank you.”

  My mother is still staring.

  What, Mom?

  “I hate your tattoos, Travis. I despise them,” she says.

  I know you do.

  Rachael wraps the tape around my chest, under my out-stretched arms. “Okay,” she says, letting the tape go. “You can put your arms down.”

  I drop them.

  That was one of the perks of getting them done, Mom. Pissing you and Dad off.

  “Well done,” my mother smirks. “Add that to a list of many other things.”

  Rachael loops the tape around my neck, then jots some more numbers down on her pad.

  Did I do something to make you mad at me, Mom?

  She stands up. “No.”

  Then what’s with this crap?

  My mother shakes her head and looks off in the distance. “I don’t know, Travis. I . . . I . . .” But she doesn’t finish. She downs the rest of her wine and smudges her cigarette out.

  I spread my legs and let Rachael take my inseam measurements.

  “Your sister tells me that you and Laura are back together again,” my mother snorts,
changing the subject.

  I say, We are.

  Rachael jots my inseam numbers down.

  “How is she doing?” my mother asks.

  She’s good. She’s still at Grant College going for advertising.

  “And her parents?”

  I don’t know.

  Rachael asks me what my shoe size is.

  Twelve.

  “Thanks.”

  My mother taps her fingers hard against the kitchen counter. “You can invite her to the awards ceremony if you want.”

  No.

  My mother sighs. “So I take it you getting back together with her again means that you’ve decided about next year.”

  Nope.

  My mother sighs again. “One-word answers. This is what I get after all these years.”

  Here we go, Mom. You’re starting to sound like Dad.

  “And you sound exactly like your sister, Travis. All she does is ignore me too. She doesn’t want to talk, and when I do see her, all she does is give me one-word fucking answers, then locks herself in her room.”

  I look at Rachael and she looks really uncomfortable as she puts her things into her bag.

  Mom, we have a guest.

  “I know we do! I invited her!”

  Rachael’s face is red. She picks the bag up and looks at my mother. “Do you want me to wait for you somewhere else, Mrs. Wayne?”

  “That would be great, dear,” my mother answers.

  Rachael walks outside through the back door and gets on her cell phone.

  “Christ,” my mother quivers, her hands shaking as she briefly covers her mouth. “I didn’t mean to do that in front of her. I have to spend the rest of the day with her and now I’m embarrassed.”

  Don’t be. Shit like that happens.

  My mother drops one hand to the bottom of her chin. “I’m drunk,” she says.

  I know you are.

  “I’m worried about your sister, Travis. We had another fight this morning. I think she’s doing drugs. Hard drugs.”

  Have you asked her?

  “No.”

  Maybe you should.

  My mother’s mouth pops open. “Maybe you could, Travis. Maybe you could talk to her. She’ll at least listen to you.”

  No she won’t, Mom. She’s not going to listen to a word I tell her.

  “Well, do you know anything at all? Can you tell me anything, Travis?”

  I stare at my mother, who at times has been as strong as any person I’ve ever seen, and at other times as weak as any person I’ve ever seen.

  “Anything,” she says.

  A very long pause.

  No I can’t.

  My mother rubs her eyes. “I’m tired,” she yawns. “I’m so tired, Travis.”

  Maybe you should go back to bed then.

  “Maybe I should, but I have so much to do. It feels like I just woke up.”

  Well.

  Pause.

  Maybe you shouldn’t have.

  • • •

  I drive to Chris’s the next afternoon. I want to talk to him, to try to square away some of the bullshit between us.

  On the way there, I get a call on my cell from Claire. She wants to know if I want to go to Chicago with her. Apparently some models from suicidegirls.com—Snow—Reagen—Posh—are doing some sort of promo shoot and burlesque show for the launch of this new fashion and political magazine called Bette’s Closet, along with some other girls—Catra, Kate, and Erin—all of whom used to be on the Suicide Girls site but aren’t anymore because they’re on this new website, godsgirls.com.

  When are you going? I ask her.

  “Tonight,” Claire says. “Well have to leave in like an hour.”

  No way. I can’t. Not tonight.

  “Please, please, please with a fucking cherry on top,” she begs. “It’s free for us. Skylar is doing some of the photo and design work for the show and she gave me two passes.”

  I really can’t tonight, Claire. I’m sorry.

  “What the hell in your life is so pressing that you can’t come with me to watch hot naked bitches dancing around?”

  I have to talk to Chris. There are some things that I need to talk to him about.

  “That’s lame, Travis. Chris is an asshole who hits girls.”

  But I still need to talk to him.

  “That bad?”

  Yes.

  “Fine,” Claire grumbles. “Have fun with Chris.”

  I’m sorry.

  “Don’t be sorry, dude. I guess you’re doing what you think you need to be doing.”

  I am.

  My heart skips a beat.

  Hopefully.

  “Well, hit me up soon,” Claire snorts. “I miss you tons. We need to be hanging out way more than we are.”

  I know it.

  “Later,” she says.

  I park across the street from Chris’s and step out of the car, staring at these two gnarly trash cans sitting near the front door of his bright yellow home. Both of them are surrounded by huge piles of wasting garbage that have spilt over their sides. A ton of large flies loom above it all.

  It smells fucking horrible, like a bunch of spoiled shit that’s been melted by the sunlight.

  I open the door to the house and walk in and see Chris sitting in the wheelchair dumping an entire gram of coke onto a mirror.

  Chris, you need to do something about that trash, I tell him.

  He looks up from the mirror. “Do you know that I saw you walking up to the house through the window?” He points to the window. “I saw you through the glass.”

  That’s good, Chris.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks, the bags under his eyes the shade of a jet-black nighttime sky.

  I came to see you.

  “Well, shit. I feel important now.”

  I step over more piles of trash.

  Food wrappers. Empty cigarette cartons. Drained bottles of booze. Piles of socks and underwear.

  The air in the house is muggy and musty and stale. I sit down on the sofa across from him and watch as he runs a blade across the blow.

  How long have you been up, Chris?

  “Long enough to know that it’s probably been too long.”

  Which means?

  “I’ve been up since two days ago when April came over here after work and told me she was pregnant, but that she wasn’t exactly sure who the father was.” Chris jams a red straw up his nose. He leans down to the mirror and snorts two lines. He holds the mirror out. “Do you want some?” he asks, voice strained and cracked from exhaustion.

  I shake my head, pull my cigarettes out and light one.

  What’d you do when she told you? I ask him.

  Chris doesn’t answer this. He takes the mirror and sets it on the small end table next to him and covers his eyes with his hands.

  Hey, Chris.

  The tension is high. I know what he did.

  Chris.

  “What?” he snaps, tearing his hands off his face. “What do you want from me, Trav?”

  Inhale. Exhale.

  I want you to tell me what you did when your girlfriend told you she was pregnant but didn’t know who the father was.

  “I hate you,” Chris says.

  Tell me, Chris.

  “I slapped her face and she fell down, okay? And when she got up”—Chris stops and twists his neck all the way around—“she tried to punch me back, so I grabbed her arm and yanked her across the room and threw her out of the house.”

  You’re a fucking asshole.

  “Fuck you, Travis.”

  You beat the shit out of a seventeen-year-old girl.

  “Fuck you!” Chris flies out of the wheelchair, stepping over the coffee table, getting right in front of me. “Do you know what you are, Travis?” he snaps, veins bulging from his neck.

  Yes.

  Chris bends down so that we’re at eye level. “What are you, Travis Wayne?”

  I’m an asshole too.

  I take
another drag.

  “Yes you are. I remember you and Cliff taking turns nailing that freshman girl who was passed out at Michael’s house sophomore year. So don’t come over here, to my fucking house, and act righteous and act like you’re somehow better than me now, ’cause you’re not.”

  I know I’m not, Chris.

  “Good.” A tiny line of snot drops from the bottom of his right nostril. Chris snorts it back up but it quickly drops out again. “I look at the way you acted after Kyle’s accident and it makes me hate you, Travis.”

  How’d I act?

  “Like a pussy. One of your buddies was sitting in a jail cell and you went on vacation with a fucking slut.”

  Watch it, man.

  “What are you gonna do, Trav?”

  Just watch it.

  “You chose to hang out with a whore instead of support your friend.”

  I lean closer to Chris so that our faces are only inches apart.

  I’m only going to tell you one more time, man. Do not call Laura names. She’s not a slut or a whore.

  More snot falls from Chris’s nose. This time he wipes his hand across his face.

  “No, Travis,” he says. “You’re wrong. She is a fucking whore. Your girlfriend is a whore!”

  I shove Chris against the coffee table behind him and he falls onto it. I jump to my feet and stand above him with my fists bunched tight.

  “What are you gonna do?” Chris screams.

  All I want to do is hurt him. I want to pound on him and tie him down and call April so that she can come over and pound on him like he did to her.

  “What are you gonna do?” he screams again.

  Nothing, Chris.

  He rolls over to the other side of the table and pushes himself up.

  You’re pathetic, man.

  “I’m a good friend, Travis.”

  No you’re not. Kyle was gonna move out because he thought you were a dick.

  Wiping more snot away, Chris goes, “What are you talking about?”

  He told me the night before his accident that he was going to move in with Emily because he couldn’t live with someone who would beat up a girl.

  “You’re lying.”

  No I’m not. He hated you. He wanted nothing to do with you so.

  “Get out of here,” Chris snaps. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

  Gladly.

  I kick over an old stack of Thrasher magazines and keep kicking through piles of shit until I get to the door.