by Tao Lin
In the parking lot Maggie went alone to her car. Calvin was backing out of his parking space when Paul, leaning forward from the backseat, said he wanted to be in Maggie’s car. Calvin braked and asked what to do, alternately looking at Paul and Erin with a helpless, besieged expression. Paul looked down a little, as if to suspend an intensity of visual input, to allow his brain to better focus on the question, but he wasn’t thinking about the question, or anything, except maybe something about how he wasn’t thinking anything, or was having problems thinking.
“I don’t know what to do,” said Calvin incredulously. “Should I call Maggie?”
“No,” said Paul after a few seconds.
“Maggie already left, I think,” said Calvin.
“Let’s just go,” said Paul.
“But . . . if you want to be in Maggie’s car.”
“I want to be here now.”
“If you . . . are you sure?”
“I want to be in this car. Maggie’s car is small.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Paul leaning against the front passenger seat, aware of the distant municipality of the SUV’s lighted dashboard. Things seemed darker to him than expected, a few minutes later, on the highway. The unlighted space, all around him—and, outside the SUV, the trees, sky—seemed more visible, by being blacker, or a higher resolution of blackness, almost silvery with detail, than normal, instead of what he’d sometimes and increasingly sensed, the past two months, mostly in his room, since one night when, supine on his yoga mat, his eyes, while open, had felt closed, or farther back in his head, and his room had seemed “literally darker,” he’d thought, as if the bulb attached to his non-working ceiling fan had been secretly replaced, or like he was deeper inside the cave of himself than he’d been before and didn’t know why. “My face . . . it feels like it’s moving backward,” Calvin was saying in a surprised, confused voice. “It keeps floating into me . . . itself . . . repeatedly.”
“Jesus,” said Paul. “Why?”
“Percocet. And a little Codeine.”
“I didn’t know you’ve been on those.”
“I told you . . . at the house.”
“Jesus,” said Paul. “I remember now.”
They began talking about a Lil Wayne documentary that focused on Lil Wayne’s “drug problem,” which Lil Wayne denied. Paul felt it was bleak and depressing that the film-makers superimposed their views onto Lil Wayne. Calvin seemed to agree with the documentary. Paul tried, with Erin, who agreed with him, he felt, to convey (mostly by slowly saying variations of “no” and “I can’t think right now”) that there was no such thing as a “drug problem” or even “drugs”— unless anything anyone ever did or thought or felt was considered both a drug and a problem—in that each thought or feeling or object, seen or touched or absorbed or remembered, at whatever coordinate of space-time, would have a unique effect, which each person, at each moment of their life, could view as a problem, or not.
In Calvin’s room, supine on carpet, Paul felt circumstantially immobile, like a turtle on its back, and that Calvin and Maggie were pressuring him to decide on an activity. Then he was sitting on the edge of a bed, staring at an area of carpet near his black-socked feet, vaguely aware of his inability to move or think and of people waiting for him to answer a question. He grinned after hearing himself, in his memory of three or four seconds ago, say “I don’t know what to do” very slowly, as if each word had been carefully selected, with attention to accuracy and concision. Erin silently exited Calvin’s bathroom and left the room in a manner, Paul vaguely felt, like she was smuggling herself elsewhere. Paul heard Maggie say “all right, we’re going to the hot tub” and remain in the top left corner of his vision a few seconds before vanishing. Paul walked lethargically into the bathroom, removed his clothes, stood naked in Calvin’s room struggling to insert his left leg into his boxer shorts’ left hole, which kept collapsing shut and distortedly reappearing as part of a slowly rippling infinity symbol, tottering on one leg sometimes and quietly falling once—mostly deliberately, anticipating a brief rolling sensation and a respite on the thick carpet—before succeeding and, after staring catatonically at nothing for a vague amount of time, aware of something simian about his posture and jaw, carefully going downstairs.
In the backyard, a few minutes later, Paul and Erin, holding each other’s arms in an indiscernibly feigned kind of fear, hesitated before advancing, barefoot on the spiky and yielding grass, into the area of darkness Calvin and Maggie, after testing the swimming pool’s water as too cold, had gone. Paul stopped moving when he saw the disturbing statue of a Greek god wearing a gorilla mask, which Calvin, that afternoon, had said someone put on last Halloween, then abandoned Erin by running ahead, on his toes a little. As he slightly leaped, followed closely by Erin, into the hot tub, he imagined his head shooting like a yanked thing toward concrete. He surfaced after exaggeratedly, unnecessarily allowing the water to absorb his impact, then stared in disbelief at a balled-up Maggie rolling forward and back like a notorious, performing snail. “Oh my god,” he said, aware his and Erin’s feet were deliberately touching. “Look at Maggie. What is she doing?”
“I was doing water sit-ups,” said Maggie.
“I can’t believe . . . that,” said Paul. “Have you ever done that?”
“No,” said Maggie. “What if we were all obese right now?”
“The water would be displaced,” said Paul without thinking, and people laughed. Paul felt surprised he was able to cause authentic laughter at his handicapped level of functioning. The above-water parts of him were waiting patiently, he thought while staring at the soil beneath the bushes a few feet beyond the hot tub and remembering disliking the presence of soil while in swimming pools as a child in Florida, for the laughter to end and something else to begin. He became aware of himself saying “what would we be talking about right now if we were obese?” and, comprehending himself as the extemporaneous source of what seemed to be an immensely interesting question, felt a sensation of awe. He remained motionless, with eyeballs inattentively fixated on the obscure pattern of the bushes behind and to the left of Calvin and an anticipatory nervousness, as he imagined staring at each person, in turn, to confirm—or convey, depending on the person—that, despite his impaired functioning, he had, unforeseen to anyone, including himself, asked a question of nearly unbelievable insight.
“We would talk about if we were skinny,” said Maggie.
“No, because it would be too depressing,” said Paul, surprised again by the power of his mind but less than before, a little suspicious now of his own enthusiasm.
“You’re right,” said Calvin, and seemed to look at each person in disbelief—which confused Paul because he had imagined doing that himself.
“We would talk about food,” said Maggie.
“I feel like people are staring at me,” said Paul.
“Me too, a little,” said Erin.
“I wish I could see how Erin and I are like on mushrooms now,” said Paul.
“Me too,” said Erin.
“I was going to bring my camera but didn’t want to get it wet,” said Maggie.
“People are staring at me weird, except Erin,” said Paul. “I wish someone was recording us.”
“Just ask me later and I’ll tell you,” said Maggie.
“Later,” said Paul, confused. “When?”
Calvin said it was time for Maggie to go home and they left seemingly instantly. Paul was aware of having waved at them and of having meekly said “bye, Maggie,” to himself, he realized, as he continued staring at where they had gone out of view—to postpone interacting with Erin, who’d been abnormally quiet most of the night, he uncertainly realized with increasing anxiety. Maggie should have stayed longer, because he and Erin were only visiting a few days, he thought earnestly for a few seconds before realizing, with only a little sheepishness, that Maggie had her own desires, separate from those of anyone else, which she expressed th
rough her actions. Paul knew that, because he kept thinking about Maggie, his demeanor and behavior, when he finally acknowledged Erin, would appear, if not obviously feigned, to convey “I want to be elsewhere” or “I want to be doing things in service of being elsewhere,” which Erin would easily discern, if she hadn’t already. Paul moved his mouth to where water was bubbling and, partly facing away from Erin, said something about it feeling “nice.” Erin moved her mouth to a different area of similar bubbling. After ten to fifteen minutes Calvin appeared and said “you guys can come inside now, Maggie went home,” seeming to have assumed they had been waiting for his approval to go inside. Paul had begun feeling comfortable and was confused why they couldn’t—and weren’t asked if they wanted to—stay in the hot tub.
After showering in separate bathrooms Paul and Erin sat on Calvin’s carpeted floor. Calvin, covered by blankets up to his underarms, with his upper body propped by pillows, seemed like he was cautiously testing an unexpected feeling of health and energy while on his “death bed.” Maggie, he said in a worried and slightly fascinated voice, had wanted to perform oral sex on him, but he hadn’t been aroused, which had upset her maybe. Erin said it was normal for sexual desire to leave sometimes. Calvin said he and Maggie hadn’t had sex in four months. Paul said that seemed normal because they’d been together three years and that Calvin’s drug use—Percocet, Codeine, Klonopin, Adderall—the past few months, based on their emails and texts, seemed high, which probably had an effect. Then they discussed what to do now, for an activity, but couldn’t decide—each person seemed committed to not deciding—and became locked into what felt like a three-way staring contest, which they mutely sustained, each person alternating between the other two, for thirty to forty seconds, until Paul bluntly said he wanted to “go for a walk with only Erin, outside,” and, after mumbling something incoherent about mushrooms—vaguely wanting to convey it was uncomfortable while on mushrooms to be around people not on mushrooms—quickly gained Erin’s assent and repeatedly positioned himself to displace, or push, her toward where he was going, until both were outside the room, in a dark hallway, where they huddled together and maneuvered grinning to winding stairs, which they descended holding hands, toward the front door.
They walked down the driveway into the upper-middle-class neighborhood with their inside arms folded up and against each other. Most front yards had one or two fashionably sculpted trees and two or more colorful Boy Scouts–like patches of flowers and plants in independent organization. Paul saw, in a side yard, a pale fence with the colorless, palatially melancholy glow of unicorns and remembered how in Florida, in the second of his family’s three houses of increasing size, both his neighbors had built fences—rows of vertical, triangular-topped slats of wood that had seemed huge, medieval—around their backyards. Paul said he felt like he was in Edward Scissorhands and they sat on a concrete embankment facing the street with their feet on a sidewalk. Paul slightly looked away as he said “there’s so many stars here” without much interest.
Erin pointed and asked if one was moving.
“In place, maybe,” said Paul uncertainly.
“It looks like it’s vibrating,” said Erin.
“It’s, um, what thoughts do you have about UFOs?” said Paul looking away, as if not wanting Erin to hear him clearly. “I’m doing it . . . I’m saying stereotypical things that people say while on mushrooms.”
“That’s okay. UFOs are interesting.”
“I know it’s okay,” said Paul, and asked if Erin had experienced “any UFO things.” Erin said she wore purple and put glitter on her eyes every Friday in fourth grade because she thought, if she did, aliens would notice and take her away.
“That seems really good,” said Paul feeling emotional. “All purple?”
“No. It just had to be one thing that was purple.”
“Where did you think they would take you?”
“I don’t think I thought about that,” said Erin. “Just ‘away.’ Anywhere.”
“What . . . did your classmates, or other people, think?”
“I’ve never told anyone.”
“Really? But . . . it’s been so long.”
“I didn’t have anyone to tell, really.”
“You haven’t told anyone except me?”
“No. Let me think. No, I haven’t.”
Paul had begun to vaguely feel that he already knew of a similar thing—something about purple glitter and fourth grade, maybe from a children’s book—or was he remembering what he just heard? His voice sounded bored, he thought, as he told Erin about when, as a fourth or fifth grader, he really wanted to see a UFO and was on a plane and saw a brown dot and, without any excitement or sensation of discovery, repeatedly thought to himself that he’d seen a UFO. “I think I was aware at first that I was ‘faking’ it,” said Paul uncertainly. “But . . . I think I convinced myself so hard that I made myself forget that part . . . when I was aware, and I think I really believed I saw a UFO.”
“Whoa. Did you tell anyone you saw a UFO?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone. I don’t think I cared if anyone knew. I was just like, ‘I saw a UFO.’ I think I was extremely bored. I was like a bored robot.”
The next night Erin and Paul met Cristine, 22—a mutual acquaintance from the internet—and Cristine’s friend Sally, 22, in a public park that was closed for the night. Cristine sold Paul eight 36mg Ritalin and ten psilocybin chocolates, wrapped in tinfoil, like little hockey pucks. They each ate a chocolate and walked through the park, to the end of a beach, where they sat in the gently fluorescent light of a half moon that looked like a jellyfish photographed, from far below, in mid-propulsion, its short tentacles momentarily inside itself.
In the distance, Cleveland’s three tallest buildings, each with a different shape and style of architecture and lighting, were spaced oddly far apart, like siblings in their thirties, in a zany sitcom. After spending their lives “hating” one another, in a small town, they moved to different cities and were happy, but then got coincidentally transferred by their employers to the same medium-size city. They were all named Frank. Paul felt reluctant to say anything weird because Cristine and Sally were behaving normally, with earnest expressions, as if pretending they weren’t on mushrooms, except sometimes one would mention seeing beautiful colors, increasing Paul’s apprehension because earlier he and Erin had bonded over feeling alienated by people who focused on visuals, instead of people, while on hallucinogens. Deciding, after around fifteen minutes, to drive somewhere in two cars, they walked on the beach toward the parking lot. The clear moonlight sometimes fleetingly appeared, on Lake Erie, to their left, as thin layers of snow, resting on the surface of the water, as if painted on, or briefly riding the shoreward, foamy fronts of tiny waves before vanishing. Sally’s car, on the highway, got a flat tire. Paul and Erin couldn’t stop grinning, due to the mushrooms, sitting on a sidewalk in downtown Cleveland, waiting for AAA, as a frowning Sally, whose car had a missing window covered by a garbage bag, persistently bemoaned her situation without looking at anyone. Cristine, grinning sometimes at Paul and Erin, drove everyone, in Erin’s car, to Kent State University, where Paul and Erin walked far behind Cristine and Sally, on a slightly uphill sidewalk. “When you said that thing about glitter and purple clothing I felt vaguely like I already knew about it,” said Paul. “You really haven’t told anyone?”
“The only person I’ve told is my friend Jennika.”
“You said I was the only person you’ve told.”
“I know,” said Erin. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Did you forget? Yesterday?”
“No, I knew. I was nervous—I thought I was talking too much.”
“But I was asking you about it.”
“I thought I was boring you.”
“You weren’t,” said Paul. “At all.”
“I just wanted to, like, ‘move on.’ ”
“Don’t do that. If I ask something I really
want to know.”
“I know. I don’t want to do that.”
“You lied . . . to me,” said Paul, and felt dramatic and self-conscious. “Wait, let me think. I’m thinking if I were you . . . if I would lie about that. I think . . . yeah, I would, if I didn’t want to talk about it.” He would if he didn’t anticipate becoming close to the other person, or talking to them again. “I understand, I think.” He imagined Erin’s inattentive, half-hearted view of him as “vaguely, unsatisfactorily desirable,” like how he viewed most people. “I would lie, like that, in that situation. Are you sure you haven’t written it somewhere? Like on your blog maybe?”
“I’m really sure. I’m ninety percent sure.”
“Only ninety percent? That’s, like, ‘unsure,’ I feel.”
“I’m really sure. I’m ninety-five percent sure.”
“You can tell—”
“Paul,” said Erin, and grasped his forearm. They stopped walking. More aware of Erin’s perspective, looking at his face ( and not knowing what expression she saw or what he wanted to express), than of his own, Paul didn’t know what to do, so went “afk,” he felt, and remained there—away from the keyboard of the screen of his face—as Erin, looking at the inanimate object of his head, said “if I did I would tell you” and, emphatically, “I’m not lying to you right now.”
“Okay,” said Paul, and they continued walking.
Sprinklers could be heard in the distance.
“I believe you,” said Paul.