THERE ARE countless women in the world. At times it’s more than I can bear to think about: that there should be so many and they all start out the way they do, with all the brightness and their own invisible worlds and secret languages and what else they have, and that we ruin everything. And I have been mangled by vicious killers in my time, but I haven’t ever doubted it was only that someone had killed them first. Someone like me.
I don’t want to tell lies, not any more than I have to anyway. The first thing I ever thought of Emily was I’d like to fuck that girl. So I was shit. But it was a matter of fate, or something to that effect, what would bring us together, regardless if I ever deserved her. And if my life got fucked it wasn’t her fault. I should say that now.
CHAPTER TWO
I took the Greyhound to go see Madison at Rutgers. She was staying in the dorms and her bed was small for two people, so it was uncomfortable. But at least her roommate had gone home for the weekend. Madison didn’t like her roommate. She said she was snotty. I asked why her roommate had gone home. She said the girl’s grandmother had died. I said that was too bad. She said, “Screw her.”
I was to stay two nights. Madison took me to parties. But it was more like I followed her to parties. We went out with all her new girlfriends from the dorm. All the girls were best friends already. They clattered out into the night. They shouted at cars. Madison shouted at all the cars.
The parties were shit. The kids didn’t do drugs; they just drank beer. Random dudes knew Madison. She had been at Rutgers only a month and they knew her. It was on account of Madison could dance like a real bad-assed slut. That was one thing about her, and that was fine and whatever, just it got a little awkward when you were the one who was there at the party with the girl who was on top of the bar, fucking a spirit. It got so you were at a loss for things to do in the meantime.
We had come to a frat house, to a basement done out in plywood, some kind of beer-pong sex dungeon, everything dismal as murder. They were playing a song that was popular then. It was a song about making all the females crawl on the floor and jizzing on the females and stuff. Madison couldn’t help herself. I lost her somewhere. I went and stood off to the side of the room to wait for this to be over.
All I had was a pitcher of Natural Ice, but it was cold and I was low enough on money so that it tasted really good. Then Jessie came by. Jessie was one of Madison’s girlfriends from the dorm. I will remember Jessie: Jessie had amazing tits and she was nice to me. She looked at me all sad for a second; and then she said, “Bad news, kid. Madison’s playing you.”
* * *
—
THE MORNING I was supposed to go back to Cleveland we didn’t have any condoms, and Madison was big on using them even though she was on the pill. I don’t know what her problem was. I said to her, “We don’t really need stupid fucking condoms, do we?”
She said we did. She said there was a machine in the bathroom. That was good since all I had was change. But it was a girls’ dorm, so it was a girls’ bathroom.
I said, “Can’t you get it?”
She said, “Go get it.”
I was half-dressed and I found the machine, but it was all sold out except for some shit called Black Velvets. I just wanted to get out of the girls’ bathroom so I bought one of those and I went back to Madison’s little bed, where we started up again.
It was time to put on the condom.
The condom was black as licorice jelly beans. My thighs were pale. The condom was made out of the same stuff they use to make galoshes. It looked like I had a fake dick on.
I didn’t care if I fucked her or not. I was tired of fucking her. It was always a big production: she needed condoms, mix CDs, an overnight bag. One time I had gone over to her house; she’d said she was going to blow me, and she did, but she made me eat a bag of popcorn and watch an entire baseball game first.
This can’t be love, I thought.
I ate her out for the last time.
I rode the bus back to Cleveland, starving.
CHAPTER THREE
The shoe store was at the end of Promenade 3, next to the Dillard’s. My boss was giving me a hard time because I’d worn flip-flops.
“This is a shoe store,” he said.
I knew he knew I was on acid.
Then Johnny Carson walked in. He said, “Kid, I need your help.”
He needed a pair of white tennis shoes.
“All white. And none of the jazzy designs on them either. Nine and a half wide. I have a wide foot.”
I said I’d do what I could. “But most all the shoes have the jazzy designs on them nowadays.”
He said he understood.
“Just do the best you can,” he said.
It took two hours but I came through for him. I’d had trouble reading the boxes. That, and I wasn’t any good at colors. I kept grabbing my crotch real fast because I thought I’d pissed myself.
I sensed an uneasiness in this customer.
I wanted to tell him everything.
I wanted to be clean.
By the time it was over it had been an ordeal. There were shoe boxes everywhere. Tissue paper was everywhere. The remnants of despair and hesitation. He had almost walked away, not once, not twice, but I had begged him not to go: “I understand perfectly,” I’d said. “I am like you.”
Now he was glad he’d stayed. He had the shoes he’d wanted, or something close to them. He was more complete. He said to me, “Let me tell you something, kid….You’re going places….You stuck to the sale….You’re going places.”
When work was over I took the 32X, and got off at South Belvoir and walked. It had been a warm day. Now the sun was setting. I saw the shadows of the birds in the hedges. I guessed sparrows. Lights were coming on in the houses, and I was slithering in the post-peak euphoria. I had a Rubella song in my head, one of the William Whales, “The Great Pink Hope.” I said to myself I’d sing a little.
I did. I sang:
Said I could disappoint you with a smile Found out that’s true After swimming forty miles Yer ghost is my biggest fear I’ve heard that it’s nice in Greenland this time of year I ran in—to an elec-tric eeeel Tried to teach me—about a scarlet whee-el I was going along like that, while to the right of me the sky burned down. And I felt something. My heart was pressurized. I wanted desperately to be nice to someone.
I called Madison.
I said, “I miss you. What are you doing?”
She said, “Oh, gross. You sound fucked up.”
“I actually am not.”
“Then why do you sound like that?”
“It’s just cuz I miss you so much.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“I can’t talk right now.”
“Why not?”
“I have to go.”
“Don’t.”
“Goodbye.”
“Wait?”
“What?”
“…I’m scared.”
She hung up.
I’d made it to Fairmount. I went into Russo’s to buy some more cigarettes, and I ran into some Shaker kids I knew. They gave me Xanax. I had some ecstasies on me so I passed a couple out and took one. Outside it was dark. The Shaker kids said they were going to a party at this girl Maggie’s house. I went with them. It wasn’t far. The house was on Inverness. A brick house. We walked up the driveway around the back and through a garden gate, and I saw Emily. She was standing under a trellis strung with lights, wearing a white summer dress. And she was laughing.
She said, “Is that you?”
I said it was.
“You know these people?”
“Kind of.”
She said, “Small world, huh?”
“Yeah. So do you know Maggie, or?”
“Holy shit! Your pupils are huge.”
“I’m on ecstasy.”
“How is it?”
“It’s pretty good. I’m sorry I don’t have any more, I’d give you some.”
She said that was okay. “I already turned some down. This weird guy offered me some. He said I should pop the ecstasy in my butt. Those were his exact words. Pop it in my butt.”
“Who was it? I’m gonna knock him down.”
“Don’t. He was just lonely. It could have happened to anyone.”
“It’s kind of fucking disrespectful.”
“That’s just how some boys talk.”
“Who is this motherfucker?”
“I don’t know. He’s not here anymore. Please don’t worry about it. I thought it was funny. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just that that shit ain’t fuckin right, you know? This motherfucker talking to you like that.”
She took both my hands. “Forget it.”
I said, “I’m really glad you’re here.”