“Sure,” I said. “What do you want?”
“Anything. Just get here soon. I’m really hungry.”
I went by a place called Zoccoli’s and got him a roast beef sandwich. Casey seemed like a roast beef kind of guy. I walked into the Drop Inn with my paper bag. The bar was totally deserted except for one overweight guy with long hair who had two Michelob bottles in front of him, both empty.
“Casey?”
He extended his hand. “My friends call me Rich. Casey’s just my porn name. What’s yours?”
“I don’t have one.”
“Well, that’s a hell of a gutsy move. I guess your parents are dead?”
I laughed stiffly. “No ... Here, I brought you a sandwich.” I held up the paper bag.
“That’s great. Put it right there on the bar.” He stifled a tiny burp, holding two fingers to his purplish lips. “Listen, you didn’t happen to bring any beers, did you?”
I looked around, confused. “Isn’t this a bar?”
“Yeah. They’ll only serve me so many here. They know me too well.” He belched again, covering his mouth in this ladylike way, and paused thoughtfully for a moment. “Look, I know this isn’t the best timing or anything, but I think I should go throw up for a little while. Don’t worry, this always happens. I’ll be good to go in like, twenty minutes.”
I sat there in the dim bar by myself in the middle of the day and listened to the muffled sounds of Casey vomiting explosively in the men’s room.
“What’ll you have, guy?” said the bartender.
I pointed toward the bathroom. “I’ll have what he’s having.” When he turned his back to get me a Michelob, I left.
It was time to get out of these bush leagues. I was ready for a shot in the bigs. I was heading to Los Angeles.
SEVEN
Life was good again. The shroud fell away from my eyes, and I got my smile back. My stomach felt excitable and nervous, but my mind was alert, my thoughts impassioned. I started packing my bags.
I rented a U-Haul and crammed my life into it. I disconnected my phone, said good-bye to a few people. On New Year’s Eve, as a going-away present to myself, I called up Peri’s dealer, Bryce, and asked him if he had any cocaine.
“Sure,” he said. “How much do you want?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, thoughtfully. “How about twenty bucks’ worth?”
“Twenty bucks?” Bryce sneered. “You must be fucking kidding. Do you know how much twenty bucks’ worth of quality cocaine is? That’s like, a line”
“Well, pardon me,” I said, offended. “All my money’s tied up in the stock market.” .
“Best I can do you for twenty, bro, is some rocks.”
“So give me the rocks,” I shot back.
Ha,” said Bryce. He waited and so did I. “Are you serious?” “Yes.”
‘You’re white, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well...” said Bryce. I could feel him smiling on the other end of the phone, like the fucking irritating, condescending Northern California drug dealer that he was. “O-kayyy .. .”
He showed up about half an hour later with a small baggie of crack and a little pipe, the kind that you can buy in a gas station as a “vase,” with a tiny rose in it. “I took the liberty of picking up a smoking utensil for you—two bucks extra,” said Bryce. He grinned widely. “Of course, you probably already have one, right? Seriously bro, do you even know how to do this?”
“I think I’ll be able to figure it out,” I said smartly, grabbing the rose-pipe and baggie from him, handing him twenty-one dollars and four quarters. “Thanks, Bryce. You’ve been a huge help.”
Crack turned out to be a cinch. All you had to do was doublelock your bedroom door and cover the gap at the bottom with a beach towel so no one can smell that weird scent of chemicals burning, and pull the blinds down, pull ’em tight. Then all you really had to do after that was get totally naked except for some love beads and put a piece of a Brillo pad in the end of the pipette (after taking the little rose out and placing it in your wallet as a keepsake) then pack the rock and torch it. You’d suck in the sweet, thick smoke, and within seconds you’d feel better and be able to think more clearly and more joyously than you ever had in your entire life. You’d be full of love for the universe and all of its inhabitants, and every inch of your skin would tingle. You’d massage your testicles and be filled with tender love for each separate ball. Your breath would get short and you’d tremble, but it wouldn’t be over, no, not yet; because your beautiful hands would stray to your incredibly tender and suddenly plump nipples, caressing them with a delicate, measured elation that would send cold delightful tremors up your spinal column, making you suddenly shake your head involuntarily from side to side so rapidly that your eyes would blur and all of a sudden you’d have to fall over and lay on your stomach in a nakedly blissful agony, running both hands over your face, perceiving every whisker in bas-relief, feeling them like they were quills.
Then, quite suddenly, you’d be down. Plummeting precipitously from the cliff of genius into a depression of such monstrous intensity that the idea of taking a sharpened jackknife to your face and disfiguring it horribly would seem the wisest thing to do. But then, of course, you’d arrive at a compromise: slip another rock into the pipe. And that was easy, too. All you had to do was pick up your lighter and drop it immediately, because your hands are trembling and there’s so much sweat on your forehead and upper lip that it’s running into your eyes and blinding you, and your tongue is involuntarily lapping up the droplets like salty wine. Then you’d scamper over to the blinds and take the stealthiest peek out onto the street, quite casually, of course—really only to pass the time while you’re chewing on your lower lip and swallowing over and over again, mindlessly. Then it’s over to the already disconnected phone to pick up the receiver and listen intently to see if you can hear the sound of your line being tapped; that should only take about ten to fifteen minutes, after which you’re free to stare down at your penis, which has retreated into your body with such seriousness of force that it’s basically just a tiny nubbin, more of a vestigial trace of a penis than anything else. Then you can smoke. Then you can take a deep breath, grasp the lighter tightly, put the pipe between your teeth like a glass cigarette, and torch the rock. Ascend the summit. Then careen off. And so on.
I played the game until around 3 a.m., when, to my immense relief, the cocaine ran out. At that point, I collapsed onto my back, my heart pounding, and tried to jerk off, which was really hilarious. My prick was about half an inch long and the width of the pipette. Next I tried to sleep, which was equally funny. It just wasn’t going to happen. I pulled up the blinds, watched it get light out.
A few hours later, I was headed down to LA.
The trip from the Bay to LA generally takes anywhere from five to seven hours, depending on what route you take and how many times you stop to eat. But I was pushing one of those long U-Hauls, with the Volvo dragging behind on a hitch, and my general uneasiness driving the big truck coalesced with an unwelcome but nonetheless totally persistent messianic crack dementia, and in the end I was unable to make the trip in less than a grueling, cursing, self-pitying, involuntarily-catnapping-at-the-wheel-for-five-to-ten-seconds-and-then-shrieking-in-pure-terror eleven hours.
My new housemate, Bob, was there to greet me when I pulled up that evening in Silver Lake, exhausted. Bob was an openhearted, freckle-faced fellow in his early thirties, whom I’d located on the Internet only a few weeks prior. He fairly crackled with pep.
“Hey, pardner! Welcome to your new home!”
I stepped out of the cab gingerly, my back aching from the long drive, and extended my hand in greeting.