The rain continued long after dark. He closed the shutters finally and sat on the unmade bed. One of the photographer's used rubbers was on the floor. A fresh one waited on the bureau, like a fresh battery pack ready to be plugged in. The rain trickled on outside.
The bathroom door, a little ajar, was gripped by claws of humid darkness. The dirty walls, splattered with the blood of squashed bugs, seemed his own walls, his soul's skin and prison. How could he set his butterfly free?
Then he remembered the Benadryl, and smiled.
His balls ached.
Pukki had bought him another Singha beer, the 630 ml size. There was about an inch still left in the brown bottle. It would be warm and flat and thick with spit, but it would do to get the pills down. He lifted the bottle idly, and a cockroach crawled away.
He got up and began to search listlessly through the first aid kit. He felt neither happy nor sad. For a long time he could not even find the Benadryl, but in the end he saw that he was holding the jar in his hand.
After awhile he unscrewed the top and swallowed a capsule dry. It went down fairly easily, and so did the next, but the third one didn't, so he took his first swallow of beer, which was no better than he had expected, but if he could eat whore-pussy this was a cinch. The pills were sticking on the way down, but eventually the bottle was as empty as his heart. In the next room, someone coughed. He lay down on the bed feeling a little sick and stared at the ceiling for awhile; then he got up and turned the light out. It was very dark. He undressed down to his underwear and got under the covers.
Later, when the dark figures bent over him and he didn't know whether he was in hell or whether he'd simply flubbed it, he strained with all his force to utter the magic words: More Benadryl, muttered the journalist.
THE END
~ ~ ~
Ahem! — Benadryl, you know, is only an antihistam-.ine — not one of those profound and omnipotent benzodiazapines that can stop a man's heart even better than a pretty whore -
No, he didn't really know his drugs, just as he didn't know why all the Cambodian whores had taken Russian trick-names; but when he walked down Haight Street one foggy afternoon after he got back it was all buds? buds? indica buds? get you anything? wide-eyed faces wanting to help him get high; he'd never been offered drugs so many times at once his entire life! — and he thought: Has something about my face changed over there? Since I said yes to so many women, is my face somehow more open orpositive or special or weak?
Blackish birds circled in minions over the power and streetcar wires; drunks were spinning in the trees; the people he'd thought were panhandlers were sellers, and even when he said no they took his shoulder and tried to turn him around; they were so certain he'd made a mistake! — No one had ever done that to him before. (The photographer would have punched them.) — A cigarette! a man in a skullcap was screaming. It was so different, but not really; it was only as strange as the American flag above the McDonald's.
Back at the city clinic again because his balls still ached, he listened to the other victims of sexual viruses and bacteria explicating their woes: — That's what happens when you get BORED. - Well I tole that bitch I wanna become a personal trend. -. . and I said please touch my mouth I'm a competitive bodybuilder and she says I wanna hug and I says ya want anything more and I DIPPED her like THIS! and then I tole her if a man touch my doll like that I'd kill 'im! — He gimme five dollahs an' then he stick it in me an' now I be gettin' these night sweats; well sistah if I was serious I be scared so I can't be serious.
You should really take the AIDS test, the doctor said. How many sexual partners did you say you've had in the last month?
Seven, the journalist said. No, eight. No, nine.
Well, now, said the doctor. I think that puts you in our highest risk group, right in this red area at the top of our AIDS thermometer. Did you know the sexual histories of all your partners?
Oh, I know their histories all right.
Well, that's very good, Mr. Doe. Because, you see, if you didn't know their histories you might not be aware if they'd engaged in any high-risk behaviors such as unprotected sex, anal intercourse, IV drug use, prostitution. . They wouldn't have engaged in any of those behaviors, now, would they, Mr. Doe?
I don't think they were IV drug users.
Mmm hhm. Now, Mr. Doe, do you always use condoms?
I couldn't go so far as to say that, doctor.
Well, (the doctor was still struggling to keep a positive attitude), would you say that you use condoms more than half the time, at least?
I did use a rubber with one of 'em once, the journalist grinned. But it was kind of an accident.
Mr. Doe, said the doctor, I really believe you should take the AIDS test.
I'd rather not know. How about if you just wrote me a prescription for some Benadryl? I'm fresh out.
THE END
~ ~ ~
With all due respect, his wife was saying, maybe even because you're so smart, I don't know — they say there's a fine line — you've definitely got problems. (The journalist had just told her that maybe, just maybe, they should consider a divorce.) You need analysis, his wife said. You've got something to work out. You always say my family's screwed up — well! I'm telling you, your family's screwed up. Really screwed up. Actually the rest of them aren't so bad. It's you. Everyone thinks you're a freak. All the neighbors think you're a freak, even if they're too nice to say it directly to me. I'm normal; I'm tired of being married to a freak.
I see that, he said.