Having repeatedly learned from literature, poetry, philosophy, popular culture, his own experiences, most movies he’d seen, especially ones he liked, that it was desirable to “live in the present,” “not dwell on the past,” etc., he mostly viewed these new obstacles to his memory as friendly and, sometimes, momentarily believing in their viability as a form of Zen, exciting or at least interesting. Whenever he wanted to access his memory (usually to analyze or calmly replay a troubling or pleasant social interaction) and sensed the impasse, which he almost always did, to some degree, or that his memory was currently missing, as was increasingly the case, he would allow himself to stop wanting, with an ease, not unlike dropping a leaf or stick while outdoors, he hadn’t felt before — and, partly because he’d quickly forget what he’d wanted, without a sensation of loss or worry, only an acknowledgment of a different distribution of consciousness than if he’d focused on assembling and sustaining a memory — and passively continue with his ongoing sensory perception of concrete reality.
In mid-June, one dark and rainy afternoon, Paul woke and rolled onto his side and opened his MacBook sideways. At some point, maybe twenty minutes after he’d begun refreshing Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Gmail in a continuous cycle — with an ongoing, affectless, humorless realization that his day “was over”—he noticed with confusion, having thought it was a.m., that it was 4:46 p.m. He slept until 8:30 p.m. and “worked on things” in the library until midnight and was two blocks from his room, carrying a mango and two cucumbers and a banana in a plastic bag, when Daniel texted “come hang out, Mitch bought a lot of coke.”
Daniel and Mitch were outside a bar, discussing where to use the cocaine. Paul said Daniel looked “really tired” and asked if he needed some eggplant, in reference to a joke they had that Daniel was heavily dependent on eggplant and almost always suffering its withdrawal symptoms, which could be horrific. Daniel said he stayed up last night with Fran, currently sleeping, to celebrate, by eating brunch and buying drugs, that she’d quit her job she got three days ago waitressing in a Polish restaurant.
They crossed the street to Mitch’s friend Harry’s apartment, where Harry, whom Mitch had earlier given some cocaine for his birthday, was repeatedly trying to hug more than one person at a time while shouting what one would normally speak. Paul walked aimlessly, into a kitchen, where he stood in darkness at the sink peeling and eating his mango. He washed his hands and walked through the apartment’s main room — two desktop computers and speakers on a corner table, four large windows overlooking Graham Avenue, ten to fifteen people hugging and shouting, two mediumsize dogs — into an institutionally bright hallway, where he heard Daniel in a bathroom whose door wasn’t fully closed. “It’s me,” said Paul, and pushed the door, against resistance, which relented when he said “it’s Paul,” revealing a vaguely familiar girl, who appeared extremely tired, sitting on a bathtub’s outer edge, looking at Daniel and Mitch huddled on the floor around a toilet-seat lid with cocaine on it.
“You’re doing it without me,” said Paul in an exaggerated monotone.
“We thought you left,” said Daniel.
“I wouldn’t just leave,” said Paul.
“Out of anyone I know you’re probably most likely to just leave,” said Daniel crushing cocaine with his debit card.
Paul looked at the girl, who shrugged.
Mitch, who was allergic to Harry’s dogs, sneezed.
“Jesus, be careful,” said Daniel quietly.
“He’s sharing it with us,” said Paul. “And all you can do is berate him.”
“Bro,” said Daniel, and seemed to grin at Paul a little.
At Legion, twenty minutes later, Paul was sitting alone on a padded seat, staring at an area of torsos that were beginning to seem face-like. He texted Daniel that he was going to Khim’s to “stock up on eggplant” and walked six blocks to the large deli below Harry’s apartment, feeling energetic and calm, listening to Rilo Kiley through earphones at a medium volume. He paid for an organic beef patty, two kombuchas, five bananas, alfalfa sprouts, arugula, hempseed oil, a red onion, ginger, toilet paper and carried two paper bags reinforced with plastic bags toward Legion. Harry approached on the sidewalk with a panic-like expression of uncommitted confusion and, staring ahead, passed with a sweating forehead like the person in Go who is abandoned by a friend in an alleyway outside a rave while — due to too much ecstasy — foaming at the mouth.
Mitch and Daniel, in the soundless distance, were outside Legion. As Paul approached, crossing a street, Daniel entered Legion. Mitch said they were openly snorting cocaine off a table in the back room, because the bathroom line was too long, when a security guard approached and Mitch threw the bag of cocaine (which Daniel was currently trying to find) under a table, or somewhere. They crossed the street, went in White Castle, sat in a booth. Paul realized a poster said “chicken rings” not “onion rings” and said it seemed “insane” and speculated on the process that must be required of making the meat into a paste to mold into rings.
“I’m worried about Daniel,” said Mitch.
“He has a warrant for his arrest in Colorado, I think,” said Paul.
“Jesus,” said Mitch.
“It’s probably better if he goes to jail instead of you. He’s unemployed and in debt to like five people. He has a seventy-dollar tab with me. I think he needs six hundred dollars in one week for overdue rent. You have a real job and a nice apartment. If he goes to jail I’ll relinquish his tab.”
Mitch was fidgeting a little.
“We can make a blog about him and mail him letters,” said Paul.
“A blog,” said Mitch. “Jesus.”
“I’m going to look for him,” said Paul.
In Legion’s bathroom Paul read a text from Daniel that said “come outside.” Daniel, on the sidewalk, seeing Paul, began crossing the street, toward White Castle, looking in different directions while saying he knew the bouncers at Legion and that Mitch shouldn’t have panicked. Paul said Mitch had a high-paying job.
“Where is he?”
“White Castle,” said Paul.
“Should I get some of this coke? I could’ve gotten in trouble.”
“Yeah. If that’s what you want.”
“He’s lucky it landed on this little ledge,” said Daniel staring ahead as White Castle passed on their left. “I don’t think any was lost.”
“My groceries are in White Castle. Where are you going?”
“Let’s go to your room to do some of this coke,” said Daniel.
“It’s too far,” said Paul slowing his pace.
“We’ll go there and come back, it won’t take long.”
“It’s way too far,” said Paul. “Just snort it off your hand.”
They were on a dark street with no people, moving cars, or stores. Daniel’s head seemed more elevated than normal — and his neck, swiveling and ostrich-like, more mechanical and controlled — as he looked in different directions while removing cocaine from the bag with what seemed to be his fingers, then somehow maneuvering his hand into a fist, which he put into his jeans pocket. Paul felt unsettled, imagining amounts of cocaine trickling between fingers and slipping off the sides of fingers and the curve of the palm and sticking as powder against Daniel’s hand and pocket interior. Paul ripped a page from his Moleskine journal and said “here, use this.” Daniel continued looking in different directions a few seconds before taking the page and putting it directly in his pants pocket.