The men from the truck with no hood are laughing and I assume it’s at me. Amber is across from me behind the bar and seems far away – twenty feet at least, like a portrait on a mantle across the room, her face young and white and helpless yet certain. She asks me something but I don’t make out what it is. I say, “I know.” I keep glancing over my shoulders to know who’s around me. My spine is an iron rod. There is a hum and tension that is loud like gigantic electrified pulsating cables that I can’t see but know are there. I am perspiring.
I look down. The video machine screen emits gibberish as it vibrates and drones like sick electricity. Floating transparent playing cards turn to dust and return to the glow from which they came. Everything is alive with popping atoms and fluorescent trails. I begin to question what was in the weed. I am convinced I’m on acid. Everything is happening in circles, on repeat. All experience happens five times before it appears to actually happen. The noise in the bar is roaring like tons of garbage dropped off a skyscraper and splashing on top of a parking lot of old fords.
Words are randomly coherent above the noise. “Raven.” “Wood stain.” “Baby carriage.” Possum.” “Crockpot.” What does it mean? My feet are sweating so much I think my shoes will fall off. It takes all my strength (courage?) to get up and leave. I turn to those who got me here. They look old and senile.
“I have to pick up some friends, be right back.”
I don’t wait for a response. I muscle my way out the door and start walking as fast as I can. I am afraid to turn around. I just go like a rolling garbage can down a San Francisco hill. Suddenly, I am a coward scared of all the unknowns and uncertainties and unimagined thorns.
I am feet from my apartment. My throat is wide and clear. Success captures me in her grips, hand on back as if to dance. I am safe. The confines of walls that hide instigate in me a new euphoria. I can relax and deal calmly with the mind altering drugs rattling my chemistry. Is it the drugs? I may be less erratic straight, but no less paranoid. Remember passing out on the plane? My mind became of a hot furnace of anxiety I could not name.
Home safe, I turn on all the lights. I sit on the couch in silence and try to get a grip. I rub my hand on the back of my neck and let out a big sigh. For a moment the world stops. In the silence I feel a welcoming embrace. I reach to old friends in my mind when we played cards and drank and thought we were invincible and wise. I would sneak off with Mary and then smile at her smile smiling back at me. Youth is a faded newspaper, usually proven wrong or forgotten over time.
The quiet breaks. A banging on the door gives me a jolt. I stand and stare at the door like a foreign object. A new round of rapping like gunfire sounds. Then it hits me, it’s Cable Guy (his profession). I told him I would go out tonight.
A shaky, white hand pulls the door open.
“Hey, man,” I stammer.
“Where’ve ya been? I was here earlier and there was no answer. I thought maybe you were in the shower so I came back.”
“I want out already. Down to Wolf’s with Boyle.”
“You coming out? Me and Justin, my buddy from Florida, are having drinks over at my place.” He talks in half-time with small glassy eyes in the middle of a sleepy dumb face.
“I don’t know. I’m really fucked up. I smoked something I thought was weed. I’m having a hard time dealing.”
“Fuck that. You’re coming out.”
“No. Seriously, I’m really fucked.”
My legs are exhausted from the haul. I move to the couch and sit down. I let out a breath and pray to be alone (the only thought I can hold on to). Cable Guy stands above me authoritatively looking down. He is round and moves slow. I sense tension. I begin to sweat.
“You’ll be fine. Come on.”
“I don’t know. I need a minute. My heart is racing and I’m kinda freaking out.”
“Screw that. Let’s go.”
“Seriously, I can’t. Give me an hour or so. I’ll let you know.”
“You won’t let me know. After you close the door I won’t hear from you. Come on over to my place.”
After more debate I convince him that I can’t make it right now and will let him know in an hour what my next move is. During the conversation I hear my words come from my mouth electronic and amplified. The veins in my neck are now pulsating. A pain radiates in my back where my kidneys reside.
I sit back on the couch and slowly breathe easier. I tell myself the worst is over. I pick up a guitar to shield my mind from the troubling thoughts that keep invading. I lose myself in the raining harmony of notes. I see neon numbers on infinite steps.
The phone rings. It’s my mother wishing me Happy New Year. I return the wish and she asks what’s wrong. I force a cheery, animated disposition (similar to Kari and I finally emerging, on mushrooms, from Scott’s basement to the loud and gregarious multitude on New Year’s Eve a decade earlier – later we hide in the upstairs bathroom and lay on the floor together like the only two people alive, my finger twisted around her light brown hair). She showers cherished sentiments before passing the phone on. I talk to 12 or 13 different friends or relatives, all drunk, all spending the holiday at my mother’s tiny home in South Buffalo. I still have 3 hours left in my day. My current status: locked away in my apartment, scared of the world.
Off the phone, I return to the couch, to safety. The drugs have taken a new turn. Everything is in soft hues and looks far away, but still. My hearts starts its familiar racing and my stomach aches. I feel nauseous. I convince myself my Achilles has snapped and balled up in my calf. I’m searching with my hands when the door starts banging again. Panic lights over me. The knock screams danger. I look to the kitchen and think of the huge knife sitting in the drawer. I walk over to the kitchen, open the drawer and pull it out. The shine of the knife looks like a still pool of water. It feels light in my hand. I hold it up and swing it around with feigned death thrusts. Then, the door booms three more booms. I put the knife down beside the fridge.
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