“I wouldn’t just leave,” said Jack.
“It seems like you, of all people, would just leave,” said Daniel, putting crystal meth on the toilet cover and crushing it with his debit card. Frank asked if Jack wanted some and Jack said, “Yes, if that’s okay.” Frank sneezed a little while moving his rolled-up twenty-dollar bill toward the crystal meth.
“Jesus,” said Daniel. “Be careful.”
“Why are you berating him?” said Jack. “It’s his drugs.”
“Bro,” said Daniel and grinned at Jack a little.
“It’s his,” said Jack. “And he’s sharing it with us.”
They each snorted a line of crystal meth, then stood in the main room where ~fifteen people seemed to be hugging each other repeatedly while talking loudly.
“What is this?” said Jack.
“A rich person’s apartment,” said Daniel.
“Sweet,” said Jack.
About ten minutes later Daniel, Frank, Maggie, Jack went to Legion, a bar a few blocks from Harry’s apartment. Maggie went to the bathroom. Jack sat on a padded seat.
“Seems bleak,” he said after a few seconds.
“What’s wrong with you tonight?” asked Frank.
“There aren’t any girls here for me,” said Jack.
“Let’s dance,” said Daniel.
“I’m depressed,” said Jack.
Frank and Daniel walked away. Jack looked at his phone. He stared at an area of torsos. He walked outside. He text-messaged Daniel that he was going to Khim’s to stock up on eggplant.
In Khim’s he felt energetic and calm, listening to Rilo Kiley through earphones, and put an organic beef patty, two kombuchas, organic bananas, alfalfa sprouts, arugula, some other things in his basket and paid. Walking toward Legion, Jack saw Harry approaching from the opposite direction with a troubled facial expression and sweat on his forehead and other areas of his face. Harry passed without looking at Jack. At Legion, Frank and Daniel were outside, vaguely arguing about something. Daniel went inside. Jack walked toward Frank who said he and Daniel were doing a line in the back room when a security guard came toward them and he threw the bag of crystal meth somewhere and Daniel was now inside looking for it.
“Where’s Maggie?” asked Jack.
“In White Castle,” said Frank.
They crossed the street to White Castle and sat with Maggie in a booth. Jack put his groceries on the table. “Chicken rings,” he said about a poster on a wall. “To make chicken rings they would need to, like, mold the meat into rings, right?”
“I’m worried about Daniel,” said Frank.
“He’ll be in jail for, like, ten years if he gets caught,” said Jack. “He said he has a warrant for his arrest in Colorado.”
“Jesus,” said Frank.
“It’s better if Daniel goes to jail than you,” said Jack. “He’s in debt to like five people and needs like six hundred dollars in one week, for rent, and is unemployed and owes me seventy dollars. Whereas you have a real job and a nice apartment.”
Maggie went to the bathroom.
“If Daniel goes to jail I’ll remove his debt to me, I think,” said Jack. “We could make a blog about him and mail him letters.”
“A blog,” said Frank, seeming worried. “Jesus.”
“Should we go look for him? I’ll go look for him,” said Jack and crossed the street to Legion and walked to the back room and read a text message from Daniel that said, come outside. On the sidewalk Daniel, walking away from Legion ahead of Jack, said Frank had panicked and threw the bag of crystal meth under a table. “He shouldn’t have done that,” said Daniel. “He panicked, like a little bitch.”
“He has a high-paying job,” said Jack.
“Shouldn’t I get some of this speed, since I was put in a position where I could’ve gotten in trouble?”
“If you want,” said Jack. “Seems like, yeah, if you want.”
Daniel stared ahead with a distracted facial expression.
“Frank and Maggie are in White Castle,” said Jack. “My groceries are in White Castle. Where are we going?”
“Let’s go to your room to do some of this speed,” said Daniel.
They were on a street with no people or moving cars.
“It’s too far,” said Jack. “Just snort it off your hand.”
Daniel removed a rock of crystal meth from the bag and put both his hands in his jeans pockets. Jack said, “What are you doing, isn’t it just going to, like, fall through your pants?” and ripped a page from his Moleskine journal and said Daniel could use it to contain the meth. Daniel was distractedly looking in different directions.
“You should snort it off the Lincoln,” said Jack.
“There isn’t a Lincoln here,” said Daniel.
“That seems like a Lincoln,” said Jack pointing at a car.
“That’s a Pontiac,” said Daniel.
“You should hide between two cars to do it,” said Jack.
Daniel walked between two cars and kneeled, facing away from Jack, who photographed Daniel with his cell phone and sent the photograph to his own Gmail account and to Daniel’s cell phone.
“Good job,” said Jack walking toward White Castle.
“You know I don’t do this to friends, usually,” said Daniel, looking into the distance.
“You just did it,” said Jack grinning. “I mean, what do you mean?”
“I mean, do you think it’s okay I did that?”
“Seems fine,” said Jack.
“I was put in a dangerous situation.”
“Seems fine,” said Jack.
“You threw the bag onto this little shelf,” said Daniel to Frank in White Castle. “I was looking on the ground for it. The bag was open so I don’t know how much fell out.”
In Jack’s room Daniel, Frank, Jack—Maggie had left to sleep—each snorted a line of crystal meth. Daniel looked at Jack’s collection of time-release Adderall and questioned Jack about why one capsule was open. Jack said it broke open in the envelope. Daniel repeatedly questioned Jack about how much of the capsule was missing, implying that the person who mailed Jack the Adderall had removed some from each capsule. Jack spoke for ~ten minutes about having been tricked, saying things like, “I’m going to message her right now telling her I know one of these capsules only has twenty milligrams and that I want an explanation, right now,” in a sarcastically outraged voice while signing into Facebook and typing the message to the person, asking Daniel if he should try to get the three books he had traded to the person, who was separate from his monthly shipment person, returned to him. At some point Jack felt unable to discern if Daniel knew he was being sarcastic, which caused Jack to increase his sarcasm, until he felt that he was saying things only to entertain himself. Daniel and Frank went into Jack’s roommate’s room and Jack heard the word “Fuckbuttons” and went to his roommate’s room and said he had talked about Fuckbuttons last night. Daniel said Jack hadn’t. Daniel said he and Frank had but Jack hadn’t. “Are you sure?” said Jack.
“Where were we last night?” said Daniel.
“At … some … thing,” said Jack after a few seconds.
“Is Shawn Olive your boyfriend?” said Frank to Jack’s roommate.
“No,” she said. “We’re good friends.”
Daniel, Frank, Jack went into Jack’s room. There was some tense discussion about a book by Jack’s friend Brandon that Jack published a year ago. Daniel seemed to be saying that the book was boring and that he didn’t know why Jack published it. Daniel and Frank left and Jack cooked 70 percent of his organic beef patty and ate it with flax seeds, arugula, alfalfa sprouts, cucumber, tamari, lemon juice, olive oil. It was ~4:30 a.m. Jack ingested ~fifteen milligrams of Adderall and worked on things on his MacBook, laying stomach-down on his bed, sometimes e-mailing Daniel who was at his apartment a few blocks away and was responding within a few minutes to each e-mail. They decided not to sleep and to meet at 10 a.m. to go to the Museum of Modern Art. It was
~6:45 a.m. For the next few hours Jack sometimes stood and ingested a few milligrams of Adderall, each time noticing that the sunlight through his two large windows seemed gray. He e-mailed Daniel ~9:50 a.m. that he was naked on his bed and hadn’t showered. Daniel responded that he was also naked and hadn’t showered. About an hour later Jack e-mailed Daniel, where the fuck are you, and Daniel responded, within a minute, that he was still naked on his bed.
About thirty minutes later they met, got on the train, got off at Bedford Avenue. They walked to Rockin’ Raw which wasn’t open yet. It was raining a little. One of them said something about how the Museum of Modern Art would probably be extremely crowded because it was Sunday and within a few seconds both agreed that they shouldn’t go there. They talked about going to LifeThyme and the garden. Jack asked if Daniel wanted to go to the bookstore. Daniel said, “Not really,” but that he would go if Jack wanted. They decided to sit in a café called Verb to decide what to do next. They walked there and sat and each ingested ten milligrams of Adderall. Daniel removed a glass jar with a peanut butter label on it from his backpack and poured ~four ounces of whiskey into his iced coffee with a neutral facial expression. Jack asked what Daniel was going to do about his financial situation. Daniel said Frank had mentioned, a few days ago, hiring him to write promotional copy for Frank’s band, but then didn’t mention it again. Jack said he would help Daniel steal things today to sell on eBay or to thrift stores. They went in the bookstore and Daniel picked up the book that had almost exactly the same cover as Shawn Olive’s book and showed it to Jack and said, “Shawn Olive.” Jack said they had showed the book to each other a few nights ago and also talked about it for an amount of time. “I don’t remember,” said Daniel.
“It was in this store,” said Jack. “Like two days ago.”
They went outside and Jack pointed at an area of sidewalk and talked about how he and his ex-girlfriend had sold books sitting there. “We could do that,” he said. “Let’s do that, maybe.” They walked aimlessly a few minutes. They walked toward Jack’s apartment to get books to sell. A girl saw Daniel and stopped on her bike and said she was putting up fliers for an art fair on Berry Street and biked away. Daniel said he’d had sex with her and didn’t know her name currently. Jack said her name was probably Kiki. They walked on Berry Street ~ten minutes and didn’t see an art fair. They walked to East River Park. It was ~11:45 a.m. and cloudy. They decided it was time to snort the crystal meth Daniel stole from Frank last night. They walked to a somewhat isolated area of logs and cement blocks and sat and decided it would be better to snort the meth in Jack’s room. They walked to Rockin’ Raw and sat in the outdoor area. There were many large flies for some reason on the tables. They moved inside and Daniel went to the bathroom. Jack ordered a raw almond shake to go. They walked toward his apartment, ~fifteen blocks away, and Jack asked if Daniel snorted crystal meth in the bathroom. Daniel said he wouldn’t do that without Jack and they went in a pizza place. Daniel walked toward Jack and said his debit card was either maxed out or not working from cutting so much speed.
Daniel stood in the middle of Jack’s room and quietly said things about feeling “fucked” about his financial situation and also “generally.” He kneeled to a table and created two lines of crystal meth. Jack asked what music Daniel wanted. Daniel didn’t say anything. Jack put on “Heartbeats” by The Knife and they both laughed a little. Jack put on “Last Nite” by The Strokes and stopped it and said it was too depressing. Jack put on “Such Great Heights” by The Postal Service and stopped it and said, “What are we going to listen to?” and Daniel said to put “Such Great Heights” back on, then snorted half his line and motioned for Jack to snort his. Jack moved some of his line into Daniel’s half-snorted line, saying he only wanted five dollars worth and that it would be removed from Daniel’s tab. “Seems like it’s going to be impossible for me not to sneeze or something,” said Jack and felt some difficulty in discerning “exhale” vs. “inhale” as he moved a rolled-up page of Shawn Olive’s poetry collection in his right nostril toward the crystal meth by leaning his body off the bed. He snorted some then exhaled a little and some crystal meth spilled out on the table. Jack felt calm and amused as Daniel lightly berated him. “Frank did it a lot more,” said Jack. “He, like, sneezed, or something. Seems like we’re improving, if you view Frank and me as one person.” He quickly snorted the rest of the crystal meth, then continued snorting areas of the table, including a small spot of what seemed to be colorful dust. “Stop,” said Daniel and snorted the rest of his line. Jack lay on his bed in a splayed-out manner. Daniel continued to say that he felt depressed, but in a calmer voice. Jack stood and said they should go sell books now and put books, pens, blue spray paint, pieces of paper, some other things in his backpack and rolled up a small carpet. Daniel said they would probably sell three books and should probably just go to the garden instead, to relax. “Let’s just try to sell books,” said Jack. “If it doesn’t work we can leave or just sit there relaxing. I’ll give you all the profits.”
They walked ~fifteen blocks and unrolled the carpet on the sidewalk. Jack put books on the carpet and wrote prices on paper and they sat with their backs against a wall. A British man picked up a book, looked at it a few seconds, said “I’ll take it,” gave Jack two dollars while looking in his wallet for a five-dollar bill. Daniel sincerely praised Jack’s writing to the British man for a few minutes. The British man thanked them and walked away. Daniel said the British man had said “getting in on” in a hesitating manner, like he wasn’t sure if he was getting the idiom right, and that Daniel had looked at Jack when he said that. Jack said he didn’t notice. “He only gave me two dollars,” he said. “Seems like a scam.” An overweight, fashionable, shy-seeming girl bought two books without removing her large headphones or speaking. Four black male teenagers appeared. One, who seemed much more interested than the others, asked if he could read some of a book and then read some of it and laughed and said, “I’ll take it.”
“Sweet,” said Jack.
“Do you like Adderall?” said Daniel.
“What is it?” said the teenager.
Daniel described it in a few sentences.
“So, it’s like Ecstasy?” asked the teenager.
“Sort of,” said Daniel. “Without the euphoria.”
“Are you in?” said the teenager.
“No,” said his friend. “But I’ll watch you do it.”
The teenager bought two Adderall.
Nick McDonnell appeared on a bike and introduced himself to Jack and said they had met before. Jack said, “I remember,” and said something about KGB Bar. Nick McDonnell bought two books and said he looked forward to reading them. Jack asked him about his McSweeney’s book. Jack said, “You know Mike Tonas, right?”
Nick McDonnell said he wished Mike would return from Portland.
“He’s there permanently?” asked Jack.
“I think so,” said Nick McDonnell.
Jack said he would move to Portland.
Daniel said, “You would?”
Jack said, “I don’t know.”
Nick McDonnell said he had a reading at The Half-King the next night, then rode his bike diagonally across Bedford Avenue.
“Do you know that person?” asked Jack.
“No,” said Daniel. “Who is that bro?”
“He’s rich,” said Jack. “I liked his first novel. It was published when he was seventeen, I think. His father was the editor of Rolling Stone or something. His novel was blurbed by Hunter S. Thompson, Bret Easton Ellis, and Joan Didion and was just made into a movie by Joel Schumacher or someone. In the book the main character is a white person in high school who sells drugs. We should go to his reading. Tomorrow night.”
They sat without talking ~twenty minutes.
“Should I use more Adderall,” asked Jack.
“You’re better to be around when you’re on Adderall,” said Daniel.
“What do you mean?” said Jack.
“You’re really quiet without Adderall.”
Jack went to Verb and ingested ten milligrams of Adderall, stood in line for the bathroom, peed, washed his face. He ran to where he and Daniel were selling books. The sky was mostly gray. There was some orange, red, purple in the distance. It was ~5:30 p.m. An Asian girl with a cell phone to her right ear approached and slowed a little and passed. She reappeared a few minutes later without a cell phone and said she knew who Jack was, from her coworkers. Jack said something about Adderall. “Are you guys cops?” she asked. “Because I’m waiting here to buy pot from someone. But I’m not sure about him.” Daniel asked whom and she showed Daniel the drug dealer’s business card. She bought two books and went to an ATM and returned and paid for three Adderall. She asked if Daniel or Jack had a driver’s license, to move her friend’s car from Crown Heights to the Graham L train stop for money. They talked about that a few minutes without concluding anything and it was quiet a few seconds and she removed a magazine from her bag and said she was translating an article from Mandarin and asked if Jack was good at translating. Jack said he couldn’t read Mandarin. Daniel asked where she was from and after a few minutes she began talking about her boyfriend who went to India after college, then returned to America and died, a few years ago. Jack heard her say something about how her boyfriend’s funeral had become a party—that, for some reason Jack didn’t hear, it had been the same as a party—except everyone was wearing black.
TAO LIN is the author of six books of fiction and poetry, including Richard Yates, his second novel, which was published in 2010.
everything i want
by megan abbott
for Courtney Love
You destroyed them, didn’t you, doc?” one of the government men said, his arms deep in the drawers of the doctor’s battered old filing cabinets. “All your records.”
The Speed Chronicles Page 14
