This is our first time talking in months. I take the needle out of my leg.
We don’t address the fight. She catches me up on her life. She got a job and switched majors.
I say, “Having your own money feels good, right?”
She says, “Yeah.”
I tell her I’m proud of her.
She tells me she’s chilled out with the partying.
I tell her be careful with all that drinking, she’s got some wild ones in her family, that shit might run in her blood.
I tell her it doesn’t matter what she majors in, if you’re smart and humble and grind hard and be brave you can be anything you want.
I tell her to be brave.
I tell her I love her.
We get off the phone.
I think about her for a minute, in my apartment, in my new leather armchair. The sun’s shining on my couch. A bird’s singing outside my window. My drugs are on the ottoman in front of me.
I get up, I put on a Pharoah Sanders record, Journey to the One—it’s sparse and moody.
I sit back down.
Pick up the needle and sink it in my thigh. I push the plunger in slowly and empty the syringe.
I listen to the sax play along with the sitar and wait for the K to kick in. I think about what I do. I think about what I’m doing to myself and why I keep doing it.
I might stop if I had a reason.
The song ends and I’m thinking maybe I should do some more. Because I still don’t feel anything.
the sedona
Nonno bought the van off this Persian motherfucker ’cause he looked like his little brother Pete, so he trusted him. He used to be good at buying cars. He’s not anymore. He’s old. He’s old and he’s worn down and Pete doesn’t talk to him anymore.
He got the van ’cause Nonnie needed it to get around with her wheelchair. He moved her down to Florida, away from her family. He didn’t wanna share her. When she was away from her kids, she died.
When we were little, Nonnie used to give us baths and send us home with spaghetti and meatballs. On Easter, she’d bake us rabbit-shaped cookies with eggs on their bellies.
When she was dying, I didn’t go see her. We had a falling out over some family stuff. I called her instead, she told me she didn’t wanna say goodbye so she said, “So long.”
I said, “So long, Nonnie.”
And that was it.
And I didn’t feel much then, but it’ll get me one day.
I think the casinos did her in as bad as the move to Florida did. The grandkids got big, we stopped coming around, so they’d go there. They were addicted to the slots.
They’d catch buses to Windsor and spend all day pushing that button, every day, a penny at a time, and show up late to Christmas.
Rachel used to get upset about it.
I’d shush her. “They’re grown-ups, they can do what they wanna do.”
But it’s weird watching your grandparents turn into junkies. Her hand went bad from pressing the button and her body followed.
One time, me and Danny tried to meet ’em down at the Motor City Casino. We miss ’em by an hour and find a different busload of seniors. They’re on the slots, in their sweatpants, with their walkers and oxygen tanks, being babysat by some black lady smoking a cigarette. Some of ’em pissed themselves. You can smell it. They don’t care. They sit in it. They’re still playing.
We never tried to meet ’em at the casino again.
That was a long time ago.
Nonnie’s been gone awhile now. Nonno’s in Florida alone.
His place is in shambles. He eats ramen noodles and sleeps in a chair. His van’s broke down ’cause the Persian sold him a piece of shit.
He’s in the driveway trying to fix it.
He used to wrench on cars, he used to build things. He’s in his nineties now: his hands don’t work like they used to.
He’s got the battery out, it’s on the ground. He’s going in and out of the garage, getting tools when he trips and he falls and he breaks his neck.
And a month later he’s dead.
I didn’t see him to say goodbye either. He asked to see Rachel; he didn’t ask about me.
the knockout
She hits me and says she’s never heard my radio show, she just knows me from the Internet and likes my jokes. She’s quite fuckable, so I hit her back.
She lives near my daughter, in Florida. I’m gonna go see the kid next week.
I say, “Maybe we can arrange something when I’m out there.”
She says sure.
First time I call her, she’s says, “You don’t sound how you look.”
I say, “Yeah, I get that a lot. When I’m Internet dating, I gotta tell these chicks ahead of time that I sound black on the phone or they think they’re getting catfished and freak out.”
It’s the truth and it usually gets a laugh, but it doesn’t this time.
She says, “For sure, no one wants to get hit with a surprise nigger. Who wants to date one of those?”
Two minutes into talking to this chick and she’s already dropping “surprise niggers” on me?
I pause.
I guess I’m s’posed to bring up the fact my daughter’s half black and act morally superior. But that’s an annoying person to be. I’ve met that chick before, she’s the one who got knocked up by a black dude for culture and a cause.
I’m just trying to get my dick sucked.
I change the topic to something lighter.
Now she’s name-dropping the celebrities she’s slept with. It’s only two. One’s a midget. The other one’s a comedian she fucked at his show. I know the guy. We’re cool. She won’t be the first chick I fuck after him.
It’s almost like this chick’s trying to talk me out of banging her. I don’t know what’s tackier, the racial slurs or her name dropping the B-list dicks that have been in her.
I don’t wanna hear you talk about fucking other dudes unless I’m jerking off to it. As far as the “nigger” shit goes, I shrug it off. She’s Bolivian and wasn’t taught to mask her bigotry the way whites have been.
We make a date to hang out the night I get in. I’ll fuck her, then meet up with my kid the next day.
I touch down and hit her. We’re eating tacos at a table on the sidewalk. She’s drinking a Corona, trash-talking the city.
My daughter lives here. I tell her, “I like it.”
I take a sip of my G.
She says, “What’s that?”
I say, “GHB.”
She says, “Ooh, I love G. I haven’t done that since Miami. Gimme.”
I shake my head, “I don’t know… I don’t like giving chicks I haven’t fucked yet ‘the date rape drug.’”
She insists. “Come on…”
I pour her a cap. She drinks it and makes a face.
She says, “I think it’s real cool of you to meet up with your fans.”
I laugh. I say, “Girl, I drive a Mazda Six with cloth interior. I’m not above fucking girls off the Internet.”
We eat our Mexican food and she puts down every single person that walks by us.
“Ew, he’s fat… She’s got an ugly butt… I know she didn’t wear that…”
I’m quiet chewing my food. I don’t laugh once.
I’m guessing there’s a few things going on here. One: she’s nervous. Two: I’m known for talking shit and she’s trying to measure up. And three: this chick’s a knockout and nobody tells her to shut the fuck up when she sounds like an idiot. So here we are.
Finally, I say, “You know, Maria… Why don’t you just be nice?”
She says, “What?”
I say, “You shit on every single person that’s passed us.”
She says, “No I haven’t.”
I say, “Yeah, you have. Just be cool.”
She looks down. She’s quiet for a second, then takes a bite of her quesadilla, “Too much cheese. You must be excited to see your daughter tomorrow.”
This’ll be the first time I’ve seen her since our fight.
I say, “Yeah, I really am.”
She says, “Aw, that’s sweet. Do you have a picture of her?”
I take out my phone. I pull up a pic of her and her friends. I hand it to her.
She says, “Awwww, how cute!! Which one is she?”
I take a bite out my taco. I chew it up.
I say, “The black one.”
We’re back in my room. She’s too faded to drive but not too faded to fuck. We’ll smash for a while and I’ll send her on her way.
I’m thinking, Maybe I shouldn’t have gave her that second cap of G when she bugged me for it.
It kicked in at the bar when we were shooting pool, she kept smacking my ass, talkin’ ’bout, “Ooh, you like that don’t cha!? Don’t cha!?”
And I’d be like, “Nope, actually, I don’t.”
And then she’d spank my ass again and strut away holding her pool cue like a scepter.
In bed she’s doing the same shit: ripping off my belt and throwing it across the room. I wish she’d be careful with it, it’s alligator. Now she’s talking trashy about what she’s gonna do to my dick; suck the shit out of it, she says.
This ain’t even sexy. It’s like she saw this scene in a porno and now she’s doing it to me.
I’ma have to take control. I grab her, kiss her on the mouth. She’s got soft lips. It’s actually quite nice.
I’m undoing my pants, looking at her. She growls, smacks me across the face, and says, “Give it to me.”
I sigh.
I take out my dick. She goes down on me with more enthusiasm than skill. Tugging and jerking with lots of teeth. She seems to like it, but I don’t know how long I can deal with this wack-ass head.
You show me a guy that says, “There’s no such thing as a bad blow job,” and I’ll show you a guy who never gets his dick sucked.
She looks up at me and says, “I love sucking your cock. You got me so hot right now.”
I pull her panties aside and touch her pussy.
I say, “Your pussy’s not. It’s dry as hell.”
She says, “Well get me wet then.”
I put her on her back and go down on her.
I start slow then go fast. She’s making noises. I’m trying to match strokes to moans. She’s getting louder, saying my name. I find that pace and lock on. I throw a finger in her. She’s wet and squeezing it. She’s got good pussy for being a dick. This’s gonna be fun. She’s about to come with the high pitched ohs.
She tenses up. Releases and then she goes quiet.
I lick softer. I’m thinking, Oh she wants to be still. I’m lapping at her trying to get the post-nut shudders out of her, but she ain’t moving. So I speed up the tongue, see if I can get her to yelp.
Still, nothing.
Hrrmm. That’s odd.
I take my face from out of her vagina, raise up, and look. She’s spread eagle and out cold. She drank too much G.
I shake her, call her name, slap her cheek. She’s still out.
Goddamn it.
She ain’t drunk enough for me to be scared, I’m just annoyed.
I’m thinking, How you like that? She gets her nut then goes to sleep. Fucking lightweight.
I’m kneeling above her holding my dick. She’s knocked out, pouty lips, looking all peaceful with her legs open and that monkey glistening. I really wanna fuck.
She’s actually quite stunning when she’s not talking. I’m staring at that pussy, man it is wet. Ain’t shit to do but one thing, I grab my pants off the floor, dig in my pocket, grab my phone and set the timer for two hours.
Let her sleep that shit off, I’ll fuck her later. She’ll prolly need to sober up before she drives home anyway.
I used to wake up my exes in the middle of the night with dick, that was sexy. This’d be date rape. I shut my eyes and take a nap.
Two hours come and go. She’s still out. I’m thinking of all the shit I gotta do in the morning.
At three she finally wakes up. “What happened?”
I say, “You passed out while I was eating your pussy. Right after you came.”
I had to tell her she came.
She gets up to get some water. I turn on the lights and see a giant oblong circle on the comforter where she was laying.
I touch it. It’s wet.
I say, “Jesus Christ.”
She says, “What?”
I say, “Goddamnit, Maria. Ya pissed the bed.”
She yells, “Nooo!”
I’m staring at the stain. I’m not even mad. We’re just not fucking now, for sure.
She says, “I think I’m gonna go.”
I nod. I say, “Yeah, you better.”
I walk her out and she’s stumbling in her heels, she’s still high. There’s a fifty-fifty chance she’s gonna wreck her car. If that happens, there’s a fifty-fifty chance she’ll tell on me. I don’t like the odds but I’ma have to take ’em, ’cause the thought of waking up next to her is unbearable.
She’s damn near falling over when I put her in her car and point her in the right direction.
I’m wired in bed next to her piss, it’s cold, I can feel it. I’m in the dark, thinking about life decisions and what led me here.
I’m thinking, You coulda took your kid to get tacos tonight, but you decided to fuck some chick you didn’t even like.
And for what? A nut? A notch? Get her to come so you could feel good about yourself? Fucking these hoes is like picking a lock and all you got is five moves.
Banging random hoes at twenty is cool; at forty it’s pathetic.
I’m pinching the bridge of my nose. I say out loud to the room, “Oh, don’t beat yourself up. You’re not gonna stop till you settle down… But they’re never good enough for you, are they? You just wanna smart girl. But the smart ones are too smart to fuck with your ass.”
So here we are.
I jerk off in bed. This bitch is prolly wrecked somewhere. Telling the cops how I gave her drugs. Better stash that G just in case.
I’m looking around the room for a spot.
Don’t be paranoid. You’re good.
God, I’m exhausted. Just drink you some coffee tomorrow, go swoop your kid, you’ll be good. You’ll be good. Go to bed, man. You’re good.
I’m finally dozing off and my phone chirps.
It’s a text from Maria. I read it. It says, “omg I just got pulled over for speeding. omg fml.” She ends it with a sad emoji face.
I sigh the day away. I put the phone on the bed stand and pretend like I never got that text.
last call
Julie gets the first copy of Hyena I write. So much of the book’s about her, I want her to have it. Even the stories she’s not in, all the chicks I fucked; I was thinking of her when I was doing it.
I reach out to her. She texts me an address. I mail her the book. A year later she calls me.
It’s good to talk to her, just to hear her voice, to hear how she’s doing. At first she’s guarded but she warms up. An hour into it, I’m lying in bed talking, she’s parked in her driveway but she doesn’t wanna go yet.
Her voice has changed. It’s softer and sweeter. It sounds like it used to when she loved me.
It’s getting late. I ask, can call her the next day?
She says okay. She’s done with work at nine.
Next day I’m giddy. I swore I was over her but I guess I’m not. It’s funny, the lies we tell ourselves just to get by.
Maybe we can work it out. Maybe after everything, we can start over and have
a storybook ending
Nine o’clock can’t get here soon enough. I’m at the V-Cut playing backgammon, I can barely think. I’m getting my ass whooped but taking it as a good omen.
Like the old Armenians say, “Unlucky in dice, but lucky in love.”
I’m driving home down Melrose bumping Supertramp—Oh Darling, I’m gonna make you mine. I’m singing along like they wrote it for me. And when it’s over I bring it back again.
Nine o’clock comes, I play it cool. I wait till nine thirty to hit her.
No answer.
An hour goes by and I’m dying. I’m staring at my phone waiting for it to ring. The next hour’s even worse. People keep texting. It’s not her, and with every text my heart sinks a little more.
Probably just busy.
She finally hits back at midnight.
It’s not the same Julie I hung up with the night before. This one’s cold.
She says, “So what’d you want to talk about then?”
I should’ve said, “Nothing.” But I gotta see it through.
I tell her I’m grown now. I’m more patient now. I been working on myself. I tell her back then I counted on her to make me happy and when she didn’t, I resented her for it. I tell her I finally figured out I’m just not a happy dude.
She gives me a noncommittal, “Yeah.”
I tell her I’m like an old house that she’s done all these repairs on and it’d be a shame if she let someone else move in.
I say, “Maybe we can try again.”
I ask her, does she wanna try again?
The line’s quiet.
I probably shoulda just suggested coffee.
I’m in the dark, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at shadows on the wall, waiting for an answer.
I say her name. Then she tells me she has a boyfriend.
“Oh,” I say.
We’re silent.
I ask her, “Why ain’t you tell me you had a man yesterday?”
She says, “I didn’t know when to bring it up.”
I force a laugh, “Probably towards the beginning of the conversation.”
Hummingbird Page 4
