Hyena

by Jude Angelini

  I say, “Snort that shit.”

  “You first.”

  Fair enough. I roll up a five, cuz I’m on a budget, put it to a line, and blow it up my nose. When I was a kid, me, Dre and Roach chopped up some lines of sugar, wanting to be like the drug dealers on Miami Vice. I went first. I sniffed that shit and started sneezing and coughing and spitting. After me, they ain’t want none.

  That’s what the 2C-E felt like. It burnt like a motherfucker. My nose is running and my eyes are watering. I don’t know if I have to puke or shit. I tell her to do her line, I’m going to the bathroom.

  I’m on the toilet, and I start hearing echoes but nobody’s talking and the walls start breathing in and out. I got this picture of Jesus and he’s staring at me while I shit. It’s fucking with me.

  So I start talking to the picture like, “Hell naw, Jesus, I’m fucked-up.”

  He don’t say shit back. I gotta get out of here.

  I come out and she’s sitting on the couch, nervous talking. “The rug looks like water.”

  I tell her, “It ain’t water, you just trippin’, relax.”

  When doing this with a rookie, one has to appear totally confident to help them be more comfortable with their trip. I tell her to chill the fuck out and be cool. I leave out the fact that I was talking to a picture of Jesus while I was shitting.

  I’m like, “Just pretend like you’re on a raft and you’re floating down a river. You may see some shit you like and you may see some shit you don’t, but just remember it’s not permanent, it’ll change. Just go with it.”

  She chills. I shoulda been a motivational speaker.

  I go and snort some more, cuz it seems like the right thing to do.

  M83’s on the iPod. I feel the burn. I look up and see sound waves.

  It looks like that movie Predator, when the Predator uses his super-alien camouflage and goes damn near invisible and starts fucking people up. He looked all wavy on that shit. That’s what the music looks like, it looks like the fucking Predator. The Predator’s in my house, chilling above the lamp, by my ficus.

  I say, “Aw shit. I see the song.”

  “Me too.”

  “It’s the fucking Predator. This is fun, ain’t it?”

  She says, “Yeah, real fun.”

  We watch the music for a while out in the living room, Coltrane and Debussy and M83. We close our eyes and each song takes us to a different place, a different time. I’m in a speakeasy somewhere in the South listening to Coltrane. Air’s got me floating down a river and the sky’s orange from the setting sun. I watch music notes dance through my head to Debussy.

  We hit the bedroom and fuck for a while. I eat her pussy to M83; it’s epic. I don’t use that term lightly. I’m not the guy talking about a Meat Lover’s Pizza claiming epic and shit. I’m eating her pussy with fucking beams of light shooting out of my head. I wanna send M83 a thank-you note.

  I take a Viagra, cuz that’s what I do: I do drugs, eat dick pills, and sport-fuck. It works for me.

  The songs feel like they’re going on forever. I gotta keep checking my dick to make sure I didn’t nut.

  We’re taking a breather. I say, “Wow! These drugs are so much fun!”

  She’s like, “Oh my gosh, you sounded so white just then.”

  I stop. I say, “I am white.”

  She looks at me all earnest and shit. “You should just be yourself. You don’t need to put on a front, just be yourself.” Silence. “You don’t have to act all tough. My friends read your blog. They tell me what you say.”

  Her friends think I’m some tough-talking wigger. Some of my own friends think that shit. You should see the chicks they try and hook me up with. They think I’ll jibe with some fucking dental assistant because she likes Dr. Dre and drinks Hennessy.

  I decide not to touch it. I’m keeping it light tonight. I didn’t snort this shit to discuss how her fucking foodie friends view me.

  She won’t stop. “You know, in college, they put me in an all-black dorm. I was around all the black kids, so we’ve got more in common than you might think.”

  I go, “Oh yeah, we got a lot in common, huh? You hung out with black people in college? What school you go to again?”

  “Stanford.”

  I’m laughing. “Stanford, huh? I got a feeling that your black people are a lot different than my black people.”

  I don’t give a fuck if she came up around black people. I respect her cuz she put herself through school.

  Coltrane comes back on the shuffle, and I’m right back on the bayou at sunset and I’m kneading her ass. I like this drug.

  We fuck for hours, till she’s bleeding. Fucking condoms. I guess we needed lube. I take off the rubber and we fuck some more and when I finally do cum, I cum buckets—in my hand, on her belly, it’s dripping on the sheets.

  We drink some water and eat some Xanax, and I go to sleep praying that she remembers to take that morning-after pill.

  crazy sexy cool

  THE FIRST HIGH SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND I ever had looked like TLC. When people ask which one, I say, “All of ’em.”

  I was fifteen when I met her. I’m on the bus coming back from Adams High cuz they didn’t offer Black History at my school and I’m taking Black History because of course I would take Black History. I see her sitting up near the driver looking out the window, looking good, caramel complected with perky breasts. It takes a couple days to get the nerve up to speak, but I do. Her name’s Kit. I get her number, I call her that night.

  We talk for hours about nothing, about everything. She likes cartoons. She likes birds. She’s always like, “Look at the birds, Jude, look at the birds.”

  I crack jokes, and sometimes she gets ’em. When I get off the phone, I’m like, “All right, I’ma hit the road.”

  She says, “Don’t hit the road, Jude, don’t hit the road.”

  I’m smiling; she likes me; I never had no girl like me before. “Oh, you don’t wanna get off the phone, do you? You like talking to me, huh?”

  “Don’t hit the road, Jude; you’ll hurt your hand if you hit the road. Why you wanna hit the road, Jude?” I’m like wow, this chick’s an idiot. Or maybe she’s a genius. I was just watching on the Maury Povich show how they got these chicks that act stupid but are really smart just so they can get over on the doctors they date.

  I’ma keep an eye on this one, make sure she doesn’t ask me for money or anything. She never does.

  So we’re going steady. I never see her at school, only the bus ride back. We sit together, I rub on her leg with a little hard-on in my pants; the bus driver’s always giving me dirty looks. Fuck her; what’s she know about teenage love.

  I finally got a girl. I’m not the fat funny sidekick anymore. I’m not Chris Farley, cracking jokes for everybody then drinking by myself when they couple off.

  Sometimes my old man’d even drop me off at her house, and I’d suck her titties in the kitchen while her mom and stepdad watched Wheel of Fortune in the living room.

  This goes on for a couple months, when her stepdad pulls me aside. He’s like, “You know we moved out here from Detroit because the boys were teasing Kit so bad. She’d come home crying every day.”

  I’m shaking my head. “Naw, she never told me that. Kids can be cruel sometimes.”

  He goes on: “It got to the point where I had to wait at her bus stop just to make sure them boys left her alone.”

  I sigh. “It’s always the pretty ones that get picked on.”

  He’s looking at me like I’m stupid. “Jude, you never noticed anything different about Kit?”

  “Naw, just that I like her a lot.”

  He says real slow and low, “You know, Kit’s mentally challenged.”

  “What!? Naw!” I’m laughing. “Come on.”

  “I’m serious; she’s got the mental capacity of a third grader. I just thought you should know that, so you’d do the right thing.”

  “Hrrrrm . . .” I’m nodding, thinking back
.

  That bus we took home together was kind of short . . . and it did have tinted windows . . . and a chairlift. She did like birds an awful lot. . . . Holy shit. My girlfriend’s a retard.

  That very next day, I did do the right thing. I broke it off with her. It got out that she was slow and people had jokes for me, but how the hell was I supposed to know she was retarded? She wasn’t drooling or anything; she’s not like retarded retarded.

  Three years later, I’ve dropped fifty pounds, finally got some pussy, started dogging hos and I see Kit downtown at some festival. She’s with her sister buying a hot dog.

  She still looks good, midriff showing, pants saggin’ with the panties out, looking like TLC and shit. I’m thinking if she was like a third grader three years ago, her brain’s probably in sixth grade by now and her booty looks like it’s in college. Maybe I can fuck. I get her number, tell her I’ll call her sometime.

  A few weeks later, me and Jinx are doing mushrooms. We’re driving around Pontiac tripping balls, trying to holler at bitches, but none of these chicks are messing with us cuz we’re a little too fucked-up.

  We’re coming down and we’re sitting on the truck looking up at the stars talking about the universe and the meaning of life.

  Jinx is like, “I need some pussy.”

  “Shit, me, too. You got anyone?”

  “Just them girls we saw earlier.”

  We were gonna try and fuck with these little hood rats who lived in the Knolls, but we had to leave cuz Jinx’s hands had turned into pyramids and started spinning.

  Then I remember Kit. “Hey, I got somebody we can call, and she got a sister.”

  “How she look?”

  “Like TLC, dog.”

  We’re at the pay phone. I call her, say we’re coming over. Her mom’s gotta give me directions cuz Kit doesn’t know how to get to her own house. I tell her to make sure her sister’s awake. She says okay.

  We get lost, it takes an hour to get there, it’s 1 A.M. by the time we show up. Kit comes to the door in a prom dress, a pink velvet gown with one shoulder strap and sequins along the sides. On her feet are house shoes.

  She’s alone. I say, “Where’s your sister?”

  “She upstairs.”

  “Well, go get her.”

  “She busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Sleep.”

  Tough break for Jinx. Being the wingman, sometimes you hit the jackpot and sometimes you crap out. There’s been many a time I had to babysit some gorilla-looking bitch while Jinx got a blow job. So he’s gonna be riding this one out on the love seat, solo.

  She puts a movie in the VCR. “Jude, have you ever seen Friday? I love Friday.”

  “Yeah, let’s watch that shit.”

  She’s crouched in front of the television trying to get it to work. On TVs back in the day you had to have it on channel 03 to play movies. She keeps pressing channel 30. 3-0 static. 3-0 static. 3-0 static.

  Finally I say, “Hey, babe, you gotta put it on three for the picture. Press zero-three.”

  She says, “Naw, I do this all the time,” and starts flicking one channel at a time through the dial. She gets all the way to channel 80, gets frustrated and presses 3-0 again.

  Jinx is like, “Aw hell naw!!”

  I say, “Hey Kit . . . Kit . . . Hey Kit.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck that movie, just come over here and kick it with me.” She stands, TV still on, snow on the screen, sound buzzing, and sits next to me. I say, “Girl, we been here like fifteen minutes, I ain’t seen you in forever, ain’t you gonna gimme a kiss?”

  She looks at me and says, “Naw . . . I’ma play my keyboard.” She reaches up underneath the couch, pulls out a Casio, hits the demonstration beat, and pretends like she’s playing it. She’s staring at us smiling the whole time, moving her fingers over the keys. “I’m good at it, Jude. I’m good at the keyboard.”

  Jinx is staring at me like, what the fuck? I won’t even look at him. “Yeah, you’re great.”

  “Y’all wanna see my gerbil?”

  Jinx is like, “Naw, I don’t wanna see your gerbil. I’m scared of gerbils.”

  “Don’t be scared of gerbils. I have a nice gerbil.”

  “Naw, I’m good—don’t bring out no gerbil.”

  She drops the Casio, song still playing, goes in the kitchen, comes back with a gerbil, and tosses it on Jinx’s lap. “See, it’s a nice gerbil, don’t be scared.”

  It lands on him and runs up his body. Jinx is hollering, he jumps off the back of the love seat, the gerbil goes flying and scampers across the carpet and under a chair. Kit’s on her hands and knees trying to fish it out.

  Jinx half mouths, half whispers, “Dog. This bitch is crazy. Let’s get the fuck gone.”

  I whisper back, “Hold up, man, I’m trying to fuck.”

  “Jude, man . . . Come on.”

  “Gimme ten minutes.”

  He gives me this real disappointed-dad look and just shakes his head.

  Yeah, it’s one in the morning and I’m trying to fuck a retarded girl wearing house shoes and a prom dress trying to catch a gerbil. So? I bet that ass ain’t retarded. I ain’t say shit to him when he fucked the cripple.

  I say, “Kit, let’s go in the kitchen. I think the gerbil ran in there.”

  I get her to follow me and that’s when I put the moves on her, in the kitchen in the dark. I’m kissing on her and she keeps talking about the fucking gerbil. I’m rubbing her titties and it’s gerbil-gerbil-gerbil.

  I’m hiking up her dress, and she’s like, “Jude, what are you doing, Jude?” Then I put my hand down her drawers and she’s saying, “Jude, that feels funny, Jude. That feels funny.”

  I’m like, “Hold up, I got something for you.” I take my dick out. I touch her pussy and it’s dry as a desert. Then it hits me. Usually when I do my moves their pussies are pretty wet by now and her shit is not wet at all. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the driest vagina I’ve ever felt in my life. Maybe the experts are right, maybe she is all the way retarded—like retarded retarded.

  I place my penis back inside my trousers, pull her dress back down, and excuse myself. There’s a gerbil in this home that needs finding, I better leave her to it.

  We make our way out and she stays in the kitchen looking for her pet in the dark. Jinx is clowning. I’m just shaking my head, speechless. And when TLC’s “Creep” comes on the radio Jinx turns it all the way up and we’re laughing.

  say anything

  I MET THIS CHICK ONLINE a few years back. We’d talk every now and then. I told her if I ever got to Vegas, I’d holler. I ended up out there for work around Valentine’s Day. I hit her; we met at a bar in the Bellagio. She showed up with two gay guys; we had drinks and chatted.

  They wanted to go to some bar off the Strip and rage.

  I told ’em, “Go ahead.” I didn’t come out for that.

  I pulled her aside. I told her I liked her friends, they’re cool, but I didn’t call to see them, and I didn’t call her to run around Vegas and get drunk. I said that we could run around Vegas, but time is precious and soon my time here would be done and maybe we should focus on our wants instead.

  She shook the dudes and came back to my room with me.

  We turned the lights off and fucked in the dark. She was Rubenesque and moved well in bed. I liked the way her ass felt in my hands and I liked the way she kissed me. She came, and then I came. I got out of bed, threw out the condom, and washed my dick in the sink. Her homeboys were already on their way to get her by the time I came out the bathroom. We kissed and said our goodbyes and I never saw her again.

  The Strip is a soulless place. Every time I go there I feel alone. The worst kind of isolation is when the city’s buzzing around you and you’re totally disconnected. But what am I gonna do? Put on a shiny shirt and hit Tao, drink Coronas, and try and meet people? I usually end up high on some shit roaming the hotel lobby at 5 A.M., looking for something to
fuck. I spent a week in Vegas once, shooting some black exploitation movie where I get ate by vampires.

  My last night there started off with my homegirl Tina drinking Grand Marnier, and ended up in the backseat of a Malibu with some strippers, driving to a titty bar on the city’s outskirts. It’s eight in the morning and these chicks are doing bumps of coke off house keys listening to Nelly, while the people in the cars around us drive to work.

  The strip club was dead, just a pimp posted at the bar with his two girls working the poles. He’s trying to sell me pussy and crank. I took a cab back to the hotel. Picked up a meth head playing video slots in the lobby, took her up to my room, hid my money in my sock, and fucked her with my shoes on. Then put her out when I was done. Later that afternoon, when I finally flew out, I looked over that desert city and it felt like I was leaving ’Nam.

  Fuck Vegas. Soulless shopping mall of a city.

  So when Sirius told me I had to hit Vegas on Valentine’s Day for work, I wasn’t that stoked.

  Valentine’s usually sucks for me anyway. I’ve had friends killed on that day and dates ruined.

  One year I even got fucking VD. Neither one of us was cheating, we were just having dirty sex. Apparently you need to rock a condom for anal and pee afterward or things can get infected.

  Who knew?

  Every year, being the hopeless romantic I am, I put stock into Valentine’s Day and use it as a benchmark to measure where I’m at in my love life. This is bad, cuz I’m usually single or on the rebound. The last place I wanted to be on that day, rebounding, was fucking Vegas.

  But that’s where I was, so I figured I’d just fuck a girl and make the best of it.

  I woke up from fucking the Rubenesque chick, V-day, at noon. Feeling like shit. All the pussy in the world can’t mend a broken heart. I dreamt of Julie the night before. I could go all day and not think of her, but she lives in my dreams.

  I got up to take a leak; there was blood on the toilet. There was blood on the towel next to it. I looked at the bed and there was blood there, too—the sheets, the pillows, blood. Crime scene. I guess she started her period and didn’t know. My bloody Valentine. Here I am in Vegas, trying to fuck the pain away, and I’m covered in blood.