The next morning, we wake up from our drunken stupors. The house reeks of piss because someone took a leak on the couch. Karen and I drag the cushions out to the curb, then the frame. I’ll get a new sofa. That one was only $25 at the thrift store. There are seven people who never made it home. One guy puts coffee on, and Karen and I talk about John some more.
“You should stay away from him,” she says.
“I try, but he finds me,” I say. “He’s not going to hurt anyone, he’s just gross.”
“What if you’re alone though?” she asks. “He’s weird.”
“Barf Man was weird,” I say.
Barf Man was Joshua, another grody guy who used to bug me. I literally had to move across the state to get rid of him. He’d give girls heroin if they’d never used it so they would get high and barf. Once you got used to getting high, he’d lose interest because you weren’t barfing enough for him to get off. He was six feet tall, had long black hair down to his butt, and always wore a shiny black trenchcoat and hat. He had a Glock collection.
“Want to see my new gun?” he asked me.
“Sure,” I said.
We were alone in my dorm room. It was my sophomore year of college, about 2 a.m. I had a history test the next day, but I decided I’d rather look at a weird man’s gun than study Mesopotamia. Joshua put a bundle on my bed and unwrapped his Glock, a handgun of some sort. I don’t know about guns, except that some are ugly and some are elegant. This one was slender, had a comfortable handle, and looked like a gun James Bond would use.
“It’s pretty,” I said.
“Let’s go to the beach,” he said. He looked down at the floor, sad and resolved. I had no idea what he was sad about.
We drove an hour out to the beach, over windy roads through farmland. He told me he was bringing his loaded gun to protect us. We parked his beat-up old Volvo station wagon, smoked some heroin, and then he asked me to climb into the back end with him. I realized maybe he had been sad back in my room because he thought he was going to kill me. I figured it was better to make out with him than to die. He was a moody dude. He’d come into my room sometimes and start bawling, crying so hard he couldn’t even tell me what was wrong.
When he tried to roll on top of me, I had to think of something quick. I told him I felt sick. He perked up and grew sympathetic, like I was his baby bird and he was going to feed me a worm. He walked me to the end of the pier where I bent over and made myself puke into the water. That’s the only time I’ve been able to barf on command. My legs felt rubbery, and Joshua was clearly into this. He stooped beside me, looking up through my legs at my spewing mouth.
“Sit down. I’ll hold your hair back,” he said.
I got down on my knees. He pulled my hair back in this romantic way, kind of brushing it with his fingers and rubbing the side of my face. Then he leaned over my shoulder so he could see me barf.
“Don’t watch,” I said.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I know how you feel.”
Whatever, freak, I thought. The word freak played repeatedly in my head. Freakiest scene ever. What a total freak. I am such a freak for barfing off a pier for some freakish man who has a loaded gun in his pocket. I’m tired of freaks. Get away, freak. What a freakin’ mess. This is freaky. What a fucking freak. Freaky, man. I can’t even deal with this freak.
“I finished barfing and he drove me home,” I tell Karen.
“Did you talk to him after that?” she asks.
“A little, until one night I caught him helping my roommate barf into our toilet,” I say.
Everyone has their favorite body parts. I like shoulders, arms, and hands. Karen likes feet. She gets custom shoes made: ones that imitate that high 1940s heel on those round-toed pumps. Joshua liked seeing mouths make wrong shapes. Werewolves like hair. They like hairy women because they know hair’s sexual potential. Hair equals sex for werewolves. Pictures of werewolves often show women fallen backwards in the wolf’s arms. The unconscious woman’s hair dangles down, her mouth open. Sometimes her face is shown. Sometimes her hair covers it. I prefer it when the girl’s awake and you can compare her look of terror to the wolf’s rage and hunger. I understand why the wolf’s so into that. He likes to dominate. Barf turns wolves on too, I’m sure. When my dog was a puppy, he used to lick up my cat’s barf until I taught him not to. He stops to smell barf when we’re walking, and I yank on his leash to keep him moving. He likes getting his leash yanked while he smells barf. Just kidding! Even my dog isn’t as sick as the freaks who pester me.
John’s in the hospital again. He calls from the pay phone asking me to come visit. I decide to go because I know no one else will. Plus, he wants cigarettes. I feel so bad for people who are locked up and can’t smoke. I take cigarettes to both friends and exfriends. I make exceptions. I feel bad enough for John because his main pleasure happens to be one that bothers other people. I try so hard to find pleasures I can keep to myself. Even things you do alone, like getting drunk, can rub people the wrong way. It’s just a matter of how far you take it.
John’s hospital room is the same one another friend of mine stayed in. It’s so fucked. The room is too tiny. I ask John to walk out into the hall with me, but he won’t get off the bed. He keeps asking me to sit down. I tell him I’d rather stand. Finally, I just sit so he’ll talk about other things. We stare at the walls together, and I wonder what pills he’s taking. He’s still obsessing over me, but he’s not shouting or cussing. He blinks a lot, like his eyes are dried out. He reaches over and puts his hand on my leg.
“Don’t,” I say.
He takes his hand away. His meds are working. Before, it was like he was deaf. He’s still freaking out, but not in such an oblivious way. I hate this hospital.
“How long do you have to be in here?” I ask.
His eyes open wide. “What do you want from me?” he asks.
“Nothing, I just came to give you smokes and say hi.”
“Why are you asking me so many questions?” he asks.
“I only asked one,” I say. It feels so great that we’re having a real conversation, a linear one with Q & A. I like arguing when the argument makes sense.
“Are you allowed to go outside?” I ask.
“Hey, I like your tits,” he says. He looks sadly at the floor, already knowing what will happen next.
FACES
I. Mosquito Face
My face is not exactly like two dogs humping, but it’s just as fascinating and embarrassing. Last week it was devoured by mosquitoes when my brother and I hiked through dry grass and blue oak forest to a lake. Since there was no moon, it was sort of like climbing Mt. Everest. When we finally stumbled onto the shore, we imagined the animals protesting our visit were geese, cows, bullfrogs, or some combination thereof. I thought it was a goose-cow-frog. My brother thought it was an angry bull. We sat down and looked into the darkness at the silhouettes of the “mighty oaks,” as they’re called in my book, Oaks of California. Then we heard a car screech and slam into something down below.
Some frenetic Northern Lights appeared, pink behind the trees. The glow was accompanied by the sound of electricity escaped into the air, snapping noises generated from fallen power lines that were whipping the earth and cracking back upwards. The noise of the car getting doused with current, a series of erratic revs followed by desperate honks from a misfiring horn, came after the snaps. He’d plugged himself into the town’s main power box. All the local light faded and joined us in blackness. Then the sirens started. We walked down the hill and smoked some more pot.
This combination of noises—animals cooing, croaking, chirping, and hopping, the car’s sputtering engine amidst police and ambulance sirens, and power lines leaking sparks and crackling almost like metal popcorn—kept us mesmerized for at least an hour, during which I acquired fifty bites. Seven of them are on my face.
II. Lizard Face
Steve Miller Band was singing, Big ol’ jet airliner, carry me to my hom
e, at the Silver Bowl in Las Vegas. Harley-Davidson biker dudes were getting their T-shirts all wet under these pierced hoses that were suspended around the stadium. All the men had long, stringy hair, and their beer bellies looked like wobbly piles of dung stuck onto their torsos. I had on green leather Birkenstocks. I pushed into the mist, fighting my way through this sea of bellies to cool off in the August heat. My feet turned green from the bleeding sandals, and I felt slimy like a lizard.
That’s why when I saw my face in the reflection of my friend’s Zippo later that evening, I thought I’d become some mutant lizard human. I stuck out my tongue, watched for a passing fly, and snapped it back. My face was covered in scales and the skin was pale olive-green. My cheekbones had sunk so deep I had a long alligator snout. I felt prehistoric. I was like a fossil of my once reptilian self. I remembered lying on rocks to let my cold blood thaw. My face was full of crevices and dark, shadowy wrinkles, and I knew at that moment, staring into the mystical Zippo, that it was time to chill out and smoke a cigarette.
III. No Face
In northern Idaho, along the fork of the three main rivers that run through the state—the Lochsa, Salmon, and Snake—I rode my horse Rainbow through berry bushes and nettles. I guess horses are immune to stinging nettles because she didn’t complain. I gave her extra foods like carrot sticks, leaves, and trail mix. Every day at sunset, I stopped to camp beside the river. I put the Jethro Tull tape into my Walkman, listened to Ian Anderson’s flute trips, and imagined him in medieval, lace-up leather boots. I’d stand like he stood on stage, balancing on one leg, the other in a V with foot propped against calf, still covered by brown leather. The boots came up to his knees, so rad, stylish but practical. Ian was dorky like a father, not sexy. I took tips from him because his music alternated between calm and tempestuous—I figured I could travel just by listening.
Several days passed before I saw myself in a mirror. Those were great days. I figured Ian Anderson didn’t look in mirrors as he played the flute. When I did finally see myself, posing in the Ian Anderson flamingo stance in a gas station mirror, I felt ridiculous. My hair looked like I’d undergone shock treatment. I patted it down with wet hands, thinking, I’ve been living in a dork palace. After that, I avoided mirrors. I took them off all the walls.
My other mirror-phobic period began the night a Snowy White Owl flew in front of my windshield. I was driving to a field outside Eureka. Llamas lived on this ranch, and I wanted to check them out. It was 3 a.m. Owls were always flying around and dodging cars up there. I don’t know why it was such an omen, but at the time, I was a vampire and the owl was my death animal, the animal I knew I’d see before dying completely. Your body can die and your soul will live on, but if you see your death animal it means that when you die, you will die both physically and spiritually forever. Therefore, I believed that although I was immortal in my vampire status, the owl symbolized imminent termination of all aspects of my soul, evil and non-evil.
In the days following this experience, all I could drink was orange juice because the sweet, sour, pulpy taste reminded me of the very center of life, the core kindness of all living beings, the sphere of the sun and the heat generated from within. I drank lots of juice, and the sugar made me a little neurotic. I feared the mirror and covered it. For, you see, vampires can see their reflections, and if I’d failed to see mine, that would have meant I was …
IV. Jerky Face
A Chinese man told me my face looked like burnt beef. What did he mean by that? Did he mean to say beautiful apple? Did he mean smooth, brown, supple? When you pull it apart, it’s a compliment: the burntness being an evenly tanned and healthily cooked face, and the beef being the delicious flesh of the animal kingdom. I said thank you, and walked away.
I admit at times my face is leathery, but I am no leatherfaced serial killer. At times I seem Mexican, because I tan easily. Kids tell me I look Latino, but I’m not. “You must eat beans,” they say, and while I love beans, that doesn’t make me Mexican. Plus, practically everyone on this planet loves beans.
When people are hungry, they see food in your face. The cartoons are true: You do turn into a giant chicken drumstick or steaming ham. I’m surprised my friends haven’t eaten me. But if they do, remember this story, find my bones picked apart and licked clean, gather my cartilage into a gelatinous pile, then bury me so my dog can dig me up and chew on me until I’m splintered all throughout my garden of calendula.
GET COMFORTABLE
If you want comfort you should give up learning;
If you desire to acquire learning you should abandon comfort.
How can a person who wants comfort acquire learning?
And how can a person enjoy comfort who wants to learn?
—Sanskrit proverb
I. Dream Job
I’d like to own a yacht, a big-ass Boston Whaler on which DJs spin reggae and people smoke spliffs. On my perfect boat, smoke is sweet and wafts off into clouds for dolphins to enjoy, and girls in bikinis dive off the rail to swim with them. It’s kind of like a pimped-out rap video boat, but there are no sleazy macho men or catty ho’s. No butt-pinching or gold chains. Visitors would grow swarthy with rum, stumbling around in a jolly trance. I’d have a monkey as host in a striped T-shirt, a miniature three-corner hat, and an eye patch. There’d be a flag with skull and crossbones on the red, gold, and green.
“You should think of a backup plan,” my friend Heidi tells me when I call her in Maui, where she lives. “There are lots of people with boats here,” she says. “They all get stoned, but not many of them make a living doing it.”
“I need a job where I can exercise,” I say. “I’m too fat to fit into my bathing suit. You swam with the dolphins, right?”
“Yeah. Maybe you should work at Club Med.”
“I’m not going to smoke out all those rich housewives,” I reply. “On the other hand, they could afford to buy me pot.”
“Having rich friends is key,” she says.
There’s something evil about a world in which I can think of a hundred jobs I’d like, and none of them will support me. Puppy rancher, wild mushroom collector, designer of fantasy postal stamps, incense critic. I’d like to run a sticker museum, where I’d curate shows: The History of Scratch and Sniffs, or Great Designs: Stars and Rainbows. But who would come?
When I was little my favorite book was Charlotte’s Web because Charlotte made a brilliant career for herself, one that nobody else could have helped her with. She benefited everyone, especially Wilbur, through her craft and language. Wilbur, though, made a career of being cute. I got so pissed off when Wilbur got buttermilk baths instead of Charlotte. Wilbur got credit for being Zuckerman’s Famous Pig when it was Charlotte who should’ve been winning ribbons at the fair. Charlotte was the smart one, and all she did was die up in the rafters after laying a thousand eggs. I’m still not convinced that Wilbur’s friendship with Charlotte’s offspring constitutes a happy ending, because it only shows hard work as paying off if you consider having children a payoff. The saying, Creativity is its own reward, is conditional.
II. Firm Mattress
Walking the switchback trail through tanoak forest— my backpack on, boyfriend behind me—makes me feel like an elf leading a march for peace. Squirrels line up on the red, curly branches that weave themselves together into insane tree baskets. I can barely see the sky. Leaves crunch under my feet, but softly like the sound of the wind, all of which plays further into the squirrel fantasy Matt and I are elaborating. We imagine that only squirrels populate the world. They permit us, elves, to pass through their territory because elves are similar to squirrels. (They both have pointy ears and can walk stealthily.) We get so tired that we stop to lie at the base of a large madrone tree to communicate with all the living creatures in it. The ants, squirrels, tit wrens, robins, a crow, worms, and beetles share their space with us. Matt uses his elfin X-ray vision to study the tree-half that’s underground, and I commit to everything from the trunk up.
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br /> While Matt’s slumped into an unnatural position (as if he’s just been punched) communing with roots and worms, I stretch out on our blanket and gaze upwards to observe the pattern the tree grows in: a seemingly chaotic but absolutely geometric spiral. Each time a branch springs out from a larger one, it curves clockwise to avoid collisions. And the squirrels that skitter around and around these branches are doing the same thing, navigating clockwise as they carry their stashes from ground to hole. The wood is shiny and smooth against the squirrels’ brushed coats. I’d always thought squirrels had a superb sheen until I compare them to the gloss of this tree.
The point is: squirrels are doing everything in their power to make decent homes for themselves, and since their world is so screwy, this reminds me of how hard it is to exist. Is it really worth it? I wonder. But the squirrels inspire me. They don’t sit around trying to decide if life’s worth it. For them, nothing beats eating acorns in a warm, dry bed.
“I really want to get a comfortable bed,” I say. “Squirrels have comfortable beds.”
“Then why shouldn’t we?” Matt asks.
III. Delectable Food
On special occasions, we drink flutes of champagne and Matt fixes roast pork. He slathers the flesh with mint and garlic, and ties string around it to make it juicier. We associate pork with luxury because it makes the house smell rich. The dog perks up at the chance that this may be the day he scores big time. Pork makes me feel like I’m living large.
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