The Beginner's Guide to Living

by Lia Hills

  “Depends how you define fucked up. I mean, it’s Tuesday morning, my exams start in three days, and I’ve just taken acid for the first time. Some people might call that fucked up.”

  “Where I come from that’s pretty bloody normal. Is that why you’re doing this? Because of your mom?”

  I stare up at the ceiling. There’s a watermark in the plaster, its brown edges forming a butterfly.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she whispers, looking up at the stain.

  “I’ve been reading about peyote.”

  “Is that another philosopher?”

  “Nah, it’s a drug.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s an old American Indian thing. Helps you pull back the filters, see the world as it really is.”

  “Sounds cool,” she says, her head close to mine on the back of the couch. “And you reckon acid’ll do it for you?”

  “Well, yeah, maybe.”

  “You’ll see things for sure but I don’t know if it’s how the world really is. It’d be nice to think it was like that, all the colors. But why the hell would we filter that out?”

  “It’s probably more about filtering out the bad shit.”

  “That makes sense. Anyway, shouldn’t be long now. A drop of water on that glass there is starting to look solid. What about you? Feel anything?”

  I focus on the glass. “A little drunk maybe, but nothing else.”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t see your dead mother, or anything. It’s not that kind of stuff. It should be all good.”

  But I don’t need it to be all good—I want to know what can be found in a sugar cube. I sink into the couch and close my eyes. It won’t be long now, I can feel it, the loose shift. One step closer to another world.

  * * *

  Cherry is gazing at her hands. “Wow, look. The veins are so blue.”

  Mine are spectacular as I turn them, almost transparent. The wall is geometric, every shadow living, but my hands, with their river of veins, exist on another plane.

  “Can you see the dragon?” she asks, dancing her fingers over the wall. The dragon, once a shadow, now moves in time with the music, flame-tongued. She whispers, “You are a giant.”

  I tower above her, the ends of her hair sharp. I touch one of the points.

  “Will, what does it mean to be small?”

  “Nothing. It means nothing at all.”

  “Where are you, Will?”

  On the table, a bottle, curves of emerald light, the essence of green. It needs to be touched it’s so perfect but my fingers won’t dare, with their blue veins. I am old. I am many ages at the same time.

  Cherry places my hands on the wall. A stain curls, becomes a flower, a spiral. The music heaves its way around her words.

  “Will, can you see the flames? They see sky and remember what they are.” Her cell phone rings. Something gothic.

  “I once imagined my dead body lying on the floor, I sensed the essence of things.”

  “That’s not just incense, Will.”

  “What?”

  “It’s music. Music that smells like sandalwood.”

  “But why can’t I push through?” I shiver. “There’s no magic here.”

  “Oh, but there is. Look, flashes of blue light.”

  I lie on the floor, the smell of beer in the carpet, sweet, putrid, sweet again, my own smell wafting over me. “I am an animal.”

  “I am too,” she says, feeding her fingers through mine. “Will, you need to look at the wall.”

  “What? The one without a door.”

  * * *

  I need to piss; at least I think I do. I go into the kitchen. On the fridge there are magnetic words shaped into sentences and thoughts. The toilet is on the other side, in the bathroom, which is also the laundry, and smells of mold and something bitter. The bowl is marked with dry shit, like tea leaves. Maybe I can read my fortune; surely somewhere in the world there are people who do that. I think I’d better sit to piss because if I don’t I’ll end up creating some masterpiece on this floor. I lean forward and read my fortune in the bowl between my legs. There’s a dark man and a voyage. My stomach doesn’t feel so good. I better watch out or all this filth will come home with me. Take up residence in my gut.

  * * *

  I am an animal.

  I eat.

  I drink.

  I shit.

  I piss.

  I need.

  I crave.

  I love.

  My neck hurts.

  “It’s the poison,” sighs Cherry. “This stuff’s never completely clean. Don’t worry, it won’t last forever. Here, let me massage it.”

  Hummer comes out rubbing his eyes. It’s the first time we’ve seen him for hours. “How was it?”

  “Will’s got a sore neck but apart from that it was great, wasn’t it, Will?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Not quite what I expected.”

  Hummer grunts. “What, you thought you’d become a ninja turtle?”

  “Will was hoping to see God.”

  “Well, you’ll need stronger stuff if that’s what you’re after.” Hummer goes into the kitchen scratching his ass.

  “You’re disappointed, aren’t you?” says Cherry, her tiny fingers working their way into my muscle, relaxing my neck.

  “A little. I feel like I need something but I don’t know what.”

  “That’s the drugs. They’re all about need.” She stands up and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “Sorry you didn’t get what you came for. This shit’s mainly about having a good time.”

  “I did,” I say, but I know that’s not enough, not now.

  “You coming?”

  “Sure.”

  “See ya!” she calls out to Hummer, but nothing comes back. We leave the money under the green bottle, the TV illuminating it from behind.

  We go out the front door and shade our eyes against the late afternoon light. Cherry stops at the gate. “You want one?” she asks, offering me a cigarette.

  I shake my head. “You know, maybe it’s all about the wanting,” I whisper into the glare.

  “Who knows, Will. Come on, let’s get out of here.” She pulls a pair of sunglasses from her bag.

  * * *

  On the train back home, I flick through my notebook till I find an extract that I tracked down on the Net from The Doors of Perception, by that guy who took peyote, Aldous Huxley.

  The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.

  Below it I write:

  16: What if the world looks the same on both sides of the Door?

  A SMALL DEATH

  I ROLL OVER IN BED and remember the flames, the dragon. I keep getting these blue flashes—Cherry said it would happen—the oak outside my window seems almost alive in the morning light, as if it’s connected to me. It’s nice. Problem is, I don’t seem to be making much progress here. But maybe you can’t, you just have to hang on when your life goes to shit.

  On my bedside table, a quote from Rumi I printed out when I got home last night from Cherry’s:

  I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside!

  * * *

  Taryn,

  I am so sorry.

  ♥ Will ♥

  * * *

  Taryn?

  * * *

  I’m here, Will. Just catching my breath.

  * * *

  Sultry night. Today, tomorrow, then exams. I’ve been trying to study in my room but Macbeth’s working on me like a sedative.

  The front door bangs open. There’s movement in the kitchen so I head down the hall following the
light. Dad’s got his work pants on but he’s only wearing an undershirt. His head’s in the fridge. He emerges with a beer in his hand. “Will.”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  He fishes around in the drawer for an opener, stabs his finger on something and almost loses his beer.

  “Let me do that for you?” I say, taking the bottle from him. He smells of cigarettes and alcohol. “Where’ve you been? I thought you were at a meeting.”

  “We went out for a drink afterward.”

  “Did you get a taxi?” I ask, handing him the open beer.

  “No, I drove.”

  He lifts the bottle up high and takes a swig; some of it bubbles down his chin. I hold up a tea towel but he wipes the beer with the back of his hand. I chuck the tea towel in the sink. “You shouldn’t have driven.”

  “I’m not drunk.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Dad looks at me as if I’ve got the wrong guy. I feel a surge of something like hatred come over me, followed closely by pity and disgust. The sound of the key in the front door. Adam wearing a suit.

  “Hey,” he says, looking first at me, then at Dad. “Everything all right?”

  Dad’s peering into his beer. His hair needs a cut.

  “He’s drunk,” I say to Adam, “and he drove home. I’m going to bed.” As I walk past Adam, our shoulders connect for a moment and I smell alcohol on him too.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I hesitate for a moment but all I say is “Fine.”

  “Good night, Will.”

  As I head down the hall, I get a sense of that terrible infinity Nietzsche talked about. Of going it alone. Of having cast off into the great roaring ocean without an anchor. Or even a map.

  * * *

  Memory.

  Mom and Dad having a fight. Mom’s saying, “Come on, Michael, you’re smarter than that.” “I know. I’m trying,” he says, his head bowed. “They’ll kill you,” she spits. “At least think of the kids.” Between them, a crushed cigarette pack in her fist.

  * * *

  Dad’s keys are hanging on the hook where he left them. Both he and Adam are asleep. Let them sleep. I have other things to do tonight.

  I move the seat forward—I’m taller than Dad but I like to be close to the wheel; it makes the car feel more like an extension of me. I take the backstreets to avoid traffic. Every white car is like a cop in the rearview mirror, every flash a radar.

  All the lights are out at Taryn’s house. I drive a little farther and park, no clouds, no darkness to hide me as I walk down Taryn’s driveway, around the side of the house, to her room. Her window’s open but there’s a mosquito screen.

  “Taryn.”

  No movement. I try again. A slow stirring. A light. “Will? Is that you?”

  “Yeah. Can I come in?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Taryn’s at the window, wearing only a tank top. She unclips the screen and I climb in and kiss her on the cheek. “How are you?”

  “All right, I guess,” she whispers. “How did you get here?”

  “I drove.”

  “What?”

  “I took Dad’s car.”

  “Will.”

  Her hand on my chest. She’s still only half-awake.

  “I thought you might like to go for a ride with me. We could go up to the mountain and see the city lights.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I’m sorry about what happened last Saturday.”

  “I know, me too. Things are a bit difficult, what with exams and everything. I mean, I know mine aren’t as important as yours, but…”

  “Don’t worry about that. Do you want to come?”

  “No. I can’t believe you took your dad’s car.”

  “I was just sick of…”

  “Where’ve you been, Will?”

  She’s awake now. I know she won’t mind about the drugs, not really, but Cherry …

  “You were with somebody else, weren’t you?”

  “Not with.”

  “God, Will, I told you, you can tell me anything.”

  “I know, I’m sorry…”

  I pull her into me, kiss the top of her head. My mouth works its way down, her temple, her cheek, her lips. She kisses me back, tentatively, and sits on her bed, reaching out for my hand. She notices the cuts.

  “You okay?” She frowns and pulls me down on top of her. The air from the ceiling fan feels good across my back. Her bedside lamp lights up the sweat on her skin. Shiny.

  “Undress me,” she whispers.

  So I do, for the first time, my hands sketching her curves. There’s desperation in her mouth as she kisses me, and the deeper she goes the more excited I get. I take off my clothes.

  “Roll over,” I say.

  She lies on her stomach and I slip my hand under her hip, pull her up against me. This is the first time we’ve done it like this and she seems to relax into me but then she drops flat on the bed and turns over.

  “Kiss me,” she says.

  So I do. I press my body against hers, feel the warm of her mouth on mine as I enter her.

  “Will.”

  “It’s okay,” I whisper, holding on to her shoulders. The perfect rhythm of it. The air whipped by the ceiling fan.

  “Will!”

  “I’m almost there,” I gasp.

  She’s trying to move out from under me, both hands pressed into my ribs, breath heaving. I roll back. “What’s wrong?”

  She’s sitting huddled in the angle of the wall. “I don’t know you anymore.”

  “What do you mean? Of course you do.”

  She’s shaking her head. I sit back on my feet, tall above her, my hand over my dick. “Maybe this is who I am,” I say. I have a disorienting desire to hit out at her and not just with words.

  “Then I guess it’s lucky I found out now.”

  And I know in that instant that this could all fall apart. I go to touch her but she moves away, a tear spills down her cheek. “I love you,” I say, but it sounds weak as it exits my mouth.

  “So you’ve said, but it’s a weird kind of love.”

  “It’s the best I can do right now.”

  “Well, it’s not good enough.” She wipes the tear with the back of her hand, dries it on the bed. Her face adjusts. “You need to go now.”

  I try to think of anything to convince, but I have no arguments. Can’t pull out a bit of Plato or Rumi when I need it, as if that will help. As I get up I catch a glimpse of my body in her mirror, the red marks where I rubbed up against her. I must have been pushing her hard. I can’t believe I did that. I want to hide myself—what’s sex compared to love? I go to say I love you again, but now it’s worth nothing. I kiss her gently on her forehead.

  “Don’t, it only makes it worse,” she says, pulling away.

  “I don’t mean to. It’s like there’s two of me. Things get out of hand.”

  Another tear falls down her cheek.

  “I’m such a shit.”

  “No, you’re not. It would be much easier if you were. But I’ve got to look after myself.”

  I notice the beginnings of a bruise on her hip. If only I could rewind a couple of weeks. Even further back than that—before my mother died. But I know I can’t. This is where I am now.

  As I climb out the window, she raises her hand. Her wave is like a small death.

  RITES OF PASSAGE

  DAD LEAVES EARLY FOR WORK and doesn’t notice anything about the car. Adam skips breakfast. Cherry calls.

  She’s waiting for me beneath the tunnel, a plastic bag in her hand.

  “Check this out,” Cherry says, removing a spray can and a book. She opens the book and turns it toward the light slanting in from the end of the tunnel, her finger on a folded page inside, on the line People living deeply have no fear of death. “What do you think?”

  “Who wrote it?”

  “Some French chick called Anaïs Nin. She wrote a lot of erotic stuff.”
<
br />   There’s a metallic screech and for a moment I think there’s another train coming but there’s no telltale wind—must have been a car on the bridge. My quote from Nietzsche is still half-finished on the wall.

  “It’s good but I’m not really up for this.”

  “Why not?”

  “I feel like shit.”

  “Come on. Don’t be so lame.” She’s drumming her fingers into my chest, trying to get in under my arm. I grab hold of her hands. “Cherry.”

  “That’s my name. So why did you come then? Did you think I could cheer you up?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve got something here…” She digs around in her bag, and pulls out a small plastic bag. Lined up at the bottom, some white pills.

  “It’s all right,” I say, “I don’t need that kind of cheering up.”

  “Well, what kind do you need?”

  I look at her eyes, too fixed on mine, and wonder what she’s already taken. I bend down to her face, my body lifting her against the wall as I press into her, her mouth dry and hard, tasting of cigarettes.

  “Hey.” She turns away from me, her hands against my chest.

  “What’s wrong? I thought this is what you wanted.”

  Cherry laughs and shakes her head. “You’re such a kid.”

  “Fuck off.”

  She staggers, her boot catching on the rail. “Look, forget it. I’m feeling pretty messed up today myself.”

  She pulls a cigarette out of her bag. I want to ask her what’s going on but I can’t right now, there’s no room.

  “Go home, Will. This isn’t your kind of place,” she says, an echo of Taryn in the words go home.

  * * *

  Jigsaw night made up of pieces of sleep. The dawn of my first exam.

  * * *

  It’s the silence that gets you, the blank page, everybody else with their heads down, a few hours to prove yourself worthy. Of what? Passing through to the next stage. As if the proof is finding a few quotes, showing I know how to analyze a text. Is this all I’ve been doing these last few months? Grabbing a few choice words from philosophers, singers, poets, reading a handful of books, half of which I haven’t even finished, like preparing for an exam, no true understanding, just enough to get me through.