Sun Stripes and Waste

It curls me. That’s disturbing enough. My body undulates unknowingly, curling like a lip, curling with contempt, pushing my limbs into a sneer. I move back and forth against you, pulled toward your warm skin, repelled by your shakes and your stench. Leaning half of my body over the side of the mattress, I flicker my fingers to clutch some semblance of a breeze. Your jitters subside and you smear your sweat onto the sheets, and you lie uneasy. We could sleep together, calm and entwined, but more often than not, you sleep and I read.

From the corner of the bar he mouthed that his name was Peter. He worked his way through the maze of friends and acquaintances between us and motioned for the bartender to serve me another Long Island iced tea. We had small talk, not unlike a dozen other nights with a dozen other guys at Ruby’s or Buster’s or the Lamppost. Still, it was comfortable and easy, and it passed the torpid time. I gave mostly flippant responses when he asked about my job and whether or not I liked seafood and if I had ever read Ferlinghetti. Those within earshot were bemused by our conversation, though some of it was at Peter’s expense. It surprised me when I took pleasure in catching him off-guard, even more so when I became somewhat aroused making him bashful and flush.

The faces surrounding us soon became ugly and swollen from shots, and we retreated to a corner booth to continue our flirtation. He was handsome in a young boy way, with peach fuzz on his face and long dewy lashes. He had a crooked smile, not deceptive at all, but more like a first-time choirboy making eye contact with his parents as they walk into church, giving that little hand wave from his hip. Without an audience, I became kinder and listened more intently, even feigning coy to mask my intrigue. I wouldn’t say that he necessarily took me at that point, but his lack of bravado and his sweet sincerity were a nice change from the swagger of most weekend bar hounds. Coupled with my alcohol-enhanced charm, our mutual growing enrapture kept the booth glowing. It’s no wonder I felt a bit of naughty pride and glory straddling his pelvis and perspiring onto his abdomen a couple of hours later.

It didn’t take long for Peter and me to start grocery shopping together. We both had Wednesdays off and we spent our afternoons washing the sheets and trekking to the currency exchange to pay our bills. Even though he told me not to worry about money, that working at the shop during the day and dealing at night earned him plenty to cover both our expenses, I still took the assistant manager position at the nursery. It meant longer hours and less time for school, but it allowed me to confidently inform my father that my moving out of his house and into Peter’s wasn’t an impetuous decision that had blossomed from insidious infatuation, but rather an inevitability that needed to be acknowledged and accepted. My father did genuinely like Peter. Peter was fairly clean-cut, gracious but never timid, and he had an appreciation for jazz vinyl that my father thought had died with his generation. They got along well enough and our decision to co-habitate appeared to be the result of growing up, not acting out.

As for Peter and me, we were full of ourselves, flouncing about in a blissful display of mock-matrimony that, among our friends, inspired envy, coos and nausea. We both adored one another and lusted. His wrestler’s build defied his youngish good looks. The creamy complexion, wispy reddish-blond hair, and soft hazel eyes warmed me and softened me; his thick, defined upper body, sturdy legs, and muscled stomach aroused me. I was entranced.

I was not particularly fond of the dealing. I didn’t have a problem with the drugs; any moral judgment on my part would have been highly hypocritical since I, like the rest of the natural world, had my bouts of experimentation. It was reassuring to know that he wasn’t the type of dealer who stood in a doorway and christened new habits by pumping the veins of grade school kids after luring them with chocolate candies and video games. He told me numerous times that he was small-time, that people came to him, neighborhood people, people who knew what they were doing, used recreationally as we did, and would find another source if he wasn’t there. “Small-time,” he said, insisting that he couldn’t even pick out Columbia on a map.

“So, you’re a stupid drug lord?” I said.

“Exactly.” He grinned, kissed my fingers and hands, and got up to make us dinner.

I guess mostly it just unnerved me. I wasn’t accustomed to criminal things. Yeah, I had consumed some substances and I had some paraphernalia stuffed into desk drawers and shoe boxes, but that seemed minor and common. The dealing… I didn’t like the dealing. I may roll through a stop sign at an empty intersection, but I wouldn’t lead a 100-mile an hour car chase down the freeway. There was that threat, that terror that a cross twist of fate would haul Peter away. He said I was paranoid and needed to lay off the ganja. He was pulled over by a state trooper when we had been together for six months. Despite his nonchalant retelling of the story, the speeding and broken taillight, and by happenstance the duffel chockfull of coke under the bucket seat and the three thousand dollars busting the seams of his wallet, I know that at the time, he was pissing himself. That night, my instincts were flashing neon, screaming that the incident was a warning from the deities to cut the crap out already. It was just too risky. I didn’t like it. But the adrenaline rush spurred Peter and added another layer to his invincibility armor. After a couple of bong hits, he didn’t relax and ruminate; he kept saying with increasing volume, “Jason is never going to f*****g believe this!” And then he would tell me again exactly what happened, the retelling perfectly punctuated with build-up, punch lines, and his smooth cordial presentation to the officer never faltering.

I started getting fucked up more often because it meant that Peter and I could spend more time together. The once occasional times I would indulge my whimsy became commonplace, a method of planning get-togethers with friends the way my co-workers planned excursions to the dunes or the lake. We planned those things too, with the difference being that if a deal fell through and we couldn’t get a couple eight balls or a few hits of acid, our plans were canceled, and our weekend was spent watching cartoons and public television while Peter bitched and moaned about unreliable a******s.

“They’re drug thugs, Peter, not monks,” I would say. “What do you expect?”

He would throw a pillow against the wall and go for a walk.

I always touch your skin when you are sleeping. I smooth my fingers along your jawbone and your temples and your forehead, inching over your small pores and even tone, searching for a single flaw, a blemish that can only be detected by tactile senses. There is so little about you that is visible. My hand sometimes jerks when you flinch, and I pull away and then return, slowly pressing my palm to your chest, feeling the erratic beats beneath your thick muscles. That seems to settle you. I wish that feeling my hand cupped toward your heart was what calmed you. I like to think that you recognize the pressure and the heat and the hand print as mine and that it somehow stills you. I like to think that you know this, and you do feel that way, but that you refrain from telling me because I teased you at the bar that first night.

We drove to the forest preserve last Tuesday. Peter crept the car along the gravel and studied each direction before putting the gearshift into neutral and pressing the emergency brake.

“Lock the door,” he said as he got out of the car and walked to the trunk. He lifted the cooler and his duffle and placed them gently on the grass and then went back to the driver’s side and opened the door. He wet his fingertips and then smeared them across the dashboard to soak up the speckles of white powder and then rubbed his lips and gums. The dash and his fingers and his lips glistened.

“C’mon, babe. Let’s go.”

We found a patch of dry grass beneath a weeping willow and settled. I pulled at the strings on his frayed jeans and tugged at the buttons of his fly.

“No, not now. Knock it off.” He pushed my hand away. “Jason’s gonna be here soon.”

“He said two-thirty. We have time.” I undid the first three buttons and nuzzled my nose against his crotch.

“I said no. C’mon. Cut it out.” He lightly shoved me away and I rolled onto my back. I was visibly irritated. “Babe, we’ll have plenty of time later. Let’s just get this finished.”

I sat up and pulled my shirt over my head.

“What are you doing? I told you later.”

“I heard what you said. I’m over it, Peter. I’m getting some sun.”

“What? Here?”

“If it’s safe enough for you to buy your drugs here, it’s safe enough for me to sunbathe in my bra. Now just shut up. Leave me alone.” I rolled onto my belly and closed my eyes.

Always, always, I feel ashamed and agitated some time after taking more than two hits of acid, and always, always, the vertigo saves me from becoming too enveloped in my peculiar altered emotions. I look over at Peter and laugh at myself for wanting his comfort when he’s busy making connections. He captures my glance and seemingly gets caramelized by my makeshift dancing and gleaming eyes and I think he may come over, come over and wrap around me. Instead, he smiles and blows me a kiss and walks to the keg for another.

Pam, my closest friend, my confidante, Jason’s lover and lookout, tells me that I am languish. She says this after watching me stare too hard at Peter at three in the morning. I tell Pam that some things are beyond her understanding and that casual observations of a couple’s inter-workings do not qualify for a vocalized opinion. I tell Pam that he, Peter and I, we anticipate weakness and sense fatality, in our friends, in our families, in ourselves, and that distinct knowledge of reality makes us softer, calmer, less inclined to go through life with clenched jaws and fists, less inclined to punch walls and throw plates. We never break things, I tell her. Not everyone needs to ride a seesaw of fury and euphoria, I say.

Peter didn’t sleep all night. He did a few lines and poured beer into the thermos, changed his clothes and headed for the record store. My eyes refused to close until the chatty, smiley morning shows had ended. Jason and Pam were sprawled on the futon when Peter left, but they were gone when I awoke at noon. There were five new burns in the carpeting and a huge stain on one of the throw pillows. I started picking up stray bottles and plastic cups and emptying the ashtrays, but my muscles were sore and my head felt too thick to do much. The blinds were partially open, striping the cabinets and tile and my body with sunlight and shadows. I slumped to the floor and lit a cigarette. Someone kicked over the plants by the counter last night. I told Peter not to move them from the countertop, but he insisted we needed more space for chips and salsa and elbows and bottles. After a few cups of coffee, I spent the afternoon adding soil to the ferns, repotting the cacti, and clipping the torn strands from the ivy. Maybe I’ve worked at the nursery too long. The dirt felt good spilling onto my skin, like bath oil after a hard water shower. The black dust working into my pores, the moist grime curving along my cuticles, the crust at the edges of my eyes from the sun’s brightness smeared with soil. The mindlessness of it all.

I didn’t tell Pam when she spoke of languish how sometimes when you’re passed out, sometimes how I will grab a handful of potting soil and walk into the bedroom and spill it onto your chest and slide it into your sweat and smear it through your soft wisps of torso hair . I didn’t tell her that you rarely notice. I didn’t tell her that when you do, you cup your hand against the small of my back without opening your eyes. I didn’t tell her that sometimes I will gasp and quiver and then become rigid waiting for you to understand. I didn’t tell her that you stop feeling anything and let your hand drop from my waist before I have even let the last particles of dirt slip from my hands onto your skin. I didn’t tell her that if it doesn’t disturb you, it probably never happened, never existed. I have never told anyone that.

When Peter called me to him, I took my steps lightly, sinuating through the lawn, touching trees and guests to keep my balance, perpetuating my journey as if my destination might change as the steps and seconds passed. When I was close enough to smell his cologne, I stopped and leaned against a picnic bench, letting his scent surround me as his gaze rested upon my feet, and then my belly and my breasts, and finally my closed eyes.

“What the heck are you doing, my beauty?” he yelled with a laugh. He waved his hand once again, beckoning me toward him. I pushed off the bench and took a few uneasy steps. He moved quickly to reach for me and wrapped his arm deep into my waist and his lips deeper into my cheek and my neck and shoulder blade. I looked at his glazed, calm eyes and his fragile smile. I could claw you, I thought, I could claw at and shred your soul. I hissed at him in my stupor, faintly scratching his face with my fingernails. He called me silly and gave me sloppy, boyish kisses, pawing at and squeezing my a*s and thighs while Jason headed toward us, repacking the pipe.

“Where’s Pam at?” he asked. He scanned the yard half-heartedly, told me he’d catch up with me a little later, reached for the pipe, and headed toward the bonfire with Jason.

I thought we both longed and lived for our quiescence. I thought we had no need for spectacle. We’re softer, calmer, no clenched jaws and fists. Skin and soil, soft and calm, lying beside one another, our eyes locked, the mindlessness of it all.

Remember eating rainbow sherbet in bed and coming up with names for our future children? Remember making the gondola out of a refrigerator box and trying to sing songs in Italian while paddling through the living room? Remember the night we spent in the forest huddled underneath a sleeping bag, reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales out loud to one another with a pen light? Peter, I…

I’ve been waiting for you to understand, to just try to understand, anything, something. And from me, you’ve been waiting too, been waiting for me to understand, thinking I understood at least somewhat. My God, always, the both of us, having the best of intentions. Right, love?

I stumbled away and found Pam and pulled her with me into the house. I was crying before we reached the door, and once inside, I hoped she would sit silently beside me. I wanted to be by myself, not alone.

“What’s going on? What’s the matter? Where’s Peter?” she asked.

I wiped the mucus from under my nose and leaned against the stove, wanting my tears to fold into the crevices of my skin like soil. Pam grabbed two beers and handed me her lit cigarette. She pulled knots from my hair with her fingers and wiped the tears above my ears making me look worn and sweaty. She fixed my bra strap so that it wasn’t hanging over my shoulder and tank top. She held my hand and then pulled at my fingers to crack my knuckles. She clutched me into her armpit.

“Oh, c’mon, hon,” she said. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine. It is what it is, you know? Shhh,” she said. “Shhh.”