chapter*Dad
textscWhere did she come from?
Where was she before?
She was inside of me.
She was underneath my skin.
It’s crazy what this does to you.
Slam down the road. Go forward. Drive.
“Where does she live?”
“Where does who live?”
“Becca. The maid!”
“She’s not a maid. She’s a homecare professional. Okay she’s the maid.”
“Can this car go any faster?” I ask.
Candy says: “I thought you’d never ask.”
Fuck me. The 101. Making love to the highway in this bomb Camaro.
“Do you have more of that stuff?”
Candy looks at me.
Look at the road. Look at the road!
“It’s in my bag.” She’s rummaging between my legs. Rummaging in the bag. “Fuck!” She has one hand on the steering wheel. “You’re gonna have to get it. Get it. Shoot it. Are you high?”
This time it is I who look at Candy.
She rubs my leg.
She presses down.
“Good,” she says, “Good.”
She drives.
I rummage through her bag. You know what I do. What I do is already signed, sealed, and delivered. “Would you please drive steady?”
“Want me to stop?”
“No.”
“I’ll stop at this gas station.”
It’s the same one Liss and I stopped at this morning. The one with the huge inflatable Slip n Slide. The carnival slide. The carnival with no children. There’s never anyone on that slide. How much money could they make?
“Stay here.” Candy’s leaning into the car. “Stay here.”
“Where should I do it?”
“Right here. Go. No one’s looking.”
Lying back under the gas station canopy, covered roof, attendant in a box. Candy’s buying Cheetos—the flaming hot ones. They’re hot with lime. Flamin’ Hot Lim’on. The bag says “MEGA GRAB”. Candy’s laughing with the attendant; they’re making hand signs. Knowing her she’ll probably take him with us, and me and him and Candy and the maid will have a foursome. She’s a emphhomecare professional. Yeah right. She’s a slave. It’s just a different name for slave. I shoot this up. It’s in my shoulders, in my lungs. It’s blue ice, under green light, with a glass-encased attendant, hand-signs, and a giant inflatable slide, bouncing in the wind. I feel it in my tongue. Feel ice on my brain. And when the wind blows, the slide sways back and forth beside the highway. Windshear. The weather cauldron. This needle is in my vein. The whole world is one big weather cauldron. Pull that needle out. Set it on the floor of the car. Weather—smoke—swirling around us as we live inside this giant weather cauldron.
We’re moving again.
Candy’s driving.
“Did you get gas?”
We’re headed north on the 101.
These are the game studios, the secret bars, the mansions. People who would never live in LA. For people watching Wheel of Fortune, “beautiful Burbank California” is a dream. If you live here, Burbank is a dump, all that airport noise. Bunch of fucking Mexicans. In Hollywood you get a knife stuck in your neck for no reason. Paralyzed, loss of motion in your right arm. Downtown Los Angeles? That’s a joke. I can’t even remember the last time I was there. And east LA, if you’re white: that’s like climbing into your own casket and lowering the lid. But yeah, we’ve got Wheel of Fortune. Dr. Phil. Fuck it.
Candy’s hand on my leg. Crystal tintinnabulation. Crystal light. Holy fuck. I’m flying. Reduced to structure. Hollow. Just the casing. What we came in, before that frame was dipped in soul.
I might never return.
“Are you good, baby?”
“Yeah.” Candy. “I’m good.”
That’s good. She says this. Then she takes out my dick.
Purple fabric, the boxers. And it’s not even sex.
It’s just these little personal folds of flesh.
In the mirror I’m not even human.
I’m 17. I’m 80. I’m 52.
“I have to shit.”
“Shit at Becca’s house,” I say.
And Candy says: “You’re really high, aren’t you.”
I stretch my neck. We’re speeding. “I’m emphinsane,” I say.
Candy checks the rear-view. “You’re insanely high?”
“No.” That’s not what I meant. “I’m insane.”
“Are you getting ready to fuck?” she asks.
“That’s,” I say, “Not all I’m ready for.”
Candy looks confused. Afraid.
For a moment, from her point of view, I wonder if she should be.
There’s an exit up ahead. This is how I drive every day. It’s Lindero Canyon Road. If you go left, you get to Sharks. If you go right, you get to Costco and the Four Seasons and strip malls.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re getting Becca.”
“Oh yeah.”
Candy pops up the exit and we’re sitting at a red light. She waits for it to turn green. Then we sit through another cycle. There are no cars. We sit at the exit. Candy looks left. She looks right. There is no one behind us. It’s still air. July. But cool now. I love California. Oxnard is up there, and Santa Barbara. Candy turns on a green, midway through the cycle.
“Be careful of cops,” I say.
There’s a sprinkler. The roadside sprinklers are on. All along both sides of the road. Around every curve. Mist in streetlight. Damp asphalt. Black tires on a black road. Soft surface of the road, always new up here. Clean. Parking lot of the Costco, acres of silence. I can feel the sprinklers on my hand. Frosting my cheek. Dewing the side of the car.
“Are you driving us extra-close to it?”
“Yeah.”
She isn’t.
She’s driving us extra-slow.
Waving my hand in fields of mist
Conducting it
Fields of grain
Strands
Grass
A cloud of mist
“Are you driving us extra-close?”
“Yeah.” Candy puts my hand on the wheel.
“Look, see.” And she’s feeling the mist too.
She can’t be.
But she is.
“How are you doing this?”
There’s mist on her.
There can’t be.
But there is.
“How are you making it mist..there..and here..at the same time?”
“It’s not happening at the same time.”
I’m looking behind us. There’s not a car as far as the eye can see.
Candy is driving us in this extreme ribbon, coiled snake.
It’s a nighttime Camaro sidewinder in Westlake.
She’s misting one side, then the other.
Candy takes us in a circle.
I feel like throwing up. “But you won’t,” Candy says. But I feel like I will. “But you won’t.” She finishes her circle.
“Just keep me close to it.”
“You like the mist?” she says.
But I’m silent.
She takes us down the road. She stops at every light. The parking lots are empty, a few spots in the outland. People might never come back for some of those cars. Some of those people are high, just like us. Some of those people have to work tomorrow, in restaurants, in banks, on Saturday.
“Do you work tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Are you coming in?”
“After I take Liss to Pilates, yeah.”
“You won’t sleep,” she says. “I love working when I’m high. I’ll keep some in the car and you can come out with me and we’ll smoke during my breaks. Order all your drinks from me. Don’t order from Tara. I need the tips this week.”
“Is Tara working tomorrow?”
“Or Ash. I don’t know. Did you think you’d be doing this this morning? When you came in? You and I hardly knew each other until today. Okay,” Candy says, “Wait here.” She jumps over the door. We’re in this subdivision. It looks familiar. This corner, this dead end, that’s the fence.
“What? Are you okay?”
“I know this place.”
“Just stay here. I’ll get her.”
“This is where Becca lives?”
“Shhh, yeah, it’s like her and one other family. Quiet. There’s a dog.”
“What kind of dog is it?”
“It’s a big one.”
“Does he shit a lot?”
“What? Just stay here I’ll get her.”
We’ve been talking to each other across the lawn. I know this lawn. Candy is at the door of this condominium and we’re talking to each other across the lawn, like we’re right next to each other.
“Lance?” I say.
Lance is at the window.
I know that dog.
“Richard, would you stay in the fucking car? We’re about to go.”
Candy is knocking on the condo door, having tried the doorbell.
That’s Lance. That’s Lance’s house.
Lance is getting excited.
He’s up at the window.
Hey buddy.
“Richard, what the fuck! Hi Becca we need you to come over.” Becca’s leaning out her door, watching me. I’m kneeling at Lance’s window. He’s wagging. He’s got his paw on the glass. Giant tail.
I wonder if Lance is still sick.
Becca runs out on the lawn in her nightgown.
I’ve never seen her hair down before.
She is my age; she’s beautiful.
“Becca, hi!”
But Lance’s door is opening.
“I’m sorry Mr. Meyers. I’m sorry to disturb you. They’re my friends. Let me get my bag. I’ll come with you. Becca’s looking at her neighbor. Lance has come outside. He’s licking my face. I’m lying in the grass. I love this dog.
“Dude. Dude,” her neighbor is saying. “You’ll get wet. Lance, get inside.”
“No,” I say, “Don’t make him go inside. Is he still shitting?”
“Becca,” Candy says, “I need to use your bathroom.”
“You’re lying in some of his shit right now.”
Jacobi reaches out his hand.
“Are you drunk? Richard. Tell the truth. Who’s this?”
But Candy is going inside Becca’s house.
Lance goes up to Becca and stops.
“Lance. Get inside.”
The dog does.
“Hot car.”
I’m looking around me for the shit.
“There’s nothing on you,” Jacobi says. “Did you come to get me?”
“No,” I say. “Why are you up?”
“I’m up because you’re here. Becca. This is my friend Richard. We work together.”
“Hi Becca.”
“Where are the babies?” she says.
“Oh,” Jacobi says, “Do you two know each other?”