chapter*Dad
textscThis was progress.
We were making progress now.
I had Winnie in the bathroom.
She was in the shower stall.
I was in there with her.
If she tried to move, I pinned her.
I was wearing the board shorts.
Winnie had on her nightgown. We took the boots off. Winnie and me are friends.
“Let’s talk about Methanex.”
Winnie is trying to hold her breath.
“Want some?”
“No.”
She doesn’t like the smoke.
“Winnie, come on. In terms of billable hours. Where are we?”
Smoke is swirling. It isn’t steam this time. Winnie holds her breath, she puts her hand over her mouth back-ways, she eyes the pipe from the bottom of her sight, she squirms in the tub, she tries to stand.
I stop her.
“Winnie. Billable hours.”
Winnie sits down.
Candy is outside with the taser. She’s out there somewhere.
You can’t get out of this house. You can’t get out if you tried.
We were running around it—emphrunning around it—earlier, and we couldn’t get out. There’s a certain distance around the house: if you bump against it, it sends you back. It’s subtle.
Winnie has to be breathing it now.
You can’t avoid it.
Contact high.
“I still don’t have Jacobi’s hours.”
I take the pipe away from my mouth. “This is why Methanex is fucked.”
“This is why everything is fucked.” Winnie takes the pipe from me.
She drops it.
“Careful. It’s hot.”
“Yeah!” she says, “I see that!” Winnie’s digging for the pipe. It rolls over next to my leg. Quick look at me, then she picks it up.
“Candy tased your daughter.”
“I don’t think Candy would do that.”
There’s a tear in Winnie’s eye.
“What’s that for?”
Winnie wipes it away with the back of her hand. She’s looking at the pipe. She’s twirling it in her fingers. She bites her lip. She looks at me. She puts her hand on my leg. She hands me the pipe.
“This. It’s for this. You wanna do billable hours? Go. I’ve got yours. Kamesh is useless since he got back. Stephen’s hours are in. Jacobi..” Winnie has another tear. “..Jacobi, what do you want me to say?”
“He turn in his timesheet?”
Winnie punches my leg. “What do you think?” She keeps her hand there. “What do you think.”
Winnie has a way about her. It’s a bedroom way. Her hair is emphunwashed, matte tones.
“Is this what you always wear to bed?”
“Richard, I have a boyfriend.”
“Smoke some of this.”
Winnie laughs.
“Tell me about him. What’s he like? What does he sleep in?”
Candy tries to get up again but I stop her.
She acts like she’s apologizing: “I gotta go home.”
“Sit down.” I’m above her. My knees are on her. Ruffles of the nightshirt. “Hold this.” I give her the pipe. My hands are on her shoulders. She’s straining. Push her back. Take the pipe. “You’ll like this.” Spark it. Spark it. Flame. “It’s like..it’s like..” I’ve got to find the word. It matters that I find the word. Winnie is shifting. I have the lighter now. It’s going. Rock it. Twist it. Twist it back and forth. “Richard, I don’t smoke.” “This isn’t smoking.” “I’ll do a line of coke with you.” “You will?” “If you’ll get off me!” “You’ve done coke?” “Richard, this is Los Angeles.” “But you’ve never done this?” Her face says no. Her eyes say no. “Richard, get back.” “Switch places with me.” She gets in the part under the faucet. It’s dripping, it’s still dripping from the showerhead. Winnie takes the drip like a champ. She pushes her hair back. She settles. “We’ll do the coke after this,” I say. “After that I wanna drive you emphhome,” Winnie says. I put my leg on her. “You don’t mind?” She puts my hand on her leg, on the skin. “I don’t mind.” I’m looking at her. “I don’t mind.” She moves my fingers. “That’s why this is hard. To see you like this. You always have it so..together. I live in West Hollywood, you know. Not far from Vine. I mean it’s like twenty blocks down. I’ve seen your address on payroll.” She’s practically begging. Pleading. Winnie’s hands are down my front.
She’s shaking her head but she’s touching me.
“Smoke this first.”
“But after that we’re going emphhome.”
I smile.
Winnie makes a go for it. “I’ve got to check on the emphbaby!!”
Candy’s voice from outside: “Is she being any TROUBLE?”
I look at Winnie. “No.”
“Candy. Check on Liss. Check on Mega Cock.”
“Mega Cock is fine. Liss..is torturing the cop.”
Winnie’s eyes look worried.
“emphWhat’s she doing?”
“Don’t worry about it are you two almost emphdone?”
“Be right out. We gotta get these billable hours for Methanex.”
Candy leans in. “Is she emphsmoking it?”
“She’s about to.”
Candy looks us over, tangled in the tub. Candy’s eyes are wild. Her fingers are tight. She’s clenching.
“Why don’t you set down the taser.”
She looks around. “I need this.”
Candy’s gone.
Winnie looks nervous.
“Don’t worry, it’s fine. I’ll do it to you.” It’s ready. I take a breath. I breathe it in. I open Winnie’s mouth. I breathe on her. Breathe in her.
She closes her eyes.
“That’s what emphinspire means in Latin. To breathe into.”
Winnie corrects me: “Life.”
“What’s that?”
“To breathe emphlife into.”
She’s wretching. Holding her throat.
“Let it. Let it.” I spark the pipe and twist it.
I put it to her mouth.
“Don’t touch it. The tip’s hot. Breathe a little.”
She makes an o’ and inhales. Her hand is gripping my leg.
“There you go. Sit back. Enjoy it.”
Her hands are on her chest. She feels it. She feels it in her chest.
She lightens.
Her face lightens.
Her eyes. Her mouth.
Winnie smiles. “It feels so..light.”
I spark the pipe for her and twist it. She takes another hit.
“emphOh!” she says. “It’s nothing like cocaine.”
“No,” I say.
Winnie rises up. She rises on her knees. She is lightness. She is rise. I see her whole carriage lengthen, neck, spine, all the way to the base of her. Pops out, extended. Her arms are longer, fingertips. Her face exudes. Her hands on me, comfortable.
I take her nightshirt up, pull it above her breasts.
Lick her: circle, nip.
Lick her all the way up her chest.
Check her face: she’s looking up at the showerhead, both eyes open.
She’s gripping both my arms—talons—while I lick her.
“Now,” she says—trickle from her mouth—“Methanex.”
cfsection “textscOpen that window, move it over, no I can’t see.” “Do you want this one?” Candy’s pointing. Cock says: “Hold on, I think I know what he wants. Pull that window over here.” Winnie’s sliding. Liss comes in. “I want to go home.” “Liss! We’ll go home in a minute! Shut the door!” Liss goes, but none of us gets up and the door stays open. Cock’s office. Paper everywhere. “Why do you use a printer?” “How’s this?” Cock says. He’s got the windows set up correctly now.
In Window 1 we have a chat that Winnie is carrying on with a girl from Scandinavia.
In Window 2 we have what Candy and I are watching. It’s this El Salvadoran guy in a beige room and he’s fucking this girl that’s like twelve. Maybe twelve. And he’s entering her. And she protests. She’s saying something in Spanish that none of us understand. The girl is like pleading with him, and it looks like he’s her father. Or it looks like she got kidnapped. But really it looks like it’s her father. And this guy is fucking her. It’s hard for him to get his dick in. Winnie’s hand moves over on my cock. She’s massaging it. Candy’s hand is on it too, thumbing the tip. “Cock: where’s that one with the two girls kissing, pink and yellow..” “The one with the vibrator? Where she’s laughing?” “No,” I say, “The one in the bathroom. Where they’re just kissing.” “I see what you like,” Winnie says. “Switch me.” Winnie and Candy switch. Winnie’s mostly on my lap and Candy drapes all over Cock. Cock spanks Candy and she feeds him a hit of the chrys. Cock leans over and licks my nipple. His hands are on my chest. He’s touching the other one. We’re watching a girl get raped. “Yeah,” Candy says, “But she wants it. Look at her.” Even Winnie agrees: “She needs it.”
That was Window 2. I’m not bragging about this I’m just telling you what happened. This is what you’re like on meth. You’re watching some kidnapped girl from El Salvador getting raped on the internet and you and your neighbors and your boss decide that it’s okay not to feed your kids or yourselves and you stop caring if you die. You stop caring if you die. You don’t care about that anymore. Don’t ever let anyone tell you drugs don’t feel good. What would it take for you to throw away your life over..say..the next day? To take everything you have, everything you hold dear, and to throw it away over the span of 24 hours? What would someone have to give you in return? Drug addicts aren’t stupid. They’re making a trade. To understand it you have to think of it from this angle: everything you think an addict is emphgiving up..all that is good in life..imagine if, by comparison to something else, every pleasure you’d ever felt was suddenly eclipsed. And make no mistake: it’s all relative. You only think an orgasm feels good because it’s the best thing you’ve ever felt. You only find comfort in closeness with your friend because you’ve never felt closer. The warmth of life is what it is because the universe is cold. It’s cold out there, and it’s empty, and it’s big. The addict’s problem is not that they’re foolishly giving up everything that’s good. It’s that they’ve been shown something better. They’ve been cursed—and it is a curse—with knowing that we’re quieting ourselves with lies.
Window number 3 is two girls kissing. It’s simple. We pass the pipe. Refresh the high. One is dressed in yellow. One is dressed in pink. We’ve got it on the big monitor. Cock’s inventory orders are all over the place. Candy’s writing on the back of them: it makes no sense. Cock and I are sucking each other’s dicks. No one can cum. Everyone’s fucking everyone. Winnie is riding Cock. Winnie—the fucking Emerson-reading secretary from work—is fucking Cock, a guy I just met today. Her top is off. Her hair is down now. It’s floating. Her hair is floating. Specks everywhere. Liss too afraid to check on us. Becca watching the baby. She’s used to this. I think we handcuffed Jacobi to the television. And Candy needs it. And she needs it hard. And Cock doesn’t care if I fuck her. He likes my young secretary. She’s cute. Unspoiled. At least she was before today. She was in my mind. But she’s always like this. She’s always been this way. We all have. The rest is costume. Two girls kissing, one pink, one yellow. Lying on a mirror. They can’t get each other pregnant. Neither is diseased. One is prettier than the other. The pretty one undresses the other; then the other pleasures the one. And we’re watching. El Salvador is in the window. We have it on repeat. There’s this part that would sicken me to my core if I was sober. Now we watch it together. Even Winnie understands. She needs it. She does. She needs to get raped. She needs to die. And she will. She’ll die in El Salvador, having never seen LA, having never seen Tokyo, having never really had a emphfirst kiss. We emphtake. We take. We take from her, just as that man is taking: the whole world: extracted, distilled, combined, delivered.
And on repeat.
Playing for us in windows.
Through glass.
I think I’ll fuck my Wynne now.
It isn’t short for Winifred.
It’s Welsh.
I think I’ll fuck my secretary.