Late, later, latest into that night and into the next morning, did Brooklyn and Charisma and I sit up downstairs in their house snorting of cocaine, yes, but most epically snorting and blowing our noses in that order before piling up a line—a rail!—from our now seeming impossibly huge supply of cocaine. We each carried a roll of toilet paper. We each had our own stack of coke set upon living room furniture..piles upon piles upon piles.
We watched Jeopardy. Wendy and Charisma’s grammy went upstairs somewhere before we went on our drive to drop off Rambuncto and crew—they were silent now—the only sound was the sound of our snorting. Even the dogs knew not to interrupt that.
“Category: Authors. In 1937 his sister said he had ‘hats of every description,’ which he would use as a ‘foundation of his next book.’ ”
“Come on, Matthew: You should know this!”
“I have no fucking clue.”
“Dr Seuss!”
“What?”
“He’s saying because he has hats. Hats, Charisma! Hats!!”
“Oh..! Because Dr Seuss—I got ya!”
(More snorting and blowing of noses.)
“Ok. Guys. He’s doing the next one.”
“Category: World leaders. He came to power 34 days before FDR and left it 19 days after him.”
We all sit stumped.
“Adolf Hitler.”
“Did you get that one? Wake up Brooklyn. We need all hands on deck for this shit here.”
“Yeah, it’s because—from their perspective—”
“Oh I see—never mind!”
(We all dipped into our coke piles and none of us was even able to snort coke anymore with the snot pouring out of our noses. These were the kind of snorts that you would normally not ever do in front of your fuck buddy—they were that epic and that personal.)
“Historical figures. Clue: A 2012 poll by Britain’s national army museum voted this man, born in 1732, as the nation’s greatest military enemy. George Washington!”
“Motherfuck! George Washington!! George Washington’s mother. Fuck!”
I stood up. “These motherfuckers are here to fuck with us, every man and woman in our country. These aren’t simply Jeopardy questions, they’re assaults on the fabric of our democracy.”
“No, what he said,” declares Brooklyn, and Charisma catches me looking over Brooklyn with those wolf jowls, slobber pouring out the side of my mouth.
Charisma mouths the words to me: “Want to come upstairs?”
I’m about to whisper, “Yes. Yes!” but the dogs are up and out the house with barking/roars and instantly, too: Brooklyn up and out behind them and Charisma’s up and out behind her and they’re screaming, “Did you open the door?” and Charisma’s like, “No!” I’m like, “What should I do? Should I come out there with you?” and both are like: “No!”
So I go to the front screen door and prop it open.
Brooklyn runs by—followed by Chuck and Seymour. “Do you see them?” she asks.
“No!” I say.
And as Brooklyn goes, here come the dogs, but it’s too late to yell at Brooklyn, “They’re behind you!” but I yell it anyway. “Brooklyn..!”
Then I run to the back door and prop its screen door open and Charisma comes past me as a shadow, saying: “No! Close the doors. We’ll open them when we get the dogs in.”
Then she’s gone.
Here come Chuck and Seymour like a computer effect from Batman—waifs, phantoms—I saw them and what I saw were two dogs who loved to run. They had so much built inside them that they had to run—had to get outside—and one of them had run up on the screen door in just the right way, that he had freed them both and they were having a bit of fun with the house girls.
Here they came again..and here, again. I couldn’t help but scream, “Aouiiiii!!” as they passed. “Aurrrggghhhh!! Woo-ooo!!” I screamed, and kept that up (even though it was encouraging them) I screamed in falsetto to the Sunday morning neighborhood. It was that time of day when it would wake up neighbors but no one would be willing to challenge us—that family chasing the dogs around the house was volatile enough to not make trouble with—and for once, I enjoyed being on this side of the equation.
Everything converged, dogs re-entered the house, girls coincidentally closed the front and back screen doors, everything fell from the sky into that tiny box at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc—everything left inert and dead.
Charisma grabbed my hand and we headed upstairs, she took me to a tiny bedroom at the end of the hall. I guessed it was her grammy’s, and I guessed that her grammy was sleeping in Charisma’s bed next to Wendy.
Charisma—doll—laid me back on the bed. Everything was covered in red light, frills, lace. Charisma sat on the bed with me. She handed me a cigarette and scooped out its tobacco. She filled the cavity with powdered cocaine, handed it to me and said, “Hotbox.”
I held the cigarette upward and sucked in.
Charisma said, “Hotbox it. Suck deep.”
And I tried. I sucked so deep on that motherfucker that if I was sucking a dick I would be sucking it off.
Charisma filled it full of a fresh little pocket of coke and handed it back to me. She said, “Hotbox it. Hotbox it!”
This time I hotboxed it well.
Charisma said, “There it is—there you go!” and she smiled approvingly. “You got it now. You see how it’s done? Keep doing that and I’m gonna tell you a story.”
I hotboxed it feeling the darker rise of an instant excitement coming from between my lips. Holding the red ash..still..sucking air through it..burn burn burn 🔥!
And Charisma laid back on me, resting her pretty head on my chest. Her hand on my leg, rubbing me through my yellow club pants.
“This is my anthem,” she says. “This house is my epic. You are my hero—a knight like in Once and Future King—I know you’ve read that. You read it before you ever met me—did you ever wonder how I knew that? It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry your little head about it. That’s my magic 🎩—my instrumentals. Did you know I played the flute as well? Right around middle school—do you remember me telling you that? No, it’s ok. Don’t lie. I know you played it because you told me. And I also told you that I played. But you forgot. It’s ok. I didn’t tell you so that you’d remember. I told you so that we could connect—That doesn’t make it not true! There are a lot of not-true things you and I told each other to get into each other’s pants. Do you remember the first time we got together? In your apartment on Second Street? Of course you do! But do you remember I brought Aftershock? Do you remember that time when you me and Julian were drinking in his apartment above the Sunoco?” Charisma laughs. “I remember you couldn’t take the alcohol—not even a sip! And look what you’ve turned into. A drinker—proud drinker. Coke snorter. Those are like the badges on your Boy Scout uniform. Star Drinker. Expert Coke Snorter—ha! You remember that badge you wore on your book bag in high school? I <3 GIRL SCOUTING. You were always so clever. But did you know that I am clever, too? Shhh—don’t answer. Don’t answer that one. I’m afraid of what you’ll say. I gave you my pussy—my love—and you rewarded me well. You had me cumming so well—so well. And it’s not just that I wanted to fuck a genius—not all. That is part of how it started. I had heard about you and I know you hate that word but after we first met in that gymnasium with all those people around us..I swear the only reason they were there is so that you and I could meet. Imagine if that were true. When..in all eventuality..everyone in that room was chasing a secret love. You know how that is? You’re only focused on my blonde hair bobbing across the gym but really there were 20 people there who met their love match. I think that’s what we are. Some kind of angelic/demonic pair who after the point at which we met, had to get together..had to meet up and explore each other. It was eventual. You know? And after Rebecca died I had to come to your apartment that night. That night we learned how much sex will loosen up a conversation. Or that first girl you were with. I don’t remember her name—I can’t. I cannot remember her name but I remember the first time you and I fucked. Don’t speak now. Let me tell my story. Ok? That first time we did it. I think we did it two nights in a row—right? I don’t remember now. I just remember sitting with you at your breakfast table with your cock in my hands and I was pulling you and rubbing you and it seemed to get bigger and bigger—bigger still and I was cheating on someone, too—and I knew you wanted to cum again but my mom got there to pick me up and that was it for a while. I pictured you masturbating, getting that last bone off, remembering us the night before: you—the second night, when you had condoms—waking me up by sticking it into me, holding me by my shoulders, sliding latex inside my pussy, somehow the latex being more exciting than your dick even was. I think this is what it was: Without the condom, we were both so excitable that each of us could cum in a minute—the condom dialed us down so we could fuck longer—stronger—we were like supernatural beings come down to Earth to see what it felt like to fuck.”