Black Wave (12 page)

You Have To, Michelle whined. How Else Will I Get There?

Can't someone else drive you?
Quinn asked.

No. You're My Only Friend. She laid her head on Quinn's
shoulder and began to weep anew. She had meant it as a joke but it was too real. Stitch and Ziggy and Linda and Andy all felt variously betrayed by her, and she by them.

Oh, come on
. Quinn shook Michelle from her shoulder.

You Kind Of Are. Michelle looked deeply, tearfully, into Quinn's eyes, which meant into her eyeglasses, which reflected herself back to her. She looked like a wreck. It was not helping her situation. She would not be able to seduce Quinn, she was too grotesque. She would have to draw on the girl's pity and her inability to say no.

How? I don't have a car.

Your Husband Doesn't Have A Car?

No, he rides a bike.

Oh, one of those. Does He Have A Credit Card? Michelle asked. Can One Of You Rent Me A U-Haul?

This is insane,
Quinn said in a brief moment of clarity before she capitulated to Michelle's tears and agreed to rent a U-Haul and drive her to Los Angeles in the morning.

13

Michelle's going-away party began at the Eagle, a bar Michelle did not particularly like. The out-side was so dark and the heat lamps made her hot and sleepy and occasionally ignited a clump of dead twigs and leaves. She could never find who she was looking for, and there was no place to sit unless you pulled yourself up on the tables and then your dangling legs made your feet fall asleep. But it was big enough to accommodate a large gathering and you could smoke outside, and if you hadn't eaten all day you could feed yourself from the wooden barrel of peanuts by the door, so that was good. The after-party would be at Michelle's.

Stitch was excited about this, as Stitch was generally amenable to an after-party. Ekundayo hated after-parties. She had to breathe down the violence she felt whenever Michelle and Stitch brought one home. But this one was different. Michelle was finally leaving. It was a true celebration. Ekundayo was not joyful enough to join the festivities but she would not bust them up, would not drag her stick
through the living room on her way to piss in the water closet, glaring at the little doped-up fools snorting lines off the dumpstered coffee table. Michelle had dragged that coffee table back from the Marina, a nice neighborhood. Andy had arranged a couple's counseling session for them there during the Linda era. The counseling had gone poorly. They'd spent most of the hour unpacking why Andy didn't like going to the movies
. What's wrong with the movies?
the therapist, who'd had a lot of plastic surgery, had asked in a slightly shaming voice.

I don't know,
Andy shrugged, uneasy
. I just don't like going to the movies.

Well, maybe Michelle would like to go to the movies?
the therapist suggested in a more playful yet still scornful tone.

Yeah! Michelle chimed in. The therapist liked her! The therapist was on her side, would understand why Michelle had to look elsewhere to get her needs met. Andy wouldn't even go to the movies with her! What was that about? But when the focus shifted to Michelle, she bristled. I Don't Think Long-Term Relationships Are Inherently More Important Than Short Relationships, she said airily. We Learn All Sorts Of Lessons From All Sorts Of People, Who's To Say Which Relationships Are More Meaningful? Michelle was busting out the big hippie guns.

So
, the therapist began,
do you not want a long-term relationship with Carlotta?

I Want The Relationship To Be What It Is In The Moment, Michelle said. I Don't Want To Label It. I Want It To Be Free. I Just Want To Go To The Movies Sometimes. She tried bringing it back around to the movies, she'd liked that part. The rest of the conversation felt so stressful. Why were they even there? What did Andy want from her? It must have
been so expensive, the therapist, and Michelle wasn't paying for it, not even a little.

We'll talk more about this next week
. The therapist leveled her surgically lifted eyes at Michelle.
I think there is a lot to discover here
. But Michelle knew there would be no next week. She felt confused and surly as they left the therapist's office, on the verge of lashing out at Andy. And then she found the coffee table, sleek and black, a higher quality of trash than the stuff left curbside in the Mission. Andy drove it home for her in the back of her classic car.

But the party! Many people came. Not as many as would have come if Michelle had packed up and left town about a year or so earlier, before becoming such a druggie that some began avoiding her. A certain demographic was present. Those who had shared bindles of cocaine with Michelle, key bumps in the queer bar bathroom, or lines on the pinball machine at the Albion. People she had popped open tiny ziplock baggies of crystal meth with. Michelle's speed dealer came, though she would not have ever called him that, no way, that made it seem like their relationship was based on, well, drugs, when it wasn't, it was based on a shared enthusiasm for
The Gossip
, an enduring affection for Courtney Love no matter how fucking crazy she was, a nostalgia for old San Francisco, before the yuppies and the dot-commers had come, when the good old drag queens were still alive. Michelle's speed dealer DJ'd at some of the better—meaning seedier—fag bars in town, ones where leathermen hung out totally naked but for their caps and boots, sucking each other off in the corner.

Michelle would miss San Francisco. She couldn't think about it too much lest it give her a panic attack. Her bedroom, that blue and sparkly place, was all but empty of her now.
She'd packed herself up and loaded it into the truck Quinn had parked on the corner. Her futon was the only thing left in the room. Michelle and Quinn would sleep one more night on it, then drag it down the stairs and leave it by the parking meter for some desperate person to take home. Until then Michelle would drink with the last of her friends. She would accept drugs from the tips of proffered house keys. She would play Truth or Dare.

Michelle dared a girl she didn't know to stuff her ass crack full of leftover rice from a bowl in the fridge. Michelle then poured soy sauce onto it and dared Quinn to eat it. Michelle had seen Quinn watching the girl, who had long dyed black hair and the eyes of a crazy person. The party was thick with uninhibited druggie sex vibes. Quinn knelt before the strange girl, stuffed with food and spread across the Marina coffee table like a human buffet. She dug her mouth into the soft, cold pile of rice and swallowed. People cheered.

The two of them were visibly enjoying the attention. Michelle watched along with the others, her feelings swirling into violent focus. She had given the dare to let Quinn know she was on to her. Michelle had bitch's intuition, she always knew when someone was vibing her date—if that's what Quinn was—or when her date was even thinking about thinking about vibing someone else. That Michelle could detect the vibrations before the vibers were even sure of what they were feeling gave her a sensation of superiority and power. Michelle was of some other, rarefied realm, so above the mundane sexual tensions of commoners like Quinn and this girl with the rice up her ass, their flirtations as blatant and tacky as tabloids.

Michelle was disappointed in Quinn. The girl was a two-bit
stripper who couldn't wait to tell everyone about what a stripper she was, as if everyone in the room hadn't already been a stripper for a million years. The girl was tedious. Michelle looked around for someone to get a crush on, but there was no one left. She knew everyone already, had known them for so long she was bored of their friendship, even. The cocaine was crashing Michelle before she was even off the ground with it. Michelle hated cocaine. Her mood darkened. Why did people bother when speed was so much stronger, cheaper, and kept you high so much longer?
Well, maybe some people want to fall asleep eventually
, a partygoer defended her shitty cocaine in the face of Michelle's tirade.

It's Like Watching TV With No Cable, Michelle said scornfully. It's Like Playing Atari When You Could Be Playing Nintendo. Michelle's reference points were whack.

Have another line
, someone gently shaped a tuft of drugs into a stream and Michelle inhaled it. She felt okay for one minute, excellent for five, then promptly suicidal. She looked for Quinn. She was helping Rice Ass wipe soy sauce from her thighs with a dirty dishrag. There were probably roaches on the rag, it had come from the kitchen. Michelle hoped the girl found one on her pussy. Better yet, she hoped Quinn found it there for her. Wait, did she really hope that? She thought about it. She walked over to where Quinn was rubbing the edge of the dish towel under the elastic of the girl's shiny underwear. All around them it was a melee of make-outs and more. Two people were showily fucking on the dirty armchair in the corner by the window. Outside the window Michelle could see the Filipino metalheads next door sitting on their back stairs and watching the spectacle. They sat out there most nights, drinking beer poured
over ice and listening to Metallica cassettes on a pink boom box shaped like the grill of a Cadillac. They were pretty cool boys, one rode a dirt bike and was cute like a butch girl. Michelle wondered if she should invite them over. She'd miss them more than half the people currently celebrating her departure. She gave them a little wave and they waved back. She was at Quinn's side.

I Want To Kill Myself, Michelle said.

What happened?
Quinn smiled. Rice Ass hadn't heard anything. She just sat there with her legs spread, smelling like Chinese leftovers. Liquid eyeliner flicked out from the edges of her eyelids and red lipstick had etched her mouth into a perfect heart-shaped pout. Michelle tried not to look at her and leaned in closer to Quinn.

I Want To Kill Myself, she repeated.

Are you serious?
Quinn asked, bewildered.
What are you talking about?

You Know What I Mean, Michelle snapped, sick of repeating herself, sick of hunching over because Quinn couldn't pull herself away from Rice Ass's crotch, sick of Rice Ass's flawlessly made-up face staring at her with those sociopathic blue eyes, sick of feeling like indeed, yes, she had become the psychotically jealous person at the party, at her own party, her own going-away party, this was how she would be leaving San Francisco, in ruin, humiliated, staging a suicidal cry for help because she could not deal with the attentions of her casual and married drug and sex acquaintance being pulled from her for five minutes.

You Know What I Mean, she said again, choking on tears now, and dashed down the long hallway into her empty bedroom.

I Didn't Really Want To Kill Myself, Michelle insisted a little later. It Was A Feeling Of Wanting To Kill Myself. It Was How I Felt. But I Would Never Do That.

Well, Jesus,
Quinn huffed. Michelle was snotty with tears, her face was already swelling. Her emotions were a feral animal that she could not get her arms around.

I Was Just Upset, she said. I Feel So Emotional About Leaving San Francisco And I Look Over And You're Giving The Poor Man's Bettie Page A Rim Job.

But you dared me to!
Now Quinn was mad.
We were playing a game!

I Saw You Looking At Her, Michelle seethed. Vibing Her. And I Just Felt Like You Like Her So Much Why Don't You Just Eat Rice From Her Ass Then? Michelle knew in her gut that cocaine was to blame for this harsh scene. If the cocaine had been better she wouldn't have crashed so hard so fast, felt so crazy. If the cocaine had been good she would have felt powerful and sexy and she would have eaten the rice from the stripper's ass, or had the girl eat the rice from her ass. She would have done something lunatic and memorable and very, very sexy. With better cocaine she could have left San Francisco like that, high on the wave of her own reputation. Not like this, with people down the hall gossiping about her in her own living room. With Rice Ass, smug in her beauty, thinking Michelle an unhinged bitch. With poor Quinn rethinking her decision to slum it outside matrimony with a hysterical and aging femme who could not handle her cocaine—oh no, was that Michelle? That was Michelle. She wept into her futon. There was a slight knocking. It was Ziggy, calling into the bedroom. She cracked open the door.

I'm going home. You're leaving in the morning, right? I'll
come say goodbye.
Rice Ass flew up suddenly behind her. Her face, undeniably striking, gorgeous even, pushed through Ziggy's orange hair as if through a fringed curtain. She rested her chin on Ziggy's shoulder.

Thanks for the party!
she cried cheerily. She shot a wink at Quinn
. Let's go
, she pulled Ziggy by her studded belt backward out the door. Michelle listened to them clatter down the stairs, their voices rising giddily from the sidewalk below the window.

Ugh, I can't believe she'd go home with that person!
Quinn spat.

Ugh, I Can't Believe You Care! Michelle raged, a fresh batch of tears exploding from her eyes. She's Like A Trashy Fucking Dime-A-Dozen Stripper! Gross! And If I Had A Best Friend, Which I Do Not, It Would Be Ziggy, So Shut Up!

Quinn put her hands up to ward off Michelle's charging emotions.
Sorry, sorry.
She reached out and actually petted Michelle's head. Quinn was a Libra, she couldn't bear for the upset to linger.
She's actually a sex-work activist, that girl,
Quinn said.
She does really cool work. She's unionizing the club she works at. She read your book, she really likes you. She couldn't believe she was at your party.

Ugh! Michelle cried. She didn't know what to say to all of this, so she made unattractive animal noises instead. Ugh! Ack! Ech! She slammed her head back down on the futon and cried. She cried for her room, which was not hers anymore. She cried for the bookstore, which had employed her in spite of her being so unemployable, just because they thought it was cool that she'd written a book. Now who would employ her? She cried for the friends who had
come to her party, who she had all but ignored in the face of Quinn's flirtations. She cried for the friends who hadn't come to her party because they weren't really her friends anymore, just people she used to be friends with, how had that happened, how had Michelle allowed them to drift away? She cried because Quinn's giant palm was resting on her thigh and it didn't mean anything.

Quinn was thinking the exact same thoughts as Michelle: that their whole connection was a mistake born of drugs, that if not for Quinn's weakness of will she would be back with her husband where she belonged, plucking tender pops from a warm bowl of popcorn, snuggling.
You know,
she began
, I think I'm going to head home.

What? Michelle was alarmed.

Don't worry, I'll still drive you to Los Angeles, okay?

You Have To, Michelle begged desperately. You Really, Really Have To.

I don't actually have to,
Quinn corrected her. She was glad this person was leaving. When Michelle was gone Quinn would go to Kabuki hot springs and spend all day in the sauna. She would find kale, somewhere she would find it, and she would eat it. She had had her dalliance with heroin, maybe she'd write some poems about it. It had been crazy and Quinn had been looking for crazy. But she was done. She craved feeling her husband beside her, the sleeping bulk of him, like snuggling down with a bear in the woods. She found her jacket on Michelle's floor, red leather with extreme snaps and lapels. No one looking at Quinn would ever think she had a husband and you know what? Quinn thought that was cool.