“Look,” I say. “Don’t worry. Everything’s gonna be all right. I’m gonna make everything all right.”
Her eyes narrow. “Yeah, well, I hope so.”
She squeezes my hand in hers.
And we go on and walk out of there together.
When I get back to our little apartment in Mar Vista, Tallulah just about licks my face off, she’s so excited to see me. I put some water on to boil and listen to Dylan and load up a bowl of the superstrong blueberry chronic and smoke till my brain feels like it’s been separated from my body. Honestly, since I met up with that John guy again, I don’t think I’ve let myself get sober even once. As soon as I wake up, I make coffee and go smoke, and then I just keep smoking throughout the rest of the day. It’s really, like, my lifeline right now. It’s keeping me together. It’s making all this possible.
I mean, can you believe it? Zelda and I might actually be together again.
It’s what I’ve been fantasizing about for the last two years.
And now it’s really happening.
I make tea and listen to music and try to just kinda sort everything out, you know.
I’m going to have to tell Fallon. I’m going to have to break it off.
And Sue Ellen—well, shit, man, I don’t even know what to do about that.
So I guess for now I just won’t do anything.
I put Tallulah’s leash on and get ready to take her out.
I smoke another bowl.
That’s the only answer I will ever need.
Ch.33
When I tell Fallon I’m not gonna be able to come see her and I probably need to cut off contact for a while, her reaction is surprisingly un-Christian. She tells me I’m an asshole and then hangs up. I can’t say I blame her—or disagree at all.
I am an asshole.
And I feel so out of control.
This energy surging through me makes my hands tremble and my mind unfocused. I check my phone compulsively.
Zelda hasn’t called or texted or anything. We were talking for a while there—building something, I thought—but then she disappeared completely. I’ve written and called and written, and still I haven’t heard one thing back from her. I’m really getting kinda worried. I mean, as hot and cold as she can be, there’s something that feels very wrong about this—like something serious must have happened. But, for whatever reason, she doesn’t feel comfortable telling me about it, so I’m left just guessing, you know? Checking my phone every thirty seconds—making these lists in my head—repeating them over and over:
Wake up.
Make coffee.
Smoke a bowl.
Take Tallulah up to Los Liones Canyon—hike for a couple hours.
Come home.
Shower.
Eat cereal.
Smoke more.
Go get coffee and write.
Call my dad.
Call my mom.
Call John.
Go pick up more herb.
Go home.
Smoke more.
Take Tallulah to the dog park.
Come home.
Meet Sue Ellen.
Fight with her.
Do anything and everything to keep from thinking about Zelda.
I won’t let her hurt me again. I’ll shut her out completely. I mean, hell, at least this time I’ve got this chronic to smoke to make it all disappear. Because it does. Getting high takes it away. Getting high makes me strong. Getting high makes me not care.
So I just try ’n’ stay high forever. ’Cause that’s all I’ve got left. Even if I really do know it’s only a matter of time till it stops working for me again—just like before.
And the time before that.
And the time before that.
And the time before that, too.
About Sue Ellen, well, I’m not sure if it’s that she can sense me pulling away or what, but she keeps really tearing into me about every little thing. It’s like she gets back from her internship, where they’ve been treating her like shit all day, and she doesn’t know how to not take all her pent-up rage out on me.
Tonight, for some reason, she’s been going on and on about my mom to the point that I actually get kinda angry with her. And, I mean, that really is saying something, ’cause I’m usually the first one to admit my mom’s got, uh, issues. But, Christ, Sue Ellen just won’t quit.
See, the thing is, after, like, twenty years of being married to this terrible man who I watched emotionally torture her, she finally got up the courage to leave him a couple months ago, and now she’s living on her own in a house on the Venice Canals. Obviously, it’s super weird to have my mom be suddenly single and free of that asshole I’ve been wanting her to get away from since I was little. I mean, it’s frustrating that it’s happening now, after all those years of me visiting my mom and stepdad only to be told over and over what a “weak, faggot” piece of shit I was by him. And not that my mom was a total angel or anything, either. Hell, it takes two, right? But I’m still proud of her for finding the strength to step out on her own, even if it did take more than two decades.
Honestly, I’m not totally sure why Sue Ellen is going on and on about my mom right now. I think maybe she’s got it in her head that because I’ve been hanging out with my mom a lot more now that she’s in this transitional stage and pretty lonely, somehow it’s my mom who’s been making me pull away from Sue Ellen.
“Ugh, she’s just a sick woman,” Sue Ellen says, her fists all clenched. “And you, you’re just spineless. I mean, come on, she left you when you were practically a baby, and now you’re gonna be all buddy-buddy with her. Uh-uh… that’s not okay. I won’t stand for it. She’s vain and shallow and manipulative, and I don’t want you seeing her anymore.”
I light a cigarette and try to focus on the road, since we’re driving up the PCH and it’s dark and I’m not totally sure where we’re going, exactly.
“Sue
