“Drink or die, perv,” said Penny. She poured a bourbon, slid the drink in my direction.
“So you do remember.”
“Dude, I’m sorry to say it, but you look really terrible, like a tumorous dog.”
“Hazard of the profession.”
“Oh yeah, I was gonna ask. I take it all this stuff in the news has not been the best for you.”
“That would be an understatement.”
“Well, just be thankful, you still look in better shape than Broder.”
“Broder?”
“He was in here the other day,” said Penny. “Back in town.”
“And he was bad?”
“Drinking,” said Penny. “So yeah.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Shit is right.” She poured me another.
Broder was my undergrad accomplice and partner in hip-hop. I was WebMD and he was Mix Master Mucinex. We were roommates and inseparable until early sophomore year when he dropped out after developing a heroin habit.
We lost touch. I worried, sure, but I was a naïve college kid with other things on his mind. I never thought Broder would die, and he didn’t, though he came close one night in a Dunkin’ Donuts bathroom on a bag cut with bleach. Next I knew, he was in a California rehab clinic.
Broder came to my wedding, but left after the ceremony. I think he felt awkward around other friends, and particularly Ricky, who wasn’t shy about voicing his abhorrence of Recovery Kultür. After that, I’d been busy with work, and he’d been busy getting married, himself, to another former addict who didn’t stay that way for long. Her body was discovered in Joshua Tree, in the motel where Gram Parsons had also OD’d. I should have called him then.
“What was he doing here?” I asked Penny, but she’d left with a vape-load for some guys in the corner. Besides, I knew what he was doing: haunting the old rooms, hoping to reclaim lost glory or black out trying. I was doing the same.
Wendy
I woke in a cold tub. If a warm bath is the womb, then a cold bath is the coffin. Or maybe a cold bath is the morgue table, and asleep in the cold bath one dreams the doctors above her, poking at her organs with their instruments.
It was only 8 p.m. but I was anxious. There were no missed calls from Michael. Ricky wasn’t answering his phone, and I’d received another email from Michael’s mother. I did not write back. I didn’t call Lillian either. I called my father, who said Michael was fine, that he was probably out with the boys from the office, that at times like this they had to let off some steam.
“Yes,” I said, “steam.”
I didn’t mention the money or my meeting with the client or Michael’s absence from work. My father told me he loved me and that I could come to his apartment if I didn’t want to be alone. I told him that wasn’t necessary. I felt better for a moment, but as soon as I hung up, the fear overtook me again.
Slowly, forcefully, I used my fingernails to pierce the skin above my anklebone and dug out one of my bites. The picked scab bled. I worked my way up my legs, scratching, picking. This did not decrease the itchiness, but I got satisfaction from the rhythm and pain. Torn skin accumulated under my fingernails. I bit my tongue and turned the TV on.
I watched the news, waiting for the story to break that Michael had been found dead. Instead I received a litany of louder misfortunes. The National Guard now surrounded the FSU Hillel. A Guardsman spoke over a bullhorn, demanding surrender. The showrunner of a prominent HBO drama denied allegations that he’d failed to provide his actors with plastic genital guards before shooting sex scenes. The Gulf Coast prepared for Hurricane Marie.
When the news cycle repeated, I turned the TV off and googled for local victims who fit Michael’s description. I knew this search would yield nothing. I knew that he was fine. I told myself not to worry. I told myself that this was the beginning of my being alone. I would pack a bag in the morning and leave.
Before my bath, I’d logged on to E*Trade. It was worse than I’d imagined. This was a fundamental betrayal of the promise of our union: that we would be the kind of people who had money.
I turned off the lights and lay down. I did not feel tired. It was still early. The cat swaggered up to my side of the bed. She fit her head into the glass from which I’d been drinking. She stood on her hind legs. Her tongue lapped at the water. I imagined the things that tongue had touched. “No,” I said, and slapped her.
The cat retreated. I felt ashamed and hoped I hadn’t caused injury. The cat licked at the area I’d slapped, a patch of sagging belly. She cautiously made her way back to the glass. The cat stared straight at me. I tried to find, in her eyes, some indication that she recognized, in me, another consciousness, a being capable of pain and mercy. She sipped again from my glass. I slapped her, harder this time. A tooth sunk into my wrist. I tried to shake her off. She clawed at my elbow and shoulder. I pulled her tail and she let go.
I rubbed my wound under cold water. We were out of bacitracin. For weeks, I’d nagged Michael to take the cat to a vet for tests and shots. I tried to watch a reality show called Arm Candy about a group of
