Little Thing
We had been waiting for the season to change. The Indian summer sealed us into her hot mouth, lockjaw around our sweating bodies, swallowing petals from the flowers in my hair.
“Jeannie, come on.”
You were on top of me, trying to open the doors of my body.
But they were sealed, tightened by the power of the powder. The coke had shut everything to a dry, miserably tense halt down there, and you might as well had been stabbing at cement. The X gave you incentive to keep going, and eventually you broke through, and then kept pushing. I could feel the outline of your nose sliding up and down the side of my face, helping to keep time, while a pile of burnt, drying orange leaves and red droplets created a Fall season beneath my hips.
There was a blob of goop that looked like and a swamp of Jell-O in the corner of the kitchen. You told me not to touch it and I didn’t. So, every time I got water, or food, or a spoon to heat up our stash, I had to pass that goop, making slushy noises in the corner, following me and my sanity.
The cabin was home to us, even though it wasn’t ours. We had been on our way to Woodstock, but made too many stops and missed it trying to get more hash. Then, halfway there we had to turn back because you forgot the junk, and neither of us would have made it three nights without it. We watched the place, stretched out in the van you boosted, snuggled into the heat of each other’s body, hiding from the rain, our breath fogging the windows.
You went up to the door¾it was easy¾it opened like it had been waiting for us.
“Whoa, bitchin’. . .”
You took my hand, we slid our shoes off and didn’t put them on again.
We spent weeks chasing the dragon, and your face was etched into the back of my eyelids. We spun in circles, touching feet, the loose ends of your bell bottoms rough against the naked hairiness of my legs.
You’d bring some choice hombres and chicks, and they’d snort up, too scared to shoot, and we’d spin in big circles then, round and round.
You told me to pick up Laney, and I did. I met her at the highway and we walked back through the woods. She was only fifteen, and we got high in the basement before you and the guys came down. I remember she whispered, “they’re too old,” and I told her that was good ’cause they’d pay more for less. We started dancing in front of the empty fish tank and I could hear the gurgling clap of lips, then the sloshy thud of what sounded like hands and feet. I knew the goop was at the top of the stairs watching, and jammin’ out to Hendrix.
We made a home of the cabin, but you were only a guest, uninvited.
The day you left to get milk and needles that winter, I thought I would die. It was too cold to do anything, and my body was tightening and pushing my insides out. I threw up twice and shook violently, thrashing myself to-and-fro in front of the fireplace. I thought, I can’t die alone. With all the strength left inside me, I sent the message into the air to find you, and the goop made popping noises all the way from the kitchen to the living area, and perched itself into the makeshift couch we constructed out of tired blankets and loose firewood from the hills. My eyes tripled as the goop opened a gaping hole within itself, like a huge belly button splitting and expanding. It welcomed me, an unlikely umbilical cord to my existence. My body froze, half thrusted above the ground. The glob moved fast, slipped over my face, leaving thick slimy residue spread atop my skin like lotion, sinking in. There was a sensual stir of goodness rushing to my fingertips and toes, and the liquid thing sucked itself together and slid up my pant leg inside of me, radiating pure brightness through my belly, warming me and feeding my sickness. Pleasure knew no words . . . far out. . . .
My moods hastened from pleasure to an irate tapping of my left foot and a number of unwarranted deep exhales under my breath. Just your smell nauseated me. I waited and waited until I couldn’t wait any longer, and while you showered I pushed the junk up the veins between my toes. I remember how pissed you looked, even with your hair still wet and clinging to your forehead. You felt cheated and isolated. I knew, because the goop was laughing in the kitchen.
The first time I visited you at home, I thought I might fall in love with your dad. I liked the way he shamelessly fed stray cats and grew his beard long and wore those large, thick blue jumpsuits for yard work. The crush was laughable, but when I told you, your bottom lip fell and your face turned white.
We never really recovered from that.
Later that year, I came over again and your father was on the porch in his chair. He was clutching an old photograph of your mom. She was swollen with child and glowing bright as an alien. He sat there before the little girl across the street selling lemonade, the neighbor lady in her Sunday dress on her way to church, and the men with shiny watches waving while on their way off to work sobbing. The boldness of his tears was refreshing and I wondered, would you cry like that if I left?
The goop made me want for nothing. I’d lie on the floor and wait for it to come. You complained when I didn’t sleep in bed next to you, and I’d insist it was just a headache. I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t need you.
We met at Bible study, between Leviticus and a crowd of kids shooting spitballs, and I wanted you in a way that would’ve made altar boys quiver.
When you asked my father for his blessing, he laughed and yanked another beer bottle from the refrigerator. “Sure thing, son; I give it a year, and you’ll be handing this one right on back to pops.”
We got married at the city hall and I didn’t mind the lack of extravagance. All we needed at the time was each other and angel dust.
The goo chose me, not you. I think that’s what you really couldn’t handle. Not that I couldn’t touch you, or the junk, but that the glob of jiggly mush was out of your control. We never fought about it, but I could tell when I stood over you and your body stiffened at night, or when you passed the living quarters in the morning to piss and saw me spread-eagle on the floor convulsing.
The eyes had it. I tried to find them, but the goop said no. It danced over my skin and hissed at my belly, fighting the part of you growing inside of me.
I told you I was leaving and you said not to harsh your mellow. Then you saw I was serious and cried. You pulled me close, and I could tell the junkie part of you still wanted to try it, the jiggles. So I scooped the goop into a pail and removed your corduroy jacket from your shoulders. I lay your head down gently before the fireplace and soaked you in a baptism of the goo. You blinked and waited. I tried rubbing it in. Nothing. I spread it, violently pushing it into your skin.
We needed it to work. The goo owed me that much.
But nothing. And then nothing. And we tried again. And nothing.
You were agitated and told me I’d better get back inside or you’d shoot, the shot gun stiff between your arms. I held my sack closer to my body like a shield and pushed forward, picking up the pace with each step, praying that last blast I heard hadn’t hit me. By the time I’d gotten to the road, I was shaking, my thumb jutting upward in unease. And I stood waiting, for another nice guy to find me.