31

            … that you were right.)

But what about the painting gig? How’d you manage to lose that one?

32

            There was a deck that ran 25 feet across, was 40 feet long, and hung out over a manicured lawn. There was latticework wrapped around the support posts of the deck. There was a staircase leading up the north and south side of the deck. I was supposed to bleach the wood. Then prime it. Then pain it. White. Two coats. Then finish it off with a clear sealant to help protect the whole mess.

‘Work is work and pay is pay.’

So spoke John the Responsible

            I got to the house, inhaled my morning speed, set up all the materials, and went at it. First I bleached one of the staircases leading up to the deck- I didn’t want to walk across any of the wood while it dried. Then I went to work on the railings, and the posts that made up the railings. Then the deck itself, then the second staircase, then the latticework, and then I took a break. I watched the bleach in action. It slowly lightened the color of the wood. It was interesting. After a few minutes of watching this I put away the bleach. Then I rinsed off the brushes and the roller I had used. I opened the can of primer, gave it a stir, and started working on the first staircase that I bleached.

33

About four hours later the whole thing was primed a dull white color. It was time for lunch.

Instead of eating I knocked down another round of bumps and lit a cigarette. Then I walked around the property of the house. It was a densely wooded area. There were trees and bushes, there were squirrels and chipmunks and birds, there were spiders weaving nets, there was white paint on my hands and white powder in my nose, in my brains; there were a hundred things, a thousand things, but no people- I (myself?), I didn’t count.

I walked around to the back of the house and looked in through the windows. Empty living room, empty dining room, empty kitchen. No lights. No radio. No television. There didn’t seem to be anybody in, or near the house. There was no housewife to offer me a drink, or to work her way into my fantasies. There wasn’t any shit-faced neighbor watching me or offering advice. I walked back around to the front of the house, and over to the deck to see how the coat of primer was drying.

34

Foot prints! Paw prints. Up and down both staircases, across the deck, paw prints, I examined them, looked close, dog prints, a small dog- that
Mother

Fucker!

35

            I searched the place up and down, looked through the woods behind the house and checked under shrubs, cursed under my breath,

“That piece of shit mongrel!”

Then I stirred the primer again and started filling in the spots where the dog had walked. It took about 35 minutes or so. While I waited for the spots to dry I got the paint ready. It was a bright white color supposed to give the wood a look of being bleached by Time and the sun. I kept mixing the paint, looking into all that white, and then somehow I was back in the car with another 2 bumps broken out on the dashboard- damned white, I inhaled it, lit another cigarette, grabbed the paint bucket and went to work.

“That mother fucking mongrel!”

            Again! The paw prints! Leading up the staircase and I’m up the stairs, 2 at a time, to hell with what’s wet that dog is in trouble, the final step, I’m on the deck and 10 feet away from me is a little bat-faced, big-eyed, Boston terrier with pink tongue dripping out of his mouth and lips stretched, grinning, that mutt…

“C’mere puppy. C’mon you sweet little rat. I’m gonna give you a snack, a treat, what a good little pup, that’s it, c’mon, that’s a good, little…”

            I picked up the dog. It sucked its tongue back into its mouth and looked at me- bulging, bug-eyes. I flipped it onto its back. Examined the paws, all white…

“Ah, you prick! Thought you could screw with my work and get away with it, huh?”

            I walked back across the deck. The Boston terrier squirmed and I started to squeeze, not too hard or anything- I’m not like that, don’t get the wrong idea- it was just hard enough to restrain the thing. I walked down the stairs. I picked up the paintbrush and the dog let out a whimper. Then I dipped the brush. All that white…

“It’s okay puppy. I’m not gonna hurt you. Promise. Just be a good boy, that’s it, no rough stuff, not from me, not from dear old, sweet old, Papa John.”

            I soaked the brush hairs. I flipped the dog right side up. I painted a thick white streak starting from the top of the dog’s head down to the end of its tail. I was sweet. I cooed at the dog and talked baby talk at it. I spread the paint on heavy and gently, (2 coats!) and when I was finished I put the dog down and it ran away yelping…

36

10 minutes later I heard a women yelling. It was a shocked, surprised kind of a yell, both loud and (for me) memorable and a half hour after that a van from the main office of the painting company pulled down the driveway.

37

I would always find myself thinking about the way that woman yelled, and even now, years later, while typing this; I still think it was worth it. It was the sound of me getting fired. I had never heard it with such clarity before.

38

Back to the Howard Johnson’s hotel room- Day 3! The half-ounce was down to a few white rocks, (no, they were more like pebbles) and the powder scraped off of razor blades, scraped off the interior walls of plastic drinking straws, tapped out of our nostrils, and picked out of the creases of the coffee table. The vicodin was down to 5,000 milligrams. There was no beer left. All the cigarette boxes were empty. The DJ was tweaked out and decided to head home to get his turntables.

39

There was a place on Hempstead Turnpike that I knew about. John the Resourceful! It was run by a group of teenaged Asian kids that bought used stereo equipment at a discount.

40

After the DJ left I split those 5,000 milligrams with the girlfriend. We ate 2,000 milligrams each and then snorted the last one. About 15 minutes later we started to slow down.

I searched through the hotel room for the banana-flavored condoms.

“But you know how much I hate doing that.”

“It’s different this time. It won’t even get in your mouth.”

“Do you think it’ll really taste like bananas?”

            I opened the box, unrolled one of the condoms, touched the lube with the tip of my finger, and then put my finger in my mouth. I smiled.

“Yeah, it really does.”

“Okay, put it on.”

            All the lights, in all of New York, flickered and dimmed. The wind picked up, ripping green leaves from branches and plastering them against the sides of the hotel. Parked cars started honking and flashing their high beams. A vortex was forming behind her teeth, and it sucked everything that was in the hotel room into her mouth; a lamp flew by, the coffee table tilted and dropped onto its side, the couch began sliding across the floor, all the chopped up straws, empty bags, crushed beer cans, the cigarette boxes sailed through the air and disappeared down her throat, the television unplugged itself and jumped off a shelf, slid towards us, winked on and the screen was flooded with the image of a large, unblinking eye (watching us!), she was kneeling, sucking me into the vortex, my spine began vibrating, my stomach caved in, from my center I exploded and all the power of all the gods concerned with mucus and semen was concentrated into a pearly

milk

drop that was suspended in latex for a microsecond before being whisked away by Big Forces and dropped into the cosmic, elemental

jizz pool of the heavens, creating the ripple, that would form the tidal wave, that would eventually become the tsunami which would decimate all of Thailand 10 years into the future…

            I fell back onto the mattress, spent by the great effort, and as my eyes started closing, I heard her.

“Oh, my god! It tasted just like bananas!”