Now What?

I kept finding less to do. My index finger on my right hand was swollen and I did not know why. I thought I might have jammed it in a door or hit it with a hammer earlier and both were possible but I'd never know. I had been near both doors and hammers and I thought that I must not have been paying attention. I stood at the window of the bedroom and it was night and winter. I could see the orange streetlight glow and my reflection but only black otherwise. My reflection was ugly and I thought that meant I was. I was young and high and this wasn't my bedroom. It belonged to a girl I had met and been around lately. Her mattress was on the floor and the room was small and lit with one un-shaded lamp. The light was harsh so we never looked in that corner of the room. It was 1997 and her mother was somewhere else and her sister was somewhere else and she was in the bathroom. Her CD player, silver and small on the floor, was playing something I had never heard before loudly and I liked it. The loneliest sounding woman I had ever heard sang shrill over ghostly and orchestral drum beats and a guitar came in, distant and thin, and my reflection was ugly, so maybe I was ugly, but I stared into that black and she opened the bathroom door and came back into the bedroom and I heard her lay down on the bed.

"You want to do something?"

"Like what?" I asked.

"I don't know. Take off your clothes."

"Okay."

"You want me to take off mine?"

"Sure."

"Not yet."

"All right."

I pulled my shirt off and the hard yellow light of the lamp made my stomach seem to glow and I unbuckled my belt and kicked my shoes off and dropped my pants to the floor and pulled my socks off and looked at her.

"Let's get high," she said.

"I think I am high."

"You ever snort pills?"

"Like Tylenol?"

She laughed. "No, you fucking idiot. Like Ritalin, or you know, whatever's in orange bottles."

"No."

"Okay. Well, you are now." She got up and she was shorter than me. Her hair was long and brown and fell in front of her face and she tucked it behind one ear and left the room. 

I followed her.

She was in her mothers room, in the nightstand, sitting on the edge of the bed bent. Only the light from the hall lit the room. She was rifling through the drawers and I watched from the doorway as she would throw different things onto the floor and sometimes an orange bottle onto the bed.

"She keeps all her old prescriptions and re-fills them as long as she can. It's a fucking pharmacy in here. Come over here."

I stepped onto and walked across the bed to her and laid down on my back next to her and next to the small but growing pile of bottles. 

"God she keeps the stupidest fucking shit," she said, throwing a jewelry box out the bedroom door and down the hallway. "Here," she turned to me and picked one of the bottles and looked at the label. "Take this one. Procardia."

"What is it?"

She looked at the label. "Blood something. Here." She handed me a large book and a candlestick holder by the bed. "Just crush it and snort it."

I sat up and set the pill on the book and with the base of the candlestick holder, crushed it. It had a casing around it that I imagined was made of sugar but looked like plastic. Inside was a white powder. I tossed the remnants of the casing across the room and got ready to snort the powder.

"Wait," she said. "Like this." She used her finger to make small long piles and said "It's better if you use something small and flat, like a razor, or a credit card, but whatever. This way, it's like, nose sized." She laughed.

I began to snort and it stung and I could taste it and I sneezed and blew most of it all across the bed and my legs.

She laughed. "Oh, Jesus! You really are a fucking rookie! Let me show you." She took the book and candlestick holder and crushed a pill, made lines and plugging one nostril, bent over and the line was gone. She lifted her head and inhaled deep and brushed her hair behind her ear and looked at me. She smiled.

"You want me to take my clothes off too?" she asked.

"Sure."

"You have to do one though, and not blow it all over the fucking place."

"Okay," I said. I could still hear the haunting, simple, and wonderful band playing in the other room. I crushed a pill, stared it down, and plugged a nostril.

"Now, just sort of breathe it in, but, forcefully, I guess," she said. "Smooth, but, you know, like you mean it."

I didn't blow any anywhere but I could still taste it and it felt like it was all still in my nostril and I wanted to sneeze and choke but I breathed deep another few times and was fine then. 

"Fuck yeah man," she said. "Let's do more!"

"Take your clothes off."

She laughed. "Yeah. I'll get right on that," she said. "Jesus." She crushed another pill and then it was gone. "I don't feel shit with these," she said.

"Try something else."

"That's the fucking spirit." She pulled another bottle out of the pile. "Well, wouldn't you fuckin' know it," she said. "Ritalin. Must be my sisters. Well, poor mans coke, down the hatch!"

One, two gone, then it was my turn. The CD in the other room ended.

"Shit, I'll be right back. What do you want to listen to?"

"Something I've never heard," I said.

"All right," she laughed. "I have no fucking idea what that means." She jumped off the bed and I crushed two Ritalin because she had and I snorted both of them and the taste in the back of my throat was now worse and I coughed to not choke and then the light in the hall dimmed. New music was playing. Loud and fast. Heavy. 

"You like Life of Agony?" she asked. I looked up and she was in the doorway.

"Never heard of them."

"Only this record is good."

She crawled up onto the bed and up my legs and pulled the book and candlestick holder from my hands and threw them across the room and her shirt was off and her hair fell into my face and she kissed me. Her tongue against mine, her skin against mine.

"You wanna fuck?" she asked.

"Sure," I said. 

"Tough shit." She sat up and moved her hair back behind her ear. 

"Okay." I laid back on the bed. "Now what?" I stared up at her. She pressed her hands into my stomach.

"How should I know?" She laid her head on my stomach and that was wonderful and good enough.