Cannibals in Love (15 page)

“Right.” Lauren nodded. “I read in the newspaper that some of these guys drive back and forth five, six, seven times in a row.”

“Jesus,” Tad said.

“And they're all wired up on Benzedrine and diet pills, too,” I said. “By the middle of the night these dudes are tripping their balls off. I guess it is kind of scary, when you think about it like that.”

Lauren laughed. “And they drive
fast
, too. Like, way too fast.”

“Can we please talk about something else?” Rachel asked. Tad nodded and cleared his throat, trying to rescue us with another mild non sequitur.

“So what brought you up to New York, then?”

“I had to go to court,” I answered simply, fishing the olive out of my drink. Lauren tried to stifle her laugh.

“
Court?
” Rachel asked pointedly.

“Yeah, but not really. I mean, I'd been hoping for something that looked like
Law & Order
, you know? But it was really just some clerk's office in the basement of the building.”

“I'm sorry, did I miss something? Why did you have to come to New York City to go to court?”

“Well, it's a long story, but basically I was refusing payment on an outstanding bill for an ambulance ride.”

“What was the ambulance for?”

“I mean, that's the long story, Tad. But the point is I've been contesting it with the city for over a year.” They looked at me without comprehension.

“Another
Bloody
,” Lauren said, catching the waiter's attention.

“Two,” I said, raising my hand.

“Why wouldn't you pay for your ambulance?” Rachel asked critically. “You took it, didn't you? I mean, imagine if we all stopped paying.”

“I'd be in favor of that,” I said with a shrug. “And, anyway, they threw the whole thing out. The lady ripped it up. I won.”

“Oh. Uh, congratulations,” Tad said.

“Thanks, Tad,” I said, lifting up my empty drink in salute. I clinked his glass as Rachel Pinkerton scowled.

*   *   *

An hour later we were walking up Prince Street, following through on a brand-new plan with Cokie. I steered Lauren around the sidewalk traffic as she held her head down, punching out a text.

“Cokie says to stop at the next block,” Lauren said, raising her head to find it. “They're gonna pick us up in a white van.”

“A white van?” I asked. “Is that a joke?”

“I dunno. Apparently we're going to somebody's house.”

“And Cokie's driving a
white van
?”

“I don't know who's driving it! I'm just telling you where we have to go,” Lauren said, betraying her own impatience.

But as we got to the corner, we saw the van pulling off to the curb, right where it was supposed to be. The door opened and we climbed inside. Cokie leaned over the backseat to kiss our cheeks and wrap her arms around us ecstatically. As she sat down again we saw that there was a guy with his arm across her seat-back. He looked uncannily like one of the Strokes. It was the drummer, or the guitar player, or one of the other ones. I was sure of it.

Cokie introduced us to the people in the van, but the names went right past me. We shook her boyfriend's hand, and pretended not to know who he was. And, all at once, I wanted to start laughing. I was ready to give Cokie a pass for the whole weekend. She was blowing us off in order to make out with a Stroke. How does that even happen? I exchanged a glance with Lauren, but she wouldn't smile back. It was clear she felt that Cokie was still avoiding her somehow. Lauren went silent for the rest of the ride, which was a thing that Cokie couldn't help noticing. Lauren was not relieved to find out she was less important than The Strokes, and she was hiding it very poorly now.

“Where are we going, Cokie?” I asked.

“Uptown,” she said. “To Harlem, I guess. Right?”

“Right.” This was about as much as our rock-and-roll friend said.

“Yeah. It's just a day party. Somebody's house or something.”

“Right,” he said again. “Sean's house.”

*   *   *

We parked on a leafy street, lined on both sides with ancient brownstones. Lauren and I followed behind the kids from the van, up the steps, and through the unlocked door of a townhouse.
Sean
, it turned out, was Sean Lennon. Lauren laughed and grabbed my arm. Where the fuck were we? We wandered through the rooms in a kind of daze. Outside the house, I had felt some loose allegiance with the people in the van, but they'd all since scattered. And Cokie, too, seemed to keep disappearing on us, flashing in and out of rooms, as we searched for the liquor.

“Why are they together?” I asked Lauren as I handed her a drink.

“How do I know?” she said with a blank face. It was clear she didn't want to play this game anymore. “Do you think we're underdressed?” she asked seriously.

“Not me. I was going to wear this anyway.”

Lauren smiled and reached out absently for my hand. Clinging to me in this room full of strangers. “What are we doing here?”

“We were invited.”

“Right,” Lauren said as she watched Cokie drift through the room one more time. The tension between them was making this whole thing feel that much weirder.

“I'm gonna go find her,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I just need to talk to her.”

“It's fine,” I said. “You should go.” And she did then.

Ending up at a party like this is supposed to be thrilling, of course. It's supposed to be wild and indelible. But, in reality, it was still daylight outside, and the majority of the guests were remarkably well behaved. More than anything, this house became the setting for Lauren and Cokie to work through this rift in their best-friendship. A quarrel that was never fully articulated to me in the first place. But if I knew nothing else, I knew enough to get out of the way of a thing I didn't understand.

Boredom always follows expectation at a party like this. It's like any other party, really. I walked through the house, taking books off of shelves and entering into vague conversations with strangers. I was doing my best not to stand out, or get kicked out, or otherwise draw attention to myself unnecessarily. No one really cared, though.

I was determined to stall now for as long as I could. I was eager to give Lauren and Cokie the wide berth that they needed. In the end, though, my hand was forced. I walked around a corner and found three long-haired kids blowing coke off the white piano from “Imagine.” They looked up at me with their blank and buzzing faces, and I froze.

“Oh,” I said, as though I'd just found someone sitting on the toilet and knew I'd have to turn around. “I didn't realize anyone was in here.” I couldn't stop myself from cracking up as I hurried away. I was already retelling this story in my head. It just wasn't possible for me to wait any longer now—I had to go and find the girls.

*   *   *

I was relieved to find Lauren and Cokie laughing and passing a cigarette in the backyard. They were sitting out on the garden patio, conspiring like old times. Whatever tension there had been between them was suddenly and mercifully gone.

“Sean Lennon just told me it was good to see me again,” I announced with a smile. “What the hell is going on, Cokie?”

“Don't ask me.” She shrugged. “The dude I'm making out with is in
The Strokes
. You know that, right?”

“Duh, Cokie,” I said pityingly.

“Why didn't you just tell us that?” Lauren asked.

“I don't know … It just sort of happened. I didn't even know who he was for like a week.” Cokie laughed, clearly enjoying herself. “All I know now is that it's gonna have to stop soon. They're gonna kick me out of school.

“Speaking of which…” Cokie beamed at me. “Lauren says you won your court case.” I took a small bow and the girls began to clap.

“We should celebrate,” Lauren said as she picked up the champagne bottle that was resting at her feet. I dumped my drink into the grass and sat down beside them. Lauren filled our glasses, and we raised them in a toast.

“To law school.”

“And the FDNY.”

“And the Tomboys,” I said simply. Lauren and Cokie smiled then, looking almost touched. We clinked our glasses together and drank.

*   *   *

It was a relief to find the apartment empty when we got back to Rachel's. We were in and out and back down on the street in ten minutes. Hurrying through the sketchy beating heart of Chinatown at eleven thirty at night. We searched for our bus under the eerie sodium glow of streetlights, laughing as we clasped hands and hurried down the damp streets. We sped up instinctively as we passed the silent men standing in the doorways smoking cigarettes. Past the mysterious storefronts, with their graffitied metal shutters pulled down to shoulder height.

We stowed our bags under the bus and found our seats in the back, with the engine warming up. The cool smell of diesel clung to the static air. I pulled an ugly-looking can of beer out of the brown paper bag that I'd been carrying for the last half hour. It had a picture of the Chinese zodiac and an unreadable name. The stone-faced old man who sold it to me actually smiled as he pushed it across the counter, which was strangely thrilling.

“Wait,” Lauren said, as I scratched my nail under the tab. “I have some pills.”

“What pills?”

“I found them in Rachel's medicine cabinet.” She smiled wickedly. “I stole them.”

“You
stole
them?” I laughed. “What are they?”

“I dunno. I think it's probably MDMA.”

“MDMA? Like
ecstasy
?”

Lauren nodded, pulling them out of her pocket to show me. “I just figure maybe we shouldn't drink anymore if we're going to take them.”

“I've never done it,” I said, feeling strangely prudish.

“Oh, good. I can be your first, then.”

I nodded, and we both began to laugh. Growing giddy with the promise of strange drugs. The doors were closing, and I felt the pneumatics under the bus lift. I watched as the television screens flashed on above our heads.

Lauren tapped a small green pill into my open hand. “It's funny that Rachel has these,” I said. It was too perfect, really. This image of Lauren's prim older sister squirreling away club drugs in her bathroom tickled me.

“I bet you they're Tad's,” Lauren said. “Patrick Serf told me that Wall Street dudes eat MDMA on the weekends like it's candy.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Which hopefully means that it's good.”

“I'm not sure I'll know the difference,” I said, as I pinched the pill between my fingers, studying it. “You're sure that this is safe, right?”

“As safe as this bus.” Lauren handed me her water bottle, and I put the pill onto my tongue. Smiling as I swallowed it.

We held each other's hands as the Dragon Bus crossed through Lower Manhattan, and the city lights, into the semidarkness of the Holland Tunnel. Lauren laid her head against mine as we watched the twelve-inch screen hanging down from the ceiling. It took me a second to realize what was happening.

“Oh, no,” I said. “It's the same movie.” They were replaying
The Matrix 2
, this terrible, off-brand copy of the mediocre original.

“No,” Lauren said, pointing at the screen. “This is the next one
.
”

“What do you mean? There's a sequel to the sequel?”

“Yeah. This is
The Matrix 3
!”

We couldn't stop laughing over this. It was like a joke being told for our benefit alone. As though the whole reason to keep making these hundred-million-dollar movies was to entertain us on these bus rides. It felt like flares shooting across the screen. It was impossible to watch, almost. Nonnarrative. Nonsensical. And distracting as hell. It had something to do with kung fu and space insects and the FBI, I thought.

“These are the post-9/11 movies we deserve,” I said, shaking my head.

“I don't even know what that means,” Lauren said with a laugh.

“Just tell me what's going on.”

“I don't know. I can't follow it.”

“Follow
what
, though? It looks like a screensaver.”

“What are you looking at?”

“I'm not even sure. It's like one of those magic eye tricks. I'm mostly trying to concentrate on Neo's face. But it like
doesn't move
when he talks.”

“Yeah. I've noticed that, too,” Lauren said. “It's awesome.”

We stared up at the screen with our eyes doing pinwheels as the drugs coursed through us. The tunnel swallowed up the skyline, leaving us with a ceiling above a ceiling, and a movie that couldn't be stopped. The light got brighter, and the colors bled apart. Our fingers intertwined in the dark as the serotonin dripped. A chemical approximation of love was commingling with the real thing now. The walls and the ceiling of the bus seemed to open up as we were shot out the other side of the Holland Tunnel and into the night.

“Why are they together?” Lauren asked as she stared into the screen.

“Who?”

“Trinity and Neo,” she said.

“Because he's
The One,
” I answered simply.

Lauren smiled at me with a liquid feeling of empathy. There was contentment with the world and with each other. Love was a feeling floating just outside our bodies. Lauren's face began to glow as I kissed her in the dark. We smiled into each other's mouths and laughed into each other's eyes as the whole bus disappeared. The gravity released us, and we were suddenly weightless. Somewhere high above New Jersey.

 

LIFE DURING WARTIME, PART I

We went out looking for the lights and the noise and the crowds. Something, anything, we didn't really know. It was New Year's Eve and we had no idea where to go still. We laughed at ourselves for this, for walking down to the Eiffel Tower, but it was all we had. We knew something would happen at midnight, at least.