Home Is Burning (35 page)

I drove us around town trying to find this drug dealer. I shouldn't have been driving that drunk, but the chance of getting some action made it seem worth the risk. Becca had a vague recollection of where he lived, but we still drove around lost for about an hour. Finally, we got to the house and made the exchange. “Enjoy, kids,” this loser said, assuming we were going to take them together and then probably fuck each other.

“Oh, I'm not taking any,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” he said and winked.

As I pulled back up to Becca's house, I got to thinking. I was so close to rock bottom that I was nearly at the center of the earth. My girlfriend had just left me because I was too sad. My dad was about to die. I didn't have a job. I lived in fucking Utah. The idea of taking a pill to make me artificially happy for a couple of hours sounded like an easy decision. Sure, it would put some holes in my brain and might ultimately make me a little sadder in the long run, and I'd be breaking a promise to myself … but sometimes you've got to live in the moment, as so many of those inspirational quotes and movies about being young teach us.

I said, “You know what? I think I'll live in the moment. Be young. So, I will have that pill of ecstasy. Sounds fun,” I said. I felt like a nerdy accountant who decided that, after all these years, he was finally going to say fuck it all and cheat on his taxes.

“Great. All right. So a couple of ground rules. It's a very touchy-feely drug. We're going to want to touch each other.”

“I'm cool with that,” my horny, heartbroken ass said, not really caring that she had a boyfriend. I had never met this dude. We weren't friends. Fuck him.

“So we can do everything. We can kiss. You can grab at me and touch me. I can grab at you and touch you. We can even do a little oral if you're into that…”

“I'm into that,” I interjected, sounding way too eager.

“… But we can't have sex because I have a boyfriend.”

The logic seemed a little off. Isn't kissing and grabbing and sucking at each other's bodies cheating? It is in my book. Guess everyone has a different definition.

“Yeah, of course. No sex. Wouldn't want to ruin a relationship,” I said.

We shook on it. “It's a deal. Now let's do some drugs,” I said, instantly realizing that that's probably not something people who actually do drugs say.

We went inside, crushed up the pills, cut them into lines, and snorted them into our bodies. Until then, I didn't know that you could snort ecstasy. You probably can't. I had tried weed and cocaine a couple of times, but wasn't a big drug user, aside from all the alcohol I was always drinking. But I figured that Becca knew what she was doing, since she had apparently done it a bunch.

“So what do we do now? Just dance around and suck on pacifiers until the sadness comes back?” I asked, already feeling like a crazy, drugged-out loser.

“Lie down on the carpet over there and I'll give you a back massage,” said crazy, drugged-out Becca.

“That sounds perfect,” said crazy, drugged-out Dan.

I took off my shirt and lay on the carpet. The carpet felt nice and soft and relaxing—like home before all the dying-parents nonsense. I loved the feel of it, and sort of wanted to roll myself up in it and live there for a couple of years.

Becca sat on my ass. She squirted a little lotion on my back. It felt as if the lotion was going to help make my skin be the best it could be. She started rubbing it in. And Jesus Christ. I'm not one to be like, “Hey, try drugs,” but try this drug if you haven't. It's probably worth the brain damage. Because I don't know that I've ever felt better. It felt like a million blow jobs in the best part of heaven. It seemed, for a second, that everything was going to be okay. Sure, my dying dad was dying and my heart was smashed to shit, but I had ecstasy in my body and Becca's smooth hands working up and down my fat, naked back. Life couldn't really be that bad, right?

I reached back and started rubbing what I could reach of Becca. I think it was her leg. I rubbed that for a bit, then flipped over and we started making out as if we had to do it to survive. I got her naked. She got me naked. We were just two naked people on ecstasy, not saying a word, just exploring each other's bodies like it was our first time touching one.

Okay, put your dicks away. Let's not get too pornographic here.

Just kidding. Let's do.

I was so hard it felt like my cock was going to launch off my body and burst through the wall, then the neighbor's wall, then the neighbor's neighbor's wall, then it would continue on like that forever until it blew up a small mountain somewhere in China. I pressed it against her body. She pressed her body against it. It was as though we were trying to jam that thing into her by just pushing it against her, like we were two idiots who had never been taught how to properly fuck.

We rubbed and poked and licked around for a bit, then Becca suggested that we go to the bedroom. I thought that sounded like a great idea, so I said, “That sounds like a great idea. God, ecstasy is pretty awesome.”

“Remember, no sex. I have a boyfriend.”

“But my dirty tongue was just on your clit,” I wanted to say.

I had heard some rumor that if you had an orgasm while on ecstasy it would feel so great that you wouldn't be able to have another orgasm ever again. That sounded pretty terrifying. My dad was about to die. The thought of never having another orgasm after tonight sounded like no way to live. I better not cum, I thought. Fuck, I'm so happy and everything will probably work out! I also thought.

We crawled up on her bed and plopped down on there like a couple about to make a sex tape that no one would want to watch because we're just a couple of okay-looking losers and my dick isn't that big.

As we made out and did everything but sex, I started to get a little light-headed. All the booze combined with all the ecstasy seemed to be catching up with me. I'm not going to be one of those assholes who accidentally overdoses, am I? I thought. Can you even overdose on ecstasy? I also thought, trying to remember all those warning tapes from high school.

“I need to take a break. I'm not feeling great,” I told Becca as she rubbed one of her nipples along the tip of my cock.

She stopped. I had ruined the moment.

Becca grabbed me a glass of water and I chugged it like some sort of depraved prisoner. She refilled and I chugged again. I started to feel better. Becca curled up next to me and tried to do a little making out. I said that I just needed to lie here for a minute and focus on staying alive. She said, “Well, do you mind if I keep going?”

“Yeah, fine by me,” I said.

Now, I didn't know what she meant by “keep going” at first, but then I knew right away when she pulled out a large pink dildo from her bedside dresser drawer. She gave it a lick like I'd seen in all those pornos I'd studied over the years, clicked on the vibrator switch, and pushed it against her.

I didn't know what to do, so I just watched and jerked myself off a little. We kissed. I eventually took over the controls of the dildo and glided it in and out of her until she came. Apparently she wasn't worried about the orgasm-on-ecstasy rule.

There was nothing left to do but cuddle.

We drank more water and started to recover a little bit. Though we had connected physically, we also started to connect emotionally. I realized that she was an exceptionally special person. We had been around each other throughout our lives. We had gone to the same schools. We had had Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners together. But in all that time, we had never really gotten to know each other.

“It's weird growing up alongside someone but never really knowing them,” I said.

“Yeah, for sure. I guess we all need to be more aware of our surroundings instead of focusing on all the stupid little things,” she said.

We clung to each other, getting sad when the other had to get up and go to the bathroom or grab more water. We were connected for that moment. It's rare to feel that way. And it's a great feeling. Like natural ecstasy, which feels even better when you're actually on ecstasy.

We kissed and talked. I said that I felt guilty about all this because I could tell that she cared about her boyfriend. She said not to feel guilty because it probably wouldn't work out between them. I guess he was an asshole who didn't treat her right. Guess if he treated her right she wouldn't be blowing lines of E and having her not-boyfriend rub his tiny cock up and down her and push a pink dildo in and out of her.

We started talking about our dads. I told her how much her dad meant to mine, and how I thought my dad had never had a true “best” friend until he came along. They had run thousands of miles by each other's side, talking about everything they could think to talk about along the way. Fuck, I bet they even felt as connected as Becca and I at the peak of our ecstasy binge, though I doubt they had ever lain next to each other masturbating. Maybe we were actually closer.

Becca said how sad the whole mess with my dad was. She wondered why bad things happen to good people. I said that I didn't know, and that not much seems to make sense when we think about the big questions. Maybe that's why we focus on those little things. They seem to make a little more sense than the randomness in our endlessly large universe.

We lay there all night. I had put on my boxers at some point, because I don't like people seeing my gross penis if I can avoid it. And she had slipped on some sexy black and red nightie, probably meant for her boyfriend to enjoy on Valentine's Day or something. We didn't sleep. We just rubbed each other and talked, breathed, lived. It was like a spiritual experience. Though I've never had one of those, so maybe it wasn't. But it felt like more than the usual day-to-day grind.

The sun came up and all the people who weren't up all night doing drugs and pushing sex toys into their bodies started their busy days filled with distractions. Becca's boyfriend called, asked what she was up to.

“Not much. Just getting up. Going to work soon,” she said. Man, she was good at covering shit up. I had the urge to grab the phone and say, “I nearly fucked your girlfriend, but didn't, but will if you're not better to her.” Instead, I just stayed quiet and let Becca be okay with her lies.

The ecstasy and alcohol had worn off, and I was just back to my tired old sad self. I needed to get home and get some sleep, or I was going to probably die. I dressed and kissed Becca good-bye. “What a night,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. Exhausting, but fun,” she said.

“It sure was,” I said. “Really special. Thank you.”

“Don't be a stranger anymore,” she said.

“Our dads are best friends, and we did ecstasy together, so that's impossible.”

I drove home, checked on my dad. He was still alive. Regina was already there, already taking care of him. I went to bed in the dark basement and dozed off with the image of dancing dildos in my head, not knowing what I had done, but knowing that it had really hit the spot.

 

FATHER'S DAY

How are you supposed to spend Father's Day with your dad when there's a good chance it will be his last? I didn't know. With my dad in his current state, every day was Father's Day. He was the main focus. What was I supposed to do? Wipe his ass better? Suction the secretions out of his lungs with more precision? Turn on the TV for him with more spunk?

I wanted this Father's Day to run smoothly. I envisioned a perfect day. My dad would no longer have Lou Gehrig's disease. He would be healthy and plump like a king. His hair would be brown and combed to the side—a style that symbolized that everything was in order. The Jazz would have just finished beating the Jordan-led Chicago Bulls in the finals and Scottie Pippen's head would have exploded in the process. My mom would accompany us with a full head of hair flowing well past her shoulders. She would look young and full of the charisma that made all her children such interesting, funny, modest people.

We would be in a Suburban driving up a canyon, which, despite it being June, decided to decorate itself in fall colors and turn the temperature to seventy-two. The windows would be down and the wind would flap through our hair. My dad would sit in the driver's seat. “Heaven,” by Talking Heads, would blare. Our two golden retrievers would sit on my mom's lap and hang their heads out the passenger-side window, letting the acceleration of the car dictate the position of their tongues. Slobber would stream from their mouths and hit Greg—who would be sitting with his head out the window in the backseat—in the face. We would all laugh uproariously and Greg would wipe the slobber off, realizing that nothing matters but being together. Tiffany would laugh uncontrollably and tell us that she was laughing so hard that she might piss herself. Greg and I would egg on the laughter by singing,
“Don't go chasing waterfalls … please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to.”
The song would finally bring the piss out of Tiffany. Chelsea and Jessica would braid each other's hair in the back of the car and talk about how they would be friends forever, no matter what. My dad would have a fat smile on his fat face, knowing that he's done it, that he's created a functional family that will go on to create more functional families.

*   *   *

Cut back to reality. It's the morning of Father's Day. I'm walking through the Utah heat wearing a worn-out 1992 NBA All-Star T-shirt with caricatures of the ten starters that I took from my dad because what's he going to do? Stand up and hit me? My jeans have unintentional holes in the left knee and the back right pocket. I'm barely able to walk because I'm wearing white slippers I stole from the Four Seasons on a family vacation back when things were good. I haven't showered or combed my hair. The effects of gin and tonics stab my brain. I look like a criminal.