Shuck (20 page)

“It was whatever.”

Wink and Nod, now permanently retired to a life of daffodils and hydroponic lettuce, bumped affectionately into my shins.

Derek walked me over to the far wall of the loft.

“I'm showing these tomorrow.”

He gestured to a dozen canvases in front of us.

“You're having your first show?” I said. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

The paintings were truly beautiful, and I'm not just saying that to be supportive. The profusion of color left me breathless. It was overwhelming to see my stories told through his brushstrokes. I saw all of his moods washing into each other, out of each other, changing with the ebb and flow of his half of our relationship.

It made sense, in a circular kind of way, that these paintings were inspired by my stories and failures. Derek had rescued me from the spits and kicks of the street, then he gave me a brand new start, created a safe space for me to incubate in, and watched over me as I grew. I owed him everything. Being a good muse was the least I could do.

“What do you think?” he said.

“You're beautiful.”

I kissed him. His eyebrows floated in surprise.

“It's at the Forsythe and White Gallery,” he said. “The show starts at midnight, January 1, so don't be late. You should come a little early.”

“I will.”

“Are you ... are you okay with me selling these paintings? I mean ...”

I could have felt violated. I could have acted jealous. There were so many petty ways I could have quashed his painting career, but seeing him happy felt too damn good.

“It's fine. Just make sure you charge more than I do.”

Shit's way more wonky than I could've imagined:

Maine's Department of Motor Vehicles sent ownership titles for “horseless carriages” to buyers of year 2000 cars and trucks. The vehicle registry system was in a tizzy and misread 2000 as 1900. Less than half of the 800 car owners and 1,400 truck owners who found out they were driving buggies asked the DMV for new titles.

“Jaeven,” Derek said in bed that night.

“I've been taking less,” I said. “It feels weird, but I've been cutting down.”

That's what I told him. You can probably figure out the truth.

Sleep? Who can sleep on a night like this? I checked the mailbox one last time.

As if.

It's the middle of the night and I'm in the bathroom, holding my new Ziploc of meth. There's a toilet, a sink, and a shower drain, so I'd have no excuse not to dissolve this habit once and for all if I wanted to, unless to spare innocent sewer rats from a wicked tweak high.

There's something I'd like to bring up, here in the bathroom in the middle of the night. Derek is blaming our relationship troubles exclusively on meth, which is unfair and delusional. There were countless times when we iced each other, pushed buttons, and hid the truth, and that had nothing to do with drugs. Even
you
know that.

And anyways, you're supposed to quit for yourself, not for anyone else.

Millennial madness. The last night of the last thousand years.

The rumor was that you couldn't find a cop for miles because they were all in Times Square preparing for the end of civilization.

The rumor was that if you were in a space shuttle at the moment
the ball dropped and the clock struck twelve, all you'd see was our crazy island fading to red and blue—police cruiser light.

The rumor was that the cops were going to ruin this party something bad.

I went to Coyote Ugly to get into the Y2K spirit before going to Derek's show. Phil was buying drinks and I got a little wonky, dancing to Madness's “Our House.” I ended up sprawled on a table of Windex shooters, licking myself clean. Chase was there, schmoozing up whoever he could before Y2K shut his career down. Mine had already dried up, along with the batteries in my pager.

Peter Jennings was rapping on ABC's
New Year's Eve Special
on the TV above the bar:

“Humanity has reached a crossroads tonight, the end of a millennium and the start of a new one. John F. Kennedy once said, ‘the only thing to fear is fear itself.'”

Jennings should've been quoting
The Far Side
, not Kennedy. Just because.

“There's nothing else to do but wait. We have a Y2K specialist here in the studio to tell us what the likelihood is of losing the national power grid ...”

The camera fell off his face and onto the floor. The grip must've dropped it to get his drunk on, realizing that in a few hours, he wouldn't need that crappy job of framing Jennings' pretty head anymore.

According to the Y2K “specialist,” bank machines would be spitting out hundred-dollar bills at the end of the world.

Head starts were all the rage. People had been lining up at Chase Manhattan ATMs for a good week. There were runs on food, water,
batteries, radios, Cheetos, candles, duct tape, hypodermic needles, ammo, firearms, bullets, rifles, 38's and 45's, cross-bows, arrows, pepper-spray, vodka, beer, cash, gold, stocks and bonds, generators, oxygen tanks, chemical weapon antidotes, vaccines, three-ply Charmin toilet paper, underwear, DVDs, PlayStation video games, and gasoline.

There's a fine line between emergency preparedness and hysteria fuelled by clever marketing.

It was around this point that reality hazed out on me. I may have been there in the bar, I may have been outside skimming for priceless trash, and I may have been back home, far away from New York City. The feeling was scary but fun.

I seemed to be dancing with some guy wearing a Nike tracksuit, chunky gold jewelry, and a pair of neon fly glasses that covered half his face.

“You're cute,” he said to me. “What do you do?”

“I'm a pornstar.”

“Must be a fun job.”

“I get to shake my dick at people. It's not bad. What are you supposed to be, a deejay or something?”

“Not exactly.”

“It's okay. I like deejays.”

Then a drag mama in a bad wig bumped into me and stuck her mouth in my ear.

“Don't you know who that is?” she said.

“He's probably one of my fans. What difference does it make which one?”

I took fly guy's cocktail, downed it, and fondled the chain clunking around his neck. He smirked.

“I'm a writer, too,” I told him. “It's just that I'm naked sometimes.”

“Then I might have a job for you,” he said, laughing.

I was supposed to say something.

That's when I recognized him, or at least who I imagined was in front of me.

I was now supposed to say something to David fucking LaChurch. What were the chances? Another drink of indeterminate composition helped keep my mind from shattering too violently. This was the writing opportunity of a lifetime. Was he going to ask me to work on his film?

Peter Jennings had given up on being decorous, and instead, was playing crazy eights with his co-anchors, looking bedroom sexy without a tie. Even
he
had figured out that it was all coming to an end. The sound cut out (probably another technician gone to the ATM) and was replaced by The Talking Heads' “Road to Nowhere.”

“We're leaving, but you should come with,” David said. “The limo's taking us to Windows on the World.”

His posse piled into the limo. I was squinched in with his family of beautiful freaks and unlikely superstars. Bonnie Le Hoar, transsexual of the gods, was nearly suffocating me with silicone tits covered only by silver tassels. If you don't know what she looks like, picture Marilyn Monroe's face stung by a swarm of bees. Angry ones that have a thing for lips.

Plastic surgery nightmare Kitty Braunstein was purring beside her. She gave me this shell-shocked stare and hissed. If you don't know what
she
looks like, picture a mountain lion with chin and cheek implants swollen with collagen and beaten with a baseball bat.

This was one sweet dream.

Möet and Chandon all around, and the limo drove off.

Now, if you know these two, you know they're best friends, which means they love to fight. You could just feel it coming. Let's imagine that Bonnie was going on about the Time Tranny watch that Swatch had just released with her face on it, designed by David LaChurch. She was so fabulous, yada yada yada. Kitty's botox pout was getting more and more pronounced. She had to say something, or that lower lip was going to explode.

“My greyhound's water bowl is worth more than that stupid watch,” Kitty said in her Swiss accent of diamonds and gravel.

“Don't be jealous, honey,” Bonnie retorted. “We'll get you a water bowl.”

“Bitch.”

“Cunt sauce.”

“Ladies,” David said.