Sweetbitter(89)

“Jake,” I said. “You know that key tattoo you have?”

“Are you serious?”

“Okay, okay. Just please find me tonight?”

“I promise.” He held my shoulders and inspected my face. Make it easy, I begged him with my eyes. Fix it. He said, “Take that shit off your lips. You look like a clown.”

—

“WHERE YOU FROM?” Carlos asked me while I smoked outside Park Bar, all my joints soldered together, my body swaying in one monolithic piece. I had a blundering, lost feeling, as if I had been digging tunnels, not knowing if I was going up or down, only that I had no other option but to keep going. My night had gone terribly astray.

I checked my phone again. No texts, just the time. Six hours of drinking, the last four of them at Park Bar. I was accidentally too high, waiting for him, waiting for him. I was sore from the bolts of cocaine flexing my muscles, I was smoking, my nose, throat, and ears burning, he’s not coming, he’s not coming. Too high for talking, my thoughts elbowing each other out of the way, crowding to the front, to a spot on my forehead I kept touching to try and still them. I understood that the boxers in the painting were a metaphor for consciousness, the way the mind divides, combats, and destroys itself.

Carlos was in front of me, gleaming, his shoes shined, his hair slicked with pomade, his diamond earrings, which he insisted were real. They were his grandmother’s in the Dominican Republic, they were on loan because he was her favorite. He and I had grown closer since I’d sold him my car for $675. It was the exact amount I owed the city in overdue parking tickets. I was pretty sure he’d flipped the car for more money, but I got discounts on my bags so it seemed a fair deal.

“Where are you from again?” he asked.

“Have you seen Jake?”

“Which one is Jake?”

“The bartender. Always looks homeless. Crazy eyes.”

“Yeah, yeah, your bartender over there. The one that used to hook up with Vanessa.”

“Ha,” I said. “Yeah, yep, that’s Jake. Funny you say that because I was just thinking about the women Jake has fucked and I was thinking we should form a band or something, maybe a book club. Maybe all go on a vacation even.”

He held his hands up. “I know nothing. I don’t even know when that was.”

“Of course, no one knows anything, let’s not get involved, let’s not have a real conversation with dates and facts and names and places because we might be held accountable and that, that, would be a catastrophe for some of us, we would have to remove our sunglasses, or lipstick, whatever, the apparatus, and we would have a proper trial, with judges and evidence and verdicts, and some of us would be clean and some of us would be dirty.”

“You’re pretty up there, huh?” He whistled and it sounded like cuckoo.

“I’m done, I’m fine. I can wait it out.”

“You want something to help?”

“I don’t do hard stuff. Like heroin, I don’t do heroin.”

“Yeah, I know, none of you rich kids do heroin.” He winked at me.

“Why would we when you keep us up to our eyeballs in shitty coke? Don’t fucking wink at me.”

“Girl, you are mouthy tonight!” He smiled and handed me another cigarette. I hadn’t realized I was gripping the leftover filter, pinching it. “I like it, you got your teeth bared and shit. I was talking about Xanax, ni?a, shit your mama gave you when you got nervous about the SATs. I never seen you so tense.”

“My mother never did that,” I said. My bones were sharp, my skin wasn’t thick enough to hold them, but I enjoyed Carlos and his kitschy moves. Thank god for Carlos. “I will take a Xanax, actually. How much?”

“First time’s always free, ni?a.”

“Oh Jesus, you’re really going to make me feel filthy about this aren’t you? What is that? It doesn’t look the same.”

“It’s a Xanibar. Just take a small piece. Should last you a few days depending on what kind of fiesta you’re on.”

“I’m not on a fucking fiesta, I’m in fucking hell.”

“Still works the same.”

“My friends will kill you if I die.”

I broke off a piece and chewed it up. I grabbed someone else’s fairly full beer from inside the open window and chased it. We looked back through the windows. Will, Ariel, Sasha, Parker, Heather, Terry, Vivian—all listening to Nicky hold court on one of his rare forays to Park Bar. I couldn’t face him like this, with my clenched, throbbing molars, my twitching hands. Everyone was there—except Jake and Simone, of course—telling and retelling the story of the inspection, speculating about what had really happened, what would happen. Normally I excelled in that gratifying, circular talk, hours slipping by while we filled space with drinking and reinforcing the same stories, never coming up with different endings.

“I think your friends forgot about you,” Carlos said.

“You think that. But I’m their pet. Their puppy. They need me to follow them around.” I ran my tongue over my lips and they were serrated. I tasted blood, I thought of him. “Actually we don’t even have to call them my friends. Let’s call them the people I spend time with. Or actually—this is funny—let’s call them my coworkers. It’s just dinner!”