Michelle had a few rules about the heroin to keep her safe from the worst-case scenarios everyone knew so well. Never shoot it, duh. Take one day off in between, at least! Never do it alone. That would be extremely addict-y. And why would she want to? The best part of the drug was bonding with another person about what clandestine idiot badasses you were. To have your clandestine idiotic badassery witnessed by another. To have bad-kid bonding and to have sex all doped up on a dirty fluid that gave each coupling the illusion of love.
It was surprisingly easy to find people to do heroin with her. After Stitch told Ziggy, Ziggy told Linda, and her old crush showed up at her house. People always showed up at Michelle’s house. Despite the violence of their neighborhood the door was rarely locked. Michelle had once come home to a party in her living room, lines of cocaine on the table, and a Kenneth Anger video in the busted VCR. No one who actually lived in the house was there. The house had ceased being a home and had become a sort of bar, a public space where anyone could show up and get a drink.
No, Michelle said to Linda, who had come for heroin. You’ll Get Addicted.
No I won’t, Linda said, sounding unconvinced. And even if I did it wouldn’t be your fault.
Michelle didn’t believe this. It would totally be her fault if she gave Linda heroin and the girl got strung out. Was this the kind of influence she wanted to have on the people in her life? It was a question of karma, which was complicated, subtle, and real. And anyway, she just didn’t want to see Linda become a heroin addict. But she would.
Another person Michelle turned on to the drug was an androgynous person she’d spotted at the Albion. Michelle couldn’t tell if the person was a boy or a girl or someone born male who was dressed like a girl or a dyke who was somewhat transgender or what. All Michelle knew was that the person was tall, like almost six feet, with a sweet, hard face and strange, smudgy makeup and odd leather clothes from the thrift store. The lipstick on their face was too dark. It was an interesting look, sort of Lou Reed circa Rock ’n’ Roll Animal, only taller, and a girl. Right?
You Look Like Lou Reed, Michelle told the being, who took that as a compliment. Michelle was perfect, she was perfect inside, she had the perfect balance of beer and also vodka plus some of Fernando’s stash and she felt loose and daring, she could talk, she could talk to anyone, she could talk to this person who she was thinking of as a being, whose gender, come to think of it, she had no desire to know, why should she care, this person’s gender was Lou Reed. All she needed to know was: A. Does the being like girls of Michelle’s particular sloppy, down-on-her-luck femininity? and B. Did the being want to do heroin?
My name is Quinn, said the being, and Michelle almost smacked her hand to her forehead, it was just too much, it was too perfect. Quinn was like a noun that meant Androgyny, Lou Reed, Drugs. It was a synonym for New York City, 1983, red leather. Quinn had blocky black glasses on their face and a rattail snaking down the back of their neck.
I’m Michelle, said Michelle. I Don’t Even Want To Know What Your Gender Is, Okay? Don’t Tell Me. It’s Just Lou Reed, All Right?
Quinn nodded, excited. You mean you really don’t know?
I Don’t!
That’s pretty cool, Quinn said, and a slight shyness came about them like a vapor.
I’ll Pay For The Heroin But You Have To Buy It, Michelle instructed. I’ll Show You Where, I’ll Show You Who.
What do I say? How do I ask for it? The being seemed delighted by this turn of events. Michelle could tell they’d be a true adventurer.
I’ll Tell You Everything, Michelle said. She left with the being, not even bothering to say goodbye to Ziggy or Stitch.
At home at her desk Michelle chopped pens and dribbled water into a spoon and played PJ Harvey on her boom box. The being watched with muted interest, inhaled the liquid obediently, and followed Michelle to her futon. They had an intelligent face, something Virginia Woolf — ish about it, perhaps in the nose.
You know, they said, I met Lou Reed once and he told me I looked like a poet. So that’s so weird that you said that.
It’s Weird, Michelle said, And It’s Not. She was high enough to be in the space where all things are so deeply one, so nothing was really a surprise. And You Are A Poet, Right?
Of course, said Quinn.
Of Course. Michelle would have nodded if she could have moved her head, which was perfectly sunken into a perfect pillow. Of course Quinn was a poet, wrote by hand in a notebook forever tucked into a messenger bag, had the sort of literary vibrations Lou Reed would pick out of the air on a New York City street. Michelle felt proud of herself. Whatever Lou had seen in the being, she’d seen too. They shared a certain wavelength.
Why doesn’t everyone do it this way? Quinn asked, blissed out on their back on Michelle’s futon. Why even shoot it, this is so perfect, you couldn’t get it more perfect than this.
I Know, Michelle breathed. It seemed so desperate to shoot it, sort of American. Greedy. Vulgar. This way, you simply breathed. You inhaled water, like a mermaid. Michelle rolled over in such a way that if the being found her alluring it would be easy to take advantage of her.
I’m seeing things, Quinn said, their eyes gently shut. The poet’s face looked chiseled from a fine European marble. The eyes gently rolled the eyelids.
What, What? begged Michelle, who believed drugs were holy, connected you to the divine. This belief fell apart if you traced the drugs’ route to her bedroom — from poverty-stricken people to violent, bloody-handed drug lords, up the butts of people desperate enough to shove drugs up their butt and risk prison for the money, into the hands of more desperate or ruthless people here in her own country, finally making it into the streets of her city, cut with who knows what chemicals, sold by individuals trapped in the throes of their own addictions, individuals who had an arm, a leg, a chunk of their ass eaten away with abscesses and various flesh-eating bacteria. No matter! In the hands of lesser people drugs were a menace, but Michelle was a lover, a spiritual seeker. The drug’s moody wave washed over her as Quinn detailed their gentle hallucinations — violet, flashes of color.
It’s you, Quinn explained to Michelle, You are the violet. This delighted Michelle, who felt crucially seen for the first time in her life. Not seen by dates who’d known she was cute or liked her writing, or by girlfriends who saw her lack of fidelity, her shallowness, her mania. Seen by a stranger whose drug-addled mind beheld her mystical reality. She was violet! She always knew she was special. The drug dropped her down a well of deep love for this genderless, many-gendered being, this Quinn.
Who Are You? she asked. How Come I’ve Never Seen You Before?
I’m married, said the being. I don’t come out much. I stay inside watching The X-Files with my husband.
You’re Married To A Man? Michelle asked, and Quinn nodded before realizing she had revealed her gender.