“I don’t know what to do,” said Calvin incredulously. “Should I call Maggie?”
“No,” said Paul after a few seconds.
“Maggie already left, I think,” said Calvin.
“Let’s just go,” said Paul.
“But. . if you want to be in Maggie’s car.”
“I want to be here now.”
“If you. . are you sure?”
“I want to be in this car. Maggie’s car is small.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Paul leaning against the front passenger seat, aware of the distant municipality of the SUV’s lighted dashboard. Things seemed darker to him than expected, a few minutes later, on the highway. The unlighted space, all around him — and, outside the SUV, the trees, sky — seemed more visible, by being blacker, or a higher resolution of blackness, almost silvery with detail, than normal, instead of what he’d sometimes and increasingly sensed, the past two months, mostly in his room, since one night when, supine on his yoga mat, his eyes, while open, had felt closed, or farther back in his head, and his room had seemed “literally darker,” he’d thought, as if the bulb attached to his non-working ceiling fan had been secretly replaced, or like he was deeper inside the cave of himself than he’d been before and didn’t know why. “My face. . it feels like it’s moving backward,” Calvin was saying in a surprised, confused voice. “It keeps floating into me. . itself. . repeatedly.”
“Jesus,” said Paul. “Why?”
“Percocet. And a little Codeine.”
“I didn’t know you’ve been on those.”
“I told you. . at the house.”
“Jesus,” said Paul. “I remember now.”
They began talking about a Lil Wayne documentary that focused on Lil Wayne’s “drug problem,” which Lil Wayne denied. Paul felt it was bleak and depressing that the film-makers superimposed their views onto Lil Wayne. Calvin seemed to agree with the documentary. Paul tried, with Erin, who agreed with him, he felt, to convey (mostly by slowly saying variations of “no” and “I can’t think right now”) that there was no such thing as a “drug problem” or even “drugs”— unless anything anyone ever did or thought or felt was considered both a drug and a problem — in that each thought or feeling or object, seen or touched or absorbed or remembered, at whatever coordinate of space-time, would have a unique effect, which each person, at each moment of their life, could view as a problem, or not.
In Calvin’s room, supine on carpet, Paul felt circumstantially immobile, like a turtle on its back, and that Calvin and Maggie were pressuring him to decide on an activity. Then he was sitting on the edge of a bed, staring at an area of carpet near his black-socked feet, vaguely aware of his inability to move or think and of people waiting for him to answer a question. He grinned after hearing himself, in his memory of three or four seconds ago, say “I don’t know what to do” very slowly, as if each word had been carefully selected, with attention to accuracy and concision. Erin silently exited Calvin’s bathroom and left the room in a manner, Paul vaguely felt, like she was smuggling herself elsewhere. Paul heard Maggie say “all right, we’re going to the hot tub” and remain in the top left corner of his vision a few seconds before vanishing. Paul walked lethargically into the bathroom, removed his clothes, stood naked in Calvin’s room struggling to insert his left leg into his boxer shorts’ left hole, which kept collapsing shut and distortedly reappearing as part of a slowly rippling infinity symbol, tottering on one leg sometimes and quietly falling once — mostly deliberately, anticipating a brief rolling sensation and a respite on the thick carpet — before succeeding and, after staring catatonically at nothing for a vague amount of time, aware of something simian about his posture and jaw, carefully going downstairs.
In the backyard, a few minutes later, Paul and Erin, holding each other’s arms in an indiscernibly feigned kind of fear, hesitated before advancing, barefoot on the spiky and yielding grass, into the area of darkness Calvin and Maggie, after testing the swimming pool’s water as too cold, had gone. Paul stopped moving when he saw the disturbing statue of a Greek god wearing a gorilla mask, which Calvin, that afternoon, had said someone put on last Halloween, then abandoned Erin by running ahead, on his toes a little. As he slightly leaped, followed closely by Erin, into the hot tub, he imagined his head shooting like a yanked thing toward concrete. He surfaced after exaggeratedly, unnecessarily allowing the water to absorb his impact, then stared in disbelief at a balled-up Maggie rolling forward and back like a notorious, performing snail. “Oh my god,” he said, aware his and Erin’s feet were deliberately touching. “Look at Maggie. What is she doing?”
“I was doing water sit-ups,” said Maggie.
“I can’t believe. . that,” said Paul. “Have you ever done that?”
“No,” said Maggie. “What if we were all obese right now?”
“The water would be displaced,” said Paul without thinking, and people laughed. Paul felt surprised he was able to cause authentic laughter at his handicapped level of functioning. The above-water parts of him were waiting patiently, he thought while staring at the soil beneath the bushes a few feet beyond the hot tub and remembering disliking the presence of soil while in swimming pools as a child in Florida, for the laughter to end and something else to begin. He became aware of himself saying “what would we be talking about right now if we were obese?” and, comprehending himself as the extemporaneous source of what seemed to be an immensely interesting question, felt a sensation of awe. He remained motionless, with eyeballs inattentively fixated on the obscure pattern of the bushes behind and to the left of Calvin and an anticipatory nervousness, as he imagined staring at each person, in turn, to confirm — or convey, depending on the person — that, despite his impaired functioning, he had, unforeseen to anyone, including himself, asked a question of nearly unbelievable insight.
“We would talk about if we were skinny,” said Maggie.
“No, because it would be too depressing,” said Paul, surprised again by the power of his mind but less than before, a little suspicious now of his own enthusiasm.
“You’re right,” said Calvin, and seemed to look at each person in disbelief — which confused Paul because he had imagined doing that himself.
“We would talk about food,” said Maggie.
“I feel like people are staring at me,” said Paul.
“Me too, a little,” said Erin.
“I wish I could see how Erin and I are like on mushrooms now,” said Paul.
“Me too,” said Erin.
“I was going to bring my camera but didn’t want to get it wet,” said Maggie.
“People are staring at me weird, except Erin,” said Paul. “I wish someone was recording us.”
“Just ask me later and I’ll tell you,” said Maggie.
“Later,” said Paul, confused. “When?”
Calvin said it was time for Maggie to go home and they left seemingly instantly. Paul was aware of having waved at them and of having meekly said “bye, Maggie,” to himself, he realized, as he continued staring at where they had gone out of view — to postpone interacting with Erin, who’d been abnormally quiet most of the night, he uncertainly realized with increasing anxiety. Maggie should have stayed longer, because he and Erin were only visiting a few days, he thought earnestly for a few seconds before realizing, with only a little sheepishness, that Maggie had her own desires, separate from those of anyone else, which she expressed through her actions. Paul knew that, because he kept thinking about Maggie, his demeanor and behavior, when he finally acknowledged Erin, would appear, if not obviously feigned, to convey “I want to be elsewhere” or “I want to be doing things in service of being elsewhere,” which Erin would easily discern, if she hadn’t already. Paul moved his mouth to where water was bubbling and, partly facing away from Erin, said something about it feeling “nice.” Erin moved her mouth to a different area of similar bubbling. After ten to fifteen minutes Calvin appeared and said “you guys can come inside now, Maggie went home,” seeming to have assumed they had been waiting for his approval to go inside. Paul had begun feeling comfortable and was confused why they couldn’t — and weren’t asked if they wanted to — stay in the hot tub.