Remembered being depressed at dinner w Michelle in empty house
While driving to Pittsburgh w Erin asleep
Typed on iPhone in Gmail w right hand
Listening to P. S. Eliot
Left hand on steering wheel
— then vaguely remembered another time when he had remembered the same dinner and had also felt surprised that he’d forgotten.
Paul and Erin were both upset — their default, while sober, at this point — when they arrived in Pittsburgh and each ingested 2mg Xanax. Paul, on a sidewalk outside Erin’s car, watched Calvin and Maggie, both grinning, as they approached and hid behind a dumpster, then walked to Paul, who had a depressed expression, which he didn’t attempt to hide or mollify.
“Hi,” said Calvin after a few seconds.
“We should go to Whole Foods,” said Paul.
“Is there a Whole Foods here?” said Maggie.
“Yes, I’ve been there like ten times,” said Paul peripherally aware of Erin exiting her car. “This is where my ex-girlfriend lived. Michelle.” He looked at Calvin and Maggie, unsure if they knew of Michelle. In Whole Foods he walked aimlessly at a quick, undeviating pace, with a sensation of haunting the location. He ladled clam chowder into the largest size soup container, chose a baguette, stood in line.
• • •
After the reading, which was on the second floor of a bar, Paul stood in a shadowy room, at a billiards table, eating his baguette and soup. He said “we should have an orgy tonight” to Calvin, who seemed hesitant but curious. Maggie entered the room and stood with them and Paul said “we should have an orgy tonight.”
“Yeah, seems good,” said Maggie in an uncharacteristic monotone.
“But we should film it,” said Paul.
“No, I don’t know,” said Maggie with unfocused eyes.
“Once we’re on MDMA we won’t care,” said Paul. “About anything.”
“Maggie’s seventeen,” said Calvin grinning weakly.
“That’s not underage. We can black out her face.”
“I’m not doing that,” said Maggie.
“It’s not worth doing at all if it’s not filmed,” said Paul.
“I don’t want to be filmed,” said Maggie.
“She doesn’t want to be filmed,” said Calvin.
Erin entered the room and began playing catch with Maggie with a billiards ball. Paul sat on a stack of ten to fifteen chairs and continued eating his baguette and soup, feeling distantly like he was avoiding something that would eventually end his life, except it wasn’t avoidable and when it did end his life he wouldn’t know, because he wouldn’t know anything.
“Should we switch cars, on the drive back?” said Calvin. “Like, Paul and Maggie in Maggie’s car, me and Erin in Erin’s car?”
“I don’t know,” said Paul.
“Someone else decide, I’m going to my car to get my sandwich,” said Maggie, and went downstairs. Erin was cleaning a stain on the billiards table, it seemed, at the edge of Paul’s peripheral vision. Paul went downstairs, where he sat alone in a booth and texted Maggie, asking what kind of sandwich she was eating.
At a red light, around half an hour later, Paul threw a clementine at Erin’s car, which was ahead. The light turned green and the clementine missed Erin’s moving car. Paul got back in Maggie’s car, said he wondered what Calvin and Erin were talking about. “I feel sleepy from the food and Percocet,” he said around ten minutes later.
“I like sleeping when I’m cold rather than when I’m warm.”
“Me too,” said Paul. “Are you going to be hungry tonight?”
“Yeah,” said Maggie after a pause.
“I kind of want to eat spaghetti,” said Paul, and laughed a little. “Or something.”
“I’ll make spaghetti,” said Maggie. “No, I don’t want to eat spaghetti,” said Paul. “Oh, I thought you wanted to eat spaghetti.”
“I don’t know,” said Paul quickly, and a few minutes later Maggie said her brother turned 4 recently and would say things like “my three-year-old self hates cucumbers” but wouldn’t talk about his two-year-old or one-year-old self, which Maggie thought was interesting and wanted to ask why, but kept forgetting.
At Calvin’s house everyone ingested more Percocet and Xanax and went in the basement, where Maggie and Calvin each ate a bowl of cereal and Paul, ignoring everyone, to a large degree, talked to Charles on Gmail chat, eventually eating three bowls of cereal. In bed, around 1:30 a.m., Erin asked what Paul and Charles had talked about.
“Nothing,” said Paul automatically. “We just talked about feeling depressed.”
“What else did you talk about?”
“I don’t remember,” said Paul.
“Try to,” said Erin.
“You can just read it tomorrow.”
“Can I read it now?”
“Just read it tomorrow,” said Paul.
“Why can’t I read it now?”
“Okay,” said Paul, and opened his MacBook.
He woke, on his back, to Calvin looking at him from the doorway. He asked if Calvin had used any drugs today. Calvin said he hadn’t, and they looked at each other.
“You haven’t?” said Paul. “Today?”
“Well, a Percocet, when I woke up.”
“When you woke up,” said Paul in a monotone.
“Oh yeah — your alarm is going off,” said Calvin to Erin. “That’s what I came here, to tell you.”
“Oh, damn,” said Erin, and left the room.
“Are. . you and Erin. . having problems?”
“No,” said Paul, and laughed a little.
Calvin appeared tired, slightly anxious.
“I mean. . no,” said Paul looking at the ceiling. “No.”
“I’m going to my room,” said Calvin after a few seconds.
When Erin returned, five minutes later, Paul asked where she’d been.
“In the bathroom,” she said. “Where were you?”
“What do you mean? I’ve been right here.”
“I was in the bathroom. Sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“What do you mean ‘where were you?’ I was here when you left.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I was trying to make a joke. It was. . ‘in bad taste,’ I guess.”
“Don’t apologize about that,” said Paul.
After a few seconds Erin rolled over. “I misinterpreted what you said,” she said facing away. “I don’t want to do that in the future.”
“Stop apologizing,” said Paul.
“I’m not apologizing,” said Erin.
“Okay. Just stop talking about it.”
Erin went in the bathroom attached to the guest room, and when the shower turned on Paul immediately heard a quiet, soporific crying like something from nature. He saw Calvin and Maggie jogging into the room and covered himself with a blanket and they jumped on the bed, then repeatedly in place.
In Calvin’s SUV, that night, on the way to Target to buy hair dye, because Calvin wanted to dye and cut his hair “really weird,” and Maggie had earnestly said “I think I want to color my face too,” Erin asked if anyone wanted Xanax; everyone did, in different amounts, which she apportioned. To her right, gently isolated in a one-person seat, holding half a Xanax bar, which was guaranteed to have an effect on him within forty minutes, Paul felt a quaintly affecting comfort and a self-conscious, fleeting urge to ask someone a question or say something nice to someone.