John Shirley - Wetbones

She raised a casual hand. "Hey. You're under no obligation to apologize for having girlfriends and wives or whatever."

Prentice imagined Amy remarking, You might know the slut would take that attitude.

He took a long pull at the beer, and then said, "You misunderstand, Lissa. Amy's dead. She was my ex-wife. I identified her body not that long ago… I'm still a little freaked out by it."

He expected the ritual noises of sympathy from her. But she only nodded slowly, and squeezed his arm. And said, "Look – the only thing you can do is let go. Just let go of her. And feeling responsible – I see that in you, that you feel responsible. But we're not responsible for how other people end their lives. You know? You get out of yourself you'll feel better. I've got an idea…"

She disappeared into a side hall, past the kitchen area, and he wondered if he were supposed to follow her back to the bedroom. He imagined Amy saying, God what a bitch. 'Just let go of her' she says. That's easy for this slut to say…

"Stop it," he muttered to himself

Lissa came back with something cupped in one hand. She sat down and opened her hand; in it were two large gel capsules of white powder. Prentice stared at it, then shook his head hastily. "No. No thanks. I don't indulge. Too many of my friends have taken the big plunge behind drugs…"

"This isn't anything addictive. It's MDMA. You know – Ecstasy."

He knew. He remembered Amy had taken it…

She went on, "With a little demerol mixed in, just a little, to take the edge off because these are pretty big hits."

"Uhhh…"

"It's a great aphrodisiac."

She knows your weakness, all right.

"Sold," he said defiantly, taking a capsule. He downed it with beer, and she took hers as she walked to the CD player. She put on some George Benson. Then crooked a finger at him, opened her arms. He stood and walked to her, and he thought he could hear Amy saying, You've done it now, dumbshit. She's completely -

But then Lissa slipped into his arms. And with that contact, the imaginary voice cut off. The stifling memory of Amy, the presence that had dogged him – simply vanished. Instantly.

Prentice and Lissa danced. By the end of the third tune, there was an electricity flickering between his teeth and along his spine, his nerve ends sang along with the music, his dick was hard, and he was convinced Lissa was the finest girl in the world.

Watts, Los Angeles

"Yeah right," Garner said irritably. "I'm supposed to give you my – " He broke off not wanting to let her know he was down to his last fifty dollars. It was amazing his money had stretched this far, considering the night of smearing his lungs with crack residue.

"Your cousin steals my van and a big roll of my money and you want me to give you more money?"

"That was Hardwick, shit, I'm not Hardwick. Anyway what I trust you for either? You ran out on me."

"I went to look for that asshole. Shit, why should I stay? You weren't living up to your side of the bargain."

Meaning, she hadn't put out. The crack had affected him with an outrageous sexual desire, and it was a tacit part of the deal that she come across for her share of the stuff. She'd kept inching away from him, saying, "Just hold on now, it's worth waiting for, we going get real here in a minute, lemme see that motherfuckin' pipe first." Slipping into something closer to ghetto English now that she was fucked up and tired.

Tired. Both of them, now, on the street corner, staggering through the conversational wrangling like zombies, sagging from their bones. That's how Garner felt, anyway. Gretchen looked tired but a little fresher than him. She's used to this shit, he thought. Probably got herself tuned to sleep for two days once a week.

About seven a.m. Hardwick's room had become a shrinking box. Garner had gone out to see if he could catch sight of Hardwick, improbable as that was. Any loony move could seem like a good idea, loaded on this shit, he reflected. You got stoned and everyone could see it: could see your highbeams on, your eyes and mouth gaping, your exposed brain with a smoking hole in it. They could chuck anything they wanted into that hole in your skull. They saw you coming and they took you. It was a street skill they had: picking out the ones stoned enough to be stupidly tunnel-visioned but not yet stoned enough to be dangerously paranoid.

Whatever indignity crack left him open for – every indignity, ultimately – it did one thing for him in exchange: Crack totally and entirely occupied his mind. It pushed out even visions of Constance shoved alive into a crushing machine…

Take another hit

He'd found a place down the street that'd rent him a room for a few hours, and he'd holed up there, knocking back a bottle of wine and six Ibuprofen, which combination, he'd heard, would shoehorn him into sleep. It worked for a while; something close enough to sleep descended on him in the roachy hotel, until a pain in his gut woke him; it was a pain that eventually resolved into a rusty-knife forged out of depression and sheer self-hated, gouging and torquing into him till he had thrashed himself off the bed and back down onto the street.

Here on the street, in the pitiless sunlight, he immediately encountered Gretchen, dressed in the same clothes, eating one of those mushy popsicles pushed out of a plastic envelope. That would be breakfast for Gretchen.

Ten paces away a white hooker stood on the sidewalk, next to a parking meter. She was the kind who did her best to compensate for being butt-ugly by wearing layers of make up and having her hair immaculately coifed. She was a big stocky, scowling girl. He thought for a moment she might be a transvestite but, looking closer, he could see she was simply an apeish looking woman. Even from here he could see the rash of track marks on the backs of her hands. She was pretty hard core, using her veins up to that point. She was jonesing bad, too; she couldn't get comfortable, where she stood. She'd shift from one foot to another; then walk a few feet, around the parking meter; then walk back; toy with the meter's lever idly. Then she'd look nervously up and down the street. Shift from foot to foot. Her hands twitchily clutching and unclutching. Straightening the hem of her dress. Three times.

She was pretty sick from heroin withdrawal, poor thing. She wouldn't be out here this time of day, shifting twitchy like that, if she weren't.

Garner once had a jones on heroin himself, in earlier years, and he remembered the insistent discomfort that just got worse and worse and worse till you were like a plucked but still-living turkey turning on a spit over a slow fire.

Have to see if he could cop some of that, later.

''What you staring at that bitch for?" Gretchen asked.

"Maybe I get my money's worth, I go to her," Garner said, though he had no such intention.

"You think I should've put out for you last night? You think you'd've been able to get it up then? No way, that stoned. You think so, you don't know rock. But you had some sleep, you could do it now – we could get a rock and, before you lose your hard-on, we could get down together…"

Garner shrugged. He felt like shit. He felt like an old, old man; he felt wrung out and vastly depressed; his brain scorched and his self-disgust an inflamed, pustulant sore in his gut. And that was from smoking the stuff she was now proposing he buy for them once more. Already, the stuff was killing him.

But he could almost taste it in his mouth. He could picture melting the crack, the smoke; he could picture inhaling it. He could imagine the rush – which his addict mind told him would be good again, though deep down he knew it wouldn't.

There was really no choice about his decision at all; none that he could perceive.