Halle Butler: Jillian

“Then ask for some.”

Megan winced. “You do it?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Hey,” she said to the group in general. “Can we trade you guys beer or smokes for a few hits of that?”

“Whatever, just have some,” said one of the guys.

“Cool,” said Amanda.

“Thanks,” said Megan.

The pipe had a bug-eyed glass crocodile on it. Megan drunkenly identified with it for its mute and endless proximity to all this social fun. She felt like a warty little toad or a troll or a guy who was so visibly lonely that everyone thought he might start beating off or crying just for the feeling of connection he would get from all that wild, concentrated attention. She raised the pipe, tried to look the croc in the eyes, took a massive undergrad hit, and then re-inhaled it though her nose. A “French” inhale. She raised her eyebrows in gratitude in the general direction of the pot smokers.

Amanda took a small sip off the pipe and passed it back and, in a surprisingly genuine tone, said, “Thanks.”

“I feel like a fucking freak,” said Megan.

“Well, you’re not a freak,” said Amanda.

“Oh, god, yes I am.”

“No you’re not.”

As the weed worked its way through Megan’s system, she felt herself become more and more pantheistic. She became a living symbol for her emotions and, in response to the honor, her emotions began to swell. As they swelled, she felt simultaneously less stable and more happy, but happy in an awful way, since her happiness had something vaguely to do with death and complacency. No, not complacency. Acceptance, maybe? No, complacency.

She looked at all the people on the porch and only sort of heard Amanda say, “You’re just a normal person who hates her job, but you’ve got a lot of nice things going for you. You’re in a stable relationship for one thing, which is something I wouldn’t mind having. You know, I have pains in my life, too, but I manage. You manage, too. You’re not a freak, and you don’t turn people off except when you pout all the time, which you’re doing now, but, geez, you’re fine, all right? Stop being so overly self-involved. You have support from family and friends and everything is generally ok. Ok?” Which was a funny backdrop to the exalted feeling she was having of being one with the moment, being one with the porch in its misery, reveling in and revering this capsule of synthesized misery.

“I’m not trying to kiss your ass or anything, I’m trying to get you to snap out of it, because it’s not a great way to relate to people. You’re not a freak. Are you even listening to anything I’m saying? You’re not even looking at me and I’m trying to help you.”

I guess she gets pissed when she’s high, thought Megan.

“The thing I have going for me,” said Megan, “is that I don’t even have to be here if I don’t want to be.” When she said “here” she pointed her finger down at the porch and held her hand in that position for a little too long, and she and Amanda made eye contact, which Amanda thought was aggravating, but which Megan thought was intense and transcendent.

“You’re not even listening at all,” said Amanda.

“Oh, I hear you, but I don’t agree with you that having a boyfriend and having a mom and dad are, like, some kind of prime jewels in life. Because I know what my prime jewels are,” why was she saying that, prime jewels? “And they are the moments in which all of those things—those baser things—melt into the background and I can feel like I know something that other people don’t know and I can go other places if I need to and explore other feelings of meaning and stuff.”

Megan kept talking. The way she thought she sounded was not the way she really sounded. Amanda stopped listening, because she could feel herself becoming offended in an impassioned way. The way Amanda saw it—kind of her one, strong philosophy in life—was that it was impossible to “explore the complications of human feeling,” as Megan was calling it, while you felt miserable. Those explorations were best left for times of reflection, when your judgment was not confused by the horrible lens of self-hatred. She knew this was not an original idea, but it didn’t need to be. The way she understood Megan was that Megan’s preoccupation was with these “baser” things—having stability, having a decent job, having health, having a group of people to support her. Amanda based this understanding on Megan’s monomaniacal preoccupation with “that asshole and her stupid fucking job,” “that asshole and his successful project,” “those assholes and their stupid clique,” “those fuckers and their homemade Tupperwares of kale.” If you see something you’re envious of—really genuinely envious of, not just that you admire—the only escape hatch from that feeling is to insult the object, to tart it up like an idiot and then parade it around as something ridiculous, but that was a hatch that just led to a deeper and more confusing layer of self-doubt and self-dislike. It was obvious and sad to Amanda, but not sad enough. Megan wasn’t paying her to listen to this. Amanda’s week had been hard, too, and she was just trying to relax with some friends, but since she was the only one who seemed to have any tolerance for Megan, Megan clung to her. And she knew that Megan thought insulting things about her, too, and that was the thing that fired her up.

“People think happiness is some kind of sign of complexity, but it’s not,” said Megan.

“Oh, do they?” said Amanda. “I always thought people mistook brooding as a sign of complexity.”

Megan gave her an I Dare You look.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” said Amanda.

Megan continued the look.

“Let me call your bluff and say this,” said Amanda. “There’s no one on this planet, not even my mother, who I like enough to stand around and soak up this selfish, whiny-baby bullshit from. A week? Ok, everyone has their weeks, but honestly I don’t even remember why we’re friends. This is miserable. I don’t know what I’m doing out here with you. There are people here who I don’t even know who I’d rather talk to than you right now. You seem to think you’re doing me a favor by hanging out with me. I find that laughable. I’d rather hang out with that guy,” she pointed to a white-faced slump-eyed guy in a beanie, “who looks like he might barf in my face, than hang out with you for another second. I don’t know how much more clear I can be. I was just trying to give you a pep talk and you started shitting all over me. You are unbelievably draining, you self-serving, shallow, talentless waste of time.”

Megan’s I Dare You face had become stuck, but not without absorbing some of the psychotic torture that was going on behind it. It was a damn silly position to be in, trying to hold the bluff when it had already been called.

“I’m going to go inside now,” said Amanda.

The potheads weren’t eavesdropping as covertly as they might have liked. Amanda left.

“I think I’m going to go into the yard,” said Megan, to no one. “Good evening,” she said to the pale-faced guy in the beanie.

Her legs felt crazy and her hands were clammy.

“This is awful,” she said. She said it in a kind of hollow, matter-of-fact way.

It was difficult to walk down the stairs. Her purse of beer was tipping her to the side.

“This is terrible.”

She crawled under the porch and sat by the air conditioner and looked out into the yard. She could hear the people on the porch talking, not about her, just talking about whatever they wanted to. They weren’t really that interested.

Spring nights were so fucking nice.

That elevated feeling she’d had earlier while she was shit talking all of human behavior came back, and as it came back she started laughing a horrified laugh, because that swelling feeling was exactly the same feeling she always had before she started sobbing. She hadn’t recognized it ten minutes ago, but that was why the feeling had been so familiar. Not because her consciousness was tapping into the ineffable, but because she was about to cry and had cried before. She sat there with her eyes wide and her mouth open, laughing noiselessly. Then she started crying, which only made her laugh more.