Tao Lin - Taipei

• • •

In early May, more than two months later, Paul was outside Bobst Library waiting for Peanut — to buy drugs for the next three days, when he and Erin would be in Pittsburgh, for a reading, then in Calvin’s mansion for two nights — when he saw Juan walking past and asked what he was doing. Juan said he was buying a Clif Bar and going to the gym and asked what Paul was doing.

“I’m meeting someone to buy drugs.”

“What drugs are you buying?”

Peanut was approaching on the sidewalk.

“I’ll tell you after, he’s there, he probably won’t want to see you,” said Paul remembering once when he and Erin got in Peanut’s car and Peanut became very still a few seconds before quietly saying “yo,” and that he’d expected one person.

“I didn’t know you was a writer,” said Peanut.

“Yeah,” said Paul.

“What books you’ve written?”

“Like five books,” said Paul.

“A book’s a book,” said Peanut, and Paul got in his car. The middle-aged woman in the driver’s seat was wearing a baseball cap. Paul wasn’t sure if she’d worn it every other time or no other time. Paul asked if Peanut had mushrooms. “No,” said Peanut. “But I’m working on that for you.”

“What else do you have on you?”

“On me? I’ve got a bundle of dope.”

Paul, walking toward Think Coffee, where Erin was working on writing, told Juan he bought Ketamine, MDMA, Xanax. Juan said when he tried Ketamine he felt like he could feel the solar system flying through space and that he had been on his bed and had pointed the top of his head in the same direction. Paul said he also bought heroin and Juan said he knew people when he was in high school (in Kansas, where he had been arrested for selling marijuana, Paul uncertainly knew) who used heroin and one had died.

“What do you mean?” said Paul vaguely.

“I think he died,” said Juan, and they slowed to a kind of loitering, as a policeman, behind them, walked past. They stood in place, then continued walking.

“When did they die?”

“I’m not really sure,” said Juan.

“He died,” said Paul grinning. “How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did he die?”

“I don’t know. I just know he died.”

In the morning, while driving, Paul listened to music through earphones and photographed Erin — asleep with her head, against the passenger window, cushioned by the fluffy, patchwork, faded blanket loosely wrapping all but her face, like an oversize astronaut suit with no visor — around ten times with his iPhone. In Baltimore a few days ago she had been drinking tequila alone while cleaning her apartment — she was moving into her father’s small house, in which a middle-aged couple rented a room — and later while driving had been stopped by the police. Her mother had screamed at her in an out-of-control manner — for the first time in six years — and her father, somewhat unexpectedly, had gone into “nice mode.” Paul remembered a night, eating dinner with Michelle in her mother’s house, when he had said he felt depressed. Michelle had gone upstairs silently — the house had thick, soft carpeting everywhere, even on the stairs, so that people sometimes appeared or disappeared without warning — and cried on her bed. Paul was surprised he’d forgotten that night, and emailed himself with his iPhone—

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.