Michelle Tea - Black Wave

From a drugstore once she purchased a tube of Preparation H. She had read in a fashion magazine that it was the secret weapon of models who stayed up all night partying in Ibiza, snorting premium cocaine and then arriving at 5:00 a.m. to be photographed on a beach in a sequined bikini, their lives expertly managed. Not having nervous breakdowns. Michelle smeared the Preparation H over her ballooned eyelids. The stink of fish was immediate and intense. So was the slick of the stuff, the grease clotting her fingers and her eyelids. Her tears, still so close to the surface, came again. There was fish oil in Preparation H! Indeed, it seemed to be little more than fish oil. Michelle scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed the first few layers of skin from her face. The oil clung to her like lard to a frying pan. Were there different sorts of Preparation H, some with fish oil for hemorrhoids, some without for the beautiful faces of hungover supermodels? The stink of dead ocean stayed trapped in her nose all day. She raccoon-ringed her eyes in smudgy eye shadow and hoped for the best.

Andy didn’t think Michelle seemed happy with her life choices. She was puffy and somnambulistic. Andy hadn’t fed her in three days. Bony to start, a few meals skipped had swift and visible consequences for Michelle. She seemed to have gone around a certain bend.

Are you on drugs? Andy demanded of Michelle as they stood above the splat of fresh vomit.

What Are You Talking About? Michelle asked.

Do you think it’s all the cocaine, maybe you are doing too much and that’s why things are crazy again?

Michelle summoned her speech, the one about the Beat poets and their awful, reckless behavior — their outlaw heroics, their hedonistic freedom: Neal Cassady, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg. Michelle would thus begin her speech, then shift focus to Hunter S. Thompson, on pills and LSD, firing guns on a Western ranch, totally boozed up. If the situation was bad enough to invoke Bukowski, well, then she would. She totally would. Did anyone think this canon of druggie men were out of control? Only in the most admirable of ways! Out of control like a shaman or a space explorer, like a magician sawing himself in half. Out of control like a poet.

But then Andy began to cry and Michelle couldn’t launch into her manifesto claiming drug and alcohol abuse as a feminist literary statement. Her heart cracked at the sight of Andy’s crumpled face. She knew she had betrayed her. She had done it multiple times, and she knew now she could never return to Andy for she would only do it again. She did not have what it took to be faithful to her.

You Should Go, Andy, Michelle said, leaning on the parking meter.

Go? I’m not going to leave you like this. I’ll bring you upstairs.

No, You Can’t. That Person Is There.

That kid?

Yeah.

Well, wake her up and tell her to go. Or I will.

Michelle’s roommate Ekundayo, who hated her, bounded down the stairs, giving Michelle a curt glance, more repulsion than concern, and tossed her a hostile head nod. To Andy she aimed a fat smile. Everyone loved Andy. Andy liked to give people rides home in her 1970-whatever Chevette. She was techie and would help everyone understand their computers. She was a great cook and sent people care packages with homemade soup when they were sick. Everybody felt bad that Andy’s benevolent, caretaking energies had been so exploited by Michelle. No matter how much she appreciated it, Michelle would never be able to return the favor. It just was not in her.

I Can’t Kick Her Out, Michelle protested. This Is Getting Too Dramatic. Her stomach soared up one way and down the other, like a pirate-ship ride at a traveling carnival. She clutched the meter.

Getting too dramatic? Andy demanded . I am standing above your fucking puke on the street, Michelle. Michelle couldn’t handle Andy’s voice. It was outraged, pissed off, furious. That part was okay. But tunneling through it was pain, a real hurt, a heartache, a Why? Why why why why why? Michelle couldn’t handle that part. She imagined Andy’s voice as a candy bar with a crunchy outside and an inside so gooey and tender it made you weep.

I’m Not Waking Her Up, Michelle said. You Have To Go.

If I go that’s it. That’s it, we are done. You kick her out or I’m gone.

Michelle stared down at the puddle of puke at her feet. A pale orange, like a melted Creamsicle. Soggy clots like cottage cheese. She could not drag another person into this thing, her life. Okay, she said to Andy, Okay, Go. You Should Go. She wouldn’t look at her, kept her eyes trained on the vomit. That’s what you make, she thought, resisting the urge to kick at it with her bare feet. That’s what you get. She could hear Andy’s breathing change but would not look at her.

Fuck you, Andy breathed, hyperventilating through tears. Her hard outside and the molten inside crushed together, a broken bridge. Fuck you, you are so fucking sick, a teenager, that is so gross, that is so fucking gross, god, I can’t believe you, fuck you, fuck this, fuck you.

Michelle stayed glued to the parking meter in her turquoise Garfield nightshirt, hearing Andy go into her car, hearing her crying turn to weeping, muffled behind the glass, hearing the engine rev and purr, Andy’s pride, this car, the product of so much work and money, hearing it tear away from the curb like the shriek of a nerve in pain inside the body, hearing the engine gun, standing there in the exhaust of it, like a drink thrown in her face.

Don’t you ever fucking write about me! Andy hollered, and was gone.

Michelle placed her two feet squarely in the slop of her guts, feeling the liquid push warmly between her toes. She’d made her mess, she’d lie in it. She walked up the stone stairs and into her home, up another flight of wooden stairs, the years of grime sticking to the vomit on her feet. A flyer for some gay event stuck to her heels and she let it. She left a faint trail of bile down the hall and pushed open the door to her room. The teen stirred, cracked an almond-shaped eye. There was blood on the sheets from where she had pulled into Michelle like a pomegranate. The memory sent a tremor through her, but Michelle knew it was only an aftershock. You Have To Go, Michelle said, Now.

All right, the teen said. It was perhaps not uncommon for her to be tossed from a strange lover’s house without fanfare. She hadn’t gotten undressed for their lovemaking — that was Michelle’s job. She stuffed her feet into her high-tops and stood awkwardly in Michelle’s cluttered room, a mess of dirty clothes and papers, books and shoes and stupid knickknacks, pictures and photos rippling from the wall in the breeze from the window. One bookshelf was an altar because Michelle was spiritual. Candles and rocks, mostly. She liked to light the candles and hold the rocks in her hands and pray for something to help her out.

All Right, Michelle repeated, looking at her toes. She glanced up quickly at the teen. Thanks For All That. She allowed herself a smile. She didn’t want to be a bitch.

Who was that downstairs? Lucretia asked.

My Girlfriend, Michelle lied, but it did the trick.

Oh, okay. I better get out of here, huh?

Yeah, Sorry. Michelle allowed herself a larger, more regretful smile and showed it to the youth: not my fault.

Well, that was fun, said the teen. Really, Lucretia seemed fine, totally fine after a night snorting heroin, a drug famous for being so bad and awful. She hadn’t puked and she seemed really coordinated. Look at how much a person deteriorates in ten years, Michelle thought. The night had left her barfy and haggard, her life now destroyed. Lucretia gave her a swift peck on the cheek and bounded out the door. She was halfway to the stairs when she turned. Hey, where am I?