Michelle Tea - Black Wave

Did You Know This? Michelle was outraged. This Thing With There Being No More Driver’s Licenses?

Ziggy nodded. Yeah, everyone knows that.

How Did I Not Know?

I don’t know, you don’t watch the news or anything, read papers?

Michelle didn’t. When she watched TV it was to view marathons of Unsolved Mysteries and when she read the paper it was for the horoscope and sex-advice columns.

Is There Really No Gas?

I mean, not a lot. Ziggy shrugged. They were sitting on the stoop on the side of the queer bar, smoking. They had smuggled their pint glasses of beer out with them and if the dyke who owned the bar, who was their friend, caught them she would tell them that they were compromising her liquor license and make them feel guilty, like they were bad friends. They kept the beer low, sneaking glugs behind their army bags. It was too much to expect people not to smoke and drink at the same time. It was almost cruel. Michelle imagined it was like the mythical blue-balls syndrome men experience. To have the compulsive glow of a wonderful buzz and not be able to eat half a pack of cigarettes while quenching your smoke-parched throat with beer? It was inhuman. No smoking in bars, no more driver’s licenses.

The World Is Ending, Michelle said grimly.

You know how to drive, who cares? Ziggy said.

I Can’t Rent A Truck, she said, Without A License. I Can’t Rent A Car Or A U-Haul Or Anything.

Ziggy sighed deeply, took an even deeper pull of her squishy cigarette, and sighed out all the smoke. Look, you want the van, just ask for it. Take it. You’d be doing me a favor.

What? Michelle yelped, surprised. Did You Think I Was Being, What, Passive Aggressive? I Don’t Want The Van! I’m Just Complaining About My Life!

Really, you’d be doing me a favor. There are so many tickets on it, next time I get one they’re going to tow it. And if I don’t start paying them off they’re going to boot it. And it won’t pass smog. It’s doomed. Just take it.

Are You Serious?

Yeah. You can drive a van?

Yes! Michelle cheered, having no idea whether or not she could drive a van. Oh My God! She flung herself at her friend in a fat hug, knocking over her drink, sending beer everywhere and the pint glass rolling into the gutter.

You guys! Their friend the bar owner came over, grabbing the glass from the street. That’s it! Really! You guys can’t drink here anymore!

Michelle stood abruptly, knocking over her own.

Really, their friend the bar owner said. She was not an unkind person. She was deeply disappointed in Michelle and Ziggy. She had given them many opportunities to change their behaviors and they refused to be different.

Sorry, they mumbled in sheepish, busted unison and shuffled off to the Albion, where somehow you were permitted to smoke inside despite the ordinance and where cocaine was freely for sale despite the illegality. It was where they belonged, anyway.

Ziggy dumped the van on Michelle the very next day.

But I’m Not Leaving For A Month, she protested.

You want it, take it now or else I’m torching it.

Ziggy had once made a little bit of money helping some skaters she drank with torch their car for insurance money. According to the poem she wrote about it, in which she compares the flaming hunk to the burning, ruined earth, it was an awe-inspiring experience.

It was awkward for Michelle, driving the van around the Mission. It was enormous and it shuddered. The plastic case that locked over the engine, the doghouse, grew so hot that Michelle’s foot burned. Her blind spot was too big. It was a relic, people gave her dirty looks when she drove it, which was not often. Mostly just from parking space to parking space as she waited for the day she would leave the city.

Michelle was withdrawing from her life in preparation for the strange pain of leaving. She slacked off at the bookstore, not even pretending to work, just openly reading magazines or talking to Kyle on the phone long distance. She was pulling away from Ziggy and Stitch, staying in her room when she heard Stitch making smoothies in the kitchen, not coming out until she heard her friend tromp down the stairs. Mostly she stayed in her room anyway, sleeping off whatever she had done the night before. (Increasingly, this was heroin with strangers.)

Michelle had a few rules about the heroin to keep her safe from the worst-case scenarios everyone knew so well. Never shoot it, duh. Take one day off in between, at least! Never do it alone. That would be extremely addict-y. And why would she want to? The best part of the drug was bonding with another person about what clandestine idiot badasses you were. To have your clandestine idiotic badassery witnessed by another. To have bad-kid bonding and to have sex all doped up on a dirty fluid that gave each coupling the illusion of love.

It was surprisingly easy to find people to do heroin with her. After Stitch told Ziggy, Ziggy told Linda, and her old crush showed up at her house. People always showed up at Michelle’s house. Despite the violence of their neighborhood the door was rarely locked. Michelle had once come home to a party in her living room, lines of cocaine on the table, and a Kenneth Anger video in the busted VCR. No one who actually lived in the house was there. The house had ceased being a home and had become a sort of bar, a public space where anyone could show up and get a drink.

No, Michelle said to Linda, who had come for heroin. You’ll Get Addicted.

No I won’t, Linda said, sounding unconvinced. And even if I did it wouldn’t be your fault.

Michelle didn’t believe this. It would totally be her fault if she gave Linda heroin and the girl got strung out. Was this the kind of influence she wanted to have on the people in her life? It was a question of karma, which was complicated, subtle, and real. And anyway, she just didn’t want to see Linda become a heroin addict. But she would.

Another person Michelle turned on to the drug was an androgynous person she’d spotted at the Albion. Michelle couldn’t tell if the person was a boy or a girl or someone born male who was dressed like a girl or a dyke who was somewhat transgender or what. All Michelle knew was that the person was tall, like almost six feet, with a sweet, hard face and strange, smudgy makeup and odd leather clothes from the thrift store. The lipstick on their face was too dark. It was an interesting look, sort of Lou Reed circa Rock ’n’ Roll Animal , only taller, and a girl. Right?

You Look Like Lou Reed, Michelle told the being, who took that as a compliment. Michelle was perfect, she was perfect inside, she had the perfect balance of beer and also vodka plus some of Fernando’s stash and she felt loose and daring, she could talk, she could talk to anyone, she could talk to this person who she was thinking of as a being, whose gender, come to think of it, she had no desire to know, why should she care, this person’s gender was Lou Reed. All she needed to know was: A. Does the being like girls of Michelle’s particular sloppy, down-on-her-luck femininity? and B. Did the being want to do heroin?

My name is Quinn , said the being, and Michelle almost smacked her hand to her forehead, it was just too much, it was too perfect. Quinn was like a noun that meant Androgyny, Lou Reed, Drugs. It was a synonym for New York City, 1983, red leather. Quinn had blocky black glasses on their face and a rattail snaking down the back of their neck.

I’m Michelle, said Michelle. I Don’t Even Want To Know What Your Gender Is, Okay? Don’t Tell Me. It’s Just Lou Reed, All Right?

Quinn nodded, excited. You mean you really don’t know?