Michelle Tea - Black Wave

Okay, a police report. Then what? Rent a moving truck. But Michelle couldn’t get a moving truck, she didn’t have a driver’s license. Or, she realized, a credit card. Did you need a credit card? Michelle had a debit card from the credit union. It only worked at the ATM machine at the co-op grocery store. Maybe Michelle wasn’t equipped for life outside her immediate vicinity. Too Bad, she told herself darkly. Her room was already rented out, she’d been swiftly replaced. Ekundayo couldn’t wait for her to leave, and Stitch — Stitch was hurt by Michelle’s move. She felt abandoned. She wasn’t going to beg Michelle to stay in their rotting home, notching off the days with knife marks in their arms. Fine, go, see if I care. It had been Stitch who had sourced Michelle’s replacement. A girl from Olympia, Washington. Olympia still had living trees, why would this girl come to busted San Francisco? Michelle thought scornfully. But she was leaving for Los Angeles. You can’t let the apocalypse rule your life.

Michelle would find someone to drive her to Los Angeles. Maybe her new friend, Quinn. Could Quinn get permission from her husband to go on a road trip with her lesbian, heroin-snorting new friend? That’s not what I am, Michelle scolded herself.

Once in Los Angeles Michelle would have no car. She thought about this and gave an internal shrug. So what, she’d be another carless loser in Los Angeles. Michelle was used to being various sorts of losers. You weren’t a loser if you didn’t drive in San Francisco, though. You were sort of a hero. Even more so if you biked, which Michelle didn’t. She tried to once, when an ex had given her an old mountain bike, and within five days she had almost been run over by a fire truck and had wiped out hugely on the corner of Sixteenth and Mission, directly in front of the bus shelter, trying to drink coffee and ride at the same time. She’d been wearing a plaid skirt that had once belonged to a Catholic schoolgirl when she bailed. Her knees were raw and everyone at the bus stop just stared. Michelle had laughed grandly, to make them feel more comfortable with her accident, but they all just continued to stare.

Michelle would not be riding any bikes in Los Angeles but she’d figure it out. She loved taking buses and trains, it gave her time to read books. Everything was going to be just fine, Michelle assured herself, as her sushi was delivered.

Some mornings later the doorbell rang at Michelle’s house. The noise of it gave her bad flashbacks of the days of Andy loitering outside her house, leaning against her amazing car, her tattooed arms folded protectively around her heart, looking at Michelle with kill eyes. No one ever rang the bell at Michelle’s house. Cautiously, Michelle edged to the window. She was hungover but not too bad — her body was becoming accustomed to the heroin, her mornings weren’t ruined with the residual poison, she had learned to metabolize it. She was proud of her mysterious body and its strange wisdoms, its hardiness and strength. Was there nothing she couldn’t endure?

She slid up to the windows, concerned about her nudity. The gauzy curtains hid nothing from the street, they were but decorative pink ponytails framing the face of her bedroom. She edged against the wall and craned her head toward the glass. A cop car was double parked outside, taking up space with an air of entitlement, its angle on the street jaunty, careless.

It’s The Police! Michelle gasped, terrified. What had she done? Michelle looked at her desk. Small and rickety and scarred with chipped black paint, it held the remains of last night’s indulgence. The spoon and the lighter and the gutted ballpoint pen. The yellowy bag of cocaine that came with one and ones, the worst cocaine you had ever seen. For a while she’d been snorting it, hoping it would take the nauseous edge off her high, but now that her tolerance had improved she didn’t really need it. It sat there, packaged inside a twisted shred of Saran Wrap. Evidence.

Hey, Lou Reed, Michelle poked at Quinn’s broad shoulder. Quinn had shoulders like a football player. Michelle’s poke did little to disturb her. Quinn seemed like a giant in Michelle’s bed, a whale beached upon her futon. A lovely beluga, long and white. Tall people were sort of alien to Michelle, whose growth was likely stunted by her time spent in Wendy’s smoky womb. How had this strange creature landed in Michelle’s bed? Surely it was the ocean. Michelle’s sinuses felt waterlogged from kissing her. She was proud of how little she cared if they were girlfriends or not. The part of her heart that usually roiled with longing had been sated by the heroin. Michelle felt more functional for it.

Quinn’s eyes cracked open as Michelle nudged her in the gut with the heel of her foot. Hey, Quinn, Would You Please Answer The Door? Michelle asked, running her hands anxiously over her nakedness. It’s The Cops. I’ll Hide The Drugs.

Quinn watched Michelle open a desk drawer stuffed with flyers for long-ago poetry readings and black-and-white strips of photo-booth pictures. With a sweep of her hand she knocked the drugs, the spoon, and the chopped-up pens, the lighter and the wrappers, into the drawer and banged it shut it with the side of her hip, mumbling a rising chant of alarm. The doorbell honked again.

Get It! Michelle cried, anxious. Please! Quinn sat up in bed, her rarely seen giant breasts exposed to the day. She felt around Michelle’s bedding for her T-shirt. It was a magic T-shirt — when she put it on, her breasts disappeared. Quinn wondered how many times this week she had purchased their drugs in full sight of the cameras the city had mounted on street lights to dissuade drug dealing. They’d been hard for Quinn to take seriously — was there really someone somewhere eating donuts in front of a screen, watching it all go down? No way. But what if she was wrong?

Um, I’d rather you answer it, Quinn said, thinking, Who is this bitch? First Michelle made her buy the heroin, so as to not risk this “reputation” she thought she had. Quinn had a hard time saying no — like most females, she was codependent — so she approached the dealers and made the purchase, and surely it helped that she looked like a guy, even a weird one. If Michelle made the purchase in her teeter-totter heels and the slip she was failing to pass off as a dress, it was possible that the dealer might harass her and Michelle would not roll with it, she would get into a scream-fight with the dealer, she would whap him with her heavy plastic purse, who knows what would happen. So, fine, Quinn bought the drugs, but fuck if she was going to answer the door to Michelle’s house, this person who — let’s be real — was still a stranger to her.

Quinn was proud of herself for this rational and self-protective train of thought. It quelled her fears that her life was out of control. The doorbell shrilled the air around them.

Oh! Michelle yelped, suddenly lucid. It Could Be About The Van! She pulled a pair of black skinny jeans from the floor and wrestled on a clingy long-sleeved shirt that made her skin look like a rattlesnake’s. She slapped her bare feet down the front staircase. She was suddenly grateful for the cops’ diligence, doggedly ringing the bell, ringing the bell. She flung the door open with a swoosh that scattered the nest of junk mail padding the landing. Grocery store circulars, a local BDSM group’s social calendar, and a postcard announcing Ani DiFranco’s upcoming tour dates washed up around her ankles.

Are you Michelle Le-Dus-ki? the cop carefully sounded the syllables.

Yes! Michelle cried. Did You Find My Van? He had found her van. It had been abandoned in a bus zone across from UCSF Medical Center. Let Me Get — Someone, Michelle spluttered, and dashed back up the stairs. They Found The Van They Found The Van They Found The Van! Michelle danced around the room. Quinn felt saturated with relief, a relief that swept through her body like drugs. That was scary. Maybe she would stop being such a miscreant. For years she had been happy with a bottle of wine and whatever pills she could bum off friends with bad backs and anxiety disorders. But she wondered if she could be happy with such chemicals now that she’d seen the bliss abyss.