A Visit From the Goon Squad - Jennifer Egan [80]
You’ve entered a state of tingling, stomachy happiness that feels the way you hoped adulthood would be as a kid: a blur of lost bearings, release from the drone of meals and homework and church and That’s not a nice way to talk to your sister, Robert Jr. You wanted a brother. You want Drew to be your brother. Then you could have built the log cabin together and slept inside it, snow piling up outside the windows. You could have slaughtered the elk and, afterward, slick with blood and fur, peeled off your clothes together beside a bonfire. If you could see Drew naked, even just once, it would ease a deep, awful pressure inside you.
Bosco is getting tossed over your head, his shirt gone, skinny torso slimed with beer and sweat. Your hands slip over the flinty muscles of his back. He’s still playing his guitar, hollering without a microphone. Drew spots you and moves closer, shaking his head. He’d never been to a concert before he met Sasha. You shimmy one of the remaining yellow pills from your pocket and push it into his hand.
Something was funny a while ago, but you can’t remember what. Drew doesn’t seem to know, either, although you’re both convulsed with helpless hysterics.
Sasha thought you would wait for her inside after the show, so it takes her a while to find the two of you out on the pavement. Her eyes move between you in the acid streetlight. “Ah,” she says. “I get it.”
“Don’t be mad,” Drew says. He’s trying not to look at you—if you look at each other, you’re gone. But you can’t stop looking at Drew.
“I’m not mad,” Sasha says. “I’m bored.” She got introduced to the Conduits’ producer, Bennie Salazar, and he’s invited her to a party. “I thought we could all go,” she tells Drew, “but you’re too high.”
“He doesn’t want to go with you,” you bellow, your nose running with laughter and snot. “He wants to come with me.”
“That’s true,” Drew says.
“Fine,” Sasha says angrily. “Then everyone’s happy.”
The two of you reel away from her. Hilarity keeps you busy for several blocks, but there’s a sickness to it, like an itch that if you keep on scratching, will grind straight through skin and muscle and bone, shredding your heart. At one point you both have to stop walking and sit on a stoop, leaning against each other, almost sobbing. You buy a half gallon of orange juice and guzzle it on a corner, juice gushing over both your chins and soaking your puffy jackets. You hold the carton upside down above your mouth, catching the last drops in the back of your throat. When you toss it away, the city rises darkly around you. You’re on Second Street and Avenue B. People are exchanging little vials in their handshakes. But Drew stretches out his arms, feeling the E in his fingertips. You’ve never seen him afraid; only curious.
“I feel bad,” you say, “about Sasha.”
“Don’t worry,” Drew says. “She’ll forgive us.”
After your wrists had been stitched and bandaged and someone else’s blood had been pumped inside you and your parents were waiting at the Tampa Airport for the first flight out, Sasha pushed aside the IV coils and climbed into your bed at St. Vincent’s. Even through the painkillers, there was a thudding ache around your wrists.
“Bobby?” she whispered. Her face was almost touching yours. She was breathing your breath, and you were breathing hers, malty from fear and lack of sleep. It was Sasha who found you. Ten more minutes, they said.
“Bobby, listen to me.”
Sasha’s green eyes were right up against yours, the lashes interlocking. “In Naples,” she said, “there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what they’d been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will.”
You tried to ask which kind Lars, the Swede, was, but it came out a mush.
“Listen,” she said. “Bobby. In a minute, they’re going to kick me out.”
You opened your eyes, which you hadn’t realized were shut again. “What I’m saying is, We’re the survivors,” Sasha said.