Leaving the Atocha Station - Ben Lerner [27]
That I smoked hash with tobacco was critical during this phase of my project, although I was resolved never to smoke a cigarette again after leaving Spain, and so smoked with particular abandon, critical because the cigarette or spliff was an indispensable technology, a substitute for speech in social situations, a way to occupy the mouth and hands when alone, a deep breathing technique that rendered exhalation material, a way to measure and/or pass the time. More important than the easily satisfiable addiction, what the little cylinders provided me was a prefabricated motivation and transition, a way to approach or depart from a group of people or a topic, enter or exit a room, conjoin or punctuate a sentence. The hardest part of quitting would be the loss of narrative function; it would be like removing telephones or newspapers from the movies of Hollywood’s Golden Age; there would be no possible link between scenes, no way to circulate information or close distance, and when I imagined quitting smoking, I imagined “settling down,” not because I associated quitting with a more mature self-care, but because I couldn’t imagine moving through an array of social spaces without the cigarette as bridge or exit strategy. Happy were the ages when the starry sky was the map of all possible paths, ages of such perfect social integration that no drug was required to link the hero to the whole.
I didn’t think these things, but might have, as I walked back through the park and home, then lay on my bed, only several feet beneath the downward-sloping ceiling, after having ignited the butane heater and drawn it near me. Once I was warm I would eat something, open a bottle of wine, and then write Cyrus, to whom I’d long since confessed I had internet access in my apartment, and who was in Mexico with his girlfriend and her dog. I was vaguely jealous of them; they’d driven to Mexico in her pickup with little money and no real plan in order to acquire experience, not just the experience of experience sponsored by my fellowship. His girlfriend, Jane, who had attended the same university as I, was the daughter of a very rich and famous man, but had foresworn her fortune, at least temporarily, in order to live lightly on the planet, make art, and write; before she left for Mexico, she had been squatting in one of Providence’s abandoned warehouses with a group of like–minded artists. Often around eight or nine p.m. in Madrid, Cyrus would be in an internet café in Mexico, and we could instant message. One Monday night:
ME: you there? what’s up in xalapa
CYRUS: Yeah. Went on a kind of trip this weekend. Planned to camp
ME: i was going camping here for a while
ME: hello?
CYRUS: I remember. It’s hard to imagine you camping, I must say. Anyway, we drove to the country to see some pueblos, walk around
ME: cool
ME: what did you see
CYRUS: There was a bad scene there
ME: you mean a fight with jane?
CYRUS: No. Although we’re fighting now, I guess
ME: stressful to travel together if you haven’t before
CYRUS: Well we were walking
ME: still there?
CYRUS: along a river and
CYRUS: I’m still here, yes. Jane wanted to swim, but I was a little worried about the current. Not to mention the water did not strike me as particularly clean
ME: my brother once picked up a parasite swimming in a lake and was sick for a month
CYRUS: Right. And Jane launched into this speech about—half joking—about how I was afraid of new experiences or something, how I was always happier as a