The Chronology of Water - Lidia Yuknavitch [17]
Monty came over with pills in his hand and said, “Choose one, and I’ll tell you what it does.” I picked a capsule with a red cap on one side and a yellow cap on the other.
Amy passed, shaking her head, saying “ Nuh uh, captain fantastic,” reaching for a bong.
Monty looked at me and laughed a classic stoner laugh - huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhow about you take two?”
“What’s it do?”
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“I just want to know what it does,” I said, feigning bad-assery.
By that time in my collegiate athletic career I could give a shit about good citizenship. When I competed, I didn’t even make the board. No one in the pool turned their head at the finish to see me. I was lucky I hadn’t drowned. I’d become the kind of woman whose mouth was stuck in a permanent “yes” shape. All I wanted was experience - especially if it would numb the fuck out of my brain. My I don’t know who the fuck I am-ism. My I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My couldn’t someone, please, anyone, love me? I would have put anything in my mouths.
“ Well, this particular little beauty will sedate your ass and make you dreamy.”
I opened my mouth and ate it instantly.
He was right, I became sleepy, but not quite dreamy, so I asked for another. Two more women showed up. They didn’t look like swimmers. Too skinny. Long stringy hair. Glitter nail polish. They wore tube tops and Levis and flip-flops and giggled. They ate acid tabs and danced.
Amy tried to get me to go back home that night but Monty talked me out of it. “I’ll walk her back, I’ll walk her,” He kept saying.
The walk back was one of the funnier nights of my life. Oddly, I remember it. 3:00, maybe 4:00 a.m. Black night. Warm. We made a pit stop in the reflecting pool on campus where I laid down with all my clothes on, laughing, laughing. I said, “Look at me! I’m Ophelia!”
Monty said, “Am I Hamlet?”
“Fuck yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed, and rolled around in 10-inch deep water illuminated by underwater lights. Campus police showed up and wrote things on small pieces of I’m not really a cop paper and handed them to us and told us to go home. After they left we ate them. Then we bumble fucked on the ground under a tree - my own pants were baffling me and I was too gone to really get it on but Monty didn’t seem to mind. Then we played a game where we would run as fast as we could and dive into shrubbery. The next day at swim practice I was covered in shrub scrapes and scratches and my head felt like cotton.
Again.
I wanted to do it again.
I wanted to eat all the colors and see what I felt. No. I wanted to eat all the colors to get to the not feel. But even that was not enough for a burning girl.
One night there were white lines on mirrors ready for me when I entered. “ Look,” I said laughing, “I’m Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz! Poppies!” Breathing in the white, breathing out comprehension and emotion.
What I learned about Lubbock from the people in that basement was a different brand of education. Someone’s father had been kidnapped and murdered. Police found him in the stockyards under the hooves and shit of cows. Someone’s brother had O.D.’d and killed his girlfriend on the way under with a shard of glass from a mirror. Someone’s mother had murdered his brother and sister - ages seven and 12 - because jesus told her to. They were wicked, jesus had said into her ear. One woman’s uncle was a pedophile, but no one in the family was willing to send him to the slammer, so they gave him an attic apartment. Another woman’s brother hustled coke over the border. One guy’s Mexican best friend had been found with his hands and his dick cut off next to the train tracks - the severed items