I poured myself a cup of coffee and walked back into the living room. Carmen was sitting in her leather chair, her long dark hair still wet. Even in her robe, she looked like she was dressed to go out. She had a fragile elegance. I smiled at her. “Coffee?”
She nodded.
“Still take three spoons of sugar?”
“There’s enough bitterness in my life, don’t you think? I like it sweet.”
I shook my head. When I walked back into the kitchen and scooped three spoons of sugar into her cup of coffee, I saw the needle on the shelf. I stood there for a moment. I put the coffee cup down and picked up the needle and examined it. I don’t know why. I knew what it was for. She’d talked about heroin before but I thought she’d never really try it. Maybe I was becoming like my uncles and aunts, refusing to look at what was happening around me. And I thought I was so fucking honest about things. I walked back into the living room and handed Carmen her cup of coffee.
“We won’t live to be old,” she said. “We’re like Mom and Dad.”
“No, we’re not,” I said.
She looked at me. She had my mother’s piercing green eyes. “Did you know that you can’t walk down a street without someone turning back to look at you?”
“What?”
“You’re beautiful, Conrad. Handsome. People look at you. They want to keep looking at you.”
“What’s your point?”
“Me too, Conrad. I walk into a bar or a restaurant and I get looks.”
“Is there a point to this conversation, Carmen?”
“We’re like our parents.”
“Because we have fucking good genes? I don’t get where you’re going here, Carmen.”
“You sound angry.”
“Maybe. Maybe I’m just frustrated.”
“Conrad, beauty is a fucking curse. You can look at any woman, any man, and, if you want, you can take them home. They’ll worship your body for a night. You’ll worship theirs. It’s euphoric, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Always chasing the dragon?”
“What?”
“Chasing the dragon, Conrad. You know the expression?”
“No.”
She pulled her hair back over her ears. “When you get a high. That first hit, that first fantastic, euphoric hit. It’s the dragon.” The smile on her face, the clenched fist, almost crazed and yet that look was almost beatific, almost as if she’d seen the face of God. “You catch the dragon. And the rest of the night, you spend trying to catch the fucking dragon again. And sometimes you do,” she said. “Sometimes you do.” She sipped on her coffee. “That’s you, Conrad. That moment of climax, that fucking climax, those few seconds when you’ve had a taste of the apocalypse in the touch of another man or another woman. You want to do it again and again. And the dragon reappears. And after a while, he disappears and you go looking for him again. And you find another body. And you find him again, the dragon, and you want to live with him forever. But you can’t.”
I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear any of it. I didn’t care how hard and how cruel and how true her words were. I didn’t want the pursuits of my life put into words. I didn’t. I almost hated her at that moment—except that I could never hate her. She was the only real thing in my life—Carmen, and the dragon I was chasing.
We sat and drank our coffee in silence. I felt so old. I felt as if I had always been old. Even when I was a boy sitting on Uncle Hector’s lap, him explaining words and concepts that were beyond me. Somehow, they weren’t beyond me. I was born old. I had never been a boy. I had never spoken like a boy. I had never acted like a boy. I had never thought like a boy. I looked up at Carmen and I knew I was wearing a tired look that was begging her to stay quiet and not start talking again. But she wasn’t going to.
“Conrad, we’re all chasing the dragon. Me and drugs. I can’t stop. I tell myself I’ll stop. And I can’t. And a part of me never wants to stop. It takes away the sadness, and it makes things better—and it makes them worse. I can’t stop. I live for the dragon.”
“You can stop,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
“Can you stop, Conrad?”
“Yes. I can stop.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“How many men have you slept with? How many women? Can you still count them?”
“Yes.”
“You still know their names?”
“Yes. Carmen, why are you doing this?”
“And next year, Conrad, will you be able to count them? Will you be able to remember their names? Mom and Dad, I don’t think they had much of a conscience. But we do, Conrad. So we’re fucked. But in some ways we are just like them. They had a different dragon. They had this passion for each other. This beautiful, destructive, explosive passion that made them intensely alive. They were more alive in their short lives than any of our pathetic uncles and aunts. Mom and Dad, they couldn’t leave each other. There was that dragon they were chasing. The dragon was inside of each of them and they knew it and they wanted to live there forever. The dragon lived in Mother’s eyes and Dad’s rage and they couldn’t stop. They just couldn’t stop. And Lucille? Her dragon? Control. It makes her high as a kite. That moment when she knows she controls everyone in the room—that’s when she catches her dragon. And Susan. Broken, broken Susan. She ran away to Mexico with some man she didn’t even know. She came back five years later and she was nothing more than a fucking shadow. She caught her dragon—and the dragon almost killed her. But at least she had a taste of it. Not like Uncle Hector. Gay. Gay, gay, gay. He never had the courage to chase the dragon. But at least he knew the dragon was there to be chased. Uncle Louie? And Uncle Louie, poor bastard. If I explained the dragon to him, he’d look at me like I was insane. Poor, poor Uncle Louie. No imagination. No dragons for him. I’d rather be dead.”
“Stop,” I said.
“Why?” she said. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“That’s why I want you to stop.”
I began to throw myself into my studies. I wanted to forget about my dragon. I started smoking. I liked the idea of it. I liked the feel of the smoke when I blew it out through my nose. I felt sophisticated, like I was in one of those old movies my uncle Louie liked so much.
I called Carmen every day. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to reassure myself that everything was going to be okay. More often than not, I got her voicemail. Sometimes she returned my phone calls, sometimes she didn’t. When I texted her, she texted me back. I thought she was avoiding me. Sometimes I’d stop by in the evening and she wasn’t there. One night we had dinner. She cooked. Somehow that made me feel better, made me feel that our lives, hers and mine, were normal. When we sat down to eat she said, “We won’t talk about the dragon.”
“Good,” I said. But I studied her that night. She had acquired my mother’s ethereal gaze. It was as if she was looking at something that I couldn’t see. And yet, when she pointed her piercing eyes in my direction, there was a tenderness there that almost made me want to cry. I had never thought of myself as a sentimental man. And I wasn’t. I was anything but sentimental. I was aloof. And I was often superior. But not when it came to Carmen. My love for her was a kind of insanity. I wanted to hold onto her forever. And yet I knew I couldn’t hold onto her. She too was a kind of dragon. A dragon I would never catch. A dragon that would forever evade me.
I went a week without having sex. A week became two weeks, then three, then four. But all I could think about was catching the dragon. Then one Thursday night, at one o’clock in the morning, I just couldn’t stand it. I walked to the bars. I stood out on the sidewalk and smoked a cigarette. I decided to go into one of the bars. Maybe they wouldn’t card me. I looked like a man. Certainly I looked like I could be twenty-one. I ordered a drink. I got served. I finished my drink. I ordered another. The bar would be closing soon. A guy came up to me. “Never seen you in here before.”
“I don’t
get out much,” I said.
He was handsome. He took me home with him. That night, I caught the dragon. I thought of what Carmen had said, that one moment when you’ve had a taste of the apocalypse. I walked home the next morning. He didn’t live far. When I put my key into the door, I realized I didn’t even remember his name. I found myself crying in the shower. I called Carmen. She didn’t answer. I texted her. She didn’t answer. I called her at work. I got her voicemail. I decided to call the main number to her work. The secretary said she’d been out all week with the flu. I went to class. I texted her all day. I went to her apartment. She didn’t answer the doorbell. Her car wasn’t there.
I had this feeling. I had this awful feeling.
I went home. I smoked cigarette after cigarette. I had a friend from school, not a good friend—I didn’t have good friends. But he was as close as I got. He was twenty-three. After dropping out of college, he returned to El Paso. He said he wanted something better for himself. I liked him. He was nice looking, very straight, a good boy. His name was Adam and he was in my history class. I called him. I asked him if he’d buy some liquor for me. “You’re not twenty-one? You seem older.”
“I get that a lot.”
“No, I don’t mean that you look older. I mean you act older.”
“I’m not boyish if that’s what you mean.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”
I met him at the liquor store. He bought me some bourbon and some gin. The good stuff. “If you’re going to drink, then have some class.”
He came over. I wanted to tell him about my sister. But I couldn’t. We had a drink and talked. It was a relief to have someone in the room with me, something other than the panic that loomed over me and the rooms of my apartment. Adam looked around and searched the place with his eyes. “Wow,” he said. “A real adult lives here.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“You’re eighteen years old. You have furniture. Everything is in its place. I have an eighteen-year-old brother who doesn’t know how to button his fucking shirt. And look at this place. Artsy black and white photographs on the wall, a real painting, books on the shelf—and I bet you’ve read most of them.”
“The photographs and the painting are courtesy of my sister. And the books are there for show.”
“Sure,” he said.
There was a picture of her and me on top of my bookcase. He pointed at the picture. “Is that her?”
“Yeah.”
“How old is she?”
“Carmen’s about to turn twenty-four.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
We smiled at each other.
“Not right now.” I laughed. “But I’m her brother, not her pimp.”
He laughed. “Sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“No,” I said, “you’re not. You’re just a guy.” And he was just a guy, a nice guy. I wondered if my sister liked nice guys. I had a funny feeling she didn’t. I think she liked danger. I think we both did.
Adam looked at his watch. He downed his drink. “We should hang out sometime,” he said. “Right now I have a date.”
I smiled at him. “Boy or girl?”
“Girl.” He didn’t seem at all bothered by my question. He looked at me. “So you like boys?”
“Girls too,” I said. “My sister says I just like sex.”
“You’re eighteen. You’re supposed to like sex. Playing for both teams increases your chances considerably.” He shrugged. “Liking sex. That makes you pretty fucking normal, don’t you think?” I liked that he thought that. But normal was something I would never be.
When he left, the thought crossed my mind that it would be nice if I started making friends with people. Friends. Real friends. Everybody didn’t have to be a potential lover. Life didn’t have to be like this.
I envied Adam. He would marry a pretty girl and love her and have kids. And they would have everyday problems and have good and decent lives because they were good and decent people. I didn’t think of myself as being decent. What was I? What the fuck was I? I tried texting Carmen again.
Answer. Answer. I watched television and drank gin and tonics. I turned off the television when I realized that I didn’t even know what show I was watching. I looked at the time on my cell. It was one o’clock. I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. I got up and downed another gin and tonic. I went back to bed. I dozed off, but jumped up when I heard my cell phone ring. It was Carmen.
“Where are you?” I said.
She sounded tired and stoned out of her mind. “Come,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at the Budget Hotel.”
“The Budget Hotel?” I was running hotels through my head. And then it came to me. “That hotel behind Lucy’s on Mesa?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
She’d left the door to her room ajar. I walked in. She was sitting on the floor, and the lamp in the room cast a shadow on her face. There was a needle next to her. She smiled at me. “Sweetheart,” she whispered. “I caught the dragon.” She handed me the needle. “It’s ready for you,” she said.
I didn’t say anything.
“Take it,” she said.
I took the needle away from her.
“Do it,” she said.
I stood there frozen.
She smiled and whispered my name. “Conrad. Conrad. Die with me.”
Her look, that look—I panicked. “What did you do? What did you do?” I took her and held her in my arms. And I knew she was slipping. She started convulsing and I remember yelling, No! No! I don’t remember calling 911 but I must have—because the ambulance came. I was rocking her in my arms.
They took her away and I just stood there in a stupor. The cops took me with them to the emergency room. The hospital wasn’t far and they were gentle with me.
I whispered her name, Carmen, as if by whispering her name I could bring her back. But she was gone.
I remember talking to the police as I stood in the emergency waiting room. I don’t remember what I said. One of the officers was very kind. “Is there anyone we should call?”
I nodded. I gave him my cell. “Uncle Hector,” I said.
None of it seemed real. I kept thinking, No, no, this isn’t happening. I was sitting there, just sitting. I made myself perfectly still. I’d become my mother, the statue. My uncle Hector and my uncle Louie appeared in front of me. They tried to comfort me but I was inconsolable. “I want to see her,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded.
They let us see her. She was lying on the bed, a sheet over her face. I uncovered her. They’d closed her eyes. I would never see them again. I found myself yelling, Goddamn you! Goddamn you! You left me! You fucking left me! You and Mom, you just left me!
It would be a lie to say that I remembered her funeral. The day we buried her, I went to her apartment. I asked Uncle Hector for the key. I slept in her bed. I could smell her. She had a painting she loved hanging on the wall opposite her bed. She told me that every night before she went to sleep, she looked at the painting. There was a door that was ajar and there was a piece of sky outside that door. The room itself was dark and you could see the traces of what was in the room. But you had to look hard to see what was there. She said she found things in that room. “Strange and awful things,” she said. I wish to God she had paid attention to the blue sky that was outside that room.
I had a real boyfriend for a while. I started seeing him a few weeks after Carmen died. He was good to me and he made me laugh, and when he made love to me, he was tender and kind and affectionate. He said I cried in my sleep. He tried so hard to love me. For once, it wasn’t just about catching the dragon. In the end, we broke up. He said I was too sad and that some day I wouldn’t be sad anymore—and maybe then I would let someone love me. It was a kind thing to say—but it wasn’t something that I believed would ever happen. Not to me.
I had lo
ved only one person in my life. And that was my sister, the dragon I never caught. Some nights, I wake in the darkness, and I know I’ve been dreaming her. I see her sitting on the floor, her face illuminated by the light of the lamp in the room. She looks like an angel. I see her handing me the needle. I see me taking it. I hear her whispering in my ear. Conrad, die with me.
THE HURTING GAME
Because he died today, I’m drinking. I was never much of a recreational drinker, not before I met him. But right now I feel as if I have to do something, and the only thing that’s entered my head is that I should have a drink. Just because it isn’t an original thought doesn’t make it a bad idea.
I get this phone call, Kathy’s sweet voice telling me he’s dead, no booze in the house, not a drop, drive to the liquor store, buy his favorite bourbon, pour it in a glass over ice, stare at it, hold it up, the ice cubes sparkling in the afternoon light. I drink. Then I drink another. That’s what we did, we drank, me and him, when we were together.
I’m listening to Joni Mitchell and she’s singing Oh, I could drink a case of you. Yeah, well, we both drank more than a case of each other. And what of it? I’ve been sitting here all afternoon, and it’s night now. Tom’s dead. And I’m supposed to be feeling something that resembles grief. But that’s not what I’m feeling.
The first time he kissed me, he tasted like the bourbon he’d been drinking. Almost sweet. That’s the first thing I thought when Kathy called me on the phone from his office. “He’s gone,” she said. How? How? But I didn’t ask. I listened to her cry. “Shhh, shhh, baby.” That’s what he would have wanted me to tell her. I thought she’d sob forever. I hate to listen to people cry. All that hurt let loose, unrestrained, vulnerable, prideless, inarticulate, like howling dogs who have a sad sickness stuck inside them. Those howling dogs, they understand that if they are to survive, they have to howl in order to push that hurt out into the darkness of the sky. Howling may very well save dogs, but for people, crying isn’t any good. I stopped crying a long time ago.