Tweak

  As if that explains everything.

  Jordan and Lisa live up Rockingham in this beautiful gated-in house with a swimming pool. I haven’t seen Jordan since I was a little kid, but he’s so sweet to me. He pays for my cab and gives me a big hug.

  He’s a little heavy—short with long black hair and a scraggly beard. He makes me feel welcome and is full of questions about my parents, who he says he thinks about all the time.

  We talk on a plush white couch, while Lisa tries on the different clothes. She is thin and barely says anything to me. Lisa is the daughter of this very famous couple. She has a bunch of brothers—one of whom is a kind of successful actor—but as far as I know, Lisa has never done anything with her life. Still, she buys almost five thousand dollars’ worth of clothes from Zelda.

  Jordan gives me his phone number, hugging me and telling me to call anytime. Zelda and I head home, stopping at Rite Aid to get my prescription filled and to steal more ice cream. It seems like our money problems are over for a while. Zelda and I make love—even with the hole in my arm.

  DAY 427

  That guy Alexi, who got shot in the head, has offered to fly Zelda up to Las Vegas to help organize his office. He says he’ll pay her five hundred dollars for three days’ work. She won’t go without me, though, so he agrees to pay for my ticket as well. We’re all set to leave, but Alexi wants us to pick up two hundred dollars’ worth of crack from his connection, who’ll meet us at the airport. I drop Zelda off at the terminal and then go park the car. By the time I get the bus back to Southwest, the transaction has already taken place. Zelda has the crack hidden in her underwear and we check in at the ticket counter. It’s hot in Burbank and I’m sweating and nervous going through the security checkpoint. For some reason both Zelda and I have to go through the whole “take off your shoes and empty your bag” procedure. They search through everything. They wave that metal wand all over us. But they don’t find the crack on Zelda and we make it to the gate.

  I steal a prepackaged salad and two ice-cream sandwiches from a coffee shop. We go eat at the gate. It’s the first food we’ve had in a long time. The ice-cream sandwiches are the kind with chocolate chip cookies on the outside and they’re pretty great. We wait till the last moment to get on the flight. We sit next to each other in the very back and Zelda sleeps on my shoulder. I still have the hole in my arm, but it is closing up some.

  Arriving at the airport in Las Vegas is really bizarre. Alexi meets us out front and we immediately start smoking crack. He has this very broken crack pipe, which we pass between us. I’ve never smoked crack before, but I don’t tell anyone that. Honestly, I don’t see what the big deal is. You always hear about crack being the most addictive, insidious drug of them all. I even had a counselor at a rehab tell me that, if I relapsed, the one drug I should never do was crack. She said that it was the hardest drug of all to kick and at the time that really scared me.

  But here I am smoking crack in the backseat of Alexi’s old Land Cruiser, driving through the hood in downtown Las Vegas. And the thing is, I don’t even like the feeling it gives me. You get high for about ten seconds and then you instantly want more. It’s so unsatisfying, but at the same time, I feel like I can’t stop doing it. It’s actually kind of scary. Before I even know what I’m doing I find myself looking for bits of crack that might have fallen on the car’s floor, picking up pieces of lint and things, sure that they’re crack.

  Alexi drives with one hand and hits the pipe with the other. He has light blond hair and green eyes. He looks Northern European, with hard, masculine features. He is tall and thick, but speaks and moves with incredible sensuality—especially toward Zelda. It makes me uncomfortable, but of course, I keep that to myself.

  Zelda actually starts having a really terrible asthma attack right when we get to Alexi’s house, and she realizes she forgot her inhaler. We go in and the house is very nice, really. It’s just one story, painted white, but there’s a big backyard. We put our bags down in the room Alexi uses as his office studio. Then we all get into the car and drive to a pharmacy. Zelda goes in and I wait with Alexi in the car. He turns back toward me, staring me straight in the eye—challenging me maybe.

  “So you’re getting married?”

  “I guess, yeah.”

  He smiles, showing his yellow teeth.

  “You really think you can commit to being with Zelda for the rest of your life?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But you’re only twenty-two. You’re gonna have many lovers in your life. I can’t see someone like you settling down so early.”

  I have no idea what that means. “I love Zelda,” I say. “I’m totally committed to her. I mean, what can I say? Time will prove me right.”

  “Yeah, maybe. What if she were to cheat on you?”

  I swallow hard, feeling angry and helpless all at once. “I don’t know. I’d be crushed.”

  He hits the crack pipe and passes it over, saying, “I think Bijou may be cheating on me. I’m not sure if that’s the truth or not—but I definitely, you know, think she might be.”

  “Really?” I ask stupidly. I’ve never met Bijou and I really don’t even know Alexi that well.

  While Zelda’s in the drugstore, Alexi begins asking me all these questions about my past and everything. I feel really almost scared of him. He is so aggressive. I’m just hoping Zelda will come back soon.

  Also, he keeps yelling at me about people seeing me as I’m smoking the crack. He’s very paranoid and I’m not sure whether it’s the drugs or his brain injury that makes him act this way, but suddenly I wish we’d never come down here.

  Zelda finally comes back with an inhaler and her asthma seems a little better—though she still has trouble breathing. We go back to Alexi’s and he immediately starts freaking out ’cause Bijou’s gonna be home and he doesn’t want her to know he’s high. He starts yelling at me because my eyes are bloodshot and I tell him I’ll do my best to look as normal as possible.

  We order hamburgers to pick up and I’m absolutely not hungry, but Alexi makes me go with him. He keeps asking me if I know whether I’m clean or not—like whether I have HIV or hep C or something. He tells me if I get Zelda sick that he’ll kill me and by the time we get back to the house, I feel like I’ve really got to get away from here somehow.

  We walk up and Bijou opens the door to help us with the dinner bags. She’s very conservative-looking. I can’t believe she’s Alexi’s girlfriend. They’re both in their late forties and the dynamic is suddenly very clear. She tells us about the two jobs she holds to basically support Alexi. Maybe she’s stuck with him out of guilt for shooting him in the head. Either way, I can’t understand how she doesn’t see how crazy he is.

  Eventually, Zelda and I disappear into the studio where there’s a foldout couch, while Bijou and Alexi go to bed. We smoke a little bit of the crack Alexi gave us in the closet and burn incense to hide the smell and cough whenever we click the lighter on.

  “Zelda,” I say. “Alexi was being really weird—like asking me all this shit about what I’d do if you cheated on me and stuff. He was really kind of mean. You know?”

  “I noticed that too,” she says. “He’s acting different. I’m not sure what’s going on. I know he really didn’t want you to come. Maybe that has something to do with it.”

  “Maybe.”

  Zelda tells me I should go look behind Alexi’s computer to see if there’s any crack spilled there. She says he always leaves crack lying around. Pretty soon we’re both crawling around on hands and knees searching for microscopic crack rocks—almost frenzied. My mind can’t seem to focus on anything but finding more crack. We get a little pile together and start hitting the pipe some more.

  Alexi comes into the studio after he waits for Bijou to fall asleep. We smoke crack till early in the morning. He seems a little more calm and I think that maybe things are getting better. Zelda and I lie down to sleep around four or five. I manage to pass out, while Zelda stays
awake.

  It’s around twelve the next day when we run out of crack. None of us have done any work on Alexi’s office space, but now that we’re out of drugs, he’s really starting to scream at both of us about the project not getting done. I’m not sure what the hell I’m even supposed to do, so I just try to clean up some—mopping the kitchen floor and all. But then Alexi yells at me about how I shouldn’t be doing that, I should be helping in the office. He calls me lazy and ungrateful. He says I’m spoiled and just won’t stop lecturing me.

  Finally, we go and drive around looking to score some crack in downtown Las Vegas. Alexi circles the blocks over and over.

  “Why can’t any of these kids have fucking phones?”

  I guess he’s looking for someone in particular, too, because he keeps saying, “Where is he? Fuck.”

  It takes over an hour for Alexi to find him. He’s a skinny child, really—maybe sixteen years old. He’s riding an old BMX bike around, and as Alexi passes, he raises his hand up to the sky. We pull over and Alexi orders me into the backseat. The boy, who says his name is T, crawls into the front.

  “I only got forty,” he says.

  Alexi hands him the money and the kid produces a very small plastic-wrapped bundle of crack rocks. Alexi throws it back to me and yells for me to put it in my sock. I do what he says. Then the kid jumps out of the car and we pull away quickly from the curb. I climb back to the front and look at the Baggie for the first time. There’s almost nothing in it. Both Alexi and I feel the panic of the drugs running out and you can see it in our faces.

  “Fuck,” he growls.

  As soon as we get back to his house, Alexi disappears into his room. He doesn’t offer either of us more than a tiny hit, then he starts screaming at us for not working hard enough. He tells Zelda she has no work ethic and is completely unreliable. Zelda tells him he’s acting like an asshole. He storms off down into the basement.

  “Zelda,” I say. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  She’s pacing, angry and cursing.

  “I can’t believe him,” she says. “I’ve never seen him act this way before. He’s totally lost it.”

  “I know, baby, I’m so sorry. What can we do?”

  “We gotta leave. Alexi’s gonna give us a ride to the airport, right now. Pack our stuff.”

  I run to the room we’ve been staying in, while Zelda rushes downstairs. I get our bags packed, and suddenly Zelda bursts back into the room, sobbing.

  “He says he’s not gonna help us. He won’t even buy us a ticket home. He was so mean.”

  I press her to me. “Come on,” I say. “It’ll be all right.”

  “But we don’t have any money. I just deposited that check from Lisa. My bank account’s still negative.” She cries hard into my shoulder.

  So, you know, I feel like I have no choice.

  I’ve still been lying to my parents about my sobriety, and, because I didn’t want my dad to worry about me being in Las Vegas, I told him Zelda and I were taking a trip out to the desert southeast of L.A. But now I realize I’m going to have to call everyone I know to try and get help.

  I go out to the backyard and start making calls. I dial my mom’s number first. I tell her some story about how we came up here to work for one of Zelda’s friends and then we found out he was using. I tell her we’re stuck here and don’t want to relapse, so I beg her: Please, please, please can she get us a plane ticket home?

  She doesn’t buy it. “Nic, I know you’re high. I’ve already talked to Spencer and Michelle.”

  Those are her exact words.

  “I can’t help you,” she says. She hangs up on me.

  I call this girl in the program, Julia, who I went out with a couple of times. She won’t help me either. I leave messages all over the place. I call Jordan, Josh, even Lauren. No one answers and I’m really starting to freak out.

  I call my godfather. I call Karen. The only person I don’t call is my dad because I just can’t handle that.

  When Bijou gets home from work, Alexi and Zelda are fighting. Zelda tells Bijou exactly what’s going on—except she leaves out the fact that we’ve all been smoking crack. Alexi flips out and actually hits Bijou on the side of her head.

  When I come in, Bijou and Alexi are screaming at each other loudly and violently.

  Zelda huddles close to me in the studio and we just listen, cowering. Alexi is accusing Bijou of intentionally shooting him. He keeps saying, “You wish I was dead, don’t you?”

  It reminds me of being a little kid and hiding in the other room while my mom and stepdad fought. There’s a feeling in my body—an internal, shaking terror that I can’t let go of. My throat is dry and I just hold Zelda as she shrinks into my arms.

  Finally Bijou comes in and tells us to follow her to the car. She has gotten plane tickets for us and she apologizes over and over.

  “Come on,” she says. “I’ll take you to a hotel by the airport—you can fly out from there in the morning.”

  “Bijou, are you sure?” asks Zelda.

  “Yes, of course.”

  We get into the car without saying anything to Alexi. Bijou drives a little Audi and I sit in the back with our bags.

  Almost immediately Bijou goes into excuses about why Alexi behaves the way he does. She talks and talks about his brain injury. Never once does she mention drugs. Zelda comes right out and tells her straight up that she should drug-test Alexi, the way he’s acting.

  Bijou says, “No, no—I’d know if he was using again.”

  I say nothing, but I sort of feel like screaming at her.

  “Bijou, you know, you don’t deserve to put up with this,” says Zelda.

  “I know,” she replies, but with such resignation and hopelessness that I feel sick.

  She drives us to a couple different hotels before we find a vacancy. She gives us some cash and we go up to the room and it’s like I can finally breathe.

  I take a shower and Zelda orders pizza with some of the money Bijou gave us. We watch TV and try to eat some.

  “Zelda,” I say finally. “We can’t go on like this.”

  “No,” she says. “No, we can’t. We gotta stop using.”

  “I know,” I say, meaning it. “I’m ready. This is so gross, you know?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “I want to build a life with you,” I say. “A real life, where we can have babies and a house and all.”

  “I want that too,” she says, kissing me.

  “So we’ll stop?”

  “Yes, baby. We have to.”

  I wrap my body around hers and we fall asleep. I feel some hope, maybe, for the first time since I relapsed with her.

  DAY 555

  We managed to stay clean three days before we started using again. Actually, we never stopped taking the Klonopin, Xanax, and Suboxone because otherwise we’d go into withdrawals. Still, we didn’t shoot any drugs for three days and that was the last time I was clean in almost four months. We’ve been shooting cocaine, meth, and even some heroin. Zelda continues freaking out about me hiding drugs in the apartment almost every time we do meth, but that doesn’t stop her. She and I have actually been fighting a lot. She watched one of her ex-husband’s movies the other day and I got really upset and jealous and we both ended up screaming at each other.

  Plus, my dad has been calling almost every day, begging me to get back into recovery—demanding to talk to Zelda and trying to talk her into helping me. My mom showed up here once, but I screamed at her so much, she left without getting a chance to really say anything. Even Spencer came here, asking me to go for a ride with him. I refused and told him to leave me the hell alone.

  Honestly, I’m so ashamed around them that I have no choice but to yell angrily. I know how much progress I made and how well I was doing. Nothing can really excuse my relapsing. It’s like being back in San Francisco all over again. The difference, of course, is Zelda. If I stopped using, or let Spencer or my mom in, I would have to lose Zelda.
I cannot even bear the thought of that. So I lash out at everyone who tries to help me, just trying to scare them away so they can stop giving a damn about me and let me throw my life away in peace.

  And, you know, today things have been relatively quiet. Zelda and I haven’t left the bathroom for over three hours, sitting naked on the side of the bathtub—just shooting coke and more coke. When the shots are strong enough you get this feeling like your head is just pounding with energy. Your ears ring and you almost pass out and it is just amazing. So I mix up a shot and hit myself with it—but it’s still not enough. I take another syringe already filled with a mixture of Zelda’s blood and cocaine. I slam that right away and suddenly I fall off the side of the bathtub, convulsing on the floor. Zelda is right there standing over me and as I start to black out, she claps her hands in front of my face, yelling at me to talk to her. That’s not really possible, but I manage to start singing this old video game song. It’s, like, some long-buried memory that comes back from my childhood when I would play Nintendo all the time. It’s the song from the game Dr. Mario. I just keep singing it over and over so I don’t lose consciousness. My legs are kicking rhythmically and my eyelids are just flickering, flickering, flickering.

  I’m not sure how long it lasts, but Zelda stays right with me. As I come more and more out of it she kisses me and holds me and I realize I must be pretty lucky to be alive.

  We go over to the bed. I’m not sure what the eroticism around how close I came to death is all about, but we are both really turned on. Zelda is more beautiful than ever and we make love until morning—our bodies washed in sweat.

  I get up from the bed around seven and do another shot of cocaine. I actually end up going into convulsions again. Zelda gets mad and yells at me while I’m twitching there on the floor. I think she’s scared—but that translates into anger.

  Anyway, Zelda’s phone rings right as I’m coming out of the convulsions. It turns out to be this girl, Sam, who’s an old friend of Zelda’s. She’s been up all night shooting cocaine as well. She lives in Culver City and invites us to come over and, well, shoot cocaine with her.