AN UNNAMED PRESS BOOK

Copyright © 2023 by Jason Yamas

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Permissions inquiries may be directed to info@unnamedpress.com. Published in North America by the Unnamed Press.

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Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-951213-70-1eBook ISBN: 978-1-951213-76-3Library of Congress Control Number: 2022948321

Cover design and typeset by Jaya Nicely

Manufactured in the United States of America by McNaughton & Gunn

Distributed by Publishers Group West

First Edition2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

TWEAKERWORLD

A MEMOIR

JASON YAMAS

The Unnamed PressLos Angeles, CA

PROLOGUE

First 30

You are him and he is you.

You’re 4 when you ascend your first stage. You’re singing “Have a Heart,” by Bonnie Raitt, to Bonnie Raitt at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia, and someone shouts that you’re a star. You don’t know what that means, but you know you fucking love it.

You’re 5 when you sip your first Rolling Rock and encounter the phenomenon of chemical alteration.

You’re 7 when you become an older brother to Christopher and swear that you’ll forever look after this tiny human while knowing in your gut—even then—that you’ll hurt him.

You’re 8 when you start a word-processing business and recite the word entrepreneur in the mirror, not knowing its true definition, only that it’s what people call your hardworking father, who through sweat and tears just purchased a forty-room hotel in Pennsylvania’s Brandywine Valley.

You’re 11 when you try on your mother’s bra, stuff it with cotton balls, and lip-synch to Whitney Houston.

You’re 12 when you spend your allowance on bright orange pants that make you feel like a rock star, and the kids call you faggot when you wear them.

You’re 14 when you make a small fortune selling Beanie Babies on the black market in back rooms at regional antique shops and indoor Amish markets, learning how a commodity relies on a perception of necessity.

You’re 15 when you fall in love with every one of your straight male friends, cementing the impossible as the desired.

You’re 17 when you spend summer vacation tracking down every hometown guy who’s come out since leaving for college, and you realize that secrecy might be the spiciest ingredient of sex.

You’re 18 when you shoot your first film about an ambitious fool teeming with homosexual undertones, and you fail at coming out to the community through creative osmosis.

You’re 19 when your parents divorce, and you now fear you’ll never cultivate the intimate relationship you’ve wanted with your father all through childhood.

You’re 20 when you’re suspended for selling magic mushrooms, and you spend a year finding your voice as a screenwriter, becoming obsessed with elevating stories of mental illness and redemption.

You’re 21 when you fall in love for the first time and immediately withhold your heart, plagued by an echo chamber of what you assume are other people’s judgments.

You’re 24 when you abandon acting and take a producer job, only to become a functional cokehead instead.

You’re 25 when you admit to a therapist that you’re an addict, then never return to her office.

You’re 26 when you believe you’ve contracted HIV and contemplate suicide for one day.

You’re 27 when you visit your brother in California; he guides you across the Golden Gate Bridge telling you his dreams. You see him for the first time as an individual rather than a reflection of all the qualities you hate about yourself, and you discover friendship has been an option all along.

You’re 28 when you do crystal meth for the first time, a surreptitious binge that lasts two weeks, and you train your brain so well to forget it, to pretend the binge never even happened, so that this is the first time you’ll ever admit it did.

You’re 29 when you fall madly in love, and you know your compulsions will destroy it.

You’re 30 when this narrative begins, but your story is, of course, already well under way.

PART 1

INCUBATION

1

I haven’t slept in four days, although I’ve spooned Curt each night to create the illusion, an art form I’ll soon master. I’ve been smoking crystal meth in my car, hidden as best as possible in normally unlit cul-de-sacs across North Hollywood that are still glistening iridescent with Christmas lights spiraling up the trunks of every palm tree. It’s January 2016, and sure, I’ve dabbled with this drug a handful of times in past anonymous sexual scenarios, but never to this extent, never for this reason.

Curt wants the boyfriend who will hold him, kiss him, and allow him to be low, especially in these agonizing weeks following his mother’s death, but an addiction to speed insists on false exuberance and optimism—not at all what Curt needs.

I’d fallen into an Adderall addiction a couple of years ago as a way to cope with a perpetually discontent boss and my chronic perfectionism. Recently, I had resolved to quit cold turkey, determined to salvage my relationship. Then Moira died, and I realized that I couldn’t face the trip to Illinois to help Curt and his dad with the arrangements—not without reinforcements. Problem was, I had run out of Adderall last week, and my 30mg prescription wouldn’t be renewed for another two weeks. My dealer who supplemented my supply so I could achieve my now 120mg daily fix would sell only entire bottles. Not wanting to spend hundreds of dollars on a full bottle I had no intention of using, I considered other options. I remembered an article floating around Facebook, a pediatrician’s open letter to parents allowing their offspring to be prescribed Adderall, comparing its chemical structure with that of crystal meth, arguing the drugs were essentially the same. It was a scare tactic aimed at dissuading parents from making their children amphetamine dependent, but that’s not how I read it. A light bulb went on.

In heteronormative circles, finding crystal meth may be challenging, but in modern gay culture, it’s a click away. I’d used Grindr countless times as a single or part of a couple seeking a third. My profile explicitly stated No PnP. By proclaiming that I was not interested in parTy ’n’ play, I’d avoid messages from men seeking chemsex: the combination of crystal meth and other drugs with high-risk, often anonymous sexual activity. (It is, I should point out, a mostly clinical term—I’ve never heard anyone who engages in that lifestyle use the term chemsex.)

I’d avoided this scene because I was certain I wanted something else: specifically, a family life in a midcentury modern designed home financed by my film career, with two children, annual globetrotting vacations, and Curt as my husband. I knew these dreams did not align with those of men who smoke meth in dark rooms, having unprotected sex with strangers for days on end.

So, you see, my decision to purchase a small bag of crystal meth was for the purpose of quitting amphetamines altogether. We would fly to Illinois tomorrow to help Curt’s father pack up his deceased mother’s belongings. I’d rise to the occasion (with one last blast to help me get through this stressful time ahead of the trip), and then I’d learn how to relax, how to be with Curt, calm, complacent, unaltered. Which means I’ve spent the past seven hours organizing the apartment, labeling, alphabetizing, and purging. I packed each of us a tablet loaded with the same six episodes of The Sopranos so we can watch simultaneously on the plane. Now, I’m preparing snack packs. Curt’s snacks consist of peanut butter–filled pretzels, wasabi peas, dried bananas, and extra-dark cocoa artisanal chocolates from Trader Joe’s. I demonstrate my love by ensuring he has tasty treats that won’t deplete him of the necessary nutrients that a nonvegan takes for granted.

I can’t stop replaying the moment from two months ago when Curt and I were in Illinois, watching episode after episode of Fawlty Towers with his dad, waiting for his mother to pass. When the call from the hospital finally came, Curt’s father took him into his arms and said, It’s just us now, Curt … just us. I couldn’t help but wonder if any event, no less a tragedy of this proportion, could ever bring me and my dad this close.

As I zipper the snack packs, a worrisome exhaustion overtakes me. Nearly two hours ago, at 4:00 A.M., I chucked the baggie of meth shards along with my pipe and torch into the dumpster behind our building. I flip on my favorite episode of Veep, knowing it’s the brand of humor that’ll make me laugh internally so I won’t wake Curt. My weighted eyelids fall and rise like faulty garage doors, and I picture the hours ahead, checking luggage, waiting at TSA, boarding the flight. These simple tasks become sources of increasing anxiety. Yes, any idiot can suffer them. They aren’t difficult, yet they’re impossible if I’m asleep. I pause Veep, slip on my sneakers, and creep out the door. I manage a chuckle, imagining a neighbor finding two dainty legs hanging from the dumpster. Over the course of the last few days (and nights), I’ve made sure to never hit the pipe within a mile radius of our home, avoiding the nearby street tourists frequent to take selfies outside the Brady Bunch house, finding instead unpopulated nooks and crannies where I could spark my torch under the bulbous end of the glass pipe as the shards melt into a brown liquid, rotating left, then right, and inhaling until the diameter of my pupils expand and it feels as though my lungs have quadrupled in size, as a blissfully eager smile stretches upon my face. But Curt’s 6:00 A.M. alarm is fast approaching, so I decide to stay in our lot. This is a quick fix, an instant recharge. The last I will ever need. That pediatrician’s letter citing how meth and Adderall are essentially the same wasn’t wrong, but what he neglected to tell readers is that meth, in addition to matching Adderall’s productive qualities, also makes you happy. On Adderall, there was always something missing. I needed to mix it with the nicotine from a cigarette or the alcohol from a beer or the THC from a spliff. With meth, I’m jubilant, no notes.

I use tweezers to place a shard into the round opening atop the bulbous end when a heart-stopping sound startles me.

Knock-knock.

Curt is banging on the window. I frantically tuck the pipe and baggie in my sleeve and give him a “just one sec” finger before rolling the window down a crack.

Curt glares through squinted eyes: “Open the door.”

I remain still, avoiding eye contact, trying to come up with a diversion.

“What is that?” he asks, reaching through the window. I roll the window up, not considering his arm. He shrieks in agony. I toss the torch under the seat then emerge, besmearing him in apologies.

“I was looking for my headphones,” I tell him.

Curt clutches my sleeve. I chuck the pipe over the fence, causing the baggie to fall. He tears at the baggie, spewing shards across the asphalt.

“Meth?” he asks.

“It’s not!” I cry, as if saying so might make it true.

“You’re a meth addict,” he says. This fact doesn’t confound him. No. The truth makes sense. We’ve been together three years and the warning signs from me have been there. Back in New York, he borrowed my iPad and found a slew of messages between me and another guy planning to hook up, then others reflecting on how much we enjoyed it after we had. My first boyfriend had stepped out on his first boyfriend. Every gay man I knew in New York did. I thought this was just how we are. Either way, I swore up and down to Curt that it would never happen again.

Curt’s eyes well into geysers. He runs. I follow, pleading to explain. He turns: “You’ve been cheating again, haven’t you? You probably gave me HIV. I have to get tested. We’re supposed to leave right now to help my dad pack my mom—” He pauses. “Don’t follow me,” he hollers, “or I’ll call the fucking cops!”

I grab his shoulder. “Wait!”

He snaps around so quickly that I flinch instinctively, but Curt would never resort to violence. He turns away, and I see his freckled face for the last time, now purple and saturated; he’s aged a decade in two terrible minutes.

I scream as he gets smaller: “I love you.”

“I haven’t loved you in a long time,” he yells back.

I pace, foraging the parking lot for some magical undo button. The bottom falling out is so unfamiliar, it feels inconceivable. You’re a writer, I think, use your words. I bolt up the stairs and am about to stick my key in the lock when I hear Curt’s sobs reverberating through the wall. It sounds less like crying and more like food poisoning, trying to expel every bit of retched bile from his system.

Outside, I glance at the front-facing windows, our curtains pulled back ever so slightly, allowing me to see Curt’s silhouette one final time. After purchasing a pack of American Spirits at Sunoco, I tear a page from the car owner’s manual and scrape any lingering shards from the floor mats. As dawn threatens to break, the weight of Curt’s reaction settles on me heavily. His response is entirely understandable, and I contemplate—very briefly—chucking it into the trash. Instead, I place it in the glove compartment, accelerate, and light a cigarette, hoping each puff might quell the rising tide of hysteria. Minutes later, I park in an alleyway, place my driver’s license over the folded paper of shards, and press down. This is how I’d break up chunks of cocaine back in college. The shards pulverize into dust, and I scrape a bump then snort it, then another and another until the page is empty, as if someone’s taken a stick of chalk to the text. Snorting meth is hardly like snorting cocaine. Cocaine offers an instant tingly gratification like dunking one’s head into cold water. Snorting meth throbs and makes one eye bulge out of its socket. The high takes several minutes to be felt. I’m desperate for that euphoria. I don’t anticipate the bulging eye effect and its successive involuntary watering.

During my years as an experimental theater major at NYU studying the Grotowski method, I learned that you don’t need to generate emotion from memory or lived experience. Rather, every emotion is accessible through bodily engagement. An actor playing a character who’s been hit by a car can start with the limp, and the emotions surrounding the trauma will follow. Tears will transform into insurmountable sobs. Someone once told me smoking a cigarette is the easiest way to stop crying. That’s not working now. There are no more drugs to ingest, so I head to Canoga Park and my little brother, Christopher.

His bushy eyebrows peer from above a towering rosemary plant as I pull into the driveway of his girlfriend Jonnie’s house. He’s been waiting outside since I called, to make sure I don’t wake up the rest of the family.

“What the hell happened?” Christopher asks.

All my friends who live in LA aren’t from LA and thus are back home with their families for the holiday, and those who did grow up here are friends within a professional context. Showing up on their doorstep strung out on meth would be mortifying. So, here I am, laying the burden on my younger brother by seven years, a person so determined to help others, he’s studying political science because he still thinks humanity is salvageable.

I tell him everything as we drive to a Jewish deli in Reseda. We sit on the same side of a booth while I force-feed myself chicken noodle soup that’s so delicious even the meth can’t stop me from slurping it down. We’re on speakerphone, consulting our uncle John, who’s back in Pennsylvania and has twenty years in the program.

“Jason has to check into rehab,” he tells us both.

Christopher gives me an intrepid look, a facade he learned long ago from me, one that’s more about denial than conviction.

This I know: artists dabble in mind-expanding chemicals. Creative types don’t abuse drugs; we utilize them. We devise our own rules. We differ from the hoi polloi in cubicles, falling in line like sheep. It’s these ingrained beliefs that make rehab feel farcical. But at the urging of Uncle John and Christopher, I agree to go to rehab.

“An addict doesn’t recognize wreckage as it occurs,” Uncle John tells us.

I know rehab will appease my family, but my objective in this harsh morning light is getting Curt back. Surely, if I remain steadfast, he’ll return, and he’ll love me deeper for having surrendered.

2

When I enter our apartment the next day, the cats greet me with their normal upbeat cries that sound like We love you but are actually Feed us, asshole. I pet Buffy, the cat who’s been with me for over ten years since rescuing her from a Russian hoarder in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. I then pet the youngest cat, Bonstein, whom I adopted amid a brawl with my ex-boyfriend Brantley, hoping a kitten might ease tensions at home. I then notice Piquo’s absence. Curt has taken back the cat he brought into this relationship. We’re no longer a family of five.

I glance around and the absence comes into focus. The bookshelf contains half the publications. The record collection has been pruned. Curt’s closet is bare aside from three shirts I gifted him over the years. An empty frame hangs on the wall; the photograph of us laughing atop Runyon Canyon is missing. Curt has removed any evidence he ever lived between these walls. This is no longer a home, it’s a glorified storage unit. I scan the space where we watched Criterion movies, snuggled, folded laundry, made love, and clinked our glasses at the stroke of midnight just nights earlier. I wonder if Curt took any of the snack bags I’d made on his flight. I wonder if he made it to Chicago safely. I wonder, between he and his father, who is now comforting whom. I realize now I cannot fix this.

Soon, Mom arrives from Pennsylvania, a professional healer by trade, and boy, do I need her services more than ever. She helps me retire this home, packing boxes, double wrapping each plate in newspaper with the delicate tenderness only a mother can provide. In two days, I’ll drop my two remaining cats off with my other ex, Brantley, who’s now in law school at USC, then I’ll enter a rehab center located in the heart of Laurel Canyon founded by the husband of a bigwig film producer I met last year. It’s not the celebrity-studded Malibu retreat Charlie Sheen and Lindsay Lohan attended, but it’s well above our means. I borrow nearly $20,000 from my grandmother to attend, believing I deserve this degree of opulence. When Mom drops me off at rehab, it’s as if the past twenty-five years were inconsequential, and I am the same weeping child on his first day of kindergarten.

Eight days later: I storm into my counselor’s office, whipping around a crudely highlighted schedule, caviling about promised yoga classes and the spiritual adviser who never materialized. Enshrouded below my entitlement is abject fear: fear that if I admit I’m an addict, not just addicted to stimulants, as I’d prefer, I’ll carry that label with me for the rest of my life. Men won’t want to date me. Friends will have conversations behind my back in preparation for seeing me, analyzing how they should alter their behaviors so weak and addicted Jason won’t be triggered. No, that’s not for me.

“I’m leaving,” I tell my counselor.

“If you leave,” she replies calmly, “you’ll be hitting the pipe within the week.”

I can’t help but wonder if she’s right, but I do know that leaving is the only surefire way to prove her wrong. Brantley allows me to crash on his couch for a few nights while I figure out my next moves and before I must break the news of my escape to the family. But for now, I need a distraction. I need affection. I need to feel wanted. I get on Tinder. While on Grindr one will ask, Top or bttm? in lieu of hello, Tinder remains a place a gay men might seek meaningful connection. Soon, I’m meeting Andrew to lick matcha gelato cones circling Echo Park Lake. I boast about my filmmaking career and the avant-garde performances I’ve directed, educating him on the man I aspire to be: ambitious, inventive, prolific—the way Curt once viewed me. I cook at Andrew’s apartment, convenient since I am meant to be in rehab and my pans are all in storage.

Andrew lights candles, shining dim pink shadows while I braise chicken thighs and simmer a balsamic reduction. We repeat this domesticated date the next night, and I’ve swiftly crafted an imaginary relationship with all the accouterments. It feels right. It feels familiar.

And then, as I tell myself things will work out, that I am all right and have no need for rehab, I get a call from my boss. My boss is a famous songwriter who’s written Grammy and Tony Award–winning radio hits for the past thirty years. Talented as she is, for her to generate work, she requires a collaborator who brings the hustle and the discipline. We’ve spent the past three years working together, twelve hours a day, texting even on holidays and often in the middle of the night, putting all our energy into a music and film project about the great underappreciated city of Detroit, her hometown. She’s written a love song to the city, and over the course of fifteen trips to Detroit, we’ve recorded and filmed tens of thousands of its residents, all culminating in the release of a record, multiple music videos, and a feature-length documentary. I have lived and breathed this project. Until this moment, it has felt as much mine as it is hers. Unfortunately, Curt has now informed her of my alleged meth addiction. Despite our closeness these past few years, she’s always on the lookout for her next devil, someone on whom she can lay the blame for her inadequacies. She’s thrown person after person under the bus, and I’ve just opened the door for her to do it again.

She says my name will be expunged from the credits of our forthcoming documentary. Three years of work evaporates with one signature. Losing Curt was calamitous, but this blow evokes an unfamiliar sensation: worthlessness. Naturally, Andrew cannot understand the depths of this loss. I need numbness. Luckily, there is Flex—a “bathhouse” essentially, but one with no steam rooms or saunas, only private rooms and larger public spaces with dividing structures so one need not view the face of the individual inserting himself. I whisper, “Are you parTying?” to a dark figure passing in the hall, and within a minute, I’m in his room hitting the pipe. Within a few more minutes, I’m having gloriously savage sex until light gleams upon his face, assigning humanity to the figure, and I must peruse the halls for my next encounter shrouded in darkness. I’m comforted knowing I’m unlike these chumps who come here daily, whose lives center around meth and sex. As in the past, I’m just a tourist taking in the scenery, participating in the culture, but this isn’t my culture. No one here has talents and ambitions like mine.

The hours melt away, as happens on meth in gloomy rooms with no clocks. Andrew expects me for dinner. I text him, apologizing that I’ve been called in to work. He’ll understand, right? And if he doesn’t, then we aren’t a good match anyway. How could I be with someone who doesn’t understand that filmmaking and artistry require long hours? I’ve contrived a relationship for the explicit purpose of having someone to whom I can lie, perpetuating the bliss I’ve come to associate with unfaithful, deviant behavior. When I stumble out of the sex club sixteen hours later, I mull over my options. Though the thrill is considerably worthwhile, it’s unsustainable. Masking the effects of too little sleep and all the behavioral alterations is laborious. I tell myself I can’t keep doing this. I need to keep myself clean. And I need a fresh start.

A few days later, I load up a U-Haul with all my items, which have barely collected dust in the storage unit. With the cats by my side in the front seat, I leave LA for Berkeley, where Christopher and Jonnie have a spare room in their apartment on Ellis Street. I contact my friends back in Brooklyn and here in LA—those who aren’t ghosting me after hearing from Curt—explaining how I had a temporary setback involving some brief experimentation with harder drugs, but that I’m headed north for a fresh start, perhaps to write a story, to finally put myself first.

3

We see what we need to see. Christopher sees a brother restoring his life, installing lighting fixtures, constructing Zen gardens; a brother who’s humbled himself from the Hollywood producer who months before was hobnobbing at premieres and is now driving what (for the purposes of this tale) we will call “Ryde” to make rent; a brother who fills the fridge with healthy foods, preparing nightly dinners before heading to recovery meetings. Christopher is overjoyed to have his older brother here. We haven’t lived together since he was in sixth grade and I was a graduating senior who barely gave him the time of day. His girlfriend, Jonnie, gets into the habit of tearing up whatever meat we’re eating and feeding it to the cats so we all can share in the dining experience together. The cats, I’m quite sure, think they’ve died and gone to kitty heaven.

I tell Christopher I’m attending SMART Recovery meetings, an alternative group that doesn’t dogmatically surrender to higher powers or insist one admit one is powerless to addiction. Rather, I become a card-carrying member at the Berkeley-based bathhouse Steamworks, where I can piggyback on to the more dire addicts who buy their meth, as I’ve made a vow to never buy my own. The Bay Area parTy ’n’ play (PnP) scene, it turns out, is burgeoning, topped only by some areas of Thailand. What’s with the capital T? It’s an abbreviation for Tina, a folksy nickname for crystal meth that’s meant to lighten the connotations.

I’m someone who finds pleasure in purpose and productivity. But driving Ryde, having all my ambitions wiped clean, losing the love of my life—it’s all too much to overcome. In the small wins, in the mundane, I can’t find the joy I need to persist. No—drown me in a pool of indulgence. Blind me to the sight of grief. Give me good. Give me great. Make me feel unstoppable, unbeatable, unassailable.

Steamworks is where I’m first introduced to G. I’ve been offered G during past sex club outings but always heeded advice against ingesting it when I’ve been drinking. Nowadays, my bathhouse attendance no longer requires pregamed alcoholic lubrication. G is an extremely popular drug in sects of gay culture. It comes in three forms: GBL, GHB, and BDO. GBL is the purest form and is illegal in the United States. In Poland, where it’s legal for purchase, it’s sold as an industrial solvent employed for such necessities as taking graffiti off walls or removing grease from rubber. However, mix lemonade or any sugary beverage with a 2.0mL dosage, and it’s pure ecstasy beyond anyone’s wildest comprehension, a pleasure alien to most humans. G induces a hunger for food, feelings, sex, basic movement, and sleep. GHB, popularized in the nineties, is formed by mixing GBL with lye and is also considered a controlled substance. It can be drunk without a mixer and is nicknamed “salty” because of its briny aftertaste, a far more accessible version of G but certainly not the strongest. One drop of GBL into one’s mouth will eat away the cheek’s lining, deteriorating any soft tissue to which it makes contact. G addicts have what we call “G-stains” on their countertops, furniture, or anything not made from metal, rubber, or glass. GBL decays substances similarly to hydrochloric acid. It’s difficult to find and must be imported. A synthetic replica called BDO was created to meet a growing demand. A freshman to the G experience might make the mistake of dosing an additional milliliter when he isn’t feeling a dose, whereas a sophisticated user sets a thirty-minute timer, whereupon he knows he’s reached his peak, then may proceed with the decision of whether to take more. The 1936 propaganda film Reefer Madness was a scare tactic to sway youth from smoking marijuana. Actors display the devastating effects of “grass” on one’s behavior with absurd portrayals. Eyes bulge, arms flail, legs bounce as if they’ve been possessed. This is what being on G actually looks like.

At Steamworks, a rambunctious man-child named Jeremy invites me and six others to join him. He insists on spending $150 to rent the broadcast room, outfitted with a sling, bondage gear, a chest of harnesses, whips, various leather accouterments, and two cameras broadcasting the happenings to all the TVs around the bathhouse. A blind spot allows two people at a time to hide out of sight, to hit the pipe or take a dose. Jeremy insists that GBL is the only G worth taking. He’s a G snob, and he’s not wrong. His mixer of choice is Gatorade. The ritual: pour a splash of Gatorade into the cap, then proceed to the G distributor, in this case Jeremy. He uses a 2.0mL glass dropper to release the GBL dose into the splash of Gatorade. Throw it back like a shot, not allowing any time for the solvent to eat away at the plastic cap, then pour another splash into the cap and down that, ensuring the full dose is ingested. Finally, chug the entire bottle of Gatorade, instilling electrolytes, as GBL dangerously dehydrates.

I’m somewhat hairy from chin to shin. My furriness has remained my main insecurity since sixth grade gym class, when I’d change in the stall instead of exposing my Chewbacca limbs to my peers. Before solidifying my sexual preference, I had sex with a handful of women, and I can recount my mother imparting how ladies fancy body hair, yet I shuddered displaying my buttocks, ensuring encounters were always guarded by darkness. Men have long asserted that a furry dude is hot as fuck. I chose to believe them while never believing it myself. However, tonight the GBL eradicates all self-consciousness. Men graze the bathhouse with skimpy towels wrapped around their waists for the double entendre that says both, Guess what’s under here? and It won’t take much to find out. But I don’t stick around for broadcast room shenanigans. I strip down to my birthday suit and flaunt up and down the halls, in and out of the saunas, peeking into rooms, if for no other reason than to introduce myself. Suddenly, I’m mayor of the bathhouse, walking the imaginary red carpet. I cannot comprehend how everyone isn’t constantly doing GBL. Why must it be so very linked to crystal meth and its users? How have I been a drug user all these years and am only now learning about this sorcerous elixir? My first G experience isn’t about ruthless, barbaric sexuality. It’s about self-love, acceptance, and the freedom to share my physicality. A nice change of pace, as every prior bathhouse visit had been drenched in guilt and self-loathing.

When I return to the apartment, neither Christopher nor Jonnie asks where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing. Maybe Jonnie is too busy training to be Pixar’s next great animator. Maybe Christopher’s too busy trying to save the whole damn world. Or maybe they’re in denial. Or perhaps the meth and G transform me into such an affable being that they’re finally refreshed to be around me. I ask them about their lives with more genuine intrigue than I ever did in years prior. And I don’t sustain any anxiety around being found out, partially because both the meth and G quash such negative emotions, but also because the physical and behavioral effects take weeks, sometimes months, to turn sour.

4

As springtime rolls in, Guillaume calls to announce he’s coming to California in six weeks. During college, Guillaume studied filmmaking while I trained in performance. We were envious of each other’s specialties, so we coalesced, inspiring an artistic fusion. He performed in my shows, and I produced his films. We formed a production company and were on the brink of attaining feature film financing when the economy collapsed in 2008, crumbling our dreams of becoming the youngest Palme d’Or winners. When Guillaume’s visa expired, we met with immigration attorneys. I fought tirelessly for him to stay because he was my partner, not in romance, but in creation. Still, he was forced to ship out and return to France, settling for shoestring-budget art house cinema projects rather than the glitzy Hollywood indies we were striving to make together.

Now, Guillaume has married an American, an arrangement of convenience that has evolved into a romantic relationship, and he wants to come back. I coax him to extend his trip to see me in Berkeley, claiming that I’ve done copious research into how we can reestablish our production company by cultivating a tech industry client roster. I’ve done no such research into this pipe dream, but meth promises to help me find the time and motivation. I need a reinvention, and I cannot remain a Ryde driver into my thirties. That cannot be my story. This mission will require hustle and discipline, decreasing my nightly Steamworks visits. Of course, that also means I must now break my rule and purchase my own meth.

I spark a conversation with a Grindr user named Cloudz4daze whose profile showcases cats, but the moniker is tweaker code. Clouds (in tweaker internet jargon) represent the voluminous smoke exhaled upon smoking meth. Cloudz4daze is a trans girl named Sky. We meet at her motel room in Oakland, where she sells me a ten sack and a pipe. I explain how this acquisition is merely a fortification toward an impending business plan. In response, Sky lectures me on buying future smoking devices.

“Ask for an oil burner,” she says. “I’m from Chicago where they’re way harder to find because way less people smoke T there.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“It’s five times the price back east,” she explains, “whereas here, it’s just gotta come right up the freeway.”

Meth nowadays comes from Mexico. I watched Breaking Bad and should’ve known that. I always pictured meth cooked in basements by toothless bumpkins. Regardless, meth remains a societal punch line. Perpetuating it as a joke distracts from the fact of its widespread attraction. Tweakers, I’m learning, come in all shapes and sizes.

Sky rips her bubbler nonstop. I owned bongs as a weed smoker, yet it’s never occurred to me that meth could be ingested similarly, reaping the same benefits: larger hits, less burn, better taste. I recount anecdotes about growing up in the hotel business, playing pranks on the staff, accidentally walking in on naked guests. Sky describes growing up in a Chicago neighborhood where the murder rate was comparable with Iraq’s in the early aughts. Her mother, a heroin-addicted sex worker, loved Sky enough to give her away to a sixty-year-old transgender mother-like figure named Juniper. I want to ask if Sky sees a correlation to who she’s become, but I let this curiosity go unspoken, wary of what might exist on the flip side of our friendly rapport. I fear tweakers. When I consider the long-term effects, I tiptoe, terrified any wrong word might flip a switch.

Back at the apartment, I summon zero focus toward shaping my future. I’ve intertwined meth with sex, or more expressly with the hunt for sex, innumerable hours lost on Grindr. Even at the bathhouse, guys will sit beside each other, one hand caressing the other’s limp penis while he scrolls a grid of profile pictures. With a cat on either side of me positively loving their new home, six hours pass on my bed: scroll, refresh, repeat. Jonnie knocks and I crank up the fan, facing it toward the window before lighting an incense stick.

“Hitting a meeting?” she asks, as the morning turns to afternoon and I haven’t left my room once but to pee.

I respond affirmatively, then return to the grid. Shenanigans signs on. We’ve conversed before. He’s petite with dirty-blond hair. His photos show him dancing around a campfire at a desert party, not a parTy. His real name is Blaine. We discuss politics, debating the likelihood of Trump winning. I’ve spent a week trying to convince him to join me at Steamworks. When he says he can’t afford it, I figure he’s being cheap, assuming all San Franciscans must have high-paying jobs. Blaine garners an invite to a hotel parTy in Pacific Heights, an upscale neighborhood offering vistas of both San Francisco’s prismatic skyline and its beryl salt water, with the Golden Gate Bridge off in the distance. As we enter the hotel, my impulse is to approach the desk so it can notify the guest, decorum I learned growing up in a hotel. Blaine looks at me as if I’m attempting to pet an anaconda and shakes his head: communication with the outside world is unadvisable. We dart up the stairs and slip through the door that’s been cracked open by the host. Blaine immediately strips down while introducing himself to five guys who all have one or two body parts inside of another. A burly man who looks like a defensive end for the 49ers barks at us: “You guys want G? Have some G!”

He holds up a massive translucent jug containing several liters. I consider asking why he needs so much, but his exuberance is my answer. He likes to share. He insists on it. I ask him his name. No response. His focus is on ensuring we all have sufficient G in our systems. Once we’ve ingested our doses, he finally introduces himself as Joe from Pacifica. Pacifica Joe isn’t a defensive end; he’s a pure top with an infatuation bordering on obsession with GBL.

In a wink, three hours pass. Tweakers waste staggering amounts of time believing every action is of massive importance. It’s not simply sucking and fucking. There’s plenty of that, but as with a regular party, a parTy requires an alchemy of ingredients and rituals. One packs the pipes. One doses the G. One oversees a revolving guest list. One is responsible for porn—typically that lies with the host. Some bring portable hard drives, laptops, and cables to display porn on the television. Tweakers stream raw porn; they don’t use condoms or enjoy watching others use them. This limits the Pornhub channels to studios that shoot in states whose laws don’t require the use of protection on set. It’s not uncommon for the host to call the front desk, requesting extra towels. Tweakers love to shower. Tweaking out is to become irrationally enveloped with an external task. Artistic tweakers will spend hours painting a canvas, then painting over what they’ve painted. Domestic tweakers might rearrange furniture all day, landing on the layout with which they began. Musical tweakers could rewrite a ten-second composition, changing one note each time, unable to distinguish which version is thrusting them toward the opus they’re certain is forthcoming. Most gay tweakers are big on personal hygiene. I can’t say whether it’s a result of pumping our bodies with chemicals that eat away at our skin, teeth, and brains or if it’s just fun to play with products. Probably both. Tweakers will spend hours in the host’s bathroom using his face masks, exfoliating scrubs, shampoo, conditioner, whitening strips, hand salve, foot lotion, you name it. If you’re a parTy host who owns a lot of toiletry products, get a safe or buy enough to share.

“You gonna clean out?” Pacifica Joe asks.

Cleaning out means to douche. It’s meant to sound less objectionable, but somehow I find it viler than the technical term. Before today, I’ve shockingly never douched. Pacifica Joe has installed a shower douche attachment so everyone can perform easy enemas. When it’s my turn, I shyly snag Blaine and reveal that I have no idea how to give myself an enema. He issues a tutorial: “Lower the temperature to lukewarm. Switch this lever so it releases a medium sprinkle from the tip. Settle on a speed before you insert. Then just relax your anal glands and treat it like you’re fucking yourself with a dildo. It helps to get on your knees, let gravity do some of the work. Insert it halfway until you’re filled to capacity. Tighten the sphincter as you extract the attachment. Hold the water in there for a few. Then scurry to the toilet, take a seat, loosen, and push out. You’ll want to do it a few times until it’s all good.”

My father wasn’t half as detailed when teaching me to shave. On second thought, it was actually my mom. Why is it so imperative that everyone in this community perform daily enemas? For tweakers, sex isn’t a loving exchange where shitty consequences can be easily forgiven. In this arena, fucking is a professional sport, and there’s a strict code of conduct.

Blaine overhears me asking Pacifica Joe for another dose and yanks me into the bathroom for another lesson.

“When anyone offers you G,” Blaine says, “watch them measure it! Never take more than two milliliters. You know what falling out is, right?” I shrug. He continues: “You’ve seen people passed out at Steamworks, unable to wake up?” I nod. “Someone who had too much alcohol,” Blaine explains, “will get tired, then will eventually pass out. It’s a progression. But when someone takes too much G, they’ll just fall out. They won’t feel tired. They won’t know it’s coming. They could be in the middle of a sent—” And with that, Blaine closes his eyes and drops his head. “You get the picture,” he concludes.

We return to find an exuberant Pacifica Joe pounding a now unconscious nineteen-year-old more brutally than he had when the boy was awake.

Blaine winces. “Case in point.”

“Seems to me,” I reply, “that if someone loses consciousness during intercourse, that’s game over, no?”

But before Blaine can answer, Pacifica Joe pulls out from his current exploit and shouts at us, “You boys, get them dicks over here!”

No one peers up from his phone. Why isn’t this room brimming with outrage? I dress and decline. I should say more. I don’t. This world subdues my higher self.

The G is in full throttle as Blaine and I bound down the stairs, curious kittens harvesting giggles from any stimuli. I slide down the railing. We cackle, departing for the hilly San Francisco streets, the rainbow-painted crosswalks granting universal permission to be as gay as we all wish. The bodega is Willy Wonka’s factory when on G. I nestle ice cream sandwiches, gummy bears, peach rings, Gatorade, and Mentos in my arms. I’ve never been high on G outside a sexual scenario, frolicking the streets, dancing, and eating, and I’m learning the hunger it inspires for brute physical contact applies equally to basic hunger, especially for sweets. We romp about as I gorge the smorgasbord of sugary treats, speedtalking about nothing important and everything possible. I’m reminded of a trip Curt and I took to New Orleans, rolling on Molly, lapping up creole music and beignets. Blaine describes his decade in San Francisco after escaping an addict mother who he swore would be his downfall had he stayed. He’s aware of the irony. His first years here were what one might call “normal.” He smoked weed and drank, never touched meth. He and his ex-boyfriend opened a board game store in Haight Ashbury. He attended Burning Man with his nontweaker friends before a meth addiction depleted his bank account and any ability to generate an income. They hosted queer dance parties for which Blaine constructed art installations. It’s been three years since he’s had a lease. He now delivers for Postmates, relying heavily on others’ hospitality. Blaine sits me down.

“I understand you like this world,” he says, “but it’ll suck you in. You won’t even know you’ve disconnected. It’ll be too late. I’ve been lucky to maintain a duality,” he warns, “but it takes a lot of effort. Mostly, it takes lies. Maybe think about what you had before you started this. Can you get it back?”

No, I can’t get back what I’ve lost, and I’m beginning to accept that.

“Do you want to get out?” I ask Blaine. He nods. “Let’s quit together,” I shout. “We’ll set a date!”

We land on August 1, which allows me one week to detox and get myself straight before Mom’s birthday. (My mother takes birthdays seriously, perhaps too seriously. Or maybe she’s wise enough to know that no matter our age, it’s healthy to be celebrated at least once a year.) Blaine and I shake on our pact. I have a partner and an out date. I am safe.

Eventually, we mosey back to the room to find seven guys sprawled about, all fallen out. No one is conscious besides Pacifica Joe. He grabs his phone, then saunters over to his boy buffet, makes his choice, and reenters one of the men at random. Pacifica Joe films himself as he plows the unconscious man. Blaine and I look at each other, and without a word, we walk back out the door.

5

When I visit Sky again, she giggles. “I got someone you gotta meet. He’ll be here soon.”

As we ascend the stairs of her motel, I can feel us being watched. I also haven’t slept in two days and wonder if this is perhaps a dose of the signature paranoia that comes from sustained meth use. On the motel room coffee table sits a gallon bag of large crystals that resemble garden stakes, not the fingernail-sized chards I’m accustomed to seeing. A plastic cup rests on a digital scale next to dozens of baggies ranging in size. On the desk are two Pacifica Joe–sized jugs, several funnels, and one-ounce plastic bottles. A man with boyish features is sprawled out on the bed wearing swim trunks and a backward hat, his face glued to a video chat application, giggling like a schoolgirl. Sky and I smoke massive bubblers in succession. I pace the congested room with enough stamina to lift a rhinoceros.

I inspect the shower for hairs, reverting to my teenage job. Rather than watching cartoons and eating junk food after school, I was the housekeeping supervisor at my family’s hotel, tasked with ensuring every room was properly cleaned. I scope the bed for hospital corners. It’s no surprise this motel doesn’t maintain such standards.

The door swings open, and a man wearing cargo shorts, a Thrasher tee, and a flat-brimmed hat enters reeking of clove cigarettes. His face is permeated with viridescent blemishes. He drops a bag of white powder into the plastic cup.

“Fucking N-word ripped me off,” he yells, only he’s said the actual word.

I’m shook. This is the guy I gotta meet? I whisper to Sky, “Is he … gay?”

She nods in the affirmative, but I cannot reconcile a gay man being so blatantly racist. I’ve met bitchy queens who throw their share of shade and known those who prefer men of a lighter complexion, but never have I met a queer who spouts such odious slurs. This is not the Brooklyn hipster dealer I’m used to.

“Sky tells me you’ve become a regular,” Benjamin says, “and see the thing is, I’m the dealer.” Hearing this, I hand him forty dollars. “I don’t need cash,” he continues, “what I need is a driver who looks less sketchy than some junkie piece of shit in a Buick. Are you a piece of shit?”

“I’m not,” I reply. “Are you … a piece of shit?”

“Yup,” he chortles, “sometimes I am. Though, by the way, I’m not a racist or anything. There’s just a certain kind of Black person, you know?” Again, he’s not saying Black person. I had no clue I was attending a job interview today.

“So, you’ll think about it,” Benjamin enjoins, slapping my back. He rallies his workers and starts shouting orders: “Three grams, four eight balls, five teeners.”

“What’s a teener?” I ask.

Sky replies, “It’s a sixteenth of an ounce, half a ball, 1.75 grams, all called a ‘teenager’ or a ‘teen.’”

Benjamin shouts at the boy wearing trunks, “Argent, get off Zoom and weigh out the coke.”

“Sorry,” I chime in again, “but what’s Zoom?”

Argent lights up, turning his screen to face me. It won’t be another four years until COVID-19 when Zoom will pierce the zeitgeist, suddenly becoming a verb in common parlance, like FaceTime or text. Through Argent’s impassioned exposition, I learn that Zoom is where men from across the globe gather, smoking and shooting meth, hosting sex parTies, broadcasting unprotected group sex. This is Argent’s community. He points out his boyfriend on the screen who’s broadcasting from Baltimore. They’ve never met in person. In the coming months, I’ll find Zoom running in the background at nearly every sex parTy, a digital echo chamber with pitiless men egging on members of other sex parTies to elevate their levels of barbarity. At any given point, five or more thumbnails will display several parTies from within San Francisco, serving as a live network for us local tweakers to shop new venues and trade up players. I’ll meet men in person whom hours before I’d witnessed on a computer screen fallen out and being passed around like the collection basket at Sunday Mass.

The handle SyourDinSD messages the room: boys, iT’s slamTime!!!!!!

Slamming is meth slang for injecting hard drugs into one’s veins. Half the participants lift their rigs and stick needles into their bodies, then quiver in rapture. Intoxicated by their brazenness, I’ve neglected to realize Argent’s camera is facing me. My gut says this is all too much, to walk out the door, to find a new dealer. And yet—

“I’ll drive you for three hours in exchange for that,” I say, pointing to a teener, “and those,” I add, pointing at two G bottles, “and this,” I conclude, picking up a hundred-dollar bill.

6

After the 2008 recession, our family hotel was sinking. Dad, suffering from crippling depression, relinquished his interest to Mom, hoping she’d revive it before having to declare bankruptcy. I took a sabbatical from my final semester at college and joined forces with Mom in an attempt to rescue the flailing business. This wasn’t the first time I sacrificed my childhood or education for the hotel. Whenever there was a snowstorm, I was out there with a shovel and a lawn seeder filled with salt to melt the ice patches. When our night auditor—the person who works the 11:00 P.M. to 7:00 A.M. shift—had a stroke, I stepped in, covering three nights a week for months until they could train a suitable replacement. My family liked to joke that I was the only one who could do all these tasks because I had the great privilege bestowed upon me to hang the holiday wreath each year. According to them, there was some arcane law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that states the eldest child of any family-owned business must be the one who hangs the wreath in December. Perhaps the wreath was a metaphor for the pride one is expected to feel after being burdened every other day of the year. My friends all fawned over my role within my family’s business, the endless supply of freshly baked cookies, the bountiful collection of strawberries in the downstairs kitchen, the boundless freedom, as they imagined it. It felt more like a luxurious prison. I haven’t craved a chocolate chip cookie or a strawberry for over a decade, but that work ethic never fades. It’s part of me now and forever. So, when presented with this new challenge, even if it’s to chauffer a drug dealer, I want to excel.

Despite his patent racism, Benjamin manages to become a pseudo drug world father figure. I watch him conduct business the way I once observed Dad managing his restaurants and the hotel: his keen organization, his abrupt authoritativeness, and his “no whining” philosophy undergirding it all. I’m desperate for any older male figure to send even a smidge of pride my way. This peripheral criminality, driving a drug dealer of his stature, intensifies an already coursing high, like a cigarette after a shot. Crime feels sexy! After facilitating Benjamin’s two dozen felonies tonight, I return to driving Ryde, taxiing couples to bougie dinners, twenty-somethings from Mission pubs to Castro clubs, and glitter-shedding drag queens to their lip-synch performances.

Blaine invites me over to Paulie Sunshine’s apartment in Nob Hill. Everyone just calls him Sunshine, but upon hearing his full nickname, I envision a rotund Italian American outfitted in an Adidas tracksuit. There’s a neighboring 1950s-themed diner displaying decadent desserts in the window. My waning dopamine redirects me, and I hurry inside to pick up a cheesecake. Ten minutes later, Sunshine answers his door. He’s elfin and reptilian, nothing like I imagined. A strobing light from the porn on the television illuminates Blaine on the sofa. We exchange a look that, to me, confirms we still have our pact to get clean by August 1, but that’s a few months away, so what’s the harm in enjoying our remaining time?

“I brought cheesecake,” I announce, “and GBL!”

Sunshine leers, biting his lower lip. “I’ll grab a doser.”

“Hey, where do I get one of those?” I ask.

“Walgreens baby section,” Sunshine replies, holding up a syringe with no needle. “They’re used for measuring out infant medicine. But you should buy several of them, ’cause the numbers quickly wear off the plastic from the G.” He adds, “Unless you like to play risky, like I do.”

Blaine furrows his brow, silently disapproving, yet sacrificing his values for shelter. My pining for a deeper connection with him is foolish. I’ll eventually learn how feelings on meth and GBL are artificial compounds of fleeting stimuli disguised as emotion—but not today. Sunshine pours flat Pepsi into shot glasses as our mixer. This same Pepsi bottle has likely spent days not quenching thirsts, but rather as a sugary diluent ensuring that the industrial solvent doesn’t destroy our esophagi. The G hits fast, and we devour the cheesecake, moaning louder than the Steamworks soundscape.

“Let’s invite some dudes over,” Sunshine suggests.

He hands me the baton. Producing has been my animus for the past decade. I’ve orchestrated film shoots in locales ranging from Tokyo to the South of France to the jungles of Panama, so now tasked with assembling my first sex parTy, I’m determined to master the art of the orgy. Step one is finding our Adonis, whom we’ll then use as bait to get other, albeit less attractive, men here. We advertise the Adonis’s photos on Grindr, Scruff, and BBRT (an app exclusively for men who refuse to wear condoms). For orgies, it’s a numbers game; we want as many as the space allows and then some. Tonight’s Adonis doesn’t have favors to share, which is tolerable, but only if you’re conventionally beautiful. (ParTy favors include T or G, aka Tina or Gina, aka crystal meth or GBL, GHB, or BDO.) That said, being attractive is a plus, but it’s essential only for the first guest. Most aren’t selective when on meth. In fact, the drugs adulterate our normal sexual appetites, often having us seek the opposite of what our sober selves might desire. This can quickly escalate to violence, because safe sex (and I don’t mean using protection) becomes mundane to the user who’s needing to achieve a new high in both the sexual and chemical realms. But since there’s more importance assigned to one’s proximity, size, venue, and versatility of favors, we’re focused today on who can bring G and dick pills. Erectile dysfunction meds are essential for many to rise to the occasion. In my cocaine days, I suffered my share of limpness. The more blow, the less show. It’s rare for cokeheads to carry enhancement drugs like Cialis or Viagra, but tweakers love their props and add-ons. Most arrive to an orgy carrying a parTy bag that contains various smoking devices, torches, crystal, G, dick pills, poppers, lube, multiple changes of underwear, a tablet, a porno hard drive, and, of course, candy. Premium parTy bags might include leather harnesses, whips, and bondage gear. Poppers, if you don’t yet know, are liquid inhalants in a small glass bottle, often and absurdly euphemized as VCR cleaner. One removes the lid, covers a nostril, and, lifting the bottle to the other nostril, inhales deeply. The effects are similar to those from erotic asphyxiation. Blood flow to the brain is interrupted, lending a temporary jolt of pleasure to the sexual organs and relaxing the muscular system, which can be useful when receiving a large entry into a tight sphincter. Some poppers come in aerosol form and are sprayed on a rag, then breathed in fully with both nostrils.

The men beg me to join, but I stick to production—dosing, pipe packing, porn playing, man hunting—parading over participating. My restraint only exacerbates their desires. I think, If I were to get my own place, I could do this every day. I quickly reconsider, seeing the towels pile up, whiffing the miasma of spilled poppers, and feeling the greasy silicone lube stains on the sofa.

The sun soon rises, and one of the guests shouts that his iPad has been stolen. Sunshine crudely pushes the claimant out the door to shut down any potential drama. I’m the curator, and thus I have a responsibility to these people. In the hallway, I try to talk the man down, but he’s now screaming that he’ll call the police. I foolishly repeat his threat to the remaining parTy guests, hoping the perp might fess up. Instead, it’s as if I’ve pulled the fire alarm and water has poured from the ceiling. Everyone extracts from one another and files out as if they’ve never met. My creation is a canvas of invisible ink. Sunshine detects the chagrin in my eyes.

“That’s just what happens,” he says to console me, before turning off the rape fantasy porn and popping in the Pitch Perfect DVD.

7

Had a date that went all night, I text Christopher the next morning. Dinner tonight? I’ll cook.

Chicken cutlets? he replies.

Chicken cutlets were our childhood comfort food. Thinly sliced breasts dipped in egg batter and bread crumbs and fried until golden brown, served with lots of lemon. It’s the Greek in us: we love lemon! Or maybe it just reminds us of our father, how the perfect amount of lemon can refine a dish, whereas an excess will overwhelm it, much like his invariable moods. Neither of us can thoroughly enjoy the cutlets unless our brows corrugate and our lips pucker. Growing up, Christopher would eat only chicken, so we started disguising fish and other proteins as chicken cutlets until his palate finally expanded. Cutlets will hopefully eradicate the guilt from lying to my sweet, unknowing brother. Although I doubt they’ll quell Jonnie’s rising suspicions. She hasn’t addressed me directly, but I fear she’s putting the pieces together. Luckily, she’s at a ceramics class until late tonight, so it’ll just be us bros.

Meanwhile, I find an enchanting Russian Hill alleyway to pack my pipe. Each home is adorned with tulips and ivy-covered rooftops. I’m a degenerate with a dirty crack pipe, sure, but I still appreciate scenery. I burrow through my bag. Someone’s stolen my teener. I’m certainly not high enough to drive Ryde, stay awake all day, then make dinner for my little brother.

I call Racist Benjamin, but he doesn’t answer. I check my mobile banking balance: twenty-two dollars. I open Grindr and scroll the grid looking for clouds or other tweaker code until seeing the handle Faves-2Go. Minutes later, I’m parking outside the St. Regis. Faves2Go has asked me to meet him in the lobby with crystal chandeliers. How my interpretation of the word crystal has evolved. Scanning the lobby, I absorb every extravagance: the Scandinavian furniture, tailored suits, china cups, and stiff postures. Through it all, I spot a buzzed head atop an emaciated, effeminate man breathily muttering “motherfucker” on loop.

I approach. “I’m Jason. Are you …?”

Startled, he looks left, then right, then explains, “I’m blind is what I am. Well, mostly blind. I can see my phone. But you, you’re a blob. How many yuppie pricks are in here? I haven’t a clue.”

He perches upon a lavender couch, impeccably dressed. I’ll soon discover he never leaves home without garnishing himself in Alexander McQueen. His scarf is McQueen. His skull-topped cane is McQueen. He’s six and a half feet of unapologetic flamboyance.

“You’ve wasted a trip,” he says. “I left my shit in a tourist’s room.” He means his meth. “The slimeball fucktard won’t let me back in,” he cries, wiping away encroaching facial precipitation, then introduces himself as Zander before exclaiming, “Shit! I don’t usually tell people my real name. First rule of being a drug dealer.”

I’ll soon discover Zander isn’t his real name either. Right then, a shifty man wearing an Armani baseball cap approaches us. Zander introduces him as Mateo, his assistant. I offer an affable greeting. Mateo nods, uninterested. Zander explains our predicament, and without a moment’s pause, Mateo has the solution.

“Let’s grab the GBL from your place,” Mateo tells Zander, before following me out to my car while explaining our next steps.

We scurry west to the seedy, impoverished Tenderloin and approach his “hotel,” as he calls it. Zander explains that he’s not allowed visitors until 10:00 A.M. This isn’t actually a hotel, rather an SRO, or single-room-occupancy building. San Francisco has dozens. Few low-income residents in San Francisco can afford a yearly lease. A drug dealer might have the funds but is unable to pass the credit check. SROs offer affordable temporary housing yet maintain strict rules. Visitors must leave ID at the desk. They offer monthly rates, requiring folks to vacate on the thirtieth night, even if the lodgers plan to return for another twenty-nine-day stint, thus ensuring no occupant claims legal status as a renter. It’s wildly inconvenient, yet many submit because it’s either that or homelessness.

At Mateo’s direction and with a little internet sleuthing, I track down one of the guys parTying in the tourist’s room at the St. Regis. I send a batch of my sexiest pics, along with a message saying I have the best GBL. It’s that pure shit from Poland, I write. Mateo feeds me this line, and it works. I’m invited to join and to bring a friend, Mateo.

Back at the St. Regis, Mateo purchases a soda from a vending machine, then stops a housekeeper and requests twelve glasses. We’re greeted at the parTy like Ed McMahon holding a jumbo Publishers Clearing House check. I identify what I assume is Zander’s bag, then deliver widened eyes to Mateo, who lightly winks back, confirming it’s his. The bag appears to be unopened. The residual Viagra I took at Sunshine’s amalgamates with this stunning display of men. I disrobe, and they all shout at my throbbing boner like gamblers at the racetrack having bet their bottom dollar.

“Who wants G?” Mateo asks the room.

Hands fly up like grade school children offered chocolate milk. Assisting Mateo, I pour root beer, which he informed me back at the vending machine is the preferred soda to best mask the GBL’s acrid zing. Mateo doses 4.0mL into every glass besides ours, then disperses them to the boys. No one watches. These boys never had educational figures like Blaine to impress the importance of inspecting the doser. Someone raises his cup. The others follow with “Cheers!” As is the tradition, we clink, then down our root beer–flavored corrosive. Just like with alcohol consumption, there’s nothing better than a ritual to mask any taboo of consciously disconnecting from reality. I lie back and allow a Chris Pine look-alike to, in his words, “worship me.” That’s why I’m here: a handsome diversion. Mateo, although pretty hot, didn’t think he would entice the men enough. Ten minutes pass, and pseudo Chris Pine’s worshipping devolves into a wet blanket. All motion comes to a halt. Everyone has fallen out. Mateo surveys the room to be sure, then gives me nod, implying that I may now get dressed. He snags Zander’s bag, and we hasten out. Blaine had told me the real danger of falling out isn’t the falling out itself, but what happens to you after you do. Riding the elevator down with a doting couple, yearning for that intimacy, I’m tempted to say, Y’know, we just drugged nine men on the fourteenth floor, but hey, don’t worry, we didn’t rape them like some people do.

Zander’s SRO’s interior is grisly with grimaced occupants littering the halls like scenes out of The Wire. I’m forced to leap from Zander’s entranceway onto his bed. Trash and pizza boxes cover the floor. The walls are painted nine different colors. It reeks like a chemistry lab inside a landfill. The sink is detached. Unopened kitchen appliances, 4K televisions, and miscellaneous technology lie about, all unopened, next to a clothing rack that belongs at Milan fashion week. Zander reminds me that he’s blind and asks that I light his bubbler. He pulls, taking one monster hit after the next. When I yank the torch away too soon, he swats at me.

“Not enough?” I ask.

“What am I, nine?” he replies.

Zander could be the star attorney in the biggest criminal case of the year. He’s witty, educated, and a master communicator, commanding clout while evoking empathy. I tell him we should get an apartment together. Mateo scoffs just loudly enough for me to hear it. Yes, I’ve known Zander for only a handful of hours, yet I long to extract him from this hellhole. Behind his guarded facade, I sense kindness. I ask if he fears arrest. He says the police keep tabs on every major dealer in the city and that, some years back, San Francisco amended its laws, making it essentially pointless to prosecute anyone caught with under four ounces.

“Their focus is heroin, fentanyl, and firearms,” he says. “Meth dealers are getting free passes.”

He believes San Francisco is a test city, that the laws were changed so business could grow, and that everyone is now under an expansive microscope led by joint forces within tech and government. Authorities here want to observe how the drug business rises and evolves.

“This city’s a laboratory,” he says. “I’m just a well-dressed rat in the experiment.”

While Zander pontificates, Mateo is opening drawers, counting containers of meth, cocaine, heroin, ketamine, pain pills, G, et al. He’s doing inventory. It’s refreshing to see some semblance of organization, although I wish I’d known there was more meth back here before I assisted Mateo in overdosing an entire room of strangers.

“Should I be expected to wear yesterday’s outfit?” Zander snaps.

Mateo procures a Ferragamo sweater, Berluti jeans, and Versace socks and underwear. I feel like a schlub wearing my Primark jeans and a polo from Ross. I certainly dress for less. Once Zander is dressed for the day, he snags a golf ball–sized shard, thirty times the amount I’d intended to purchase.

“For your troubles,” he says. Y’all come back now, ya hear?

“You’re not charging him for the dry?” Mateo asks.

Zander and I exchange a knowing look, neither of us lending credence to Mateo’s question. Dry, I deduce, must mean meth. How many pet names do these people have for one drug? But also, I’m sort of obsessed with how much Mateo immediately loathes me. I wonder what I must do to get him in bed.

I thank Zander profusely as Mateo’s lips purse. Zander and Mateo exude unrelenting badassery. I am a cipher in their presence, and I am determined to find an entry into their club.

Leaving Zander’s SRO, I stumble upon a smoke shop displaying bubblers in the front window. I buy one utilizing Sky’s lingo, that euphemism addicts and smoke shops have created to make buying crack pipes kosher.

“An oil burner, please.”

I wrap my new bubbler in a microfiber towel and nestle it securely in the car door. Nearly every Ryde passenger today is a tech executive who describes his or her start-up as the Netflix of fill in the blank. After every few Rydes, I find a discreet alleyway to reaffirm my zeal. At 6:00 P.M., I accept my final Ryde, after which I’ll scuttle back to Berkeley and purchase ingredients for the dinner I’ve promised Christopher.

A family of four enters. The daughter and parents shuffle into the back while the teen son (noticeably gay) claims shotgun. I wonder if he’s out. It’s 2016 in the progressive Bay Area, so probably? They’re flying to Cyprus. I make affable conversation, but the family is content in silence, which is absolutely unnerving to someone on copious amounts of meth. The teenage boy, with his hideous peach fuzz mustache, takes quiet interest in me. He rummages through my glove compartment, which I find both rude and troubling. There are no drugs or paraphernalia within his reach, but his comfort level is crazy making. I ignore his leer. When I shift my peripheral vision in his direction, he abruptly looks away. The parents’ muttering in the back seat is infuriating since they’ve requested no radio, yet their whispers remain indistinguishable. Are they talking about me? Can they tell I’m high as shit? I glance at the door, ensuring no surface area of the bubbler is exposed. I wonder if this teen has Grindr. If so, has anyone ever reached out to him for PnP fun? Does he know what that means? Has he declined? Will he be strong enough to say no over time? I imagine his time in Cyprus. I hope he’ll see the sights, take selfies on the beach, and play with his sister. My family trips weren’t so extravagant. We vacationed in Avalon, New Jersey. COOLER BY A MILE read the sign as one entered the Jersey Shore town. At his age, I was flounder fishing with Dad, reading The Power of Now with Mom, wakeboarding with Christopher, spending nights at the boardwalk scoring weed, hunting down the leafy green pleasure inductor then carving an apple and burning it until the sky looked prettier, ice cream tasted sweeter, and everything was a bit more preposterous. I had never heard of meth. When we finally arrive, I unload their luggage and wave goodbye as they enter Departures. The father leaves me a generous tip.

As I’m leaving the airport, I receive another request. The price is surging at three times the normal amount. I really have trouble refusing fast money. I cross my fingers, hoping he’s headed south toward Berkeley, so I won’t be late. A British vineyard owner enters, and whelp, we’re headed two hours north, to Napa.

“I’ll be on a call the entire ride,” the Brit instructs. “Silence is a must.”

It’s now been three hours since I last hit the bubbler. I play mind games to stay awake. Since I can’t listen to music, I sing songs in my mind. I know all of Aimee Mann’s lyrics, so I start with her first studio album, Whatever. Halfway to Napa, I finish her most recent release, Charmer. We have another hour to kill and I’m fading quickly, so I focus on the wine mogul’s call. He’s recently acquired three wineries and is brainstorming ways to eliminate workers. The previous proprietor instituted a yearly dollar-per-hour raise for the field-workers. The Brit’s solution is to usurp an entire workforce from competing Sonoma wineries and offer a pay increase, yet remain under the threshold of his current payroll output. He’s not the winery owner one imagines romantically strolling the fields, picking grapes, staring up into the sunlight, imagining how they’ll taste once fermented. Business tactics fascinate me, but his greed leaves much to be desired. That said, I don’t want us both to die if I fall asleep at the wheel, and I won’t make it unless I get creative. I glance in the rearview mirror, inspecting his eye line, then quietly unzip the fanny pack where I have my crystal. I break a pea-sized bit and rest it in my palm, then I use my left thumb to crush the pellet into dust and form a tight fist. I perform a gargantuan, wet sneeze into my right armpit, then lift my left hand to my nose as if wiping my face, pretending to inhale back snot but actually snorting the meth dust from my palm. My eyes water like my puppy’s been run over. I check the mirror to ensure no dust lingers around my nostrils and to inspect my greedy friend in the back. He gazes out the window, trying not to bear witness to his snotty driver. The audience buys it. NYU’s prestigious acting program wasn’t for nothing! I’m awake again. I peer at the Brit and smirk, thinking, I just saved your life.

8

Back in Berkeley, I peer through the window to see my brother waiting for me while watching Showtime’s The Circus, documenting the 2016 election. Christopher, as political as he may be, never subscribes to dogmatic principles. He’s thoughtful, pragmatic, and I’m sure he will either organize campaigns or run for office one day. He’s made a silent promise to his friend Feras to achieve justice on his behalf. Last year, Feras took magic mushrooms for the first time while on spring break. He was a do-gooder working toward a degree in public justice at Moorpark College and had just been accepted to Cal State Long Beach, but that didn’t necessarily entitle him to a good trip on psychedelics. Feras lost control, stripped off his clothing, and started convulsing, eventually diving through a second-story window and falling to the pavement below. His friends called 911, requesting an ambulance, but the Long Beach police arrived first. Feras approached the officers, bloody, naked, screaming, and brown-skinned. They warned him to halt, but neither logic nor communication resonated. They fired four shots, killing him before the ambulance arrived. Christopher’s made a solemn oath that whatever pursuit he endeavors, it must also encompass Feras’s dreams.

I bread chicken while Christopher tells me about his newly branded “open” relationship with Jonnie. I urge that he remain wary of the repercussions. Here I’ve stuck my penis in twenty strangers this past week, yet remain the traditionalist. And perhaps this explains my attraction to meth: the courage it provides to overcome fear-based sexual borders I’ve drawn for myself.

Christopher points to my fingers and laughs. The fingers of any person egging and breading chicken unavoidably becomes egged and breaded themselves.

“Chef caps!” he exclaims.

“Pardon?”

Christopher insists it was Dad’s cute little nickname for such egg-and-breading fingertips, but I can’t remember that. So much joy in these cutlets, but the memory I can’t shed was the time I sliced the chicken too thin after Dad had explicitly requested thick fillets. His reaction spiraled until I was hiding in the upstairs bathroom, listening to him shout threats to upend everything, sell the house, close the business, let everyone fend for themselves. All of that would’ve been fine, but the yelling was not. God, the yelling scared me. Still does.

“Talked to Dad recently?” Christopher asks.

“I haven’t spoken to him since Curt left,” I reply. “I can stomach the shame from you all, but not from him. I’ll call him when I’ve landed something better than Ryde or when my credit score goes up or I don’t fucking know—”

“Apparently, the living situation at Darlene’s with the girls has soured,” Christopher replies.Dad had recently gotten engaged, then quickly—perhaps too quickly—moved in with his fiancée, Darlene, and her two teenage daughters. I’m certain he’s not in love with her; it might be lust or simply the need to be needed, but it’s not love. It’s wild to imagine him living with two young girls. He’s never been the type to initiate a sex talk or offer interpersonal guidance. He’s a businessman who voted Republican until Obama. He doesn’t discuss emotions but regularly says Love you, boy. He’s obsessive compulsive, wakes at 4:00 A.M. to clean, expelling an entire bottle of Windex per week, vacuuming so as to leave parallel lines in the carpet. He’s tough yet gentle. Growing up, he made me gourmet breakfasts, then drove me to the bus stop early so we could listen to Howard Stern, knowing Mom wouldn’t approve. I assume he’s lavishing the girls with similar extravagance, watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians if that’s what they want. He is sweet that way.

Whatever the reason for things souring, I pray Dad’s anger isn’t the culprit. After a series of losses these past fifteen years, despair has become a constant, but his anger has largely vanished. When he introduced me to Darlene, he seemed giddy, filled with hope, although getting to know Darlene, I quickly became wary. For years, Darlene has been prescribed hefty doses of Adderall coupled with Xanax. I realized I wasn’t the only addict in the family when Dad asked me to ship Darlene some Adderall after her prescription had run out. The only time prescriptions run out early is when the patient takes more than she’s prescribed. I feel responsible for not warning him. Yes, sometimes it does take one to know one.

I’m frozen now, staring off into space, imagining how I could’ve helped avoid whatever upheaval he’s suffering. Christopher pats me on the shoulder.

“They’ll work it out,” he assures me.

Tonight, we sit at the dining room table: a rarity for us, having grown up using folding TV tables, watching Seinfeld while we ate. We squeeze ample lemon on our cutlets. I wish my new lifestyle were discussable at this table. I’m tempted to gab about the extra money I’m making driving Racist Benjamin in addition to my normal Ryde hours. I’d love to tell Christopher all about Zoom, how chemsex addicts have carved out a digital region in cyberspace, on a platform typically used by suits, to form a global hedonistic voyeurism community, but of course, I’m supposed to be in recovery. I’m driving Ryde while rebuilding my life and dating other, equally healthy people. Right?

So instead, I manufacture a story about an imaginary friend whom I met at a recovery meeting: Keith, the gun hobbyist. I recount an argument Keith and I had about gun control where Keith asked how I could so easily form an opinion if I’ve never shot one and how he brought me to a range where I fired a Smith & Wesson. The truth is that I’ve begun engaging facets of our world I once shunned, and now Christopher is hearing about it. This is the bonding he seeks, based in reality or not.

9

It’s a few hours later. The dishes are washed, Christopher and Jonnie are tucked away in their bed, and I’m back on the street with Blaine. I tell Blaine we’re stopping at a market, and soon I’ve got a basket with a pineapple, kiwis, peaches, and a pint of raspberries. G, above all its other effects, makes me crave fruit. Perhaps it’s enough to arrive at a parTy with a raging boner and drugs, but where I come from, it’s customary to bring food or beverage. Rick, the host we’ve connected with on Grindr, has a luxury Polk Gulch apartment that is uniformly West Elm.

Upon our entrance, Rick whispers, “I want a bukkake gangbang.”

In turn, I ask for directions to the kitchen and use his Cutco knives to prep my fruit tray.

The first two guests are both named Willy. They met days prior and have been bouncing from parTy to parTy like couples go to Chelsea art gallery openings, like I used to. I wonder whether they’ve also formed an escape pact. Do they share romantic affections, or is it more measured to maneuver a world of anonymity with a partner? The Willies and I take turns dominating Rick, whose lexicon shrinks to “God,” “Yeah,” or “Hell yeah.” Which one is it, Rick? I’m exhausted by Rick’s passivity. Dom/sub dynamics are so bane. Neither Willy speaks much. This brand of sex is far too serious. I toss out quips like “You like sucking my little dinker-doodle, don’t ya?” but no one appreciates my sense of humor. Two tops arrive and satisfy our placid host. Everyone switches off like speed dating, filling every surface area of the apartment. Rick falls out while one of the tops is inside him. The top withholds from further penetration.

I lean over and ask, “Do you always follow that protocol?”

“Sometimes dudes ask you to keep fucking them if they fall out,” the man replies. “Some even ask you to film it so they can watch later, but unless I get preapproval, I always pull out.”

Blaine giggles as I decoratively arrange fruit on a platter just like Mom taught me when preparing the Continental breakfast at our hotel. I slip into the role of server, a platform to exercise my comedy routine.

“While you seem to be enjoying eating that ass, how about some kiwi?”

Combining anal sex with snacking doesn’t come naturally. Everyone shoos me away, but nothing deters a restaurateur. I insist everyone eat, hand-feeding them like toddlers. The moans suddenly grow louder. Once they’ve taken their first bites, hands reach out like the orphans in Oliver! until every cut morsel of produce is devoured. I’m elated providing nutrition to this macro-hedonistic climate. From this day forward, I’ll never attend an orgy without fresh fruit in hand. Meanwhile, Blaine works on his laptop, occasionally sucking a dick to show off his talents. There are some people who make oral sex look like an Olympic sport. Suddenly, the door slams and Blaine is gone. I follow him to the street, and my emotions shift from horny to sentimental like gears on a Mustang. I ask him to love me. I’ve never asked anyone this. I promise that I’ll support him in whatever life path he chooses, but that it must be big and bold. My soliloquy draws the attention of passersby, and Blaine takes my hand.

“Babe, this world isn’t for you,” he says. “It’s clear what you want, but you’re not going to find that here. Do you know how many times I’ve sworn I’d get clean? You can’t trust anyone here. I’ll look out for you if you remain here, but I hope, for your sake, it’s not long. It feels good at first, but eventually it’s all we know, so we stay. We’re zombies. When they go to bed, we roam, searching for a lair to hide, get high, and fuck so we won’t recall why we gave up living a real life. That man in there handing out pineapple, that’s who you are. Are you even on PrEP?”

Why haven’t I gotten on PrEP? I fear it’s already too late, that having the words HIV-positive slotted before gay man will quash any self-love I’ve unearthed around my sexuality.

I return to the parTy. Everyone’s sitting in a line, jerking off, flaccid. The Willies and I step onto Rick’s balcony for a smoke. My inner documentarian cannot help but probe. I must know how and why everyone has landed here. Willy #2 went to beauty school, then worked at a salon. At night, he served as ringleader for a group of circuit scene queers. He drank, occasionally snorted blow, but never imagined meth would one day command his life. He, like so many, tried it for the first time at a Grindr hookup, and in a matter of weeks he stopped working. He contracted HIV two months later, sunk into depression, and lost his lease. With no income, a budding habit, and stifling shame, he became a mid-level dealer, pushing a pound per week. He rents a couch at the notorious Castro Drug Den, a home owned by an elderly tweaker who rents out space almost exclusively to drug dealers. It’s been raided thirteen times in the past five years.

“How often do you guys sleep?” I ask.

They’re adamant that daily users must force themselves to sleep every night. Willy #1 says that he’s seen those who avoid sleep end up living a Truman Show existence. I have no idea what he means, and I don’t ask for clarity.

10

When I return to Nob Hill to visit shriveled little Paulie Sunshine, it’s as if we’ve known each other for years. Meth speeds up one’s perception of time. A day is a week. A week is a month. I’ll later learn this delusion is perpetuated by a surfeit of dopamine and noradrenaline being released into the brain. We gorge on cheesecake while debating whether to curate another orgy. Instead, we travel to the Richmond neighborhood, where a young Frenchman has opened a pastry shop around the corner from one of Sunshine’s regular sex buddies and received national press for his croissant recipe. A night of hedonism followed by a flaky, buttery indulgence? The perfect plan. Our host Scott is a high school music teacher. He refers to himself as Summer Scott, as if to say Autumn, Winter, and Spring Scott doesn’t smoke meth and allow myriad unwrapped anonymous penises to enter his every orifice. I bring watermelon and pomegranates, which I de-seed before serving. Another fella introduces himself.

“The fruit man!” he exclaims. “People been talking ’bout you!”

My mother would be so proud. He mentions having to leave by 6:00 A.M. to chair a CMA meeting. My first thought is … Country Music Awards? After further context, I realize he means Crystal Meth Anonymous. Why fake sobriety? Couch surfing and SROs aren’t the only remedies for the homelessness plaguing addicts. There are sober living communities. Medicaid pays six months in sober living housing for HIV-positive addicts who undergo inpatient treatment and attend twelve-step meetings. Once the stipend ends, many will return to rehab, starting the process again. I wonder what aspect of the system is broken. Is the quality of rehabilitation so insufficient that it permits financed addictions? What must rehabs do to inspire greater potential? Should they abolish the stipend, leaving addicts without the crutch?

Our night takes the normal course: condomless sex, fallen out men spewed about the floor, fraternity brothers clamoring over merciless sex like it’s a championship game. No one much likes one another. That’s actually the point of this type of sex. You can elicit the most vulnerable sounds, make the nastiest remarks. All sordid fantasies are welcome. This sex is about power. It’s about throwing away the rule book. And it’s about reclaiming savage masculinity. As the sun rises, Summer Scott insists on screening a YouTube video his students have edited, commemorating his Teacher of the Year award. Dispirited by the video in contrast to our milieu, I dose myself out more GBL, hoping to brighten my mood. I open the Ryde driver app and notice the fares are surging and cannot resist.

My first passenger is a forty-something corporate trainer. She’s outfitted in a maroon pantsuit, quietly munching a bagel as we drive west on Broadway through the Robert C. Levy Tunnel toward the Marina District. My eyes flash between the GPS and the cars ahead slowing their pace when darkness erupts. I see brake lights, red then black. My eyes close with no warning, and I fall out. Slamming headfirst into a black Camry revives my consciousness a second later. My passenger releases a high-pitched slasher-film scream. How can I walk this back? Truth isn’t an option. I apologize, confident if I mimic her confounding terror, I’ll engender empathy. She catches her breath and asks what’s happened. How did I not see the deceleration and react as a person with normal motor skills might?

“A bee!” I shout. “It stung my ankle!”

I then beg the other driver I’ve hit to not report the incident, offering to pay for any repairs. When I observe his Uber sticker, I play the “it’s hard out here for guys like us” card. We shake hands and go our separate ways.

I should sober up on the side of the road. I should, at worst, drive home and get some rest. Rather, I sign back in to Ryde and accept another request. Five minutes later, I’m driving a new passenger through Balmy Alley in the Mission, past harlequin murals celebrating Latin heritage, containing such vibrancy you’d expect them to take dimension and jump off the walls. I’m blasting Aimee Mann, singing at the top of my lungs. The passenger asks if the unseasonable weather is the reason for my joyful disposition. What he actually detects is relief compounded with an abundance of gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) coursing through my veins.

“These microclimates are mesmerizing!” I exclaim. “Seventy and sunny over in Berkeley, then you drive into SF and it’s fifty and clou—”

But I don’t finish this thought. I fall out again and slam into a second car. I again recite the bumble bee script, but the woman whose car I’ve hit this time isn’t hearing it. She’s threatening to call the cops when I notice her empty child’s car seat.

“I was rushing home to take our baby to pre-K,” I explain. “If we have to wait for the police, my wife will murder me!”

That worked, almost. She’s willing to skip calling the police but is resolute in filing an insurance report. And I will very soon, once again, be jobless.

11

I spend the next day brushing out the cats’ coats and treating them with meds for a recent flea infestation. When it rains, it pours. I then scour Christopher and Jonnie’s apartment with a dust rag, searching for purpose in every polish. Wasn’t I destined to be on TV or Broadway by now? That was the dream when auditioning for NYU’s drama program. Alas, my intimidation morphed into a fear of rejection, seeing my peers find representation out the gate. I couldn’t bartend and tell patrons I was an actor, watching them discreetly pity me. Rather, I hopped behind the camera, convincing myself that once I’d become a successful producer, I’d cast myself. In 2013, I assembled a guerrilla filmmaking crew and shot a mostly improvised feature film in which I played a repressed homosexual with dissociative identity disorder who discovers his orientation when his various personalities start blending together. I became deliberately manic, blowing lines of cocaine before every take, compelling the actors and crew to film two-hour-long takes or until the Super VHS tapes ran out. In addition to directing, acting, and regularly prying the camera from one of the cinematographers, I cooked every meal for the cast and crew, each one gourmet. I never trained in method acting, nor do I believe it’s necessary for a truthful performance, but boy, does it work.

Mom calls. She knows that once she hears my voice, she’ll let me off the hook. When I was growing up, she would regularly spiel hyperbolic threats like Keep it up and I’ll bend your finger back until it really hurts, or I’ll pin you to the wall and pluck every one of your armpit hairs one by one, or my personal favorite, Keep making fun and I’ll dress you up like a sad clown and parade you up and down the street until everyone’s pointing and laughing. She’s never once followed through.

“You had us scared there, Jas,” Mom says, “but I trust you want a better life.”

“I’m doing the work,” I reply ambiguously.

“Hey, so, I’m coming out for a Deepak Chopra workshop in August,” she says. “We’ll talk then.”

“I can barely wait.”

“You know what you mean to me?” she asks. This is a rhetorical question. This is her demanding that I take care of myself. I’m on the other end of an unwritten contract that says, I brought you into this life, now it’s your responsibility to stay.

“Love you too, Mom,” I tell her before ending the call.

Mom is the one whom I’ve gone to first whenever life feels uncertain. She’s always got the right words, but more than that, she has a core belief in her gut that everything will always work out; we may not yet know the how or when, but her certainty is contagious, in the best way. I so badly wish I could tell her how Ryde has temporarily suspended me while it investigates the incident and how this will undoubtedly result in my removal from the platform. I couldn’t even keep the job I’d judged, the job I thought I was above taking. We are more like friends than mother and son. She raised me around adults, shuffling me to Bonnie Raitt concerts and out with the girls, stacking telephone books on the barstool so I’d be at their level. She also confided in me her plans to divorce my father months before doing so. The emotional damage that did has made her regret that decision for the past twelve years.

The phone rings again. It’s Derek, some tweaker I met at a parTy whom I then converted into a customer for Racist Benjamin.

“What’s up with your boy?” Derek asks. Derek says that Benjamin is unreliable. Apparently, he shows up only when I drive him. “What, do these guys think it’s a hobby or something?”

I call Benjamin. No answer. I call Willy. Nada. I have one other dealer in my Rolodex. I tell myself I’m just helping out a pal as I call Zander, but it’s more than that. Derek’s question has spawned a revelation more tantalizing than it is daunting. I understand the commitment it takes to sustain a successful enterprise: reliability and customer satisfaction. People often ask, What does a producer do? Producers get the job done no matter fuckin’ what. I checked my account balance just an hour ago. In a week, I’ll need three stacks to repair the Camry I hit and to pay rent. I don’t even have $500.

Zander answers on the first ring. He is a businessman, not a hobbyist.

“What?” Zander snaps.

“You good?” I ask, meaning Does he have dope?

“My mother would issue a resounding no, but yes, honey, c’mon by.”

Ellis between Jones and Leavenworth is unlike any other San Francisco block. Whereas those have tourists, shoppers, couples holding hands, and friendly faces, this block pulsates fury: beggars afoot, crackheads hunched down hitting their pipes, and enough detritus blowing in the wind to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Zander answers the door by pugnaciously shoving me onto his bed, but this isn’t a seduction.

“Why,” he asks, “if you are now driving other drug dealers, are you still buying shit from me?”

“Would you believe I enjoy spending time with you?” I reply.

He snarls, “Absolutely not!”

“Would you believe,” I add, “that your shit’s better than theirs?”

“Yes,” he says, “but that’s not the full truth.”

“That’s because the full truth is both reasons.”

Zander huffs, befuddled by kindness. “What the fuck do you want?”

I rehash my GBL overdose, the successive car accidents, and my epiphany that’s landed me here.

Zander cuts to the chase. “So, you’re asking me to be your supplier.”

Hearing him say it so plainly, I feel a hole in my stomach like my brain has finally realized I haven’t eaten a thing in two days. Why must I do this? Is it money? That’s part of it, but it’s not the driving force. If I were hooked up to a polygraph and my life depended on a truthful answer, I’d have to admit that it’s simply exciting. I am a boring middle-class white boy from the suburbs. Most people (I like to think) describe me as a nice guy. A prosaic existence, after too long, makes me want to vomit. I want to be bad. I want to be good at being bad. But that’s the lie detector answer. I dig a little deeper for how I might negotiate this choice within the identity I’ve already chosen for myself: artist. And I’ve got it.

“I’m cutting out the middleman,” I tell him. “Or am I the middleman? Yes. I’m cutting myself out!”

“Fine, fine, fine,” Zander replies, “but you need to accept that you will most likely go to jail.”

I cock my head sincerely. “Weren’t you claiming meth was basically decriminalized here?”

“Sure,” he adds, “but what happens when the feds start a joint task force?”

“You think they’d want an itty-bitty fish like me?”

“All fishies start small,” he argues, “until they eat and eat some more because they don’t know how to stop. And those who eat too much perish.”

My eyes roll to the back of my skull. Zander is the older brother I never had. My querulous replies are equal parts obstinate and reverent. I explain how I’m meant for this, how I’ve always been a pusher. When I was ten, I started JRY Enterprises, a word-processing business, and convinced a local construction equipment rental company to commission my services in revamping its catalog. I rolled those profits into a black-market Beanie Baby venture, wherein I’d buy a handful of Beanies from a Korean man at the farmers market who knew an insider at Ty, the company that produced them, who alerted him in advance which units Ty was about to “retire,” which astronomically drove up their value. The Korean merchant would tell me which six Beanies to buy in bulk, knowing only one was about to be retired. I’d wait a few months to let scarcity enhance their value, then sell every retired unit (besides one) on eBay. Sixth grade was the most profitable year of my life, until I made nearly $7,000 selling anti-Bush T-shirts during the Republican National Convention in New York during my first week at NYU when I was meant to be attending orientation.

“Just remember who you are,” Zander says.

Zander advising me so sagaciously is further confirmation that we’re meant to work together. It’s sweet and I’d like to say a tad surprising, but I detected his humanity under all those layers of defensiveness and Dior. Little does he know, I’m already committed to remembering who I am. Aside from being a hustler, I’m an actor and I’m a storyteller. I’ve spent the past decade a stalwart champion for others’ narratives, grinding so that my peers’ passion projects might prevail: the schizophrenic filmmaker, the narcissistic songwriter, the bipolar playwright. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that most artists need to be unhinged to be brilliant. My turn.

“I’ll make it a story,” I tell him. “A screenplay!”

“It?” Zander bemusedly replies.

“Do you know about method acting?” I ask. “An actor preparing for a role as a car salesman might spend months actually selling cars. They become the part in real life. What writer has consciously become the protagonist of their own story simply by making a risky choice and allowing the arc to unfold? It’s reminiscent of Merce Cunningham!” Zander’s blank face reveals that he isn’t familiar. “The postmodernist choreographer,” I continue. “He’d roll a die to construct his dances, surrendering to chance, to the dance gods, as he called them.”

Zander chuckles. “I’ve heard fucked-up tweaker logic in my time, but, honey, you take the cake.”

“So,” I ask, “you think it’s a good idea?”

In a sardonic timbre, Zander replies, “Committing multiple felonies a day as research for a movie? Exposing every secret in our little bubble? Oh, I think it’s a splendid idea!”

PART 2

ASCENSION

12

“It appears you’re running low on G!” I say with the platitudinous swagger of an Amway beauty supplies salesperson.

Derek, the first of many clients I’ve taken from Racist Benjamin, is hosting six men when I arrive. I decline their ardent invitations to disrobe and play. I’m no longer of their rank, lowly addicts. My days, once again, have purpose. This is especially ironic because one unconscious motivation behind my foray into drug use and ultimately drug sales is to camouflage my way into a tribe. I’ve never listened to Britney Spears or said yaaasss authentically enough to fit in with most gay men. I couldn’t dribble or catch or say bruh enough to fit in with the straights. I joke that I’m a lesbian in a man’s body, but I’m not allowed at the Dyke March either. These drugs neutralize those variances and make me useful. Yet here I am, finding any reason to alienate myself once again.

“Usually I sell ounces for fifty,” I say, still perfecting my pitch, “but when you buy an eighth of dry, I do them for forty.”

“My G guy already sells them for forty,” Derek responds.

“But do you know where he gets his G?” I ask.

“I think he said from China,” Derek responds.

“That Chinese crap probably takes at least three milliliters to get you revved up,” I reply, regurgitating Zander’s zingers. “That’s ’cause the weakest G comes from China. My water is from Poland.”

Using terms like water, Gina, Tina, and dry makes discussing pestilential substances more digestible.

“Get the Polish shit!” someone shouts.

Look at me. I’m a salesman wielding technique, a pricing chart, and packaged deals. What a difference one week makes. I program my number in everyone’s phones. Regrettably, I remember Zander’s advice to never disclose my real name too late. My customers, since I met many of them when I was merely a driver, already know me as Jason. I’m trapped in my true identity.

“Where do you get these cute little plastic G bottles?” Derek asks.

I actually haven’t the faintest, since Zander’s been supplying the bottles up until now.

I grin coyly, circumventing his inquiry. “Have fun, boys. In fact, have too much fun.”

This line will become my sign-off, like Good night and good luck. I won’t be selling drugs as much as an enhancement experience. Back at the car, I call Zander.

“Please tell me you won’t be calling every hour for the rest of time,” he answers.

“Where do we get these G bottles?” I ask.

“Oh, the shampoo bottles?” I’ve forgotten the first rule: no explicit drug terminology over the phone. He continues: “You’ll want to visit TAP Plastics.”

“You’re an angel,” I tell him.

“You must be mistaken.”

TAP Plastics is that room where Willy Wonka sings “Pure Imagination” before steamboating through the psychedelic tunnel, but instead of everything being edible, it’s plastic. While filling my basket with plastic bottles, I notice an array of miniature cylindrical containers with pop-off lids that would be perfect for packaging meth. I recall my parents garnishing their first restaurant, dragging me along to trade shows, browsing supply catalogs, ordering dinnerware. They could’ve served salmon and steak on flimsy plates, but they chose sturdy china. It’s all in the presentation. Those thin plastic bags that dealers use are cheap and become impossible to reseal. Customers will treasure an upgrade. I shuffle into line behind a chemistry teacher when I espy looming cargo shorts and smell the stench of clove cigarettes. Racist Benjamin sidles up to me and peers into my basket. The jig is up. His underling has opened shop. He sips an overly large Mountain Dew, steaming in silence. I wish he’d reprimand me, but he doesn’t. What roles have I assigned that this heinous man’s dismay should shatter me so? My solicitude shifts to paranoia as the cashier counts my containers. She probably doesn’t consider this purchase suspicious, yet I feel the need to justify it.

“I’m a theater director,” I tell her, unprompted. “My performances invite the audience members to engage all their senses. The usher hands them various bottles filled with different substances that they’re instructed to open throughout the play, instilling aromas that engage emotions on a deeper level. It’s called olfactory. Ever heard of it?”

“Um, no,” she responds, “but I did see Hamilton.”

I regret never having executed this olfactory idea during my theater days. And I’m encouraged to find creating complex falsehoods in an instant isn’t just natural, it’s a reflex.

In the days that follow, I find myself reenacting that scene from Jerry Maguire after Tom Cruise has been fired from the sports agency, as he races to recruit his clients to join him. I tell Benjamin’s customers that choosing me means opting for discreet, punctual service, not some junkie piece of shit in a Buick, to quote him. Do I consider how Benjamin might retaliate to this move? Momentarily, yes, but I chalk up whatever hypotheticals cross my mind as plot points in the story I’m writing by living it. Truly, though, I don’t have the context for what retribution might look like because my lived experience until now has been mostly safe. Too safe, perhaps. Put another way: I’ve never screwed with a person like Racist Benjamin. When I realize I have nowhere to discreetly pour and weigh out my product, I call Sunshine.

“I told you,” he says, “come here any time for anything.”

While Sunshine reorganizes his DVD collection, I weigh meth into the fancy new packaging, placing color-coded stickers atop that denote the various increments. Pitch Perfect 2 is playing in the background. Disney posters cover his walls, an unsavory contrast of youthful purity to the depravity that regularly occurs here. If I’m to be successful, I can’t rely exclusively on a warm market, so I create a faceless Grindr account and make the handle GoTdeal$ Capitalizing G and T conveys the products I’m offering, and the emoji implies speedy delivery. Once my business profile is live, I close my eyes and quiet my mind like I learned during the meditation retreat Mom and I attended before starting college, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, until I’m asleep. I dream briefly about the girl with whom I had unprotected sex at that retreat twelve years ago. She’s found me here in San Francisco and is dying of cancer and needs me to man up and finish raising our eleven-year-old daughter I never knew existed.

Hours later, I awake to terrifying moans like a herd of asphyxiated lions. Sunshine is hosting another orgy. It’s a wonder the foul smell of poppers didn’t wake me like smelling salts. I bark at the heap of flesh for someone to pass the bong. Sleep is a rarity for us tweakers. We never want to succumb, but that first high upon waking is to be born again. I peruse the innumerable Grindr messages from prospective customers asking for prices, requesting samples, and inquiring whether I’m law enforcement. They’re under the flawed yet commonly held belief that police must identify themselves when asked or else it would be considered entrapment. I prepare the orders and enter everyone’s addresses into an app that generates the most efficient route. I reply with estimated times of arrival, guaranteeing it won’t waver by more than twenty minutes. I label contacts in my phone with a coded abbreviation of their orders for future reference and note precisely how to gain entry to ensure zero lag time that might leave me vulnerable on the street. Dad would call this systemization. Midway through deliveries, I call Zander again.

“Well,” he answers, “if it’s not Andrew Carnegie.”

“I’m leaning toward a more Bezos model,” I reply. “Where will you be at seven?”

“Unclear!” He shouts, but not at me, “Perhaps if someone had booked me at Hotel Diva like I’d asked …”

“You should really invest in a whip attachment for those canes,” I tell him, “… to keep Mateo in line.”

“I hate that idea,” Zander replies, “but only because it’s marvelous and it wasn’t mine.”

At 7:00 P.M., I knock on Zander’s suite to the friendly melody of “shave and a haircut, two bits” entirely to annoy him, which it does. Zander cannot fathom how I’ve sold two ounces of meth and sixteen ounces of GBL in under six hours. When I ask for replacements, he informs me that I’ve already gone through my weekly allotment of GBL, explaining the limit is due to how many shipments don’t make it past customs. Perhaps the feds recognize that any drug this pleasurable must be nipped in the bud before the masses learn of its potent, euphoric effects and the next crack epidemic is born.

“Mind if I chill here and weigh shit out?” I ask.

“Normally,” Zander replies, “you’d have to light my pipe for such an ask, but I’m enjoying the show. It’s like watching a child learn how to ride a bike.”

“Only I haven’t taken a spill!” I retort.

“But when you inevitably do fall,” Zander says, “it’ll hurt worse because you aren’t used to it.”

Mateo and Zander stare at me while consuming grotesque amounts of Domino’s. When I dump my plastic containers onto the table, Zander asks, “What the hell are those?”

“It seemed a clever way to package the product,” I reply. “I figured it’ll be a solid trademark!”

“Yes,” Zander snarls, “the DA will absolutely love it.”

13

It’s just after dawn when I log back in to Grindr. A goateed man who uses the handle Swirly invites me over. Swirly’s real name is Jack. He explains that swirly is a term to describe being high on G. Jazzy is another synonym. He asks what I’d like from Jack in the Box. My brain momentarily wonders whether there’s a joke or a metaphor I’m missing, but I conclude that he’s just hungry and that’s one of the only restaurants open at 4:00 A.M. I message him back: Burger, no cheese, lettuce, onion, extra pickles, ketchup, no mustard, dash of mayo, no tomatoes … and extra crispy curly fries, please.

I like complicated men, he replies.

When I spot Jack scampering down the sidewalk, I consider ghosting him. His goatee makes him look ten years his senior, or maybe that’s the meth? I then remember his kindness, tolerating my finicky order. I suspect that’s an outlier in this culture.

“Yo, Swirly!” I shout.

He waves and runs toward me like a boy at recess, sporting a bowl cut of fine-fibered copper-colored hair. Jack asks the questions no one else here will. When I mention growing up in the hotel business, he asks if anyone ever died in a room and, if so, how. He escorts me down California Street, past the cable car wires above, and into his sumptuous Nob Hill apartment building through the garage, sure to avoid the doorman after having been a topic of misconduct at the last homeowners association meeting. The garage is brimming with BMWs, Alfa Romeos, and Teslas. Every wall of his apartment is painted a different shade of bright neon and is covered in leather-framed art. Tech gadgets cover the dining room. One corner looks like a craft room one might find at a hippie-dippie summer camp. His view showcases the eastern fragment of San Francisco all the way over to the East Bay. A fun house had a baby with an art installation and spawned this condo. And there on the coffee table rests a pipe and meth baggie. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. I reach to pack the pipe.

Jack places a hand on my chest. “When did you last eat?” he asks.

“I’m not crazy hungry.”

“Your mind is lying to your body,” he replies.

Jack was born in England and raised in Southern California. He attended boarding school in Colorado, then spent his youth globetrotting. His grandfather founded a flooring business after World War II that grew to be the largest in Europe and rolled its profits into global real estate ventures. Jack owns this condo outright and lives off his stock dividends. He’s a trust fund baby. I feel safe here, which is probably a comment on my privilege and good fortune. He serves us slices of a lemon elderflower cake he’s baked. If Jack required an income, he could easily become a pastry chef. Jack maintains a group of friends with well-paid jobs. He calls them his “real friends.” They meet weekly for potlucks. They attend Burning Man and film screenings at the Castro Theatre and frequent cocktail bars. They do drugs but only soft stuff like weed, maybe Molly on special occasions. None of his real friends know Jack smokes meth. He can rely on them. They’re never late, and if they are, they notify him. If Jack were admitted to the hospital, his real friends would visit or send flowers. However, it’s his tweaker friends with whom Jack spends most of his time. The tweaker friends show up unannounced at all hours. They eat his food. They take hourlong showers and use all his toiletries. They stay beyond their welcome. Jack’s real friends are a tight-knit group of seven. His tweaker friends are in the dozens. I too have a group of real friends down in LA and back in Brooklyn and even a few in the Philly burbs, and like Jack, I’ve been lying to all of them. My best friend, Drew, the person I spent every summer day through high school with, the person I picked up on my way to school each morning, the person with whom I discovered my love for cinema, the person who’s been there for me no matter the circumstance, has sent me so many texts using words like abandoned and erased that I’ve had to block his number. I wonder, Can I live this way, compartmentalizing myself to fit an irreconcilable duality? I like to imagine I could be Jack’s real friend, someone who makes guacamole for the potlucks.

“Wanna get jazzy?” I ask.

“I’ll get my G glasses,” Jack replies.

He grabs two short-stemmed brown glasses from the cupboard that would’ve served gin fizzes in 1973, then asks my permission to dose us, using a metallic measuring spoon.

“Why people use plastic dosers that deteriorate from the G is beyond me,” he asserts.

We’re already consuming highly corrosive chemicals, I think. Is a little melted plastic really going to kill us?

Jack raises his glass. We clink and say, “Cheers!” I’d like to celebrate becoming a successful dealer overnight, but I withhold that accomplishment, knowing it will brand me a tweaker friend. The G takes hold. Sexual urges cascade through my extremities. Jack starts dancing despite no music playing. I wiggle my body to the nonexistent beat and kiss him. He kisses back, then pulls away. I impel him to the sofa and unzip his pants.

He gently lifts me and whispers, “Expand your horizons.”

He tells me to take three deep breaths. I do. He tells Alexa to play “Let’s Hear It for the Boy.” The eighties one-hit wonder commands our every muscle. We dance like a bomb will explode if we cease. When the song ends, we fall to the ground and trade impressions of characters who’ve fallen and cannot get up. When I get tired, I reach for the antidote. Smoking meth usually feels grimy, but doing it now with Jack feels akin to smoking weed, wholesome almost. We climb to the roof. I’m not one for heights, but the chemicals quash my trepidation. He launches a drone mounted with a night-vision camera and hands me a live streaming iPad. We peer into the neighbor’s windows and discover a woman in a bra and dog-print pajama pants, reading a magazine. Jack engineers the drone to and fro.

“She’s gonna see us!” I chant jitterily.

A beam of light shimmers. He’s taken a picture. The lady hastens toward the window, giving us both middle fingers. We howl in laughter. She mouths, I’m calling the cops, then steps back and slowly takes her bra down, licking her fingers then caressing her nipples. I love San Francisco.

“I’ve seen enough,” Jack says, snapping one final picture.

Jack believes these drugs, which have become inherently associated with sex, should be utilized for other varieties of enjoyment. He’s known in the community for taking new users out on his famous G-walks, which include acting like you’re inside a cartoon while meandering the empty, dark city streets and culminates at Bob’s Donuts around 5:00 A.M. to procure a freshly fried batch. I haven’t had this much fun in years. Back at the apartment, I throw him onto the sofa. Our kisses crescendo. I gaze at him and witness his utter beauty. How could I have so coldly sneered upon first glance?

When my eyes open, I’m naked on the floor, contorted around Jack’s body. I can’t recall whether we had sex. The sun is above the horizon and my car must be moved. I shake Jack, but the G sleep has a strong grip. I take a hit off the pipe, knowing I won’t make it two feet without refueling. My arms flail as I scuttle down the hill on Taylor Street just in time to see the tow truck driving away with my Ford C-Max hitched to the back. The expenses of addiction are adding up. Luckily, I have money now, only it’s inside Jack’s. Neither text nor call wakes him. I have no choice but to buzz the doorman. I relay an expeditious story in a horrendous British accent about how I’m Jack’s locked-out cousin visiting from Manchester. The doorman peers through the gated courtyard. I look affright, with rancid hidrosis, my shirt inside out. He reiterates the building’s policy to never allow visitors entrance unless buzzed in by an occupant, and it’s confirmed: I’m a tweaker friend. Jack arises two hours later and drives me to the tow yard. He asks if I have enough money. I unveil a stout wad of cash. I won’t begin this friendship with a lie, so I describe the last few days. Jack nods, but I cannot decipher an opinion.

“Well?” I ask.

“I guess …” He pauses. “I thought you seemed smart.”

14

Back in Berkeley, Jonnie has stepped into the position of cat mother since I’m hardly there. I spend twenty hours every day doing deliveries, ending my nights curled up in Jack’s arms. Our meteoric intimacy seems implausible. He forces me to sleep a minimum of one hour, adamant I’ll otherwise lose my mind. As my customers grow, I’m faced with supply shortages. Requests for dick pills surge, but Zander pushes only Tri-Mix, an injectable solution that guarantees a twelve-hour erection. I’d seen this utilized before when I worked for one day as a cinematographer for a New York–based gay porn studio. One porn star had to end his day in the hospital, receiving the antidote to stop blood from entering his engorged erection. Moreover, elementary school DARE classes ingrained in me a lasting fear of needles: baleful imagery of belts tied tightly around biceps; bent, tar-riddled spoons on the ground. Jack contends that no matter what, I must never slam.

Once you slam, he says, there’s no getting out.

Racist Benjamin refuses to sell me the fruit-flavored Viagra gel packs that are his bestseller, so I convince Sky to backchannel them for a kickback. Having a bountiful supply of the parTy favors trifecta (crystal, G, and dick pills) allows me to market packages like a fast-food combo meal, transcending the antiquated drug dealer business model.

It’s Jack’s potluck night, the one night I’m not invited over, so I join Blaine where he’s taken refuge at a gloomy apartment in Duboce Triangle overlooking the Castro. Our host, Trevor, is a graying, unemployed computer programmer in his mid-fifties. His home is filled with gadgets he’s rigged to enact similar connectivity features that an Amazon Echo offers. A sling hangs in front of various cameras with three men contorting themselves upon it. This is the Zoom stage. Once the broadcast begins, it’s less about pleasure and entirely about performance. Trevor instructs his homemade AI to “project Trevor montage,” and a moving image appears like a hologram displaying vintage porn in which Trevor plays an army general.

“Blaine tells me you’re a trustworthy cat,” Trevor says. “Well, I’m always here if you ever need to get off the streets or if you have a group you want to get naked with. I fill the fridge with beverages and have every brand of poppers. Aside from that, you’ll have to bring your own parTy favors. Smoke all you want, but I don’t allow slamming, nor do I have any pipes ’cause I don’t smoke it.”

“That’s very generous,” I reply, “but if you don’t shoot or smoke it, how do you—?”

“Booty bump!” he exclaims. “You dissolve Tina with water, put it in a lube shooter, then up the rear it goes. The blood vessels are more concentrated in the anus, so the high’s way more potent.”

Blaine adds, “Aside from slamming or pissing, nothing gets ya higher. Guys who’ve just slammed will urinate inside another dude. It replicates their level.”

“A couple more items,” Trevor continues. “Anywhere is accessible besides my roommate Patrizio’s bedroom. And lastly, no dealers allowed. We live two blocks from the Castro Drug Den, and I don’t plan on landing on anyone’s radar.”

“I saw a twenty-four-hour grocery nearby,” I say, suppressing a gulp. “I’m gonna grab some fruit.”

“Wait, you’re the fruit guy?” Trevor exclaims. “Can’t believe it’s you! People have been raving about it.”

“Can’t only eat ass all day, right?” I quip. Trevor chuckles. Finally, a receptive audience.

While walking to the store, I ask Blaine, “Does Trevor think I’m homeless?” Immediately fearful my tone implies judgment, I add, “I hope you’re not offended by that.”

“I’m homeless, sure,” Blaine counters, “but I always have somewhere to go. I’m leaseless. Trevor’s merely offering a safe place. We all need one at some point.”

“What’s the deal with Patrizio?” I ask.

“Patrizio’s a sex worker,” Blaine replies, “so I assume Trevor sublets out the room for the same cost of the entire apartment’s rent. Patrizio is basically paying Trevor’s rent.”

Everyone here’s got ninety different hustles.

“Trevor’s a bit odd, no?” I ask.

“When I have nowhere to go,” Blaine responds, “and someone welcomes me with no strings attached, odd isn’t the word I use.”

Blaine chronicles a catalog of tweaker houses across San Francisco, all relatively safe but elitist spaces where one can find a curated orgy at any hour, no matter the date. The guests are screened by the host to avoid engaging with one of the many fraudsters who float from parTy to parTy looking for their next mark. The most infamous tweaker house is a luxury condo in SoMa with an ever-revolving guest list governed by the owner, Isaac, who sits nude behind his desk like a gay absurdist reality show version of The Godfather. He has CCTV and lockers where people stash their belongings. His butler cooks the meals, makes any necessary trips out, and serves as security if violence occurs or someone Gs out, ensuring police are never called.

“Not everyone falls out,” Blaine explains. “Some will instead G out. They’ll lose control. They’ll pound their chests like a baboon, howl like a coyote, or appear like they’re having a seizure.”

Blaine adds that tweaker houses, in San Francisco especially, often maintain a strict no-Asians rule. Hearing this makes me physically ill. I’m realizing this libidinous subculture is an autonomous secret society furnished with bylaws and manifest racism. What’s the point of creating safe spaces for queer addicts if their very nature repudiates anyone who has melanin in his skin? Am I naive to think I could change the way this subculture functions from within? Is that a reason to stay? At the store, I fill my basket with an array of fresh fruits.

“You think Trevor has a sharp knife?” I ask.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Blaine says, giggling. “Get precut.”

When I mention my foray into sales, asking him to spread the word, Blaine warns me that every dealer always starts with good intentions but rapidly becomes a degenerate who only cares about money. I offer him a teener for every referral he sends my way. That changes his tune.

“You’re using your real name, aren’t you?” he asks.

I hang my head, miming shame, but I’m not distressed. In fact, I’ve never felt so good.

“Have you gotten on PrEP yet?” he asks.

I smile. I haven’t. I need to.

15

Guillaume and I have one of those friendships where no matter how much time passes between seeing each other, everything always falls right into place. I spot him outside the terminal at SFO wheeling his Louis Vuitton luggage on this balmy spring morning. People here, especially tourists, love to recite the famous quote: The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. Most everyone attributes its origins to Mark Twain, but they’re wrong. No one knows who said it first. That said, it is true, but springtime here can be hot as hell.

My dear college friend is pragmatic but grew up affluent enough that people must engage him in that fiery dialogue the French are famous for before deciding whether he’s a snob. His accent doesn’t help. It’s not the French accent from the movies. Guillaume’s dialect was shaped by summers spent in Panama having vehement conversations in Spanish with his grandfather and six years studying, then working, in New York. It’s a hybrid not easily imitated, although I try constantly.

“Hey, J-Z!” he shouts upon recognizing me from my favorite purple hat I’ve been wearing for years now to cover my C-shaped balding pattern. Guillaume believes if you say my name fast enough, Jason sounds like JZ, which is only true in his accent.

“Yo, Pigass!” I respond.

Guillaume finds endless merriment in how Americans tack the suffix -ass to the end of any descriptor, like cheap-ass burritos or fancy-ass haircut. Years ago, Guillaume and his friend HB were in a threesome and were asked to Eiffel Tower the girl, the sexual position where two men enter orifices on either end of a bent over woman, press their hands together in the air, and form a triangle. Both men are French, so it felt appropriate. When he relayed this tale, I called him Pigass and it stuck.

I ensure the dust towel is covering my bubbler before he gets into the vehicle. It takes forty minutes to drive to Berkeley, which I fill with unceasing dialogue, avoiding the imminent topic of why he’s made this trip in the first place. Guillaume loves me like a brother, so I capitalize on that and launch into victimhood, explaining how my breakup and stalled career have driven me to becoming a temporary Ryde driver. An actor plays an action, and my role now is to elicit empathy.

“And now I shuttle around professionals while they make piteous small talk,” I lament, “but my recovery has taught me gratitude. The gifts of sobriety will appear in time.” I’m unsure whether I’m robbing these nuggets from rehab or TV, but they are gold. “Was this where I thought I would be? No, but you know what they say: no matter where you go, there you are.”

Running low on rhetorical recovery mumbo jumbo, I ask how his marriage has evolved since meeting under the auspices of a green card arrangement. He admits it doesn’t have the passion of his previous relationship where the makeup sex was as volatile as the fight that caused it, but he argues that it’s healthier, that consistency and reliability are cornerstones of an adult connection. I nod in semi-agreement and wonder, Does being an adult mean settling for someone who’ll keep me steady rather than someone who makes my blood bubble?

“How’s your mom?” I ask.

Over the years, we visited his family in Panama. His mother was a dear woman, but her drinking had become excessive, and the screaming fights I overheard were unbearable. Growing up, Guillaume spoke French with his father and Spanish with his mother, so when the parents argued, they did so in English. Despite their children all becoming fluent in English, the pattern persisted, and I bore witness to the verbal wrath of her intoxication. A few years back, Guillaume’s mother visited a Swiss doctor who claimed he’d invented a miracle drug that eradicates all symptoms of addiction. I ask, out of genuine curiosity, if she’s still a believer.

“She’s finally seen the light,” he says with a sigh, “and is extremely active in Alcoholics Anonymous. Are you doing the work?” he asks. He means am I going through the twelve steps with a sponsor, the formula designed for addicts to ensure lifelong recovery.

“My meetings aren’t a place where you sit and share uninterrupted,” I tell him. “At SMART, we encourage cross talk. We push each other to analyze the intention behind our behavior, rather than performing indulgent soliloquies.”

I lecture him on the value of cognitive behavioral therapy, how internal change doesn’t happen simply by declaring ourselves powerless. Guillaume requests more information so he can forward it to his mother. I make him believe it’s working so well that I nearly believe it myself. I tell him about my car accident (the bumble bee version) and how it’s put me in jeopardy of losing my only income and how, as a result, I won’t be able to spend the time we need to really work together on the company.

“I hope you understand,” I say. “Perhaps we could postpone our business plans?”

Guillaume grips my shoulder. “Totally, man. This isn’t the time to be making any big moves.”

Almost instantly, he forgives my rescinding the very reason for his visit and pivots. He’ll take the extra time to polish his screenplay about a Panamanian witch.

We arrive at the Berkeley apartment, where he will stay in my room since, as everyone knows, I am staying with my new boyfriend in recovery, Jack, so that Guillaume can have a bed to himself. He hugs me, and I contract my chest, so he won’t detect my racing heartbeat. Seconds later, I pull back out the driveway.

16

No one is awake when I return to the Berkeley apartment the next morning. I lay a blanket on the couch, making it appear like I’ve slept there. Jason Yamas, master illusionist. Growing up in a Greek and Italian household, our remedy for all malaise was food. The aroma of batter sizzling on a buttered griddle wakes everyone up. I serve short stacks with maple syrup and candied pecans.

“I thought you were sleeping at your new boyfriend’s?” Jonnie says.

“The best Rydes are after two on weekends,” I tell her, “and I didn’t want to wake him up.”

“So, when did you get in?” she asks.

“Around three thirty.”

She eyes the blanket skeptically but doesn’t say anything. Jonnie has deflated my illusion. What if she’d woken at 5:00 A.M. to get water and witnessed an empty couch? The effort I’ve put into my illusion could now be seen as subterfuge and one step nearer to unmasking the larger lie. While we’re forking our flapjacks, Jonnie reminds me that their new roommate will be taking my room by the end of July. Christopher and Guillaume tuck into the pancakes a little more seriously with news of my impending eviction, but I keep it light. “No worries,” I tell her. “I’ll find a place.”

Easier said than done for someone with no verifiable income.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Christopher says after a while, “with all that driving you’re doing.”

He’s not entirely wrong. Unlike most of the other low-level dealers, I have a nice car that keeps me safe and gets the job done faster. Driving is a major component. By this point, I’m making about three grand a week and have saved up enough money to rent a place, but providing pay stubs would be challenging. Christopher and Jonnie leave for school, and Guillaume takes a shower while I clean up. Seeing them march off to their regular lives, I pity them, out there locked in their pedestrian existences. When I head out to work, it feels like those first few seconds when the roller coaster goes from zero to a hundred. And I get to feel that way all day long. I smile to myself …

A half hour later, Guillaume discovers me facedown in a plate of syrup. He yanks my hair to wake me, causing me to screech in pain.

“Sorry, man,” he says.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I holler back, not yet realizing why my face is sticky and wet.

“I didn’t want you to drown”—he winces—“in syrup.” Then he adds, “Wow, man, is everything okay?”

“Never better.” I laugh. “Maybe a tad overworked, but you know me.”

I can barely see him through saccharine droplets dribbling from my forehead. (Guillaume will recall this as the moment he could’ve intervened but ignored the clues.) A shower washes the syrup away, but it won’t clear the mind mist. Sleep has become my nemesis. It’s quicksand once it has me in its grip. I crank the temperature to a boil and lurch out of the shower, generating enough steam to mask a few discreet hits. On my way out the door, Guillaume grabs my forearm. He vigilantly requests to join me at my next recovery meeting. I give him a thumbs-up and bolt. I haven’t the temerity to mutter another lie this morning.

Blaine calls with a potential referral for a new customer. “His name is Landon,” he says, “and like me, he’s leaseless. However, his mitigation technique is to cozy up with a different lonely, older man every week. We used to be close.”

“Until?” I ask.

“He entered The Truman Show,” Blaine replies.

“What exactly does that mean?” I ask, figuring I can’t keep ignoring this term being thrown around the community.

“It’s when psychosis consumes your every waking moment,” Blaine explains, “when you believe everything is connected, that you’re being watched and followed.”

“Truman Show is a great movie,” I say.

Blaine responds, “Not for Truman.”

Landon calls seconds later, and before I can say hello, I hear his garbled murmurs: “I’m in Oakland being held against my will, so when you arrive, say that you’re Landon’s boyfriend, that you’re just back from Nantucket and you’re here to retrieve him. It’s vital you say those exact words.”

“Landon?” I ask. “Are you being held against your will?”

Silence. More silence. I’ll text the address,” he responds before hanging up.

Thirty minutes later, a shirtless older man answers the chartreuse door of the ramshackle Oakland home where Landon is allegedly being held. He sports a greasy salt-and-pepper mullet and smells profoundly like bologna. Before I can launch into my script, he cuts me off.

“Thank God!” He sighs. “Come in, please.” He extends his hand. “I’m Kent, and boy, am I beyond relieved to see you!”

Kent’s home can only be described as Victorian drab: faded paintings of bosomy women in pink lace bordered by chipped, dusty frames. Dollar store vases holding bouquets of dead roses cover every flat surface. Every piece of furniture is covered in plastic. I choke on his bologna stench as he leads me into his shag-carpeted sex den, a bondage gear showroom of open-mouth ring gags, a Scottish tawse, fur paddles, a leather tigress whip, nipple clamps, anal hooks, suede floggers. Chemsex porn plays on the television. It’s hard to decipher whether the subjects know they’re being filmed. I saw Pacifica Joe filming his unwitting victims but never considered those videos might be posted online. Landon is peering out the window.

“Landon, honey?” I call out to him. First rule of acting: never break character.

He looks up, gears turning as he recalls the plan and propels into a soap-operatic performance as the long-abandoned lover.

He embraces me, then whispers, “He was about to slit my throat.”

Kent’s amusement is bordering exasperation. Over Landon’s shoulder, I spot multiple liters of GBL in Kent’s closet—liquid gold, as we say in the business. GBL is king! Its scarcity keeps it in perpetual demand. The G sells the T, which sells the dick pills. The trader who sells the pheasant sells the eggs.

“Landon, babe, wait in the car,” I say. “Kent and I need to have a little talk.”

Anyone with this much GBL clearly maintains a regular supply. I offer Kent $600 for two liters every week. Thirty-two liquid ounces in a liter retailing for fifty per ounce would yield me a $10,000 monthly profit.

“They’re accounted for,” Kent groans.

When someone says I can’t have something, I must have it. If Kent’s business is as unkempt as his home, my best strategy is to play the role of consultant. I show Kent how he can maximize GBL revenues by only selling ounces as part of a package with crystal and dick pills, unlocking more inventory he can then wholesale to me. I offer to trade fruit-flavored Viagra gels packs for the GBL. He’s skeptical, so I tear open a mango one and hand it to him.

“Eat it,” I say. “It’s Viagra and it’s delicious.” I’m cultivating my dealer persona in the quiddity of a drug world Willy Wonka.

Landon texts, Did he take you hostage too?

Don’t worry, I reply, I’m setting him straight.

Kent is soon all smiles, adjusting his crotch within minutes of downing the mango-flavored enhancement.

“Working?” I ask.

He nods heartily. Sealing the deal, I agree to send Kent some of my East Bay customers as my client base broadens in San Francisco.

“Who are you?” Kent asks.

I wryly respond, “I’m a businessman. Who are you? Are you a businessman too?” He doesn’t realize I’m paraphrasing Emily Dickinson.

Value is what one will pay, and that’s determined by necessity and accessibility. I’ve always longed to be one of those professional barterers who starts with a seed and trades his way to a Maserati. This might be the closest I’ll get.

We take off toward the Bay Bridge and I call Sky, doubling my original order of the Viagra gel packs. Landon appears entirely normal during our drive. Was his Kafkaesque behavior all an act, part of his manipulation, his hustle? We arrive in Noe Valley, known colloquially as Stroller Valley.

“They know,” Landon says, referring to the precociously dressed children on every block.

I can’t explain it, but I know exactly what he means. The sober adults, the normies, the non-zombies, they haven’t a clue what plane we’re on, but there’s something in the leer of a child. They know.

I’m dropping Landon off at a mansion when the host invites me in. Landon’s daddy of the week is a surgeon named Gerald. I hadn’t considered that medical professionals, no less surgeons, could be meth users. They both beg me to stay and take turns topping them. Fucking the doctor and the mental patient feels kinky and new. This time, I accept.

17

Can we span time? Jack texts.

I choose to believe this is not a typo and that he’s quoting Buffalo ’66, when Vincent Gallo tells Christina Ricci how to pose in a photobooth: We’re a loving couple, spanning time. These photos are us in love, spanning time. I’m rendering him in the image of cinephiles I dated in New York. My therapist will one day call this “traumatic substitution,” imposing characteristics we need to see in another.

Jack stands in the kitchen, hands on his hips, wearing a pink bunny rabbit onesie identical to the one Ralphie receives in A Christmas Story. A monkey onesie hangs over the counter next to a brand-new ice cream maker.

“Pick a flavor,” Jack chants, “any flavor!”

I change into my onesie, and we mix mint-cookie batter.

“Why didn’t you call last night?” I ask. I hadn’t planned to say this. While jealousy proves obsolete in a world where everyone fucks one another, I can’t seem to let it go. Jealousy is unfortunately essential for me to experience real intimacy. I wish I weren’t this way. “I realize I’m not your boyfriend—”

“I have feelings for you too,” Jack interrupts. “I just don’t know where to place you.”

He fancies himself transitioning away from chemsex culture and is apprehensive about developing a sustained romance with a criminal.

“Being a user is one thing,” Jack asserts, “but being a dealer places a target on your back.” He sighs. “Just promise me if you ever hear of someone named Zander, you’ll stay clear?”

“Who’s Zander?” I ask, suppressing a fearful smirk.

Jack recounts the misadventures of Billy from Branson, Missouri, who moved here two years ago and started selling. Zander was his supplier and mentored him in safe shipping practices. Midwesterners will spend quadruple for that primo Cali meth. Billy followed Zander’s packaging and payment instructions to a tee. When he flew home for Thanksgiving, the feds were waiting at the gate for him.

“You’re saying I should never ship?” I reply.

Jack suspires: a tacit implication that I’ve missed his point. I haven’t. I just prefer he not worry. I quickly escape to the bathroom. Once upon a time, I had a flawless poker face. These days, my facial muscles move without my knowledge, a side effect of the chemicals, and I can’t take the chance he’ll detect my lie. I must prove I’m a worthy partner. Rummaging through his medicine cabinet, I discover a bottle of Truvada.

“How long have you been on PrEP?” I shout from the bathroom.

“I’m not,” he replies.

“Whose Truvada is that?” I ask.

“It’s one of the meds in my cocktail,” he says. “I’m undetectable.”

I can’t blame Jack for not having told me. In this society, it’s safe to assume everyone is positive. The accountability lies with the negative one to ask. I want to have sex, but a niggling in my mind won’t let me. For all I know, I could be positive by now. I’ve likely slept with dozens of positive men these past months, but there’s something about knowingly participating without protection. Until now, I could have rationalized it in my mind, telling myself I wasn’t certain whether I’d slept with people who were assuredly positive. But if I do it now, knowing without a doubt that Jack is, it’s on me. Of course, this is bullshit mind games, and uninformed bullshit at that. I don’t yet know that being undetectable, in terms of transmission, is akin to not even having the virus at all.

I need to politely disappear. When Jack goes into the bathroom, I dose 4.0mL of GBL and throw it back without a mixer. The G quickly degrades the lining of my tongue, then my esophagus. My throat closes. I gasp like someone with a peanut allergy devouring a Reese’s Cup.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asks.

“Asth—ma,” I reply.

“Do you have an inhaler?” he asks, panicked.

“No in—ha—ler—I’m fine,” I say, before the gasping subsides and I sink into blackness.

The next morning, the line outside Strut, the LGBTQ+ clinic on Castro, beckons all the queer archetypes: bears, twinks, otters, leather daddies, wolves, pups, gym rats, cubs, and, of course, giraffes. The thought of contracting HIV conjures the image of a lesion-covered Tom Hanks slow dancing with a dashing Antonio Banderas in a sailor suit. Philadelphia was a goddamn horror flick for a gay boy in the nineties.

A clinician shuffles fifteen men inside and informs the rest to try again tomorrow, as if knowing one’s HIV status is as exclusive as pit seats at a Taylor Swift concert. In the waiting room, browsing colorful pamphlets cautioning patients of stomach-curdling symptoms, I recall a night at Paris’s finest bathhouse, followed by a week of hunching over the toilet like a hornet’s nest had formed inside both holes. I slip into the bathroom and slurp down a cap of BDO. Tweakers refer to a dose of G as a cap because the actual cap of the one-ounce G bottles measures out approximately 2.0mL. I’ve never actually tried this synthetic G, but one of my pitches when selling it is to say how half a dose is comparable to Xanax, though I can’t remember who told me that. Ten minutes later, I’m amenable to whatever fate shall befall me when the nurse says they’re behind schedule and to return tomorrow or to try visiting City Clinic in SoMa. If I don’t go today, I know I won’t tomorrow.

I drive down Market Street, passing a homeless encampment two yards from a farmers market. The brazen contrast of layering poverty upon prosperity is inescapable in San Francisco. Without warning, I feel a tingling sensation in my penis. It’s horniness, but it’s not the customary dialogue between the genitals and the brain. My body howls, it squirms, it gesticulates. I bite my finger and slap my face. What is this wicked potion? I pull over, open Grindr, and draft a message.

Looking to get fucked NOW. HMU if you want this ass!!!

I accompany my mannerly offer with three nudes and send it to everyone within two miles. I’ve lost sovereignty over instinct. I play with myself, releasing the sounds a mama bear makes to scare predators away from her cubs. BDO transforms me into someone unrecognizable, someone shameless. I need a cigarette.

My eyes flutter open, and I regain consciousness. Distortion from my lashes renders orange and purple then sky blue. A horn blasts. I swerve into my lane using my knees. How am I possibly driving right now? When did I fall asleep? Or fall out rather? My left hand holds an empty can of grapefruit seltzer as a stream of dark yellow urine shoots toward it. I tighten my grip to stop spraying the vehicle’s interior. I pull into an alley and begin hyperventilating. How long was I fallen out? Did I get laid? Did I make it to the clinic? Zero recollection. I need a cigarette. I search the car for my fanny pack containing my smokes and three grand in dirty fives and tens. The last thing I remember was rolling down the window and lighting a cigarette. I can’t recall falling out behind the wheel, genitals exposed. I drive back to where I parked hours ago to search for the fanny pack. By the time I realize my keys were inside the fanny pack, the car is now off and cannot be restarted. It’s these moments one is either grateful he has a partner or bitter he does not. I’m forced to call Christopher so he can bring me the spare set. I explain how I tripped and dropped my keys down a sewer grate, but unceasing chaos eventually raises suspicion even among the most credulous.

Christopher pulls up with Jonnie and Guillaume in the car. The shared disappointment from these three people who love me is palpable. I’m so uncomfortable, I briefly envision the car blowing up, anything to wipe away this shameful residue. But since we’re finally all together and we’re in the Mission, the epicenter of Cal-Mex, Christopher insists we go out for burritos. I proceed to nod off between every bite.

“Come home and take a nap?” Jonnie whispers.

“I should get back to work,” I reply.

“How about we call your mom,” she suggests, “and see what she thinks?” Age is irrelevant. Threatening to tell Mom always works.

“I’ll go to a coffee shop,” Guillaume offers, “so you can have your own bed to rest in for the afternoon.”

Lying in my bed, I’m a squirm machine. The cats, despite my emphatic psp-psp-ing, won’t join me in my room. They’ve made a home out of Jonnie’s side of the bed instead. I turn on the television. I’m behind on all my shows like The Americans and Game of Thrones. Mere months ago, I self-identified as a TV scholar, but now I’m disinterested in any drama that’s not my own. I get an email from my friend Stephen Winter back in New York. Stephen is an established Black queer filmmaker, an NYU grad fifteen years my senior who’s supported all my filmic pursuits this past decade. Two years ago, he called me with the innovatory concept to tell the story behind the making of Shirley Clarke’s 1967 subversive documentary Portrait of Jason, showcasing the director’s methods in ex ploiting her Black gay addict protagonist. I dropped everything on my plate and devoted all my energy to making our film a reality. That was the point of taking mindless media jobs for Google: to afford months of no pay, to produce salient work, to elevate stories about marginalized groups. And we made a beautiful film called Jason and Shirley that would premiere at the Brooklyn Academy of Music CinemaFest in 2015 and years later be released on Criterion. Today, however, he’s needing the password to edit the film’s website and I can’t bring myself to respond. I roll myself a joint. Weed was how I relaxed for the past twelve years. I light it, then immediately put it out. I’d prefer if I never came down.

18

I announce myself into the buzzer and am met with Nord’s ebullient “Come on up, Daddy!”

Nord’s living room houses seventeen men engaged in various bodily and drug-related jollies. Tonight’s festivities honor a South African in town for an entomology conference. I met Nord on my first night dealing and never would’ve guessed how vital he’d become to my operation. He’s an elfish man with a diabolical smile who upon meeting me asked if he could call me Daddy. I laughed it off, and he took that as a yes. Nord’s grandmother pays the rent on his two-bedroom apartment on Leavenworth where he resides on the couch, subletting out the rooms so he can fulfill his dreams of being a full-time parTy host. His fetish is throwing parTies in honor of a tourist who’s never done meth or G before. Nord knows literally everyone in the tweaker community. He connects me to several new clients every day, yet he’s never asked for compensation. That’s not his endgame.

Tonight, Nord insists that I meet Stanley, who flounces in wearing a tailored peach button-down with cerulean metal buttons tucked into vir-idescent slacks and beige loafers absent socks. His hair is combed like it’s elementary school picture day. He’s wearing thick, rectangular-framed spectacles. His ears are elephantine. As a child, he was undoubtedly cruelly dubbed Dumbo by the other children. Stanley extends his hand. “Good evening.”

His voice is deep and airy. Chills descend my vertebrae. I’m almost sure this man has killed before, yet his demeanor is disturbingly urbane. Stanley could play the villain in any superhero franchise.

I try to match his affectation: “The pleasure’s all mine.”

“I’ve just come from meeting the loveliest dog,” Stanley tells me. “The owner, however, the poor dear, had never drunk a Moscow mule. A tutorial ensued and the time simply passed. It’s unlike me to be tardy.”

“Nord was just saying it’s exactly like you.”

Stanley tosses his head backward. “That’s right! Don’t believe a word I say.”

I light a cigarette. Stanley gives me goose bumps, but I refuse to let him know.

“So,” I ask, “what breed of pooch were you sipping mules with?”

Stanley’s cackle exposes his pearly fangs. “An effervescent Cavalier King Charles.” He stands back. “You radiate phlegm,” he says. My forehead corrugates, then he adds, “I, of course, don’t mean its modern definition. Phlegm, during medieval ages, was a term describing equanimity.”

“And it’s a wonder,” I reply, “it hasn’t caught back on.”

He grips my wrist and asks, “What do you need?”

“What, are you some kind of life coach?” I ask.

Stanley touches his chest. “Hilarious! No. I have friends who carry the items for which people call upon you.”

“I could always use more GBL,” I say.

“Oh! My dear friend Aaron adores GBL,” Stanley says. “I reckon he’d swim in it like Scrooge McDuck were it not to eat away his flesh in seconds. I saw him yesterday. The rascal wouldn’t make eye contact. He was consumed with his newest gun. Do you like guns?”

I flick my half-smoked cigarette. Stanley senses my careening away. He scoops me toward him until we’re nose to nose.

“I can get you four ounces of dry for nine hundred whenever you want,” he affirms.

That’s 40 percent lower than Zander’s price. He’s got my attention. I wonder, Who are these friends? How’s it so affordable? But I ask nothing. Jason the artist understands that knowledge is empowerment, but Jason the character knows benighted questioning looks weak.

“I’m happy with my supplier,” I tell him. “Besides, there’s more to a good connect than price.”

Stanley hands me a prescription bottle containing a crystalline splinter of product.

“Precisely,” he chides, “quality.”

Stanley takes my phone without asking and programs his number, then rubs his hands together as if to congratulate himself on a job well done. He knows he’s closing.

“That Nord,” Stanley says with a chuckle. “Quite the connector.”

“He’s an oddball,” I say.

“You should’ve heard him the other day,” Stanley recounts, “reaming out his Gammy for paying his rent a day late. I nearly took him over my knee!”

“Till next time,” I say, saluting him for some unknown reason, then immediately regretting it.

“Indeed,” Stanley agrees, and adds, “Perhaps I’ll bring a little dog.”

As I drive off, I cannot stop repeating Stanley’s eerie sign-off, Perhaps I’ll bring a little dog. I can’t recite it in the same bloodcurdling tenor as he. I want this man to like me. I don’t understand why, but I reckon we’re off to a fine start.

19

On Guillaume’s last night, I deliver GBL to an orgy being hosted in the Fairmount’s penthouse suite. I have an hour to kill before meeting him for dinner, so I opt for a quick dose, figuring if it’s not out of my system in time for dinner, then I’ll be especially convivial over spaghetti and meatballs. Usually, I abide by my rule to never sleep with customers, but I don’t know these men. The man who texted the order is a referral of a referral. In a few short minutes, the chemicals take hold. I lick my lips, snorting like a swine as my eyeballs roll to the back of my skull and a monotone groan like a metronome is the only sound I can muster. Men I can no longer see are licking every inch of my flesh. Someone tears my clothes or perhaps several do. The fabric slices away. I’m cold. I’m slipping away. And then I’m gone.

When I wake, a corpulent man with bounteous, curly back hair is inside me. His left arm hog-ties my ankles in the air while his right hand presses my neck to the floor, his hips thrusting back and forth. My mind latches on to something safe, and I picture my best friend, Drew, back in Los Angeles in his backyard practicing his putting. I’ve unblocked his number but have still ignored all his recent calls. I regret not being there to help him pick out the engagement ring with which he’ll propose or perhaps already has. I picture us back at the Rufus Wainwright concert when we were in high school. Surrounded by umpteen gay men for the first time, I said, I might be going home tonight with … a man. I then gasped. He laughed, so I laughed. The next year, auditioning for NYU, I rehearsed a monologue from The Boys in the Band that recounted the woes of a thirty-something drug-addled homosexual. I performed it for my family. I was trying to come out to them by embodying the direst outcome, certain I would at worst fall short. Why could no one hear me? It felt like I was shouting, much like now.

I wonder if someone will someday send me the link to a homemade Pornhub video of this entire affair. I wonder whether I’ve jerked off to one where the “star” was actually the victim. The G remains active, coating each propulsion with as much pleasure as there is shame. Drool drips from the man’s clenched jaw into my iris, and I find the strength to push him away. I crawl to my phone, which has fourteen missed calls. Dinner is long over. I wonder whether I’m the victim of rape. Does that word apply here? Can it? I dosed myself. Wasn’t it my fault for not explicitly stating that no one could enter me if I lost consciousness? The definition of consent is blurry through a haze of bilateral drug abuse and rough sex.

The next morning, I drive Guillaume to the airport, listening to “Dreams,” by Fleetwood Mac. I’d excused my rude absence on a terrible fight I had with Jack. Perhaps I should start a spreadsheet of the lies. Stevie Nicks fills the dense silence between us, underscoring my loneliness despite being inches from one of my closest friends. I don’t disclose my sexual assault because I’m not yet sure whether I can call it that.

I think of the Other Side. The Other Side is what I call my reentry to society, where I will return with a complete story of this fucked up time to make into a film, where my blunders will be reversed, where I’ll call my family and friends back, where I’ll reclaim my craft as a performer, own a home filled with exotic plants, marry a loving man, and have children. I wonder whether telling Guillaume will safeguard our friendship or annihilate it. I know that if there’s any hope of reaching the Other Side, I’ll need a life preserver, so I kill the stereo.

“If I tell you something,” I ask, “can you swear you won’t tell a soul?”

He focuses his pupils on mine. “You. Have. My. Fucking. Word.”

I blurt out that I’ve become one of the largest dealers of crystal meth in San Francisco. Why such megalomaniacal verbiage? My gut says to oversell. Guillaume, more than most, can handle intensity. He bops his head, letting it marinate.

“Why?” he asks.

“You know how Daniel Day-Lewis refused to break character when he filmed Lincoln?” I ask. “Have you ever heard of a filmmaker becoming their protagonist in real life, living authentically under heightened circumstances expressly for a story?”

“No,” he replies, “but I’m sure it’s been done.”

I launch into pitch mode, something Guillaume has seen me do many times, but in those instances, he was my counterpart. Successfully selling this concept to my most trusted collaborator will be the permission slip I need. I toss out buzzwords like gay mafia and tweaker paradise just like we’d employed tri-continental and ghetto revolution when pitching our Panamanian film to Focus Features years before. I describe the network of dealers operating out of hotels and Zoom with its nefarious repurposing. I correlate drug and sex addiction to homelessness. I paint a cast of colorful characters: Tennessee Tim with his slow drawl who demands I take my shoes off and wear slippers inside his flat; he’ll die eighteen months later of pneumonia stemming from AIDS. Cool Lips Kevin whose husband is sober but allows him to parTy; he will wake twenty-two months later from a G coma covered in feces and discover his legs no longer work. Designer Jake who instructs his assistant to make me a vegan milkshake and smokes meth in front of his entire staff; his heart will stop beating in twenty-six months after suffering bradycardia from daily GBL use. Nurse Geoff who married an eighteen-year-old Colombian who became his houseboy in exchange for citizenship; his immigrant husband will stab him in the neck thirty-one months later, believing he’s an intruder after suffering weeks of sleep deprivation. Antonio who owns a hair salon and makes me bring him a chai latte so the stylists will believe he’s ordered Postmates; he’ll be in a coma thirty-three months from now after suffering a stroke from missing the vein.

Guillaume shakes his head. “These are some of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.”

“But they aren’t what you’d expect when you hear of a meth user,” I reply. “People picture toothless rednecks.”

“I think,” Guillaume retorts, “that you think you are better than them.”

20

Every time I’ve met with Stanley in an array of high-end hotel suites these past weeks, there was never a small dog. The image I conjured of him as an eldritch villain with a Maltese on his lap has yet to be satiated. Maybe this time, I think, crossing my fingers before knocking on the door to his hotel suite. He opens the door hastily, then stumbles. His oblong spectacles are now bonded with neon-pink duct tape across the bridge. Finger-shaped grease stains extend along his pant legs from the knee to his thigh. Orange Cheetos dust is packed tightly under his severely overgrown fingernails. His hair protrudes in every direction, and he falls forward with each step. The trash bin is overfilled with empty ginger beer bottles. He’s piss-drunk on Moscow mules. I patiently wait while Stanley expels every expletive in the urban dictionary. I’ve long avoided drunken rage since childhood, having had a father with a temper easily lubricated by the bottle.

“What’s the problem there, buddy?” I ask.

“Fucking printer’s jammed,” Stanley slurs.

This is a printer unlike any I’ve ever seen. Next to it is a second device with a handle. It looks like a paper cutter and an old-fashioned slot machine fused together.

“What am I looking at?” I ask.

“A very frustrated, drunken homosexual,” Stanley rejoins.

“Your contraptions,” I clarify.

“Of course,” Stanley boasts, “my card printer and embosser.”

“And what does one do with such?”

“Fraud,” Stanley clucks, “one does fraud, Jason.” His eyes close, then flutter open, then close again. He falls asleep while standing before quivering back to consciousness. “Let’s smoke some meth,” he says, “then I’ll explain.”

I respect anyone who calls a spade a spade, especially after hearing endless denial-based language from fellow users. Stanley sobers up enough to walk me through the intricacies of his operation. I’ve seen my share of con men flicks and always find deception, manipulation, and thievery to be heinous attributes. Unlike fraud, drug dealing is a business, albeit illegal and arguably immoral, but it rarely feels unethical, at least the way I aim to do it. He explains the first step is running a VPN that allows one to disguise one’s IP address and remain untraceable.

“It’s like the invisibility cloak from Harry Potter,” he says.

A few years back, I received a notice from my internet provider stating that I’d violated pirating laws by downloading an episode of The Goldbergs. Had I been savvier, I could’ve circumvented such transparency. The crime still would’ve been a crime, but similar to that fallen tree in the woods that no one hears.

The next step is opening Tor Browser, a web browser built for the sole purpose of untrackability. It’s basically the incognito tab but for professionals. Stanley opens an encrypted document containing a three-page-long URL and pastes it in the address bar.

“You use the real web to get to the dark web?” I ask.

“There’s only one internet,” Stanley snickers, “for now.”

The dark web is merely a series of websites, difficult to memorize and impossible to find unless one knows the path. This page he’s brought up looks like a GeoCities site from 1998.

“Think of it as a marketplace,” Stanley crows, “where one can buy anything Amazon doesn’t sell: prescription drugs, recreational drugs, kiddie porn, murder porn, snuff content of all varieties, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, a slave, a wife, a baby. You can recruit a hacker, commission a kidnapping, a rape, a murder, start a small war.”

I am deflated. These depths of cruelty, which have always felt theoretical, with one click sit before me like a well-stocked vending machine.

“Please don’t look at me like that or you’re going to make me cry,” Stanley adds. “I come here for one reason, credit card numbers.”

Class A are chip cards, the type one must stick into the machine, and cost quadruple the price on the dark web. Stanley sticks with Class B and uses them either in stores that haven’t yet updated their readers or for online purchases. His software transfers the downloaded data into the black magnetic strip. His printer prints the coding and a colorful design that replicates stock designs. Lastly, he adds the numbers and his name to the card using the embosser.

“You use your own name?” I ask.

“When they ask for ID at hotel check-ins,” he replies, “it’s best if the names match. When using it for merchandise orders online, I use the cardholder’s. Different strokes for different hoax, and so on and so on …”

“And scooby dooby doo!” I interject to the melody of Sly and the Family Stone’s “Everyday People.”

“Oh, Jason,” Stanley bellows, “you really are a gem!”

He insists I give the embosser a yank. I’m reminded of trips to the casino with my uncle Larry, pulling the slot lever to infuse some “luck,” then inevitably being pushed aside to watch until all his money was gone. Stanley is like a child blowing out his birthday candles. He’s been mastering this racket for a year. His old swindle of using fake checks earned him four years in San Quentin.

“Life works in funny ways,” Stanley insists. “Had I not served time at finishing school, we wouldn’t be sitting here.”

This is the second time I’ve heard finishing school used as a euphemism for prison. Unlike the other pet names, I dig this one. Stanley explains how he made a friend there, a Mexican businessman, as he calls him.

“My friend believed,” Stanley explains, “that his capture was orchestrated by DEA agents who were on the competing organization’s payroll. Rather than his enemies killing him, they crippled him, so he’d have to watch his business crumble from behind bars, then return one day insolvent. He knew his family would soon become targets, so he shut down distribution and directed his organization to spend his years of incarceration stockpiling on farmland outside of Monterey. His plan was to make it appear to the authorities that his organization had closed shop, making it easier to traffic across the border. You see,” Stanley adds, “traffickers aren’t caught by random searches. DEA uses task forces in cities where the product’s sold. They make low-level arrests and get them to turn on the distributors, who ideally then turn on the traffickers. It’s a trail of crumbs. But my friend stopped leaving crumbs.”

“And you’re their distributor now?” I ask.

Stanley gleams with pride. “My friend, he’s a funny guy,” he elaborates. “His one caveat is that for every pound I purchase, he insists I send a hundred-dollar money order to his granddaughter studying journalism in Mexico City.”

“If you have this endless meth supply at your disposal,” I ask, “why do you still print cards?”

“The goal,” Stanley posits, “is to rid myself of fraud. But it’s not easy for me like it is for you. I’m not social or even that likable. People don’t want to fuck me; therefore, they don’t want to buy from me. That’s why I need you, why we need each other. I should’ve never left you waiting that night at Nord’s! The truth is that when Nord told me about your rapid rise, I wanted to meet you that very second, but I played it cool, purposefully arriving late so you’d think I had better things to do. I’ve never been cool, Jason, but dammit, for the first time, I intend to be effective.”

I can’t decipher whether Stanley is pitiful or calculated. When he pats my shoulder, I feel empowered. Then I realize I’m in a hotel room paid for by fraudulent means. I’m far too cautious to be caught by happenstance. Sharp pangs reverberate beneath my rib cage. I’m twitchy and short of breath like when I’ve taken excessive amounts of Adderall. A panic attack is coming, and I need to get out of this place. Nevertheless—

“I’ll commit to a pound a week,” I pant, “but I can’t promise to be your client for more than a few months. This lifestyle is temporary for me.” He simpers as if he’s heard this all before. “I’ll purchase you a phone you’ll use exclusively with me,” I add, “and Nord will be our liaison, so I never again have to enter your fraud rooms.”

Stanley winks. “And is there a contract you’d like me to sign?”

21

Moving day arrives and I haven’t lined up suitable housing. Until further notice, the cats will stay with Jonnie and Christopher, and I have immense guilt around that, especially since the flea medicine I gave them was ineffective and Jonnie is now forced to give them weekly baths to eradicate the pests. Christopher breathes weightily, carrying boxes into my storage unit. I wonder what’s behind those exhalations. Has he caught on to my deceit? Has Jonnie poisoned the well with her suspicions? Are they sharing these concerns with Mom and Dad? No, that would’ve triggered a call from one of them, right? I tell myself I’m going to call them both tonight, to check in on their well-being but also to suss out what they know or don’t know. Then again, I’ve been meaning to call them for weeks and haven’t. Perhaps it’s better this way, I decide, as we drop the last few heavy-duty black trash bags in the storage unit.

I hug my brother and make an oath that no matter what, even if he learns some things, he must never know the full truth of what’s occurred these past months.

Later that morning, Sunshine answers the door wearing his uniform of smarmy grin and a candy-striped jockstrap. Two Latino men are watching porn on the couch, passing a pipe. They disappear to the roof deck for a threesome while I do my prep work, weighing, measuring, labeling. Organization is my tweak! One of the men soon returns, caviling about Sunshine being “a bossy bottom bitch boy.” I detest the shame-calling but love the alliteration. He introduces himself as Thomas (he pronounces it Toe-mahs). He asks if I want to play here. I do, very badly. He’s exactly my type, but I decline, knowing if Sunshine discovers us, I’ll lose one of my only safe spaces. Thomas eyes up my drugs like he’s guessing how many jelly beans are in the jar.

“You must have lots of customers,” he marvels. I perform a double eyebrow raise. I’m withholding so as to avoid falling in love again. “Where do you stay?” he asks.

“I’m lining up a spot,” I say.

Thomas rubs my neck as I apply color-coded labels to each tube. I’ve found my new crush. I’m a sucker. Before he can work the kinks out of my trapezius, Sunshine storms back in, swiftly guides Thomas out the door, then jumps onto my lap. I must find an alternative safe place pronto. Then Christopher texts that he’s just picked Mom up from the airport. It’s her birthday week, which she hasn’t let us (or anyone she meets) forget. Sure, she’ll spend much of her time at the Deepak Chopra workshop; nonetheless, she insists on copious quality time with her boys.

We meet at a vegan restaurant called Café Gratitude where every menu item is named after an affirmation. If one wants the veggie burger, one says, I’ll have the I am abundance, to which the server replies, You ARE abundance! My skin shines a healthy glow thanks to seven preparatory tanning sessions. I remind myself to take breaths and listen fully before responding, training myself to be more like the son Mom might recognize. She tells everyone that she’s turning fifty-five, noting these are “angel numbers,” whatever that means. She once spent over an hour at the Verizon store having the employees search for an available cell phone number that contained several pairs of numbers or ideally three or four of a kind. Were she a betting woman, I’d hate to see her at the poker tables.

Growing up, Christopher was a sickly child. Instead of placing him on pharmaceuticals, Mom ventured into homeopathy, wherein the patient takes supplements not containing substantial chemical compounds, but rather the essence of a natural substance that, in theory, alters the body’s physiological makeup. This experience led Mom into energy healing. She lays hands, sets intentions, and clears blockages in the chakras. Her ideology professes that “dis-ease” stems from more than bad luck, bad genes, or poor physical health, but rather from deep-rooted emotional blockages manifesting into physical form. One who believes one is ugly is likely to suffer from acne. One who gives to everyone (in other words breastfeeding the world) is likely to get breast cancer. There exist encyclopedias listing every dis-ease with corresponding affirmations (in other words an opposing belief system in the form of “I” statements, like I am worthy and deserve the support I offer others). I’m inspired by Mom’s philosophy. Who could scorn someone who strives to heal the world? Yet I remain skeptical that a mere “I” statement can reverse physical illness. I want to believe it’s possible, especially in moments of desperation. When I first noticed the beginnings of male-pattern baldness, I borrowed her encyclopedia, aptly titled You Can Heal Your Life, and memorized affirmations to supposedly reverse the shedding of my scalp’s follicles. Now, here she is in her purple jeans, southwestern-patterned peasant top, and black boots with rainbow-colored chakras along the side. She coasts toward me and leaps into an embrace.

“Hi, Mom,” I mewl, nearly saying Mommy.

“That’s not how I hug,” she critiques, pulling me tighter. “Our heads should be rested over each other’s shoulders, hips touching, heart to heart. That’s a real hug.”

“How was the flight?” I ask.

“I ask the Universe to make me comfortable,” Mom says, beaming, “and it never fails. I was upgraded with extra legroom and was randomly”—she uses air quotes—“selected for TSA PreCheck.”

“You know you can do an interview to guarantee PreCheck every time.”

“I don’t need to, sweetie,” she pipes. “My angels do it for me.”

“I’ll have to look into getting me some of those,” I quip.

“You joke, but you already have them,” she reassures me.

I watch Mom call upon her angels to decide what to order. Some years back, she frequented a kinesiologist who deciphered which substances clients had allergies to by muscle testing. The patient holds his arm horizontally at shoulder height as the practitioner presses down, asking him to resist. The practitioner makes him hold the substance in question with his other hand and repeats the same push-and-resist arm routine, the theory being if the practitioner pushes down with the same strength and the patient resists the same amount and the arm falls, that’s the body communicating an inner awareness of an aversion to the substance. He had me try it with truth telling. When I said, My name is Connor, my arm dropped. But when I said Jason, it stood strong. The theory is that the body contains existential knowledge. The brain is a muscle, thus has communicational functionality with other muscles, weakening when something isn’t true or isn’t healthy. Mom takes it a step further, utilizing muscle testing in day-to-day decisions. She presses the tip of her thumb tightly to the tip of her index finger on both hands, creating interlocked loops, and uses the right hand’s fingers to try to separate the left hand’s thumb and index. The same rules apply. She asks herself a question, and if the fingers separate, the body is saying no. I poke fun because she looks unhinged, talking to herself while doing a little finger-resistance dance.

The hypocrisy of Mom’s Zen philosophies, which contrast with her Italian edge and type A qualities, vexed Curt to no end. And because I loved him and wanted to be closer to him, I adopted his opinion. Now, watching Mom choose a salad by doing the finger dance, I love her for it. I’m grateful that she dominates the conversation over lunch, boasting about her qigong training, urging me to adopt the practice. I can’t imagine enduring such sluggardly movements. I can barely sit still enough to hear about them. When I check my phone and respond to a few customers, Christopher starts whispering in Mom’s ear, and I’m certain this is it. They’ve planned this meal to confront me face-to-face. I kind of resent it being a vegan spot. If I’m about to be called out, then dragged back to rehab, I’d have preferred a rib eye. Then suddenly, Mom bursts out in laughter, nearly spitting her lavender kombucha across the table. Oh. I guess that wasn’t about me.

After brunch, I check myself into an SRO. God knows what new age lie detector technology she’s got these days. I fall onto the mattress and open Grindr. A message appears from Thomas. Twenty minutes later, he’s in my bed. Chemsex doesn’t lend itself to much kissing, but Thomas kisses the right way, a tender balance of open and closed lips, improvisational choreography with ease rather than a sloppy scramble. I grab my GBL and offer him a dose. Thomas explains that he’s a longtime G user and thus requires a 3.0mL dose. I scurry to the vending machine for a mixer. When I return, he’s twinkling from the refracted streetlight through the translucent window. I could melt. I wish I were dispassionate like most here. I pour Pepsi into our glasses. We throw back the doses and return to kissing before quickly falling out.

When I wake, Thomas is fully clothed and on his way out the door.

“Did we?” I ask.

“You fell out,” he replies, “but I snuggled with you.”

Thomas says that his roommate forgot his keys, that he’ll be right back. After an hour of waiting patiently, I open Grindr to message him. His thumbnail has vanished. He’s blocked me.

22

We’re at a five-star seafood restaurant overlooking the bay. Since Mom’s recently invested her entire savings into a new yoga studio, I plan on picking up the tab. But pulling out a thick wad of cash isn’t really an option, given that my entire family still believes I earn my income in the decidedly cashless Ryde operator fashion, so I check my bank balance on my phone. My checking account is empty. A transfer was made this morning. I excuse myself from the table to call customer service. The banking representative confirms that I’d made the transfer earlier today from the website. That’s impossible. I open Google Drive to view my password document. It reads Last opened forty-five minutes ago. We were enjoying our hors d’oeuvres forty-five minutes ago. Every document in Google Drive shows that it was opened today. Thomas’s face flashes in my mind, holding both glasses of GBL when I returned with the mixer. Perhaps he poured some, if not all, of his into mine. Perhaps that’s why he took interest in me at Sunshine’s. Was I simply a mark? As subtly as possible, I pay the check in cash and take leave of my family to race back over the bridge. Stanley may be my new supplier, but he’s also made it abundantly clear that he’d like to be my friend. While I’m reluctant to muddy the waters, he’s the only person I know with a deep understanding of fraud and the technology used to facilitate it. I call Nord and ask if Stanley and I can meet there.

“Have you seen The Net with Sandra Bullock?” Stanley asks after hearing my story.

“Who hasn’t?” I reply.

“That’s the most extreme example of identity theft,” he says. “They completely erased her.”

Nord stands to the side, nodding his head and scratching his chin in agreement with all of Stanley’s comments, as if he has any idea what all this means. He’s insistent on feeling important and I don’t mind that. I get it.

“I’ll start changing passwords,” I say.

“No! Do nothing!” Stanley shouts.

“Yeah, no, don’t do that …” Nord echoes.

“I haven’t gotten to the worst part,” Stanley continues, “how they did it …”

Stanley theorizes that Thomas uploaded keystroke software and a remote gateway to my devices while I was fallen out. He receives a log of every key I press. When I entered my password, he gained access, ran a system download, and built a carbon copy. He’s able to open access from devices that the internet recognizes to be mine. Nord suspires with the full flexion of his diaphragm as Stanley explains each point. He’s basically miming the exact emotional experience I’m trying to suppress. If he wasn’t so funny and sort of adorable, I’d have to smack him.

“He’s cloned my technological presence?” I ask.

“Yup,” Stanley replies, “and I’m going to make another clone in order to run a trace.”

I watch the hacker magic from over his shoulder. It first appears that my identity thief is from Uganda, then Helsinki, then Prague. Stanley explains how alternating VPNs like this will often backfire, reverting to the person’s actual IP if the fake one doesn’t connect quickly enough. We soon identify his geographic location at an SRO on Eddy Street.

“We need to enter his system via the portal he’s created,” Stanley explains, “meaning we need to know when he’s accessing it. We need to entice him.”

When I mention having met Thomas at Sunshine’s, Stanley points out the reputation that spot has garnered for hoodwinkers and scammers. Sunshine, very likely, is involved as well. We devise a counterattack: I’ll text Sunshine about a two-for-one GBL special. He’ll insist I rush over, but before I do, I’ll upload a document to my desktop labeled New Passwords. Sunshine will inevitably ask me to stay and get naked, then he’ll alert Thomas that the path is clear for reentry. Once he opens the portal, Stanley will be sitting pretty, ready to gain access to his system and plant a virus. It won’t reverse the damage Thomas has done, but it will stop the bleeding.

“Can you download proof of what he’s done so I can bring it to the police?” I ask.

“I could,” Stanley replies, “but I won’t. They’ll ask how you got the data. The answer is illegally. Assume they bring Thomas in. What do you think he’ll tell them about you?”

The following night, I’m back at Sunshine’s, and all is going according to plan. Sunshine insists I make myself comfortable, then slips into the bathroom, presumably to notify Thomas. Shortly after, Stanley texts a cowboy emoji (our code that he’s gained entry and is initiating the hack back). When Sunshine reemerges wearing a shit-eating grin, it takes every fiber of restraint to not leap across the room and maul him. I visualize the blood splattering upon his Aladdin poster as my knuckles flatten his facial curvature. But instead, I do what all pacifists do, I walk away, and the portal closes too quickly to plant the virus.

Back at Nord’s, he steeps tea to calm my nerves. Stanley is apparently furious that I aborted our perfect plan and has vacated in a huff by the time I arrive.

“I think the lesson here,” Nord says, “is that you need to slow it down. You’re not running a Chick-fil-A franchise.”

People have been telling me to slow down my entire life and it’s only ever made me want to go faster.

“Your name’s come up from four different dealers,” Nord tells me. “They’re making allusions.”

“To what?” I ask.

“That you need to go,” he responds.

“You mean because I stole their customers?” I reply. “Many of whom you gave me!”

“You’re better than all of them,” Nord asserts, “so you deserved those customers. But that doesn’t mean there’s not consequences.”

It seems I’ve poked not one but four sleeping bears, other dealers whose market bases I’ve rapidly purloined. I should be petrified, but I’m not. I wonder if my pride blinds me to risk, or has my privilege granted me the aplomb to believe I can remedy anything? In high school, I pioneered a peer mediation program that mitigated conflicts before they reached levels of punishment. Students anonymously filled out forms describing issues they were having or had witnessed among others. The parties were asked to participate in guided mediations. We used non-confrontational language like What I hear you saying is … and at the end, both parties signed a compromise. No judge or jury. I believed then and I believe now that almost any conflict can be sorted through willingness and efficiently worded communication.

“Set up a meeting,” I tell him.

Nord squints. “What would you say?”

They claim to want me gone. What they really want is their customers back. If they get that, I don’t need to disappear. In seemingly impossible situations, Mom recommends asking the Universe. But for now, my quills are out, and they are sharp. I snag my laptop and write a message to Thomas, accessing my lowest self, the version who emerges only in the face of abject fear.

I know where you live. You have no comprehension of what’s ahead. It will hit you harder than this hit me. You will soon feel hurt. Those around you will hurt. Those you love.

A few minutes later, an email appears in my inbox from jasonyamas drugdealer2016@gmail.com.

Dear Jason,

Thank you for the lovely message. While you believe I’ve stolen your identity, I see myself as the buzzard swooping in to clean the carcass. You are roadkill. Word on the street is that you’re already dead.

Love,

A Whole New You

PS—Tell mother she shouldn’t overextend herself when starting a new business.

“I’m going to kill him,” I say aloud. But that’s just an expression. It’s hyperbole. It’s just something one says when one’s angry. Right?

23

Big Mama has become my favorite customer. He’s a forty-year-old chef who works at the Williams Sonoma test kitchen in Fisherman’s Wharf. He weighs three hundred some pounds, has a beard like an Amish farmer’s, and wears neon-pink-and-yellow spandex with high-tops every single day. He was one of my first customers and insists on becoming the mother I never had. His voice is sonorous and breathy. Oh, you bitch is his reflexive reply to everything I tell him. Those three simple words can mean I support you, You’re insane, no fucking way, or I love you. People here say love ya, babe all the time to placate each other, but I believe Big Mama does genuinely love me. He’s always willing to listen to my business expansion schemes and sporadically texts me a Bitmoji of him dressed like a cheerleader, pom-poms to boot, to offer a token of support. Big Mama increasingly swoops into my life, and I embrace it because I need a mother with whom I can be candid. He says he’s going to invite me for dinner but has yet to follow through because he’s always too busy hosting some dirty thieving little bitch, as he calls them. Every guy he invites over ends up stealing from him, yet he entertains it. He lusts for the victimization. I tell him about the looming threats by my competitors that Thomas echoed in his email.

“You’re staying with me until you find a place!” he proclaims. “The cats can come too!”

Big Mama resides in Telegraph Hill, San Francisco’s northernmost neighborhood tucked snuggly away from all the bedlam. Over breakfast, we brainstorm solutions to my drug world Gordian knot. He scrapes hash browns onto my plate over poached eggs, bacon, and spinach.

“You have no choice but to give them what they want,” Big Mama imparts, “but you also can’t give away your business.”

The answer is so obvious. All creators start off thinking we can do it all ourselves. What we learn as we fail is that it takes a village. Ever sit through the credits and try to read all the names of even a low-budget movie? No one who expects success can remain an island. Even mobsters like Jimmy Hoffa realized their violent tactics weren’t as effective as getting in bed with the labor unions. I’m going to start something, a “collective,” we’ll call it. That’s cute, right? Like how weed dealers are “budtenders” at “dispensaries.” Ah, it’s astounding how a home-cooked meal can summon clarity.

I call another meeting with Stanley at Nord’s, stopping on my way at T-Mobile to purchase prepaid phones. The sales associate chuckles when I ask for “Three burners, please.”

Nord pours three glasses of iced tea with straws and paper umbrellas as if we’re relaxing under a Mohegan Bay cabana. I’ve compensated Nord with a gram for every pound he’s facilitated between me and Stanley. Yet he assumes the preponderance of risk. A shrewd man would negotiate a net percentage. That isn’t Nord. I invite Nord to step into the position of administrative assistant. He’ll handle my financials, making car payments, paying insurance and other bills, sorting the mail, handling traffic tickets (of which there are an average of five per week). Nord is submissive and eager to please. I’m choosing to trust him. I know his type. I was his type. The kind of person who sacrifices his desires and passions to elevate another more extroverted person in hopes that he’ll one day return the favor. No one ever did for me, but I plan to reverse that pattern with Nord. And with that, I hand Nord the burner phone.

“You’re a real paranoid type, aren’t you?” Stanley asks.

“I’m a real careful type,” I reply. I won’t risk an unknowing lackey like Nord, no matter how much I care for him, bringing me down. It’s time to cover all bases. “My situation has metamorphosized,” I tell Stanley. Nord takes note that it’s time for the adults to talk and starts dusting his fake houseplants. “What’s the maximum amount I could purchase per week?” I ask.

“Any,” Stanley replies.

“Are you positive?” I ask.

“HIV?” he jests. “Goodness, no.” Stanley incessantly derides those with HIV, undoubtedly born from his terror of its inevitability. “But yes,” he clarifies, “any amount of meth, dear Jason.”

“Supreme quality every week?” I ask.

“I’ll make sure of it,” he replies giddily.

“Once I confirm whether expansion is feasible, we’ll discuss prices,” I assert. “Meanwhile, please research the parameters.”

“Parameters?” Stanley asks.

“As I see it,” I explain, “it’s like buying business cards. If I order a hundred, they’re one price. If I order a thousand, the price per card decreases.”

“I’m not sure that’s how my friends do business,” Stanley clucks.

“You should see me haggle at the produce stand,” I snicker.

“The fruit ladies must find you an utter terror,” he replies.

I implore Stanley for guidance on the Thomas debacle. “When you’ve done something like what he’s done,” I ask, “did any of the victims ever retaliate?”

He’s insulted by the question. Stanley distinguishes his brand of fraud as harmless, as he never attacks individuals directly, only the financial institutions, who carry insurance coverage. His fraud is a revolt against capitalism, he claims.

“You’re dealing with the kind of fraudster who gives us all a bad name!” Stanley squints, as if an idea’s formed. “Tell me again the threatening message you sent him?”

I recite it as best I can recall: “You will soon feel hurt…”

“That,” Stanley exclaims, “yes, that … is precisely what needs to be done.”

“I’m not a violent person,” I insist with a gulp.

“Neither am I,” he replies, “but you know who is? Del. It’s short for Delfino. Del’s a … problem solver I know from way back. Total pro. You could hire him to break in. He’d take anything of value, then destroy everything else. He gets endless gratification from these kinds of jobs.”

“What if Thomas is home?” I ask.

“As I said, he’d destroy anything of no value,” Stanley snarls.

“He’d kill Thomas?” I shriek.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Stanley rejoins. “He’d beat him to a bloody pulp, maybe break a few fingers or ribs, maybe his wrist, that’s all.”

My phone lights up. Mom is calling. She sounds scared.

“Jas?” she says. “I’m here at the Airbnb, and it seems my credit cards aren’t working or something. I’m trying to order a Ryde to the retreat. I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“You’ve tried them all?” I ask.

“Yes, and there’s no way I’m over my limit on two of them.”

“Text me the address. I’m sending you a car,” I tell her. “But as soon as you can, call the credit bureaus and put a lock on your credit. I’m so sorry this is happening.”

“Don’t be sorry, sweetie,” she replies. “It’s not your fault.”

Hoping she’s right, I sift through my memories for any potential way Thomas could’ve procured her financial data from hacking into my system, but nothing’s coming to mind. When I hang up, Stanley looks at me like I’ve grown scales.

“Jason, you’re as red as a pomegranate,” he says.

“Give me Del’s number,” I respond.

24

I stack homemade fudge brownies in pyramid formation on Nord’s coffee table before heading back out. He’s invited my competitors over, as per my request, but refuses to disclose who they all are in advance, despite my asking several times. He says this way will make for a better scene when I adapt it into a film. Nord is maybe more devoted than I am to the idea that we’re living inside this movie before it’s written. I’ll return once everyone’s arrived. I can’t risk small talk. While directing my first theater piece in 2007, I learned groupthink, while great during a brainstorm, often leads to confusion when it’s time to put it on its feet. If I’m to convert my adversaries to subordinates, they must be spoon-fed explicit instruction.

When I return, nine individuals are passing bubblers amid an air of malaise, and no one has touched the brownies. I immediately recognize Mikey and Jonas from a threesome we had the week prior, not that we tweakers recall even half the people we fuck, but there’s a good thirteen-inch height disparity between the two lovers. Mikey hails from the island of Guam and makes a modest living manicuring terrariums he sells at the Union Square farmers market on the weekends. Jonas is from Wisconsin and twenty years older than us, though surprisingly doesn’t look it despite having smoked meth for over two decades. Before we fucked, he recounted the good ole days when meth was called crank, when it was sticky and yellow and got you five times higher than the low-grade shit we’ve all become used to. After we fucked, they revealed that they work within Zander’s mini empire, then invited me to watch the 1970s Donald Sutherland horror classic Don’t Look Now. They remind me of my friends back in Brooklyn. Seated next to them is Willy #2 from placid Rick’s luxury apartment. I don’t know the others yet. My first inclination is to sit and gab, as these are some of my closest pals here; then it registers that they’re also combatants. I enter like a stand-up to an open mic. “These ain’t Betty Crocker, folks,” I shout, holding up the brownies. “Eat up!” I perform a power clap like Steve Jobs at an Apple convention before rolling into my monologue. “Prior to this year, I’d smoked meth maybe four times.” This is a lie, but one I believe even as the words exit my lips. “I didn’t move here intending to become a dealer, nor did I anticipate stepping on anyone’s toes once I did. I fell into this by necessity. Surely, you each started by taking customers from someone else. It’s clear that I’ve become a problem for you. I do it faster and more effectively. I’ve not gathered you to ask for forgiveness. And I won’t cease operations to appease your frustrations. You’ve each grumbled. Some have even hinted at violent retaliation. Well, let me tell you, that’s all just very unnecessary.”

Nord’s eyes balloon, I can’t tell whether with excitement or fear. Is this what he imagined I’d do when he volunteered to host scads of aggrieved drug dealers?

“I’m going to give away all my secrets now,” I say.

I go on to detail my methodology of route planning, dependable punctuality, multifarious communications, and superior packaging strategies.

“I don’t believe any of you have the capability to circumvent what I’ve established, so I understand why you’re embittered. Wow, I’m really burying the lede here. What I’m trying to say is that you may have all your customers back!” Everyone has now snagged a brownie to quell their consternation. “Or,” I continue, “you can come work for me. Stop buying product. Stop paying for transportation. Stop coordinating with the customers. Leave all that to me.”

I outline a structure wherein everyone is provided weekly prepackaged product. We will connect via an encrypted messaging application that shows everyone’s GPS coordinates. All orders go through me, and I will dispatch the nearest provider. I’ll cover transportation. If someone wants a bike, I’ll buy them one. We’ll charge top-shelf prices because we’re a monopoly. We aren’t dealers anymore. Scrap that noisome, antiquated jargon. At week’s end, I’ll tabulate revenues, deduct expenses, extract 45 percent for my take, and distribute the remaining 55 percent profit equally among the crew, like tip pooling. Everyone will make more than they made when going it alone, yet with a fraction of the responsibility and significantly narrowed risk. If anyone opts not to join, they can have their customers back, but only if they purchase their product exclusively from me. And thanks to Stanley’s cartel, I’m now the lowest price tag in town.

“If you do join,” I contend, “your voice will always be heard. I’ll be here to support you no matter what.”

I pluck a brownie, take a bite, drop the proverbial microphone, and walk out. In theater training, we’re taught that an actor cannot control or alter the emotions he’s experiencing once a scene begins. The work is to assume the emotional life of a scripted character based on the circumstances. Stay on script, and whatever emotion the actor feels will transform into the emotion the character must convey. Humans overintellectualize feelings. We conclude that joy is the opposite of sadness, thus it is difficult to transition from one to the other. That’s a misconception. The same number of neurons fire within the hippocampus. We train the body to convert those neurons into behavior via the limbic system. This theory gives credence to what my mother believes about affirmations. One says, I am blissful, and the brain trains to be so. It’s all a script. When I entered this meeting, my core emotions were defeat and insecurity. I drafted a script for the character: a winner, a scrupulous leader. Walking offstage, however, I revert to a scared little boy. I’m terrified they’ll decline yet more so that they’ll accept, and I’ll become a supplier, the CEO of a massive narcotics delivery ring, a major law enforcement target.

Everyone quickly accepts. I will soon be instituting the first ever crystal meth consortium in San Francisco. As is common custom, Mom and Dad had framed their “first” dollar in their office at the hotel. What should be my ceremonious gesture?

25

Zander opens the door before I’m about to knock as if he knows I’m coming, as if he knows absolutely everything. I’m here to disclose my recent power grab and to ensure it doesn’t spawn a new rivalry. I’m starting to suspect that the idea to become a drug dealer wasn’t entirely my own, that Zander spent weeks planting subconscious seeds, grooming me in his image.

“It all sounds smart,” he concludes.

“You think?” I pant like a puppy vying for approval.

“You remind me of me when I got started.”

I see this as an opening, and I ask him what his supplier charges per pound, hoping I might advance to another hierarchical ring.

“You’re pushing it,” he replies, “but it will all be riveting content for your little documentary.”

“Scripted narrative,” I correct him.

“Right,” Zander titters, steepling his fingers. “So … who is your new supplier?”

He’s letting me off too easily. I remind myself that he’s not my friend and thus should not be trusted and I must stay silent on this one. Yet—

“It’s Stanley!” I blurt out.

The writer in me is now directing my trajectory. A normal person steers clear of drama; the writer strives for upheaval.

Zander guffaws. “Then you’re getting your shit from Betty.”

I scrunch my face. I’ve never heard of any Betty.

“The Notorious B.E.T.,” Zander continues. “No one really calls her that, but they should. Betty ran the whole game in the eighties and nineties. We’re talking the straights, the gays, the whole damn peninsula. She arrived here out of high school, petite, gorgeous, and the most auspicious little dame, and she dealt to everybody. This was back when crack was king ’cause it was dirt cheap. Betty dated the head of a Stockton motorcycle gang. They used her as a Trojan horse. She’d fuck the straight dealers and become the gay dealers’ fag hag, all the while marketing the best alternative to crack: crank. This was before the Mexicans took over the cook. Motorcycle gangs launched crank, and they used Betty in the way pharmaceutical companies hire pretty lady reps. Crank, before it was Tina, was crack’s white cousin. It took off faster here than anywhere else, and you can thank Betty for that. In the nineties, they built super labs in Mexico, since the sale of cocaine was dwindling and there was an expanding market. The Mexicans wiped out any motorhead who thought they stood a chance, and wanna guess who became their best friend?”

“Notorious B.E.T.?” I ask.

Zander nods. “And when the Mexicans took over, they opted to supply only one distro in every city. Betty went from rep to distro.”

“Shrewd.”

“She was,” Zander agrees, “till she got busted. They figured if they backed her up against enough walls, she’d help them build a case against the Mexicans.”

“Did she?”

“She’s evil,” Zander replies, “not stupid. She did seven years and got out on”—he coughs—“good behavior. Although everyone she gets close to ends up getting arrested. I hightailed it out of the Castle years ago when Byron let Betty move in.”

“The Castle?”

“The Castle,” Zander explains, “started as a home for wayward fags in the seventies. The owner, Byron, was Harvey Milk’s best friend and one of the earliest activists for legalizing marijuana during the AIDS crisis. He cowrote Prop 215. In the nineties, after Byron lost his partner to AIDS, the Castle morphed into a home for tweakers.”

“How does someone go from weed proponent-activist to meth dealer landlord?”

“How did you go from who you were to who you are now?” Zander replies. “It’s Neverland.”

Byron, a legend and social influencer, had lost his lover to the plague, and rather than continuing to fight the good fight, he capitulated to escapism. One might argue meth is a coping mechanism for the onset of HIV, yet the genesis for its perpetuation.

“Back to Betty,” I redirect.

“That’s who you’re buying from,” Zander posits. “Stanley is her best friend. When he moved here, she took him under her wing. She’s using him to find her next target to keep herself out. Stanley’s a stooge. You’re her target.”

“How do I know this isn’t puffery,” I counter, “so I’ll come back to you?”

“How come you can suddenly offer a deal to become my supplier?” Zander asks. “You have the best plug in town. Why should you be so lucky?”

My heart is now thumping. “I gotta go,” I wheeze. “It’s my mom’s last night in town.”

“I’d say to send her my love,” Zander sneers, “but I hate mothers.”

26

I vacillate over taking a light BDO dose before entering Mom’s birthday celebration but decide against it. Her entire Bay Area trip has been coated with my duplicity; she deserves this one iota of authentic me. My pact with Blaine to have quit and detoxed by Mom’s birthday, in retrospect, was a ruse to get closer to him. It fizzled once my affections transferred to Jack.

The evening is picturesque, streamers and balloons affixed to the mauve crown molding at her Airbnb, board games played on the coffee table as we all sit on the floor, cushioned by throw pillows. The whole gang is here for her big fifty-fifth: Jonnie, Christopher, and two gray-haired granola women from Colorado whom Mom met at her energy healing school a decade ago and appear to own every T-shirt from the Life Is Good store. Mom asks me to cook, a replay of simpler times living under one roof, before she had to remind me what hugging entails. I marinate chicken thighs in lemon, soy sauce, vinegar, and garlic with a light coating of curry powder. Food is unrivaled in its ability to transport one back to kinder times. Our family notoriously fixates on food as the centerpiece of discussion and entertainment: how it’s prepped, what temperature is optimal, what clashes with what, who prepares it best, how each dish compares with the last time it was made, how much every ingredient cost. I still haven’t spoken to Dad since picking that pipe back up after leaving rehab six months ago, but his presence looms large with this tenderly prepared, home-cooked meal.

After a round of “Happy Birthday” (which I lip-synch because I hate the damn song) and some strawberry shortcake, Mom asks how I’m faring in sobriety and, of course, where I’m resting my head. I’ve mostly been staying with my best customer, Big Mama, but I can’t say that, so I concoct a whopper tale wherein Big Mama was my Ryde passenger three days in a row before finally inviting me to come live with him. Mom’s a sucker for kismet.

“San Francisco’s gay community is a close-knit group,” I assure her. “We all know one another.” I’m omitting the word tweaker between gay and community.

Christopher and I inadvertently both gift her the new Bonnie Raitt album on CD.

“The only present I needed,” she says, “was the company of my two boys.”

I can’t wait for her to leave, yet I wish she never would. At the end of the night, she walks me to my car, probing me on Christopher’s well-being. “Is he happy?” she asks once the two of us are alone in the driveway. “He’s so damn codependent, always ignoring himself to provide for her.”

I open my car door with an abrupt energy, implying urgency. “He’s an adult,” I argue. “What can you do?”

“He’s my son,” she retorts. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make sure he’s okay.”

I blurt out, “Y’know, they keep plastic bins of dirty dishes in their closet.”

“It’s a manifestation of chaos within.” She sighs. “Not everyone’s OCD like you. See?” She points to the bright orange dust rag that’s covering my meth bubbler inside the car door. She hasn’t reached for the rag, yet I leap and push her backward. Her head tilts in confusion the way a dog reacts. “What is that?” she prods.

“Nothing,” I yelp, but it’s too late.

I snatch the rag and the bubbler it’s concealing, then hold them higher than she can reach. She springs toward it. I pull the rag close to her face with one hand while the other hand hides the bubbler behind my back. Mom glowers. I swing my torso and lob it into the unlit street—the identical response I had to Curt finding me months ago, as if throwing the evidence might make the moment disappear. Oh, these moments when I’m meant to be there for a loved one, and instead the addiction betrays them. Shattering glass echoes off a nearby rooftop. Mom’s innate gleam transmutes to the expression one makes when one realizes the killer’s inside the house. She presses her nose smack against mine.

“What was that?” she wails. I quiver backward, shaking my head. “So, I raised an addict and a coward?” she gibes. “I should have you arrested.”

“It’d be your word against mine,” I bark.

“I think I might be sick,” she whispers to herself, backing away. I approach softly, but she raises both hands, building a wall between us. “Don’t!” she shrieks. “You … meth addict.”

I won’t be denigrated, not even by my maker. “I make seven grand a week,” I snap. “People answer to me. I’m a goddamn entrepreneur.”

An entrepreneur, just like Dad, I want to say but don’t. Her eyes begin to water.

She takes a step back and starts tauntingly clapping. “Good for you! Big man!”

This is the side of my mother she’s worked tirelessly not to embody by surrounding herself with healers and gurus. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“If I explain,” I ask, “will you listen?”

She closes her eyes and takes an even deeper breath. “I’ll try.”

“I’m a character,” I explain, “in this story about addiction and community and about the intersection of sex and drugs in gay culture. I mean, it’s about so much more that I’ve yet to even discover!”

“Oh my god,” she cries, “you’re a psychopath.”

She pokes my skull, as if to check whether anything remains inside. She knows I believe what I’m spouting. She’s encouraged all my outlandish pursuits in the experimental arts. Her only viable play now is to jump into the director’s chair.

“You’re the big boss,” she says, “so you’re important now. And you’re the clandestine screenwriter,” she adds, “so you’ll still be important later. But is it possible that between these roles you’re playing, that you’re also a scared and addicted little boy summoning any rationalization he can muster?”

“All of that,” I crow. “Yes, that’s what makes the protagonist so complex!”

“Right,” she howls, “because countless Oscars have been won from a cell or from six feet under the fucking ground.”

“Toni Collette could play you!” I pitch.

Mom realizes that neither threat nor logic will work. She swivels away, stifled.

“You can’t tell Christopher,” I whisper. “You owe me that. You said it yourself. You’re scared for him. Well, this will destroy him.”

I know I’m exploiting an old mistake, when she disclosed to me her plans to leave my father all those years ago, that instance where complete honesty did more harm than good. It isn’t fair, I know, and she confirms it.

“This isn’t fair,” she moans, her back still turned.

“I know,” I reply, “but will you trust that I have a plan?”

She turns. Her eyes deride me. “You’ve given me no choice.”

As she plods away, I beg her not to worry, assuring her that us tweakers look out for one another like a family, how I’ve never experienced anything like it. Community is what I’ve been searching for my entire adult life. But as the words leave my lips, I wonder if I’m projecting a utopia onto a culture that in fact represents the antithesis of unity, that maybe we’re drawn to one another over shared traumas and a need to forget how we’ve always felt misplaced. A profusion of sex can easily be mistaken as love to anyone who’s never learned the difference.

27

Nord couriers our first mammoth order in preparation for opening night. Holding ten pounds of meth in my hands is bewitching. This shipment wholesales for just over $30,000; that’s my price, but if we can expand enough to sell a third of that by the pound, another third by the ounce, and the final third by eighths or teeners, we can triple that. I’m in the big leagues now. As I open the packages, Big Mama is by my side gabbing about the underusage of silk in men’s clothing, the tragedy of puppy mills, Dennis Rodman keeping us safe from North Korea, and the moon landing being obviously staged. I decide that Big Mama must join me when I return to the Other Side. He too doesn’t belong here.

Every pound of meth looks like a colossal purple burrito. I use a razor blade to sever the first fifteen layers of Saran wrap. The following layers consist of carbon paper, which stains my fingers as if I’ve muddled a bushel of blackberries by hand. Under there is more orange-tinted Saran coated in a sticky mystery substance with the consistency of honey, reeking of mothballs. Then, finally, containing the meth is a Dora the Explorer print Ziploc bag. I envision a cartel ruffian waiting in line to purchase these. Was the store out of plain Ziplocs, or did he have a sense of humor? These bags of meth aren’t the fingernail-sized shards I’m used to pushing. They’re the icicles that hang from New England covered bridges in February. I can barely bring myself to break them up. They’re a thing of beauty. An art of chance goes into making this drug.

“It’s almost a shame to smoke it,” I say.

“Then we’ll do hot rails,” Big Mama replies.

He breaks off a pellet weighing about six grams—more than an active user consumes in a week—then grabs a rolling pin, flattens the chunks, and uses a cleaver to divvy the meth into eight thick long lines. In my coke days, we called these rails. So that explains part of the name. I hope he doesn’t expect me to snort these. Big Mama yanks the mouthpiece from my bubbler, a Pyrex tube. He grabs a crème brûlée torch from the kitchen drawer and applies the flame to the bottom third of the glass tube, slowly twisting until the glass turns bright orange and his face transforms like Al Pacino’s in The Devil’s Advocate. Big Mama places a nostril over the tip and inhales while sliding the orange end atop the powder. The meth dust evaporates into smoke. He exhales unending clouds. His arms flap like a duck’s wings. The smoke detector clamors, but Big Mama is comatose, until the giggling begins and does not quell. I reheat the Pyrex and try it myself. When my giggles begin, the acceptance washes over me that I’ll certainly never meet my exit deadline.

Five hours later, I’ve finished dropping the inventory to my delivery team when I notice a soreness in my gonads. It’s blue balls. Mom’s visit, along with instituting this delivery venture, has beleaguered me into a weeklong abstinence that must now be ameliorated. I receive a Grindr message from an unfamiliar face—preferable since I’ve adopted the pretense that one shouldn’t fuck one’s clients despite no such rule existing, or any rules for that matter. Ethan is visiting from Sacramento. He’s tan with congruent facial features and a rock-hard six-pack and is verifiably versatile. Many gays will claim to be “vers” but are more often bottoms who’ve maybe topped a few times. We don’t make small talk or get stuck in a Grindr hunt hole. Ethan and I flip-fuck back and forth, our sexual energies flowing like a yin yang sign. Lying in the afterglow, he asks if I know anyone who might sell him an ounce for less than $500. Ethan has recently started pushing in Sacramento but can’t find a reliable connect. It seems an opportunity has fallen into my lap, then bounced on it. I’m becoming the largest supplier in gay San Francisco. Why stop here?

“Today’s your lucky day,” I say, before offering him a rate significantly higher than I provide to my local dealers.

“That’d be rad as shit,” he replies.

Ethan exudes surfer-boy vibes, overusing terms like dude and on the reg and chewing gum more loudly than anyone I’ve ever met. He asks if I take Venmo. I do, but I know I shouldn’t. Years from now, my accountant will berate me for this. And yes, I will pay astronomical taxes on this drug money.

“I wasn’t gonna mix business with pleasure,” I say while departing, “but I’m glad we could service each other in more ways than one.”

Ethan delivers a delayed giggle. He’s not the brightest crayon in the box.

Nord’s living room serves as our first night’s operation hub. Our combined client list contains more than two hundred names. My rate per pound is $3,200, fixing my ounce cost at $200. We sell eight balls for $120, which makes my cost $25 and nets $95. Subtracting travel expenses, which average $8 per trip from my 45 percent take, I generate $34.75 profit per eight ball. We fill more than a hundred orders on our first night averaging $90 each, putting $2,500 profit in my pocket. And it should only grow from here. It’s no great mystery how Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest person. My problem now is that I’m a grounded pilot running air traffic control, which isn’t fun, especially when the grounding is self-imposed. The money is resplendent, but it barely provides the surge of endorphins I crave. At the end of the night, I lament with Nord over how I didn’t get into this line of work to sit in a damn cubicle all day.

“What if I do a fraction of the deliveries myself?” I ask.

“You’re off the streets,” Nord argues, “minimizing your risk while doubling your take. Be happy.”

Such pedestrian advice, I think. “I am happy,” I reply.

28

It has been six months, being in both San Francisco and perpetual highness. A single hit of meth can last days in terms of keeping you awake, but the body will inevitably dip into slumber to preserve functionality, or perhaps you have a friend like Jack who sneaks GBL into your soda when you’ve been up for five days straight and refuse to lie down. I sleep an average of six hours per week. I can’t yet conceive the wickedness of this pattern compounded over time. An infatuation with unceasing elation has plagued me since childhood. Our family would always host an annual Christmas Eve party. Dad would spend way too much money on the plumpest shrimp and crab claws. Mom would greet everyone at the door with a box of red heart ornaments and insist everyone pick the heart that best speaks to them, then consider what the holiday represents as they find the perfect spiky evergreen branch to hang their heart upon. Uncle John, after getting sober, started handing out to all the guests a Christmas music compilation he’d made from six months of prep work, hopping from every independent music store to every Borders to every Tower Records to every Sam Goody, hunting for any obscure Christmas tunes, then tirelessly reviewing every track, filling a seasonal notebook full of reviews and ratings, culminating in these adorable cassette tapes with professionally printed track lists on green or red cardboard paper, cut perfectly to fit the lining of the cassette tape. I eagerly waited all year for the rousing holiday music, the sloshed singing, the aromatic cookies, and the reindeer games. But whenever it ended, I’d sob inconsolably. With each passing year, the impermanence of glee weighed a bit heavier until my tradition became to hide in my room for the entire event. If the pleasure can’t last forever, whatever is the point?

Cocaine is cyclical. It leaves you chasing that unattainable first spike, whereas meth is unremitting and thus a comfort to my personality type. Whenever I did cocaine, I felt like a degenerate, hiding the drug, bleeding my savings. Doing meth, I’m high functioning, wise, at the pinnacle of creation. I feel powerful, impervious. Yet it’s cocaine that society often deems to be a highbrow drug. Cocaine is done off trays with rolled-up hundred-dollar bills. Crack, despite being derived from the same drug, is smoked out of a pipe, a consumption method that’s grossly frowned upon. Being smoked out of the same kind of pipe, that negative association carries over to meth. Crack is known to be prevalent in the Black community, at no fault of its own, rather a result of the CIA’s targeting of minority communities to fund the contras’ war in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration. White people fucking Black people’s lives up? Surprise, surprise. I’m not defending meth here, but one must wonder: if society’s vehement aversion to meth is mostly in how it’s consumed, perhaps it’s more about race and racism than we care to acknowledge. Amphetamine in pill form? Give it to the kids! Amphetamine smoked out of a crack pipe? You nasty.

I’m getting back to Big Mama’s studio, our now shared home until I can upgrade or find someone willing to rent a room to someone of my vocation. It’s been another monotonous night running ground control for my delivery team from the comfort of Nord’s tattered eggplant couch that seemingly teleported from 1991. Big Mama’s getting ready for work right as I’m getting in, so to be helpful I change the sheets on his bed. With the company he keeps, I hate to imagine what shenanigans occurred on these sheets over the last several hours. Big Mama goes further with fantasy role-play than most. We’ve never seen each other naked, but in these moments when he’s tying his shoes and I’m dropping my bag on the chair, he paints a picture for me, detailing how and where he likes to get pinched and have his hair pulled out and other small physical abuses, all while being dominated sexually. As Big Mama blows a sloppy kiss and slams the door behind him, Mom calls in tears.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

I’m trying to catch up to what Mom’s saying: her yoga clients back in Pennsylvania are being charged for classes they never took. She’s receiving notifications that her Bloomingdale’s card, which she never applied for and does not possess, is over its limit. I recall creating a password document on her Google Drive then sharing it with myself, in case the old Luddite couldn’t remember how to access it. It’s clear now that Thomas has scored himself a twofer.

“Tell me this doesn’t have to do with your world?” she pleads.

There’s no point in lying. Instead, I assure her that the digital assailant is being dealt with, which she assumes involves calling the police.

“Cops could have unintended consequences, Mom.”

“What are you gonna do then,” she asks, “rough him up?”

“No, not me,” I reply.

Her crying has stopped, and it sounds as if she’s dropped her phone, but before the call ends, I hear her say, “How is this my life?”

Feelings are not facts. A therapist I saw only once told me that. I convert the feeling of Mom is disappointed in me into a fact. On meth, base-level compartmentalization is easy.

Later that afternoon, I visit Jack. The romance between us has died. Once tender kisses on the neck are now casual winks. I share my plan to hire Del as retaliation against Thomas.

“You got burned and it’ll leave a scar,” Jack says, shaking his head, “but why create more wounds?”

I need this yank before becoming someone who purposefully hurts others. Violence works. So, why would I use it only once? My addiction has already shapeshifted, that hankering like a parasite, always demanding one more hit or one more fuck; now it beseeches for just one deal. I can’t let it shift again. Where will it end? At Jack’s suggestion, I delete Del’s number. As we speak, Jack is busy adhering neon lights to the bicycle he’s taking to Burning Man next week. He asks me if I can score some Molly, coke, and ketamine. These are drugs he’ll share with his real friends.

“Are you bringing T or G?” I ask.

“You can’t do that shit at Burning Man,” Jack scoffs.

Those other drugs are just as potentially harmful, and certainly as illegal, as meth or G. Still, I understand. Burning Man welcomes recreational drugs, something in which to indulge. But meth and G are lifestyle drugs. They define the user. Curt and I rolled on Molly while strolling down Bourbon Street. We made love on cocaine, then returned to work the next day, perhaps a tad strung out, but none of our peers were the wiser. If we mentioned doing coke or Molly, no one would bat an eye. Meth is a bad word, an impetus for ostracism. Yet I’ve found ways to normalize it: by making it my currency, my purpose, my identity, and my story.

29

I return to Oakland for my weekly dose of Kent’s bologna stench and to pick up my allotment of GBL. I swear one of the Victorian ladies in his horde of crooked paintings winks at me every time I visit.

“This will be the last shipment you’ll be getting,” Kent says.

My heart thumps, knowing how indispensable G is to the success of my growing operation.

“Why?” I ask. “Did I say something to upset you?”

Kent chuckles. “No, nothing like that. The website I order from got shut down. It’s happened before.”

“Can’t we google another?” I ask.

“The trick,” Kent explains, “is finding one who will ship to the States. It wasn’t a problem until the daughter of a Nebraskan senator got date-raped and died, then the autopsy revealed GHB in her system.”

“Did you hear about Pacifica Joe?” I ask, before realizing my nickname for him might not land.

“He was my biggest customer!” Kent reveals to my surprise. “Why do you think I suddenly had enough to sell you?”

“He was a monster,” I reply.

Pacifica Joe was recently in the news when San Mateo officers raided his home and arrested him on fourteen felony sexual assaults, including sodomy by force or threat while acting in concert, sodomy by use of drugs, and sodomy of an unconscious person. Kent doesn’t verbally agree or disagree. He explains how the government made GHB a Schedule I Controlled Substance but couldn’t do the same for GBL, since it’s used for commercial-grade cleaning. Rather, the feds made it illegal to manufacture or import it without a janitorial license. A select few companies might ship to those without purchase permits, disguising it as heavy-duty degreaser on customs forms.

My business model relies on a steady flow of GBL. Zander has his Polish website connect, but we haven’t spoken in weeks, and I’m certain I’ve all but decimated his client base since then. I’ll have to be covert. That’s how business functions in this market. I call his assistant, Mateo, the person who best sees through my charm and who always shuns me with a glance. I invite him to my suite to do hot rails, the tweaker equivalent to grabbing drinks.

“We can fuck the hell out of each other,” I offer. He remains silent but doesn’t hang up, so I add, “That is, if Zander lets you out of your cage …”

My sex is just another currency. Fucking Mateo disarms him. I make him giggle by doing an impression of Zander placing an obscenely long Domino’s order, hollering substitution requests all the while directing an imaginary person on how to properly light his bubbler. I never saw this scene occur, but I’m confident it has. I’m adroit in the art of reversing someone’s opinion of me. I’ll use any artillery necessary. I’ve had a recurring dream my whole life where two murderers enter our home and hog-tie my family, and the only way for me to save them is to become one of the bad guys and inflict terror on countless others. During middle school, whenever kids called me gay, I would join their gay bashing to redirect suspicions. Gay purgatory awaits my repentance. I invite Mateo for a hate-fuck, but the butter softens, and he parts with a kiss. He’s no Jack, but we laugh as robustly as we fuck. Whatever this becomes, it shan’t be romance. It may be kinship, intimacy, passion even, but I won’t again try to fill the void left by Curt. Mateo and I see each other every night for weeks. He pulls the curtain back to reveal how Zander masks his vulnerabilities with bravado. I wonder, Are all gangsters just scared little children inside? We keep our affair secret. Mateo says he doesn’t know the Polish URL and I believe him. So, I’m left with one option. I book a suite at the Scarlet Huntington, only the best for Zander. When a firm knock echoes throughout this room coated in red velvet, I open the door.

“You’re not the Domino’s boy!” I exclaim.

“And you’re not Joaquin Phoenix in I’m Still Here,” Zander replies, “but I at least know I’m not the delivery boy.”

I’m impressed by his reference to a genre-bending piece of cinema in which the protagonist manufactures alternative truths to form the plot.

“I had to post on Craigslist for someone to light my pipe,” he jests, “but no one seems to light it like you did.”

I say nothing, withholding why I’ve asked him here, allowing him to mutter on, a power play I’ve seen in movies, although wildly uncharacteristic of me. I want to make even my enemies feel comfortable.

“That impish ogre of a yes-man,” he says, referring to Nord, “that you’ve been sending my way is a real pill.”

“He loves love!” I say.

“I hate him,” he replies.

“I knew you would!”

“So, what do you want?”

“Your GBL connect,” I respond.

He hastens toward the door as if I’ve asked for his firstborn. I block him. He reaches for the knob. I slap his wrist. This is how we tango.

“Twelve thousand dollars,” he whispers.

He wants $5,000 for the URL, another $2,000 for poaching Jonas from his team, and another $5,000 for poaching Mikey.

“Why the price discrepancy between your underlings?” I ask.

“Mikey was a friend,” he replies.

“And I’m not?”

“Correct,” he responds, “you are an asshole.”

I hand him $6,000, promising the remainder in one week. He takes my arm and writes in big red Sharpie: www.cleanstar44.pl. I can’t at this moment imagine how such wholesome-sounding words will soon spiral me toward madness.

“You just use a credit card?” I ask.

“Simple as that,” Zander replies.

A GBL liter costs $45 on Cleanstar’s website, which makes each ounce cost only $1.40. Our delivery service retails ounces for $50. That’s $1,400 profit per liter. I immediately order thirty liters spread out over six different shipments. Nord warns that it’s excessive, that I should stagger the orders, but I have a limitless market and the means for mass distribution. Importing drugs is just another high.

When I drop the balance to Zander the following week, I spot surferboy Ethan from Sacramento exiting his room.

“Was that spiky-haired boy buying from you?” I ask.

“Would it be so hard to believe he was here to pleasure me?” Zander replies.

“Why would he pay your exorbitant cost when I’m selling him better quality at a fraction of the price?”

“Perhaps,” Zander suggests, “you might instead worry more about why you’re getting such dirt cheap dope.”

30

Mateo departs to Palm Springs for a sex worker gig at a monthly orgy attended exclusively by men who’ve begun collecting their Social Security. He makes considerably less via this revenue stream, but it’s a healthy reminder that he’s desirable for reasons other than being the guy with the drugs. Through our short-lived romance, we’ve developed a special bond, and Mateo trusts me to cover his deliveries while he’s away. At this point, I’ll take any opportunity to be back on the street, even if it’s secretly being my competitor’s proxy. I could easily put the squeeze on him like I have the others and make him work for me, but I won’t because I value the trust I’ve earned with him. It’s his autonomy I’m most attracted to. Mateo’s customers say they admire him, that he’s punctual, communicative, yet too seldom stays to parTy. We’re cut from the same cloth.

This is how I meet Arthur, who was at one time the mayor of a nearby city. He sports thick slicked-back gray hair and has a demeanor too smarmy to merit a silver fox description. He insists on giving me a tour of his spacious Twin Peaks apartment. When we reach the empty back bedroom, he suavely mentions how his ex-husband is “sucking him dry in alimony.”

“Do you own?” I ask.

“I work in mental health for San Mateo County,” Arthur explains, “so no, not on my salary.”

Meeting Arthur, I’m reminded of my third grade teacher who would get hammered every Friday night at our family’s bar. My parents often worked until after dark and kept me at the restaurants, either in the offices Xeroxing my face and faxing it to random numbers or behind the bar mixing undrinkable mocktails. I’d witness my teacher’s maudlin quibbling with the other barflies, but we never discussed her inebriation outside of those Friday night happy hours. It’s funny how we expect certain professionals to remain unblemished.

Arthur’s apartment is majestic: Pier 1 decor, a bidet in every bathroom, and a decked-out kitchen. I put a lot of importance on how many kitchen appliances one owns. Arthur’s bedroom offers stark juxtaposition between photographs of his parents and a double leather sling. I’m not sure whether I’ve stumbled into dumb luck or if I’m being courted. I’ll soon ponder whether my move here was orchestrated by even greater forces.

A few days later, Jonas and Mikey help me move into Arthur’s spare room. Mikey, pulling from his Guamanian mother’s influence, arranges my new space for proper feng shui: the bed (a light blue headboard attached to a minimalist platform frame) positioned opposite the entry-way, a cantaloupe-colored accent wall, parallel spacing between artwork, books on the bookshelf organized by color, nothing too dark or heavy or chaotic. I wonder how long this will last with how busy my schedule keeps me. But my precious felines finally have a home where they can thrive. These cats are my only remaining tether to the Other Side.

Twin Peaks is a spooky, elevated neighborhood just west of the Castro, off the beaten path and thus a safe haven to conduct business. The fog on every winding street here is thick, its eeriness as dense as the water droplets in the air. Alas, it is lonely. After two weeks running operations in exile like a reclusive Howard Hughes, my mind begins to wander. Has Curt found a partner who won’t keep dirty secrets? Have my friends and collaborators all replaced me? Everyone is replaceable. How soon until an ambitious new dealer moves to town and usurps my business while I lounge here in my castle on a hill? I begin telling myself I need to expand this operation until it becomes too big to fail. The “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous states, “One is too many and a thousand is never enough.” Power works along that same principle. So I get to work.

In the meth game, there’s a hierarchy. Those who push eighths are dealers, those who push ounces are suppliers, and those who push pounds are distributors. Anything larger is the plug, aka Mexico. My expansion plan will allow me to ascend while maintaining a controlling interest at every level. I will be a conglomerate.

I start vertical expansion here in SF by offering a deal of four ounces for $900 to all the suppliers who used to supply my team of dealers before I pilfered their workers. Sure, I’ll make only $100 for every quarter pound I sell, but profit isn’t the priority yet. Uber and Netflix weren’t profitable during their first years in business. It’s about market share. Build an ecosystem wherein you’re indispensable, then you’ll have carte blanche to hike prices later. I worry that I’m fast becoming the greedy British wine mogul from my drive to Napa but am assuaged to remember that the real Jason Yamas is an empath; it’s the character Jason who’s a usurious capitalist.

After the vertical expansion comes geographical. It’s time to creep into other locales. Racist Benjamin supplies much of Berkeley and Oakland. Converting him isn’t a numbers pitch like the rest of them. This motherfucker is driven entirely by his ego. I concede to him that I need his guidance, his mentorship, and only after I pledge that I’ll make him my top priority does he finally allocate his eight-pound weekly acquisition to me. I place Ethan in charge of recruiting new dealers from Sacramento, offering him a 10 percent commission incentive on any business he wrangles from that region.

After geographical expansion comes horizontal, breaking into untapped markets here in San Francisco. PnP sex workers are essentially also dealers; they offer their sexual services in conjunction with the drugs that are done during the session. Much like getting bottle service at a nightclub, they just tack the grossly marked-up product on to the bill. These sex workers retain customers that no traditional dealer would acquire because their johns don’t buy drugs for drug’s sake, only in tandem with the sex. These sex workers are extremely guarded, constantly paranoid someone’s going to steal their clients, so reaching this market requires some creativity. I create a Grindr account exclusively for catfishing. I upload a photograph of a mournful, rotund man and make his handle Generou$Gary. Messages from PnP sex workers flood my inbox. I make several appointments. When each of the sex workers answers the door, I deliver my script: My apologies for deceiving you, but I’m here to offer you a complimentary ounce. May I please come in?

Sex workers are a proud people. The first five I meet maintain that not only must I pay for their time, but I must also receive their services. Only once I’ve climaxed am I allowed to discuss other affairs. One insists I dress up like Ruth Bader Ginsburg—wig, robe, and glasses—and fuck him from a wheelchair. This is apparently a schtick one of his regulars requires of him. The sixth sex worker I meet looks as if he’s transported from Venice Beach circa 1994. His name is Alfonso. His three-bedroom luxury apartment is outfitted with sterile glass furniture. A white-haired septuagenarian lounges on the white leather sofa next to a blond lady in her fifties. They’re watching Dirty Dancing, passing a meth pipe.

“This is my husband, Roger,” Alfonso says, “and my mother, Claire.”

I hand Alfonso the free sample. He calls Claire over to test it. She swipes her finger along a shard and swipes the same finger across her tongue, then smashes a pellet on the table and snorts it, then holds the product under blue light and breaks a chunk into a clean pipe and torches it. I’m curious what information she’s garnered with the blue light. She nods to her son and the deal is done. I can now tout that my product is kid tested, mother approved. They invite me to watch the film. I cannot resist the “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life” dance scene or some much-needed family time, so I accept.

Last week, Christopher called to tell me he was screening Magnolia for Jonnie and asked if I could please join, knowing it’s been my favorite movie since I was fourteen. When I was in high school, one of the few times Christopher and I hung out was me forcing him to watch the over three-hour-long film, and me pausing every ten minutes to pontificate on the symbolism P. T. Anderson intended in every scene. I was too busy last week running the delivery crew to join, so instead I used Amazon’s Prime Now service to send them a brand-new projector within the hour, then immediately regretted it, forgetting that it might come across as drug dealer extravagance. Dirty Dancing, however, isn’t nearly as charming as I remember.

Later, as I’m leaving, Alfonso asks if he can hug me. He explains that Roger is battling stage three lung cancer, how Claire has moved here to help, how they’re struggling to make ends meet, and how moving would kill him.

“I can’t imagine life without him, so you showing up with this better price means more than you know.”

I want to slap him for allowing Roger to continue smoking meth. I want to shatter every speck of meth and break all their glass furniture while I’m at it and beg this family to hightail it out of this noxious city to the countryside in search of something better, but instead I take the win, because if the tables were turned, I certainly wouldn’t take my own advice.

31

The word on the street is that Baby wants nothing to do with me, which only makes me more determined to get his business. Baby pushes over a pound every day. A year ago, my heroes were P. T. Anderson and Lena Dunham. Alas, people change.

He’s known by Anthony to his mother, Tony to childhood chums, but to everyone else he’s Baby. Baby made a name for himself on the San Francisco drag scene in the late nineties. Now, in his mid-forties, he’s gained two hundred pounds, and while many queens embrace their plus size and garner mass appeal, for Baby it’s a nagging reminder of the shallowness of gay culture that tolerates those who’ve always been large, lionizes one for shedding weight, yet is merciless to anyone who packs it on. Baby’s been a major pusher for twelve years. He lives in the infamous Castro Drug Den on Sanchez, where an aging tweaker named Rusty rents space to the younger generation.

After countless attempts to have him meet with me made through people who only tangentially know us both, Baby finally accepts my invitation for a homemade spaghetti and meatball dinner at Arthur’s in Twin Peaks. I ensure the words pasta and gravy are mentioned more than once when conveying it. I assume this is how any two Italian American businessmen meet, but perhaps I’ve seen too many Mafia movies.

Swirling noodles around my fork pressed to my spoon, I ask, “So, how do you do it?”

“Do … what exactly?” Baby asks, noodles slurping through his beefy lips.

“Push weight this long and never go to jail,” I say.

“Loyalty,” he replies, “and an attorney on retainer.”

He quickly addresses the elephant in the room and asks if I’m an undercover fed. I cackle. How has it never occurred to me that folks might find my sudden rise suspicious? I deleted all social media in shame when Curt left, so I show him my IMDb credits. He’s not yet convinced, so I screen the first three minutes of a short film I directed about British twelve-year-olds deciding whether to be in an open relationship. That does the trick, but I’m slightly hurt that he doesn’t want to finish the film. He discloses that the only reason he’s taking this meeting is because his supplier was arrested last week. He mentions having a secondary supplier in San Jose and thus cannot promise consistency. I’ll take what I can get. After we strike a deal, he writes down a number. Above it reads: Skip Blazenhoff.

“He’s my attorney,” Baby says. “Tell him everything.”

“That hardly seems necessary.”

“Who would you wanna be your call?” Baby asks. “Your crying mother? Or Skip, who’ll get the charges thrown out? I been arrested nine times and not a one stuck.”

“I’ll call Skip,” I reply.

I tell myself I’d do anything to shield my mother from such misery, but that’s a lie or I’d be anywhere but here. Keeping with the Italian theme, I offer Baby spumoni ice cream, but he asks for GBL instead. He takes my liter bottle and doses 6.0mL into his water and throws it back. Within minutes, he’s howling like a coyote, he’s drooling like a toddler, then he’s fallen out in his chair, head back like a Sunday afternoon grandad. I whip out a notepad and jot a list of questions for Skip. Arthur returns home from work to find Baby unconscious, lying in a puddle of sweat. An encrypted message appears from Stanley: Send Nord. The Mexicans did their drop. I must go in person to alert Stanley of the recent expansion. Baby starts convulsing. Had I not seen this exact sequence of erratic unconscious activity by dozens of others who’d fallen out on G these past months, I might be more concerned.

“Leave a light on for him if you go to bed,” I tell Arthur before scampering out the door.

When I enter Stanley’s hotel room, I find him spooning Psychosis Landon, whom I’d rescued from Kent’s sex den many weeks before. Stanley can detect that Landon and I know each other. He places his hands upon his hips.

“Jason,” he asks, “did you fuck my boyfriend?”

“Just once,” I reply, “before he was your boyfriend.”

Stanley wags his finger, tapping my nose with each syllable: “Well, don’t do it again.” When I enjoin him to quadruple my weekly order, he jests, “Heavens me, I’ll start a Roth IRA!”

“Also, I’d like you to guarantee that I remain your only client moving forward,” I say, fearful customers learning of his existence will cause them to circumvent me.

“While I certainly haven’t your charm,” Stanley pipes, “if someone comes to me with an order, am I not to fill it?”

“I was afraid you might say that,” I reply, “which is why I’ll be forced to pull my business if it does occur.”

In reality, I’d likely pretend it never happened and turn the other cheek.

“I’m kidding, Jason,” Stanley yelps. “I hate working, but my, how you’ve hardened!” He turns to Landon and asks, “Was Jason this cutthroat when he fucked you?”

Landon is preoccupied, peering out the window and murmuring under his breath.

“More importantly,” Stanley asks, “when are you having us to your new abode for din-din?”

“If we’re still going strong,” I reply, “I’ll host Thanksgiving.”

Beyond his penchant for fraud, his felony convictions, and his borderline sociopathic tendencies, Stanley is a sweet, tortured man. I’ll come to learn that his teen years were bedeviled by weekly shock treatments after his evangelical parents failed to pray the gay away. When I mention Thanksgiving, his face brightens like a florist at a flower show. I ask him for more background on Betty, relaying Zander’s postulation that she’s a narc.

“Betty’s retired,” he insists. “Don’t ever listen to anyone who pretends to be blind.”

The more I strive for some kind of understanding, the more contradictions emerge. Blaine’s sage advice echoes in my mind: You can’t trust anyone here. Yet I refuse to accept it.

“So”—I gesture with an open palm—“you and Landon, eh?”

“I remind him of his father,” Stanley mutters. “And while I do hope his father didn’t power fuck him for five hours every day,” he adds, “it would make sense.”

32

If meth is gasoline, GBL is motor oil. Meth powers my mind and body while GBL mollifies any internal misgivings. Meth’s false confidence compounded with GBL’s artificial serenity renders me invincible. I microdose 1.0mL of GBL every hour to eschew falling out. If I miss a dose, my hands tremor, I sweat, my eyelids twitch. This system works as long as I never question its sustainability. But today is different. My lips are purple, my eyes are gaunt, my flesh looks like a dried kitchen sponge. Blaine remains my self-appointed guide. I call him in a frenzy, and he rushes right over. His face cannot conceal the chagrin, as if he’s failed me and enabled my mushrooming spiral.

“We’re taking you to the hospital,” Blaine exhorts.

A hospital visit is out of the question. I wonder who else can help, knowing plenty of people nowadays, so I start scrolling down my contact list. Our client base is a surprisingly diverse and multitalented crew. I pause on the name Geoff, a nurse who works with Sutter Health. There it is. I give him a call, and soon Nurse Geoff and I strike a deal, trading him a weekly eighth for a monthly home IV saline drip. Private access to items we normally can’t have? This must be what it’s like to be rich. In under an hour, I’m brand new again. And I need to be. Two shipments containing six GBL liters are due to arrive at my brother’s Berkeley apartment this afternoon. I track the packages and find that one has been marked nondeliverable. I call USPS and am put on hold as the eighties’ worst blasts in my ear. John Cougar Mellencamp is abruptly interrupted by a muffled voice.

“I’m sorry, sir, but it says here that the package has been seized by U.S. Customs and Border.”

The implications of the word seized are infinite. I wonder, Would customs relay the buyer’s information to law enforcement? Am I now on some kind of list? Will my future shipments be tracked? Will someone be watching me as I retrieve the other packages today? For the most part, I’ve been fortunate to live a life free of many worries and almost entirely devoid of paranoia. After being beaten and mugged in Paris and again in East New York, both in the span of two months, it took me another year or two before I could walk anywhere in a city and hear someone speeding up behind me without tensing up. I tripped on mushrooms dozens of times in my early twenties and would most often serve the role of caretaker, the one who talks other people off the ledge from a bad trip. Only once did I go there myself. I was with Guillaume on a beach on an island off the coast of Panama. I’d blended our magic mushrooms to dust, spread the dust over Saran wrap, rolled that up inside a Ziploc, taped it up, then submerged it in a massive bottle of conditioner I packed in my checked luggage. It made its way through customs just fine, and we mixed the powder into our juice while on the ferry. The day was going beautifully, not a care in the world, before a drunken man approached us on the beach screaming that we were maricóns. Even that I found humorous, but once Guillaume told me it meant “faggots,” I spiraled. Being gay bashed in another country, on an island, while on illegally trafficked drugs, suddenly I couldn’t find a single comfortable thought. I spent the rest of the day in a melting-hot droopy nightmare of paranoia. Okay, who was I kidding? I’ve experienced a tinge of paranoia every time I meet other gay people, imagining what they’ve heard about me—that I’m not like them. Sure, we might get off to the same kind of porn, but I don’t fit in with them. I don’t speak their language, and I’m certain—I’ve been certain—that they all know I’m a fraud and they have communicated this fact to one another. There’s a room somewhere in a location undisclosed to me where my picture is hanging with the words Fake Gay in huge block letters. But today, maintaining my denialist pattern, I keep any quandaries about the GBL seizure silent, and not wanting to face alone whatever may be waiting for me, I ask Blaine to join me at the Berkeley apartment.

Christopher’s wearing a grimace longer than a knockoff watch salesman’s gray trench coat.

“Sit down,” he says as we walk into the apartment. “I got an email this morning.”

Back in 2012, I started conversing on Grindr with an adorable ginger named Levi. Levi was a singer-songwriter and in an open relationship. Our conversations spanned the gamut from underappreciated film directors like Mike Leigh to underrated personalities like Paula Poundstone. Suddenly, wherever I went, Levi began appearing in the flesh, walking down the street, at the other end of a bar, across from me on the subway. I asked him about the rules of his open relationship because I hoped I might take him on a date. He’d been with his partner for seven years. They moved to Bushwick, Brooklyn, from Madison, Wisconsin. Levi was a personal assistant, supporting his music career. His partner was a poet and a bartender. They were Bushwick epitomized. They’d recently opened their relationship, and while the rules hadn’t yet been precisely defined, he thought a single date couldn’t hurt, as long as I limited expectations.

We met at the Cloisters, overlooking the entire city from natured elevation. A more romantic spot in New York City might not exist. He delivered a speech on his veganism, opening my eyes to the larger ecological repercussions. We debated whether kombucha was delicious or revolting, then compared our favorite Halloween episodes of Roseanne. He sang a song without a hint of shyness. His voice melted me. The encounter played like a cruel joke. I’d never fallen this hard this fast. That day, he felt similarly. I asked to see him again. He wanted the same but needed to discuss it with his boyfriend, because above all, he wouldn’t be dishonest. Levi had integrity; he was someone I could’ve seen myself with long term. He received approval and invited me to their apartment while the boyfriend was working. We played Duck Hunt on an old-school Nintendo. Two dates turned into three, which turned into more. Levi soon told his boyfriend it was time they split. The boyfriend moved out the same night we finally slept with each other. We’d had sex before, but he always left afterward to go home. Sex is one thing; spooning in slumber is another. I tried reconciling the guilt for coming in between two lovers with the bliss that I’d finally found my someone. Levi wrote me a song about falling for a Greek Italian boy, citing how his mother said she liked the same kind. In return, I scribed him a poem. He remarked how his former partner would’ve written something similar. And with that, the similarities wouldn’t cease. When I asked Levi to get me Sour Patch Kids and a Coke at the movies, he’d reply, That’s what he always got. When Levi came home with me for Thanksgiving, something shifted. After the umpteenth time reminding him of his ex, it all became too much too soon. After Thanksgiving, I didn’t hear from Levi. I imagined the ex-boyfriend had already moved back in. I obsessed, Facebook stalking, tracking the life span of their relationship, deciphering from two-dimensional imagery how I could be more like this poet-bartender and win Levi back. I drowned my misery in cocaine for months. Then one night, I attended an underground dance party at the Spectrum, coked up, feeling groovy. I was waiting in the bathroom line when the guy in front of me asked, Do you know what time it is? We locked eyes. I’d seen this face before thousands of times, yet only in two-dimensional form.

“You’re Curt,” I exclaimed.

“You’re Jason,” he replied.

We already knew each other intimately, vicariously. We each spewed a thousand questions. They flowed like a ping-pong match, lubricated by the chemicals. It was a dance party, so we did that too. And with nothing left to say, we danced until we kissed. We couldn’t stop kissing. I went home with him. He showed me the pop-up antique shop he’d set up in his apartment. We played Mamas and the Papas vinyls until it was time to have sex or sleep. I opted for neither. Something was percolating and I wouldn’t tarnish it. Had we had sex, we could’ve dismissed it as a hate-fuck and moved on. There was a reason Levi and Curt lasted seven years. Whatever that reason was, I wanted it.

Months later, we traveled to New Orleans, where we each said those three words one can’t really take back. And I did love him, but that didn’t make him mine. I endured him and Levi taking a bus tour of their poetry and music performances across the Midwest, knowing they were having sex. The night he returned, he rushed into my bed and arms. As I cradled his freckled face on my chest, he looked up and said, I’ll be your boyfriend. And it was the most loving relationship I’ve ever had, although I suspect that’s not what Curt would say. I’m certain I was an extended mistake. I’m certain because of the way he ran crying nine months ago and because of the email Christopher is reading to me right now.

Christopher,

I hope you’re well. I am not. I had thought my mother’s passing was the most pain I could experience, until what your brother put me through. It deepened already opened wounds that hadn’t yet begun to heal. When I needed him most, he was busy feeding his addiction. I’m writing now because I must warn you. Your brother is not to be trusted. Since our breakup, I’ve learned countless secrets. I won’t go into detail, but they’re not pleasant. I thought I was moving past his grip, trying to forget. I focused on rebuilding my life, then my finances got screwy. Turns out someone by the name of Thomas had stolen my identity and opened several credit cards in my name. He’s used my social security number for a slew of illegal things. It’s been calamitous. I thought it was Jason, but after hiring a private investigator, I was given Thomas’s information. When I reached out to Thomas, he wrote back telling me that Jason is a huge drug dealer in San Francisco and is hated by everyone. I don’t know what to believe, and to be honest, I don’t really care. I’ve contacted the local authorities in San Francisco and gave them both Thomas’s and Jason’s names. When I left your brother, he claimed he was going to rehab. I suspected he only said that so I’d take him back. I’d hoped, for his sake and your family’s, that he might. Looks like things went the other way. Good luck with him. I think Jason was once a real person, but I’m afraid he’s forsaken all that was, and I have my doubts he’ll be able to get it back.

Take care,Curt

Air seeps from me like a balloon with a microscopic hole. I glance at Blaine, who’s acting busy on his phone to not lend any credibility to the email’s accusations. I toss him my keys.

“Mind checking the mail room for me?” I ask.

He leaps up. “Gladly.”

Christopher’s eyes follow me as I trudge toward the bathroom. I want to cry, but the chemicals won’t allow it. Curt and my relationship floods my temporal lobe. The joint birthday party when he gifted me every Linda Ronstadt album. His head asleep on my thigh as the tide rose upon the sands in Far Rockaway. The two of us snug in his single tub, taking our Maddow Baths. The art show for the elderly he curated while studying gerontology toward a master’s at USC. His tears as the Nina Simone documentary credits rolled. Then there was the day he moved in, on November 3, which happened to be our shared birthday. I went out shopping for his gifts. When I returned, he was distant. I prodded him for the reason until he finally tugged me into the bathroom, pulled a small bag of salts from my neti pot, shoved it in my face, and demanded answers. He thought it was meth. He might’ve expected to find baggies of cocaine lying around but not meth. Meth was something we’d sneered at together, mutually judging those gays who’d ever stoop to such an uncouth drug usage. We FaceTimed my mother, who assured him that she’d gifted me the salts and the neti pot. He was mortified. I reassured him that he’d made the right decision moving in with me. Whoever said foreshadowing was strictly a fictional convention?

As I slide out the bathroom and across the living room, Christopher stays seated, waiting for me to speak, but I avoid contact. This is the last possible way I wanted him to find out. I’d have even preferred if Mom had told him.

“How much of that was true?” Christopher asks.

I pause, thinking about this for a while.

“Curt’s still extremely angry,” I finally reply, “but I’ve done nothing but leave him alone since he left.”

“That’s not an answer.” He grimaces.

“Can we talk soon?” I ask, not wanting to dismiss him entirely, but also not wanting to lie and definitely not prepared to tell the truth. “Please?”

His face wrinkles as he nods begrudgingly, suppressing a no because my pleading tone has steered him in that direction, or maybe he’s also wanting to delay the inevitable conversation.

On the drive back to the city, Blaine asks, “Is that GBL?”

I nod.

“Please tell me,” he begs, “that you didn’t use your personal fucking credit card.”

33

I’m headed out the door for my free consultation with Skip Blazenhoff, the attorney Baby referred me to, when Ethan calls.

“I’ve got a big fish from Sacramento on the line,” he says.

“Oh yeah?”

“A real up-and-comer, just like you,” he adds, like we’re NBA draft picks.

His fella insists on meeting me at my home. I pay exorbitant rent for this secluded room in Arthur’s Twin Peaks apartment so strangers cannot find me, but I can’t seem to resist new business. Zander’s comment that all fishies start small until they eat and eat some more because they don’t know how to stop is making more sense. I wonder why I can’t stop. Addicts don’t become someone else when they use. We inhabit our worst self.

“Can it wait? I’m headed to a meeting.”

“Can the meeting wait?” Ethan asks. “We can be there in fifteen.”

I relent. “Hurry, please.”

“You got it. Oh, and I should mention, the guy’s got Asperger’s,” Ethan warns, “and can be somewhat … abrasive.”

“What does he want exactly?” I ask.

“GBL,” he replies, “lots of it.”

Since last week’s seizure, hearing those three letters is like someone saying Voldemort. Thirty minutes later, we’re standing in my foyer. The big fish is a big man as well. He’s plump but short, like Danny DeVito in his early thirties but with lush auburn hair and a toothy smile that can’t help but sneak through his resting grimace. He stands like someone who’s uncomfortable against the back wall at a party, almost squatting as if he’s shat his pants and doesn’t know what to do now.

“Did Ethan tell you I have Asperger’s?” the man asks.

“I’ve had friends on the spectrum,” I respond.

“Have you?” he asks, his straightening posture reflecting an instant improvement in confidence. “Or is that something you said to make me feel accepted?” But before I can answer, he adds, “Call me Batman.”

“Are you serious?” I chuckle.

“As liver cancer,” he says, staring coldly into my eyes. “And you will be Superman.”

I glance at Ethan with wide eyes. He holds both palms up, suppressing a laugh. Batman insists we sit “like proper gentlemen.” He finishes every sentence by asking, “Am I being heard?” He claims that he’s “annexed” Ethan’s clientele and says if I want to continue working with Ethan, I must go through him. Batman lays out his plans to flood the streets of Sacramento with GBL. I pray this isn’t how I come across to other people.

“All they know is BDO,” Batman huffs, “but the market is primed, and your product is far superior. Batman will make GBL as ubiquitous in Sacramento as it is in San Francisco.”

“Shouldn’t we keep consistent with the metaphors,” I ask, “and refer to them as Gotham City and Metropolis?”

Batman leaps from the table, seething with fury over my mocking him. We go back and forth like this for twenty minutes. I derive mirth in his folly. It reminds me of quarrels with Christopher, me forever playing the kook while he endeavors to stay ruminative. Batman’s ferocity recedes, and he offers an overly generous payment for me to wholesale him GBL. I have a gallon I could part with, but I know I should wait and consider his vibe. I promise that I’ll call him as soon as my next shipment arrives. He hands me a Nokia phone with three hundred prepaid minutes and one number, his, labeled Batman. This entire encounter feels choreographed, like I’m back in the studios at 721 Broadway in Greenwich Village, rehearsing a scene from a Christopher Durang absurdist comedy. Somebody always dies at the end, and still the audience laughs hysterically.

Skip Blazenhoff sports no power suit, has no framed photographs of him attending galas with politicians. His office is as far west as the Sunset District extends before turning into ocean, in a run-down strip mall sandwiched between a T.J.Maxx and a Jenny Craig weight loss center. I’d pictured an elevator ride up to a glass-encased luxury high-rise office. This is not that. Driving here, there were signs every half mile for the San Francisco Zoo, just around the corner. There is no receptionist or espresso maker in the lobby. Skip himself is in his late sixties with a shoulder-length snow-white mane and a mustache that would make Sam Elliott seethe with envy. He wears a baggy, untucked flannel and cargo khakis. His office is a boiler room dressed up like an antique book shop after an explosion: no computer, nothing that appears manufactured after 1981. He digs through his desk, which is covered in legal pads filled with chicken scratch.

“Aha!” He snags an empty pad. “I’m Skip, you’re Jason, tell me the rest.”

I ask if I need to give him money to ensure confidentiality applies. He assures me it does.

“I’m a big-ass drug dealer,” I blurt out.

When Skip speaks, he sculpts every word with his hands, an echo of an accent confirming he must’ve been raised in one of New York City’s five boroughs, maybe Long Island. He warns me that when discussing past crimes, privilege always applies; however, the court takes exception were I to offer my counsel any knowledge of future crimes. He suggests that I phrase such remarks as hypotheticals. He receives my information with ease. I don’t believe Skip is gay, but chemsex isn’t fresh material to his ears. He asks what I want from this. I tell him I want to ensure I never get arrested.

“Easy,” he clamors, “stop selling, don’t import, leave the jurisdiction.”

This isn’t the answer I’m here for and he knows it.

“Assuming someone of my standing,” I venture, “decided not to stop?”

Skip warns that the most rudimentary advice he can offer is that one should never perform deals out in the open and always remain cognizant of one’s surroundings. Busts often stem from wrong-time, wrong-place scenarios: a domestic quarrel, expired tags, or a broken taillight. He cautions that anyone performing large transactions should worry about becoming the subject of a targeted investigation, that San Francisco’s narcotics division often teams with the DEA.

“You think they’re already after me?” I ask.

“I really can’t say,” Skip says. “Many are in business for years before the authorities know their name.” He says a profusion of criminal informants is always the most likely way to appear on their radar. The authorities will follow their subject for months, documenting movements, mapping where the drugs originate to where and how they disseminate. “They’ll wait till it’s airtight,” he adds, “before getting a warrant for a raid or performing a controlled buy.”

“Tell me about those,” I say.

“Controlled buys,” Skip explains, “are the sale of narcotics by a suspect to an undercover agent or informant, reserved for large sales because once they’ve utilized it, the asset’s exhausted. They might install video surveillance, wire the agent, and occasionally they’ll utilize marked bills.”

I imagine a cop highlighting bills with an invisible ink pen like the kind I had as a kid where the artwork only appeared under a special light. Criminal mastermind, I am not. Skip is referring to the recording of serial numbers from bills used for purchase to further bolster their case.

“Do you regularly meet these friends from down south?” Skip asks.

“I’ve never met the Mexicans,” I respond.

He’s torn over whether this is a good thing. If police are watching, he suggests they might wait until I have met them, or they could seek to make me an asset, then insist that I do.

“What if I never do another deal myself?” I ask.

I hypothesize a strategy wherein I’d outsource absolutely every sale and purchase moving forward. Skip goes on to describe a RICO (racketeer influenced and corrupt organizations) law passed in 1970 to prosecute leaders of crime families, gangs, drug empires, and occasionally white-collar criminals. Think The Godfather: Part II.

“Is it harder to prosecute?” Skip asks rhetorically. “You bet! But the justice system tends to get crafty with a target who thinks they’ve found a loophole.”

Skip asserts that I’m most vulnerable because of the GBL seizure, since I used my personal credit card and had it shipped to an address where my name is on the lease. My initial reaction is rage toward my brother for having had me cosign. I hand Skip $5,000 in cash and sign the retainer agreement.

“One more question,” I add. “Were I to write a script about everything I’ve described here, would I need to get permission from those whom I’d be portraying?”

“I don’t understand,” Skip replies. “Is that a goal of yours?”

I tell him about my movie idea, my passion for cinema, and how the world must know about this shrouded subculture.

“If that’s who you are,” Skip pleads, “why not go be that person now?”

He jots down the numbers of an entertainment attorney colleague and a friend who runs a sober living in Los Angeles.

“I gotta tell you,” Skip snickers, “this is a first.”

“Hey, if worse comes to worst,” I ask, “do you own a suit?” Skip winces, so I quickly finish my thought: “Because I can’t have you showing up to court wearing a flannel.”

Skip chuckles. “How about you don’t make me have to dig my suit out?”

Honestly, I can’t blame Zander for extorting me and for attempting to eliminate his competition by offering shoddy instructions to order the GBL using my personal credit card. These are the rules of engagement. It’s time I wise up.

I may have told Guillaume months ago that I was the biggest crystal meth dealer in town, but now it may actually be true, and the customers are coming out of the woodwork.

After the Skip meeting, I change my number, assigning my old one to a burner that Nord now uses to screen new clients. Those who ship pounds all over the country (and the world) begin to approach us on a daily basis, wanting massive and weekly acquisitions. As per Skip’s guidance, I enact countermeasures to fend off any infelicitous outcomes. Assuming everyone is a narc or working undercover is now imperative. Whenever any sale over a pound is to occur, we arrange a location to meet, but then I change the location to a different hotel room just minutes before the deal goes down. This measure avoids any potential video surveillance that could’ve been installed by law enforcement. While conducting the deal, whenever the buyer asks transactional questions, I respond nonverbally, offering a thumbs-up or perhaps typing a note on my phone and immediately erasing it. This way, if the buyer is wearing a wire, my voice hasn’t corroborated or confirmed anything pertinent to the transaction. And finally, we have a procedure to circumvent being caught with marked bills. Let’s say the deal is for $20,000. I always have Nord attend with our own bag of cash totaling the same amount as we expect to receive from the transaction. Once the cash is exchanged between me and the buyer, I create a diversion for the buyer, often showing off the Smurf dope, a rare strain of meth that’s treated with blue phosphorus that always reminds everyone of Breaking Bad. While the buyer is enmeshed in my diversion, Nord swaps out their bills for the clean cash we’ve brought, then leaves the room before I do, carrying the potentially marked bills. This way, if I exit the room to a handful of DEA agents on the other side of the door, the cash I’m holding is already clean. The serial numbers will never match those on their paperwork. As a result of these measure, my clients all call me paranoid. They deride my heightened tactics. They threaten to find other suppliers. But I know they won’t.

PART 3

UNTETHERING

34

Our crystal shipments arrive every Friday at noon like clockwork. Stanley texts a lipstick emoji. It’s 2:00 P.M., still no lipstick. When I send Nord to investigate, he returns empty-handed.

“The Mexicans never came,” he says.

I jolt across Union Square. It’s late September and we’re at the height of tourist season, that month where much of the country starts to see foliage turn and senses that crisp bite in the air, but here in San Francisco, it finally feels like summer. I hop over huddled picnickers on the lawn, unimportant as ants. I am once again breaking my rule to never enter a fraud room. Landon opens the door, and Stanley is sprawled out on his belly wearing tighty-whities, an Xbox controller in his hand, Goldfrapp blaring through his Sonos. He acts as if he doesn’t see me, so I yank the power cord to his electronics.

“Talk!” I shout.

“They didn’t come,” he murmurs with the petulance of a teenager.

“Why?”

“Why what?” he spits back.

“Why didn’t they?”

“I don’t know, Jason. I’m not a mind reader.”

“These men aren’t amateurs, Stanley. They’re businessmen, professional criminals,” I say in a way that I hope sounds cutting. “There has to be a reason for their neglect.”

I rack my brain, trying to isolate a valid explanation. We too are reliable; we always pay, never ask for advances. And then I remember the bizarre caveat.

“The granddaughter’s money orders!” I exclaim.

Stanley’s face winces. “Landon needed new clothes,” he whines, “and it’s not like I was gonna outfit him at Marshalls!”

“Fuck, Stanley!”

As it turns out, he’s skipped the last two weeks of payments to the cartel boss’s future journalist granddaughter. This is the problem with fraudsters. They believe theft is free of consequence because their victims often remain invisible. I’ll send the money orders to remediate his relationship to the plug, but that won’t solve my supply shortage until next week. I’ve built this empire on the promise of consistency, and I’m beginning to see that it’s a house of cards. I ask Baby to call in a favor to his San Jose supplier. He may be the same laggardly addict who G-ed out in my living room and left a sweat stain on Arthur’s carpet, but he’s also the man who connected me to Skip. What other choice do I have? He says the San Jose plug can restock me at $4,000 per pound. I’ll make hardly any profit this round, but it’ll keep the doors open. I have barely enough staff to keep up with the growing orders, so I can’t afford to leave San Francisco and accompany Baby to San Jose. When I hand him $16,000, he looks me in the eye and thanks me for trusting him.

“Of course,” I say.

I’m not the slightest bit worried. Baby’s been in this long enough to know that building trust within a sustained business relationship will yield him more profit over time. Besides, I expect he’s impressed by what I’ve pulled off in these short months.

Baby’s line goes straight to voicemail for the next twelve hours. Not a peep. This is especially hurtful, as I’ve long prided myself on being able to read others, but that was in a different universe built on different ethics and different values. I’m forced to crawl back to Zander, my tail between my legs. His guffaw at the news of Baby’s take is like shrapnel in my side.

“Wait till he tells everyone how he got one over on you,” Zander exults. “You just became target number one.”

“Why would anyone do business with him if they know he’s a thief?” I ask.

“There’s no code of conduct here,” Zander professes. “Some deal, some steal, but it’s all a hustle, honey.”

Sixteen thousand dollars is a colossal loss, but it’s the violation that tears at me. I want to believe he needed the money for some legitimate reason. Perhaps his mother is sick and required an emergency surgery. Or maybe he got robbed and is too ashamed to tell me.

Zander pleads with his distro to supply me this one time, despite me being persona non grata after pilfering 80 percent of their camp’s business these past months. But even Zander knows it’s good to be owed a favor. I’ll lose money this week, but I’ll preserve my integrity. If I can weather this storm, it’ll show everyone how honesty wins in the end.

“Are you really blind?” I ask Zander.

“No,” he replies, “I carry this cane for fashion purposes.”

I’m tempted to ask whether he purposefully led me astray in telling me to use a personal credit card for the GBL, but I already know the answer and I’m too fragile to be lied to again today.

A few hours later, Nord asks me to meet him at one of his friends’ apartments. When I arrive, Nord instructs the man who lives here to pull up the footage of what appears to be a live feed of this very living room. He then rewinds it an hour to display footage of Baby sitting right where I am now with three pounds of meth laid out on the table.

This idiot we ripped off is a total pussy, Baby says in the pixelated video, but we don’t know who’s behind him.

Aha! Baby is skittish. I won’t have to become violent. I can instead create the illusion. I call Stanley in on the brainstorm. Being that his fuckup precipitated this mess, he owes me his criminal expertise. I race over to Nord’s to meet with Stanley. Being high on meth while moving around as much as I do, I’ve begun to feel like I’m levitating, floating several inches above the ground, unshackled from the pedestrian forces that dictate the actions of those around me. It’s like wearing a low-altitude jet pack, my every breath acting like fuel. I haven’t played video games since the mid-1990s, but I have to imagine that living inside one would be a lot like navigating the humdrum of a densely populated city while fabulously high on meth.

“We should hire Del to follow him,” I contend, “then have him flash a pistol right as I call Baby from a blocked number.”

“Oh, Jason, I do love how your brain works,” Stanley resonates, “but perhaps we try for something more diplomatic?”

He suggests we enlist Betty to broker a meeting. Betty was Baby’s drug mother (apparently that’s a thing) when he was coming up. They were inseparable. Stanley’s repeatedly reiterated that Betty is retired, but in the way a senator becomes a consultant or a lobbyist in retirement. Since there’s no governing body binding us criminals to any rules or regulations, Betty’s been known to step in when street business is running amok, like a referee.

“Betty makes me nervous,” I say.

“You’ve never met her.”

“Exactly my point.”

“Does your grandma make you nervous?” Stanley asks.

“No, but my grandma hasn’t been to prison and doesn’t smoke meth.”

“You don’t know that,” Stanley replies.

35

Through the peephole of a hotel room I’ve paid for using a real credit card, I peer to find a squat old lady, her hair stale blond and slicked back like a greaser’s. I half expect a pack of cigarettes to be rolled up her sleeve. I cordially invite her inside and introduce myself. This feels like meeting a celebrity.

“I know who you are, I know who you are,” Betty says. “What, no hug?”

When I lean in for an embrace, she grabs my head and gives me a noogie, then pushes me away with the might of a giant. Her voice sounds like the raspy inhale one makes when snoring.

“Derek Jeter over here,” she says. “Rising star, right? Rising star.”

Betty repeats words and phrases for no apparent reason, speaking faster than an auctioneer.

“Ya probably heard all kinds of stories ’bout me, yeah? Well, here’s all you need to know … I’m Betty Langster. You can’t never forget it, Langster, it rhymes with gangster. But you can call me anything ya think up, just not Grandma. Call me Grandma, I’ll have your head. Literally. In my Birkin. Your head. I’m kidding, I’m kidding. C’mon, do I look violent?” This soliloquy lasts a mere ten seconds. “Baby’s off his rocker,” she continues. “He’s gonna get it. Wait till he shows. Fucker better show. If Baby don’t show, he’s gonna get it. I taught him better than this. Fuck over the biggest guy in town? Baby knows better. Baby knows better.”

Biggest guy in town? It’s surprising to hear Betty state this so plainly. I’ve been wondering where I stand within the overall meth distribution hierarchy in this city. I know I push more than any of the other gay community dealers, but there’s got to be bigger players, no?

While we wait for Baby to show, Betty quizzes me on my favorite luxury brands, insisting she can get me unbeatable deals on any item I fancy. After an hour of waiting, she calls Rusty, the owner of the Castro Drug Den, who confirms that Baby’s still there at home. Betty grabs my wrist, her nails to my flesh like hooks into my soul, and drags me out the door.

“We gotta pick up my boys,” she snarls.

“Your boys?” I ask.

“Angel and Julio,” she says. “Sweethearts … till they ain’t.”

Betty sits in the passenger seat, navigating. When she sounds like a barking dog, it means turn right. When she sounds like she’s clearing her throat, turn left. We roll up to a burrito joint in the Mission.

“Best burrito in SF,” she says.

Everyone here has a spot they say that about. Angel and Julio scarf down their meat-soaked tortillas before hopping in the back seat. I painstakingly withhold requesting they wipe their hands before touching my leather interior. These past months, I’ve surrounded myself exclusively by gay men, and here I am cruising around with an elderly woman and two straight thugs reeking of al pastor.

“What’s the plan, Grandma?” Angel asks through a reverberatory belch.

Without looking, Betty throws back her fist, hitting Julio square on the nose.

“I didn’t say it!” Julio cries.

“Plan is we get Jason’s money back,” Betty replies.

“Don’t get me wrong here,” I insert, “’cause I’m mighty grateful for your intervention, but why are you doing this for me?”

“We let this fly,” Betty replies, “it’s open season.”

Betty views herself as a gatekeeper. She may be retired, but she’s determined to fortify the game from collapsing into anarchy. She’s aiming to uphold a legacy.

We arrive outside the Castro Drug Den, an eggplant house with pink and orange windows. Passersby must imagine an aging hippie couple residing here, burning patchouli incense and grilling seitan. We spot Baby getting into the back seat of a car across the street.

“Drag the fucker out by his teeth,” Betty shouts.

Angel and Julio leap out. Each pulls a gun from under his shirt. The depth of my naivete confounds even me. I never imagined actual weapons would be involved in this confrontation, especially since Betty is apparently a mother-like figure for Baby. But it’s too late now. I can’t stop it. In unison, the boys both tap on the back windows and escort Baby toward the house. Betty approaches and smacks Baby across the head. They hug, then she smacks him again. He catches sight of me slumped down in my car. I smile and wave before they disappear into the house.

Twenty minutes later, Betty returns with an optimistic smirk. “Baby’s ready for you.”

When I enter the basement, Baby is seated in the corner wearing an invisible dunce cap.

“Tell him what you told me,” Betty instructs Baby.

No one will die today, but I am ready to play Mr. Tough Guy to whatever extent is necessary. I imagine we’ll use pliers to pull out his fingernails, maybe chop off his pinkie toe, maybe pluck some molars. In these moments, right before a person changes forever, the surge of adrenaline is something new, something extraordinary. Before Baby can say one word, a gun cocks behind my left ear, a noise so alien to me, it takes a few second for the ramifications to register. Betty turns to face our new guest. The man then aims the gun at her. The burrito-scented thugs pull out their guns, to which Betty waves them downward. Both boys lower their weapons.

“Is this him?” she asks.

“Kev, that’s fuckin’ Betty!” Baby yells with two arms outstretched.

Kev, upon hearing her name, lowers his gun, then turns it back on me. I let out an unintentional mewl and erupt into a grunt reeking of forced machismo. Do I beg him to lower the gun before I poop myself? Should I put my arms up and slowly exit? I open my mouth to speak, but what comes out, I could’ve never predicted.

“The sun’ll come out tomorrow, better your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun …”

I’m singing showtunes in falsetto. I complete the second verse and the chorus with the purity of a rosy-eyed, curly-haired orphan. If this were actually a movie, this dingy basement lighting would drop out, giving way to sapphire-shaded background illumination and a spotlight shining bright on me as I broke into a Fosse-esque dream sequence musical number. In reality, I’m in a room full of violent criminals who appear unassailably shook (and I hope a tad bit impressed?). By the time I finish singing, Kev has lowered his weapon.

“What do you want?” Kev asks.

“Baby owes me money,” I respond.

“No, he don’t,” Kev says.

“No, he don’t,” Betty says to me with raised eyebrows, feeding me the line.

“No, he don’t,” I echo once to Betty, then again to Kev.

Betty gives me a nod of approval, but I’m confused. So much for Mr. Tough Guy.

“Let’s get on out of here,” Betty says while yanking me and her thugs down the hallway before skedaddling back outside. Once we’re back in the car, Betty and the boys burst into laughter.

“Usually someone pulls a gun like that, it’s all show,” Betty says, “but I wasn’t sure Kev was that. You defused it good, kid. Defused it good!”

She explains what Baby told her when they first went into the house, how Kev is Baby’s supplier and the largest in San Francisco’s straight meth community, but also new to the scene in the past few years and thus hadn’t yet met Betty in person until today. A few weeks ago, Kev apparently got popped in an arms raid. Baby started dabbling with smack and can’t get off the shit. He uses GBL to knock himself out when he’s jonesing for heroin. This tracks with the first time we met at my house, which ended with him fallen out in a puddle of his own sweat. Baby owed Kev ten large and set up a payment plan, but when Kev was arrested, he called the note due, and Baby had to find the bread somewhere. Cue the music to my entrance: a green ninny with zero discretion handing him $16,000.

“Maybe you’re lucky,” Betty suggests.

“How do you figure?” I ask.

“If Baby needed it,” she argues, “he was gonna take it one way or another.”

“I was still robbed!” I exclaim.

“Nah, you were ripped off,” she corrects me. “Listen, I’ll teach you, kid. I’ll make you stacks. I got you.”

As my foot taps the accelerator, I grip my leg to stop the trembling, and I wonder whether any of this was real. Is it possible that Stanley, Betty, and Baby are working together, putting on a piece of theater for a quick take while Betty worms her way into my network so she can hand me over to the authorities and preserve her freedom?

36

“It’s a sensation, Superman!” the verbose and uninvited Batman bellows into my ear. “The GBL! An absolute sensation!”

Last night was the first night in months that I’ve slept more than two hours, and I am now awoken by a lunatic who self-identifies as a superhero shaking my shoulders. The cats, who’d gone to bed with me, one nestled on either side, tremble under the bed frame. How did he get in here? Arthur must’ve let him in.

“What do you want?” I scream.

“More!” he shouts. “As much as you’ll sell me, Superman.”

“There is no more,” I say. “I’ve lost my supplier. You have to go.”

I make for the door, but Batman blocks my path. “Let me help,” he begs. “What’s the website you’ve been using?”

I am certain I never told Batman that my supplier was a website. Something is awry. Could he be …?

“Show me your dick!” I shout.

Undercover cops aren’t allowed to fuck their targets, I think. Why do I think that? I should’ve asked Skip about this. I pull my pants to my ankles and bend over, ass up. “If you want more GBL, you’ll need to fuck me first.”

Nothing happens. The room goes silent. I pull up my pants and turn to see Batman is now facing away, scratching his chin, squinting.

“You really should install security cameras in here,” he says.

“I plan to,” I reply.

“I’ll be in town a few more hours,” Batman says. “Call me when you’re ready to get serious. We can build something marvelous if you’d let me in.”

After Batman leaves, I pace my room, wondering whether I’ve made a fool of myself or dodged a bullet. Skip said the feds are cracking down on GBL, fearing it will become the next Ecstasy. It’s most popular in San Francisco because of the dense gay population but is expected to spread quickly, since straight society inevitably always appropriates gay culture. Skip warned that they would strive for an evidentiary trifecta before indicting me on illegal importing and trafficking charges. Using my personal credit card was strike number one. If Batman is undercover, I’ve already sold to him, strike two. Recording my confession to using Cleanstar would seal the deal.

I wish I felt safe here in my own bedroom. It is organized, which I appreciate, but there’s something so lifeless and dour. The feng shui Mikey and Jonas installed is hardly noticeable, and I’m sort of furious that I entertained it. I want a room that explodes with color: purple walls, geometric shapes, art deco rug, plants every six inches, artwork with so much life it might just jump out and grab you. I never had that growing up either. We moved so frequently, and I was too removed from my authentic queerness to craft a space where I could both thrive and convalesce.

I drive to Jack’s Nob Hill condo, the space where I feel safest in this city. While we’ve barely spoken about anything substantive since he returned from Burning Man, he still sends me a daily GIF of Abby Lee Miller, the loathsome instructor from Dance Moms, just to make sure I know he still cares. I’m walking up the hill on Bush Street when I spot a white-haired man wearing a purple baseball cap. He gazes at me, then speaks to himself. His lips read, I’ve got him. I’ve seen this man before. A blond woman across the street matches my pace lockstep. I look at her, but she turns away. She’s speaking on what appears to be an earpiece. Two Indian women turn the corner pushing a stroller. I speed up. They match my pace. I’m all but running now, as are they. The way they’re jostling it about, there’s undoubtedly no baby in that stroller. I now recognize every single person on this street. Each knows exactly who I am. I can’t prove it, but I know it to be true. I can’t understand why they’re looking me square in the eye. Are they about to nab me? Had my refusing Batman been the catalyst? If so, why not arrest me already? Why play this circle game? I furiously tap Jack’s buzzer. When he opens the door, I stake out the street below from his colossal windows.

“What are we looking at?” Jack asks.

“There’s a team,” I mutter breathlessly, “of agents, watching me.”

He looks at me like I’m delusional, and I get it. I’m not ignorant of the effects of methamphetamine. I’m sure hundreds of others believe the same thing right now. Only I’m different. I’m a major criminal, as Betty has confirmed, a felon ten times over. I deserve this.

“Assuming you’re right,” he continues, “that they’re agents and this is because of the GBL seizure. What does the DEA or whoever accomplish by paying multiple salaries to stare at you all day?”

“I know what I saw!” I cry.

“Then show me,” he says.

Jack drives me around the block as I point them out one by one. He nods, permitting my fraught conjecture until insisting I close my eyes. He plays “Rockabye,” by Clean Bandit. Pop music has innate mysticality by speaking directly to anyone who’s listening. The lyrics tell of a mother wanting a life for her baby and how, no matter what, she must save him. My mother is communicating to me in my moment of need, through Jack, through pop lyrics, somehow. I’ll parse out the logic in time. After the song ends, I open my eyes, and the agents have vanished. With them gone, so is the dread that’s shellacked my entire body like poison.

I’ll read twenty articles about psychosis before accepting the slightest possibility that I was hallucinating. Science has shown just how deep a vulnerability lack of sleep can be, suggesting that humans would have evolved millennia ago to eradicate or lessen our need for sleep if it were possible to maintain our inherent biological integrity. It’s not. Using chemicals to stay awake for days is a direct challenge to God, if you will. Oh, the creativity one’s mind will employ to get its needs met! Yet, how could something so vivid be a mirage? David Copperfield never actually made the Statue of Liberty disappear. He merely rotated the platform on which the audience sat without them noticing. He altered perspective. The first time I took mushrooms, I witnessed wallpaper come to life as paper birds that formed a spiral dance around the room. I knew the birds weren’t real that day. Today’s agents, however, are different. I saw them, and I believe they are real.

37

Growth was simple. Preservation is the challenge.

At this point, between our delivery team and the larger clients whom I service directly, our entire enterprise is (theoretically) grossing $60,000 every week. After expenses and payouts, I’m seeing just under ten grand in profit. That is, when I’m not handing it over to some grifter. I must stay on top before someone replaces me. As such, I’ve begun implementing quality control measures. I sift every meth burrito and sell only the prettiest chunks, then give the powder to Nord so he can perform recrystallization to “re-rock” it, following YouTube tutorials to a tee. These days, the pounds move so quickly through my hands like a juggling clown’s that it’s never occurred to me to test a sample from each batch.

Today brings one of the most violent thunderstorms I’ve ever encountered. The electricity at Arthur’s apartment flickers on and off. The water coasting off the arched rooftop and down the spouts is so ferocious, so echoey, it sounds like being inside an enclosed tubular waterslide. Betty calls, but before I can say hello, I hear her breathy groan like a distressed Marge Simpson. She has stayed true to her promise of becoming my mentor, introducing me to a Rolodex of big pushers, some of whom have been in and out of jail for the past two decades, many of whom supply the straight communities in SF and the East Bay as far out as Walnut Creek. She’s backing me, she claims, because unlike the other shmoes, I treat this trade with the same respect one would give a start-up on the brink of a venture capital investment. She likes how I do business. I accept her support and remain cautiously optimistic.

“What’d you give Liz?” she shrieks, her declaration satirically emphasized by a crash of thunder. “It’s burning everyone like Mace!”

Liz is one of the largest small-bag pushers in South San Francisco and girlfriend to a major arms dealer. I learned this fact after Betty introduced us, then insisted I front her four ounces only minutes after lecturing me on how I’ve been fronting superfluously.

“What? What are you saying?” I holler back at her.

“You got dirty dope,” she replies, repeating the words dirty dope several more times.

Interesting how moments ago, we were a team. She fancied herself my puppet master, the great overseer of my business. Now that there’s a problem, it’s You got dirty dope. Where’s the we?

“What? What’s dirty about it? What do I do?” I beg.

“Get it off the streets! Now!” Betty screams. “This could end you!”

I know about schwag weed. And I’ve heard of cocaine being cut with ether. But what the hell is dirty meth exactly? I tear open more than a hundred bags of various increments and spark a shard from each until I reach the culprit. Smoking this meth is akin to what I imagine inhaling mustard gas would taste like. Two glasses of milk hardly cool the acrid scorch. Messages are now pouring in on all my phones. I call Stanley and explain what’s occurred. He sounds half asleep but says he’s never heard of dirty dope.

“Call the Mexicans,” I howl. “We need to exchange it!”

“I may be new to this line of work,” Stanley replies, “but I’m rather certain there’s no return policy.”

Right then, a client texts me a GIF displaying a cartoon swarm of wasps buzzing along as a hand reaches out and sprays it. The wasps fall to the ground and spell out the word RAID.

“They gave us Raid dope!” I half scream.

I hear heavy breathing, then an audible gulp before the line goes dead. When I google Raid dope, I find articles about backwoods labs in Kentucky where they use wasp killer in replacement of pseudoephedrine, since drug stores have made it difficult to purchase Sudafed. Could Stanley have purchased from another source and mixed it in with my order? No. Every meth burrito had the identical layers of Saran, carbon paper, and that honey-like substance. It’s undoubtedly from Mexico. I call Skip because he’s the only person I know who I’m fairly certain will not profit from lying to me.

“Skip Blazenhoff,” he answers in the casual way one does when having said one’s name as a greeting for decades, flying through it so quickly as to chop out half the syllables.

“Skip, it’s Jason Yamas. I need to pick you brain.”

“Shoot,” he replies, punctuated with a palatal click like one makes to wrangle a farm animal or to act cool.

“Have you ever heard of Raid dope?” I ask.

“Are we talking about drugs that were seized during a raid?”

“No. I’m talking about meth that’s been cooked using Raid, the wasp killer.”

“Ah.” Skip takes a solemn breath. “It was the colloquial Raid dope that threw me. So, no, not in one of my cases, but I do recall some years back the state prosecuted a member of the Tijuana cartel on trafficking, kidnapping, and multiple counts of murder. Most of the murder allegations were the result of explosions or shootings, but one of the victims died in a San Diego hospital as a result of poisoning caused by the chemicals in Raid. Prosecutors argued the defendant sprayed the methamphetamines with the toxin as a means to threaten him.”

“Threaten?”

“Organized crime rings only threaten for two reasons,” Skip professes, “payment or secrecy.”

“It’s a message.”

“You got it.”

The Mexicans are saying, You get what you pay for, which likely means Stanley hasn’t been paying them.

“Thanks, Skip,” I reply, rushing him off the line.

“Jason,” Skip interrupts before I can hang up. “That story had two main people in it. One ended up in prison and the other ended up dead.”

Betty’s This could end you! remark swishes around my brain. Faced with rampant Raid dope on the streets, I fear for my life. If someone had violent tendencies for retaliation, I imagine inhaling poison might awaken them. I begin calling all my clients, assuring them that replacements are on their way, principally Liz, hopeful she hasn’t yet informed her arms dealer boyfriend of the fiasco. It takes hours to repackage the clean dope. This disaster will cost me $12,000. Nord is an expedient sycophant whom I can trust for menial tasks, but I need a full-time assistant, a partner perhaps. And in practically perfect-in-every-way Mary Poppins fashion, the doorbell rings. Ethan stands in my entryway, drenched, piteous. He bewails about a sudden disunion from Batman. For months, he’s been staying with Batman, but earlier today he discovered his suitcase on the front lawn and the locks had been changed. Batman expropriated most of his customers, telling them Ethan was a grifter.

“I know he fired you too,” Ethan says, “but would you consider still selling to me, man?”

I haven’t the time or patience to correct this misinformation, at least not today.

“How about you come work for me?” I ask. “You could even stay here for a bit, or until you find something more permanent.”

Desperation breeds asininity. I scrap the notion that Batman and Ethan were undercover, but if what Batman said was true, then I’m hiring a thief. One thing is certain: Ethan is dumb as a box of hammers. And I prefer stupidity over calculation. Ethan’s moldable into a loyal henchman. I bring him up to speed on the Raid dope catastrophe. He’s eager to assist and owns his own car. We each head out to make the exchanges when I see Christopher is calling. I press ignore.

My brother calls a fourth time. The incessant ringtone plays like a wickedly off-key xylophone on my nervous system. A heaviness climbs into my chest and perches there, as it had my freshman year at NYU as we watched my dad collapse. First, he lost his dog to cancer, then he lost his marriage to emotional absentia, then he lost his twin sister to suicide, and finally he lost his mother to old age. Her death certificate may have said “heart failure,” but if you ask Mom, she’ll say it was from a broken heart after having sent dozens of pleading letters and never once receiving back correspondence from her youngest daughter, Dad’s twin, who’d years before absconded, cutting every single family member off, including her own two daughters.

I visited him that Christmas Eve. He was drowning in despair. I’d pulled together a slideshow of pictures of him, me, and Christopher over the years, scored by Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son.” This night was the only time I ever saw him cry. I knew his older brother had gifted him a gun years ago. I also knew the choice to take his own life was within reach.

“You’d never consider doing what your sister did, would you?” I had to ask.

He couldn’t make that promise. I sobbed, but nothing could shake his broken state. I drafted a list of one hundred reasons to live. I woke up every day for a year wondering whether today would be the day. Eventually, Dad reconnected with an old girlfriend. That rekindling saved him. They didn’t end up together in the end, but it offered the prospect of happiness.

I finally answer the call from my little brother. “Don’t tell me someone died!” I shout maniacally into the phone.

Through the static of tears, Christopher replies, “No. I mean, I hope not. But Dad left a letter.”

“You mean,” I clarify, “like a … note?”

Christopher continues: “Yes, and it says that he’s worked his ass off for fifty years and hasn’t a thing to show for it besides you and I, and that he’s become an afterthought to us.”

This news arrives less like a gut punch and more like someone reached into my belly and tore my guts out. Family and friends have referred to me as Mini-Dad my entire life. Sure, we might not be close on paper, we might not speak regularly, but I’ve formed my identity in his shadow. If he dies today, a major part of me will wither with him. It hurts to love someone this much. And yet—

“Pack a bag,” I tell Christopher. “You’re gonna talk him out of it.”

“Me? Only me?” he asks.

“I can’t.”

“Fuck you,” he replies, breathing hard through his nose, speeding up in the way one does just before a screaming tirade. “You’re coming too.”

“I’m not. I’m sorry, but I can’t and I’m not.” I pause. “Please, Christopher, please don’t make me beg.”

He says nothing, not words at least. His breath transforms, audibly slowing and gaining focus.

“I’m on my way.” I manage to slip in before the line goes dead.

I cannot fly to Pennsylvania and provide the comfort I had twelve years before. I barely recall the earnest college freshman I was, studying acting, stepping into his newfound sexuality, confident of the dreams he’d fulfill. Becoming a crystal meth kingpin was never one of those dreams. The truth is I’m unwilling to leave my drug empire to save my father. That’s who I’ve become.

At SFO, I peel back my guilt like a scab and pull out an obscene wad of cash to pay for Christopher’s flight. He stares at the money, then we hug for longer than we ever have.

“I’ll explain everything when you get back,” I whisper. “I promise.”

When I was growing up, Dad worked seven days a week managing two different restaurants. He had occasional spouts of anger but was, for the most part, a man of integrity with a wicked work ethic. He taught me there are always at least two sides to every story. He could’ve been around more, but it made the times he was with me sacred. He reserved special days for me. I remember one Saturday in particular. We dipped toast strips into soft-boiled eggs resting in fancy egg cups for breakfast, then began at Chuck E. Cheese and topped the day off with bowling. Dad insisted I have only one bumper, because life would never offer both. Father-son days were scarce and extraordinary. It was only later that I overheard he was scarily ill with Lyme disease. He’d been promising me a special day, just the two of us, for months, and he didn’t let his illness interfere. He cooked every meal in our house too, and while he never sat me down to impart his culinary skills, I watched him obsessively, absorbing his technique. I wanted to be him. I wanted to know him better.

Years have passed since that day, and I’m watching Christopher board his plane, wondering how I ended up here. I’ve glorified a single father-son Saturday, when truthfully it was my first real time getting high on male intimacy. I then spent the remainder of my childhood in debilitating withdrawal, usually vying for Daddy’s affection. In early adulthood, my body required contact with other men while my brain rejected it as perverse. I introduced my first boyfriend to Dad at a wedding, whereupon he turned away in confusion, but it felt and looked more like revulsion. I spent a decade trying to reconcile homosexual desire with a longing for approval, resulting in paralyzing shame. I discovered a potion that quashes discomfort and emboldens reckless sexual practices, masquerading as free love. I invented a thousand ways to rationalize my addiction while eagerly waiting to hear the words that would never come: Sweet boy, you are righteous in your sexuality. Your compulsion is fear. Your anger is your pain. Your love is beautiful. It need not hide in the darkness nor be lubricated by artificial compounds. Love vastly and proudly. Love others with cause. Love yourself without pause. For as long as you’re breathing, it is never too late.

I would have to settle for the father’s compassionate monologue performed by Michael Stuhlbarg at the end of Call Me by Your Name or pretend Richie Jackson’s Gay Like Me was written for and dedicated to me. My father cannot find these words, these thoughts. My dad never rejected me or threw me out because of my sexuality. He simply never addressed it, and that perhaps hurt even more.

Once Christopher is on his way, I brainstorm backup plans, out of my mind on meth. Dad’s worst enemy is his ego. He won’t be seen as a failure. Keeping him alive will require a reinvention. I conceive of a father-son drug empire. I’ll bring him into the fold. He’ll serve as my money manager, helping me wash the cash, forming a series of shell corporations and reinvesting the capital in real estate ventures. Who cares if you’re doing something illegal if you were going to kill yourself anyways? He has nothing to lose.

A week goes by. Christopher finally returns. We meet at Gather Kitchen in Berkeley, seated in its glass-encased back room that feels more like a jungle inside a greenhouse than any sort of restaurant. His fervent inveigling was a success—Dad is not dead—yet he keeps the details hazy, perhaps as a form of punishment? He looks at me like we’re strangers. Mom told him everything. I can see it in his eyes.

“Well?” I ask.

“He’s alive,” Christopher exults, “no thanks to you. Oh, and he’s an addict too, apparently.”

With some pleading, Christopher reveals the rest: after suffering a neck injury a few years ago, Dad was given oxycodone. Long story short, his physician has continued to prescribe it ever since. My brother’s distraught over this revelation, whereas I view it as positive news. It’s a scapegoat for any embarrassment he might be suffering from these recent theatrics. Dad keeps a low profile, never wanting to accept help from another, so Christopher’s intervention must have him mortified.

Christopher and Dad walked the New Jersey shoreline, apparently, and Dad spoke in ways he never has before, with either of us. Confronted with death, he could finally acknowledge the hard truths he’s worked so hard to suppress: how losing his marriage was avoidable if he’d just opted to be present, to be flexible, and how every adult decision he’s made was to impress his own father. He regrets not giving Mom more kisses and gentle touches of affection. And boy, I wish he had. I wish he could’ve normalized intimate touch being directly connected to love. Perhaps I could’ve witnessed that and made the connection in my early understanding of romantic relationships and not struggled to find arousal with those I love, forcing me to seek sexual pleasure from strangers who treat me badly instead of a man who loves every part of me. I’m jealous of this bonding time they’ve shared, however dire the circumstances.

My favorite memories of Dad were the times he broke free from the pretenses of the “serious man.” There was my eighth Halloween, after Mom had spent two hours costuming me as a cowboy and right as we were heading out to trick or treat. Dad came home early, slipped into the bathroom, and came out minutes later dressed like Dracula. I dug my heels in, tore off my boots and bandanna, and demanded Mom whiten my face, pop my collar, adhere a set of fangs, and dribble some blood from my lips. We were a vampire family or nothing at all. Then there was the time my grandmother was doing ear candle treatments on our entire family. Before they were mass-produced and sold at the local GNC, she’d make them with thin cloth rags and melted wax. Dad incessantly mocked his mother-in-law for that voodoo nonsense, until finally caving one day and opting to try it. My grandmother had healed her children’s and grandchildren’s ear infections for decades using this natural home remedy without fail, but the first and only time Dad let his guard down, he ended up in the hospital with a specialist removing the beeswax that had dripped down the side of the candle onto his eardrum, the first time in over forty years this ever happened. Then there was the time we had Christopher’s sixth birthday party at an ice rink. Dad sat in the bleachers, filming the merriment on our VHS camcorder, until he disappeared. Next thing we knew, he was bladed up and skating around the ice like Kristi Yamaguchi, performing tricks, twists, and turns. Everyone stopped, stupefied, to watch his show. Knowing he now had an avid audience, he reset on the far side of the rink, took a few full breaths, bent his knees, and started swooshing back and forth across the ice, full-bodied movements building all the momentum he could, leading to what we all imagined would be his big finale, right when a toddler flew into his path, causing Dad to suddenly halt his acceleration. He fell backward and slid across the ice, leaving a streak of deep red blood freezing as it spewed from his skull. He ended up in the emergency room the rest of that night too. Okay, maybe some of the times he broke out of his shell ended badly for him, but they made us laugh. We laughed because it was usually him making fun of us. The reversal was poetic justice.

“Was it selfish of us,” I ask, “to stop him?”

“No, because he at least has the option to be happy now,” Christopher says. “And so do you.”

“I am happy,” I tell him.

“You sell hard drugs to people with families who worry about them,” he says, “yours included.”

“Meth is different in our community,” I argue. “It brings us together.”

Christopher reaches into his bag and hands me a book titled Lust, Men and Meth: A Gay Man’s Guide to Sex and Recovery.

“A few days ago,” he says, “I would’ve said that was ridiculous.”

He and Mom are reading what amounts to a manual, describing my culture as an epidemic. They believe that I’ve never accepted my sexuality, that I numb myself to partake. Christopher throws around terms like brain plasticity and sexual templates, and suddenly he’s an expert because he can conceptualize my daily reality through scientific goggles.

“It’s more complex than that,” I say.

I’ll eventually learn that it’s not. Meth addiction doesn’t remake a man. It unearths his darkness, manifesting unspeakable fantasies, exorcising arcane demons.

“Why keep doing it?” he asks plainly. “You know how this ends. You’re not dumb!”

“They need me,” I reply. “I need this.”

“We need you,” he says.

Christopher reminds me of the time I saved his life. Dad had just docked our boat during a rip tide. Christopher was seven. He fell into the water. No one saw it happen besides me. I dove in, snagging him just before the current pulled him toward the propeller. I haven’t forgotten. A jagged wooden fragment from the dock pierced my elbow as I lifted him out of the water. I see that scar every day.

Christopher shakes his head. “What’s with that fucking grin on your face?”

“What, I can’t be happy Dad’s alive?”

“You’ve had it since we sat down.”

“Would you prefer I sob over lunch?” I ask.

“I doubt you could,” he responds, before proceeding to explain why.

It’s because of neuroplasticity and the cortical remapping of my brain that occurs every time I take a hit of meth. The neurons have rewired and can’t fire the way they once could. An impulse, otherwise known as an emotion, tells the neurons to fire a certain way, yet mine no longer respond accurately. He’s not wrong. He’s just found a fancy way of saying I have brain damage.

This is the first moment I consider quitting meth for health reasons. But only for a moment. A text comes in. Racist Benjamin needs his supply. I’ve guaranteed him that I’d never make him wait. I throw a hundred-dollar bill on the table and make for the door. Christopher grabs my arm.

“Sell me some,” he says. “If I like it, maybe you can hook me up with a job in your little empire?”

He’s goading me, attempting reverse psychology, and I respect the strategy in my typically sincere little brother.

“I love you,” I tell him.

As he releases the grip on my wrist, he asks, “Did you forget that you still have a family?”

38

Back in my little empire, I cultivate a surrogate big-brother relationship with Ethan. No matter the loftiness of my asks, he always replies in true Michelle Tanner fashion: You got it, dude. The clients adore him, likely because he fucks every last one of them. Ethan’s dream was to become a fashion stylist. He got busted twice with DUIs while studying liberal arts at a community college in Sacramento. His cop brother made both jams go away, but his parents ended all financial support toward his education. Before he could transfer to the Fashion Institute of Technology (his dream school), Ethan dropped out and settled for a job as a bank teller. He spent seven years living the small-town life until that one Grindr hookup when someone asked if he wanted to parTy and he was bit by the Tina bug. After missing countless shifts due to days-on-end parTying, he lost his job, then his apartment. Batman briefly served as his benefactor, and now he’s under my care. Ethan is the mirror on which I shape a realistic exit strategy. By urging him to follow his dreams, I’m reminded of mine. I’ve always excelled most from within a collaboration. After one week having him serve as my assistant, I promote Ethan to partner. All his living expenses will be paid, and he’s afforded a modest per diem. Otherwise, all revenue returns to me, and he’s promised one-third of profits when we close shop. My projections have him walking with over $150,000 in nine months, more than sufficient capital to start his styling business.

Stanley texts: Who’s hungry for burritos?

He’s avoided me for a week following the Raid dope. His blunders are costing me an average of ten grand each time. Betty recommends that I circumvent Stanley and approach the Mexicans directly. When producing films, I always hired a mix of professionals and amateurs, and it was always the amateurs whom I rehired. Amateurs more often admit when they don’t know something, and they welcome feedback. Stanley is an amateur, but his viability will be measured by a willingness to evolve. Rather than sending Nord this time, I invite Stanley to my home, where he’s greeted by Ethan. I let him wait for several minutes before emerging.

“You met my new partner?” I ask.

“Well, I thought he was your assistant,” Stanley quavers, “so I was taken aback when he didn’t offer your supplier a cold beverage.” He’s doubling down on the aristocratic cadence today.

“Sorry, but we’re fresh out of juice boxes,” I quip.

Stanley tilts his head. “Is that a dig?”

I’m playing coy and subdued, a departure from my normal exuberance. Ethan stays silent. And I can see Stanley’s mind is spinning. He’d like to apologize but cannot, since he’s never once learned how to take responsibility. I break the silence by asking why he hung up on me when I’d uttered the words Raid dope.

He balks. “You asked me to request a refund for this alleged Raid dope, so that’s what I did.”

“There’s nothing alleged about it,” I say. “I have several pounds left over if you’d like to try it.”

“I’ll take your word,” he replies.

“And what did they say?”

“No refund.”

“Did they say anything about what could’ve caused it?”

“They were as shocked as I,” Stanley says. “Probably just a few bad batches …”

I ask Ethan to see Stanley out, mumbling something about honesty being the foundation of any successful relationship as I walk away.

“I didn’t unwrap your goddamn meth burritos and spray them with wasp killer,” Stanley shouts.

“I know you didn’t,” I reply. “So, how much do you owe them?”

Stanley appears stricken. I can sense that we’re so close to a reckoning. I approach him and gently wrap my arms around his chest, touching heart to heart, just like Mom taught me.

“It’s okay,” I whisper.

And the spool unravels. He explains how the Mexicans had originally fronted him ten pounds (since I’m buying pounds at $3,200, that’s a little over $30,000 worth, maybe less depending on what he’s buying pounds for), two of which he smoked or doled out while trying to find a client like me who could push weight. He used the remainder to pay off his criminal fines and has been whittling away at his debt ever since. He owes the Mexicans $15,000. When Stanley was incarcerated, the old cartel boss looked after him. Stanley wanted to make him proud and thus committed to becoming the exclusive distribution channel but bit off more than he could chew. I can relate and so I empathize. I decide that I’ll give him the money to shore up his debts without ever requiring repayment because the only thing more valuable than money is protection.

“You have friends who rent or own their homes around the city?” I ask.

“Dozens,” Stanley replies.

“Could we have packages sent there?”

“I do it all the time,” he says.

We then load several prepaid credit cards with cash and register them under Stanley’s name. We log on to cleanstar44.pl and place dozens of GBL orders to addresses all over the city. We rent a storage unit where we’ll place dozens of gallons of my newly trafficked liquid gold. I’ll flood the market, then lower the price so every other dealer in the city must follow suit, causing an inevitable shortage, a drought, during which I’ll double the price and this $15,000 investment will be mere pennies.

“You do realize there’s considerable risk involved?” I ask.

“The DEA doesn’t scare me,” Stanley replies.

“That makes one of us,” I respond.

He leans in. “But my Mexican friends do.”

I whisper back, “Then stop taking fronts from them.”

On a rare sunny day, I stop in the Castro for a mid-workday banh mi. Unlike most meth users who wither away from malnutrition, the sustained GBL microdosing preserves my appetite. I’ve read online that “meth mouth” is less from chemical deterioration than an absence of any regular sleep schedule, thus forgetting to brush one’s teeth, although I don’t believe it’s entirely true. Nonetheless, I carry my Sonicare in my bag and brush these pearly whites thrice a day. This is just more fodder to convince myself that I’m not like other addicts.

I sit on a bench to devour my lemongrass chicken when I spot a black Town Car across the street. The driver’s-side window is cracked, through which a pair of shiny golden aviators is fixated in my direction. I hear static like from a walkie-talkie. The driver rolls up his window. I slyly get into my car and start cruising down the hill. The Town Car pulls away in succession. It’s probably nothing, I tell myself, but just to be sure, I drive through the Castro like Pac-Man—left, then right; right, then left—in an illogical pattern, in circles, and yet this Town Car persists. In the movies, a tail’s objective is always to maintain distance, to stay invisible. This is a scare tactic and it’s working. I take Market Street to the 101, increasing my speed, zagging in and out of lanes trying to lose them. Vociferous vibrations from a helicopter echo through the glass and steel. I was nine when O.J. drove his white Bronco down I-5, and we all recall how that ended. I exit the freeway to seek cover. The chopper’s reverberations surge, and the Town Car follows me down the off-ramp into Mission Bay. I’m determined to live another day as a free man, leave the country if I must. I’ll send Nord to get my passport. I’ll google countries with no extradition treaties in the taxi to the airport. I approach a yellow light, slow down, then floor the gas as it turns red, hoping to lose them. I’m in Dogpatch when I see a neon parking sign. I snag a ticket, and the gate lifts. I circle the ramp going 50 mph, centripetal force my dear friend. I pull into a compact spot and grab my Tumi, a present from Betty, which contains $10,000 in cash and nearly the same amount in product. The helicopter rumbles louder. It’s only a matter of time before it alerts the Town Car to my location. I shove the Tumi inside a public trash can. The rotating blades get closer at the risk of deafening me if I don’t soon seek shelter. I leap into a Starbucks, hide in the bathroom, and deadbolt the door. Patrons knock for the next twenty minutes, but I can’t be sure they’re patrons. I ignore everything for what seems like hours until light glimmers upon me and it’s over. I’m squatting atop the toilet seat, my hands covering my ears, when in the doorframe I see a teenager with dreadlocks wearing a green apron.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“Meditating?” I reply.

Jack is waiting in his Mazda outside the Starbucks as I reenter society, the sunlight burning my irises as if I’ve been locked underground for weeks. I don’t remember calling him. The helicopter rumblings have now vanished, along with the Town Car, that sense of eternal doom, and any recollection of which public trash bin contains my Tumi. We scavenge Dogpatch for hours until I’m reunited with my goods. I offer to buy Jack dinner, perhaps a cocktail, as a thank-you for his support.

“I don’t think so,” Jack says. “I’m worn out.”

“Another time then,” I reply.

“When we met,” Jack adds, “I couldn’t wait to see you again. Now, I dread it. You’re a user, you know that?”

I deflect the pain from his comment and accuse him of using me for free drugs, although I know that’s nonsense. I’m happy to psychologically break Stanley down and have him admit his faults, but I can’t find the same courage to confront myself. San Francisco was supposed to be my great redo, but I’m hurting those here who love me just as I did before, and I don’t know how to stop.

“We share,” I say, “like you share your pickles.”

“You eat every last one,” he replies, “then you leave the jar empty with pickle juice.”

“They’re addictive!” I respond.

“I do drugs because it’s a good time,” Jack says. “What is it for you?”

To this, I don’t respond. As I’ve learned by now, there’s no use in arguing when someone says it’s over.

39

It’s my birthday but nobody knows this. Dad finally calls and I let it go to voicemail, afraid I might yell at him for scaring us like he did, but what right do I have to be angry when I’m essentially doing the same thing? Mom, Christopher, and Uncle John conference call to sing the entirety of “Happy Birthday,” knowing I hate it, knowing I think it’s a tiresome melody worth retiring forever. Uncle John and Christopher do their traditional elongated final verse, singing from their nasal resonator like Ethel Merman. It actually cheers me up, but I rush them off the phone when I see that Liz, the South SF mega-pusher whom Betty introduced me to, is calling. She wants eight pounds for an out-of-towner client who’s passing through.

This secret birthday celebration is over. Ethan picks me up with the product, and we skedaddle to South San Francisco. He comments on my uncharacteristic nonchalance, not forming a labyrinth of bulwarks in the ever so slight chance that Liz is working for the authorities.

“She’s not the most deliberate of humans,” I assure him.

When Liz hops in the back seat, I instruct Ethan to show her the product. We both turn around and find that she’s holding a gun. Ethan looks at me for guidance.

“Don’t give it to her,” I say.

Easy for me to say, as the gun is pointed at Ethan. Being a dealer might be a game of cat and mouse; being a supplier is a game of cat and mouse and gun. Ethan hands her the eight pounds. She pops her head into the front like a cuckoo bird clock and winks, adding insult to injury. She then returns to the passenger side of a Cadillac SUV, and they peel out of the parking lot.

“Follow them!” I shout.

The back door is still open, but Ethan can see that I’m serious. I have no plan. All I know is that I’m sick of being a pathetic victim. We tear down Linden Avenue after the SUV. Liz pops her head out the window and waves us off.

“Ram it,” I say.

My eyes bulge as I bite my lower lip. One forgets one’s power (or lack thereof) amid such surges of adrenaline. One doesn’t strategize when reacting from animalistic base instincts. This level of fury makes me feel godlike.

“Run them off the fucking road!” I scream.

A piercing snap followed by a thunderous pop causes Ethan to slam on the brakes. The back window shatters. I hop out and run down the street, watching the SUV disappear in the distance. The only other time I’ve come close to being shot was during an improv class at Upright Citizens Brigade. My response to that imaginary bullet was to say, You shot me, you asshole. I never imagined this would be my response to a real one. I light a cigarette and chain-smoke the epinephrine into hilarity. I’m laughing and I cannot stop. Growing up, often when I played video games, upon losing I’d pick up the console and chuck it. When it finally broke, I was done. I haven’t played another video game since. When I first went to the casinos as a late teen, I swore I’d lose no more than $100. Three hours later, my savings were gone, and I was taking cash advances from my Discover card. I haven’t gambled since. I laugh uncontrollably now because I don’t know how else to express the horror of seeing this side of me. Ethan remains serene, driving us back into town. I’m lucky to have him, I think. Despite his doltishness, he was built for this. We enter North Beach with its neon strip club signage, passing the Beat Museum.

“This isn’t where I’m parked,” I say.

“I’m taking you to Big Mama’s,” he responds.

I order him to take me to my car. I need to get back to work.

“He already knows we’re coming,” Ethan says. “It’s your birthday and you deserve to relax, man.”

I’m certain I never told Ethan when my birthday was. Perhaps he did a background check on me. Perhaps I should start doing those on everyone I meet? Big Mama is waiting for us in the lobby. When I see him, my legs buckle. He throws his arms around me and wraps me like a pearl in an oyster shell. He’s ordered groceries to be delivered. He remembers me talking about chicken cutlets and plans to re-create my favorite meal. He’s even made sure we have copious amounts of lemon. He lays me down on the sofa, places a warm compress over my eyes, and for the first time in months I fall asleep without the aid of GBL.

I dream it’s the early 1980s. My father lives in Half Moon Bay, a coastal town thirty miles south of San Francisco. I’m his son, but he doesn’t know that. He thinks I’m a friendly neighbor. He has a male partner. They wear the same flannel shirt in complementary colors and go fishing off a jetty where they kiss as salt water sprays their faces. Dad looks at the man in a way he never could our mother. The man goes on to break his heart in such a manner that he’ll never return to this spot or to this coast. He will ask me and Christopher to rent a boat and spread his ashes there, and we’ll have no idea why. When I wake, the cutlets are ready. I’m not sure if I’ve just traveled through time, but I surely hope so.

40

For the next few weeks, I feel like I’m living in a drug world version of Groundhog Day. Stanley disappears, not once but twice on the day of the Mexicans’ drop. I call Landon looking for him, but a man named Harry answers. After I hang up, I receive a text from that number.

You sound cute. Here’s some pics of me. Send yours if you like what you see?

I glance down at the most adorable man I’ve ever seen. Harry is a dirty blond in his late twenties, with hazel eyes and a smile as wide as Montana. In one photograph, his lower lip protrudes, his gaze upward like a student sent to the principal’s office, a hybrid of rugged maturity and childlike wanderlust. This is the closest I’ve come to experiencing love at first sight. I dismiss these feelings. Responding will only set me up for disappointment. Suppose we hit it off and decide to meet. He’d likely have a normal nine-to-five. No eligible bachelor self-describes as a tri-county crystal meth distributor. Yet I can’t resist that pout. I text a few G-rated photos, not the graphic ones I send to strangers.

So cute, he writes. Can we meet?

Maybe we could chat here first? I ask. What do you do for fun?

He replies, I love my family.

I cringe. That is not an answer to the question and is a very peculiar thing to say. But it is sweet, so I answer. I describe the old me, someone who loves bowling, inventing craft cocktails, attending concerts, comedy shows, and waterparks. I learn that Harry is crashing with Sunshine, which means he’s a meth-smoking zombie like me. This is also worrisome, because everything that originates from Sunshine’s results in tragedy. I’ve sworn I wouldn’t love during my time here, but this distraction is satisfying. We text for a week straight. He describes men coming and going from Sunshine’s as he hides in the closet. One guest’s BMW was stolen. Another’s house keys were copied and his home burglarized.

I’m wrapping up deliveries at Isaac’s tweaker house. Rather than the usual porn playing on all seven television screens, MSNBC is airing election results. The banner reads: Hillary calls Trump to concede defeat. I look upon the multitude pounding flesh in this ersatz sex club, and no one is fazed. I remember dancing through Washington Square Park the night Obama was elected, climbing the streetlights in Union Square, better days ahead.

I text Harry, Wanna get out of that hell hole?

Twenty minutes later, Harry is hopping in my passenger seat and plants a kiss on my lips. Back at my apartment, I blend peach smoothies and spin records. He requests Dolly Parton. We gaze into each other’s eyes, unveiling our histories. Harry started doing meth as a college freshman and withdrew before finishing his first semester. PnP life has devoured his last decade.

“I want a husband, kids, and a dog,” he says, “but every passing year makes that dream more distant.”

Harry had gotten clean and moved to LA a couple years back, then relapsed when his father died.

“My dad was the only person who ever treated me like I had any value,” Harry says.

Harry discovered his eldest brother dead of a heroin overdose when he was ten. His mom has smoked meth his entire life and kicked him out for being gay when he was fifteen. Harry was homeless for a year. Up until he was eight, he thought his uncle was his father. His mother had two children with his uncle but was cheating on him with his brother and had two more: Harry and his sister. His uncle Dave molested Harry from age four until his mom divorced him and married Harry’s real dad.

“Well, that had to be a relief,” I say.

“Not really,” he replies. “That’s when my older brother started molesting me. I forgive him, though, ’cause it must’ve happened to him too. That sorta thing is a learned behavior, you know.”

Harry had to have processed much of this narrative during his brief sobriety. His story rolls off his tongue with little effort. His traumas are staggering, yet textbook accounts of what attracts addiction. I don’t deserve my addiction. I’m an entitled snob with a penchant for a wild ride, a poser. Harry’s wounds have manifested into gentleness. Psychologists believe we stop growing emotionally at the age we begin abusing substances or suffer sexual abuse.

“We don’t have to have sex tonight if you don’t want,” I say.

“I do,” he replies. “I only enjoy it if I like the person.”

I wait on the bed for an hour while Harry showers. I can hear him singing the chorus of “9 to 5” on repeat. After we down doses of GBL, Harry starts rambling about all the ex-boyfriends who’ve wronged him, lied to him, and abandoned him, after he’d offered them limitless devotion.

“What do I have to do to get you out of these clothes?” I ask.

He wails about an ex who proposed with a $10,000 ring that Harry threw into the bay after being left alone for three days. Harry can’t turn it off. I put my finger to his mouth and kiss his neck. He shoves me to the bed.

“You want me to fuck you like a little bitch?” he asks.

He tears off his clothes like the Incredible Hulk and pins me, cutting off circulation to my wrists. His body is completely shaved. He looks like Baby Huey. This isn’t sexy. This is not intimate. I chalk it up as residue from years of molestation and I forgive it. I pull down his underwear and his fury vanishes. He cups his genitals.

“It’s small,” he says. “Don’t look. It’s so small.”

I will soon learn that it is not so small, rather that this was something his brother repeatedly said while raping him. Harry backs away. When I softly approach, he recoils, burying his face with one hand, covering his privates with the other. His wall is impenetrable, so I retreat, take a second GBL dose, and fall out.

When I wake, Harry is cuddling my naked body.

“I could watch you sleep for the rest of my life,” he says with a sigh, adding, “Oh, I cleaned the place.”

He’s swept, dusted, mopped, and scrubbed every square inch of the apartment. My phone is blowing up. When I tell him to get ready so I can drop him at Sunshine’s, he sticks out his lower lip, winning my heart.

“Did I do a good job?” he asks.

Harry calls me his boyfriend after a week. I don’t refute it. I stock the fridge, returning once a day with a proper meal. He calls every hour, begging me to come home. When I start explaining my absence, he hangs up. Harry’s unrequited dream was to attend art school, so I buy him oil paints and canvases so he can practice in solitude. I install hidden surveillance with remote viewing from my phone. I justify it as a precaution. Truthfully, I’m just nosy. He spends hours painting nature landscapes with allusions to technology, always containing his trademark broken heart. After applying finishing touches, he squeezes a tube of black paint, disappearing each creation into darkness. Every hour, he takes off his shirt and irons it.

After two weeks, we still haven’t had sex, not for a lack of trying, defeated by his alter ego. Harry wants someone to love him and yearns to reciprocate. I’ve allowed a man with the emotional intelligence of a child to enter my home and heart. That comes with consequences. I return home with his favorite meal, a Baconator from Wendy’s. He beseeches me to stay. When I decline, he ingests dangerous amounts of GBL. Freed from the confines of his gentle spirit, he morphs into a maniacal goblin, breaking anything within reach. I lock him in the bedroom as he screams derogatory names, the cruelest words, accusing me of fucking every guy in the city besides him. When the room goes silent as the GBL transitions him away from consciousness, I place a pillow under his head before leaving for work. When I return, he showers me in apologies and sticks out that lower lip. I can’t turn away. His hooks have latched on to my soul. I want him to heal. He makes me feel less alone. He tells me he loves me, and I say it back. It means something different from when I said it to Brantley or Curt, but it’s still nonetheless true.

41

Stanley hasn’t forgotten my offer to host Thanksgiving. He invites Betty, who invites her thugs, and the guest list grows into the twenties. Ethan assists me, preparing beef tenderloin, lobster tails, bacon-wrapped prawns, scalloped potatoes, string beans, and a homemade pecan pie. As I sit down at my dinner table filled with criminals, it’s more onerous than ever to maintain polarity between Jason the character, Jason the writer, and Jason the real person. Lifting my glass of pinot noir to lead a toast of gratitude (normally Mom’s tradition), I realize I’m not some artist masquerading as a criminal as I’ve wanted to believe. I am, simply, a criminal.

I envisage dinner table conversation centering around the game, community gossip—who’s been arrested, exploited, institutionalized—and the ilk. To my surprised delight, Stanley recalls seeing Puddles Pity Party in concert, the clown with a golden voice who would nearly clinch a win on America’s Got Talent the following year. Betty gabs about pumpkin picking with her boyfriend from high school with whom she’s reconnected over Facebook. To my stupefaction, every guest has soul-nourishing topics to discuss. They all maintain balance between the drugs and other fulfilling recreation. I am the only one with nothing to contribute aside from mentioning that Bonstein, my youngest cat, has been making strange mewling sounds. I wonder if she’s trying to communicate something. But what?

Harry hides in the bedroom all night. He’s resentful that the only time I’m home in weeks is to host a party for others. Nord takes him a plate of food and reports back that he’s unwilling to eat it and believes I may be poisoning him slowly.

Mom texts, We’re all here, missing you. I had a root canal yesterday. Can’t eat. Depressed.

She sends a selfie that looks as though she’s applied a distortion feature, like a chipmunk carrying thirty acorns in its mouth. I’ve been ignoring the irrevocable pain I’ve been causing her as well as her 3:00 A.M. texts asking, R u alive? Seeing her now, internal agony strewn upon that beautiful face, I wish someone would bash my own face into the curb until I’m as swollen and broken as she. She sends a screenshot of a message she’s sent to Thomas, our identity thief. She found his name on Facebook and drafted a letter she then edited for two days. It pleads for him to stop invading strangers’ lives, but it doesn’t admonish him; rather, it acknowledges his technological skills, imploring him to redirect them in positive ways. Furthermore, she forgives him and invites him to forgive himself. I don’t have the heart to tell her she’s sent it to the wrong Thomas.

The next morning, Ethan insists on taking me Black Friday shopping.

“Treat yourself, man,” he says. “Or at the very least get some curtains for your bedroom windows.”

“I’m never even here,” I respond.

“Harry is,” Ethan argues. “Do it for Harry!”

When I invite Harry to join, he turns red, tromps off, and slams the bathroom door in my face.

An hour later, he texts, You’re a prick. You leave constantly. I hope you die or get arrested.

Meanwhile, Ethan cheers me on like I’m a Supermarket Sweep contestant, urging me to purchase every shiny new device I fancy. On the ride back home, the car brimming with plastic-wrapped boxes, I notice Ethan hasn’t gotten even one thing for himself.

“When we get back,” he says, “I’ll hang those curtains.”

And it’s this moment when Ethan’s presence in my life starts feeling extremely dubious. Let’s recount: He arrived in San Francisco right when I transitioned from dealer to distributor. He introduced me to Batman, then showed up on my doorstep with a sob story and made himself indispensable during my moment of desperation, landing himself a high-level position within my little empire. He trusts me unconditionally, asks for nothing, and accepts an investment-based payment structure. What kind of drug dealer works off the promise of a future payout?

“Have you spoken to your family recently?” I ask him.

“They don’t wanna hear from me, man,” he replies.

I press the topic, insisting that we invite them to dinner. When he dismisses the idea, arguing that they work long hours, I suggest we drive to Sacramento and take them to lunch, to which he scoffs.

“What are you doing in my life?” I ask.

“I’m just here to help you, man.”

“Help us,” I reply. “We share the rewards and the risk, right? If I go down, you go down.”

“No one’s going down.” He chuckles. “Now, stop it already.”

But I can’t. He’s now texting someone. I demand that he shows me who. He refuses, so I make a U-turn. I’m certain he’s working with the authorities. We’re not going home so whomever he just texted probably saying that his cover’s been blown can storm in and arrest me. I demand that he relay his entire life story again. I know it’s a backstory he’s memorized, but I’m determined to catch him in a lie for validation. He begs me to halt the inquisition.

“I need you to stop,” he says. “You need you to stop.”

Is this his subtle way of telling me that if his cover remains intact, I can continue without interference? If I persist in unveiling his true identity, is that the end of the road? I pull over, get out of the car, dump a water bottle over my head, shake it off, slip my acting gloves on, and get back in.

“Sorry,” I say, “I never sleep anymore. That wasn’t me.”

“Thanks, man,” Ethan replies. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

Back at the house, we find that Harry has fled. Ethan empties the car while I shower to clear my head. Once I’m sufficiently pruned, I emerge to find that he’s hung the new curtains, as promised.

“This should ease any worries,” Ethan says, “about people looking in.”

He suggests I take the night off, and while power dynamics have shifted under the surface, I remain his boss in this simulacrum we must project. I instruct him to serve clients from the house while I do the deliveries. I can’t have him insisting we work together, not tonight. I need the space to suss all this out. I must trap him here for a while. So, when he’s not looking, I steal his keys and hide them inside the tape compartment of Arthur’s dusty VCR, knowing Ethan will never look for them there, then I dart out the door.

A brown Dodge Charger containing two men wearing baseball caps is parked down the street. This is all too much. I’m being watched everywhere I go, inside and out. I take a swig of BDO to quell the unease before calling Jack.

“What bathroom are you hiding in now?” he answers.

I tell him that I’m coming to pick him up and take him to a new artisan doughnut shop in Old Mission.

“Park and come up first,” he says. “We should talk.”

After a few minutes, I have no need to look in the rearview mirror because the BDO has coaxed all my dread away. Follow me all they want; I’m getting doughnuts with my pal. I’m reaching for smokes when everything goes black. The clangor of fracturing aluminum halting my acceleration wakes me back up. I’ve fallen out and hit a parked car. I dodder out to inspect the scene. The damage to my vehicle is minimal, not so much on the other. Pedestrians glance upon my twitchy-eyed stumbling as I fight off another fall out. I get back in the car, praying no one has snapped a picture of me or my license plate, and keep driving. Parked outside Jack’s building, I reach in the back seat for my bag, then fall out once more.

When I rise again, the first image I see is Ethan knocking on the car window. I check the clock. Four hours have passed.

“How did you find me?” I ask.

He says I’ve been sharing my location for weeks. That’s not true and we both know it.

“How’d you get here?” I ask, before realizing the question reveals that I know he doesn’t have his keys. “I don’t see your car,” I add.

“I took an Uber since I couldn’t find my keys,” he replies. “You know me, always losing things.”

Ethan suggests that we finish the deliveries together. I cannot. He’s a parasite on my sanity. I give him my keys and send him off before buzzing up at Jack’s, eager to apologize.

“Go away,” I hear in Jack’s muffled voice through the intercom.

I’m trying to negotiate the heartbreak those two words conjure in me. Usually, more meth is the antidote for anything remotely sad, but even that’s falling short. That motherfucker never came over to meet my cats, I think. So, perhaps it wasn’t just me falling short in this friendship. He knows what those cats mean to me and—maybe deliberately?—hasn’t made any effort. Fuck him, I conclude.

I ask Mikey and Jonas to grab a Zipcar and pick me up, then take me to the beach so I can think this all through. As the three of us sit on the sand, I unravel my realization that Ethan is law enforcement adjacent. They cackle at my outlandish postulation.

“No way,” Mikey says. “He’s got the IQ of an ice cube.”

“You know what the best scene in your movie will be?” Jonas asks.

“What’s that?” I respond.

“When you realize that you were your own villain the entire time.”

42

Ethan’s line goes directly to voicemail for the next fifteen hours. Have his handlers extracted him? If so, what’s become of my car? Jonas advises me to stop peering over my shoulder long enough that I might see how I’m enabling each and every grift. When Ethan finally calls, he says that he fell out at a client’s last night. He then asks if I have my car.

“Why would I have my car?” I ask, my lips pursed like Dad’s used to get whenever his bridled temper would surface.

“Shit, dude,” Ethan replies.

My Ford C-Max is one of those newer hybrid cars that starts with the touch of a button, as long as the key fob is inside the vehicle. Apparently, Ethan left the fob in the cup holder overnight before overdosing on G, a blunder that is either proof that Ethan is indeed a daft cretin or a stunt to have me think so.

We sashay into the Oakland police station like Satan into the Vatican. A detective gives us the third degree before revealing that the vehicle’s been involved in a hit-and-run, and the driver has absconded.

“Are we suspects?” Ethan asks, masking a grin, as if he knows something and wants me to be afraid.

On our way to the impound yard, I ask Ethan if he was party to any accident.

“I swear on the life of your cats I wasn’t!” he cries. He’s back to playing the full-time idiot.

My car is a sight to be seen. Jaws has taken a bite of my front bumper, and it appears like someone’s dumped a carton of motor oil on the leather interior, crudely imitating a Jackson Pollock painting. This whole display feels purposeful. If the culprit crashed the vehicle, I wonder, when did they have the time to spray the insides like this? Ethan wraps his arm around my shoulders. “That’s what insurance is for,” he reassures me. “And besides, you can ride with me till it’s all fixed up.”

I am only now remembering that my car was indeed party to at least one other hit-and-run last night, by me. I’d forgotten entirely. What are the odds the vehicle would then be stolen and involved in another hit-and-run hours later? The simple explanation is a run of bad luck, eerie coincidence spawned by my partner’s ineptitude. The theory that I’m formulating, however, is that Ethan is an impostor planted by the locals or maybe the feds. Ethan’s cover was nearly blown, but he hadn’t yet infiltrated deeply enough to garner incriminating evidence against the main targets (Stanley and the Mexicans), so they kept him intact. The Dodge Charger tailed me to Jack’s, witnessed my accident and subsequent evasion, but the authorities can’t bring me in without blowing their cover, so when I gave Ethan my vehicle, they staged another accident so I’d have to suffer the consequences: robbed of autonomous transportation and left to rely on their asset.

Ethan and I make deliveries side by side for the next five nights. He is my Fredo, and I am his Patty Hearst. My life is a kinetic torture chamber. Every move I make, every word I say, I’m confident will be read aloud one day as transcriptions in a court of law. I’d be tempted to whisper to our clients that I’m being held against my will if I wasn’t sure I’d be perceived in the same way I did Psychosis Landon when I first met him in Bologna Kent’s sex dungeon. I want to be where they all are, rollicking in debauchery. That’s why I originally joined and surely why I stayed in this community. While none of it is good for us, it all feels too damn good.

Ethan hops in the driver’s seat while I snag a teener from our stash and remain standing on the sidewalk.

“I’m done,” I tell him.

He doesn’t understand that I mean forever. I am quitting this dealer life. I’ll take this modest amount of meth, just enough to get high and have lecherous sex for a night. I’ll direct all our clients to Ethan moving forward. I’ll even buy my favs from him. They can arrest me. They can forget me. I don’t care. I’m done. And with this decision, I saunter down the street like an ingenue just kissed by her long-sought lover, open Grindr, and line up a strange man to meet me at my apartment.

Harry jumps for joy seeing me arrive home early, but I don’t want him. He cares too much for me to ever find him sexy. When I tell him to leave, he downs the usual mammoth dose of G, summoning his demons. I scurry to thrust him out the door before the inevitable fury unleashes, but I’m distracted by countless customers pinging me. They’re all saying they can’t reach Ethan. When I call him, a woman answers his phone.

“Who is this?” I ask.

“San Francisco Police,” she responds.

Was I wrong? Is Ethan nothing more than a dimwit who, when left to his own devices, got himself arrested in record time? A helicopter sound approaches the apartment right as Harry begins tearing books off the shelves. I dash out the door, sprint down the unlit street, and stow away within some ivy bushes. The helicopter gets louder by the second. I jiggle every neighbor’s doorknob until finding an unlocked basement where I squat atop a washing machine, hiding under a laundry basket for over an hour. The dread eventually subsides and, with it, the roaring blades fade. I’m moseying back home when I receive a voicemail.

Dude, hey, it’s Ethan. Yo, that cop said I was swerving, y’know? But we’re good, man. Hopefully you’re getting some rest. Listen, I don’t wanna do this without you, bro. If you’re out, so am I. Call me, man!

I’m mostly certain it’s against protocol for a police officer to answer an offender’s phone while issuing a traffic citation.

When I return home, the entire house has been overturned. I find Harry in the corner, cross-legged, nodding in and out of consciousness.

“I met your trick,” he mumbles.

“You have to clean this mess up,” I tell him, “or you have to go.”

“My mom died,” he cries.

Tears stream down his flushed cheeks. I rush toward him and take him in my arms. He tells me that his sister called while I was gone, that their mom who’d been homeless for years had finally gotten eaten alive by the streets. They found her on a park bench this morning, frozen to death.

“When did you call your mom last?” he asks through sobs.

“It’s been a while.”

“Call your mom, Jason.”

“Now?” I ask.

“No, not right now,” he groans. “Right now, my mom’s dead.” Harry sinks into my lap and beams. “I love you. Do you love me?”

“I do,” I say. “I love you too, Harry.”

Some days later, I meet a new client who’s just moved here from Sacramento and has known Harry for over a decade. When he asks how Harry’s faring, I relay the hapless news of his mother’s passing.

“Not again!” The man chuckles.

Apparently, Harry’s mother dies every few months or whenever her demise is necessitated for him to maintain a roof over his head.

“I know your mother’s alive,” I tell Harry later that night.

“She is homeless,” he wails. “I didn’t lie about that!”

“We can’t continue like this,” I say, “although I do understand the desire to metaphorically kill her off. I’m sure it’s … cathartic.”

“I don’t want to kill my mother, Jason!” he squawks.

“Catharsis,” I explain, “is like an emotional cleansing process.”

“I’m not a moron!” he yells, bursting into new tears as if on cue.

“Will you please stop breaking my things?” I beg.

“Will you stop breaking my heart?” he responds.

Keeping Harry nearby is a survival tactic. He’s a maelstrom of perpetual destruction, but he’s my rock. He loves me unconditionally. He provides glimmers of hope that I might escape this lifestyle and become the man he needs me to be, the man I need me to be. I blame my inadequacy on the drugs and on my vocation, but these patterns have been with me my entire adult life. Intimacy is ice cream, and sex is vinegar—two things I love, yet the thought of combining them makes me sick to my stomach. I could unfetter him and live a burden-free existence, but that would release the potentiality that I might become better.

“Let’s make love,” I tell him.

43

It’s nearing Christmas, I have not quit running my operation, and Arthur lugs home a nine-foot Fraser fir. Last year, I was feverish, endeavoring to veil my Adderall intake, working sixteen-hour days, yet determined to keep the holiday spirit alive. I sifted through evergreens at North Hollywood’s tropical winter wonderland with the circumspection of a bride shopping for a wedding dress. When I turned my back for a moment, Stacey Dash, the Clueless actress turned neocon, had snaffled my tree. Recalling seeing Ms. Dash on Fox News playing at the airport, opining how transgender rights infringed upon her own, I savored this opportunity to ignite a squabble. I wrapped my death grip around the tree and sang “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” using my piercing nasal resonator as we’d been taught in Vocal Manipulation at NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing. Stacey called me a pea-brain lunatic and capitulated. I pridefully strung three thousand lights from our Stacey Dash tree. Despite Curt’s grieving his mother’s recent demise, I was hell-bent on serving up a Christmas to remember. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the forest for the Christmas tree. I printed and framed twenty different massive pictures of him with his mother taken over the years, wrapping each one individually, thinking it would be the kindest gift. Overkill feels entirely normal on speed. Every box he unwrapped was another brick stacked between us. By the time he opened the final photo, I couldn’t reach him, and I never did again.

I walk into my (or is it our?) bedroom to find Harry watching a Judge Judy marathon, a brand-new set of paints and canvases still wrapped in plastic on the floor next to the bed. Some artists do their craft every day because they can’t not. Others (like me) treat it like work, putting forth a specific output goal, then dedicating time to achieve it. Then some just do it because they want to feel creative; maybe someone told them they had talent and they ran with it. There’s nothing wrong with that either. What inspires this man to paint, I wonder, and why am I so sad seeing him veg out on courtroom reality TV instead of picking up that damn paintbrush?

“Babe, do you want me to set you up with a Ryde account so you can get out more often?” I ask Harry.

“Fine,” Harry replies, “but I didn’t ask for this, so don’t throw it in my face later.”

“And what if you started looking for a job?” I add. “Y’know, so you’re not lying in bed all day?”

“Don’t make me out to sound lazy, Jason!” He pouts, and I can’t help but chuckle at how difficult it is communicating with him.

“You wanna spend Christmas together?” I ask.

“I see what you’re doing,” Harry replies, “using me as a scapegoat to avoid having to go home.”

I don’t give Harry nearly enough credit for his astuteness. Christmas is one week away. How can I sit at the table with my family, knowing what they know? I’ll never forget that faraway look in Curt’s eyes when he found me, a cauldron of confusion and despair.

A few days later, I receive a call from the insurance adjuster overseeing my auto claim. She says that the police report she obtained states that two unnamed witnesses saw a man fitting Ethan’s description erratically propel my car into a parked vehicle, then attempt to drive off, and when the engine failed, he exited the vehicle and ran. The insurance company has concluded that the vehicle was not stolen and that the accident was the fault of the individual to whom it was lent: Ethan. I’m stuck with a $3,000 deductible.

“The witnesses in the report were unnamed?” I ask. “How unusual is that?”

“Extremely,” the adjuster replies. “I made multiple attempts to reach the officer who filed the report, but no luck. And that wasn’t the only strange thing,” she adds. “Every police report number out of Oakland always has nine digits. This one only had eight.”

“Can we contact the person whose car was hit?” I ask.

“We haven’t received a claim for any other vehicle.”

“How can we know there even was another car?”

“I can only go off what’s on the report,” she says, “which reads that your vehicle hit a green Hyundai Elantra.”

I scrub through and zoom into the photos I took of my vehicle at the impound. None of the scratches or marks has even a pixel of green paint. An unknown number is calling, so I politely end the call with the adjuster.

“An inmate at the San Francisco County Jail is attempting to reach you. This call will be recorded and/or monitored and is subject to review by law enforcement. If you wish to accept, press one.”

Through wails and obscure static, I can hear Ethan repeating the words “They took everything, they took everything.”

When we last spoke, he was distributing seven pounds to our delivery team, then placing three pounds in storage.

“Tell me later!” I shout.

Is he trying to convey that the police have confiscated our entire $30,000 shipment?

“My bail hearing is tomorrow morning,” he cries. “You gotta get me a lawyer! I can’t spend Christmas behind bars, man.”

With what money? I would like to ask. I instruct him to accept a public attorney and to say nothing until his lawyer is present.

This has me reconsidering everything. Maybe Ethan isn’t a plant. Did my paranoia amass total delusion? Had this screenwriter contorted facts to manufacture intrigue? Or are these histrionics a distraction to keep his cover intact? It’s bad news either way, yet I can’t help but sigh with relief. Ethan was going to oversee operations while I flew home for the holidays. That’s impossible now.

After we hang up, I call Mom, speaking as if I have cotton balls in my mouth.

“Mum, um, sorry,” I tell her, “buh I wunt be oble tuh fwy hum fuh Kwismuss. I huf tu hahf emerdency woot canal sudery.”

“Oh, sweetie, that’s so painful!” she exclaims. “What are the odds of us both needing a root canal in the same month?”

Ah, and now I remember where I got this idea.

“I have half a mind to hop a flight right now and come take care of you,” she says.

I’m taken aback by how understanding she’s being, that she’s buying any of this bullshit. Perhaps it’s some sort of trap. Is she calling my bluff so she can find some way to get me back home where everyone who attended my high school graduation party will also be back, but this time in circle formation for that I-word dreaded by all drug users: intervention. No, ma’am—

“Naw, naw, stay dare,” I say. “I huv muh buffren, Harwee, hurr.”

“Boyfriend? You have a new boyfriend?” she asks. “Is he there? Put him on.”

I mouth to Harry that she wants to talk. He springs up as if Kelly Clarkson were on the line. He listens attentively to Mom’s meticulous caretaking instructions, nodding and agreeing.

“You got it, Lori,” he says, beaming, “and by the way, I love your son!”

When we hang up, Harry shakes his head, sneering at me with disappointment.

“You like her?” I ask.

“Like her? I love her!” he replies. “You know, you’ve got everything in the world, and you piss on it. Making me lie to my future mother-in-law? Really, just unbelievable!”

I like to think I’m keeping Harry safe, but it’s probably the other way around.

44

Ethan appears on my doorstep three hours later, claiming the police released him on an ROR. Google explains this means a no-cost bail and that only a judge can issue a release on one’s own recognizance. He had said his bail hearing wasn’t until tomorrow. The pieces are again not adding up. The arrest happened, he claims, because he was locked out. He apparently fell asleep in his car, and my neighbor called the police. As Ethan’s telling me this, his tone has shifted; he’s coming across with a newfound confidence I’ve never seen before. I ask him whether he was questioned by narcotics detectives.

“What do you think?” he replies like an angsty teenager. “And no, I didn’t snitch.”

“Did they ask for your phone’s password?”

“Yes,” he responds, “but I didn’t tell.”

When I take his phone and press his pointer finger to the home button, it unlocks. I’d told him countless times to make sure this security feature was turned off for this very reason.

“They did this, didn’t they?” I ask.

He hangs his head in disgrace, confirming my fears. I drop Ethan off at Isaac’s twenty-four-hour sex dungeon, where I can be assured that he’ll stay put while I investigate the damage. I then visit Nord’s living room to meet with Stanley, who unpacks a bunch of PC technology, a laptop, and some cables I don’t recognize from his leather briefcase. He runs skeleton software on Ethan’s phone, which detects malware or any diagnostic infiltration. We find that the cops haven’t put any monitoring software on his phone but that there was a full extraction done during the time he was in custody.

“It’s hard to say whether it was a data dump or a hardwired backup,” Stanley explains, “since there’s been one every week or so.”

“Ethan doesn’t have a computer or anything he’d back up his phone to,” I assure him.

“He must,” Stanley replies, “because he’s regularly backing it up to the same device.”

I instruct Stanley to open Signal, the encrypted messaging app, as that’s where most of the incriminating information was discussed.

“How far back do the messages date?” I ask.

“October fifth,” he replies.

Ethan had promised me that he’d set the messages to automatically delete at the end of each day. Rather, he let them populate into a bountiful nest egg. This data amounts to a road map of my entire business. Damage control will be costly. I’ll have to change routines, likely move apartments, and definitely switch vehicles every few days. The dread when I believed Ethan was an informant had enveloped my entire body because it was founded in hypothetical worry and thus contained the fantasy of dreams. This feeling, by contrast, is like a corkscrew to the temple, a migraine, an all-too-real and practical fret born of facts. I prefer the waking nightmare. If Ethan isn’t an informant, he’s a child. Now, I must hold his hand and reassure him that everything is going to be all right to ensure he doesn’t flip.

When I pick him up the next morning, he’s rapturous. He’s met a rich podiatrist at Isaac’s who owns a Castro Valley mansion and has invited Ethan to come live there. In exchange for being his live-in companion, the man has offered to pay Ethan’s legal fees and fund his tuition back at fashion school.

“I hate to leave you alone,” Ethan says, “but the Universe is throwing me an escape plan tied up with a bow. Plus,” he adds, “you don’t even gotta pay me out, dude.”

I could remind him of the stolen car and the confiscated product, but I’m doleful. Now that I know he was always just a confidant, I’ll mourn this partnership. All I’ve ever wanted, in this venture and those before, was an avid collaborator, which I clearly don’t deserve. That’s why I begged Guillaume to visit. That’s why I offered Ethan this partnership. That’s why I blindly trust everyone I meet. That’s why I turned my dealing enterprise into a collective. And Ethan was willing to trust me without reserve, investing his time and energy into my pipe dream with no guarantees. And how did I repay him? By abandoning him and living in terror of his shadow.

“So, that’s it then?” I ask.

Ethan grabs me tight. We release a deep, guttural sigh in unison, and as fast as he stormed into my life, the wind shifts and wisps him away.

45

It’s Christmas morning, the first in thirty years where I won’t wake up in my family’s home, blast Whitney Houston’s “Do You Hear What I Hear?,” and begin divvying up the presents, cloaked in innocence, perfumed by evergreen. I won’t wake at all because I haven’t slept. Christopher had to stay here on the West Coast to cover a Christmas Eve shift at the seafood restaurant where he’s been working on weekends. He’s coming over tonight to make Harry and me a mushroom risotto, then bake chocolate chip cookies while we watch Home Alone and pretend as best we can that it’s just another normal year. I want to provide that for him, to let him know I’m still the same Jason. Together, we’ll call all the family members back in Pennsylvania. That way, no one will dig too deeply into the real reasons I’ve stayed put this holiday.

Jack sends me a holiday video greeting from England, making certain I know he doesn’t despise me.

You made me laugh until my stomach hurt, he recounts, then suddenly you couldn’t control your own thoughts. He offers to help pull me back if I’ll allow it and signs off your gregarious goateed guy.

The best presents are often invisible, and Jack offering forgiveness is the recharge I needed. Somewhere along the way, I’d assigned him the role of guardian angel. I want to pay forward the jolly spirit, but rather than calling my lifelong friends who are all wondering whether I’m dead in a ditch, I call my clients with festive greetings, offering them a holiday discount. Aren’t they lucky I didn’t quit? When I call sex worker Alfonso, his mother answers with a quivering squall.

“He’s gone, honey,” she screeches. “He’s gone!”

She says he’d been shooting speedballs of meth mixed with heroin, hiding it from her and Roger.

“He was in so much pain seeing Roger’s health fade, I should’ve seen it,” she laments. “What kind of mother—?”

She doesn’t finish the question because we both know the answer. I’d like to comfort her and tell her it’s not her fault, but I think it is. And I can’t help but wonder why my mom isn’t doing more to stop me. She knew I was lying about the root canal. The mom I know would’ve hopped on that plane, hunted me down, and dragged me by my remaining hairs back to Pennsylvania.

“Do you know what type of heroin it was?” I ask.

“The white one,” she replies. “Do you know where he was getting it, Jason?”

“No,” I respond, “but China White has been rapidly growing in circulation.”

“The first responders said it was likely laced with fen-phen,” she adds.

She’s confusing the once popular amphetamine diet pill for the top killer propelling the opioid epidemic.

“Fentanyl,” I correct her.

After the call ends, I lie in my bed, imagining myself at Alfonso’s funeral like Tony Soprano, slipping the family an envelope stuffed with cash that’s meant to muzzle any musings of culpability. I am not free of blame. The Mexicans who traffic my meth burritos are the same men funneling China White into San Francisco. Six months ago, all anyone could score was black tar heroin, but China White is cheaper, and because it lacks potency and its color serves as camouflage, street dealers surreptitiously lace it with fentanyl. Stanley had urged me to push China White to my clients during the early weeks. I politely declined twice until the third time he asked, when I slammed my fist onto the coffee table so hard that I sprained my pinkie finger and had to wear a splint for eleven days. He stopped asking, and I felt virtuous, as if my busted finger was a token of rebellion against truly harmful drugs. A tear falls down my cheek. It’s the first one in recent memory. Harry looks up from behind a canvas he’s painting. He knew Alfonso, just like he knows everyone in this here tweaker community.

“Alfonso OD’d?” he asks. I nod. “Stick around, Jason,” Harry says sardonically, “and you’ll watch another one bite the dust every few months.” His eyes well up and he adds, “You’ll become so used to it.”

A few hours later, Christopher arrives, arborio rice, a bottle of cheap chardonnay, and three different types of mushrooms in hand.

“You look thin,” he says, squinting, likely trying to guess how much I weigh now.

“You look fat,” I respond jokingly, hoping to deflect from having to tell him I now weigh 112 pounds.

I’ve forgotten that I was meant to get the ingredients for cookies, so he heads back out to the Safeway. By the time we’re cooking and playing Phil Spector’s Christmas album, Harry has locked himself in the bedroom again. This misanthropic behavior was tolerable at criminal Thanksgiving, but I won’t stand for him alienating my family, not after I’ve allowed him all the comforts of my home, my money, my drugs. Harry and I drown out Darlene Love’s “Marshmallow World” by screaming at each other through the bedroom door, me threatening bodily harm I’d never really do, him threatening to call the police, which I hope he’d never really do.

Christopher approaches apprehensively. “Hey, don’t worry about him. It could just be us tonight.”

“I’m so sorry he’s being this way,” I reply.

“You’re being this way too,” he says. “Can you see that?”

I nod. There’s nothing more frustrating than being in the middle of hurting someone and not finding the courage to pivot.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” Christopher adds.

Just then, the buzzer rings. Two customers are here to take advantage of the holiday special I texted everyone about this morning. Now, I absolutely must get into my bedroom and into my safe, where I’m holding a pound of meth that I need to weigh out for them.

“Babe,” I whisper through the door, “my brother left. You can open it up now.”

Harry does, and I proceed to sift the meth, providing my clients only the best-looking product. Christopher is tucked away in the kitchen making dinner, but I expect he’s tuned in to what’s occurring. There’s little point hiding it now. By the time I’ve completed the deal, I return to the kitchen to find a bowl sticky with wet rice residue in the sink next to a used fork, the remainder of the risotto in a pan on the stove, but no Christopher.

A text comes through: Silly of me to think this was a good idea. I love you. Hopefully next year will be better.

Under Arthur’s tree, I spot a single present. Unwrapping the Grinch-themed wrapping paper, I find a red T-shirt that says WHO HAS TWO THUMBS AND LOVES HIS CATS with two big thumbs-up on either side of the text.

46

After the holidays pass, I insist Harry gets a job. The sight of him lying with Bonstein and Buffy all day like a Bond villain on bed rest has me lachrymose. He must practice becoming a contributing member of society if we ever want to have a future together on the Other Side. I resent how his presence makes me feel like his captor.

When he lands a job at Amazon, he asks, “Are you proud of me?”

It’s a warehouse position, stacking boxes, and yes, I’m proud. After a night of deliveries, I scurry home to cook him an egg sandwich before driving him to his first day of work. I’ve bought him new clothes, which he’s now ironed countless times. As we pull up, I improvise a version of the motivational speech Dad gave me when I started high school: Know your best is good enough, and be kind to everyone unless they start a fight, then give them absolute hell. We kiss goodbye, and I can’t fathom how I care for this man so much. I hope these emotions are reliable, not simply a delusionary side effect of the chemicals.

At noon, I open my surveillance app and find Harry back in my room petting Bonstein, watching television. He concocts a story about the warehouse catching fire because of a gas leak.

“You gotta go,” I tell him.

He protrudes his lower lip, but that nostrum won’t work this time. When I show him the door, the Tasmanian devil unleashes. He expels every obscenity in modern English, then grabs my seven iron and smashes the surveillance cameras.

“You think I don’t know you watch me all day like I’m your third cat, like a contestant on your own personal Big Brother? I know all the blind spots! You think you’re watching me sleep, but it’s pillows. I’m actually in Arthur’s room with tricks, shooting your dope, letting them fuck me for money.”

“Is that so?” I ask.

“I won’t fuck you,” he adds, “because you’ve got a tiny dick and an ugly bald head.”

I must remind myself that because of a lack of parenting, Harry operates with animalistic impulse. This is retaliation to my threatening his survival, and after all, I did tell him to give anyone who starts a fight with him absolute hell. He packs a suitcase with my clothes that he’s adopted and returns from whence he came. No one has the ability to make my blood boil like Harry, but every time it reduces to lukewarm, I search for him, pleading for him to come home.

When the buzzer rings a few hours later, I assume Harry has saved me the trouble of hunting him down. Rather, I’m met with another familiar voice.

“Hey, dude,” I hear muffled through the intercom.

“I was his prisoner,” Ethan hyperbolizes while I make us milkshakes and he unpacks two weeks of torment.

As it turns out, his podiatrist benefactor ran a tight ship, insisting he quit smoking cigarettes and keep a defined hourly schedule, and apparently slapped Ethan’s wrist any time he muttered the words dude and like, using this and other methods to break him of nasty habits. Upon Ethan arriving home late for supper last night, the podiatrist threw both Cornish game hens at his head.

“We made a good team, didn’t we?” he asks.

I waver. If I were being honest, his presence usually made me feel like I was on a pendulum, swinging between vexation and paranoia.

“But wasn’t he lining up your attorney?” I ask.

“Moot point,” Ethan replies. “And besides, it was our shit that got me into this mess, so our money should get me out of it.”

“I’ll call my attorney,” I assure him.

“We should probably each have our own representation,” he asserts uncharacteristically.

“Why would I need representation?” I ask.

“You won’t,” he says, “assuming I get out of this conundrum.”

Ethan has never used words like conundrum and moot point, nor does he utilize intentional subtext. I’m not sure whether I’m being extorted, threatened, or both. I explain how I cannot afford to pay for another attorney, how my money is tied up in product.

“Perfect,” he replies, “then I’ll get back to work right away.”

47

Ethan’s return catapults business. Now that I’m no longer terrified my partner is informing, I loosen up the new security measures and scrap my plans to relocate, because nothing feels less scary than making money again this quickly. I begin taking mornings off to spend cuddling and brunching with Harry. I’m determined to find balance and not annihilate another romance. I’m poaching eggs and whipping up a hollandaise when I hear the buzzer. I check the surveillance app to discover two men standing beside a candy-apple-red Chevy pickup.

“This is Jose,” one says. “I am here with my brother Ricardo. May we come in?”

Harry pops his head out of my room. “Who is it?”

It’s the cartel, honey, go back to bed, I stop short of saying.

The knock on the door comes and I answer. Both brothers are wearing steam-pressed Tommy Hilfiger from head to toe and toothy grins. Fucking Stanley must’ve sent them here. But why?

“Is there somewhere we can talk?” Jose asks.

I offer the brothers a range of beverages. Ricardo asks if I have any apple juice. Jose agrees that nothing sounds more refreshing than a glass of cold apple juice. I hate apple juice, always have, but Arthur happens to have some.

“This is rude, we know,” Jose says, “to arrive unannounced.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no,” I reply.

“You don’t know us. We don’t know you,” Jose says. “Now, this changes.”

“We have problem with Stanley,” Ricardo interjects. “He no pay what he owe.”

“He say he no get what he’s owed,” Jose adds.

During their second round of juices, I learn that Stanley owes them $33,000. Apparently, every time he gets close to recoupment, he circumvents the brothers, asking the old man for another front. They originally went to Betty for guidance, and she gave them my identity and home address.

“I’ve never taken a front,” I explain, “so any claim that I owe him money is false.”

“He lies?” Jose asks.

“Stanley’s likely just protecting himself,” I respond.

“So, he has the money, but does not give to us?” Jose asks.

“If he says he doesn’t have it,” I reply, “he probably doesn’t have it.”

“Then there is no reason to see him again.” Jose sighs.

“You can’t get blood from a stone,” I add.

“No,” Ricardo replies, “but you can get blood from a body.”

This is undoubtedly why Betty has unmasked me. Ever since the Raid dope, she’s goaded me to cut Stanley out. I thought it was a loyalty test and demurred, but I now see that her devotion to the game supersedes any personal allegiances. She knows I’d never allow a colleague, despite his mistreatment, to be brutalized or, even worse, killed.

“Stanley’s in over his head, sure, but who hasn’t been?” I ask.

I ask the brothers to give Stanley a pass; in turn I will assume his role. I’ll pay them the pound price I was giving Stanley and thus satisfy his debt in under a month, at which point I will begin getting his rate and will become the San Francisco distro working for the largest crystal meth–producing cartel in Mexico. My status as a law enforcement target will intensify to the position I’ve worked tirelessly to avoid. I promised Guillaume I’d never resort to violence, vicarious violence included. But that doesn’t mean I can’t protect myself. I ask my new associates to wait as I trot over to the bedroom and knock on the door that Harry has locked. He peers out a crack, and I tell him to hand me three unwrapped prepaid phones.

“What’s happening out there?” he asks.

“I’m saving Stanley’s life,” I respond, as if I were Florence Nightingale.

After we’ve activated the phones, I tell Jose and Ricardo that I can remain their customer for only a matter of months. I’ve never harnessed the skill of brevity and it has consistently bit me in the ass. I blurt out that I’m actually a filmmaker doing research for a movie about the crystal meth world.

“A movie?” Ricardo asks.

I quickly attempt to walk it back, explaining how it will focus on gay subculture more than the business.

Jose smirks. “And it will play on HBO?”

“Wouldn’t that be a dream!” I reply.

“Movie is very expensive,” Ricardo adds. “Maybe we invest, help you make this movie.”

I say nothing. I shan’t commit to international money laundering, yet I can’t spurn the generous offer. Any independent artist will tell you: you get the financing however you can. As I see the men to the door, Jose instructs me, “You will tell Stanley.”

“One more thing,” Ricardo chimes in. “For every package—”

“A hundred-dollar money order to the granddaughter,” I interrupt.

Neither man says a word, just two firm nods, and they’re gone, for now.

Meth, step aside: drama steeped in danger is my new drug of choice. I’m unfazed by this unexpected succession. The added risk is outweighed by a boost to my male ego. I grew up divorced from themes of cultural masculinity. I never played sports or hunted or lifted weights or worked on cars or built a tree house. Dad, Christopher, and I played golf together, but is there a more contradictory sport? The more brute force you apply to your swing, the worse the outcome. Dad, in the same breath, would tell us to slow down and take it easy, then to move it along so no one hits into us. Golf is an impossible balance of focus, restraint, and gentility, none of which is my strong suit. Unable to achieve any sense of maleness through recreational activities, I obsessively watched The Godfather, The Sopranos, and other Mafia entertainment to get my fix. These characters are depraved, yet their appeal is irrefutable. Their machismo exists because they’re bad. They’re cool because they are bad. Macho equaled cool. Media reduced most queer characters to victims and powerless wimps. I fantasized about becoming the bad guy, if for no other reason than to marinate in maleness, but I settled for acting, where I could occupy that role on a temporary basis. Now, I can buttfuck a line of men, then roll right into a heavy-hitting deal with the Mexican cartel. I’ve transcended the stereotype. (This is, of course, misguided wisdom born of deep-seated internalized homophobia, but I don’t yet know that.)

48

Stanley listens as I outline his repositioning within our criminal empire. His head is hung low, the embodiment of mortification. At the end, we embrace. In truth, this was never about money for him. He wanted to play the bigwig and feel authoritative after having his power stripped away, one shock treatment at a time. I don’t ask where the money went. He’s lost his position, but our friendship will be preserved. Since Ethan’s homecoming, I’ve set new boundaries, renting him a different hotel room every week, keeping him at a safe distance, no longer allowing him inside my apartment.

“I wanted to be better,” Stanley whines, and asks me to put him and Landon up in a hotel while he gets his card printer and embosser out of storage so they can get back on their feet. (Stanley, at my request, had stopped doing fraud and thus claims he hasn’t any money for an SRO. What other options does he have?)

“You can stay in Ethan’s hotel room,” I tell Stanley. “He’s hardly ever there.”

Two days later, I’m perusing galleries in Dogpatch after Betty convinced me to start funneling my ill-gotten gains into pieces of fine art, when Stanley calls. He’s barely comprehensible, screaming for me to stay clear of their hotel.

“There’s been an incident,” he shouts, but quietly.

“What happened this time?” I ask, giving a polite nod to the gallery owner as I excuse myself outside.

“I should’ve checked out first,” he cries, “but I—oh, please don’t kill me—I, uh, extended the room … on jank. I might’ve said I was your … husband.” By jank, he means fraud.

“Where are you?” I ask through furiously pursed lips, inherited from Dad.

“Across the street from the hotel,” he says. “We had a threesome last night, then Landon and I went out for breakfast. We’re currently watching our third being shoved into the back of a squad car. The cops are carrying out my luggage, my printer, my embosser.”

“Was Ethan there when you left?” I ask.

“No,” Stanley replies, “but he said he’d be back.”

Ethan is currently holding five pounds to restock the delivery crew today. I can’t afford another confiscation. Moreover, his being arrested while awaiting the hearing for his last offense would guarantee him decades behind bars. And for a moment, my heart shudders.

Ethan answers on the first ring. In the background, I hear what sounds like grunts and groans of several men blended with the metronomic sounds of slapping flesh, and I know he’s safe. Despite many close calls, speculative, imagined, and real, I’ve gone nine months without conclusive liability of being connected to any crime, until now. Stanley fraudulently renewing the hotel room under my name will inevitably lead the police to my door, unless I can backtrack this. I wait a few hours, then place a call to the hotel where the incident occurred.

“It’s a beautiful day at the Redagio,” a man answers. “This is Seth.”

“Hello, this is Jason Yamas. I’m calling to offer some clarity regarding the happenings earlier.”

Hoping to ingratiate myself, I then explain how I come from a family of restaurateurs and hospitality professionals.

“Mr. Yamas,” Seth interrupts, “this is now a police matter.”

I am not deterred, so I continue: “In no way do I condone fraudulent activity that preys upon the innocent. I am guilty, however, of being a poor judge of character and for allowing a downtrodden friend to occupy my room.”

Seth arrogantly explains how hotel managers across the city aren’t ignorant to the various types of criminals who patronize their establishments. In other words, he knows who I am and what I do.

“You’re calling so I’ll tell the police that you’re innocent,” he flaunts, “which I’ll happily do”—he pauses—“in exchange for a name.”

It seems peculiar that he’d be so insistent on cracking the case. Didn’t he just say it was a police matter? Then again, having grown up working in a hotel, I recognize there is a certain level of pride one has around an establishment that never closes and that offers such an essential service like where to lay one’s head. Or maybe Seth has always wanted to be a detective, and this is his shot. I’d get that too.

“Well, if you’re aware of my vocation,” I reply, “you must also know that snitching doesn’t play too kindly in my world.”

“Well, I’ve got news for you,” he scoffs before another obnoxiously pregnant pause, “your spiky-haired friend? He’s a criminal informant.”

He’s talking about Ethan. My initial response is to cackle at the irony, thinking back to the countless times I’ve had this same thought. Hotel manager Seth is trying to throw me off my game, to disarm me so I’ll divulge Stanley’s identity as the man who pretended to be my husband. He chronicles his morning: the call from Amex fraud services, his subsequent call to the police, his opening the door to find two men with equipment that makes fake credit cards and a suitcase filled with narcotics, the police arresting both men, one being dragged to the station while the other handed the officers a business card.

“I believe Spiky Hair’s exact words were Call Agent Domingo at the DEA. I am a federal informant,” Seth recounts.

“How about that,” I mutter through leaden breaths.

“What blew my mind,” Seth adds, “is not only did they uncuff him, but they let him take his drugs! And you must know, it wasn’t a few measly dime bags.”

Seth asks again for the culprit’s name, this time threatening that I’ll be blackballed from every hotel in the city if I don’t cooperate—a threat that, if true, would be inimical to business, but I remain stalwart.

“There were two hairs,” I say.

“Pardon?” Seth asks.

“When we checked in, two hairs in the tub,” I reply. “And I thought you’d like to know.”

49

I pull the car over in the middle of Presidio, a San Franciscan neighborhood that eerily looks like the set of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village, woods that don’t belong inside a city. It’s flurrying, the first snow the city’s seen in a few years, and will likely turn to rain at any moment; nonetheless, the whole city’s abuzz. I picked Ethan up ten minutes ago and drove us here to avoid herds of frantic citizens but also to not be in the middle of nowhere.

“So, you are a narc,” I say, but with hesitation, as I’d much rather keep living within the facade for longer, forever maybe.

“Why would you ask me that?” he replies. Guilty people love inquiring as to why they’re being asked if they’re guilty. Also, I wasn’t asking. “Dude, I thought you were past this.”

“I spoke to the Redagio hotel manager,” I reply.

He closes his eyes. I’d like to do the same, crash this car and wake up from what’s actually an extended nightmare. I’d be in my bed back in LA spooning Curt. We’d get dressed, then I’d drive down Santa Monica Boulevard to interview Lisa Loeb for our documentary.

“Fine, I’ll ask then,” I continue. “Are you—?”

He nods furiously, cutting me off. “It’s only been a month.”

It was his Christmastime arrest—he reports to a female detective within the SFPD’s narcotics division. He claims they’re not after me, rather that they want an education, that they’re simply mapping out the pipelines. He’s hoping to introduce me to his contact.

“It’d be a surefire way,” Ethan says, “to guarantee your freedom.”

“I’d rather be hunted than owned!” I declare, unsure whether I really mean it.

“You can’t tell anyone,” he commands, “or I can’t protect you anymore.”

I tell him to get out, that he can find his own way back to the police station or wherever he goes.

As I’m speeding away, I hear him shout, “Think about it, dude!”

Calamitous as this all may be, I feel vindicated. Listen, I know the meth doesn’t work like it once did. I acknowledge that I might occasionally see things that aren’t there or draw false conclusions, but it’s reassuring to find my Spidey senses are somewhat intact. In some ways, it’s even freeing to learn this truth. My running theory: Ethan isn’t some lowly local informant. He was never arrested before Christmas. Perhaps he was at some point years before, back in Sacramento, if that’s even where he’s from. This job of infiltrating my organization is part of a cooperation agreement to clear his federal charges. The inexplicable hit-and-run was theater to ensure I’d rely on Ethan rather than quit. His two-week disappearance remains a mystery. Perhaps this was time off spent with his family over the holidays? Everything has been deliberate, including today’s minimization as to the extent of his informing. The endgame: keep me intact. They likely won’t come down on every player until I’ve paved the road to the cartel’s underground bunker where literal tons of meth are stockpiled. Ethan’s offered enough information to encourage me to flip and withheld enough in case I refuse. And I will refuse. I’ve been indoctrinated with the sacred criminal code of omertà: never rat, or perhaps I just read a Mario Puzo novel by that name.

I hire a locksmith to change out all the locks at Arthur’s apartment. I purchase a new laptop, and with Stanley’s assistance, I install a VPN and Tor Browser and run Wi-Fi exclusively through a remote hot spot that I pay for with cash. I purchase prepaid burner phones for everyone in our crew and all three hundred clients we serve. I no longer trust smart technology with GPS, and I don’t care how encrypted the apps claim to be. These measures will ensure no eyes or ears may creep any further. I rent a different car every other day under different aliases with fake IDs Stanley doctors up for me. This is the underpinning of cyberterrorists. I’m up against the Drug Enforcement Administration and my arrest is as inevitable as a gambler losing to the house if he plays long enough. So, once again, I tell myself I’m quitting.

I’ll remain here another three months, long enough to make $200,000. Afterward, I’ll disappear to another coast, perhaps another country. I’ll stay with Guillaume in Paris, sipping espresso at a different café each morning while drafting my screenplay. I’ll expose the depravity of this noxious world like my life depends on it. Because it just fucking might.

When I get back to the apartment, Arthur is spreading calcium carbonate around the entryway to prevent any slips or falls. I barrel past him, rushing to empty my home of any drugs whatsoever. On the way here, I called Big Mama, and he’s allowing me to use his apartment to store six gallons of GBL that are currently concealed inside the walls of my bedroom. I can’t be certain the feds won’t bust through the door at any moment. Harry stands between me and the vent, my access point to $40,000 worth of liquid gold. He holds Bonstein, trying to hand-feed her tuna.

“I’ve tried everything,” he says. “She won’t eat.”

“She’ll eat when she’s hungry,” I snap back.

“She’s dying!” he cries. “Look at her, Jason!”

I gaze upon the feline friend who absorbed a bucket of tears in the days after Curt left. Bonstein was my solace. When she was a kitten, I’d joked about injecting her with growth-stunting hormones, and to my delight she’s remained astoundingly petite these past seven years. Seeing her now, however, something is amiss. She’s emaciated, her hair fallen out, her coat in knots, her flesh encrusted in scabs. I toss my credit card onto the bed. It’s hard for me to have empathy in this moment when I’m trying to make my apartment raid-proof.

“Take her to the vet,” I grumble.

Harry begs me to drive them. I hate the person I am to refuse, but this is Darwinism, and the walls I put up when I’m terrified don’t allow even a droplet of good nature to seep through. Harry nuzzles his scruff upon Bonstein’s neck, attempting to comfort her.

“I love her so much,” he weeps. “You’re a monster!”

After tucking the GBL suitcases into Big Mama’s closet, I proceed with deliveries, trying to thread the needle, warning associates not to engage with Ethan yet withholding how my inefficacy allowed a traitor into our midst. When I receive a text from Big Mama hours later, I assume he’s playing a joke.

I was there when you had no one. I cooked for you. I held you after you were shot at! I cheered you on like a pathetic mascot. Well, where’s MY love?

When I call him, he answers with the spastic tonality of a circus emcee: “Howwww did it take me thiiiiis long to see youuuu? You always take my money, then you never come back.”

“You’re a customer,” I reply.

“And there it is!” he chides before hanging up.

Big Mama has perhaps been the only consistently sanguine individual in this new life of mine. Baffled by this sudden aberration, I am driving toward his apartment when a video message comes through framing a grainy Big Mama in dim lighting standing by his kitchen sink. He yells, Toss me one. A liter bottle of GBL enters the frame like a fastball. He catches it, turns to the camera, smiles from Temecula to Pittsburgh, then pours out every last drop, worth a total of $1,600. He grins at the camera: Another liter every five minutes.

Soon, another text arrives that reads: Two prepaid cards, each with seven grand, a one-way ticket to Jamaica leaving Tuesday, business class, not that economy plus bullshit, half ounce of dope, a cherry cheesecake and the big bag of plain Ruffles, the one that costs $4.29.

These are what, I reply, ransom demands?

I agree to his demands in exchange for an hour reprieve from the pouring. He must think I wouldn’t enlist muscle. I call upon a man whom Betty introduced me to named Troy. Troy is 340 pounds, six and a half feet of unrelenting ebullience with a waxy shaved head one might rub for good fortune. He may be a teddy bear to his friends, but his sinewy, robust exterior would instill fear in a grizzly bear. He meets me up in Telegraph Hill. I still have Big Mama’s keys, so we enter through the garage when another video message appears. Big Mama is back at the sink pouring out two liters. He performs for the camera: Bringing your henchman? Big mistake! Huge! He’s fucking quoting Pretty Woman. Troy takes out a switchblade, suggesting we proceed, that he storms Big Mama and wipes him out while I gather my gallons.

“We can’t hurt him. He’s my friend.” I give up.

Against Troy’s better judgment and at my command, we abort the mission. I return to my car and wait for this all to end. Twenty minutes later, Big Mama rolls out my suitcases and hops in the passenger side.

“You know where I go when the clock strikes midnight?” he asks. “I walk up and down Telegraph Hill with my pants down, showing my genitals to anyone passing by. I plant myself on the Coit Tower steps and I stroke my dick, putting on a show. At twilight, when my neighbors are eating breakfast, packing their kids’ lunches, I adhere a suction cup dildo to the window and fuck myself into oblivion.”

“Why?” I ask, despite already knowing.

“Because I’m a vile tweaker,” he replies. “We’ve changed. What was sexy before is boring now, so we advance to the next level. We get grosser, meaner, sicker, because it’s the only way we can get off. You think you’re different, but you’re the same.”

He’s not wrong. In my first few weeks taking GBL, getting higher than I’d ever been on any drug before it, I would feel so unyoked that I’d drive around the city at dawn, before the hurly-burly of the day, like a scene out of Die Hard, swerving onto the sidewalk, nearly running pedestrians over, screaming WAHOOO! at the top of my lungs and squawking like a predatorial bird. Why? Mostly it was for the mere amusement of instilling unassailable shock in another person. But it was also because this behavior, so aberrant from my baseline and so felonious, felt freeing. I hadn’t felt this free since being ten years old, locking every door to our house, cranking up Whitney Houston’s “Queen of the Night,” and jumping around all the furniture, dancing from room to room, lip-synching my damn heart out. Sustained meth and G use certainly invites our most maudlin insecurities to engender debased fetishes, but it also toxifies one’s perception of what is a reasonable outlet for our bubbling queer expression.

“Did you really pour out those liters?” I ask.

“You bet your lily-white ass I did.”

“I don’t get it,” I bemoan.

“This was a nightmare,” he explains. “Not your first, and if you stay, it won’t be your last. You can’t count on anything making sense here. And remember, every time another tragedy occurs, you chose it. I’m leaving tomorrow, but I wanted to give you something first. And now I have.”

It seems that I’ve been an unwitting actor in Big Mama’s morality play, and I love it. In all my years performing experimental theater, I’d never imagined such immersion. Once as a child, I stole a Whatchamacallit from CVS. When Mom asked where I got the candy bar, I quickly fessed up. She didn’t yell or reprimand me. Rather, she had a police officer she knew swing by our house that night and pretend he was there to arrest me. This is what Mom called experiential parenting, and Big Mama is now serving up the same course.

Driving home, I retrieve half a dozen voicemails from Harry, mostly consisting of grunts before hanging up. Not like you care, he bleats, but Bonstein’s at the SPCA. The vet says she was poisoned. I’ll be at home if you desire ever seeing me again. Love you—I mean, hate you, whatever.

I cannot fathom who would poison this innocent cat whose squeaks sound like a prepubescent boy singing the opening notes of Madame Butterfly. Perhaps an enemy of mine, maybe even someone I consider a friend, snuck into my apartment and—what? Put cat poison into Bonstein’s water bowl? What would one even use to poison a cat that wouldn’t just kill it? I call Harry to have him meet me at the SPCA.

“You can’t go there,” he shouts. “Her tests came back, and she had meth in her bloodstream, Jason.”

That familiar dread washes over me and I whisper, “Don’t say another word over the phone.”

“They were gonna call animal control,” he yells. “I said I rescued her from you. And fuck you! I’m not gonna censor myself just ’cause you’re a paranoid drug dealer.”

I hang up on him and begin hitting myself repeatedly. My angelic little furball has indeed been poisoned, by me. I never until now considered the deleterious effects of sifting, weighing, and bagging over a hundred pounds of crystal meth in my bedroom, the residual dust it’d leave in the air, on the floor. Bonstein grazed her habitat, the home I provided, where I promised she would thrive. Rather, she collected meth particles in her coat and her paws from the surfaces of a vile tweaker’s apartment. When bathing herself with that sandpaper tongue, she was ingesting ammonia, acetone, and sulfuric acid. I drop to my knees on the cracked pavement, clasp my hands, bow my head, and close my eyes.

“Dear God,” I pray, “I’ll do better. I’ll be better. I’ll reconnect to my purpose in this life, if you will please just only allow her to survive.”

Perhaps an ultimatum isn’t optimal communication when speaking to the divine. As I stand back up, I try my hardest not to roll my eyes or scoff, on the rare chance that some sort of god might be watching.

PART 4

EXODUS

50

I’m leaving the home of a client who also serves as my de facto accountant. It’s 4:30 A.M., the only reasonable time for tweakers to hold a business meeting. An hour ago, Mom texted the single-worded question: Alive? To which I replied with a thumbs-up emoji. Now, I pull onto a barren Folsom Street when two cars—nothing fancy, a Honda Civic and a Toyota Camry, maybe a Corolla—suddenly speed up my right side. To this point, a whole week has passed without cataclysm, and I envision a return to prosperity. At the same time, I’m still committed to my three-month exit—it’s knowing this that allows me to be so cavalierly brief in responding to Mom’s middle-of-the-night texts. Every obstacle thus far has merely fueled my ambitions to prove that I can succeed at something, at anything, for once. I’ve formed an LLC and intend on filing the application for a janitorial license. My new vision? To become the proprietor of a commercial cleaning company that’ll both allow me to legally import GBL and serve as a front to launder ill-gotten gains.

Now, as I approach a red light, the Honda cuts me off while the Toyota pulls immediately to my right. The traffic light turns green, but neither car moves. I’m trapped. The brake lights on the car before me go dark. A man wearing a ski mask exits the Toyota. I presume I’m being carjacked, so I put the car into park, grab my Tumi backpack (containing $20,000 in cash and four pounds of crystal) and my laptop, and exit the car, leaving the door open for the perpetrator.

“Keys are in the ignition,” I yell over my shoulder, and start walking away, hoping they won’t bother with me.

I hear his feet before I see him. Then the ski-masked figure is next to me. Almost delicately, he removes my backpack one strap at a time. This gesture could appear almost romantic, like a lover removing a brassiere. He pats my shoulder in what I perceive as consolation, and then he returns to his vehicle. Both cars wait for the next green light before slipping away at normal speed. Yes, a baby would’ve put up more fight in a candy heist.

The next day, I visit Racist Benjamin, who purchases the rest of my GBL for a fire-sale reduced price, not nearly enough to compensate Jose for this week’s scheduled meth delivery. I will be forced to take my first front. I’m exiting Benjamin’s hotel, softly humming the chorus of Shawn Mullin’s one-hit wonder, “Lullaby,” as I’ve unconsciously done for two decades in angsty moments. But despite the lyrics, everything is far from all right here on the corner of Geary and Mason Street, where the Tenderloin turns into Union Square. I stop to breathe at the top of the marble steps, noticing the marquee over the Orpheum Theatre across the way advertising Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and I remember when I was briefly friendly with the show’s creator, John Cameron Mitchell. He invited me to work alongside him on a commercial film shoot some years back. After watching him work, I vowed to make stories that captivated and moved audiences. If he saw me now, sweaty and disheveled, he’d likely just dismiss me as some sad-looking junkie. And he’d be correct. I sigh and look around further, viewing an array of passersby below me.

That’s when I notice it: one in every three persons is wearing a mask. The mask is of my brother Christopher’s face, his olive skin, his bushy eyebrows, his rounded nose. I close my eyes, wishing this charade would disappear, but when I open them, there remain dozens of Christopher-masked pedestrians all glaring at me as they pass. I pride myself on being logical. No matter how complex, anything can be understood. But this—

My phone rings, startling the living shit out of me and illuminating Mom’s contact photo, taken last Thanksgiving. She’s holding a pecan pie she’d baked, decorated with autumn leaves that she molded from the extra dough. Something in me snaps. My eyes are now rendering much of the image before me as blurry. I’ve seen this convention used in film and hated it. What an obnoxious and manipulative trope. And yet it’s exactly what I’m seeing now, as if someone blurred out the border around my central focal point.

“Hi, honey. Where are you?” she asks.

“I think you know,” I reply. “What is this, some sort of test?”

“What’s wrong, Jas?”

“How much of my money went into this?” I ask her.

I should’ve known better than expecting Mom to sit idly. Clearly, she’s orchestrated each and every disaster: Baby’s take, Batman’s histrionics, the Raid dope, the stolen car, the insurance adjuster and the fake police report, Ethan’s informing, Big Mama’s theatrics, the ski-masked robber. She’s been employing her famous experiential parenting. Stanley is an actor. Betty is an actor. The Mexicans, both actors. I recall a late-1990s Friday night when Dad was working late. Mom and I rented David Fincher’s The Game from Blockbuster, in which the characters devise a living hell for the protagonist, played by Michael Douglas, reminding him of the value of life by scaring him to death. This is where she got the idea! And it’s now my turn to choose life, to choose rehab. That’s the message. Her calling right now, right when these masks appear, is her final stunt, an artistic reveal as the culmination of the conspiracy that’s enveloped my waking life. What a fool I’ve been to play along! Cast as the eternal victim. Then another revelation hits.

“Is Harry involved?” I beg her. “Please tell me he was real.”

If there was ever a testament of my love for Harry, it is my wrenching plea to be assured he is not a hired actor.

“How much of your money went into this?” Mom echoes. “Jas, I love you, sweetheart, but whatever you’re experiencing right now has nothing to do with me.”

“I know you’re behind all these—” But I stop short of saying masks because they’ve vanished, replaced by strangers’ faces.

“Is this the life you want?” she asks. “What happened to my boy?”

I’m silent. I can’t breathe.

“Thank you,” she says.

“For what?” I ask.

I know what I have to do now.

Ten minutes later, I’m driving across the Bay Bridge, headed to confront my brother, when Brantley, my ex-boyfriend before Curt, calls. Brantley’s been sending me texts for week, just checking in, he says, but I swear Mom has been drafting them. Her tonality. Her punctuation. Her emoji choices.

I answer the way any sane person might: “Are you involved?”

“What?” he asks.

“Don’t play coy!” I holler. “I know she’s controlling you too.”

“She?” Brantley asks. “Who is she?”

“Why won’t anyone talk straight with me?” I snap.

Brantley details having met a showrunner at his USC gala who’s in preproduction for her new series. It’s a quirky dramedy about lesbian mothers set in Portland, Maine. Her entire crew will consist of queer filmmakers, and he’s scored me an interview with her if I can make it to LA by the end of the week.

“What’s that clicking?” I ask.

“I don’t hear anything,” Brantley responds.

The line is echoey, and I can hear the faint chatter of two men.

He heard the click, one of the men says.

“Should I send her your number?” Brantley asks.

I roll down the window and toss my phone into the bay. The line is tapped. This congeals an evolved reality. Mom unfortunately did not engineer the countless thefts to store money in some rehab fund as I’d imagined moments before. I manufactured that reality to account for an improbable string of bad luck. Oh, but that span of minutes believing my nemeses were performers was such sweet clemency from the torture. Brantley then dangled a fictionalized scenario in which moving to LA would land me my dream job. It’s clear now that Mom and Brantley are attempting to extract me because they know my situation is dire. An insider who’s looking out for me must’ve informed them of new information. I likely have days, perhaps only hours, to leave my empire behind before the feds swarm, indictments follow, and I’ll be forced to choose between fifteen years in federal lockup or turning state’s witness. And if I choose the latter, Jose and Ricardo will no longer be apple-juice-sipping compadres who’re considering financing my first feature film. Once I’m across the bridge, I pull off into a Wendy’s parking lot and close my eyes for a few minutes. When I open them again, my vision is back to normal, no longer blurry. Tucked away in the glove compartment, my burner phone starts to ring. I snag it and see that Jack is calling. He’s finally welcoming me back into his circle. “How are we doing?” he asks, but I detect in his inflection that he already knows the answer.

Perhaps he’s the insider, the one who’s feeding my family information.

“What do you know?” I ask him.

Jack ignores the question and gently suggests I take a short vacation to Santa Cruz to ease my mind, to take no drugs with me and rest assured that my troubles will be gone when I return.

I heed Jack’s advice. Ethan is giving me space and time to decide whether I’ll flip. Stanley is back to his fraud game, hopping hotels and using fake cards. Zander claims to be rebuilding his business since an alleged raid on his hotel room. Racist Benjamin is sadly the only player I trust enough to watch over my little empire while I’m gone.

Meanwhile, Harry and I head south and check into a beachfront motel. He insists I get eight continuous hours of sleep, and when I wake, we’ll hold hands walking down the boardwalk, ride the Ferris wheel, and eat a funnel cake. We’ll finally have our first real date.

After my longest sleep in a year, I rise to a world of strain. Lights have never shined so brightly. My eyes twitch; my arms and legs itch. I’m unable to form a cohesive sentence. Harry bounces around the motel room, adjuring me to take him to the amusement park. Thankfully, I’ve ignored Jack’s advice and packed reinforcements to rise from this stupor. I dig out my pipe concealed in a sock and excuse myself to the restroom. I’ve come full circle, back to hiding my drug use in bathrooms. Oh, the innumerate grimy bathroom stalls across Brooklyn in which I snorted cocaine in my twenties.

“Can we have sex, please?” Harry asks.

Sex, with Harry no less, is the last thing I desire. At this point, awakening my libido requires GBL and to be with someone for whom I share no affection. I will fake it because I can’t settle for my brokenness. We strip. Harry kisses my feet and slowly moves up my legs. This is tormenting. I’m reminded of when the sex died in my first relationship. Brantley would rub his morning wood against me, nonverbally suggesting we make love and gaze into each other’s eyes before scrambling eggs. I’d either ignore him, faking sleep, unable to be woken by his prodding, or dart up like I’d been injected with adrenaline and start dressing, expelling a laundry list of items I needed to accomplish, justifying my prioritizing every other imaginable task over his requested intimacy. His gentle touch enraged me. A soft nuzzle made me red in the face, eager to wallop him. I’d eventually realize my resentment of his physical requests stemmed from self-indignation for having been conditioned to no longer enjoy sex not heightened by mind-altering chemicals. Imagining Racist Benjamin making a play to usurp my empire, I throw Harry off me.

“We’re going back,” I say.

There’s no stopping it. I zipper my pants while watching an adult-sized shaven baby demolish our motel room. He punches holes in the drywall, plucks every lighting fixture like picking blueberries, flips the mattress, then smashes the wooden bed frame like he’s Bruce Lee. He tears the TV mount from the wall and kicks the screen until a root system forms across the LCD. This outburst will surely extinguish any remaining credit to my name. I vacate onto the balcony, evading his human tornado. Twilight is dwindling, yet enough light remains to spot two men in a white van staring up at me. I run back into the motel room and lock the door. Harry’s face is strawberry red with tears. He wraps his arms around me.

“I’m so sorry!” he cries.

“Could those men have followed us here?” I ask, pulling back the curtain ever so slightly.

This is the perfect opportunity for them to nab me out of the limelight. With no one to witness my arrest, they’ll encourage me to flip. I realize now that I must return to San Francisco where I’m wholly visible before they make their move.

“Probably,” he screams, getting louder with each word, “you are a fucking drug dealer!”

I cover his mouth with both my hands. He bites down, piercing the flesh of my fingers.

“Do you still love me?” he cries.

I have to wonder if part of him hopes I’ll get busted, or perhaps he has ulterior motives. Both of his drug dealer ex-boyfriends ended up in prison. Perhaps Harry was the reason. I unclench his grip around my waist, and he releases a series of caterwauls that could land him a lifetime of horror film roles. I’m petrified to leave but horrified to stay. I jump in my car and haul ass back toward the city, alone.

I’m halfway to San Francisco when I realize I’ve left my wallet in the nightstand at the motel. I call Harry to make sure he’s grabbed it before leaving Santa Cruz, but his line goes directly to voicemail. I have no choice but to drive back to the motel. When I arrive, I find two police cars in the parking lot but no sign of Harry. Panic rises up as a large lump in my throat, which has gone suddenly dry. With Harry misplaced like this, I imagine I feel the way a parent might after losing his toddler in a shopping mall. I have only enough gas to drive another forty miles, so I call Christopher, who agrees to meet me in Fremont and fill my tank with the caveat that I follow him back and explain everything—that we start to deal with this directly. But when I see him carrying two blue raspberry slushies in my rearview mirror, I lay rubber out of the 7-Eleven parking lot and speed back to San Francisco, where I’ll once again be safe. This trip has taught me one thing: the only way to avoid arrest at this point is to stay wholly visible.

The eviction notice greets me when I get back to the apartment, nailed to my bedroom door like Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s set up surveillance, and visits by the cartel are considered a breach of contract. Arthur is giving me two weeks to vacate. I call Harry, supplicating to any god that will listen for Harry’s successful escape from the motel. As my inner circle narrows, I’m increasingly reliant on this invisible God buddy.

The next morning brings more rain and a mist so heavy every resident wears it like a scarf. Harry texts a simple hi (so very him). When I try calling back, the line goes directly to voicemail. He then texts his location in the Tenderloin, begging me to come retrieve him.

I text back: Why is your phone going to voicemail? Are you okay?

No reply.

I can hardly wait to draw Harry back into my arms. Traffic is moving at a snail’s pace. I squint through a thunderous downpour, trying to discern his figure from others taking refuge under the awnings. Then I see him. He’s wearing the same outfit as yesterday: maroon corduroys, snug because they’re mine; a white V-neck. His dopey posture, his shoulders to his ears, shivering, no umbrella. He’s soaked by the horizontal winds thwacking fierce precipitation.

“Get in,” I shout through the cracked window.

He teeters toward me and I unlock the doors, then, as if in a nightmare, I watch the boy I love transform from a slouch to an elongated spine, tall and gangly. It isn’t Harry. I’ve made a mistake. I lunge for the lock button while he’s reaching for the door. The stranger repositions himself squarely in front of the vehicle. He looks just like Harry in almost every way except for his lips, and the eyes aren’t right. The rain pummels his blond locks as he pulls an object from his pocket and holds it toward the windshield. It’s a badge with the image of an eagle above the letters US encircled in blue. He delivers the universal sign for “I’m watching you,” two fingers to his eyeballs, then toward me. Then Not-Harry disappears. When I call Harry’s number, I hear a robotic voice: “We’re sorry, you’ve reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.”

Everything tunnels for me once again. The blurry border has returned. For a moment, I’m certain Harry has been instrumental in this maelstrom and not just a passive witness. Maybe Ethan isn’t the only informant in my life. Still, I can’t accept that Harry’s love is purely an act. Perhaps he fell in love with me in the midst his assignment. Maybe his violent outbursts are strategic, pushing me away to save me. Perhaps his incessantly imploring me toward rehab is communicating my only actionable way out.

Jack invites me over to try the passionfruit panna cotta he’s spent the whole afternoon baking. After devouring three of them, I urge him to enroll in culinary college to become a pastry chef, although I remain uncertain whether he knows more than he’s revealing, whether he’s the insider communicating with my family.

Hours later, Sunshine texts: Harry is here and won’t stop crying. Come get him.

Seeing Harry is like being reunited with a lost puppy. He scowls before melting into my arms. I softly stroke his cheek, wiping the tears away as he recounts pawning his iPhone to afford a bus back to the city. Whoever texted me from his number was using either a spoof texter app or something more sophisticated. This is what I tell myself, and the tunnel, this nebulous blur I’ve been trapped in for countless hours, dissolves.

“Let’s start fresh,” I say.

Hearing this, his crying stops like a switch. “Are you ready to go to rehab?” he asks propitiously.

“Not yet,” I say. “I need to clear two hundred, and then it’s off to Europe. But in the meantime, what if we got our own place?”

“You mean Arthur kicked you out, and you want me to do the packing,” he says with a sigh.

“You could always stay here.” I frown.

“No, I have to go,” he says. “I love you after all. Remember?”

His words sound like code. Does he love me, or is he simply reciting a character description?

Harry packs dinnerware into cardboard boxes the way I’ve instructed, Mom’s method of double wrapping each item in newspaper. Meanwhile, I escape with the promise of procuring space bags for the clothing. Instead, I take a heavy GBL dose. When I arrive in the fashion district where all the streets running through Union Square dead-end at Market, I immediately forget what I’m shopping for.

Uniqlo is playing Taylor Dayne’s “Tell It to My Heart,” and Taylor’s voice presses my groove button. I cavort down the halls, serving choreography inspired by Pina Bausch and Paris Is Burning. The salespeople ogle, undoubtedly asking themselves, What is he on? By the end, they couldn’t care less, because this guy drops $1,700 on basics: crewneck sweatshirts and bomber jackets and ankle-high vintage striped socks and corduroys, one in every color they sell. Such a haul, the manager must retrieve jumbo-sized bags from the back.

I cannot drive home in this state, carrying all these bags, so I walk to Nord’s ten blocks west, where I’ll come down. The winds are picking up, cooling my clammy flesh. I shield myself behind a dumpster to light a cigarette when I’m suddenly vertiginous and wobbly. A fall out is imminent. I slap myself to stay awake to no avail. Gravity gives way. My head smashes on the pavement and I’m out. I open my eyes to find two teenage girls hovering, their hands over their mouths in horror.

“I’m getting help,” one girl assures me.

“Call no one!” I bark back.

The second girl holds a makeup mirror to my face displaying dark blood coursing down like molten lava. Within minutes, seven police officers, a firetruck, and an ambulance arrive on the scene. This seems like overkill. An officer asks if I’ve taken any substances today. I lie, of course, because I have three pounds of crystal meth in my backpack. I plead for them to release me, but they’re insisting they take me to the hospital.

“Let me call my wife first,” I beg. “She’s expecting me to watch our newborn.” Rather, I call the great Skip Blazenhoff, Esquire.

“Jason, my boy,” he gushes, “tell me you’re sipping a virgin daiquiri in Maui.”

“I’m on Mason Street,” I whisper, “bloody and surrounded by cops.”

“You know, you really know how to dampen a guy’s spirits.”

I ask Skip about the police and health-care professionals’ legal right to search my bag if I lose consciousness while under medical care. He assures me that they can open one’s belongings only in search of identification. I dig for my wallet, remembering I’d left it in Santa Cruz. The first responders rush me off the phone, then lay me on a gurney. As soon as I’m horizontal, I can feel consciousness slipping away.

“I have no ID,” I shout as things go black, “so write down my name: Y-A-M-A-S …”

When I wake, the IV makes it impossible to move. I tilt my head enough to see four enormous shopping bags on the chair. This is where someone who cares about me might be seated had I called them instead of Skip. There’s no visible sign of my Tumi backpack. A nurse wearing Frozen-themed scrubs promises she’ll hunt it down. Just because they have no legal right to search the bag doesn’t mean they haven’t. They’d be able to ignore small quantities of weed, but not three pounds of meth. Not to mention that it’s not even mine. I took it on a front.

An hour later, a bald man wearing a dress shirt tucked into pleated khakis appears holding my Tumi. He lays it at my feet and gives me a thumbs-up before disappearing behind the curtain. I can’t reach it without pulling out the IV, so I kick it lightly and can feel voluminous spiky contents within the fabric. After a spirited argument, the doctor reluctantly releases me. I scurry to the restroom and inspect the contents. All the meth is accounted for; however, the plastic bag I’d tied with a constrictor knot has been altered. I’d learned twenty various knots in a boating course I took fifteen years ago. The constrictor knot is fast, efficient, and secure. It’s been my knot of choice all these years. My plastic bag has been retied using the clove hitch, a knot I stridently avoid. Why might someone have inspected the contents, then returned it all intact?

51

Jack listens to my tales of woe with open ears as I chomp down on his cornichons. Upon completing my theories, I ask if he thinks I’m crazy. He smirks. “Let’s just say you’re lucky to have people looking out for you.”

I gaze around at his decadent apartment. Jack’s company still makes me feel safe. His ability to remain tethered to “normal” life is a bright white, if distant, bridge I imagine I will travel back across, back to normality. And still, so much about Jack has never added up. How did a boy from a good family with every opportunity in the world end up settling for this lifestyle? He knows every member of the tweaker community, but he spends many of his nights elsewhere, occupying a life we’re not allowed to permeate. I wonder if meeting Jack when I did, right when I began dealing, was perhaps not a coincidence. This blurry tunnel, the one that keeps closing in on me again and again, is constructed entirely of riddles, and the riddles are constructed entirely of people.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” I take a wild guess. “How long have you been cleaning up my messes?”

Jack adjusts to an upright posture as his expression shifts and his mask melts away.

“Since day one,” he whispers.

“Who do you work for?” I ask.

“I can’t say,” he replies, “and we really shouldn’t be having this conversation here.”

He tilts his head, winks, and moves to the bathroom. I follow, understanding this to mean that we’re being surveilled in the living room. He closes the bathroom door and grabs me by the shoulders.

“You haven’t been easy, Jason,” he exclaims.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

Jack clarifies his mission: “Our job is to get you out before they do.”

He’s middle management within an organization that keeps close tabs on the inner workings of crime culture in American cities. It works with and for those who aren’t meant for this world, to ensure a “good guy” doesn’t transgress too far.

“I told you to slow down,” Jack laments, “but you never listen. You seem to have forgotten who you are, and honestly, I’m at my wit’s end.”

He confirms that Ethan does work for the feds, but that Harry works for no one besides himself, trying to score another free night, another free Baconator. Harry is just another lost soul whose unmanageable chaos is easily misconstrued. Jack reveals that the bald man at the hospital wearing khakis works for him, that they intervened with the locals before the feds were called.

“What else have you orchestrated?” I ask.

“Ethan’s arrest, for one,” Jack replies. “We tried to make him a less useful asset, hoping they’d pull him from the operation.”

“Does your organization work with the SFPD?” I venture, eyes widening.

“Let’s just say we have an understanding.”

Jack refuses to tell me the name of his organization, who funds it, or how long it’s been active, only that he was recruited in college and that his husband works for it too. I have no idea why he’s telling me all this now or if he’s just using information I’ve given him to gaslight me, perhaps as some sick revenge for the many times I showed up at his door mid–psychotic break. I want to believe him because I need some goddamn answers. After living in a perpetual state of unknowns for so long, connecting dots takes priority over rationale or logic. I don’t know anything about this world, not really. One of the first things Zander told me was how tech companies had partnered with forces in government, how San Francisco is a test city, how he and now I are just mice in their experiment—perhaps there’s some sociology component to that too? The Organization doesn’t seem too far-fetched, not when believing in it makes me feel the safest I’ve felt in months.

“What about the agent who was dressed just like Harry?” I ask. “Was he with you or them?”

“I’ve said too much,” Jack replies.

“Are you in contact with my mom?” I ask. “Is she part of this?”

Jack puts his finger to his lips and opens the bathroom door, leaving me in a haze of fret and intrigue. I replay every mysterious incident through a new lens, one where threats of incarceration are theater, mere scare tactics performed by the great people at this nameless, benevolent Organization. Jack is concise about one fact: I must get out. However, that option leaves all remaining mysteries unsolved, an unpalatable conclusion.

“Should we do a cap of G and swing by Bob’s Donuts?” Jack proposes. (He’s back in character for whoever is surveilling us.)

“Did you have anything to do with the time my car was stolen?” I ask.

“Jason,” he says sternly, “you can’t think I was serious.”

My heart stops with shame for being so gullible. How could I believe such things? And yet his emphasis had landed on the word can’t, as in I’m not allowed to present as if I’ve believed him. This option feels better to me: to stay safely inside the tunnel. The teetering between truths is quite literally crazy making.

“Sure,” I reply, “doughnuts sound great.”

Jack doses out the GBL into the same brown short-stemmed glasses, just like our first time.

“How’s your cat, by the way?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” I reply. “Harry said I can’t go visit her because of the meth poisoning.”

“No, you should go,” Jack replies. “Go tomorrow.”

Leaving Jack’s the next morning, I discover all four windows of my car have been smashed just a few weeks after getting it repaired from the hit-and-run. A petty criminal will break a window only if he spots goods, and as per my protocol (after having windows replaced four times since moving to San Francisco), I’d left the car empty. The console under the steering wheel has been pried open, exposing multicolored cords, some abysmally severed with what appears to have been a dull instrument. An ignorant victim might assume this was an attempt to hot-wire it, but not me. One of my clients works for a chop shop and belabors his methodology, emphasizing that no professional attempts to hot-wire any automobile made after 2013, especially those with touch starts. They won’t start without the chip inside the key fob. I try starting the car. No luck. Yesterday, this misdeed would’ve sent me spiraling between neurotic and detective, but today I can rest easy now knowing it’s the actions of Jack’s benevolent Organization. He knows that Harry torpedoing my hotel room has maxed out my credit cards and that I cannot afford rental cars moving forward. So, they’re adjusting their strategy. If they can’t scare me out of business, they’ll coerce me. It’s actually kind of sweet.

After the tow truck hauls away my car, I meander over to the SPCA, where I identify myself to the receptionist, expecting to be swiftly escorted into the back, then locked up by the pet police.

“This is Bonstein’s daddy!” the receptionist shouts to her coworkers.

Each employee approaches me, all voicing anecdotes about my darling cat. Turns out, she’s become quite the celebrity here, and absolutely no one harbors any resentment toward me. I notice a thematic similarity when reading each of their name tags: HOPE, JOY, FAITH, and ANGEL.

“Oh, here comes the doctor with our favorite little girl,” Hope exclaims.

The veterinarian shakes my hand and introduces herself as Dr. Carrefour.

“Wow, it never stops with the names around here,” I say. “Carrefour—as in you care for animals …”

Dr. Carrefour is very French and not remotely intrigued by my observations. She delicately hands me Bonstein.

“Hold the baby,” she says. “It is good for her to see you even if you cannot.”

I’m briefly taken aback by her remark but quickly dismiss it as the poetic license the French take even in quotidian discourse.

“Is she ready to come home?” I ask.

“I read in her file,” Dr. Carrefour replies, “she has a sister, yes?”

“Yes.” I nod. “Buffy.”

“You bring Buffy here,” she asserts. “This help Bonstein’s recovery.”

Dr. Carrefour insists that both the cats remain under their care until further notice. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This makes absolutely no sense. I kiss Bonstein goodbye, then turn to Hope, expecting her to notify me that the credit card on file has been declined. I hand her a wad of cash to cover any ongoing expenses, but she pushes it right back.

“No charge,” Hope says. “Everything’s been covered.”

“How could that be?” I ask.

She shrugs and tells me to “be safe out there.”

This must be why Jack enjoined me to visit. The Organization has installed its people at the SPCA to look after my sweet Bonstein. It’s cleared my debt and even offered to house Buffy, as I’m about to become homeless. Jack is ensuring I won’t lose the few precious beings whom I carried into this world, preserving hope, faith, and joy that I might piece myself back together again when I leave. Jack, I realize now, is far more than an Organization member.

A week later, Harry and I load what’s left of our lives into the back of a U-Haul. Between the barrage of mishaps and running the day-to-day business, I haven’t lined up long-term housing, so I load up a prepaid card and book us a week’s stay at an Airbnb in Noe Valley. Every storage facility I visit will rent space only to someone with an actual credit card, which I no longer possess. Until further notice, this U-Haul will have to serve as de facto apartment and my means of transportation.

I’m starting my evening deliveries behind the wheel of my now mobile home when the dread returns like a migraine swathing my entire coil. There’s no harbinger this time: no white van, no helicopter sounds, no Dodge Charger. Yet paranoia cannot be abrogated, whether substantive or not, much the way one who suffers from depression cannot simply choose to be happy. I pull over and pour out a cap of GBL. This never works, yet it’s the only antidote I know. Doing something bad for us because it feels good isn’t a paradox exclusively designed for addicts; we’re just the experts. As the GBL melts away my strife and I settle into my pleasure zone, this time I don’t crave sex; rather, I’m yearning to feel my voice sing the way it did when I was younger, going to summer concerts under the stars, reverberant and unrestrained. I scan the radio and land on a country station playing Bonnie Raitt’s “Angel from Montgomery.” I belt out the lyrics the way Mom and I would while driving down winding Pennsylvania back roads until my voice drops out as my consciousness slips away.

My eyes open to darkness. A restraint holds me back. It’s a seat belt. I’m in a van, the same U-Haul van, but I am not alone. Whispers echo behind me.

“Who’s there?” I shout.

Boxes are stacked too high for me to see. I roll the window down and lean my head out when an utterance emerges from my right. I rotate my gaze toward the intruder right as a glass bottle shatters over my head.

It is now morning, and rather than wiping the dried rheum from my eyes as one might after a restful night’s sleep, I swab away scabby en crusted blood dust. I collect scalp lacerations these days like one collects rare stamps. Everything that was inside the U-Haul is now gone, aside from a small box containing five days’ worth of outfits, as if the perpetrator meant to precisely communicate my remaining allotted time here in San Francisco in business. They’ve taken eight pounds of (fronted) meth, my passport, and, just to really fuck with me, I presume, the van keys. Nord urges me to go to the hospital, but I’ve got another agenda. We canvass every building on the block for cameras. I’m frenetic. I’m that guy who makes anyone he passes cross the street.

“I need to call my clients,” I bemoan.

“What are you gonna tell them?” Nord asks.

He looks at me like we’re down by twenty points with a minute in the fourth, the look of abject defeat. Profits are a luxury of the past. I now need to focus on staying alive. Survival requires identifying my attacker, then handing that name over to the Mexicans. The rules are suspended. This will end in violence, and I’m finally okay with that. I suppose everyone has a breaking point.

I sift through possible transgressors. Perhaps Ethan executed the attack. He would’ve known my location if his DEA cohorts were tailing me. Did he use their intel to go rogue, or was this a sanctioned operation, indebting me to the cartel to make me vulnerable to a cooperation agreement? Or perhaps this was the work of Jack’s organization. Did my stubbornness necessitate its heightened tactics? Did it know my arrest was imminent and decide that eradication would be the only feasible method to save me? Or perhaps it was a competing kingpin, one smart enough to stay anonymous, one who’s been slowly chipping z momentum. Or perhaps a fortuitous thief stumbled across an all-you-can-eat. This is when truth becomes the most valuable asset. I’m dogged in attaining it. To my surprise, telling the cartel that I’ve lost its money is not as torturous as having to disappoint my clients and my team by finally waving the white flag and closing shop. Pride is a funny little bitch.

Time speeds by, the next day arrives, and soon Nord and I are meeting with the manager who oversees the building next to where the U-Haul was pillaged and where I was attacked, hoping he’ll show us surveillance footage. When we arrive, the building manager is surprised to see me and claims that we’ve already spoken this morning and that he’s already emailed a copy of the footage to me. I exchange furtive glances with Nord. An imposter is pretending to be me to cover his tracks. When the manager asks me to prove my identity by showing him a photo ID, I have nothing to substantiate that I am who I am, and he swiftly insists we leave.

“At least you know now,” Nord says as we mosey back to his apartment, “that it wasn’t random.”

“I can’t pay you this week,” I apologize.

“Oh, it’s never been about the money for me,” Nord replies. “I just want a big part in your movie.”

“You really take that idea seriously?” I ask.

“I believe in you,” Nord says. “You’re the one to tell our story.”

At this point, I doubt there’s any hope of reclaiming my artistry. Why bare the ignominious minutiae of a risible protagonist? A deluded clown with illusions of grandeur who trusted everyone until he could trust no one at all. I’ve stopped believing a movie will ever happen. I’ve stopped caring whether it does. But having even one person believe in me is the fuel I needed to keep going.

I plod around San Francisco, ringing the doorbell of anyone who owes me money, until I’ve scrounged the $500 I need to get my car back, only to discover once I’m at the dealership that Nord hasn’t paid my premium for two months, the coverage has lapsed, and I now owe $4,000 for the repair bill.

I’m on the line with my grandmother. This is the first time, as an addict, where I’m finally desperate enough to beg a family member for money. I’ve seen most other addicts around me do this, countless times. My pride is in the gutter. My grandmother says we can all discuss once Mom lands at SFO. Pardon? When I call Christopher, he calmly states that he’s currently retrieving Mom from the airport and then they’re coming to help. While I wait, I lie down on a grassy hill outside the Ford dealership and am transported to a purer time when I could just sink my weight into the spiky yet cushiony terrain without any worries, but now I feel fire ants and spiders crawling up my side, hiding in the crease of my collar. Even insects are my enemies now.

An hour later, Mom and Christopher find me pacing up and down that same hill. Mom covers her mouth when she sees me and starts tearing up before taking me into her arms. I’ve become so accustomed to living inside this tunnel that I’ve barely noticed it until now, until seeing my loving family members through this blurry haze, this involuntary lens like an Instagram filter that my eyes and brain have concocted without my permission. I’m realizing the tunnel isn’t merely a visual manipulation but also a metaphor for when one can wholeheartedly believe something he also knows is not possibly true. I don’t have the desire to return an embrace until Mom’s warmth thaws my freezer-burned heart and I start to sob. For a brief moment, I’m no longer a criminal with an agenda; I’m a boy who needs one thing and this is it. This moment passes as quickly as it lasts before I’m shaking her down for the money to retrieve my car. She won’t consider helping, she says, until I’ve explained everything.

“We don’t have the time for that!” I bellow.

Mom cradles my head. “You’re my smart boy,” she says, “and you’re my boy, so I’m sure you understand that you can’t begin to get what you want until I have what I want.”

“And what’s that?”

“I need to hear, from you, exactly what’s happening.”

I have Christopher pop the trunk of his car, stipulating that everyone place their cell phones inside. They look at me with pity as I slam the trunk shut. They think this is extreme? They don’t yet know the painstaking lengths I’ve gone to cover my ass. I created a new email address exclusively for the Ford dealership to contact me regarding this repair just in case my primary email is being surveilled, ensuring the authorities can’t plant listening devices inside my vehicle before I pick it up. (I will forget this happened until I’m four years sober and getting an oil change in Pennsylvania, and the attendant at that Ford dealership asks if juddbennitt1980@gmail.com is still my email address. I’ll remember how even in my most paranoid moments, I thought to use the moniker of the first character I ever played in a film, and I’ll be assured that I never fully lost sight of myself.)

Christopher, Mom, and I sit under an elm tree, a full football field’s distance from any lurking humans, and I explain everything.

“So, if I don’t get back to work,” I conclude, “the Mexicans will kill Christopher. Do you want Christopher to die?”

The stare dubiously. Through my warped vision, they look like an amorphous Picasso painting.

“I’m hungry. Let’s get lunch,” Christopher proposes.

As we pull into a nearby shopping center, I spot a man who looks exactly like my ex-boyfriend Brantley waiting beside a militant woman with a ponytail.

“What is this?” I ask.

But before the gear shifts into park, I bolt. It is Brantley. Brantley intercepts my sprint while Christopher shackles me with both his arms and all his might like I’m a prisoner. This is rich, I think, having Brantley—of all people—intervene. It was our relationship and my introducing him to the joys of domesticity that veered him away from his own burgeoning drug addict tendencies. The lady with the ponytail approaches.

“You’re done here,” she declares. “You’ll be checking into rehab today.”

I shrug—it’s her death sentence. The men for whom I work will kill to preserve my value. This belief is the ultimate high, although I recognize it’s not an effective strategy, so I take a deep breath and reassess my approach.

“Sorry,” I say, “you scared me, is all.”

Ponytail begins explaining the accommodations Mom has secured for my rehabilitation. I ask to see pictures. Ponytail glares with shaky eyelids but nods, which unintentionally signals Christopher to loosen his clutch. I break free and sprint. Brantley takes chase. His legs are longer than mine, so I have three options: keep running and lose stamina, turn back and resume the intervention, or dive into moving traffic. I opt for the last. Cars honk and veer around me, but Brantley joins me on the freeway. Speed and determination, it’s a wonder I ever let this man go. When he lifts me up, two police officers have arrived and are demanding an explanation. Ponytail takes them aside as I notice a familiar man sitting in his Dodge Charger at the bottom of the hill.

I whisper to Mom, “That man’s following me,” then plead, “You have to believe me.”

“Okay,” she replies, and walks down the hill to investigate.

“No! Wait,” I call after her.

The officers inform our intervention crew that they will be taking me in.

“That cannot happen,” Ponytail asserts. “He’s expected at rehab today.”

“I have a job to do,” one officer replies, “and you’re in my jurisdiction.”

I elbow Brantley to take my bag, which contains the very last ounces of meth and GBL I was able to collect from my delivery team when informing each that we were going on a temporary hiatus because I didn’t have the guts to admit it was over.

Mom returns with the breath of oddity in her expression. “I approached the man,” she says, “because, honestly, it did look like he was watching you. I asked him if he had anything to do with you. He seemed caught off guard, and then without a word, he just sped off.”

This is the validation I need. I fully accept that excessive meth use plus sleep deprivation plus stress are presenting some hallucinations, but that doesn’t negate the rest. Mom gets it now. I’m certain it’s not a coincidence these locals showed up. The DEA had its man on me, who saw their asset was about to bounce and called in a favor. It couldn’t have been as simple as someone calling the police over some meth head dancing in traffic.

52

When I wake, I’m horizontal on a frigid metal table in a squalid win-dowless room, which I immediately recognize from television as a psych ward. I muster the energy to stand and attempt to leave, but the door is locked. I’m screaming like a child at the bottom of a well in my mind, but I don’t have the life force to marshal a squeak. This is what Big Mama meant by dopesick, when he begged me to supply him after making me promise I wouldn’t. I’m taunted by a blue light emanating from an ovular black device on the ceiling. I wonder how many different organizations are currently tapped into the feed, observing my next move, when the doctor enters and asks, “What’s your name? What is the date today? Who is the president?” Harry has asked me these same three questions every day since we met.

“You have visitors,” the doctor says.

I’m expecting two DEA agents to walk in and lay out their indictments, but it’s far worse: my family and Ponytail. I’ve never attended an intervention, but television provides that the hardest part is making the subject stay. How convenient for them that I’m on a 51/50, meaning they can hold me for up to seventy-two hours unless the doctor deems early release acceptable. I’m an actor, I remind myself. The best actions to play in this scene are willingness and acceptance. We sit in a circle of fold-up chairs, like an AA meeting—a glimpse into the future, I worry. Ponytail, whose demeanor is now cloyingly mawkish, initiates the guilt-laden ceremonies.

“You have so many who love you,” she says, and grins, “so many who are terrified for you …”

She instructs Christopher to open the manila envelope of letters and begin reading.

As I write this, I’m staring at the New York skyline. I’ll forever see it as our city, filled with memories and reminders of projects we’re destined to accomplish, where you gave me a place to sleep and grieve after my breakup, supporting me when I needed it most. The last time I saw you, you gave me your room then avoided me completely. Perhaps it was impossible to reconcile two opposing universes. I said you looked worn out. You stared back, nodding in silence. When you drove me to the airport, you told me everything. You asked me not to share this with anyone. That trust was so precious, I kept your secret, all the while wondering if I wasn’t letting you down by doing so. But I knew then what I know now, that you’re too deeply intelligent, resourceful, and passionate to ever pass the point of no return, no matter how much you play with fire.

Guillaume’s letter then ends the way every one of them does, pleading for me to surrender. I touch my heart because that’s what affected people do. Surrender seems too easy. The true challenge would be to rebuild my business, square up with the Mexicans, and uncover the disparate factions who’ve worked to conquer me, then to leave on my own accord. Or perhaps I’m simply too scared to reenter a society where I no longer belong.

The letters continue for over an hour. Mom’s fiancé remarks on having found another son when he met Mom. My high school best friend, Brittany, recounts sharing proverbial earbuds and dancing our way through ostra-cization toward a shared passion for film. My college pal Nena reminds me how I offered her a safe home when her mother died after suffering years of meth addiction. Caretaker. Chef. Artist. Nurturer. Problem solver. Friend. Lover. Brother. Son. I don’t know this man. I can’t find him. I’m the dude longing to hear that click-click of the torch, to feel that silky stack of Benjamins, to bend over that chair in a misty room as any number of unnamed men penetrate me from behind, anything besides this. I lay my head in my hands but temper the performance by holding off tears. Nearly a year has elapsed in their world. In mine, it’s been an eternity. The room sits silent when the letters have ended, and they wait.

“I’m ready,” I say.

We’re now driving to the airport. I refuse to look at my mother, as I can’t bear to witness her sweet relief, knowing it won’t last. I’m not ready. That was merely a machination to get out of my 51/50. I knew it when I first saw Mom and Christopher, the way my blurry tunnel warped their faces like being on hallucinogens. It’s different from when I see Nord or Harry or Jack even; they belong in this tunnel. Everything outside of this world is alien, and I don’t belong with them anymore. I don’t know what my next move will be, but it can’t include getting on a plane with them. The only way to save them is to let them go. So …

As we approach a stoplight, I wait for it to turn green and for Christopher to begin accelerating before opening the back door and rolling out of the car. The vehicle slows briefly, then accelerates again. I glimpse at my mom’s hand grasping the door handle, and the door closes. No one comes after me this time.

I’m stuck in San Mateo County, the land of draconian laws where every criminal drives the speed limit, knowing what would be deemed a slap on the wrist inside San Francisco’s city limits amounts to a death sentence here. I need out, fast. My phone is at 2 percent. I have one final liter of GBL at Nord’s, which I’ll parlay into enough cash to buy an ounce of crystal from Zander and repeat, until I have a respectable sum to appease Jose and save my brother. Wait, or was that just an empty threat I used to manipulate my family? I’m losing track of what is a proven truth versus a belief versus a theory versus a manufactured truth (aka a lie). Jack is my first call, presuming he’ll swiftly come to my rescue.

“I can’t help you anymore,” he replies.

I take this to mean that the Organization is adjourning its efforts. When the perfect escape opportunity had presented itself, I callously resisted.

“Will I ever see you again?” I ask.

“I hope so,” Jack intimates before hanging up.

The second the call disconnects, my phone rings again, now illuminating Ethan’s picture of him giving the upside-down peace sign with pursed lips like the Olsen twins. When the hell was this photograph taken on my new iPhone, and who assigned it to his contact? And yet, knowing everyone has eyes and ears on me makes me feel less alone, as I walk along this freeway in tattered jeans, gashes galore.

I answer the call by simply asking, “Can you come get me?”

Ethan rolls up twenty minutes later in a crudely repainted lime-green Ford Crown Victoria with a red light attached to the interior dash, a former patrol vehicle dressed up for Halloween.

“Where we goin’, man?”

“Nord’s,” I reply. “I need to grab my shit.”

“I thought you retired,” he gibes.

We sit in silence as he drives us back to the city. When I finally can’t take it any longer, I blurt out, “I saw the footage of you in the back of the U-Haul.” (I’m bluffing.)

“Bro, I’m worried about you,” he replies.

“Just tell me!” I clamor.

“What do you wanna know?”

“Everything,” I say. “I can’t live in the dark any longer.”

Ethan grins and says, “Then step into the light.”

After retrieving my GBL from Nord’s, Ethan promises to take me to Trevor’s tweaker house so I can sell the liter to Patrizio, the sex worker who lives in the spare room. We’re back in his Crown Victoria and he’s speeding down Market Street like it’s a trial for the Daytona 500, veering between commuters, cutting off the railcar. Neither of us says a word. This is a game of psychological chicken, until it becomes a physical one. We’re approaching a red light. A minivan ahead of us is backing out of its parking spot. Ethan’s foot never considers the brake. He turns his head. We lock eyes. His eyebrow dances, and he lets out a delighted heh as we plow into the back half of the minivan. Both our airbags deploy, filling the car with ashen powder. Ethan, as if he’s not covered in white dust, placidly points to the GBL liter that’s been lobbed from my bag into the back seat. Why has he done this? Purposefully crashed into another vehicle, and for what, to scare me? This is the thing of nightmares: the villain’s motives are unclear, but the lengths he’ll go to instill terror knows no limit, even welcoming collateral damage.

“You might wanna conceal that before any real cops come,” he snickers.

I grab it, then hurtle down Market Street, passing Hi Tops, a raging gay bar with two dozen pride flags flapping in the wind outside, its second-level balcony brimming with six-packed men in neon underwear, perhaps my destination in an alternate dimension where vodka Red Bulls and drunken sex would suffice. I turn into the Castro and reach for my burner that contains my regular clients’ numbers to call Patrizio before remembering that it’s in the bag I gave Brantley back in San Mateo. Jose and Ricardo are undoubtedly calling that number and reaching a voicemail I never set up. They’ll soon suss me out in more creative ways. I stare at Patrizio’s buzzer, trying to recall his apartment number, when a man exits. He lights a cigarette, and I can feel his leer. He is the spitting image of an elderly Don Knotts: snow-white hair, affable smile. His T-shirt reads BONNIE RAITT, NICK OF TIME. It’s threadbare, as if he purchased it from the merch stand when Bonnie toured that album in 1990, a concert I attended with Mom where I was placed onstage by a security guard who was trying to impress Mom right as Bonnie introduced the band, where I handed her roses and was invited backstage afterward, an evening I would recount in my college application essay about being four years old and hoisted onto a stage from which I never wished to descend. The man’s hat contains a Philadelphia 76ers logo, the vintage emblem from when Charles Barkley was their star power forward, and I remember when Uncle John would take me to their games, when I walked onto the court at halftime and asked Pat Croce, then the team’s athletic trainer, if I could become a ball boy and I learned that having the courage to ask for what you want is the first step toward success. The man flicks his barely smoked cigarette, makes eye contact with me, then raises both his hands and gesticulates as if shooing me backward.

“Go back?” I ask him.

His cell phone rings, and he answers in Russian. I bolt up the stairs and knock on Patrizio’s door. Patrizio can see I’m clearly frazzled, so he pours me some ginger ale with a dropper full of GBL and instructs me to drink it.

“Can you trust anyone here?” I ask him as the relaxant works its magic.

“Nope,” he replies.

“Where even are we?” I ask.

“We’re in Tweakerworld, babe,” he replies.

I lie on Patrizio’s bed and allow myself the rare pleasure of closing my eyes. Tweakers don’t rest. We either fall out from G or drop into an unconscious state when our bodies finally capitulate. I remember the formative sex talk Mom gave me and her cornerstone advice: to have sex only with someone you trust. I’ve renounced that wisdom. Here in Tweakerworld, the opposite prevails. Our brains are rewired to exclusively enjoy sex with those we cannot trust. We treat each other like breathing sex dolls. I wonder if this damage to my sexual appetite can be repaired, or am I better suited to stay here forever? There is one person who, despite his flaws, remains devoted to me. Harry has been in our Airbnb for two days without a phone or any clue as to why I disappeared. His gravitational pull springs me from my dysphoria. I run toward our rental. The air is crisp, yet bullets of sweat fall from my face as if trudging the basins of the Amazon. I feel a pang in my abdominal region, then nothing.

53

“He’s awake!” the silhouetted lady shouts from above.

A strange man and woman wearing white coats hover over me. I am reclined. This seat is stiff, frigid, and uncomfortable. What is this, some kind of dental torture chamber like in Marathon Man? My legs kick involuntarily.

“He’s doing it again,” the man hollers. “Tighten the restraints!”

Two leather belts are wrenched taut around my wrists.

“Where am I?” I ask, attempting to keep my eyes open, as a magnetic force hopes to seal them shut.

The female nurse informs me that I’m back at UCSF Medical, that a man walking his dog found me at 3:00 A.M., passed out, lying atop a sewer grate in Diamond Heights.

“When the medics brought you in, you were punching and kicking while unconscious.”

“That’s G for you,” I reply.

“GHB?” she asks. “Is that what you took?”

I haven’t the patience to school this lady on the nuances between various forms of G, but I assure her I won’t kick or punch any further, so she unwraps the belts.

“I understand you have a rehab waiting for you,” she cheers.

Hearing this, I know she’s spoken to Mom, who is likely on her way here. I leap up and make for the door but am paused by a swift hand to my chest.

“Please wait,” the nurse begs, her eyes welling with tears. “I lost my son the same way. You’ve been admitted here twice in two days. Addicts rarely survive a third.”

“Tell my mom I love her,” I say.

The next morning, I return to the Ford dealership. My credit cards are all maxed out, but I still have an impeccable credit score from years of stringent financial decisions, always trying to make Dad proud. Also, I can be quite the negotiator when given the opportunity. We strike a deal, rolling the repair bill for my old C-Max into the purchase of a new car, and within an hour I’m driving off the lot in a brand-new crimson Prius that I can be assured hasn’t been bugged by the authorities.

Mom texts that she’s flying home and refuses to return to that cesspool of a city. I contemplate whether this is another trap, trying to have me come to Berkeley, back on their turf, so they can pull out whatever tricks remain up their sleeves and drag me off to rehab.

You’ll just have to trust me, she says.

In all likelihood, I’ll get out of the game once my debts are paid, but at this point I can’t be sure. And I can’t have me flinging myself from a moving car be the potentially last time Mom sees me. Nord allows me to shower and groom at his place, so I’ll arrive manicured and serene, facilitated by a microdose of GBL, of course.

Mom and Christopher are sitting opposite me in his living room on a green couch that once was mine and Curt’s. This encounter feels like an audition, a high-stakes objective between people who now feel like strangers.

“You’re not to call or text or email or even write us a fucking letter. Nothing until you surrender,” Mom adjures. “We are letting you go.” She’s put equal emphasis on each word, making sure I don’t miss a beat.

“The person you’ve become,” Christopher inserts, “we don’t know him.”

“I understand,” I reply.

Because there’s nothing left to say, this is goodbye. We can consider ourselves lucky. Few folks get this. I hold out my arms, welcoming Mom into one of her famous hugs. She winces as I wrap her tightly, but her grip is loose, detached, departed. Christopher hands me back my bag, but it is empty. They’ve dumped the meth and G into the bay.

I drive to Berkeley Point and park next to the vista overlooking San Francisco Bay. I crawl into the back seat, curl into a fetal position, and allow my body to release a year of tears, perhaps a lifetime of them. I travel through great joys of the life I’ve left behind. Winning “most original” at the Chadds Ford Great Pumpkin Carve. My seventh grade girlfriend, Taylor Wolfe, biting my tongue the first time we French-kissed in the woods. Caddying for Sergio García in a televised charity PGA tournament. Receiving my physical acceptance letter to NYU in the mailbox. Drafting my first screenplay in Panama with Guillaume. Holding hands with my first boyfriend in the West Village. Being flown to Tokyo to produce a movie. Touring the South of France for a Dior commercial. Kissing Curt for hours, hoping it would never end. How he must despise me now, or maybe not. Maybe he’s let me go entirely so that the memories can fade. It’s okay. I hate myself enough for us both. I wipe the tears away when a ring emanates from my bag.

“Hi, Jose …”

The brothers have devised a payment plan. They insist that I not give up, saying they’ve never known a talent like me, that I must rein in my usage and rely on them for enforcement, and assuredly I’ll rebuild and be back upon my proverbial throne in no time. How can I refuse? It’s high time I make somebody proud.

54

Humans disagree over politics and values, but mostly we concur on the overarching logic that shapes our existence. When we see a man pushing a shopping cart, shouting at no one, we dismiss him with one word: insane. But to him there is purpose. He’s operating with reasons truthful to him. His alternative understanding challenges our conceptual safety, so we banish the mentally ill rather than seeking to penetrate the nuances. Psychosis is like a dream. It might seem random, but there’s a delicate landscape of abstract communications stemming from within the deepest chambers of the mind and soul. Perhaps this explains my tunneled vision: my brain was forcing me to focus only on what’s immediately in front of me, hoping I might start sorting out what’s real by making all the extraneousness go blurry.

Since I’ve spurned Ethan’s futile attempts to have me become an informant, the DEA’s intention to take me down feels palpable. Skip advised me that the feds could have all the supporting evidence in the world, but they’ll still need an inciting crime for the arrest. Knowing this fact, I’m certain (in nearly every moment) that they’re coming, but now with enhanced methods.

Zander is my supplier again, until I can accumulate a first payment for Jose. A customer sends me an article about a new strain of meth that’s circulating San Francisco that the authorities have trained dogs to snuff out from yards away. When I spot Ethan exiting Zander’s hotel that same afternoon, I conclude that the two of them are now in cahoots to nail me and that Zander has sold me this highly sniffable product. A melee ensues. Every terrier, Labrador, poodle, beagle, pug, boxer, and greyhound I encounter now warrants my consternation. I’m back on the street, a low-level dealer like when I began, yet there’s never been such a menacing risk at every turn. I never realized how many San Franciscans own pooches until each one of them became a threat to my freedom. I charge out of Walgreens without paying when I spot a Chihuahua in a shoulder tote. I walk in the streets, dodging traffic to steer clear of the sidewalks where canines trot. Every bark echoes in my eardrums like a gun going off in an amphitheater. I hear so differently now, like a sound engineer has remixed any audio that frightens me to be more prominent. When I hear an encroaching growl from behind, I pick up my pace, only to be met with another furry devil galloping toward me and I’m trapped. I slip through the crack of a fence into an empty parking lot and hunch behind a dumpster so that my adversaries cannot snuff me out. The hunters and their human counterparts, clearly federal agents disguised as dog owners, remain outside the fence, blocking the path to my car, but the hounds have me in their crosshairs. I venture halfway across the parking lot.

Sic him! I’m certain I hear one of the men command.

I run back to the corner of the parking lot and dump every last speck of meth down the sewer drain. The agents, each in a muscle shirt, kiss on the cheek and part ways. As I approach my vehicle, I pass a dachshund who’s eager to say hello. I bend over and scratch behind its floppy ears. I really do love dogs, and I can again live in harmony with them now that all that dastardly meth is gone.

Later in the day, I drive past Arthur’s apartment, curious whether I’ve been replaced with a new drug-dealing roommate who will pay exorbitant rent for that palace of sanctuary. I spot a man standing on the balcony. He is my twin. His face is slightly pudgier, but his lanky physique and Mediterranean skin are a perfect match. He paces, talking on the phone. I open my window to listen.

“Mom,” he says, “it’s me. I’m coming home today. Why now? Well, you see, I must. For if I’m stubborn, I won’t witness another sunrise for twenty years.”

My doppelgänger glances down at me then turns away. My goodness, that elevated, near Shakespearean cadence with which this actor speaks! The Organization is back! And this is its most fervid warning yet. I must dispose of all my remaining GBL and money, because I’m certain the bills are marked and will serve as evidence at trial if I don’t. I unscrew the cap and pour all the GBL out the window. The wind deflects half the liquid back into the car while the rest corrodes the crimson exterior. I gather a stack of bills in my largest silicone measuring bowl, using both knees to steer. Black semicircles form on my jeans from the GBL melting the steering wheel.

“Better stained than chained,” I say to myself, disappointed no one is ever around to hear my best lines.

I grab the crème brûlée torch and click-click, but money doesn’t burn quickly like paper, it takes a sustained flame. The fire rises so high, I fear the Prius’s cloth interior might burst into flame. I douse it with lemonade, extinguishing the flames, praying I’ve obliterated every incriminating serial number when my eyes shift back just in time to see a child dart into the street. I slam on the brakes within centimeters of vehicular manslaughter. I get out and profusely apologize to the child’s mother. My new car’s interior has been reduced to melted plastic and ash. Six hundred dollars remain intact. I’ll need to wash these bills.

Yes, psychosis is much like a dream, only it occurs while we’re awake. Thus, it encourages us to act rather than simply marinating in unconscious messaging.

55

Jack forces a 4.0mL GBL dose down my throat to induce sleep. As I’m nodding off, I can hear him recounting everything I’ve sputtered since barging in, but to whom is he speaking? When I wake to an empty apartment the next morning, I wonder whether the Organization ever even existed. Isn’t is possible Jack has been DEA all along? Were his theatrics and gaslighting a mere enfeeblement effort? I dart out while he’s showering and race over to Zander’s, sure to avoid cues from any pedestrians, after having spent twelve hours yesterday interpreting passersby’s ear taps and head nods as Organization members across the metropolitan area wearing earpieces and nudged me toward a safe landing in a Vacaville Burger King parking lot.

Zander lays an ounce of meth on the table, but I can’t bring myself to hand him the money. What if I was right when I saw him with Ethan, and he is now working as an informant?

“Can I pay you later?” I ask.

“You should quit,” he replies with a nod of faint approval and a sigh of dismay.

At first, I chalk up his sentiment as a rival hoping to nullify competition, but the commentary doesn’t cease. My entire day is besmirched with insinuations. One customer tells me to book a flight to Austin and see if that city is a better fit. Another customer suggests I utilize my film skills and transition into gay porn. One after another share ideas of alternative paths, as if the consensus is that I’m not cut out for this job. This could be the result of insisting everyone pay me later, fearing any one of them could be undercover. Accepting cash for drugs has become as unthinkable as sticking a sewing needle in my left pupil. I once had the acumen to start this city’s first ever organized crystal meth delivery ring. I controlled the market. I fixed prices. Where did that guy go?

At the end of my night, I’m approaching a client’s front door in the Mission when a blaring soundscape abruptly stops me in my tracks. Unseen speakers are playing a cacophony of slowed down banjo music that could have scored a Gary Cooper western blended with dialogue that sounds like it’s been run through a demonic filter.

Place the order, the first person says.

Sending it to my old place on Hill Street, the second person replies.

It’s on you if this goes awry, Person #1 says.

What do I type? asks Person #2.

Person #1 answers, Clean star forty-four dot P-L.

This dialogue repeats on loop. It is verbatim what Stanley and I exchanged the first time we ordered GBL from Poland. I search the street for an audio source when I notice a license plate that reads 7BM4DEA. Mostly every California plate starts with a six or seven, but beyond that I decipher a message: Batman was DEA. Finally, I’ve found an answer. I proceed to read and translate every license plate on the street like hunting for Easter eggs. 6HW1F3D: Harry Waxman is a fed. 7JMUH4L: Jonas and Mikey were the ones in the U-Haul. 7BAB4SB: Baby was working for Stanley and Betty. 6GT0UTJ: Get out, Jason. But before I can code break any more plates, Nord calls.

“Do you get it yet?” he asks.

“This was you?” I reply.

“Stanley has flown the coop,” Nord says. “He regrettably didn’t make the cut. Are you next?”

I see now they’ve been testing me to see if I might ascend into the coveted position as one of their few chosen elite dealers. Apparently, Stanley was also under examination and failed. My entire community is involved, and Nord is their spokesperson, their gatekeeper. The thefts, raids, arrests, and catastrophes were all theater. A true dealer doesn’t run from anything, real or imagined. That’s the lesson. He certainly doesn’t refuse to take money, fearing arrest. He shows up and he does his damn job. And if all goes smoothly and roles are adequately assumed, the ecosystem may flourish. I was a promising candidate, but my need to expand clouded me with paranoia, and now I’m being asked to leave. I’ve failed their test.

“What must I do to stay?” I ask Nord.

“You must give the one who loves you what he needs,” Nord replies.

I know what must be done. To gain official acceptance into Tweaker-world, I must harmonize with Harry. He must approve my integration like a sponsorship. I’ve hurt him ten thousand ways, prioritized work, lied to and abandoned him. I’ve withheld the truest expression of my love: my sex. I’ll give myself to him tonight and every day moving forward. I’ll be a superior dealer and an even better lover. I’ll earn my wings. This is now my home.

When I walk into the Airbnb, Harry is sitting in silence, staring at the wall. He knows I was coming.

“Ready?” he asks.

I nod, then remove my pants, crawl onto the bed, and bend over.

“I’m yours,” I say.

I don’t want sex in this moment. I need to fulfill an obligation, and this is the means to that end. Liberties seem worth sacrificing for acceptance. How is this any different from the hundreds of other sexual encounters I’ve had here? Harry’s penis is sizable, despite the mantra his abuser made him repeat, and it’s been weeks since anyone’s entered me. Each thrust thrashes with brutality. I vocalize the pain, but Harry pushes my face into the pillow.

“Make me wait this long, then whine?” he says. “Show me you love me.”

I bite the pillow and breathe through the agony. I try to recall the last time I took PrEP, knowing full well that Harry’s been off his HIV meds since we met.

This current reality is the ultimate repose. This reality allows me the brazenness to rebuild. The community has spoken. They’ve taken me down a few pegs using obstreperous theatrics in order to safeguard our subculture from gaining the attention of the authorities. If I can keep it small and manageable, we all may live another day as zombies.

Two days have elapsed, and I can’t fathom why every single person in the city is now looking at me. No matter where I go, every shopper, driver, commuter, tourist, cashier, you name it, all of them are pointing their phones my way. What has placed me in this universal spotlight? I set forth to Union Square, the epicenter of huddled masses, weaving through sketch artists and palm trees and techies who can’t afford to lease commercial real estate all using hot spots and fold-up card tables with a lawn chair to conduct their business meetings in paid parking spaces. I check myself in the reflection of an HSBC. I may look a tad gaunt, but nothing comparable to the horde of unhoused individuals this city continues to fail. Rather than ignoring everyone, I return their leers, hoping one might offer a clue. A corpulent man wearing a Chicago Bears sweatshirt exits the Apple Store holding his phone up, filming me.

“Tell me what’s happening!” I scream.

“You’re on Facebook Live,” he replies.

I’ve been off social media for over a year now and have never heard of Facebook Live. Google provides that it’s a new video platform allowing users to upload content like YouTube, but that it’s also releasing several series, some fictional narratives, others documentary. One series in development would enable users to contribute footage of a subject or event, which the editors would then splice together in real time. The article coins this crowdsource filming. I understand now that I’m the protagonist of a docuseries about a privileged middle-class outsider who aims to become a crystal meth kingpin and fails pathetically. Every moment of my life this past year has served as entertainment. What a fool I was to think this was some community initiation ritual. That was merely a scene, a diversion, a plot line. It’s one thing to tell my story on my own terms, but this is exploitation. Perhaps I should stay here and accept my role. Everyone loves an underdog. I’ll rise again, a confident, worthy dealer, and I’ll earn the respect of my fellow tweaker society while capturing the hearts of audiences around the world. Isn’t that kind of like what happened in The Truman Show?

56

If the mind were a radio and each song was a new thought, then embodying divergent realities is like listening to a station of unfamiliar music. I can learn the rhythms and soon enough I’m singing along, that is until I unintentionally press the scan button. That rapid succession of being thrust into the midst of something that’s meant to be experienced as a whole is a form of suffering. My mind is stuck on the scan feature, but one that only stops on nonbroadcast frequencies, that space between stations playing an amalgamation of overlapping broadcasts layered with execrable static. I’ve devolved into reality fusions. Maybe the community is testing me, but there’s also a DEA investigation. Maybe the docuseries exists, and so does the benevolent Organization. Perhaps Harry works for the feds but also plays my boyfriend in the docuseries. Parsing out plausibility is inefficacious when truth is decided by feelings over facts. If I can’t sort it, I must escape it.

I’m driving past the city limits, carrying $600, three ounces of meth, and a hundred-dollar Cheesecake Factory gift card that Nord procured when I’d asked him to buy me an Amex gift card in order to wash the bills that I was certain were marked. “Issues,” by Julia Michaels, comes on the radio. She sings about a flawed relationship that might thrive if they could only be messy together. Throughout all the puzzles in Tweakerworld, one constant endures: all pop music carries consequential messaging. I can abscond from this multiverse in search of a new home where my fears and troubles won’t follow, but what’s the value if I go it alone? I make a U-turn.

Harry doesn’t care where we’re going as long as we go together. Palm Springs, he suggests, is far enough away but still has a prolific tweaker community. I’ll start a new meth business. We’ll build a nourishing life in the desert, distanced from the traumas of San Francisco.

Halfway down the coast, we stop for gas when I’m suddenly convinced Harry’s phone is allowing federal agents to listen in. While he’s in the restroom, I hightail it two miles down the road before remembering the wreck I caused the last time I’d abandoned him in Santa Cruz. So, I turn the car around, and minutes later I see him—Harry’s lower lip pro truding as he gets back in the car, but we know how we’re each messy in our own ways, so he doesn’t ask for an explanation.

When the Riviera’s desk clerk asks if the bellboy might carry up our luggage, Harry realizes that amid the excitement of this surprise relocation, he hasn’t packed one article of clothing. We drive to the mall, but Harry insists on staying in the car, which isn’t surprising. This is the man who spent months in my bedroom, a prisoner of his own making. I silently vow to myself that in our new life, I’ll shed him of this isolationist trait.

“Good luck in there,” Harry says sneeringly.

I’m perusing the clearance rack when I spot a mustached man across the room. I am his singular focus. Ensuring the docuseries hasn’t followed us, I peer around the store to see if everyone else is watching. They’re not, but the mustached man is speaking into his Bluetooth.

I’ll be on him at the register.

This must be why Harry stayed in the car and why he “forgot” to pack. His assigned task was to remove me from San Francisco and have me make a purchase using these marked bills so DEA agents can finally swoop in and make me their bitch, forcing me back into business with the cartel as a snitch. I walk out of the store without spending a dime.

“Where are my clothes?” Harry asks.

“Good try,” I reply, “but we’ll be cleaning this cash before spending one dime.”

Harry presses his palms into his eyes. “I want to scream,” he whispers, almost singing his words, “but I won’t.”

Back at the Riviera, I watch Harry as he naps, wondering why he’s never let me top him. Every tweaker who’s had sex with Harry (and that’s a lot of people) has told me that he’s strictly a bottom. I don’t get it. If he loves me, why not let me enter him? That’s the logic he used just a few nights before, when he plowed me with affliction. I visit the hotel’s laundry room to turn twenty (most likely marked) dollars into quarters, cleaning the money, then drive to the nearest Walgreens, where I purchase silicone lube.

I shake Harry, waking him from his nap. “You’re getting fucked,” I tell him.

“Fuck you,” he replies, not fully awake.

“You want a life with me?” I ask. “Then show me.”

I jump on the bed and hold him down, but he’s far stronger. A slight shove sends me rolling onto the bristly hotel carpeting. He stands above me, rollicking with glee, then takes my bag and disappears out the door. I chase him down the hallway. He skips the elevators, and we dart into the stairwell and down four flights and out an emergency exit and into the steaming-hot asphalt parking lot.

“Who are you working for?” I shout.

He warns me to stand back, threatening to call the police and say that I tried to rape him. I believe him because I know Harry will go to any lengths to avoid doing something he doesn’t want to do, whether it’s lie about his mother dying or this.

“Just give me my shit!” I scream.

“Come get it,” he replies.

As I run toward him, he slams me with the full force of his body mass, and I collapse onto the ground. By the time I’ve stumbled my way to standing, he is gone. I wait in our room for hours, imagining Harry using my meth to get invited to parTies, getting fucked by innumerable men. Eventually, I mosey down to the bar and order a negroni, the first alcoholic beverage I’ve consumed in over a year, then one more. The booze imposes consummate tranquility, tethering me back to reality reality. I should’ve tried this earlier, but a speed addict never wants to come down. Now, I’m rattled for practical reasons rather than those imagined ones. Harry’s magnetic force sets its grips, and I take off again in search of my lost puppy.

“License and registration,” the officer barks.

She squints, shining her flashlight into the windows, wondering why my vehicle’s interior is covered in acid and burn marks. She asks if I’ve had anything to drink. I admit to having had one cocktail hours ago and volunteer to do a sobriety examination. I perform the one-leg-stand, the walk-and-turn, and the horizontal-gaze tests, crushing them all.

“Shall I recite the alphabet backward?” I ask.

Apparently, police no longer consider this test expedient, since many just memorize the sequence. I’m one of those people. While she pats me up and down, I wax philosophical, pointing out how there’s really no need for the alphabet to have any order at all.

“What is this?” the officer asks, extracting a baggie from my coat pocket.

It’s an eighth of MDMA I bartered for six months ago then forgot about. It’s enough to serve thirty-six people and would carry an intent to distribute charge.

“Meth, ma’am,” I reply. “It’s crystal meth.”

Oh, the irony of finally being arrested, but for possession of such a minuscule amount of meth that isn’t even meth at all. My focus remains on how cold these handcuffs are, even in ninety-degree temperatures. The officer places me in the squad car before getting a phone call. She steps out to answer it. I’m trying to decipher the tone of whoever is on the other line, giving her instructions. There’s always a bigger boss in a room somewhere calling the shots. When the officer entered my information into the system, it must’ve alerted the feds who’ve been pursuing this exact opportunity, which has now been served to them on a platter.

At the police station, a phlebotomist takes my blood while another officer provides me with a jumpsuit—no stripes or orange like on TV, just khaki garb that smells oddly and refreshingly like celery. The five offenders in line to be fingerprinted before me are all placed in the same cell with another dozen or so tough-looking dudes, but not me. They escort me past “gen pop” into my own suite. The DEA agent who’d phoned my arresting officer must’ve given explicit instructions to keep me safe. I’ll soon be an asset. Lacerations and black eyes beg unwanted inquiry. No one informs me how long I’m to stay here. I repeatedly ask for my call, only to be ignored. I could call Skip for legal guidance, or I could call Jack and, assuming the Organization is real, he’d get me out of this jam entirely. But the Organization cannot possibly be real. Could it? Is it the extended meth use or lack of sleep or both that’s caused this unwonted schism of the mind: to believe something and know it’s not true.

An officer approaches my cell, opens a laptop, and positions it toward me. He opens YouTube, then plays the music video for Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye,” the same song Jack played for me on the day the agents were following me around Nob Hill. This song is an anthem of a mother’s undying commitment to save her child. And I know now that I’m safe. It wasn’t the DEA on the line. It was the Organization.

In the morning, I’m released. My Prius is impounded and will cost $500 to retrieve. Another $150 will be applied every twelve hours it re mains. I have no wheels, no credit, nor a dollar to my name. When I call Harry, he hangs up. We share an iCloud account, so I track him to a motel called Sun Springs Lodge, then walk two hours in 110 degrees with no water, an empty stomach, and impending dopesickness. When I knock, Harry peers through the peephole.

“Go away,” he shouts. “I hate you.”

I hold the charges statement to the peephole to prove that I was arrested and gain some sympathy. He cracks the door without unhooking the security chain. I stand back and do my best Chuck Norris kick. The door smashes Harry in the face. He tries to close me out, so I throw my body against the door until the chain breaks. I stand tall and triumphant. I’ve seen this stunt in movies and always wondered whether I’d ever have the chance to attempt it. Harry isn’t impressed. He swings his fist back and pops me in the nose. I remain vertical in the corridor, so he winds back again and thwacks my left eye, landing me on the ground, then slams the door closed and deadbolts it.

“I warned you,” he says, “and now I’m keeping your shit as alimony.”

I call Brantley, begging him to retrieve me, pleading that he hurry, that I’m running out of time. He agrees to come with the caveat that he’s taking me directly to rehab. I have less than two hours for one final intoxicated hookup, as I’m certain sober sex will be miserable. I meet a couple who have GBL. They tolerate my diatribe about exiting their apartment today into the arms of federal agents with the slight chance of a rehab alternative. When I step back into the light of day, the helicopters emerge. A church bell rings in the distance, signaling the start of Sunday Mass. I remember Manuel Noriega taking refuge somewhere the feds couldn’t nab him and how they blasted Guns N’ Roses until he finally surrendered. I think it was a church? I bolt into the house of worship, swerving between congregation members, right up to the priest.

“Father!” I yell.

“Yes, son,” he replies. “How can I help?”

“I’ve done horrible things,” I say, “and today is my judgment day, but I’m not ready.”

He lays his hand on my shoulder, and I start to cry.

“Please grant me sanctuary,” I beg.

“There’s an open seat for you”—he points to the front pew—“right there.”

We’re halfway through the choir singing “Amazing Grace” when the helicopter sounds vanish, but I decide to stay for the entire Mass. Nothing comforts you quite like religion when you’re scared and lost and alone.

57

Brantley drives us to Los Angeles, telling me more about the rehab Mom has arranged in Florida: massages, art therapy, swimming pool, a world-renowned chef! I gaze out the window, inhaling cigarettes, worrying about how my community won’t survive without me. Brantley assures me that I’ll soon be redirecting my massive ego toward more advantageous ventures. As we begin seeing Los Angeles County signs, dozens of motorcycles surround us, riders nodding as they pass.

“Don’t go into LA,” I shout. “Stay on the 101!”

“Why?” Brantley asks.

I explain how Harry’s family are Hell’s Angels in Sacramento, how these bikers were sent to warn me that LA is not safe.

“Harry?” Brantley asks. “The person who battered your face?”

“He had to,” I argue. “He was protecting me.”

Brantley takes the off-ramp to Vermont Avenue. Guillaume is waiting at Brantley’s, claiming to be in town for a film shoot, but I know he’s playing a part in the larger effort. I believe now that the Organization has struck a deal with the feds, stipulating that if I go into rehab on my own accord, not because I’ve been told I’m facing charges, and if I disappear from San Francisco forever, I can walk scot-free. These terms have been explained to my family and friends, and thus they cannot relay them to me. My decision must be pure of heart. Both the Organization and the DEA can see and hear everything through my phone. The communications I’m now receiving are coming through sounds instead of music or words.

“What was that?” I beg for clarification.

“I just coughed,” Guillaume replies.

When Guillaume coughs, I know to believe the opposite of what he’s just said. When it’s not a human sound, it’s either the radio or computer speakers eliciting frequencies. The higher the pitch, the more truth one’s comment has. This is an alien language I’m being thrust into learning, and it’s unbearable. I sneak to the bathroom to hit my pipe. Each hit is like changing the channel, sifting through a Rolodex of realities. I finally land on the Drug Dealer Entrance Examination, the reality that poses no legal threat and allows me to return to work. I emerge rejuvenated, announcing, “I’m going back.”

I spend the next four days on the streets of Los Angeles, the same streets I once cruised down to film shoots and movie premieres. I meet a tweaker named Dorian who allows me to crash on his couch. While he sleeps, I listen to the radio, extracting messages, jotting notes, taking down the number of a lawyer and an accountant, the only ones in LA whom I’m allowed to trust. The DJ tells the story of a Wyoming cowboy who tries to make it in Texas and comes up against every tribulation imaginable. I make a map of this tale. The story is about me. It’s a metaphor, and it contains the truths of whom I can trust if I return. The Organization is supplying vital information for either path I choose. By morning, Dorian is a fame-hungry leech trying to break out in Hollywood by claiming a role in my docuseries. By afternoon, he’s an undercover fed. By night, he works for the Organization. I confide in him that the DEA is listening to my calls, and he convinces me to swap my iPhone for his iPad, then swiftly asks me to vacate his apartment. Once I realize I’ve traded away my indispensable notes from the overnight broadcast, it’s too late. I’m completely lost. After six dysphoric hours, I find Brantley’s apartment. It’s 4:00 A.M. He groggily answers the door, and I beg him to order me a Ryde back to Dorian’s so I can get my notes.

“Was I not clear?” Brantley says. “You get nothing.”

I drop to my knees, pleading, shaking my arms, convulsing.

He repeats, “Nothing.”

A diabolic frequency penetrates me. I jump on the couch and unleash satanic fury, calling him a “mama’s boy pansy-ass faggot,” reminding him how he’s never had to work for anything in his pathetic life.

“I hope someone shoots you in the head,” I yell, “you spoiled … fucking … cunt!”

I spit on the floor, then lift the television, threatening to pawn it. When he reminds me that I don’t have a vehicle to transport it, I forage the apartment until finding a coffee can filled with change that I dump into a plastic bag.

“This is mine now!” I insist.

“It’s mostly pennies,” Brantley retorts.

I survey the contents. He’s correct. It’s not much of a haul. I lift the bag over my head and release one final “fuck you,” then swat the bag forward. It explodes, sending a thousand-some pennies hurling through the air. Ceramic lamps shatter. Blinds fall from the windows, artwork from the walls. Only after every penny stops spinning are we left in a deafening silence. I see myself perhaps for the first time in a year. I’m repugnant. This cannot persist.

“Go,” Brantley whispers.

I book a flight to San Francisco using JetBlue miles, then pawn the iPad to buy a flip phone. I have just enough cash left over for a taxi to the airport. When the pawn shop’s radio starts playing Clean Bandit’s “Rockabye,” I begin to sob, and I cannot stop. I envision Mom stretching her arms as far as she can to rescue me from the bottom of a well, but she can’t reach. When I finally leave the pawn shop, a man approaches and offers me a “free hug,” then pickpockets my cab fare. The docuseries resumes, but rather than running from the crowdsource filmmakers, I turn to every onlooker, cartoonishly shrugging for the cameras. This is now a tragicomedy and I’m the self-aware protagonist. I can imagine the nineties sitcom score the editor is likely laying atop this footage. I walk into Gracie’s Pizza like the global internet celebrity I am.

“As you know, I’m out of money,” I reiterate to the pizza shop employees, “so you’ll have to settle for the free product placement.”

I order two pepperoni slices. They don’t ask for any money. However, the viewers must’ve suggested that they slip a laxative into my pizza to further the slapstick of it all, as I’m now standing on the corner of Melrose and Heliotrope with no money, no drugs, no credit, no car, having soiled myself. I find the nearest operable pay phone and call Brantley collect. He accepts the charges before a pregnant silence.

“I’ll go,” I say. “I’ll go.”

Ten minutes later, I’m reunited with my best friend and my loving ex-boyfriend. We’re riding back to Brantley’s as I gaze up to the sky.

“What are you looking at?” Guillaume asks.

Through tears, I reply, “Just the sky, so unattainable, yet so beautiful and clear. Why must it always rain on me?”

Once on Brantley’s couch, I swallow a benzodiazepine and am no more to this world. When I wake, five days have elapsed and I’m under crisp white sheets. A haggard young man extends his hand and asks, “What’s your drug of choice?”

58

This rehab is called the Retreat, an apt name to distract addicts from its true identity as a reeducation camp. Although Brantley’s culinary claims weren’t hyperbole. They serve crab cakes and Caesar salad on my first night. Brantley has packed me a case of American Spirits and the most recent Harlan Coben mystery novel. We attend classes, yoga, workshops, twelve-step meetings, and individualized therapy sessions, during which I parse through the myriad unsolved mysteries from Tweakerworld. My therapist redirects the discourse back to my present and future. A psychiatrist prescribes me an antipsychotic named Risperdal, which I let sit under my tongue, then chuck in the nearest waste bin. I’m not ready to let go of the story. I won’t look forward until I’ve sorted the past. After a week, I march into the director Julius’s office, insisting I leave the program at once. Julius responds by opening his laptop and playing the music video for Bruno Mars’s “That’s What I Like.” Julius is either an ad hoc Organization member or working on its behalf, and its message is clear, as always when told through pop music: all the riches I can imagine are mine (if I choose sobriety). I’ll later learn this was actually a delay tactic during which he called Mom, and she begged him to lie and say I was threatening self-harm, anything he could to keep me there.

After the music video finishes, I tell Julius, “I appreciate the effort, but I still gotta go.”

“I can’t stop you,” Julius replies, pointing out the window at a squad car, “but they can.”

My next tactic: I stop attending meetings and won’t leave my bed, attributing my restlessness to the all-encompassing fear that I’ve contracted HIV while in my addiction. I beg them to take me to the doctor for a test. Once I’m there, I sneak into the nurses’ station and book another flight to San Francisco, exhausting the remainder of my miles. I walk back into Julius’s office.

“Firstly,” I pronounce, “I have no intention to harm myself or others.”

And with that, they have no choice but to provide me with my wallet and open the gates. I am a free man once more. A nearby CVS employee says the airport is twelve miles north. I have seven hours to make it on foot. A drive-in theater I walk past is playing a live-action Beauty and the Beast. I wonder what other cultural milestones have happened while I was under a rock. The aroma of a Checkers eatery lures me. Not eating for two days is an eternity without the hunger suppressant of crystal meth. And for the first time in my life, I have the humbling experience of being hungry without the means to attain food. I approach car after car, asking for spare change.

“I’ve never been in this position before,” I explain, “but I’ve been in yours and have both given and refused.”

The offerings feel like magic, whereas the refusals hurt worse than any time someone stole thousands of dollars from me. I wonder if the rejection pangs get easier over time. I hope so.

After eating, my body loses stamina, and my pace slows. I accept that I won’t make it without help, when I remember that I’m not entirely broke yet. I ask strangers to drive me the final miles. Most slam their doors in my face, but one gentleman is willing to barter for my only remaining item of value. I trade him the $100 Cheesecake Factory gift card that’s been burning a hole in my pocket. Once I’m through security, I call Mom to inform her of my return to Tweakerworld.

“Tell me why,” she begs.

“I need to know what was real,” I say.

“Are you sure,” she asks, “you’ll get those answers?”

As the flight’s boarding, I begin mapping out my great return: where I’ll get a front, with whom I’ll crash, and how I’ll retrieve my car from Palm Springs. I’m primed and ready for chapter two of Tweakerworld to commence when I receive a text from Dad. This is the first time in over a year that I’ve heard from him directly.

Hey boy. Your mother has informed me of your decision to return to San Francisco. You’re a grown man and will make your own decisions, whether I agree or not, but allow me to offer my opinion. I did not raise my firstborn, send him to NYU, and insist he follow his dreams to have him become a criminal. It will break my heart if you choose to continue this life. Moreover, please know that if you get on that plane, if you do not go back to rehab, this will be the last time you’ll ever hear from me. As much as that will pain me, you know me, and I believe you know I am serious. I love you.

If any other family member were to float such a threat, I’d happily call their bluff, but Dad is a special breed. I’ve never related to his ability to cut people out, make them dead to him. It’s ruthless yet impressive. After a legion of terror-filled days in Tweakerworld, none was so frightening as Dad’s suicide scare. I hate myself for not having the wherewithal to save him, for shouldering Christopher with that burden. I imagine for a moment what it might look like if I halt my return, if instead I committed to a healthier way of life, discovered myself again without the chemical assistance, repaired these dysfunctional family ties, transformed my body, found a lover with whom I was always honest, brought children into this world and committed to ending the generational trauma by offering them boundless acceptance. I could be the impetus for reuniting this family rather than the one to tear us apart. The gate attendant is now calling my boarding zone. If I’m to believe Dad’s threat, then getting on this plane would be the same as if he’d actually followed through months ago. Boarding now in pursuit of answers means losing a parent; it means losing my family. And I wonder: How valuable is the truth?

59

Mom chuckles, finding me in her kitchen at 5:00 A.M. every morning making a yogurt parfait in a half-conscious state. Apart from this ritualistic probiotic intake, I sleep sixteen hours every night. At dinner, Mom sits directly across from me so she can keep a close watch on her firstborn. I attend recovery meetings and receive a thirty-day chip. I return to social media, presenting light truths on where I’ve been and who I’ve become. Old school friends send me messages, some alerting me to their sobriety, extending open hands. These contacts are touching, but I’m more interested in sending friend requests to all the tweakers I’ve left behind, hoping I might still solve the mysteries from the safety of Mom’s couch. Watching Jeopardy! with my grandmother one evening, seeing the contestants rake money in so quickly, I long for that opportunity again. I’ve left untold amounts of money on the street. So, I start texting every client who holds a debt.

Sorry I’ve been MIA, but could you Venmo me the money you owe? Thanks.

After sending the third text, my phone rings, a number I don’t recognize.

“Good afternoon, sir,” a woman says. “This is Beverly with the San Francisco Police Department. We can see that you’re attempting to make contact. I’m calling to notify you that one of the numbers you’ve called is in our possession here at the station.”

Huh. She’s said numbers with an S. Plural. Say the police does have one of my old clients’ phones in their possession. How could she have known that I’d texted multiple people? Perhaps this isn’t Beverly at the SFPD. I don’t know who she is, and I’ll likely never find out, but she’s conveying a message: No more. You’re out. Stay out.

A few weeks later, I receive a Facebook message from Harry informing me that he’s made it out of the desert and checked himself into a North Hollywood rehab.

I still love you, Jason! I wasn’t myself. We were in our addiction. Will you forgive me? I forgive you!

I hope never again to return to Tweakerworld, but I have this rare opportunity to answer one mystery: Was our love real? Could it flourish in sobriety like we dreamed it might? I’m certain no one else will understand what I’ve been through, so I need him, and he needs me in return. I pack my bags and book a flight for Los Angeles, where I’ll stay with my ex-boyfriend Brantley until I can afford my own place. I’ll drive Ryde until I identify who I am again. Am I still a filmmaker? Can I begin auditioning and reclaim my once abandoned pursuit as an actor? Perhaps I’m a writer. Why not all three?

Mom drives me to the airport. She never utters the word relapse once. We listen to Bonnie Raitt, singing aloud, singing together. When she drops me off, we hug with our whole bodies. She holds me closer than anyone ever could, and then, as one must, she lets me go. Neither of us expels any tears. She maintains a poised smile that offers hope, but I know, as does she, that in this world there are no guarantees.

Harry and I stay together for three months, but we evolve differently. I repair the relationships I’ve abandoned and revisit some of my favorite pastimes like stand-up comedy, concerts, podcasts, hiking, and writing. I tap back into my soul and am pleasantly reassured that it hasn’t been hollowed. Harry never hits me again, but his rage persists, the consequence of deep-seated trauma. I aspire to fix him but am reminded of the sagacious words of RuPaul: If you can’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? I return to Pennsylvania, to be nearer to a loving support system. I’m privileged and grateful for that privilege. I even give up cigarettes and coffee, never again wanting to experience artificial energy that requires another substance to subdue. Most of my friends welcome me back; others disappear. I talk to my family every day. My relationship with my father has never been so rich, open, and accepting. He frequently tells me how proud he is of the man I’ve become. My favorite times are when he elaborates and offers specifics. Nothing warms my heart more than him calling to console me after a recent breakup. That’s the acknowledgment I sought. But it sucks to find the stakes must rise to such heights for some people to change.

So many nights I dream about Curt and endeavor to forgive myself for the pain I’ve caused him. He left me, I believe, not because of the drugs, but rather the dishonesty. When I say I love you to my future partner, it will mean I honor him with ceaseless truth. I continue to struggle enjoying sex and being intimate without the chemicals. I’m working to heal. I continue to acknowledge then shed any internalized homophobia that was the impetus for my addiction. I cherish my gayness more and more every day! I don’t fear HIV nor harbor any stigma. I go to therapy. I show up. I express gratitude. I don’t regret. I plan. I dream. I pursue.

I persist.

EPILOGUE

So, what really happened back in Tweakerworld? I do believe I was under the microscope of some form of law enforcement and that I’m beyond blessed to be alive, healthy, safe, and sane. Harry once told me that we don’t get to take anything with us when we leave. That includes certain truths. I cannot explain much of what I saw or what I heard. One might argue my subconscious manufactured delusion, allowing my higher self to materialize in hallucinatory forms. Mom believes they were angels, messages from the Universe. I don’t really see the difference.

Zander will be busted only weeks after I escape and will be sentenced to ten years in prison. I’ll read a court transcript from when he’s denied compassionate release during COVID-19 and will find the judge’s mentioning how his mother has gone to great lengths to support him. We will occasionally write letters to each other.

Nord will move to the Midwest and continue the same PnP lifestyle but in a “far less glamorous” fashion, as he’ll put it to me before saying, “Proud of you, Daddy, for getting out like you said you would.”

Big Mama will get clean for a few months before relapsing and will be found dead in his car from fentanyl-laced meth. I will develop a friendship with his mother and will text her on Mother’s Day to remind her how even in the depths of our addiction, her son’s vibrant humanity found ways to shine through.

Stanley will not return to the drug business and will spend his following years trying out various short-lived “real” jobs, ultimately falling back on fraud. He still dreams about getting a “little dog.”

Jack will enroll at a culinary institute, realizing his dreams to become a pastry chef. He’ll continue splitting his time between his “real friends” and his “tweaker friends.”

Harry relapses twelve times over five years. Whether he’s holed up in a trap house, crying in a closet, or thriving in sobriety playing Skee-Ball on the Santa Monica Pier, he calls me most days. During the pandemic, he works in a Los Angeles hospital and is the first person I know to be vaccinated. I’ve rewritten this paragraph almost a dozen times, and I hate to say that I have no clue what side he’ll be on when you read it.

The reasons relapse occurs are manifold. The reason it lasts is shame. Shame is a defining characteristic within queerness and addiction. The effect of combining them is injurious. The gay community suffers a crisis of shame. Society has long told us that who we are is inherently wrong, that it must be changed or extirpated. We’ve witnessed progress, but this trauma runs deep. Meth functions as a false antidote, seemingly converting shame into pride, permitting men to engage in their sexuality in excess, unlocking a barbaric force that is ultimately detrimental to our well-being. But healing is possible. I’m not a recovery expert. I’ve written this book as an experiential journey, not a moralistic cautionary tale. However, for those recently out of their addiction, here’s a bit of what’s been working for me:

• Remain open to the question mark. Sobriety can be hauntingly vulnerable. Be excited by the open-endedness of life’s possibilities.

• Practice patience through gratitude and breathing deeply. Nothing comes as fast as we stimulant addicts are used to.

• Accept the darkness you’ve discovered within yourself. Many meth users take advantage of others while in their addiction. Forgive your actions—if not at once, then a bit every day.

• Hunt for the root causes that made the addiction appealing. When you identify each, confront it from a position of power. You’ve already seen the worst it can do. You own it now.

• Embrace cheese and oversentimentality. Don’t run from being a cliché. There’s a lot of joy there. What is a cliché besides a story worth repeating?

• Give longer hugs. Take in what the other person means to you as you embrace.

• Research the science behind how the chemicals altered our brains. Once you grasp how dopamine works, you’ll be able to move through the world like Sonic the Hedgehog, collecting coins of bliss from the simplest of moments. There’s actual science behind getting high on life.

• Never settle for someone who doesn’t kiss the way you like and who refuses to change.

• Accept tediousness as commonplace. When you stop seeking thrills, you’ll discover how thrilling mundanity can be.

• Make new associations. Build routines that feel good. Break them occasionally.

• Practice radical honesty. We’ve submerged ourselves in the bath of inherent dishonesty that’s intermingled with this vicious drug. Combat it with unrelenting truth.

• Love yourself. Love isn’t the action. It’s an effect of many small actions.

• Stand your ground and tell everyone who you are. If you aren’t sure yet, ask yourself and be okay if that answer takes time to appear.

• Fear nothing. Confront everything. Many will suggest that your addiction is a weakness. It is not. It’s your wisdom. You are stronger because of it. Your power keeps you healthy, not your fear.

• Ask for what you need. If the person you’ve asked can’t provide it, ask someone else.

• Immerse yourself in the thing you love most. Mine is storytelling. Writing this book has been my savior. It’s given me purpose as I’ve rebuilt. It’s provided the opportunity to release my demons, to speak the truth, to be seen in my entirety. Through revisiting Tweakerworld as prose, I’ve been blessed to leave it forever.

To my fellow queers who’ve been fortunate enough to not succumb to meth addiction, I implore you to reconsider how you view us. Many view PnP folk as the odious black sheep of our community. We are belittled and ostracized, made to feel other. Shame was the impetus for our struggle. Surely you can relate. Exercise empathy and extend a hand. We cannot get better alone.

And let it never be said that rebirth is easy. But it is worth it. I’ve spent my first five years in sobriety working a thankless job I despised, rebuilding myself, and writing this book. As I prepare to send the final draft to my publisher, I’m driving across the country, moving back to Los Angeles, where I’ll be pursuing a career in acting and writing once again. Sometimes the detour is indeed the best route. For as long as we’re breathing, it’s never too late to be happy.

A reader recently asked me if I believed I was both the hero and the villain in this story. True stories should not be reduced to such limiting archetypes. This book contains droves of bad decisions but arguably no bad guys. There’s no evil in addiction. There’s sickness. Society doesn’t discuss these nuances of addiction. We’re certainly not talking about the meth crisis in the LGBTQ+ community. At this very moment, an impressionable, young queer is on a smartphone app and is being asked, You wanna parTy? Someone must tell them what that means, what that really fucking means.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

There is a world you’ve never seen, a world you don’t know. It scares the shit out of me, and it should scare you too. An epidemic of crystal meth in tandem with viciously unsafe sex is threatening to annihilate the LGBTQ+ community. Queer folks are dying, again. And we’re doing nothing to stop it. Overdose rates are soaring. And while there are new treatments, there’s no transparency, no critical outreach, no cultural conversation. Epidemics like this remain invisible when primarily affecting queer communities. A few dedicated journalists, albeit most of them from the UK, have covered this ballooning scourge, but most of the media turns a blind eye or dismisses those who are suffering. Countless big-name publishers passed on this book, citing that it had no verifiable market because no one knows about this queer meth epidemic in America. No shit! I wonder why. But crystal meth in the gay community is not a passing fad or drug du jour. It is a lifestyle fueled by sweet release from traumas and inhibitions, hijacking men into delusionary senses of intimacy, combining chemical dependence with sex addiction, facilitated by smartphone apps and billion-dollar drug cartels, all in the guise of connectivity.

I wrote Tweakerworld, confessing to a slew of felonies, admitting sexual abuse, and revealing the most mortifying decisions I’ve ever made, because I need people to wake up. Sunlight is always the best disinfectant. Since getting clean, I’ve watched twenty friends and acquaintances die from this specific sect of addiction. I’m lucky. I should be dead or in prison. My story could happen to you or to someone you love. I never imagined I’d have a gun pointed at my head or that I’d become a rape victim just because I sought to “have a good time.” But shame, an unfortunate state aligned with most queer identity, will compound and transform until it’s addressed.

This is my story about trauma finding shelter in the throes of addiction, about the dehumanization of crystal meth, and about the mind’s determination to save itself. This book is my rallying cry. Being an ally doesn’t mean outfitting in rainbow sequins and shaking your hips at Pride once a year. We need you to understand what’s happening in the dark.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’d like to thank …

Mom for never giving up on me and being a supreme badass bitch. I got that from you.

Dad for his enormous heart, for changing, for choosing happiness.

Christopher for his patience. Sorry it took so long for me to realize you’re my best friend.

Uncle John for a lifelong belief I could make a difference.

John for fighting when you really didn’t have to.

Mariella for welcoming me back without pause and inviting me to start a family.

Kyle for loving and tolerating me while I was putting myself back together.

Andres for reminding me that I can write compelling stories and being my global brother.

Brittany for being my soul sister, my cheerleader, my shoulder to cry on.

Ross for being my most ardent supporter, my first reader, my biggest believer.

Stephen for being my unassigned emotional and creative mentor and dear friend.

Ross Harris for taking a chance on a book with difficult content.

Olivia Smith for saying yes and knowing Tweakerworld’s potential.

Chris Heiser for getting down and dirty with these words so they could touch many.

Allison Smith for being my partner in spreading the word of this book.

Laura Usselman for being my partner in coasting this work into its next iteration.

& Bonnie Raitt for letting me up on that stage.