That’s a great line, isn’t it.
That’s a great ending.
But lives aren’t James Taylor songs, and girls like me don’t just run off into the snow and go away.
I didn’t break up with him that night.
When we really broke up, well, let’s just say it wasn’t a James Taylor song. And what we made between rage and love and falling asleep - what lived and died between us - haunts me still.
That dramatic ending was just the beginning.
In the end, I made that boy marry me.
The Other Lubbock
ONE OF THE RED RAIDER SWIMMER GUYS WAS A DEALER. I don’t think I ever saw Monty not high. His skin looked ashen - even stretched as it was over athlete muscles. His eyes always had rings around them. His face had little holes in it. He did not live in the dorms. He lived with two other non swimmer guys in a house. In his house, there was a basement. The basement door had a marijuana leaf on it with a smiley face in the center. And it was locked. To enter, you needed to know the knock.
Two.
Three.
One.
The first time I went down into Monty’s basement I was with Amy. When he opened up, we went in - we were the only women that night. We were fishing for a little danger. Briefly I felt weird. Then weirdly, I didn’t. There were maybe four guys in there besides us. One of those four was also a swimmer. When I looked at him, I couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or closed, but he smiled and nodded and waved.
The room was dark- and not just because the walls were painted black with all kinds of glow in the dark and neon shit all over them. The carpet was dark red shag. One shit brown old sofa, three lava lamps, three posters: Che and Jimi and Malcolm. A fish tank with a bunch of tetras and a giant angel fish glowed blue green in the corner. A small refrigerator, assorted glass bongs, and a big ass coffee table upon which were a variety of items not so good to name. One Love in our ears.
Monty came over with pills in his hand and said, “Choose one, and I’ll tell you what it does.” I picked a capsule with a red cap on one side and a yellow cap on the other.
Amy passed, shaking her head, saying “ Nuh uh, captain fantastic,” reaching for a bong.
Monty looked at me and laughed a classic stoner laugh - huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhow about you take two?”
“What’s it do?”
“Don’t you want to know what it is?”
“I just want to know what it does,” I said, feigning bad-assery.
By that time in my collegiate athletic career I could give a shit about good citizenship. When I competed, I didn’t even make the board. No one in the pool turned their head at the finish to see me. I was lucky I hadn’t drowned. I’d become the kind of woman whose mouth was stuck in a permanent “yes” shape. All I wanted was experience - especially if it would numb the fuck out of my brain. My I don’t know who the fuck I am-ism. My I don’t know what’s wrong with me. My couldn’t someone, please, anyone, love me? I would have put anything in my mouths.
“ Well, this particular little beauty will sedate your ass and make you dreamy.”
I opened my mouth and ate it instantly.
He was right, I became sleepy, but not quite dreamy, so I asked for another. Two more women showed up. They didn’t look like swimmers. Too skinny. Long stringy hair. Glitter nail polish. They wore tube tops and Levis and flip-flops and giggled. They ate acid tabs and danced.
Amy tried to get me to go back home that night but Monty talked me out of it. “I’ll walk her back, I’ll walk her,” He kept saying.
The walk back was one of the funnier nights of my life. Oddly, I remember it. 3:00, maybe 4:00 a.m. Black night. Warm. We made a pit stop in the reflecting pool on campus where I laid down with all my clothes on, laughing, laughing. I said, “Look at me! I’m Ophelia!”
Monty said, “Am I Hamlet?”
“Fuck yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed, and rolled around in 10-inch deep water illuminated by underwater lights. Campus police showed up and wrote things on small pieces of I’m not really a cop paper and handed them to us and told us to go home. After they left we ate them. Then we bumble fucked on the ground under a tree - my own pants were baffling me and I was too gone to really get it on but Monty didn’t seem to mind. Then we played a game where we would run as fast as we could and dive into shrubbery. The next day at swim practice I was covered in shrub scrapes and scratches and my head felt like cotton.
Again.
I wanted to do it again.
I wanted to eat all the colors and see what I felt. No. I wanted to eat all the colors to get to the not feel. But even that was not enough for a burning girl.
One night there were white lines on mirrors ready for me when I entered. “ Look,” I said laughing, “I’m Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz! Poppies!” Breathing in the white, breathing out comprehension and emotion.
What I learned about Lubbock from the people in that basement was a different brand of education. Someone’s father had been kidnapped and murdered. Police found him in the stockyards under the hooves and shit of cows. Someone’s brother had O.D.’d and killed his girlfriend on the way under with a shard of glass from a mirror. Someone’s mother had murdered his brother and sister - ages seven and 12 - because jesus told her to. They were wicked, jesus had said into her ear. One woman’s uncle was a pedophile, but no one in the family was willing to send him to the slammer, so they gave him an attic apartment. Another woman’s brother hustled coke over the border. One guy’s Mexican best friend had been found with his hands and his dick cut off next to the train tracks - the severed items in a Glad bag. Monty’s half-brother was in the state hospital for repeatedly raping a retarded girl neighbor.
I don’t know how else to tell this but straight no chaser. These dramas … these over the top horror stories seething with blood and immorality … they made me feel better. Like television does. Less like a damaged daughter. A failed student. A slut. An athlete gone to seed. And what was in the basement helped feelings leave my body altogether, so I didn’t need to know who I was, or why, or anything at all.
Two.
Three.
One.
When I walked into the basement the second year, I was nearly always by myself. I didn’t care who else was there. I didn’t care what the room looked like. What posters were on the walls. What the shit brown couch had all over it. What did interest me was the set-up on the table. There sat a spoon and a tray with cotton, a lighter and a syringe. I picked the spoon up and put it in my mouth. Monty said “huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu huh where do you want it?”
I said “Here,” and slapped my arm hard enough to raise a vein.
Zombie
FOR PART OF MY LUBBOCK LIFE I BECAME A ZOMBIE. Not a flesh eating one. Gross. I’m no cannibal. No, I was of the high functional type, like so many of the people around you right. This. Second. We’re