Backslide

Did you know that I have a reader’s guide and table of contents for this novel? You can find it right here:

Now, on with today’s show …

“This one takes place in parts,” I say quickly to you. “So don’t get lost, m’kay? Keep up, babe.”

Before you can ask me questions, we fall into a dream.

We’re at the Sack House in the Jungle.

Goner is there. So are a few others of the interstitial crew, but I can’t be bothered to tell you who all. Even Goner isn’t all that important.

But when he opens the door, I’m like, “Goner, close the fucking door, man.”

He does, immediately.

“Lock it,” I say.

He does.

“There are bugs out tonight,” I say.

He looks scared, so I put my hand on his shoulder “It’s cool, man. We’re safe in here.”

Goner nods and pushes up his glasses.

I go deeper into the house, looking around for Samme. I can’t find her at first, but then she comes into the living room from wherever she was. “Did you get the package?” Samme asks.

“What package?” I ask back.

“The one I left by the dumpster?” she says.

“Fuck. No,” I say.

“Well …” she says, then makes a nod with her head.

“Yeah, okay,” I say and dart out the backdoor, head down a gravel trail until it connects to a small alleyway in downtown, then make a couple of blocks, find the dumpster.

Next to the dumpster is a package. It’s wrapped in brown paper with twine. Atop it, is like some chocolates in one of those plastic dome containers from the 21st Century. There are bugs—small ones, like the ones you would think of, probably—crawling all over it, but its plastic dome is keeping them out.

I snatch up both items and sling the brown package under my arm; then, start brushing the bugs from the dome. They bite the shit outta my fingers and hands, but I just keep brushing them off and shaking my hand to fling them from my fingers.

I’m walking back to the Sack House, and I realize I’m being followed.

Without letting on that I know, I have a peek at who it is.

It’s this guy, Dennon. He’s not my type.

I’m thinking about how to lose him, and I see Samme and Bink walking up ahead.

I hoof it fast and catch up to them. “I got it,” I say to Samme.

She looks at my fingers. “Shit, T, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Bug bites don’t really bother me anymore.”

Samme’s eyes linger on the bites and mine on her.

She notices Dennon behind us, and waves.

He catches up to us. “Hey ladies,” he says.

I roll my eyes.

He and Samme are talking about religion. Xtianity, I think. Even Bink is talking about it a little.

“I can’t get used to be surrounded by all you Xtians,” I say.

I look at Bink and say, “Even you, Bink.”

No one says anything.

We get back to the house. Bink takes the package and the dome of chocolates inside.

Dennon says goodbye and kisses Samme on the cheek.

I don’t like it.

Samme and I get in the moving house. It’s like a mobile home? I guess that’s the closest analogue.

She starts out driving, and I am sitting next to her.

It feels like it’s taking awhile. Like, a long while cos it’s dark and I don’t remember that happening.

I lay my head on her shoulder, and when I do, I can smell her, and I know she can smell me. I can feel her energy, too, and I know she can feel mine.

Samme doesn’t recoil, but neither does it feel like she’s quite into it, either, so I sit up.

I lean over the other way.

She puts her legs up and across mine, which is nice, but I realize that she is moving across me, like changing places with me.

“Oh,” I say. “Okay. I guess I’ll drive.”

I realize I had been assuming that it was on autopilot, but it isn’t. I’m not sure why I feel the need to drive instead of switching it on, but that’s what I do.

“Driving sucks,” Samme says, stretching her legs out toward me.

I want to run my hands up them, but I do not. I focus on driving.

I pull open the curtain and see the road is actually rather full of people driving. Like no self-driving vehicles.

“Whoa,” I say. “This is kind of a clusterfuck.”

“Yeah,” Samme says, closes her eyes.

She looks very beautiful, and I want to stare at her, but I do not.

I press down on the brake, but it isn’t very responsive. We slow some, but not very much, so I end up having to weave this enormous fucking thing through other fast-moving blocks of metal and plastic until we’re able to pull into a waystation.

We get out, go inside.

The air is weird in there, and I know the feeling. It’s like some traumatic shit just popped off.

One of the clerks is strapping on an armored vest. “I am not going out like that,” he says.

I nod, like to say, “Right on.”

He goes behind the counter and the other clerk is there preparing sushi.

Samme and I get some items, then stand in line.

There’s this dude in front of me cracking wise about cashiers tryin’ to act hard, and I say I think he just took down someone trying to rob the place. That shut him up.

When it’s our turn, I ask the armored clerk if he’s okay.

He asks what I mean.

I say I used to work retail, which isn’t exactly the same, but.

He says, “Yeah, I’m fine. Just had to regulate, that’s all.”

I nod, pay for our stuff, then Samme and I leave, but through the other entrance, not the one we came in.

On the other side, I step out of the door, and realize I am back at the hell school.

I look behind me and see the lunchroom doors, not the waystation.

Samme isn’t here.

You are, but I tell you to stay hidden.

“This place sucks,” I whisper to you. “We don’t need to get into any Jungle shit here.”

I walk through the underbreezeway and see one of the Eight Agate Gates.

“Huh,” I mumble. “Let’s not forget that’s here.”

You ask me telepathically what the Eight Agate Gates are—unless you already know, which I suppose you might, depending upon when and where you are. But if you don’t, I say, “It’s this whole other thing. Don’t worry about it right now.” Then I add, “But do remember there is one here. We’ll probably need that later.”

I realize that if you’re in the middle of that story path that it might be super frustrating to see one and not follow it, but, sorry. Hopefully that’s a condition that only exists for a brief moment in your life.

You ask if anyone else can see it, and I shrug.

“How should I know?”

I see Sydney Jalan walking with some other pond scum ho. I think to myself how I always forget how beautiful Sydney is and start to lament that I never told her so, and it occurs to me, I can.

So I walk up to her.

“Hey,” she says a bit demurely. I don’t remember her being like that, but then again, I never talked to her, so. “Tracy, right?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Hey, Sydney. Hey, Pocha,” I say to the other girl cos apparently I remember her name now.

“‘Sup,” Pocha says.

I say to Sydney in my intense back-then way, “I really need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay,” she says. “What is it?”

“Is there somewhere we can go?”

She looks around, and then shrugs. “It’s about to be fifth period.”

I can’t keep up with when what happens. I don’t think I could then, either, but that’s neither here nor there.

“How about the Corner?” I say.

Again, she shrugs. “Okay.”

We start walking toward the corner, and Pocha is still winging her.

“It’s private, Poch,” I say.

Pocha scowls. “Yeah, whatever.” But she stops walking.

“I’ll see you in Math,” Sydney says to her.

Then we walk along the underside of the superstructure, along an exterior wall, then turn into small cleared corner.

This’s the Corner: the cleverly named stamp of real estate where all the shitwrecks hang out in-between classes—typically in the morning. By afternoon, it’s usually empty. It’s the end of lunch, so I expect there to be a couple of people, but there’s no one.

Sydney asks, “What is it you need to talk about?”

I press my lips to hers. I realize that I have to go up on tiptoes to do it. She’s several inches taller than I am, which makes me wonder what year it is cos I’m pretty sure I’m taller than she is now.

Sydney’s eyes get wide. She pulls her books closer to her chest. But she doesn’t seem angry.

“You’re beautiful,” I say. “I’ve always wanted to tell you that.”

She smiles. “Thank you.”

Sydney had a reputation for being a bit of a ho, but she really doesn’t seem like it right now. She seems, like, shy. Which makes me feel like a bit of a ho.

“I’m sorry for being so forward,” I say.

“No, it’s okay,” she says. “It’s just that I’m with Cthad.”

“Cthad Moure,” I say refelxively, remembering both the fact that they’re together and who exactly he was.

She nods and looks nervous. Nervous for me, of course.

“Yeah, okay,” I say. “Well, that’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“You’re sweet, Tracy,” she says. She kisses me on the cheek.

I watch her walk away, and try to figure out what to do next, since we didn’t exactly plan on coming here.

My train of thought is broken by a little angry-looking blonde kid in a jean jacket with red plaid details storming toward me, looking like they want to hit me.

“Wait a second,” I say and put my hands up.

They hit me anyway, in the nose. It hurts. Pretty sure it’s bleeding.

“Are you trying to get fucking killed?” they say.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I forgot she was with Cthad. It’s been a long time.”

They look confused. “Wait, what?”

“Sydney,” I say and nod toward her, still able to see her ass shaking side to side in those white jeans.

“Sydney Jalan?” they ask.

I nod and pinch my nose to halt the bleeding.

“We don’t talk to her,” they say. “Ever.”

“I know,” I say. “But I always wanted to, so. I did.”

They shake their head, then say. “I am going to get fucking killed.” They gesture toward me. “Which means you are going to die, too.”

I shake my head and check that the bleed has stopped. “Naw. It doesn’t work like that.”

“It doesn’t?” they ask.

“No. Time’s not causal the way you think it is.”

“Causal,” they say. “I think that was a vocabulary word in Miss Heron’s class, but I kept staring at her legs instead of looking them up.”

“She has beautiful legs,” I say. “Riley fucked her,” I mention offhandely.

“Riley who?” they ask.

“Right. That’s like twenty some years from now,” I say. “Speaking of, what year is it?”

They tell me, but I can’t really take it in. I wave it away, “It’s cool. Doesn’t matter. Give me a smoke, willya?”

They pull a pack of smokes, pop one out for me.

I take it; they light it.

They light up, too.

We take drags together, exact same way, exact timing. That old chestnut.

It tastes extra irony cos blood.

“Do we ever quit?” they ask.

“Yeah,” I say. “A few times, actually.”

“That’s not quitting,” they say. “That’s just stopping and starting again.”

“Then, fuck, T, I dunno,” I say to them.

They nod, and we take another drag.

They look at my jacket. “You’ve got that motorcyle jacket that I wanted. The one from the ad.”

I look down and see I am, indeed, wearing that jacket.

“I guess,” I say.

They ask when and how we get it.

“I can’t say I recall, T,” I say. “Sorry.”

A terrible shrieking sound fills the skies around us, and I clamp both hands over my ears until it subsides.

“It’s just the bell,” they say, ashing.

“God damn,” I say. “That is simply abysmal.”

“Didn’t do the vocab, remember?” they say.

“Just keep reading books,” I say. “You’ll be fine.”

I catch sight of three huge guys heading toward us. They’re coming from the swamp, so I have a better line on them than they do on us.

“Ghost, T,” I say.

“What?” they say.

“Just do it.”

They do, ghost and then move behind a tree near the corner.

The three guys reach the corner, and holy shit they’re huge. I’ve forgotten how fucking gigantic these Jungle mutates are.

They stop.

The one in the middle takes a few steps toward me; the other two hang back in classic bully formation.

“Hey, Cthad …” I say, and he picks me up by the jacket, slams me against the wall. It knocks the breath out of me and my cigarette out of my hand. I remembered to tuck my head, which is probably the only reason it didn’t bounce off the wall.

“You’re making on my girl, pussy,” Cthad says. “So I have to kill you now.”

“Word gets around fast,” I eke out, wondering how he knows already.

“Ready to get dead, bitch?” he asks.

I nod, put my hands overtop his and twist, just like I was trained to.

Nothing happens.

“God damn it,” I mutter. “I’m so fucking weak.”

Cthad laughs and turns his head to talk to his fellow goons. “He admits it! He says he’s weak! What a pussy.”

Keep it simple, dummy, I think. Eyes, nose, throat, balls.

He looks back at me, and I put one thumb in his eye, use the other to hook his nose and pull.

He drops me, of course, so I kick him in the balls.

He bends over, of course, and I punch him in the throat.

He falls over on his side, of course, gasping for breath.

I look at the other two swamp goons, and they both run.

“Good to see you again, Cthad,” I say, then run off toward T hiding behind the tree.

I put my hand out to them, and they take my hand.

“Jeez, our hands are bony,” I say.

“That was awesome!” they say. “How did we become such a badass!”

“Fighting isn’t that hard,” I say. “People make it about drama or performance or something, which is why it gets hard. Or you know, competition. Which is very hard because it’s fair.”

“He went down, man,” they say, just fucking beaming about it.

“You’re not as bad a fighter as you think, T,” I say.

“I’m not?”

“No. Not at all.”

“But I’m small and weak,” they say.

“Doesn’t matter. You just saw that, right?”

“Hell yeah, I did.”

“I have the same body as you do, so. And the soft spots on a person don’t really get tougher.”

“But I lose all the time,” they say.

We slow down as we reach the guard gate. I wave to the security guard, Tucks, who waves back at me, then does a double-take. He doesn’t stop us, though. The way he looks at us is a little gross, but. We walk on by.

We cross the street and head into a Jungle path.

“You don’t lose,” I say. “You get scared. That’s not the same.”

They think about it.

“I mean, when was the last time you lost a fight?” I ask. I go to hiss out my blade, but it isn’t there. “Fuck. You’ve got half a dozen blades on you, yeah?” I ask.

They nod that they do.

“Lemme have one. How about the one Dad got at the company picnic last year.”

They pull it from their denim jacket, hand it to me.

I flick it out, and it snaps and crackles. Then I hack some brush with it.

“We’re going a different way?” they ask.

“It’s just a little shortcut,” I say. “Always meant to cut a new path here, but never did.”

They nod, light another smoke.

“So when was it?” I ask.

“Let me see,” they say. “There was that fight in Miss Tring’s class …”

“Which you let him win cos we were in the wrong,” I say.

“Well, yeah. I guess so.”

I cut brush; they think about it, smoke.

I clear the last bit, collapse the blade, and hand it back to them.

They take it, and I extended two fingers.

They put the smoke between them.

I take a drag, then hand it back to them.

“I don’t guess there is any others,” they say.

“Are any others. Exactly,” I say. There will be, I think. A lot, but. No need to freak them out about that. “Try not to be a Mary Sue about it.”

“What’s a Mary Sue?” they ask.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say.

We exit the cut and walk a short bit more down the old path, then arrive at the park.

A kind of freshness overcomes us when we clear the Jungle and the expanse of the park is open to us.

“Man, what a great little place this is,” I say. “Even though some really bad shit went down here, too.”

They look at me, “Really? Like what?”

A rush of memories come to mind, with one in particlar standing out.

But I don’t want to freak myself out. I freaked out very easily back then.

“Just don’t shoot anyone here, okay? No matter how badly you want to. And don’t stab anyone, either, all right?”

“Really?” they ask, and I can’t tell if they’re scared or excited.

“Just don’t,” I say.

“Okay,” they say. “I won’t.”

I nod, and we head for the picnic tables.

We get to them, and I hop up on one, sit down on the tabletop. They sit down next to me.

“So you been here with Wendy yet?” I ask.

“Wendy?” they ask.

I nod.

“Wendy Glass or Wendy Heathrow?”

“That’s a no,” I say then put my hand out for another cigarette.

They give it and light me up.

They look around and lean close. “Do we get together with Wendy?”

I glance over at the racquetball courts.

They follow my eyeline. “In there? Really?”

I don’t say. Instead, I get up and walk toward it. I shake my ass the way she had.

I get there and duck to enter but realize I don’t have to, I’m so fucking short still.

They’re in there with me.

I take my jacket off and throw it, like Wendy did. I flick my smoke, like she did.

I kiss myself and peel the jean jacket off me, like she did.

I lay down on the ground, like she did. Or lied down. Whichever.

They get on top of me in almost, like, a plank.  Or a push-up.

“Relax,” I say to them. “I’ll show you how it goes.”

They do, and I do.

We lay there, next to each other. Dammit, lie there. I fucking hate lay and lie. It’s the literal worst.

“That’s really what happens?” they ask.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah. You know, more or less,” I say. “I mean, I’m not her, so. It’s a little different.”

I recall I will go on to lie about it. I want to tell myself not to do that. I know I can. It won’t change anything, though. But then again …

“Just don’t lie about it, okay?”

“What?” they ask.

“You’ll get really insecure about a bunch of things and tell some really cringey lies.”

“What does cringey mean?” they ask.

“Embarrassing,” I say. “Just don’t do it, okay?”

“Okay,” they say. I don’t believe them, meaning, I think they’re lying to me right effing now. But it doesn’t really matter because nothing will change anyway.

“I’ve got to get going,” I say.

I roll over, get up, get my jacket—the cool one that I really wanted back then—put it on.

“Really?” they say.

I nod.

“I wish you could stay,” they say.

“I mean, I’m you, dude, so. I’m always here.”

“Yeah,” they say, “but I’m not you.”

That’s true, I think. “You will be. It’s all right.”

They tear up. “I’m so lonely.”

I want to stay and comfort them, but I also know it’s a bottomless pit.

“Get good with it,” I say.

They look up at me. “What does that mean?”

“Get good at being lonely. It’s just a feeling. Get good at feeling it. Then it won’t matter so much.”

They’re thinking about that, and I say, “See you ‘round, T. Sooner and more often than you think.”

I exit the racquetball court and head for the thin byway that goes to Mitz’s house.

When I get there, I see Mitz and Wendy are in the backyard with Argos and Estienne. You remember them, right? Well, Estienne, anyway. Unless you don’t.

“It’s Wendy’s boyfriend,” I say to you. “Argos is with Mitz.”

If you know this, apologies. But you probably don’t. You never keep up, even though I am constantly telling you to.

We watch from the trees as they laugh and kiss.

“Mitz told me later,” I say to you, “that they were only with Argos because Wendy was with Estienne.”

You look at me.

I elaborate. “Estienne and Argos are best friends, and so are Wendy and Mitz.”

You say you thought Mickie and Wendy were best friends, and I laugh.

“Oh my no. They hated each other. Mickie was Wendy’s lieutenant, her underling. And, you know, sometimes her lover. But they were not friends.”

You ask why they can’t hear me—the four of them—since you are talking telepathically but I am speaking aloud.

“I’m ghosted,” I say. “They can hear me, they just don’t know it.”

I stare down there, then say, “God Mitz was gorgeous. I really fucked that up. Like I fuck everything up.”

You say something to me, but honestly I kind of ignore it, and say, “But we’re still friends, even after everything failed, so. That’s something I guess.” I change the subject, asking you, “Speaking of Mickie, did we ever make it to the Red? Red Jungle, I mean. The Red Jungle Planet. You know. To interview Mickie?”

You say what is true.

“Okay,” I say. “Well. That’s something, I guess.”

I look at Argos and say, “I can’t wait till Terry guts that motherfucker.”

You ask me what I mean, and I say, “Terry. Kills Argos. At the donut shop.” I make a grimace, then say, “That’s not very kind of me. I probably need to leave this place before I undo the last ten years of work.”

You agree, and we are sucked up into the sky.