With or Without You Read online

  Hundreds of candles burned around gigantic pillows spread out on the thick carpet and soft velour couches, all bursting with faces that made me think of that people-are-strange song, but the B-52s blared from speakers on the ceiling, a fire simmered beneath a brick mantel covered with soot and candle wax, and in the middle of the room, a door with a full-length mirror nailed into it was propped up on two footstools covered in fur, deer probably, with hooves attached to the bottom. In the smoke and candles the door looked rubbery, bending like a worm above its furry feet, trying to slither back over to its hinges off the blue-tile bathroom where a group of girls danced in ballet costumes or I was really wasted and seeing things and felt a leaf? a bug? crawl up my arm and flicked it like the girl who’d flipped the tuna from her shoulder but instead of coming off it yanked me to the floor: Edie’s arm. You were lost in the fog. Edie and I sat down in front of the door. Bobby Davis loomed over it, his pink face blown up in the mirror, octopuslike, with huge dilated eyes and nostrils engorged. He was a rock lobster. A silver tube connected his nose to the mirror, the thickest lines of coke I’d ever seen laid out in front of him. Next to him was the Ayatollah. Edie’d finally introduced me to him a few weeks earlier when I put a cork on Jack’s stash. He sold us an eighth of reddish buds from Hawaii, almost as good as Jack’s.

  The Ayatollah filled a glass pipe with a chip of something that looked like rock candy and handed it to Edie. Giggling, she put her lips to the glass. The Ayatollah flipped open a metal lighter and brought down the flame. Curls of smoke fluttered through the pipe, the smell chemical but sweet, sugar melting over a Bunsen burner. Watching her, the Ayatollah’s eyes sparkled. He was so gorgeous. Long black hair flowing down his back, smooth caramel skin, brown eyes, a straight elegant nose that made him seem ancient and foreign, which he was. What I liked best was if you looked too quickly you might have thought he was a girl.

  He dropped another diamond chip into the pipe and held it out to me. Inflated in the mirror it looked like a neon test tube. This guy in his white tank top and drawstring pants was some kind of rad scientist. “Go ahead,” Edie said, dreamily. “It’s not like the shit you get on the street. This is sweet.”

  Sweet as sugar, I thought, easy to smoke sugar. I reached for the pipe.

  “The only difference is what you call it,” Bobby said.

  “This is not true,” said the Ayatollah. He grabbed his lighter, but before bending to fire me up, he said everything he presented was uncut, pristine, and pure. He said his connection was only once-removed from Peru. He used his Bic like a pointer.

  “Whatever,” Bobby said. “Expensive crack is still crack.”

  “You are mistaken, my friend. This is not crack.”

  “Crack is whack!” Edie said, and burst out laughing. She rolled her head against Bobby’s lap. I’d never seen her so silly.

  The girl in the tutu—which I now realized wasn’t a tutu but a short frilly skirt—leaped out of the pale blue light and spinning toward the stereo announced that she would never smoke crack, or do any drug besides pot. “I want normal kids,” she said, and in the mirror I saw the blown-up pipe glowing in my hand, radioactive, toxic, terrifying. I didn’t want kids, I hated kids, but the thought that I was doing something to mess up my chances of having them felt dangerous … and not in a bad way. A frustrated Ayatollah repeated that this was not crack, he would never sell crack … I didn’t care what it was, I wanted it more than anything. The music scratched off and the room vibrated with Edie’s mantra … crack is whack! … crack is whack! It made the Ayatollah laugh.

  Suddenly (I can’t help it, I need this word) all six-foot-two, two-hundred-fifty pounds of Noz slammed down next to me and tried to wrestle the pipe from my hand. “Wait your turn,” I said.

  “You’re my date, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “So I go first.” He pushed his mouth inside my arm toward the pipe and looked up at the Ayatollah. “Light, faggot.”

  “What did you call me?”

  Noz stared at him. “Faggot, you know, like a bunch of sticks. I need fire.”

  In the corner, the girl in the mock tutu pressed buttons on the CD player and the soundtrack from The Rocky Horror Picture Show began. Slow-mo wheels in gear. A lot of weird staring. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Ayatollah. He looked scared, even prettier than before. Level, my face fell upon Noz’s tattoo, a fleet of Budweiser horses carting a keg around his upper arm. To the right the girl by the stereo whooped and pirouetted in front of the CD player. Noz shoved his slimy head further inside my arms. Sweat covered the back of his neck, making spikes of the bottom of his hair. He smelled like fish and BO and was shoving his hip against me. I tried to dislodge him with my foot. The music jumped abruptly, and the tutu girl threw her arms in the air, shouting: “Let’s do the Time Warp! Let’s do the Time Warp!” More girls rushed from the bathroom and formed a line, screaming the words to the song in high-pitched voices.

  “You shit,” Noz said to me. “You’re making me hard!” His dick grew through his jeans just like I’d imagined it—fire-breathing dragon on a concert T-shirt, mini-Godzilla drenched in scaly pond scum. No velvet in sight.

  Bobby put his hand on Noz’s shoulder. “Chill out a second, man.”

  “Get off me!” Noz looked up at him, sweating. His salty wetness seeped through my sleeves and I wondered if this would go into my book as a prelude to opportunity. Around me voices pealed:

  … It’s just a jump to the left … and then a step to the ri-i-i-ight …

  “What’s his problem?” Edie kicked Noz’s thigh.

  “It’s his mother’s birthday,” Bobby said, and held out the silver tube to him. “Here, man. Do another line.”

  “He doesn’t like birthdays?”

  “He doesn’t like his mother.”

  Bobby dislodged Noz’s arms from mine and my heart beat faster than those girls doing the Time Warp. Noz leaned over the table—bigger, fatter, and even more disgusting, but I couldn’t stop thinking about his dick against my thigh, what I’d done to him. Didn’t think I could do that to anyone. This was going okay. As long as he didn’t start thinking he was my boyfriend or anything. You were my first priority. The Ayatollah flicked his Bic, rolled his eyebrows. Sugar time. I put the pipe to my lips. He leaned over from where he’d been huddled with Edie and lit me up. Smoke caked my throat, not sugary at all, it tasted like baby powder. Cold bubbles rushed my head and I felt like a commercial … plop plop, fizz fizz … Daddy’s little girl. My legs started to tremble, my jaw tightening, as all the forces in the room converged in the Time Warp. I wanted to dance but my legs were gelatinized, swishing like the rubbery door. How could I trust them? I drummed my hands against my thighs and swayed. Edie picked up a roach clip from the mirror and made it talk. “I want to bite you, baby,” it said.

  Finished with his lines, Noz wedged in next to me and leaned his arm on my shoulder … plop plop, fizz fizz …

  My toes tingled and my head bounced to the song on repeat cycle, I think. I could have sworn we’d come to the end and all the girls had collapsed on the floor like they do in the movie then bounced up again. We were all stuck in the Time Warp. I gnawed the inside of my cheek, darted my eyes back and forth. There was movement next to me, a few words brewing between the Ayatollah and Noz, Edie chewing the roach clip into Bobby’s face, and I imagined her munching on velvet which couldn’t have been as cottony as my mouth felt just then. The girls were still doing the Time Warp, a line of slimebag Rockettes making lasers out of their arms and legs. The Ayatollah lit a joint and handed it to Edie, who smiled and took a deep drag.

  “If she was my girl, I’d watch out,” Noz said to Bobby. “I heard she’s a nigger lover. Hoo-sah!”

  “Don’t fucking hoo-sah! me,” Bobby said. “You fucking moron.”

  “I’m serious, man. You don’t know how they are with chicks.”

  Edie stared at the roach clip. “Hello, Mr. Alligator, I’d rather talk to you than any
body else here. You’re not prejudiced, you’re just a reptile. Green. And we all know it’s not easy being green …”

  “Alls I’m saying is the nigga’s got eyes on her.” Noz glared at the Ayatollah.

  “Who are you calling nigger?” the Ayatollah said. Edie undid the first few buttons of her shirt and peeled back her bra.

  “What are you doing?” I stammered. She ignored me.

  “Nigger, A-rab, same difference,” Noz, my date, was saying. “You’re all nothing but a bunch’a criminals and terrorists. Every time I turn around one of you’s hijacking a plane or pushing some old guy off a boat.”

  “Listen, man,” Bobby moved behind him. “He’s not a terrorist, that’s why he’s living here. And in case you forgot, it’s his shit you’ve been scarfing all night, so chill the fuck out.”

  “You just don’t get it, man. Guys like him, they’re ruining our fucking country!” Noz said, his eyes gnarled and bloodshot, sweat collecting in his sideburns. “My father fought like a crazy son of a bitch for this country, he died in the fucking war, and for what? So he can come in from Saudi Arabia and take all our jobs away?”

  “I’m from Iran, asshole.” The Ayatollah moved closer to Noz. Bobby stepped between them, lightly pressing his palm on the Ayatollah’s chest.

  Beneath them on the floor, Edie circled her left hand around her tit, revealing a hard pink nipple. Little bumps crawled around it, like tiny growths on a twig. The dancers contorted their bodies … Then it’s a pelvic thrust—ooh-ah—that really drives you insa-a-a-aane … Everything was happening at once, a split screen, surroundsound. The Ayatollah and Noz stood eye to eye, or more correctly the Ayatollah’s eyes to Noz’s chin, Bobby still wedged between them. Had to admire the Ayatollah, trying to ward off Godzilla. Edie opened the roach clip with her right hand. It said, “You look good enough to eat,” then bit her nipple. “Whoa!” she bounded up between the three guys. “Look at my tit! Look at my tit!”

  Bobby and the Ayatollah looked. “Holy shit, Edie!” Bobby said.

  “Whoa! Edie number one! Edie fucking rocks!” She screamed and threw her hands in the air, bouncing back into the Time Warp girls.

  “Fuck that! I’m saying something important here,” Noz said.

  “Nothing you say is important, you are too stupid for anything important,” the Ayatollah said, and Noz’s face froze.

  Noz slung back his hand and punched, time slowing to nanoseconds, as the Ayatollah ducked and Noz’s hand slammed into the wall behind him, cracking through layers of plaster. “AAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” he screamed, louder than Edie number one, louder than the girls doing the Time Warp again and again and again.

  “Now, look what you’ve done,” the Ayatollah said. “You’ve put a hole in the wall. I’m sure Felicia will send you the bill.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Bobby said. “This whole house is falling apart.”

  “That’s what these houses are like, high-class slums,” Edie said. “Everything’s cracked and peeling. Nothing ever works. Did you see my tit?”

  “Yes, it’s quite impressive,” said the Ayatollah.

  “ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!” shouted Noz, his fist crammed into his balls, and I wondered if he was still hard.

  “Okay, shit-brain,” Bobby took him by his good arm, “let’s get you to the hospital.”

  It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. They could have not admitted Noz right away; they could have not wrapped his swollen, black-and-blue hand in plaster strips as we sat in the white light of the emergency room tapping our feet against the floor, grinding our teeth, taking turns pacing to the water fountain; they could have not written down his name and address and promised to bill his mother; they could have not handed him an envelope full of codeine pills, which we shared in the parking lot before Bobby decided we’d better get Noz home. He’d already passed out next to me in the backseat. Minutes later, we were cruising through the knotted trees and dark clouds, the stars and slight hook of moon having gone into hiding while we were at the hospital, driving toward Queens. The world seemed more desolate than ever. Tiny black streets with row houses and sagging traffic lights. Big empty boulevards lit up by gas stations. Only our presence gave the streets any purpose, and it depressed me being in a place where a few fucked-up teenagers in an old Chevy were the extent of any “scene” once the movie theatres and shopping malls and diners had shut down for the night. You were probably just heading out with your famous friends. Famous people always hung around other famous people. It didn’t matter whether they really knew you or not.

  Bobby crossed over the train tracks to a few blocks of small one-level houses, many of them flashing with Christmas lights. A few had 3-D manger scenes, Jesus all grown-up and glowing, even Santa himself tore across a couple of tiny lawns, reindeer ahead of him like the horses galloping around Noz’s biceps. I’d forgotten that part of Christmas. The lights and stuff. Practically everyone in my town was Jewish, and the most anyone did for the season was plug in a boring electric menorah. These homes with their flickering rainbow lights were so beautiful. So alive. We pulled up in front of a house covered with cracked brown shingles. In the window, a Christmas tree smeared in multicolored bulbs with a shiny gold star on top was shoved in front of a curtain. Bobby turned off the car and jumped out to get Noz, who didn’t want to move and begged Bobby to let him sleep in the car. He was practically screaming when the front door opened and a ghostly figure in a long nightgown and green army cap with flaps covering her ears appeared behind the outer door. She propped it open and wagged a fist in the air. “Nelson Kenridge, you get in here!” she shouted, and I felt like I was seeing something I shouldn’t be seeing.

  “Aw, why’d you have to bring me here?” Noz asked. Bobby shrugged and hiked him up against his shoulder.

  “Nelson Kenridge, I’m gonna whoop your ass ’round your head!” his mother shouted, and it was hard not to laugh, she looked so silly.

  Noz pleaded with Bobby, “Can’t I go to your house, man?”

  “Sorry, man, you know the deal.”

  Bobby carried him to the front door where the mother he didn’t like waited in her soldier hat to whoop his ass. She tugged him inside by his bad arm. He shouted, “Get the fuck off me, you crazy bitch!” as the door closed behind them. Bobby turned on the ignition, and we drove off in silence. I kept seeing Noz’s mother shaking her fist in the air.

  In the blink of a heavily drugged eye we were out of Queens and rolling through winding roads and temples and houses so huge compared to Noz’s it was sickening. I almost wished we’d taken him with us, but what would we have done with him? My opportunity was gone. Bobby stopped in front of my house and he and Edie smiled at each other like I was supposed to leave, but when I opened the door they followed me out. “He’s only gonna stay a few minutes, okay?” Edie asked, as if I had a choice. I nodded and told her they could hang out in Jack’s office next to the TV room. Edie grabbed my cheeks in between her hands and pecked me on the lips. “You’re the best, Lil.”

  I smiled, and my cheeks felt hot though it was so damn cold outside. I led us inside, showed them Jack’s office, and ducked into the TV room. There, I shacked up on the couch watching a Ben Casey rerun and every so often staring at my uncracked copy of Brave New World. The next day I would have my essay on sex and reproduction in that new world, which I imagined wasn’t much different from this old world, where Edie removed her green velvet skirt and combat boots for a guy with untied sneakers on the floor of my father’s office. A part of me hated that she could give it up so easily. But I had to admit I was curious about her, what she smelled like, if she kissed with her tongue, the kind of sounds she made. I muted the TV to see if I could hear her.

  … please!

  She moaned so loud I could have been in the room with them. I rose from the couch and inched closer, noticing she’d left the door open, and it was like something placed in an underwear drawer: She wanted me in the room with them, the way you drew me into your world at
night. Edie was on top of him, her head illuminated slightly by a streetlight not far from the window. Hair smothered her face as she bounced up and down, the roach clip still clawing her nipple, Bobby’s velvet penis inside her. “I’m the best,” she heaved. “I’m number one.”

  “Yeah … you’re number one,” he said, and reached up for her head. He pulled her down and they kissed in the dim shadows. I leaned against the wall, watching their tongues touch, the insides of my legs sweating in my khakis.

  Edie broke from Bobby’s lips, threw her fists in the air, and shouted: “Whoa! I’m the best fucker in the whole wide world!” She glanced forward and I thought she saw me. My heart jumped.

  “Yeah, you’re the best,” Bobby said, and she smiled down at him.

  “The best what?”

  “The best fucker …”

  “In …”

  “The whole wide world,” they said together, slowly. Then Edie threw her head back, and their bouncing resumed.

  Quietly, I returned to the couch and tried squeezing my legs together but couldn’t catch the seam between my legs, that place where all the stitching met in a bump. Edie’d called it the jean clitoris. I felt inside my pants, but only for a few seconds before it didn’t seem right … them in there, me out here. And I was usually in my room … with you. This was sort of perverted. I pounded my fist against my crotch until it stung. Edie shrieked and my thighs caved inward. I couldn’t resist.

  As my normal breathing resurfaced, I pumped up the volume on Ben Casey and kicked back, elbows folded behind my head. Tiny snowflakes danced outside the window, the sky so black and heavy you couldn’t see the water. I watched the white pellets for a while before Edie and Bobby stepped out of Jack’s office and walked to the front door. The care Edie took not to make any noise as she tiptoed back through the living room touched me, only I didn’t want to hear one word about Bobby Davis or velvet. I turned my knees into the couch and pretended I was sleeping.