I wake up to my phone dancing atop the broken-down nightstand, its aluminum handle dangling out of the drill hole. It’s Cal calling, but I don’t pick up and instead check the time because doing that seems so much simpler when my head is ringing from the chimes of last night and last week and how, after the last several months of sleeplessness I was finally donated one night’s rest—a mercy sacrifice I bequeathed upon myself because let’s face it, if I didn’t, I might die and that would be easy—oh so easy—to just kill myself and stop trying but isn’t trying the most virtuous thing we can ever do in this lifetime? Try to breathe. Try to smile. Want to live and don’t want to die. Yeah, that’s the one virtuous thing I have left, and so I check the time and ignore the call. Do the small things first, I try to remind myself.
It’s three in the afternoon.
I pull the blanket off and see that my trench coat is still buttoned to mid-chest. The wake-up thirst hits, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my dry mouth, detaching like Velcro. When abusing drugs, the kidneys are the first organs to cry for help. It’s easy to mistake it for common backaches. But dry mouth is how the kidney sounds the alarms. The stimulants mandate my heart pump faster, and as a result, my body temperature elevates a quarter of a degree higher than normal. My body then processes water at a rate beyond what I can give it. Cottonmouth is the first indication that my habits are getting away from my ability to self-regulate.
Months ago, I found the psychostimulant group on Reddit. I never posted. Just observed. A Peeping Tom dry-humping a Reddit tree branch.
Most threads I found were useless to me.
Does Adderall make anyone else extra horny?
Some were what you would expect.
Crammed an entire semester of French in two days. Addy all day. AMA!!!
Some were what I needed to hear.
Does Adderall make your memory worse?
The internet has lessons for every facet of our lives and every identity we seek. If you look hard enough, someone has already conquered a journey you’re about to embark upon.
Rule #1—IT’S ALL ABOUT ELECTROLYTES.
Inside my refrigerator, on the top and bottom shelves, are twelve-ounce bottles of lemon-lime Gatorade. I unscrew the orange cap and let the green liquid, shaded like antifreeze, run down my throat.
Thump, thump, thump.
Knocking on my front door.
I lean in and press my brow ridge against the peephole.
“Hey man,” Cal says after I open the door. “I tried calling.”
I give the international body gesture for “Come on in, why don’t you?” Cal is in his weekend-casual uniform. Collared shirt underneath a V neck. Loose navy slacks. Forever on the college row team. He holds a drink tray containing two coffee cups.
“So, how’s it coming?” Normally Cal would abide by all informal etiquette. Small talk about him, small talk about me. But not this time. His expression twists like a car wrapped around a pole. “Any idea on what you’re going to pitch tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? You mean Monday.”
T-minus two days.
“Tomorrow is Monday,” he says slowly, each syllable creating a small sieve for his confidence in me to leak out.
Tomorrow is Monday. This means I slept through Saturday.
T-minus one day.
“My bad.” I shake my head. “You know how the days start to blur together.”
Cal decides to reboot our conversation. “Here, got this for you.” He hands me the coffee. “I like the coat.”
“It’s brand-new.” I take it off and toss it on the arm of the couch.
“You don’t have anything, do you?” Cal asks.
I confirm his worst suspicions. I don’t have a clue about what to pitch to Terry. He drops his head. Stares forward at my coffee table. The silence is not uncomfortable. Like with any two humans bonded by the same doomed fate, our souls are so aligned with the chilled anticipation of the future that we have no desire to talk directly to the known outcome, no need to fill the air with pretense in the form of commiserations.
“I think this is as good a time as any for Dominick’s,” I say.
“Good call.”
* * *
Dominick’s stands out in the local downtown bar scene. It’s a few blocks from the main strip, nearly embedded within the first neighborhood off the beaten path. From the outside, it looks more like a small barn. Instead of horses, there are burnouts. They play a shitty jukebox while the only bartender hands them bottles of beer or cocktails. His menu is as limited as his patience. He’s not interested in hearing about your day. However, he is lenient on modern laws about smoking indoors, and because of this, the inside of Dominick’s is covered in a thin sheet of cigarette smoke during open hours.
Cal gets the bartender’s attention. I grab a table in the corner. Throw my trench coat over the back of the chair and take a seat. The tabletop glows with a red hue born from a nearby neon Budweiser sign.
Cal hands me a bottle of low-calorie beer, cap already twisted off, and a paper coaster. He tells me stories from his weekend. Mundane tales about the Saturday morning surf and a new restaurant one town over. I slowly tear at the coaster. Take the little bits of paper and rearrange them into a circle, then dress the outside of it with smaller triangles until it all resembles the sun.
“That seems to counter your night owl brand,” Cal says.
We finish a couple more rounds, integrating fits of laughter about nothing in particular. Eventually, Cal enters nostalgia mode and starts talking about the early days at the paper. His first big news story about the local blues festival that lasts a full week and brings in thousands of tourists.
“I saved so many copies,” he says.
He then brings up another old story that he claims I wrote. Says it was the first story that Terry allowed an excess of eight hundred words. Full center spread with photos of the arrest. An exposé about meth production and addiction in Big Sur.
“Did you hear that Big Spotty got out on parole?”
“Is that supposed to be a person?”
Cal laughs but stops once he realizes I’m not joking.
“Big Spotty? The biggest meth cook around. Your story got him locked up. You seriously don’t remember?”
I shake my head.
“For real? We celebrated for days when that story hit.”
Cal keeps talking and I try to slap a poker face on while my mind races around the memory track. I don’t remember Big Spotty. I don’t remember meth in Big Sur. I don’t remember any of what he’s saying.
And then it hits me.
I can’t even remember when or where I met Cal.
Is this time to celebrate or hang myself with a noose knotted in pity?
I ask myself the most obvious question. If I can’t remember meeting Cal—can’t remember my first big story as a reporter—what else can’t I remember? My life turns into a Jeopardy! board. Three categories at the top: Childhood Friends, Dash’s Favorite Things, and Family.
Let’s take Dash’s Favorite Things for $200.
This color is listed as Dash’s favorite.
My mind is totally blank. I think I like green. Is it green? What is green?
Ding ding!
Let’s try Childhood Friends for $400.
His last name begins with the letter N and rhymes with Sash.
Who is Travis Nash? Easy.
Ding!
Let’s move to Family for $800.
Dash’s brother and mother look like this.
Shame flattens me. I think about my brother and the intense video game wars that always ended in even more intense wrestling matches, which were just preludes for fistfights. Body shots only. Faces were off-limits. But right now, I can’t remember his face. His head is just a blank oval resting atop his neck. No hair. No eyes. Nothing.
My mom sat in the bleachers for every one of my Little League games, holding a spiral notebook, recording every play as the official scorekeeper. I can hear her too-loud laugh, drawing attention from everyone in the vicinity—park, theater, restaurant—it didn’t matter. But her head and all its details are out of my mind’s reach. Her face is gone. The memory has fully corroded.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Cal. The wobbly chair screeches against the floor as I stand and head to the back of the bar, where a tight corridor darkens with each step. I enter the men’s room, and I lean over the toilet, the seat faded yellow from years and years’ worth of sweaty butt cheeks and bodily functions carrying out private disgust. I add to it. Vomit out my beer and bile and Gatorade and wish I could throw up this fear of what I’m doing to myself along with all of it. But I can’t. All I can do is allow my intestines to twist with each heave. Eventually, my body relents, and only a long string of drool hangs off my bottom lip.
“You okay in there?” The voice is too gruff to be Cal.
“I’ll be okay.” I finish spitting out the last remnants of saliva into the bowl. Flush it and head out of the stall. There, holding his hands underneath the air dryer, is Rick—the ambulance-chasing lawyer from Rocket’s group. Of course, I run into him now. Monterey is too fucking small sometimes.
Rick’s eyes get big at first, then a huge smile, the same smile that is plastered on bus stop benches, billboards, and TV ads. 877-Rick-Sues. He’s downgraded his normal silver suit for black jeans, a black sports coat, and a black T-shirt. This is his Sunday best for the cathedral of Dominick’s.
“I know you,” he says like he’s flirting with me. “You were the star of the night on Friday.”
“I can’t really talk right now.”
“No big deal. I don’t think we’re supposed to discuss that stuff openly anyway.”
I turn the faucet on and splash my face with water. Wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand. Rick starts to walk off. “Rick?”
He stops mid-stride. He looks paler in person than he does in his advertisements, where his white skin is more tanning-bed bronze.
“How does someone like you wind up at a place like the warehouse?”
He lets out a chuckle. “Everyone’s got a pile of shit stacked somewhere in their past. People like us are willing to trade just about everything to get rid of it. A fresh start, a fresh setting. I don’t need to be on TV anymore. I don’t even need to be a lawyer. Wipe my brain clean and drop me off in Omaha for all I care—you know what I mean?”
I get back to Cal and let him talk away the next couple of hours. He keeps drinking. I do not. His conversation skills become messy. I find the right moments to drop in a “for sure, man” or “yeah, definitely.” Just enough engagement so I’m not an asshole but just enough disengagement for me to occupy my mind with something else. To focus it back on what really matters. 877-Rick-Sues.
We leave the bar, and the courage of the moon cascades pale illumination across the still streets and treetops. There’s a homeless teenager on the corner asking patrons of Dominick’s for a little help. They stumble past him without looking him in the eye. I reach into my pocket and hand him a ten.
“Look at you,” Cal says. “Monterey’s great philanthropist.”
I tell Cal that I’ll drive him home and take his car to work tomorrow.
“Do whatever,” he slurs. His smile dissipates. The concern reappears. “Tomorrow is judgment day.”
He’s right.
T-minus eight hours.
By the time I pull up to his house—a skinny duplex that charges a grand more than it should—Cal can barely keep his eyes open. He reaches for the door handle, missing it twice before opening it, allowing his body to slump toward the curb.
“Thank you, Dash,” he says. “You’re a good man.”
Probably not.
I help him to his front door and get him inside before returning to the car. My foot presses down on the gas, and Cal’s Honda wails through the night. It’s one of those occasions where I don’t want to be home, and I don’t want to let go of the night, but I don’t know where to go. I hit the freeway and take in the view of the bay—neon-green lights from fishing boats piercing into the sea, attracting squid for calamari season. I roll the window down and take a random exit and find myself in Pacific Grove, weaving in and out of neighborhoods. I feel a subconscious pull to a certain street, and I don’t resist. Before I know it, I’m in front of Fuji’s salon. Staring at the faded lettering above the door. Wondering what that crazy lady thought after Enzo and I left. If she added to her rooms full of junk. If she ever called the police. But my thoughts never linger on the here and now long enough. I start thinking about my mom and brother again. Trying to remember—anything really—about the way they looked. But nothing comes back. I put the car in park. Lean back in the seat and close my eyes.
Fuck it.
Take a deep breath in. Let it out.
Let go of everything. Everyone. Just try.
Light rain starts speckling Cal’s windshield. I put my hands on the steering wheel, ready to call it a night and head back home when something grabs my attention. I hear it. All consuming. Throttling the tiny bones within my ears.
The hum has returned.
Headlights behind me spark bright like two ultraviolet owl eyes piercing through the night, looking for prey. And I am the mouse. My interior is fully aglow, and the car behind me starts its engine. I try in vain to look past the high beams and into the driver’s seat. It’s just the outline of someone.
But somehow, I already know.
The car behind me lurches forward with the unmistakable screech of rubber fighting asphalt. I grab hold of the shifter, slam it into drive, and silently pray that Cal’s old Honda has one last redlining effort left in it. My foot pushes down on the accelerator just as the car behind me gives chase.
It’s him. It’s the man from the dealership.
My nerves explode, palm sweat causes my hand to slip off the wheel, and the car fishtails. I’m hurling down a residential street at sixty miles per hour and only picking up steam. Tires cry out against the pavement as I turn a corner.
And then it happens at the worst possible time.
I glitch.
My world goes static, wavelengths distorted into a hush of electricity. Pulls and pushes like magnets butted up against each other. My world is malfunctioning.
I’m conscious again, only a few seconds having passed, and now we’re soaring through stop signs, through flashing red lights. I’m blitzing through intersections and crosswalks, and the car remains relentless in pursuit. I look at the speedometer and it’s nearing ninety miles per hour.
My eyes recoil as I glitch again.
My brain sparks, and electricity bolts out of my eyes. The snowy scramble on the TV screen, the pixels permanently searing a scar into a computer’s dead monitor.
I’m conscious again, and now we’re on the freeway. I have no memory of how this came to be, what the chase was like, or which on-ramp I took. He draws closer. I change lanes. He follows. I hit my brakes, hoping his car will scurry past me—it doesn’t. I floor it once more. Look at the speedometer as the little red gauge hits 110 miles per hour.
I feel the loss of control yet again. “Please, no!” I scream. But the glitch does not receive my message, and soon it has taken effect. My mind and body are sucked into a vacuous portal and my sense of this car chase—my sense of me in this moment—is totally removed.
A flash of white light and I’m conscious. He’s nudging the back of my car with his bumper. I swerve. He swerves with me. I look at the speedometer and it’s approaching 130 miles per hour. For a second, I ask myself—is this really happening? He rams into the car again, taking it off the ground—the car turns in midair, and a receipt from Pep Boys and a few quarters float in front of my eyes like this is zero gravity and I’m Buzz or Neil on the way to the moon. The car now tumbles on its side. My head scrapes the dome light as my feet point toward the sky. I no longer feel fear. I no longer feel the need for flight over fight. The only thing that I feel as this car whips end over end, now sliding down a grass embankment, is shame. Shame that I’m about to die as the man who slipped into a pool of regret. A pool too shallow to fully drown in, too sticky to crawl out of and live free again. Cal’s car—this crumpled metal box—turns over one last time. It teeters and rocks on its side, finally falling back onto the roof.
A crosswalk alarm goes off in the distance, beeping into the vacant night. I undo the seat belt and pull myself together. Or at least try to. The center of the steering wheel looks gutted, and its insides—the airbag—dangle limp. My equilibrium still askew, I somehow crawl out of the shattered driver’s-side window, elbows accumulating broken bits of glass. The man’s car runs idle on the shoulder of the freeway. He opens his door, gravel crunching beneath his boots. Each step gets louder. Nearer. This is it. This is how the story ends. No icon in the bottom right of the screen to count down to the next episode as the show’s credits play in black and white.
His headlights illuminate the outline of his body—just as it was at the dealership. On my street. I hold my watch, waiting for him to make his way to me. For him to end the night. End the existence that carried me to this point.
But he never gets that close.
Methodically, he backs away from the ditch, heading back to his car. The growl of the engine echoes into the night once more as he drives off. Cal mentioned that the Coast Killer liked to torment. Play games.
Is this really him?
Soon, I’ll be back in an ambulance, back in a hospital, and back in front of cops wanting to know what happened. And in T-minus six hours, to be exact, barring any extreme injuries I cannot yet feel, I’ll be staring at Terry while he awaits my big story reveal.
But as I rest my head against mud and grass, hearing Cal’s AM radio inexplicably talk to nobody but me, I finally have the answer. The story. I now know what it’s about. I write the first few sentences in my head. All the while, half expecting the man—the man from the dealership, the man with the gun, the Coast Killer—to return. He never does.
He’s gone.
And so is the hum.
The Next Chapter Begins in 3, 2, 1 . . .