The girl in Durham.
"Since we like the same sorts of images, chances are I was Googling something, found an image, and went to the source page, which was uglyuglyugly. I just remember thinking how nuts it was that your whole everything was my whole everything, and I'd spend hours pouring over your stuff. I so badly wanted to talk to you. I actually remember seeing a photo of you and some girl and getting all jealous, and saying to myself, 'shut up bitch, he's too good for you anyway'."
During the time I was still staying at Sacha's in Philadelphia, I started texting a lot with this girl from Tumblr. She contacted me out of nowhere online and told me she had followed my blog since its inception, long before I was deleted, and had only recently rediscovered me. She told me she thought I was brilliant. She even went as far as saying she felt like we were kindred spirits, or soul mates. I couldn't figure out what lead her to think that, but it was nice to experience flattery and admiration for a change, even though the situation reminded me all too well of how I became involved with Jess. Starved for attention and always desperate to make new friends to talk to, I didn't waste any time giving her my number.
The first time she ever texted me was on May 11th. She sent me a selfie of her sticking out her tongue and then a second one of her trying to make a goofy face. She was very cute and with a face full of character and beautiful imperfections. She was a brunette with big eyes like an insect that shone between often sad, low-hanging eye lids and dark circles, sometimes sitting behind glasses a little too big for her tiny face; an adorably crooked nose with a flesh-colored mole of some sort at the top of it aligned with the corner of her right eye, faintly dusted over with freckles that spread onto her chipmunk cheeks; and crooked teeth that tried to hide between her thin, red lips and insecure smiles. It was the type of face I'd fallen for before; an oddly perfect collection of the uncommon physical attributes that made me sigh deeply. I wasn't used to someone just texting me selfies, but she did it often, and I didn't mind because her face was just so nice to look at. The name I came to knew hew by wasn't her real name. She named herself after her favorite Bob's Burgers character, saying it was who she was when she wanted to escape. For the first time ever in the history of meeting girls on Tumblr, I asked her how old she was. Thankfully, she was 24. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Durham, NC with her cats and worked two jobs as a waitress and a food delivery person. She told me she'd eventually be moving in with her father. Like me, she was estranged from her mother.
Within the first two days, I decided I enjoyed her company over text. She was another weirdo with baggage and spoke very candidly and in an impressively large vocabulary. However, it wasn't long before I had to face the fact that our lifestyle choices were drastically different. She sent me a picture of her holding two tiny ice cream sandwiches. Since it was almost always straightedge vegan anarchist girls who reached out to me, I naively asked, "Are those Tofutti Cuties?!" They weren't; they were cow milk ones. It was disappointing, and I eventually found out she wasn't even a vegetarian. Next thing I knew, she was calmly telling me that a crackhead was threatening to send "goons" to her apartment to kill her. She had volunteered to be a middle man in a cocaine deal and was robbed, but the source believed she had just robbed him of either his product or his money. It was obviously unexpected, to say the least. Just as suddenly and casually, she told me she was trying really hard to score some dope. I tried not to freak out and just asked her how long she had been hooked. She told me over six years and that it was shortly after she had been sexually abused. She told me she was on twelve days clean, but that it was mostly because she was too broke to afford anything. When I asked her how committed to sobriety she was, she told me "medium". In addition, she drank a lot and was mixing alcohol and opiates with the cocktail of medications she was on for mental illness, particularly borderline personality disorder. It was a whole lot to take in at once, and would have been even I wasn't straightedge. Even worse, she had what Jess did. She even lived in the same state as Jess. It was almost kinda creepy how similar it all was to when I got hooked on Jess. She spoke openly about having "fuck buddies", which lead me to assume that our conversations were probably platonic like all the other ones I had with girls, so I didn't let it bother me that she had more or less disqualified herself from being someone I could have some sort of indie movie love with.
But the casual talks of fucking other dudes eventually lead to her sending me naked pictures of herself and asking me dirty questions, and once I excitedly reciprocated, the topic of sex never really ended and we spent a lot of nights doing what the news says the kids are calling sexting. One time, she even sent me a video of herself masturbating. It drove me insane. To my surprise, she seemed just as frustrated with the distance that kept our dirty talk restricted to text. It was almost a week before she told me she didn't know what I even looked like. I reluctantly sent her a link to my "me" tag on Tumblr and awaited her expected attempt at feigning anything but disappointment. Surprisingly, she instantly responded with adjectives like "adorable" and "sexy". She told me she had had a Tumblr crush on me for a really long time and now had a real crush on me. I started talking about the $35 Chinatown bus that went there from New York City and she enthusiastically welcomed me to come and visit her as soon as I could. Of course, I was still waiting to figure out all this Social Security shit, and didn't want to stray too far until it was all settled.
After I found out my benefits would be continued and found myself trapped back in the monotony of Schenectady homelessness, we both complained about the wait before I could visit. Neither of us had any money. Then one day, I said in passing that I would get on a bus the next day if she could somehow pay for my bus there.
Then she said, "I just thought of something: I have my dad's credit card number..."
I told her if she was able to do that, I would pay for my way back home. Without any hesitation, she was texting me all of her father's credit card information so I could order myself my tickets via Chinatown from Schenectady to New York City and then from there to Durham. As promised, I was ready to leave the next day or day after. I had barely any money, but just the potential of something magical happening with a pretty girl in another state was all I needed. I was shocked, maybe even somewhat concerned, at how quick she was to do something so seemingly irresponsible and spontaneous, but I didn't want to question it. The idea of going there without enough money to leave for at least an entire week and potentially finding myself surrounded by heavy drug usage scared me, but I rationalized it by reminding myself that leaving your comfort zone was the best way to ensure that new and exciting things happened. At that point, all alone, untouched since January, and stuck in Schenectady, this alternative sounded like exactly what I needed. Shortly after I ordered my bus tickets, she told me, "This might sound a bit psychotic since we've known each other for such a short time... but I think we may have been made for each other." Another mild concern, but it was also incredibly flattering, so all I could do was respond sarcastically with, "Ya think? Are you going to tie me to a bed and break my ankles?"
649 miles.
Sunday, May 24th
I took my four-hour bus to New York City the day before and connected with my bus from there to Durham. My bus rode into the night and she texted with me almost the entire ride, telling me about what she was going to wear and asking me what I was going to do to her when she picked me up. I got more nervous as the miles between us slowly disappeared. She became genuinely angry when it became apparent that my bus would be getting there over an hour late.
At 5 in the morning, before the sun had even gotten a chance to rise, my bus pulled in next to a gas station and let everyone off. There she was in her tiny car, enough junk in the back seat to obscure the view from one window to the other. I got in and could hardly even talk. Paper miscellany, empty soda bottles, and remnants of cigarettes littered the front, her supplies for making food deliveries took over the back. The entire car smelled like a very used kitty litter box. I nervously kept my head down and focused on her knobby knees, which poked out from underneath her thin, grey dress. She was all dolled up just for me, red lipstick, high heels, her long hair pulled back and clipped up. In our texts, she had mentioned wanting me to finger her while she drove us back to her place, but I couldn't muster the courage to get consent and therefore never did it. I didn't want to make her feel obligated to fuck me and absolutely needed to know for sure she was still into me after seeing me in person before I could even work up the nerve to ask if she still wanted to do all of the things we'd discussed. On the ride to her apartment, she spoke slowly, carefully enunciating every syllable even when she was slurring some of them. She had a mild southern accent, but spoke English like the British native that she was. She was just as cute in real life, if not more so. She was short and tiny, and her tight and petite frame came with pleasantly thick thighs.
We pulled in to the small apartment complex she lived in. I followed her up the little stairs like a scared little boy, watching the silky fabric of her dress gently bounce off of her butt with each step and click of her heels on the steel steps. We walked into her apartment, which was just as trashed as her car. You could not see the carpeted floor of her living room underneath the dirty clothes and garbage strewn all over it. A couch, love seat, end table with a lamp on it all were covered in trash of all sorts, and gutted boxes leaked more mess everywhere. She lived with seven cats, four of which were kittens who were still nursing on their mother. She quickly introduced me to all of them, naming them off one by one. The kittens were jumping around everywhere and the three older cats rushed over to her, crying for food she apparently didn't have for them. We went straight to her bedroom, another dump with a big bed in the middle of everything. Empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, used needles, and empty pill bottles lay everywhere. On her bed was a bowl, which she informed me she had smoked before picking me.
"It's nice, isn't it?" she asked.
I was caught off guard by the question and just muttered, "I suppose it's a nice piece of glass work..."
We stood around for a few minutes, myself acting a little more awkward than she was, already becoming aware that I may have been in over my head. Then she jokingly exclaimed, "I got dressed up for this?!" She was clearly joking, but it made me feel pressured to perform, so I forced my walls down like a sledgehammer to sheet rock and pulled her tiny body across her bed by her scrawny legs towards me where I was still standing over it, yanked down her underwear, got on my knees, and bit along her inner thighs before starting to furiously make out with her freshly shaved pussy. She tasted amazing. She sat up and began to pull my shirt off over my head. Hating that part of my body more than anywhere else, it instantly filled me with insecurity and dread, but the way she continued to look at me, like I was something truly desirable, managed to get my mind off of it for the moment. I hadn't had sex since January, and hadn't had sex since July before that, so I was worried about how long I'd last, and compensated for that by really prioritizing foreplay and giving her body far more attention than my own. Eventually, she was literally begging that I fuck her. In the heat of the moment, I didn't even contemplate a condom, which in retrospect was very dumb of me. We aggressively made out while I fucked her and fondled her pierced nipples, which swelled in the centers of her tiny, symmetrical breasts. She was so hot and I could hardly believe I was fucking her. I could feel myself about to cum, so I pulled out in hopes of holding out a little longer. Unfortunately, that last graze of her labia against the tip of my dick was too much to handle and I came down the crack of her lips and ass cheeks onto the bed sheets. I sucked on her clit and fingered her until she came.
The sex was really good, and even though I'm sure she said it to all of the guys, she waxed poetic about how much she loved my cock. Afterwards, as our bodies lay their limp, she got up and lit a cigarette, grumbling about how badly she was fiending for heroin. I had no idea how to respond and instantly felt sick. I felt so privileged for having been allowed to touch her that I didn't feel right asking her to smoke elsewhere. She asked me if I could buy her food with my food stamps, but I only had about $30 left on my card, so I had to tell her I couldn't. She had no food in the house except for some packets of oatmeal. She mentioned that she was going to get paid that upcoming Tuesday and had no reservations sharing that she would use it to score that day. It made me really uncomfortable.
I whimpered, "I have no idea what I'll do while you get high."
She coldly responded, "You can watch Netflix."
She rested her body back down next to me and said, "I am so glad you are here."
She wrapped her limbs around me like vines with her head on my chest. We fell asleep for a few hours. She let out really harsh snores.
I drowsily woke up to her getting ready to leave for another side job she had watching children at a church. She wasn't religious and was a drug addict, but was allowed around churchgoing children. After getting dressed, she wrapped a belt around her skinny bicep and shot up some of the methadone she was permitted to take home with her from the rehab clinic. I tried to avoid looking directly at her doing it. I closed my eyes and pretended to go back to sleep. Around noon, she came home with chips, a jar of salsa, and a jar of queso. She was at least mindful enough to get the salsa for me, though she told me she was pretty sure the queso was vegan. Obviously, it wasn't. The chips I ate were my first meal in well over twenty-four hours, which to me was a good thing. We sat together and ate chips on her bed and she asked if I wanted to join her while she went out and bought a few things. On our way out of the apartment, an old black man sitting on a chair outside of his empty apartment let out a friendly greeting. As she stuttered through an attempt to introduce me to him, she forgot my name and eventually said she'd just refer to me as "uglyuglyugly".
"I'm just some guy," I told him.
He told her he had the kung-fu DVD he'd promised her and told me he was going to teach her how to fight. We drove to a gas station that she had a credit card for and picked up some much needed cat food, just a few cans of the wet kind, three ice cream cookie sandwiches, and a Red Bull. I told her I didn't want anything. She told me she had at one point been a vegetarian because she'd met a cow, but then stopped. I actively avoided the conversation and immediately changed the subject.
Back at the house, she showed me the text messages from the dealer who was threatening her life. Then she took a bunch of pills, which I think were at least prescribed, and proceeded to shoot up some more methadone while I uncomfortably looked away as I sat on her bed.
"You ever see someone shoot up before?" she asked me.
I sighed and answered, "No, and I kinda wanted to keep it that way."
"You don't have to look."
As she loosened the belt's grip and let the legal opiate enter her bloodstream, she licked up some blood that ran down her arm and started telling me about the friends of hers who were now dead and her history of sexual abuse. It was a very miserable, dark atmosphere I was suddenly finding myself in. I tried to remain present and sympathetic even though I wanted to run away. I felt very bad for her. She kept telling me, "I wish I could keep you." I could tell she was genuinely into me, but I just could not understand why. I was beginning to chalk it up to her being mentally ill, addicted, and self-destructive. We ended up having sex again, this time her riding on top of me. She talked and joked while I was inside her, which was unusual but in a good way. She repeated that she loved my body and described me as "gorgeous", an adjective I found so outrageously inaccurate that I almost laughed. It was just so weird to hear someone describe me that way. I came inside of her because she was on the pill, but once again hadn't bothered with a condom. In the moment all reason returned to my body as the triumph of sex exited, I started thinking to myself, 'Should I really be having unprotected sex with someone who administers drugs intravenously?' At the same time, I didn't want to stereotype her. She asked me to take a shower with her, but since I'd just gotten off, I couldn't even pretend to be confident enough to do that. Instead, I sat on the toilet and watched her as she took one. She had such a nice body.
When we returned to the bed, she started saying a lot of really sweet but overwhelming things. She looked at me like a swinging hypnotist's watch, her eyes seemingly intoxicated by my mere existence.
"I am very fond of you. I have... very strong feelings for you."
She told me that doing heroin felt like falling in love and used that to segue into, "I don't want to seem psychotic or anything, but... I love you."
I loudly scoffed as a reflex and said, "No, you don't."
She started getting dressed for a night of making deliveries. She dropped me off at the Food Lion around the corner from her apartment, which was one of the only things still open in an otherwise completely abandoned strip mall. I went and bought some stuff for PB&Js and then hung around the parking lot, just talking on the phone and relaying the story so far to Matt and then Sacha. Saying it all out loud, it seemed even crazier that I was there with an addict from the internet who claimed to be in love with me. I sat in the back of the mall while homeless people shuffled around and men stopped in their tracks to piss out in the open no matter where they were or who was around. I took a nap until she got back home from work. We had sex for the third time since I got there, which was even better than the first two times, but she had to do drugs immediately after and it bummed me out. The cats in her house never stopped moving around or talking. We watched Fire Walk With Me on my laptop until I fell asleep.
The den.
The cats.
This weird mural was on the side of an abandoned building in a mostly empty strip mall where a lot of homeless people hung around.
Monday, May 25th
When we woke up, we walked to Food Lion to get more cat food because she had only bought enough to feed them all once the day before. On the way, I tried to be as nice as possible as I scolded her about how she wasn't taking good enough care of them. As soon as we stepped into the road, a car pulled up and asked us if we popped pills. I didn't respond, but she eagerly did. Suddenly, she was leaning against the driver side window and speaking in the a deep, southern 'hood accent. He introduced himself. Trying to make the best of an uncomfortable situation, I said, "I'm a cop," before quickly telling him I was kidding. When we walked away, she congratulated herself for talking him down in the price of the pills. Once again unsure of what to say, my mouth spoke exactly what was on my mind: "I wish I had the money you spend on drugs." On our way back in, we stopped and talked to her old neighbor again. This time, we had a proper introduction. His name was Rasheed and he was a 9/11 first-responder who was now suffering from chronic heart failure. He'd just moved there from the city. He was a ridiculously nice guy. As we talked about his heart problem, I mentioned in passing that I was vegan. Excitedly, he boasted that he was actually already in the process of going vegan as he raised his blender cup of smoothie ingredients not yet blended.
We left the house again. She pulled in to fill up on gas. A guy over at the next tank filled up while blasting hip-hop music from his car. For some reason, this infuriated her and she had no reservations about letting it be known as she screamed, "Nobody wants to hear that shit! Turn it the fuck down!" At first, I couldn't tell if he was ignoring her or couldn't hear her, but eventually, I saw him look at her. Undeterred, she walked over and actually told him in a more polite tone to turn his music down because it was bothering her. It was very bizarre. On our way out, she flipped off two bros in Fox motocross gear who were staring at her because of what she'd just done. We drove all around the city while she tried to hunt down somewhere she could have her check from the church cashed. Walmart turned her away, but I bought a pack of hotdogs and a bag of apple slices while we were there. Everywhere we wound up, she would share a story about how she had either done or purchased drugs there. We listened to the live Portishead album over and over and over again. It was my first time ever listening to them and I liked it a lot. She eventually got her check cashed and we got set on our next hunt, which I think was largely just to appease me and my childlike love of dinosaurs. I'd read online about a huge brontosaurus on a bike trail by the science museum. We parked outside of it and started walking up to people and asking them if they knew where it was, but nobody did. We held hands and started following a nearby bike trail. A few minutes later, standing tall and green enough to almost blend in with the surrounding trees, we found the brontosaurus. He was gigantic and closed off only by a simple fence that we hopped. We hung around him for a little bit and I tried to climb up his tail onto his back.
From there, we drove out to the edge of town where it became more suburban and wooded to visit the Eno River. The weather was in the 90s and the sun was shining, creating a perfect day for swimming in a river. It was a short hike through the woods, a hop and skip across some rocks in a stream, and some pickiness with where we would put down our stuff. She looked really good in her bathing suit and I felt weird when she took my hand in public as we entered the water together around all of these shirtless dudes with perfectly thin bodies and the right amount of body hair swinging from a rope into the air and dropping into the river. The water was pretty cold and she started having some sort of panic attack as it reached our necks. She wrapped herself around me and I held her up while on my tippy toes as she shivered. When she finally calmed down and acclimated to the water, we decided to swim across the body of water to the other side. A lot more people were over there of all ages. Three dudes blatantly checked her out while sitting in a small pit that the strongest push of the stream passed through. It looked like a natural hot tub of sorts. We climbed up to the top of a boulder and sat on the edge in the sun, waiting for them to leave so we could sit in it. On the way back down, we watched the stream take a little boy's body and just topple him along. He was lucky he didn't get hurt. The strength of the water took me by surprise and it felt like climbing as I kept myself in place only by the force of my legs against rocks. We relaxed and hung out in there for a while before swimming back over and leaving. We went back to her apartment and rested a little while drying off.
That night, we went out to dinner at Mellow Mushroom. They're my favorite pizza in the country, so I was pretty excited about it, but she had never tried vegan pizza and I was dreading any commentary that might come with the experience. I offered to pay half of the meal because that was all I could do. She bought herself a beer. We got a pizza with just vegan cheese and mushrooms. When our waitress came out with it, she declared, "One cruelty-free, egg-free, dairy-free pizza!"
"I eat all those things!" my partner defensively exclaimed. It was so annoying. I mean, she had literally just admitted to eating cruelty. I made a snide remark about how she was "too good" to be vegan, but to our surprise, our waitress was vegan, too, and said to me, "I'm on your side." For a change, the omnivore was in the minority. She liked her pizza, though, and the rest of the night went along like a date. Overall, it was a really great day and I even started feeling a little fond of her. Back at the house, she was having aches and pains from withdrawal, so I helped put a lidocaine patch on her lower back. Then she asked me if she could drink around me. Again feeling uncomfortable, and unworthy of even being with someone, I almost felt like I was not entitled to my own discomfort and said with a deep sigh, "If you must..."
But then I regained courage and added, "... which you don't, but you will if you want to, so..."
It was like every time I started feeling comfortable with her, she ruined the moment with drugs, something I just could not accept regardless of what was responsible for her issues with them. I went with her to the gas station as she bought a six-pack. I waited outside and strange man hovered over to me and started talking.
"They all want me to spend my SSI check on crack, but I'm not gonna!" he announced. I congratulated him. He continued to ramble and then descended into racism, saying petty things like, "Black people only complain!"
I shook my head and all I could say was, "Racism is a poison in the heart." I don't know where those words came from, but that's what came out when I opened my mouth. When we got back to the house, I told her I really didn't think she should drink, and that we could enjoy our time together without it, even though I was pretty sure she was trying to drink away her cravings for heroin. I finally dissuaded her from opening a single bottle by fucking her.
ACAB, written in a dead payphone.
The brontosaurus.
Charlie Chaplin crossing.
Skateboard roadside memorial.
The Eno River.
Mellow Mushroom!
Tuesday, May 26th
She left early in the morning to run to the clinic and pick up more methadone. Despite that, she stuck to her plan to use the paycheck she'd be getting that day to go buy real heroin, too. I really did not like the idea of being in the same house as actual heroin, let alone around someone who was doing it. I got all of these paranoid concerns in my head, like, 'What if she overdoses and I find her body?!' I read online about methadone because I didn't understand its purpose. From what I could gather, all it was was a legal, state-sanctioned opiate; it didn't get you clean, just off heroin. It was like the State just wanted you on their drugs instead of the ones they couldn't regulate and profit off of. In fact, I read that Russia outlawed it because they didn't believe in its efficacy. She asked for a kiss goodbye as she prepared to head out and buy some, but I just couldn't find it in myself to give her one. I felt like a kiss goodbye would be complicity; that it would be sending out this message that I was approving or tolerating her self-destructive behavior and sickness. I walked over to Food Lion and bought some fruit and a roll of toilet paper. She didn't have any in the house because she was always constipated. I went over to a strange place called The Scrap Exchange, which was like a thrift store but one of art supplies and miscellaneous garbage. Everything there was upcycled or sourced from trash and donations. They had a hall of cheap, bad art done by locals; an area where you could make something and leave with it; entire sections dedicated to otherwise mundane items like sports trophies; a room of trash cans, each filled to the brim with different things, like bows, or film negatives, or Legos. It was really fascinating.
I knew my old friend, Kevin, lived somewhere in North Carolina at the time. He had been a friend since the 7th grade and was the lead singer of the band I spent three years in. We hadn't seen each other in at least six years and our falling-out after the band broke up on mostly bad terms wasn't all that friendly. He had since moved down south to be an English teacher. I figured I'd look on Facebook and see if he was nearby and, luckily enough, he was in Durham. So I reached out and asked if he'd like to get together. It was a perfect opportunity to step away from the awkward, bleak situation I'd gotten myself into, and to catch up with someone I used to be very close to. Thankfully, he was enthusiastic about getting together. That afternoon, he picked me up and he showed me around a bit. We went to eat at a place called MotorCo, which was a restaurant and concert venue. He was nice enough to buy my meal for me. Over some sodas and a disgusting burger that he wound up spitting out, we caught up and hashed out the past, each of us extending long-overdue apologies. It was really cool to be grown up and able to look back at that time of our lives with nostalgia and lessons learned. Hindsight is 20/20, which is very inconvenient. He brought me to the American Tobacco Campus where a tobacco company watertower stood over a beautiful line of retail space and restaurants, a small waterfall and stream running through it all and a small brontosaurus climbing up out of the water. We sat by a fountain and I told him all the horror stories of the last couple years of my life. He told me about being a teacher at poor schools. We discussed anarchism and veganism and music. It was really cool seeing him and I liked the great person he had become.
All the while, she texted and called me repeatedly, saying worrisome things. She was convinced that I hated her and that I wasn't even going to be coming back to her apartment ever again. I tried to be honest about my feelings, but nothing I said sounded nice. I had no idea how to approach the issue of addiction because I had never been an addict. On one hand, I sympathized with her, and I knew she did not deserve the cruel fate of addiction just because she had made a few wrong turns in life; on the other, I could not just absolve her of all personal responsibility and behave as though doing heroin was something that was okay. I reassured her that I still liked her, that I was coming back, and that being a drug addict did not make her a bad person, though it did make it very difficult to care about her. I did care about her, of course, but caring about someone who didn't or couldn't care about themselves was very frustrating. I'd been down that road many times before. When Kevin dropped me off at the apartment, she still wasn't home. The leftovers of her score were lying around; the dirty spoon, the shrunken ball of cotton, the belt, the needle. It made my stomach hurt. A few minutes later, she walked in and acted overwhelmed and relieved that I was there, like she genuinely believed I wasn't going to come back. She hugged me and apologized and I tried to tell her that she did not have to apologize to me. After all, it was not her fault that I was not strong enough to properly handle all that her personality and baggage entailed, and it wasn't entirely her fault that her mental illness predisposed her to addiction. She started crying really hard and saying that she would get clean for me. I told her that she knew that wasn't the right reason to get clean, and that she needed to do it for her or else it would never work. I told her that methadone wasn't a solution, that shooting it up wasn't safe, and that she should consider rehab. I held her and tried to be empathetic. I felt bad that I wasn't able to provide her with exactly what she needed.
Freebrrd at the ghost mall.
A spider with big hands.
The Scrap Exchange, a thrift store of virtually every material or knick-knack you could imagine, all donated or rescued, full of garbage art.
Nono banh sandwich, hold the cilantro, at MotorCo.
The American Tobacco Campus; a beautiful area to eat and hang around owned by Big Tobacco as a way to give back to the community they're profiting off the addiction of. And somehow, another brontosaurus appears!
Wednesday, May 27th
I woke up to her leaving the bedroom to shoot up heroin in the living room. It was courteous of her, but a disturbing way to wake up. That day, we drove out to the rock quarry so we could swim another day away in a river. The hike there was about two miles and up a winding trail on a slight hill. We saw turtles lounging on a rock in the stream. The weather was a little chillier that day and the rocks we walked out into the water on were jagged and slippery with algae. Beyond them, you could not find the bottom. Unseen frogs croaked all around us. On the other side of the water was a group of bros and some young girls jumping off of a ledge. We floated around and watched a girl try to overcome her fear. We clapped when she finally took the dive. We didn't stay there long because of the weather. On the way home, I bought us some chicken patties and fruit, but ate PB&Js on the bed when we got in. We watched a lot of X-Files on Netflix because she loved it and I hadn't seen it in my adult life. She left for a little while for a meeting at her job that she was wrong about happening. We went to her father's because he asked her to come over. He was an older man and a professor at Duke University. He paid her apartment's rent. He called her over to reveal to her that he was dating a woman she had grown up with. She grew up in Glasgow in the United Kingdom with this woman around. Apparently, it was a real big deal and I felt strange being present for such a personal moment between them. She was happy with her father's choice and hugged the woman while they both cried.
We drove to Raleigh, about forty-five minutes away, in the rain. The original plan was to get dinner at a vegetarian restaurant I wanted to try and go to the movies afterwards. The place was called The Fiction Kitchen and served southern vegetarian meals with a book-themed decor. The place was packed and no booths were open. The hostess asked us if we would like to wait or take seats at the bar. I left it up to her and she said, "Well, I do want to smoke a cigarette..." I was really annoyed with her chain smoking at that point and angrily said, "You don't need another fucking cigarette, do you want to sit at the bar, or what?" We sat at the bar. The hostess probably thought I was an asshole. They had a large alcohol menu. Since I was paying, I told her she would have to order vegan. She understood, but still had the nerve to ask if I would buy her a drink. Obviously, I said I wouldn't. Even though I knew I was justified, I still felt bad, or like a square. But then she thanked me for not letting her drink. I got pulled pork with a classically Southern barbecue sauce that was more vinegar than anything else. It was fucking delicious. She got two big bowls of some Indian food balls and chips with fancy dips I didn't understand. She had me order and it confused the waitress. I imagine she thought I was an asshole, too, especially after she ordered an iced coffee and I cut her off to say she wanted soy creamer instead of cow's milk. The food was really good. Before I paid, she went out for a smoke. When I got outside, she was crouched down, smoking, while some guy was talking to her. I figured he was flirting with her and that their love of cigarettes was the obvious icebreaker. He told us about the band he was in that played the club next door every week. All the driving made her tired, so we skipped the movie went to sleep when we got back home.
Hiking to and swimming at the rock quarry.
Antonio and me.
Barbecue pulled pork with veggies and mashed potatoes at Fiction Kitchen. I forget what was in those plates you got.
Thursday, May 28th - Friday, May 29th
She blew off her first job of the day at the diner for me. There was some free folk concert happening at the American Tobacco Campus and I didn't want to sit at the house all afternoon while she made deliveries, so I had her drop me off there before she left for her second job. I had plans to meet up with Kevin there, too. I walked around by myself and tried to restrain myself from getting a pizza, but I just couldn't resist after a while and ordered a personal one. The entire place filled up with hundreds of people as the hours went by, all to watch and dance to two or three traditional Irish folk bands. An opening blue grass band shred. I sat in a big wooden chair and ate pizza while some children played with the large chess board. I walked back and forth between one end of the campus to the other, feeling kinda lonely and bored, saying hi to dogs while totally disregarding their human companions. I finally met with Kevin and his girlfriend Audrey during the final band and hung out with them the rest of the night.
I got picked up when she finished work. We'd been having sex at least two times a day since I got there and while her appetite for it seemed more intense than even my own, I thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of being able to touch her. That night, I was on my back while she was on top of me and I fucked her from behind with my face between her shoulder blades while rubbing her clit. I loved the rumbling of her hips when she'd cum. She told me she never shared needles, and even though she could have been lying, it made me feel better about not using protection. Deep down, I honestly suspected I'd never have sex again after leaving her, anyway.
The next day was very boring. We spent a lot of time just rolling around in bed between her going out into the living room to smoke cigarettes. I almost felt like I was in a relationship. Those days of just having someone to sit around and do nothing with were something I missed a whole lot. I hid her new pack of cigarettes in her box of Tampons, since she didn't get periods anymore. Of course, she just went out and bought another pack. She tried to tell me I'd inspired her to become a vegetarian, maybe even a vegan, but I didn't get my hopes up.
"Bull" puns were everywhere.
This nice woman was hanging out with her hedgehogs. She had one nestled inside a fanny pack, too. She was more than happy to let me take these pictures.
Lotsa people.
Saturday, May 30th
I promised Jess, my ex-girlfriend, that I'd visit her in jail if I ever could. When I made the decision to go to Durham, I also planned on hitchhiking or busing to Lenoir just so I could. While she had done awful things to me and her son, I still had a connection to her, and we'd exchanged letters and phone calls over the eleven months she'd been away. If I was going to be anywhere in the state of North Carolina where she was being held, I absolutely had to use the opportunity to see her. The girl I was staying with offered to take me, even though it was almost three hours away and a totally strange situation to be in. Saturday was the only day of the week that visitors could come see inmates, so it was my only shot. She had promised for several days to bring me, and I asked her once a day since getting there if she still meant it because I did not expect her to follow through on such an extreme act of kindness, especially since her jealousy issues didn't seem like they'd let her take a boy she liked to go see his ex. But she kept her word. The drive was long and boring. She chain smoked the entire time and we listened to the live Portishead album a dozen times in a row. The ride out there was ugly, stitched together with poor towns and evangelical billboards. She screamed at everyone else on the road even when she was the one in the wrong. She yelled and honked at people she claimed were tailgating her even though they weren't and got mad when people flashed their high beams at her for driving too slow in the fast lane. I tried to explain to her why she was wrong, and that she was technically able to get ticketed for not keeping up in the left lane, but it only made her angrier. I shouldn't have been backseat driving, anyway. The closer we got to the small town of Lenoir, the more upset and irrational she became. Suddenly, she was very angry about Jess. She knew what Jess had done, and she wasn't wrong when she started insulting her and saying she was a piece of shit who didn't deserve to have visitors. But then she went off the edge and started saying things like, "If I was in jail, I bet you wouldn't come visit me!"
We drove through a twirling, narrow road to the back of the jail. A big sign on the door said I could not bring my phone in with me. She would obviously have to wait in the car for me in the parking lot, which I felt bad about having her do. Jess was not expecting me. Usually, her only weekendly visitors were her parents. But I'd already arranged with them to not come so I could see her. I was so nervous, I had this anxious feeling in my gut. I was pretty sure I knew exactly how I felt about Jess, but wasn't sure what seeing her for the first time in almost a year would be like. I'd also never visited someone in jail before, and only knew what it looked like in the movies. They buzzed me in and I walked up to a window where I could only see the utility belt and hips of the officer behind it. I found out that I could only see her for a half hour. I sat among other redneck families, waiting. I kept my eyes shifting between the tips of my sneakers on the floor and the window I knew she'd eventually be appearing behind. After a long wait, I finally saw her smiling face and wave. I rushed over and sat down. I had to talk to her through a phone. She was pale and the freckles and dark circles under her eyes had darkened. Her hair was long and wavy and she was in dark blue correctional facility scrubs. At first, I had no idea what to say or talk about. We had a half hour, so I didn't want to get into anything too heavy, and I certainly didn't bother bringing up the fact that I no longer loved her or that the only reason I was even in the state was because I was fucking some girl from Tumblr.
Honestly, I don't even remember what we wound up talking about during those thirty minutes under cold, fluorescent lighting. She cried a little and I was surprised at how emotional seeing her ultimately made me feel. It was all very surreal, and in the moment symbolized how bleak my life had become. The fact that she was a prisoner, no matter what she did, was overwhelming. I could only imagine what actual imprisonment was like and how devastating that intense sense of powerlessness could be. She told me she had been sexually assaulted by her cellmate and that she was looking at more jail time than some of the other inmates who had killed people. When it was time to go, she said, "I love you," and I could not do her the disservice of lying to her. All I could say was, "I don't know how I feel about you." When I walked out of the jail, I felt light and confused. Some hick with missing teeth was talking to her. He introduced himself and asked me if I liked Call of Duty. I said, "No, I read books," and he said I looked like someone who was into video games. As we drove off, she flashed a peace sign at him and he mistook it for the middle finger.
I had accomplished all I wanted to while in Durham and was ready to go home. My check had come and I could finally afford to leave, so I planned on taking the late night Chinatown bus back to New York. Before that, I wanted to get buffalo wings at a place that had three wing options: bone in, boneless, and vegan. We were both really hungry from the six total hours we spent in her little car, so we went there as soon as we got back into town. The place was called Heavenly Buffaloes and had only recently opened. They were a little tiny, orange house that was open until 3 in the morning. When we got there, the couple before us was also ordering vegan. Vegans were everywhere I went! I ordered us each a batch of wings. Once again, I told her it had to be vegan. He asked if we wanted ranch and I said no over her yes. She half-jokingly complained to him, "He won't let me have any alcohol or animal products!" I looked at him and said, "It's my money."
As we waited for our orders, she was all over me, but I was angry about what she had said. "Oh, poor you, you can't have ranch. Cows died for that ranch. It's not funny or cute for you to complain that I won't help you eat animals." She apologized. We ate at her house. The wings were mediocre, only because they were just basic soy nuggets in buffalo sauce. Their waffle fries were awesome, though. She was surprised at how realistic the texture and taste was. We had sex for what we assumed would be the last time, with spicy sauce and protein shaking up in my stomach. We parked in the department store lot that the website said the bus would be picking up from and waited for well over an hour by her car. It never came. I was very annoyed about it.
Sour apples slices for the road.
Sunday, May 31st - Monday, June 1st
I slept a lot the next day, frustrated that my bus hadn't come and that there was apparently no way to know for sure if it would come the next time, either. She let me use her father's credit card to buy my tickets. I ate a lot of fruit throughout the day. At that point, I had lost twenty-six pounds, which I was very proud of. She worked until 8 that night. We went to a different listed stop that night. This time, at least there were other people visibly waiting around for it with me. We hung out around her car while she smoked too many cigarettes. I was relieved to be leaving, but I knew I would miss her. The bus once again wasn't showing up, so I gave them a call, though I didn't expect much. They told me it was running late, but would be there. We got Chinese food from a place in the lot we were at and ate on the trunk of her car. She was all over me, going on and on about how sad she was that I was leaving, saying she would come visit me as soon as she could. It was about 11 at night when the bus finally pulled in, and it was already packed with passengers. I gave her a big hug and kiss goodbye. She stood around and watched me as we pulled out. I had to settle for an aisle seat in a hot and sweaty bus where the two USB ports above me were being hogged. I got absolutely no sleep that night. She didn't really text me at all on my ride back to New York.
It got to the city late, so I missed my connection and had to wait and pay for a different bus. Thankfully, Grace had Paypaled me $200 in an extraordinary act of altruism. New York was cold and rainy, of course, and the closer I got to Albany, the heavier the weight of the homelessness and loneliness I knew awaited me there became on my mind. Despite our differences, I probably should have dated her, I started telling myself. Matt picked me up and we went to a Chinese restaurant in Delmar that my brother had told us about. It was called Empire Wok, which had an entirely vegan menu along with their regular one, offering just about every meat substitute you could imagine. We went pretty wild there with the food we ate while I told him stories of my week in Durham. We did a bang-bang and tried Uncle Rico's in Niskayuna, where we'd heard offered vegan pizza, afterwards. At the time, it was the closest thing to vegan pizza in Schenectady and was, as far as we knew, the only option for pizza with vegan cheese besides Little Anthony's in Albany. The owner was really nice and knowledgeable and told me he'd even made sure that the sugar he used for the vegan sauce wasn't processed with bone char. The pizza was pretty darn good. And that was that. I was back to being bored and not getting laid.
Sweet and sour chicken with pork fried rice and beef skewers at Empire Wok. All vegan, holy shit.
She didn't really text me, even when I tried to reach out to her. I assumed she'd regretted our time together and that I disappointed her. I didn't know what to think of our time together. It was special to me, but I wrote the way she looked at me off as just a symptom of her mental illness and drug problems. It was becoming abundantly clear that it took severe instability for a girl to even find me attractive, which wasn't a good feeling. Four of the last six girls I'd slept with had borderline personality disorder. The night I left, she was caught up texting some guy. I joked that he was going to be my replacement when I left. He was in the band that that guy outside of Fiction Kitchen was in. She commented on their music online and somehow they'd started talking. Exactly one week after I left Durham, she started dating him, and are still together as I write this. Part of me felt jealous, and even though I never felt as strongly about her as she claimed she did for me, it was a blow to my ego that she clearly never really sincerely felt the way she described. At the time, it was nice to think that it was still possible for someone to feel something like that for me, so it was sad to find out it wasn't real. As months went by, we didn't really keep in touch any more. Last I knew, she found homes for her kittens, moved in with her father, and successfully accomplished over a month without heroin or even intravenous methadone. I'll always remember the weird week I spent with her and hope she is able to climb out of the hole that she had fallen into over the years.
* * * I got her permission to write about all of this stuff.
During the time I was still staying at Sacha's in Philadelphia, I started texting a lot with this girl from Tumblr. She contacted me out of nowhere online and told me she had followed my blog since its inception, long before I was deleted, and had only recently rediscovered me. She told me she thought I was brilliant. She even went as far as saying she felt like we were kindred spirits, or soul mates. I couldn't figure out what lead her to think that, but it was nice to experience flattery and admiration for a change, even though the situation reminded me all too well of how I became involved with Jess. Starved for attention and always desperate to make new friends to talk to, I didn't waste any time giving her my number.
The first time she ever texted me was on May 11th. She sent me a selfie of her sticking out her tongue and then a second one of her trying to make a goofy face. She was very cute and with a face full of character and beautiful imperfections. She was a brunette with big eyes like an insect that shone between often sad, low-hanging eye lids and dark circles, sometimes sitting behind glasses a little too big for her tiny face; an adorably crooked nose with a flesh-colored mole of some sort at the top of it aligned with the corner of her right eye, faintly dusted over with freckles that spread onto her chipmunk cheeks; and crooked teeth that tried to hide between her thin, red lips and insecure smiles. It was the type of face I'd fallen for before; an oddly perfect collection of the uncommon physical attributes that made me sigh deeply. I wasn't used to someone just texting me selfies, but she did it often, and I didn't mind because her face was just so nice to look at. The name I came to knew hew by wasn't her real name. She named herself after her favorite Bob's Burgers character, saying it was who she was when she wanted to escape. For the first time ever in the history of meeting girls on Tumblr, I asked her how old she was. Thankfully, she was 24. She lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Durham, NC with her cats and worked two jobs as a waitress and a food delivery person. She told me she'd eventually be moving in with her father. Like me, she was estranged from her mother.
Within the first two days, I decided I enjoyed her company over text. She was another weirdo with baggage and spoke very candidly and in an impressively large vocabulary. However, it wasn't long before I had to face the fact that our lifestyle choices were drastically different. She sent me a picture of her holding two tiny ice cream sandwiches. Since it was almost always straightedge vegan anarchist girls who reached out to me, I naively asked, "Are those Tofutti Cuties?!" They weren't; they were cow milk ones. It was disappointing, and I eventually found out she wasn't even a vegetarian. Next thing I knew, she was calmly telling me that a crackhead was threatening to send "goons" to her apartment to kill her. She had volunteered to be a middle man in a cocaine deal and was robbed, but the source believed she had just robbed him of either his product or his money. It was obviously unexpected, to say the least. Just as suddenly and casually, she told me she was trying really hard to score some dope. I tried not to freak out and just asked her how long she had been hooked. She told me over six years and that it was shortly after she had been sexually abused. She told me she was on twelve days clean, but that it was mostly because she was too broke to afford anything. When I asked her how committed to sobriety she was, she told me "medium". In addition, she drank a lot and was mixing alcohol and opiates with the cocktail of medications she was on for mental illness, particularly borderline personality disorder. It was a whole lot to take in at once, and would have been even I wasn't straightedge. Even worse, she had what Jess did. She even lived in the same state as Jess. It was almost kinda creepy how similar it all was to when I got hooked on Jess. She spoke openly about having "fuck buddies", which lead me to assume that our conversations were probably platonic like all the other ones I had with girls, so I didn't let it bother me that she had more or less disqualified herself from being someone I could have some sort of indie movie love with.
But the casual talks of fucking other dudes eventually lead to her sending me naked pictures of herself and asking me dirty questions, and once I excitedly reciprocated, the topic of sex never really ended and we spent a lot of nights doing what the news says the kids are calling sexting. One time, she even sent me a video of herself masturbating. It drove me insane. To my surprise, she seemed just as frustrated with the distance that kept our dirty talk restricted to text. It was almost a week before she told me she didn't know what I even looked like. I reluctantly sent her a link to my "me" tag on Tumblr and awaited her expected attempt at feigning anything but disappointment. Surprisingly, she instantly responded with adjectives like "adorable" and "sexy". She told me she had had a Tumblr crush on me for a really long time and now had a real crush on me. I started talking about the $35 Chinatown bus that went there from New York City and she enthusiastically welcomed me to come and visit her as soon as I could. Of course, I was still waiting to figure out all this Social Security shit, and didn't want to stray too far until it was all settled.
After I found out my benefits would be continued and found myself trapped back in the monotony of Schenectady homelessness, we both complained about the wait before I could visit. Neither of us had any money. Then one day, I said in passing that I would get on a bus the next day if she could somehow pay for my bus there.
Then she said, "I just thought of something: I have my dad's credit card number..."
I told her if she was able to do that, I would pay for my way back home. Without any hesitation, she was texting me all of her father's credit card information so I could order myself my tickets via Chinatown from Schenectady to New York City and then from there to Durham. As promised, I was ready to leave the next day or day after. I had barely any money, but just the potential of something magical happening with a pretty girl in another state was all I needed. I was shocked, maybe even somewhat concerned, at how quick she was to do something so seemingly irresponsible and spontaneous, but I didn't want to question it. The idea of going there without enough money to leave for at least an entire week and potentially finding myself surrounded by heavy drug usage scared me, but I rationalized it by reminding myself that leaving your comfort zone was the best way to ensure that new and exciting things happened. At that point, all alone, untouched since January, and stuck in Schenectady, this alternative sounded like exactly what I needed. Shortly after I ordered my bus tickets, she told me, "This might sound a bit psychotic since we've known each other for such a short time... but I think we may have been made for each other." Another mild concern, but it was also incredibly flattering, so all I could do was respond sarcastically with, "Ya think? Are you going to tie me to a bed and break my ankles?"
649 miles.
Sunday, May 24th
I took my four-hour bus to New York City the day before and connected with my bus from there to Durham. My bus rode into the night and she texted with me almost the entire ride, telling me about what she was going to wear and asking me what I was going to do to her when she picked me up. I got more nervous as the miles between us slowly disappeared. She became genuinely angry when it became apparent that my bus would be getting there over an hour late.
At 5 in the morning, before the sun had even gotten a chance to rise, my bus pulled in next to a gas station and let everyone off. There she was in her tiny car, enough junk in the back seat to obscure the view from one window to the other. I got in and could hardly even talk. Paper miscellany, empty soda bottles, and remnants of cigarettes littered the front, her supplies for making food deliveries took over the back. The entire car smelled like a very used kitty litter box. I nervously kept my head down and focused on her knobby knees, which poked out from underneath her thin, grey dress. She was all dolled up just for me, red lipstick, high heels, her long hair pulled back and clipped up. In our texts, she had mentioned wanting me to finger her while she drove us back to her place, but I couldn't muster the courage to get consent and therefore never did it. I didn't want to make her feel obligated to fuck me and absolutely needed to know for sure she was still into me after seeing me in person before I could even work up the nerve to ask if she still wanted to do all of the things we'd discussed. On the ride to her apartment, she spoke slowly, carefully enunciating every syllable even when she was slurring some of them. She had a mild southern accent, but spoke English like the British native that she was. She was just as cute in real life, if not more so. She was short and tiny, and her tight and petite frame came with pleasantly thick thighs.
We pulled in to the small apartment complex she lived in. I followed her up the little stairs like a scared little boy, watching the silky fabric of her dress gently bounce off of her butt with each step and click of her heels on the steel steps. We walked into her apartment, which was just as trashed as her car. You could not see the carpeted floor of her living room underneath the dirty clothes and garbage strewn all over it. A couch, love seat, end table with a lamp on it all were covered in trash of all sorts, and gutted boxes leaked more mess everywhere. She lived with seven cats, four of which were kittens who were still nursing on their mother. She quickly introduced me to all of them, naming them off one by one. The kittens were jumping around everywhere and the three older cats rushed over to her, crying for food she apparently didn't have for them. We went straight to her bedroom, another dump with a big bed in the middle of everything. Empty beer bottles, cigarette butts, used needles, and empty pill bottles lay everywhere. On her bed was a bowl, which she informed me she had smoked before picking me.
"It's nice, isn't it?" she asked.
I was caught off guard by the question and just muttered, "I suppose it's a nice piece of glass work..."
We stood around for a few minutes, myself acting a little more awkward than she was, already becoming aware that I may have been in over my head. Then she jokingly exclaimed, "I got dressed up for this?!" She was clearly joking, but it made me feel pressured to perform, so I forced my walls down like a sledgehammer to sheet rock and pulled her tiny body across her bed by her scrawny legs towards me where I was still standing over it, yanked down her underwear, got on my knees, and bit along her inner thighs before starting to furiously make out with her freshly shaved pussy. She tasted amazing. She sat up and began to pull my shirt off over my head. Hating that part of my body more than anywhere else, it instantly filled me with insecurity and dread, but the way she continued to look at me, like I was something truly desirable, managed to get my mind off of it for the moment. I hadn't had sex since January, and hadn't had sex since July before that, so I was worried about how long I'd last, and compensated for that by really prioritizing foreplay and giving her body far more attention than my own. Eventually, she was literally begging that I fuck her. In the heat of the moment, I didn't even contemplate a condom, which in retrospect was very dumb of me. We aggressively made out while I fucked her and fondled her pierced nipples, which swelled in the centers of her tiny, symmetrical breasts. She was so hot and I could hardly believe I was fucking her. I could feel myself about to cum, so I pulled out in hopes of holding out a little longer. Unfortunately, that last graze of her labia against the tip of my dick was too much to handle and I came down the crack of her lips and ass cheeks onto the bed sheets. I sucked on her clit and fingered her until she came.
The sex was really good, and even though I'm sure she said it to all of the guys, she waxed poetic about how much she loved my cock. Afterwards, as our bodies lay their limp, she got up and lit a cigarette, grumbling about how badly she was fiending for heroin. I had no idea how to respond and instantly felt sick. I felt so privileged for having been allowed to touch her that I didn't feel right asking her to smoke elsewhere. She asked me if I could buy her food with my food stamps, but I only had about $30 left on my card, so I had to tell her I couldn't. She had no food in the house except for some packets of oatmeal. She mentioned that she was going to get paid that upcoming Tuesday and had no reservations sharing that she would use it to score that day. It made me really uncomfortable.
I whimpered, "I have no idea what I'll do while you get high."
She coldly responded, "You can watch Netflix."
She rested her body back down next to me and said, "I am so glad you are here."
She wrapped her limbs around me like vines with her head on my chest. We fell asleep for a few hours. She let out really harsh snores.
I drowsily woke up to her getting ready to leave for another side job she had watching children at a church. She wasn't religious and was a drug addict, but was allowed around churchgoing children. After getting dressed, she wrapped a belt around her skinny bicep and shot up some of the methadone she was permitted to take home with her from the rehab clinic. I tried to avoid looking directly at her doing it. I closed my eyes and pretended to go back to sleep. Around noon, she came home with chips, a jar of salsa, and a jar of queso. She was at least mindful enough to get the salsa for me, though she told me she was pretty sure the queso was vegan. Obviously, it wasn't. The chips I ate were my first meal in well over twenty-four hours, which to me was a good thing. We sat together and ate chips on her bed and she asked if I wanted to join her while she went out and bought a few things. On our way out of the apartment, an old black man sitting on a chair outside of his empty apartment let out a friendly greeting. As she stuttered through an attempt to introduce me to him, she forgot my name and eventually said she'd just refer to me as "uglyuglyugly".
"I'm just some guy," I told him.
He told her he had the kung-fu DVD he'd promised her and told me he was going to teach her how to fight. We drove to a gas station that she had a credit card for and picked up some much needed cat food, just a few cans of the wet kind, three ice cream cookie sandwiches, and a Red Bull. I told her I didn't want anything. She told me she had at one point been a vegetarian because she'd met a cow, but then stopped. I actively avoided the conversation and immediately changed the subject.
Back at the house, she showed me the text messages from the dealer who was threatening her life. Then she took a bunch of pills, which I think were at least prescribed, and proceeded to shoot up some more methadone while I uncomfortably looked away as I sat on her bed.
"You ever see someone shoot up before?" she asked me.
I sighed and answered, "No, and I kinda wanted to keep it that way."
"You don't have to look."
As she loosened the belt's grip and let the legal opiate enter her bloodstream, she licked up some blood that ran down her arm and started telling me about the friends of hers who were now dead and her history of sexual abuse. It was a very miserable, dark atmosphere I was suddenly finding myself in. I tried to remain present and sympathetic even though I wanted to run away. I felt very bad for her. She kept telling me, "I wish I could keep you." I could tell she was genuinely into me, but I just could not understand why. I was beginning to chalk it up to her being mentally ill, addicted, and self-destructive. We ended up having sex again, this time her riding on top of me. She talked and joked while I was inside her, which was unusual but in a good way. She repeated that she loved my body and described me as "gorgeous", an adjective I found so outrageously inaccurate that I almost laughed. It was just so weird to hear someone describe me that way. I came inside of her because she was on the pill, but once again hadn't bothered with a condom. In the moment all reason returned to my body as the triumph of sex exited, I started thinking to myself, 'Should I really be having unprotected sex with someone who administers drugs intravenously?' At the same time, I didn't want to stereotype her. She asked me to take a shower with her, but since I'd just gotten off, I couldn't even pretend to be confident enough to do that. Instead, I sat on the toilet and watched her as she took one. She had such a nice body.
When we returned to the bed, she started saying a lot of really sweet but overwhelming things. She looked at me like a swinging hypnotist's watch, her eyes seemingly intoxicated by my mere existence.
"I am very fond of you. I have... very strong feelings for you."
She told me that doing heroin felt like falling in love and used that to segue into, "I don't want to seem psychotic or anything, but... I love you."
I loudly scoffed as a reflex and said, "No, you don't."
She started getting dressed for a night of making deliveries. She dropped me off at the Food Lion around the corner from her apartment, which was one of the only things still open in an otherwise completely abandoned strip mall. I went and bought some stuff for PB&Js and then hung around the parking lot, just talking on the phone and relaying the story so far to Matt and then Sacha. Saying it all out loud, it seemed even crazier that I was there with an addict from the internet who claimed to be in love with me. I sat in the back of the mall while homeless people shuffled around and men stopped in their tracks to piss out in the open no matter where they were or who was around. I took a nap until she got back home from work. We had sex for the third time since I got there, which was even better than the first two times, but she had to do drugs immediately after and it bummed me out. The cats in her house never stopped moving around or talking. We watched Fire Walk With Me on my laptop until I fell asleep.
The den.
The cats.
This weird mural was on the side of an abandoned building in a mostly empty strip mall where a lot of homeless people hung around.
Monday, May 25th
When we woke up, we walked to Food Lion to get more cat food because she had only bought enough to feed them all once the day before. On the way, I tried to be as nice as possible as I scolded her about how she wasn't taking good enough care of them. As soon as we stepped into the road, a car pulled up and asked us if we popped pills. I didn't respond, but she eagerly did. Suddenly, she was leaning against the driver side window and speaking in the a deep, southern 'hood accent. He introduced himself. Trying to make the best of an uncomfortable situation, I said, "I'm a cop," before quickly telling him I was kidding. When we walked away, she congratulated herself for talking him down in the price of the pills. Once again unsure of what to say, my mouth spoke exactly what was on my mind: "I wish I had the money you spend on drugs." On our way back in, we stopped and talked to her old neighbor again. This time, we had a proper introduction. His name was Rasheed and he was a 9/11 first-responder who was now suffering from chronic heart failure. He'd just moved there from the city. He was a ridiculously nice guy. As we talked about his heart problem, I mentioned in passing that I was vegan. Excitedly, he boasted that he was actually already in the process of going vegan as he raised his blender cup of smoothie ingredients not yet blended.
We left the house again. She pulled in to fill up on gas. A guy over at the next tank filled up while blasting hip-hop music from his car. For some reason, this infuriated her and she had no reservations about letting it be known as she screamed, "Nobody wants to hear that shit! Turn it the fuck down!" At first, I couldn't tell if he was ignoring her or couldn't hear her, but eventually, I saw him look at her. Undeterred, she walked over and actually told him in a more polite tone to turn his music down because it was bothering her. It was very bizarre. On our way out, she flipped off two bros in Fox motocross gear who were staring at her because of what she'd just done. We drove all around the city while she tried to hunt down somewhere she could have her check from the church cashed. Walmart turned her away, but I bought a pack of hotdogs and a bag of apple slices while we were there. Everywhere we wound up, she would share a story about how she had either done or purchased drugs there. We listened to the live Portishead album over and over and over again. It was my first time ever listening to them and I liked it a lot. She eventually got her check cashed and we got set on our next hunt, which I think was largely just to appease me and my childlike love of dinosaurs. I'd read online about a huge brontosaurus on a bike trail by the science museum. We parked outside of it and started walking up to people and asking them if they knew where it was, but nobody did. We held hands and started following a nearby bike trail. A few minutes later, standing tall and green enough to almost blend in with the surrounding trees, we found the brontosaurus. He was gigantic and closed off only by a simple fence that we hopped. We hung around him for a little bit and I tried to climb up his tail onto his back.
From there, we drove out to the edge of town where it became more suburban and wooded to visit the Eno River. The weather was in the 90s and the sun was shining, creating a perfect day for swimming in a river. It was a short hike through the woods, a hop and skip across some rocks in a stream, and some pickiness with where we would put down our stuff. She looked really good in her bathing suit and I felt weird when she took my hand in public as we entered the water together around all of these shirtless dudes with perfectly thin bodies and the right amount of body hair swinging from a rope into the air and dropping into the river. The water was pretty cold and she started having some sort of panic attack as it reached our necks. She wrapped herself around me and I held her up while on my tippy toes as she shivered. When she finally calmed down and acclimated to the water, we decided to swim across the body of water to the other side. A lot more people were over there of all ages. Three dudes blatantly checked her out while sitting in a small pit that the strongest push of the stream passed through. It looked like a natural hot tub of sorts. We climbed up to the top of a boulder and sat on the edge in the sun, waiting for them to leave so we could sit in it. On the way back down, we watched the stream take a little boy's body and just topple him along. He was lucky he didn't get hurt. The strength of the water took me by surprise and it felt like climbing as I kept myself in place only by the force of my legs against rocks. We relaxed and hung out in there for a while before swimming back over and leaving. We went back to her apartment and rested a little while drying off.
That night, we went out to dinner at Mellow Mushroom. They're my favorite pizza in the country, so I was pretty excited about it, but she had never tried vegan pizza and I was dreading any commentary that might come with the experience. I offered to pay half of the meal because that was all I could do. She bought herself a beer. We got a pizza with just vegan cheese and mushrooms. When our waitress came out with it, she declared, "One cruelty-free, egg-free, dairy-free pizza!"
"I eat all those things!" my partner defensively exclaimed. It was so annoying. I mean, she had literally just admitted to eating cruelty. I made a snide remark about how she was "too good" to be vegan, but to our surprise, our waitress was vegan, too, and said to me, "I'm on your side." For a change, the omnivore was in the minority. She liked her pizza, though, and the rest of the night went along like a date. Overall, it was a really great day and I even started feeling a little fond of her. Back at the house, she was having aches and pains from withdrawal, so I helped put a lidocaine patch on her lower back. Then she asked me if she could drink around me. Again feeling uncomfortable, and unworthy of even being with someone, I almost felt like I was not entitled to my own discomfort and said with a deep sigh, "If you must..."
But then I regained courage and added, "... which you don't, but you will if you want to, so..."
It was like every time I started feeling comfortable with her, she ruined the moment with drugs, something I just could not accept regardless of what was responsible for her issues with them. I went with her to the gas station as she bought a six-pack. I waited outside and strange man hovered over to me and started talking.
"They all want me to spend my SSI check on crack, but I'm not gonna!" he announced. I congratulated him. He continued to ramble and then descended into racism, saying petty things like, "Black people only complain!"
I shook my head and all I could say was, "Racism is a poison in the heart." I don't know where those words came from, but that's what came out when I opened my mouth. When we got back to the house, I told her I really didn't think she should drink, and that we could enjoy our time together without it, even though I was pretty sure she was trying to drink away her cravings for heroin. I finally dissuaded her from opening a single bottle by fucking her.
ACAB, written in a dead payphone.
The brontosaurus.
Charlie Chaplin crossing.
Skateboard roadside memorial.
The Eno River.
Mellow Mushroom!
Tuesday, May 26th
She left early in the morning to run to the clinic and pick up more methadone. Despite that, she stuck to her plan to use the paycheck she'd be getting that day to go buy real heroin, too. I really did not like the idea of being in the same house as actual heroin, let alone around someone who was doing it. I got all of these paranoid concerns in my head, like, 'What if she overdoses and I find her body?!' I read online about methadone because I didn't understand its purpose. From what I could gather, all it was was a legal, state-sanctioned opiate; it didn't get you clean, just off heroin. It was like the State just wanted you on their drugs instead of the ones they couldn't regulate and profit off of. In fact, I read that Russia outlawed it because they didn't believe in its efficacy. She asked for a kiss goodbye as she prepared to head out and buy some, but I just couldn't find it in myself to give her one. I felt like a kiss goodbye would be complicity; that it would be sending out this message that I was approving or tolerating her self-destructive behavior and sickness. I walked over to Food Lion and bought some fruit and a roll of toilet paper. She didn't have any in the house because she was always constipated. I went over to a strange place called The Scrap Exchange, which was like a thrift store but one of art supplies and miscellaneous garbage. Everything there was upcycled or sourced from trash and donations. They had a hall of cheap, bad art done by locals; an area where you could make something and leave with it; entire sections dedicated to otherwise mundane items like sports trophies; a room of trash cans, each filled to the brim with different things, like bows, or film negatives, or Legos. It was really fascinating.
I knew my old friend, Kevin, lived somewhere in North Carolina at the time. He had been a friend since the 7th grade and was the lead singer of the band I spent three years in. We hadn't seen each other in at least six years and our falling-out after the band broke up on mostly bad terms wasn't all that friendly. He had since moved down south to be an English teacher. I figured I'd look on Facebook and see if he was nearby and, luckily enough, he was in Durham. So I reached out and asked if he'd like to get together. It was a perfect opportunity to step away from the awkward, bleak situation I'd gotten myself into, and to catch up with someone I used to be very close to. Thankfully, he was enthusiastic about getting together. That afternoon, he picked me up and he showed me around a bit. We went to eat at a place called MotorCo, which was a restaurant and concert venue. He was nice enough to buy my meal for me. Over some sodas and a disgusting burger that he wound up spitting out, we caught up and hashed out the past, each of us extending long-overdue apologies. It was really cool to be grown up and able to look back at that time of our lives with nostalgia and lessons learned. Hindsight is 20/20, which is very inconvenient. He brought me to the American Tobacco Campus where a tobacco company watertower stood over a beautiful line of retail space and restaurants, a small waterfall and stream running through it all and a small brontosaurus climbing up out of the water. We sat by a fountain and I told him all the horror stories of the last couple years of my life. He told me about being a teacher at poor schools. We discussed anarchism and veganism and music. It was really cool seeing him and I liked the great person he had become.
All the while, she texted and called me repeatedly, saying worrisome things. She was convinced that I hated her and that I wasn't even going to be coming back to her apartment ever again. I tried to be honest about my feelings, but nothing I said sounded nice. I had no idea how to approach the issue of addiction because I had never been an addict. On one hand, I sympathized with her, and I knew she did not deserve the cruel fate of addiction just because she had made a few wrong turns in life; on the other, I could not just absolve her of all personal responsibility and behave as though doing heroin was something that was okay. I reassured her that I still liked her, that I was coming back, and that being a drug addict did not make her a bad person, though it did make it very difficult to care about her. I did care about her, of course, but caring about someone who didn't or couldn't care about themselves was very frustrating. I'd been down that road many times before. When Kevin dropped me off at the apartment, she still wasn't home. The leftovers of her score were lying around; the dirty spoon, the shrunken ball of cotton, the belt, the needle. It made my stomach hurt. A few minutes later, she walked in and acted overwhelmed and relieved that I was there, like she genuinely believed I wasn't going to come back. She hugged me and apologized and I tried to tell her that she did not have to apologize to me. After all, it was not her fault that I was not strong enough to properly handle all that her personality and baggage entailed, and it wasn't entirely her fault that her mental illness predisposed her to addiction. She started crying really hard and saying that she would get clean for me. I told her that she knew that wasn't the right reason to get clean, and that she needed to do it for her or else it would never work. I told her that methadone wasn't a solution, that shooting it up wasn't safe, and that she should consider rehab. I held her and tried to be empathetic. I felt bad that I wasn't able to provide her with exactly what she needed.
Freebrrd at the ghost mall.
A spider with big hands.
The Scrap Exchange, a thrift store of virtually every material or knick-knack you could imagine, all donated or rescued, full of garbage art.
Nono banh sandwich, hold the cilantro, at MotorCo.
The American Tobacco Campus; a beautiful area to eat and hang around owned by Big Tobacco as a way to give back to the community they're profiting off the addiction of. And somehow, another brontosaurus appears!
Wednesday, May 27th
I woke up to her leaving the bedroom to shoot up heroin in the living room. It was courteous of her, but a disturbing way to wake up. That day, we drove out to the rock quarry so we could swim another day away in a river. The hike there was about two miles and up a winding trail on a slight hill. We saw turtles lounging on a rock in the stream. The weather was a little chillier that day and the rocks we walked out into the water on were jagged and slippery with algae. Beyond them, you could not find the bottom. Unseen frogs croaked all around us. On the other side of the water was a group of bros and some young girls jumping off of a ledge. We floated around and watched a girl try to overcome her fear. We clapped when she finally took the dive. We didn't stay there long because of the weather. On the way home, I bought us some chicken patties and fruit, but ate PB&Js on the bed when we got in. We watched a lot of X-Files on Netflix because she loved it and I hadn't seen it in my adult life. She left for a little while for a meeting at her job that she was wrong about happening. We went to her father's because he asked her to come over. He was an older man and a professor at Duke University. He paid her apartment's rent. He called her over to reveal to her that he was dating a woman she had grown up with. She grew up in Glasgow in the United Kingdom with this woman around. Apparently, it was a real big deal and I felt strange being present for such a personal moment between them. She was happy with her father's choice and hugged the woman while they both cried.
We drove to Raleigh, about forty-five minutes away, in the rain. The original plan was to get dinner at a vegetarian restaurant I wanted to try and go to the movies afterwards. The place was called The Fiction Kitchen and served southern vegetarian meals with a book-themed decor. The place was packed and no booths were open. The hostess asked us if we would like to wait or take seats at the bar. I left it up to her and she said, "Well, I do want to smoke a cigarette..." I was really annoyed with her chain smoking at that point and angrily said, "You don't need another fucking cigarette, do you want to sit at the bar, or what?" We sat at the bar. The hostess probably thought I was an asshole. They had a large alcohol menu. Since I was paying, I told her she would have to order vegan. She understood, but still had the nerve to ask if I would buy her a drink. Obviously, I said I wouldn't. Even though I knew I was justified, I still felt bad, or like a square. But then she thanked me for not letting her drink. I got pulled pork with a classically Southern barbecue sauce that was more vinegar than anything else. It was fucking delicious. She got two big bowls of some Indian food balls and chips with fancy dips I didn't understand. She had me order and it confused the waitress. I imagine she thought I was an asshole, too, especially after she ordered an iced coffee and I cut her off to say she wanted soy creamer instead of cow's milk. The food was really good. Before I paid, she went out for a smoke. When I got outside, she was crouched down, smoking, while some guy was talking to her. I figured he was flirting with her and that their love of cigarettes was the obvious icebreaker. He told us about the band he was in that played the club next door every week. All the driving made her tired, so we skipped the movie went to sleep when we got back home.
Hiking to and swimming at the rock quarry.
Antonio and me.
Barbecue pulled pork with veggies and mashed potatoes at Fiction Kitchen. I forget what was in those plates you got.
Thursday, May 28th - Friday, May 29th
She blew off her first job of the day at the diner for me. There was some free folk concert happening at the American Tobacco Campus and I didn't want to sit at the house all afternoon while she made deliveries, so I had her drop me off there before she left for her second job. I had plans to meet up with Kevin there, too. I walked around by myself and tried to restrain myself from getting a pizza, but I just couldn't resist after a while and ordered a personal one. The entire place filled up with hundreds of people as the hours went by, all to watch and dance to two or three traditional Irish folk bands. An opening blue grass band shred. I sat in a big wooden chair and ate pizza while some children played with the large chess board. I walked back and forth between one end of the campus to the other, feeling kinda lonely and bored, saying hi to dogs while totally disregarding their human companions. I finally met with Kevin and his girlfriend Audrey during the final band and hung out with them the rest of the night.
I got picked up when she finished work. We'd been having sex at least two times a day since I got there and while her appetite for it seemed more intense than even my own, I thoroughly enjoyed the privilege of being able to touch her. That night, I was on my back while she was on top of me and I fucked her from behind with my face between her shoulder blades while rubbing her clit. I loved the rumbling of her hips when she'd cum. She told me she never shared needles, and even though she could have been lying, it made me feel better about not using protection. Deep down, I honestly suspected I'd never have sex again after leaving her, anyway.
The next day was very boring. We spent a lot of time just rolling around in bed between her going out into the living room to smoke cigarettes. I almost felt like I was in a relationship. Those days of just having someone to sit around and do nothing with were something I missed a whole lot. I hid her new pack of cigarettes in her box of Tampons, since she didn't get periods anymore. Of course, she just went out and bought another pack. She tried to tell me I'd inspired her to become a vegetarian, maybe even a vegan, but I didn't get my hopes up.
"Bull" puns were everywhere.
This nice woman was hanging out with her hedgehogs. She had one nestled inside a fanny pack, too. She was more than happy to let me take these pictures.
Lotsa people.
Saturday, May 30th
I promised Jess, my ex-girlfriend, that I'd visit her in jail if I ever could. When I made the decision to go to Durham, I also planned on hitchhiking or busing to Lenoir just so I could. While she had done awful things to me and her son, I still had a connection to her, and we'd exchanged letters and phone calls over the eleven months she'd been away. If I was going to be anywhere in the state of North Carolina where she was being held, I absolutely had to use the opportunity to see her. The girl I was staying with offered to take me, even though it was almost three hours away and a totally strange situation to be in. Saturday was the only day of the week that visitors could come see inmates, so it was my only shot. She had promised for several days to bring me, and I asked her once a day since getting there if she still meant it because I did not expect her to follow through on such an extreme act of kindness, especially since her jealousy issues didn't seem like they'd let her take a boy she liked to go see his ex. But she kept her word. The drive was long and boring. She chain smoked the entire time and we listened to the live Portishead album a dozen times in a row. The ride out there was ugly, stitched together with poor towns and evangelical billboards. She screamed at everyone else on the road even when she was the one in the wrong. She yelled and honked at people she claimed were tailgating her even though they weren't and got mad when people flashed their high beams at her for driving too slow in the fast lane. I tried to explain to her why she was wrong, and that she was technically able to get ticketed for not keeping up in the left lane, but it only made her angrier. I shouldn't have been backseat driving, anyway. The closer we got to the small town of Lenoir, the more upset and irrational she became. Suddenly, she was very angry about Jess. She knew what Jess had done, and she wasn't wrong when she started insulting her and saying she was a piece of shit who didn't deserve to have visitors. But then she went off the edge and started saying things like, "If I was in jail, I bet you wouldn't come visit me!"
We drove through a twirling, narrow road to the back of the jail. A big sign on the door said I could not bring my phone in with me. She would obviously have to wait in the car for me in the parking lot, which I felt bad about having her do. Jess was not expecting me. Usually, her only weekendly visitors were her parents. But I'd already arranged with them to not come so I could see her. I was so nervous, I had this anxious feeling in my gut. I was pretty sure I knew exactly how I felt about Jess, but wasn't sure what seeing her for the first time in almost a year would be like. I'd also never visited someone in jail before, and only knew what it looked like in the movies. They buzzed me in and I walked up to a window where I could only see the utility belt and hips of the officer behind it. I found out that I could only see her for a half hour. I sat among other redneck families, waiting. I kept my eyes shifting between the tips of my sneakers on the floor and the window I knew she'd eventually be appearing behind. After a long wait, I finally saw her smiling face and wave. I rushed over and sat down. I had to talk to her through a phone. She was pale and the freckles and dark circles under her eyes had darkened. Her hair was long and wavy and she was in dark blue correctional facility scrubs. At first, I had no idea what to say or talk about. We had a half hour, so I didn't want to get into anything too heavy, and I certainly didn't bother bringing up the fact that I no longer loved her or that the only reason I was even in the state was because I was fucking some girl from Tumblr.
Honestly, I don't even remember what we wound up talking about during those thirty minutes under cold, fluorescent lighting. She cried a little and I was surprised at how emotional seeing her ultimately made me feel. It was all very surreal, and in the moment symbolized how bleak my life had become. The fact that she was a prisoner, no matter what she did, was overwhelming. I could only imagine what actual imprisonment was like and how devastating that intense sense of powerlessness could be. She told me she had been sexually assaulted by her cellmate and that she was looking at more jail time than some of the other inmates who had killed people. When it was time to go, she said, "I love you," and I could not do her the disservice of lying to her. All I could say was, "I don't know how I feel about you." When I walked out of the jail, I felt light and confused. Some hick with missing teeth was talking to her. He introduced himself and asked me if I liked Call of Duty. I said, "No, I read books," and he said I looked like someone who was into video games. As we drove off, she flashed a peace sign at him and he mistook it for the middle finger.
I had accomplished all I wanted to while in Durham and was ready to go home. My check had come and I could finally afford to leave, so I planned on taking the late night Chinatown bus back to New York. Before that, I wanted to get buffalo wings at a place that had three wing options: bone in, boneless, and vegan. We were both really hungry from the six total hours we spent in her little car, so we went there as soon as we got back into town. The place was called Heavenly Buffaloes and had only recently opened. They were a little tiny, orange house that was open until 3 in the morning. When we got there, the couple before us was also ordering vegan. Vegans were everywhere I went! I ordered us each a batch of wings. Once again, I told her it had to be vegan. He asked if we wanted ranch and I said no over her yes. She half-jokingly complained to him, "He won't let me have any alcohol or animal products!" I looked at him and said, "It's my money."
As we waited for our orders, she was all over me, but I was angry about what she had said. "Oh, poor you, you can't have ranch. Cows died for that ranch. It's not funny or cute for you to complain that I won't help you eat animals." She apologized. We ate at her house. The wings were mediocre, only because they were just basic soy nuggets in buffalo sauce. Their waffle fries were awesome, though. She was surprised at how realistic the texture and taste was. We had sex for what we assumed would be the last time, with spicy sauce and protein shaking up in my stomach. We parked in the department store lot that the website said the bus would be picking up from and waited for well over an hour by her car. It never came. I was very annoyed about it.
Sour apples slices for the road.
Sunday, May 31st - Monday, June 1st
I slept a lot the next day, frustrated that my bus hadn't come and that there was apparently no way to know for sure if it would come the next time, either. She let me use her father's credit card to buy my tickets. I ate a lot of fruit throughout the day. At that point, I had lost twenty-six pounds, which I was very proud of. She worked until 8 that night. We went to a different listed stop that night. This time, at least there were other people visibly waiting around for it with me. We hung out around her car while she smoked too many cigarettes. I was relieved to be leaving, but I knew I would miss her. The bus once again wasn't showing up, so I gave them a call, though I didn't expect much. They told me it was running late, but would be there. We got Chinese food from a place in the lot we were at and ate on the trunk of her car. She was all over me, going on and on about how sad she was that I was leaving, saying she would come visit me as soon as she could. It was about 11 at night when the bus finally pulled in, and it was already packed with passengers. I gave her a big hug and kiss goodbye. She stood around and watched me as we pulled out. I had to settle for an aisle seat in a hot and sweaty bus where the two USB ports above me were being hogged. I got absolutely no sleep that night. She didn't really text me at all on my ride back to New York.
It got to the city late, so I missed my connection and had to wait and pay for a different bus. Thankfully, Grace had Paypaled me $200 in an extraordinary act of altruism. New York was cold and rainy, of course, and the closer I got to Albany, the heavier the weight of the homelessness and loneliness I knew awaited me there became on my mind. Despite our differences, I probably should have dated her, I started telling myself. Matt picked me up and we went to a Chinese restaurant in Delmar that my brother had told us about. It was called Empire Wok, which had an entirely vegan menu along with their regular one, offering just about every meat substitute you could imagine. We went pretty wild there with the food we ate while I told him stories of my week in Durham. We did a bang-bang and tried Uncle Rico's in Niskayuna, where we'd heard offered vegan pizza, afterwards. At the time, it was the closest thing to vegan pizza in Schenectady and was, as far as we knew, the only option for pizza with vegan cheese besides Little Anthony's in Albany. The owner was really nice and knowledgeable and told me he'd even made sure that the sugar he used for the vegan sauce wasn't processed with bone char. The pizza was pretty darn good. And that was that. I was back to being bored and not getting laid.
Sweet and sour chicken with pork fried rice and beef skewers at Empire Wok. All vegan, holy shit.
She didn't really text me, even when I tried to reach out to her. I assumed she'd regretted our time together and that I disappointed her. I didn't know what to think of our time together. It was special to me, but I wrote the way she looked at me off as just a symptom of her mental illness and drug problems. It was becoming abundantly clear that it took severe instability for a girl to even find me attractive, which wasn't a good feeling. Four of the last six girls I'd slept with had borderline personality disorder. The night I left, she was caught up texting some guy. I joked that he was going to be my replacement when I left. He was in the band that that guy outside of Fiction Kitchen was in. She commented on their music online and somehow they'd started talking. Exactly one week after I left Durham, she started dating him, and are still together as I write this. Part of me felt jealous, and even though I never felt as strongly about her as she claimed she did for me, it was a blow to my ego that she clearly never really sincerely felt the way she described. At the time, it was nice to think that it was still possible for someone to feel something like that for me, so it was sad to find out it wasn't real. As months went by, we didn't really keep in touch any more. Last I knew, she found homes for her kittens, moved in with her father, and successfully accomplished over a month without heroin or even intravenous methadone. I'll always remember the weird week I spent with her and hope she is able to climb out of the hole that she had fallen into over the years.
* * * I got her permission to write about all of this stuff.