Destroy (3 page)

Crossing his legs and lighting a cigarette, Ryan goes, “Megan is Brandy's new roommate.”

“Oh, cool. Brandy's pretty all right,” I say. And an amazing fuck who once let me do her in the ass in the girls' bathroom of the Hemlock Tavern once after we saw Apache play.

“She's cool,” Megan says.

Ryan turns to his computer and puts on this great band, the Homosexuals.

“Excellent call, man,” I say, sliding my cigarette case out of the inside pocket of my blazer. “I actually listened to this record while I was getting ready.”

“It's pretty damn good,” Ryan says, then turns to Megan and goes, “By the way, just so you know, James is a published author, which makes him better than both of us.” He takes a drink from his High Life forty and makes this horrific face as he forces it down his throat. “Seriously,” he coughs, burps. “He really is.”

Knocking her right knee against my left one, Megan says, “What'd you write?”

Clearing my throat and lighting a cigarette, I say, “The international bestselling novel
PieGrinder
, which is also about to become a major motion picture starring Ben Whishaw, Jennifer Connelly, and Beau Garrett.”

“Holy shit! You wrote that? I love that fucking book! It's one of my favorite books ever!”

“Well, thank you, darling. It's one of mine, too.”

“And Jennifer Connelly is starring in the movie!” she snorts. “That's so awesome. I love her.”

Ryan, who looks really close to vomiting after taking another pull, groans, “Who is she again?”

“She was in that movie
Career Opportunities
,” I tell him.

“Which one was that?” he asks.

“It's the one where that guy works as a night janitor at Target and she gets locked in the store with him and they work together as a team to thwart a pair of burglars.”

“That's right,” Ryan says. “I liked that one.”

“Well, she's been in other stuff,” Megan cuts in.

“But nothing as good as that,” I shoot back. “That movie kills it.”

“Fucking Target,” Ryan snaps, throwing the rock horns back up. “Destroy.”

“Destroy, man.”

“Well.” Megan grins. “It's super nice to meet you.” She opens her purse and digs a flyer from it and hands it to me. “My friend Haley is putting on this huge fashion and music showcase on Halloween night at the 2/6 Grindhouse on Seventeenth and Capp. It's gonna be absolutely brilliant. Amazing bands are gonna play. DJ Guestlist is spinning. You have to come. You just have to. You're, like, a celebrity, dude.”

I look at the flyer and take immediate inventory of the bands playing: Lamborghini Dreams. The Cherry Stealers. Tight Black Holes. And Yaked Out, whose lead singer, the beautiful and
sexy Bailey Brown, I used to fuck before finding myself in a very brief and completely unhealthy relationship with that girl from the band Danny Jackson's Purple Stallion.

“Looks fun,” I tell Megan. “Fuckin' Lamborghini Dreams rule. They're so good live.”

“I know. I'm super into them right now. That one song of theirs, ‘Me and Bill Shatner Backstage,' is so fucking rad,” she says, then rubs a hand across my thigh, winking at me. “You just have to come, James. You just have to.”

“I promise, I'll try my hardest.”

“That would be great,” she says, after brushing my thigh again.

And then Ryan goes, “So what are you looking for, man?”

“Just give me two grams.” I pull fifty dollars out of my wallet and hand it over to him, and he gives me three grams and says, “A little bonus for turning some heads toward my band in LA.”

“Awesome, dude. I'm gonna do some here.”

“Go for it.”

I look at Megan. “Want a line?”

“Sure.” She smiles, nudging me again with her knee.

Nudging her back, I ask Ryan if he has a surface I can cut this shit on, and he hands me a mirror and I dump out a good amount. “Ryan, you in?”

“Nope. I'm going to bed soon.”

“Dude,” I laugh. “You're a goddamn coke dealer. It's Friday night and you're a coke dealer and you're going to bed. That's just not a smart move.”

“I know it,” he says. “I suck at this job.”

Picking up the razor blade on the mirror, I carve the pile into three humongous lines, and Megan goes, “Jesus, man. Those are fucking huge.”

“Well, darling,” I sigh. “That's how I do this shit. I don't do tiny lines. I don't sit around and do fucking key bumps unless I'm in a girls' bathroom somewhere. I do this shit to get fucked up. Not to get buzzed.”

“Obviously.”

I do two lines with the straw I cut in half before I left my apartment. Instant relief. All the bullshit just evaporates. Gone. Nothing fucking matters except the moment I'm in and how much we're gonna talk about me.

Handing the mirror to Megan, I say, “So what's up with the terrorist attack, dudes?”

“They hate our freedom,” Ryan snorts.

“What gallery got hit?” I ask.

Megan finishes off the line and says, “The Larkin-Monroe on Geary and Powell. They were having a tribute to celebrity mannequins or something.”

“Oh god,” I laugh. “A tribute to that bullshit. So fucking what? I mean, that's pretty much on a par with shooting up the tour bus of a Kiss cover band.”

Both Megan and Ryan start laughing, and I light another cigarette. Then Ryan goes, “So how the fuck was LA?”

“Fuckin' phenomenal, man. I saw Van Halen play with David Lee Roth.”

Ryan's face goes pure white. “No, you didn't.”

“I sure did.”

“Oh, man!” he shouts. “I fucking hate you! You suck! You suck! You suck!”

And Megan goes, “Dude! Who are you?”

“I'm James Morgan, baby. Published Author.”

She shakes her head. “But Van Halen with David Lee Roth. The first show back together. How the fuck did you pull that one off?”

“I have a ton of connections. Trust me. I know a lot of people.”

“So how was it?” Ryan asks.

“Dude, it was so awesome. Third song, ‘Running with the Devil,' and I got so excited I jumped up and my glass of beer squirted out of my hand and landed on this girl in front of me. She turns around. And I swear it's that Kate Hudson chick. Looks exactly like her, at least. And I tell her that I'm sorry, and she's like, ‘We're watching David Lee Roth play with Van Halen. If that's the only thing that happens to me, I'll demand my goddamn money back.' ”

“Awesome,” Ryan says, jacking up the rock horns again.

And I go, “The whole show was so good. Only the hits, dude. There ain't a new record with the reunion, so they only played the hits. So good.”

“I officially hate you,” Ryan tells me, hugging himself now and scratching both of his arms.

My phone starts ringing.

It's Nina.

Sweet, sweet Nina.

And she's like, “Where the fuck are you?”

“I had to make a quick stop. I'll be there soon.”

“Fucking amazing,” she says. “It's so nice to know the habit of your nostrils is more important than I am.”

“Would you take a chill pill, babe?”

“A chill pill,” she laughs. “That's real cute.”

“I'll be there soon.”

“You better.”

She hangs up and I go, “Shit, I have to get going. It's Nina's birthday tonight, and I'm already pretty late.”

Ryan lights another cigarette and says, “Nina, huh. Have you even banged her yet?”

“Nope.”

“Three years I've known you, man. Three years you've been so into this girl and you still haven't fucked her yet.”

“Hey,” I say. “Just 'cause you're a fucking savage doesn't mean we all are, man. Sometimes there are more important things to a relationship than fucking.”

“Like what?” both Ryan and Megan ask at the same time.

Pause.

“I don't know,” I laugh, then stand up and tell Megan that it was super nice meeting her, and then she pushes herself to her feet and says, “I'll walk out with you.”

“All right. But I gotta take a shit first.”

“Go for it.” She hands Ryan a small stack of flyers and tells him bye and I'm like, “Later, brah.”

“Nice slang, hoe.”

• • •

Outside, the rain has for the most part let up and turned into a light drizzle. The fog and haze are diluting the normally bright glow of the streetlamps.

Megan and I are standing just inches apart, face-to-face, and she's asking me if Nina and I are in some sort of relationship.

“A friendship,” I tell her.

“But she's not like any sort of a girlfriend?”

“Not at all,” I'm forced to say, even though I wish, I so wish that I could say yes to that question. But I can't. So instead I'm saying, “I actually fuck my girlfriends.”

“That's good to know,” Megan sighs.

“Is it?”

“It is.”

This huge drip slides down the back of my throat, numbing the top of my mouth, as I say, “Do you want to split a cab?”

“No, I don't need to. I only live a few blocks away.”

“That's right. With Brandy.”

“Yeah.”

“She's pretty cool.”

“I know. You said that earlier.”

“That's right. I did.”

An awkward pause.

Until Megan says, “It feels really good out right now. I'm loving this fucking weather. I think I'm actually going to take a walk.”

“Right, well, it was nice meeting you.”

I turn around and start walking down Haight to catch a cab when Megan says, “James. Wait.”

I spin back around. “What's up?”

“Do you want my phone number?”

“Are you kidding me? I'd fucking love it.” I pull my phone out and hand it to her. “Will you put it in for me?” I ask.

She makes this pouty face and goes, “Do you not remember my name, dude? 'Cause that would be a complete bummer. It would be a total deal breaker.”

“I remember it just fine. It starts with a, um”—pause . . . I rub my chin slowly and look up toward the sky—“a, um, ya know, it starts with an
S
.”

Shaking her head, Megan tries to hand my phone back to me. “Here.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” I snort. “Your name's Megan. I was just fucking around.”

She starts laughing and goes, “So was I, dude.”

Wiping my nose and licking my lips, I go, “I know you were.”

“R-i-g-h-t,” she says very slowly.

So Megan starts adding her digits into my phone, and I light a cigarette and watch this tiny but loud group of chicks and dudes with fucked-up hairdos and shitty makeup and bad mustaches and horrendous outfits walking down the other side of the street doing the Hipster Shuffle. And there's this one girl in particular just going off. She has black hair and is wearing a leather headband and an off-the-shoulder top and sunglasses and tight black jeans stuffed into these brown cowboy boots and her ass is so big. She looks familiar, like I might've used to see her around everywhere before she quit doing good drugs like coke every night, which has made her ass blow the fuck up. Anyway, this pig is going off about how she can't believe she's going to miss the Bravery show at the Mezzanine next week, and how the night she found out that the show was sold out was, like, totally one of the worst nights of her life. And then it just gets downright revolting when one of the dudes, this pirate wannabe with a handlebar mustache and a soul patch and big gold earrings and a green scarf tied around his neck, goes, “I know it was, Bobbi cakes. I was totally on a twenty-four suicide watch for you when I heard you couldn't get a ticket. I was absolutely terrified for you.”

And the girl, Bobbi Cakes, she goes, “I know you were. Thank you so much again for that, Dylan. Seriously. It meant, like, so much to me. And not only do I love your new coat, by the way, but your hair is absolutely fabulous tonight and so are you.”

I sigh and rub my forehead, then take a nice long drag of my smoke and say, “I can't believe there are dudes still willing to pay some cocaine-addicted hairdresser two hundred dollars a pop to make them look worse than Patti Smith.”

“I know it,” Megan giggles, handing me my phone back.

She's like, “Also, the fucking Bravery suck my twat hole.” Pause. “Or maybe that's just me.”

“Oh no,” I say. “They suck your twat hole.”

“That's what I thought,” Megan says. “So you're gonna call me, right?”

“I am.”

“Because I'd really love to get together with you.”

“We will. Soon. Trust me on that.”

“Good.”

But just as I'm about to lean in and give this trophy pussy a little peck on the lips, she decides to fucking blow it.

She blows it so bad.

She says, “So are you writing anything new?”

I step back. “What?”

“Are you working on a new book?”

I don't say anything.

“Because it's been a while since
PieGrinder
, hasn't it?”

Still silent.

“Like two years or something. And—”

This is when I cut her off. I go, “Wow, I can't believe you just went there.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your dumb fucking mouth. That's what I'm talking about.” I say, “Fuck you for starting that shit with me. Fuck you for being evil like that.”

“Whoa. Hey. I didn't mean to—”

“I don't care what you meant to do,” I snap, cutting her off again. “I care what you did do, so fuck you.”

“I'm sorry,” she says.

“No, you're not.”

I spin back around and stomp off, deleting her stupid number from my cell phone just as soon as I've hit the corner and caught a cab.

• • •