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49
I didn’t go straight home after the Starry Plough. I
walked around and around, and found myself standing in front
of the house I had grown up in. Another family lived there now,
my parents divorced: Mom in Mill Valley, Dad in San Francisco.
I didn’t really feel anything looking at the house. I just reflected
on how strange it was when I realized that there was nothing in
my childhood to feel nostalgic about, that I had been unhappy
pretty much all the time. But, then I saw a multi-colored ball,
lying on the welcome mat in front of the door. When I saw that
ball, I started crying. I was crying all the time, lately. I walked
away from the house quickly. You could say I ran, but I like to
think I just walked away quickly.
50
HERPES, WHORES AND FALLING OFF THE ROOF
I had gotten a bartending job that morning. With the garrote of
unemployment loosened from my neck, I strangely felt even
worse. Xavi had come home from school early. We sat in the
kitchen, drinking beer. I asked him to read a short story I’d just
written. When he had finished reading it, he looked up at me
and then back down at the paper in front of him.
“Adam, this is awful,” he said, gravely.
“Awful?!” I responded, shocked.
“Excruciating, even.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Everything. It’s terrible. It doesn’t even seem to be
written by you. What’s going on here?”
I slumped in my chair. This was the last thing I wanted to
hear.
“All I ever write about is me and my friends and people I
know and the things that happen to us. I wanted to make
something up for a change.”
“Well, you’re lousy at it,” he said, with no trace of
humor.
“Then, I must be a lousy writer,” I answered, and the
thought terrified me.
“Every writer has a voice. You have a voice, so why are
you using someone else’s here? You know you can only write
what you know.”
He was right. I wasn’t a lousy writer; I was a lousy
person.
“I’m just so sick to death of me,” I said.
“Who isn’t sick to death of themselves?” asked Xavi,
raising an eyebrow.
“Morrissey,” I answered.
“What makes you think that Morrissey isn’t sick to death
of himself?” he said, smiling now.
“He said in interview that he likes his own company.”
“Fuck that. Even Morrissey wishes he could just tell
himself to fuck off.”
51
There was going to be a party that night for Frank’s birthday.
Since Sean had not broken up with him yet, we were all required
to go. We still had a few hours before we were supposed to
head over there, so I sat in the kitchen, drinking coffee and
smoking cigarettes, as per John’s suggestion. Lincoln had been
avoiding me since the hospital episode, so much so that he
hadn’t even been home for a couple of days. There were always
girls who dug him and his band, who were more than happy to
let him stay at their houses. Sometimes he did it just out of
sheer amazement that anyone would want him staying at their
place. It never ceased to surprise him, seeing as his parents had
thrown him out of their house and his grandparents after that.
He had bounced between squatting and being homeless, until I
had found this place and we had all moved in together. This
house, this dump, had been the first stable home he’d ever had
and I had been the first person to be around him on a daily
basis. He really came to depend on me for a lot.
Then I had fucked up.
Then he’d had to watch me lose it completely.
Now he wouldn’t come home.
The realization hurt so much that it made me feel
nauseous. I knew he’d be at the party that night, since his band
was playing in the basement of Frank’s house. I thought I
should say something to him then. But really, what the fuck was
there to say?
Xavi and I sat in the living room, drinking whiskey, waiting for
Sean to come home so we could all leave for the party together.
The front door flew open and Sean stood in the doorway,
looking furious.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Come on, let’s leave,” he said in a low, steady voice.
“What’s wrong?” I tried again.
“Time to go! I want to give Frank his birthday present,”
he sneered.
Xavi and I got off the couch and headed out the door.
52
“You sure you’re OK?” Xavi asked Sean as we walked
out to the car.
“OH, I’M JUST FINE!” Sean yelled acrimoniously,
“WHAT COULD POSSIBLY BE WRONG?!”
Xavi turned to face me from where he sat in the front
seat. We exchanged puzzled, mildly drunken glances while Sean
drove in livid silence.
When we got to Frank’s house, Sean threw open the
door, shouting, “WHERE’S THE BIRTHDAY BOY?!” at the
top of his lungs. I wandered off to the kitchen and put down
the beer and liquor we’d brought along. Nobody was in there.
I opened a beer and was on my way out of the room,
when Ginny entered, blocking my passage.
Fuckin’ great, I thought to myself, irritably.
She smiled up at me, what with her being only five feet
tall. She was pretty; that wasn’t the problem. The problem with
Ginny was that I had never in my life slept with a girl whom I
had wanted to strangle with my bare hands more than her. Sure,
I had fucked girls who annoyed me, but I usually only slept with
them once. And yet, I didn’t just sleep with her once—no, I
kept fucking her. Every time she showed up, I ended up fucking
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