The Nature of Attraction

It’s undeniable that it’s both badass and hot to do coke off the blade of a knife, take your pick, or pick both.

It’s also true that the act is incredibly impractical if you are in the bathroom of a dive bar that some drunk bartender began playing loud synth music in, and you’re trying to do it out of a small dime bag.

However, when your coke companion is sitting on the toilet in front of you, eyes looking like shards of starlight and want trembling on her lips, well, it’s hard to not want to do the impressive, hot, badass, stupid thing.

Maybe it’s good for me that the thought of losing drugs is scarier than the need to look any sort of cool.

“Hey, give me your phone,” I say.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because I’m going to chop us some lines on it.”

“Why can’t you use yours?”

“It’s cracked.”

“Fine. Though it’s not like yours is cracked bad.”

We would all do coke off the blade to look cool. I am cheap, however.

I take her phone and let a rock roll from the baggie onto it. I fall onto it with precision and, more importantly, speed. A girl and a guy going to a single stall bathroom together only means drugs or sex, and the prudish bartender isn’t a fan of anyone doing either in his bar, despite how the music he plays rolls over the people with an overly practiced sensualness. He stands amongst the patrons, swilling down their drinks, the music communicating that he thinks he’s great at sex and wants people to think he does drugs. But, like, in a cool way.

Whereas, to him, we don’t do it in the “cool” way.

I pull out a dollar, place it on the rock, then quickly run my ID over it a few times while holding the paper in place. Gently pull the dollar up, carefully scrape the cocaine off the bill and onto the black depths of the electronic screen, then swiftly organize it into lines. My artistic brain stops a second to admire the coke on the barely blemished black surface, to admire the contrast of it and the precision of my line making. I’m good at this. Maybe I should quit writing and get a job chopping lines for rich people. Snoop Dogg has a blunt roller, after all.

The artistry of the lines is very quickly lost by the demand for use. I’m a gentleman, so I give the rolled up bill I had just used as a tool to help in the chopping of the lines to her, Jennie, and she snorts it up effectively and swiftly, either showing off or failing to hide that she’s done this more than a few times before now. I take my line and nod as it drips into my system, nodding to the rhythm of it coursing through me, awakening me. My body feels like a car’s engine being revved. I don’t skimp on drugs anymore, and every time I take them, I’m reminded why.

We exit, and some people closest to us give raised eyebrows and pissy looks, but I turn and look evil, and they stop. Now the bartender is playing “Tear You Apart” by She Wants Revenge, which is the pinnacle of him wanting everyone to think that he’s good at sex and does drugs in a cool way, and not an addict way. What a tool. And yes, it’s a fine song, and I’ll admit that I like it here and there, but it's hard to think of it as anything but cliché once you’re over the age of eighteen, and watching a middle aged man sleaze over women at the bar like their just going to drop to their knees and suck him off because he’s playing this is disturbing enough to almost ruin the night.

But Jennie’s talking about her art, her paintings, and the art she likes, and it turns me away from my annoyance and over-analysis and back into her. She’s talking about a mutual interest, Lady Lamb, a musician we both love who is coming to Chicago soon. When? I don’t know. She doesn’t either. I feel like my brain is sludge in my skull. Why does coke immediately make me feel like I’m stupid? All thoughts start being obliterated once the powder drips into the blood, and I find myself stuttering again.

Maybe it’s my ADHD. When I actually took my Adderall like prescribed, it made me feel weird.

Or I guess different.

Or I guess normal.

I don’t feel like thinking all of this so I turn back to Jennie again. She’s gone. She’s walked away and is dancing and dancing and dancing. “This shit is good,” she says as I approach.

“I don’t skimp on drugs anymore,” I say. I sound like a douche. I want to say so and apologize. I don’t.

She just smiles, taking no offense. I wasn’t supposed to do coke today, I had said. This was just a Hinge date, and I had forgotten I had the baggie in my pocket.

Well, that’s a lie. I had picked it up and put it there as I was leaving.

I didn’t expect to do it on the date.

Well, that’s a lie. I didn’t expect to do it with her.

I had a cousin (he’s still my cousin, we just don’t talk much anymore) who used to say that if you were ever at a coke party with a bunch of girls to not do any of the coke because coke makes girls horny and guys unable to get it up. He was a tool, too. I hear those words now, haunting me as I watch Jennie dance and look at me with eyes dripping with intention. Come on, please let there be some sort of movement in my pants.

She comes up to me and starts dancing with me. I’m no dancer, but I try to keep up. I don’t have to do much, it’s all about being sensual in this scene. Everyone’s dancing like that. I guess the bartender’s music is having an effect. Maybe I don’t mind it as much as I was. Jennie turns her back to me and leans against me, rubbing her hips against me as I hold her. I think of love. I think of lust too, but I think the two are connected. Or maybe I can’t tell the two apart. Maybe I have a real fucked way of looking at love.

“You look lost in thought,” Jennie says. “It’s a bit hot. What are you thinking about?”

There’s always a right answer, so I stall to find it. “A lot of things,” I say with a grin that attempts to scream bad intentions. I spin her to be silly and she laughs, then puts her hands around me and leans in close.

“Tell me some,” she whispers into my ear, then nuzzles it with her nose. There’s always a right answer.

I whisper naughty nothings into her ears as I hold her hips, slowly moving my hands up her sides and then her back. She sighs a welcoming sigh and I mentally sigh one of relief. I always feel so awkward, but I’ve figured out the motions to come off as confident and sometimes smooth. It’s all such a ruse, though, but it's effective now.

I need a cigarette, and this is getting a bit much to be decent around people. “Hey, wanna come have a smoke with me?” I say, still trying to sound sexy.

“Sure,” she says, smiling.

We exit the bar and I light a cigarette, walk a few paces, and then we start kissing. At first, it’s not anything intense, but it builds, and she’s gripping me and her tongue is in my mouth, so I fall into my role of what I’m supposed to do, what I want to do, but what is expected of me to do. I hate doing what’s expected, but I like what Jennie’s expecting. The contradiction almost rips me to shreds right here on Halsted.

I take three drags of the smoke before it’s out, and we’re going to her place, which is nearby, still in Boystown, the neighborhood whose name the mayor just changed to North Halsted to be more inclusive as she was leaving office. I didn’t get it, and I don’t think she did either. She was on the cop’s payroll, so it’s hard to imagine she did anything with good intentions.

Jennie is unlocking her apartment’s front door, and then we’re walking up the rickety wooden yellow stairs. She’s on the second floor, which leads to her opening an equally rickety wooden door.

“The building’s old,” she says.

“I can tell,” I say. “But it’s cool, I like it.” It looks like it’s about to collapse. Can’t fault Jennie for that one, though, cheap is cheap, and we’re all struggling. Blame the landlord.

We get into her apartment and are in each other's arms. I wish I got to look around more, but I also struggle to fully lament while the distractions being placed before me are so tempting. Jennie disappears, then says to follow her, so I follow the silhouette with a pixie cut through this shadowy mystery apartment. I lose her for a second and find myself actually lost in the darkness. It swirls around me, oppressive and haunting. It wants something. I register this, beginning to register fear, then I see Jennie turning the corner to look me in the eyes-her face piercing through the darkness.  She holds a finger to her lips and points to an open door that leads into a bedroom. I follow her in there, and she shuts the door behind me, then jumps on me again.

I wish she would turn the light on so I could say something like, “Wow, I love how you’ve decorated the room,” but she doesn’t. Instead, she kisses me, shoving her tongue down my throat. She pushes me onto the bed, pulls from her back a kitchen knife I had failed to notice, and stabs me in the sternum.

“Oh,” I squeeze out.

She cuts down, ripping my stomach open. She doesn’t do it gently, and I feel organs I’m quite fond of and use regularly get sliced. I know my lungs aren’t doing well, and my stomach definitely is ripped open. There’s an odor, which is embarrassing. I did eat beef with onions, tomatoes, and potatoes before leaving.

“Jesus, what’s that smell?” Jennie says, holding her nose with the bloody hand while waving at the air with the knife like she’ll stab it away.

“God, yeah, what is that?” I cough out. Blood splatters from my mouth and onto her white sheets as I’m trying to come off ignorant rather than the cause.

“Whatever, let’s get back to it,” she says.

“Oh, yeah. I’m more focused on this anyway.”

“Good,” she says with a smile that makes me feel like she’s falling for me. Maybe I don’t confuse love and lust, because this seems like love. She gets on top of me, straddling me, and raises the knife to swiftly bring it down into my chest. She starts stabbing me over and over and over again with the knife while moaning, while giggling, while laughing, while loving, while caring. I try to do the same, but my mouth fills with blood, and the same substance squirts from my body from all sides and angles and all over her and her walls and paintings I didn’t get to compliment, but had genuinely wanted to see.

Panting, she stops. “That was good,” she said. “Wow.”

I’d agree, but I can’t say anything. My lungs have been shredded to nothing. There’s blood all over. The mess I’ve made is even more embarrassing than my smell, but I’m fading…