Wooooop:

Casper Lockett, seeking shelter from the snowstorm, ambled to the back of the cave where, hidden beneath a patch of mushrooms, he discovered a small red button that read “KILL GOD”.

“You can’t sleep here,” she said.

I lifted my head off the table. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Then what were you doing?”

“I was depressed.”

“Were?”

“Well, I still am. Always will be.”

“Why?”

“Look around you, sister.”

In the room with the red velvet drapes I watched a nervous woman cradling a Telecaster knockoff gulp down glasses of whisky and wordlessly communicate to her drummer that the crowd just wasn’t into it. John had descended the stairs moments before seeking out cigarettes and I stood alone near the back wishing I could afford even a single beer, mostly because I wanted something to hold in my hand. I was leaning against a table with my arms folded, thinking about the dark road we had taken to get there and how soon enough we would have to take it again. We were lucky the first time. Later on, would we be dismembered by evil men? They could take what I had on me, I thought, if they really wanted it. I wouldn’t suffer a bullet to the head or a knife to the gut for a denim jacket and an A’s hat.

I looked around: everyone was talking to someone, or pointing the bottom of a glass at the ceiling while liquid poured into their mouth-holes. My doom-dwelling seemed silly. (After they’ve taken what they want they’ll toss my body in the bay for sure, I thought.) I swept away my thoughts and decided to blend in—to do this thing incognito. Give them the illusion of normalcy.

John had left his empty beer bottle behind, so I picked it up, took a swig of air, and held it there in my right hand to pretend that I had some sort of purpose or reason to be where I was. Meanwhile I decided that the music being funneled into my head was sloppy, but I respected it anyway because something—anything—had come into existence where there had been nothing before. And though the crowd was rude and cacophonous, I watched as the duo played on, stopping between songs to splash their insides with courage. The sight of that was enough to soften me. I took a few more empty gulps and set the bottle down again, deciding that I didn’t give a damn about fitting in with my peers, who were cackling wildly and talking about good Ethiopian food and new bands and beaches in southeast Asia with a strange, plastic-smooth enthusiasm that made me hopeless.

Why had I come? Yes, for Liza—because I liked her so much, and because I knew her friends from the city wouldn’t show. They, like many, perhaps saw the space between San Francisco and Oakland as a galactic ocean whose polar ends were lightyears apart. And at the end of their journey they would be in that place that they found so uncomfortable and strange, which was Oakland.

Earlier that night Liza had hugged me by the bar. It was that gentle, polite kind of hug. It was sweet also. The hug took me by surprise, because I often assume there is no real reason why anyone would ever want or need to touch me. Liza and I didn’t know each other too well, which maybe accounts for the gentleness of the thing. We were different in many ways, but that long, twisted night we’d had in the Mission was enough, in both our minds, to seek each other out every now and then. We’d had garlic noodles and drank on the train and watched a movie with thousands of other people in Dolores Park. And later there was a party at the home of some wealthy young people, who spent all that new money on record players and tobacco and vintage couches and photobooks on Eastern Europe. It made me nauseous to see all that worn, second-hand Nietzsche and Camus fanned out neatly on a shelf above the window, with a girl I did not know saying, “Oh, Kent just puts those there so girls will want to sleep with him.” And so many beers in I motioned to Liza that we should go, and on the street I told her she was too intelligent for the company she kept. And we walked back to her house in the mist and cold and fell asleep watching Spirited Away. I woke at 7 am, whispered a nice sentence in her ear, and ambled out onto the street, still drunk, and took a taxi to Berkeley where, sleepy and starving and red-eyed, I washed the dishes of the fabulously well-to-do for nine and a half hours. . . .

I woke at 2 pm today, having stayed up till 7 am, and was greeted by my housemates in the kitchen as I put the kettle on. They said they were going to a small party to celebrate the opening of Ailee’s new workspace. Ailee, who lives upstairs, and who I like a great deal, had invited me weeks ago, but the thought had slipped from my brain. And so I told my friends I would need twenty or so minutes to mold myself into something presentable and less frightening.

I washed my face and hair and combed my cat. I drank two cups of tea and lay in the bath and absorbed all the vitamin E I could. And then I biked four blocks north to a warehouse near McCune’s place and ate a handful of carrots and drank a lot of tea that I maybe only half-realized was filled with alcohol.

My housemates and I sat outside under a cloudless sky and made jokes and drank the dark stuff until we could barely move. I was mostly functioning on an empty stomach and hated myself more than usual, so I was badly affected. When I admitted that I was so far gone I might not be able to get home, everyone seemed surprised.

“How much have you had?” said the blur that lives across the hall.

“Three, maybe four cups,” I said. I was laughing and tearing up. “But it could have been more.”

In the main hall I ate half a baguette and fumbled through a few sentences with Ailee’s friends, who clearly had no idea what to make of the drooling mess in front of them.

Minutes later, I think, we were biking back to Castle DOOMSDAY and the sun was already setting below the crumbling vacant warehouses. When I got home I knew I would say hello to my cat and give him a few treats and hope that was enough to convince him to lie on my chest and fall asleep.

In the end we were cruel and terrible to one another because we liked the way it altered our chemicals

Sometimes people get those letter banners that say “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” and string them over the fireplace or something

I’m getting one tomorrow to hang over my bedroom door that says “PLEASE DON’T TOUCH ME”

“I’m outside and I’m surrounded by people. My god, look at all these things! Is this what’s it’s usually like?”

I have mostly forgotten my home

Even when I try I cannot picture it

♫ Oh, Virginia, Virginia

I can never return

You ruined me, you bitch

Or perhaps I ruined myself

And was ruined by others

Inside of you

Oh, Virginia

I liked you, baby girl

Them lips of yours, so sweet

Baby, yeah ♫

If you owe someone money and you’re a huge asshole and they’re a huge asshole as well, you have my permission to use the following text I have prepared for just the occasion. I myself will never use it, so have at it:

Here is the money I owe you. To achieve optimal results with your new wealth, I suggest withdrawing every bit of it in singles to dump all over your bed. Roll around in the money for a little while. See how it makes you feel. Once you are finished, write a one-page paper detailing your experiences and then feed it to a garbage disposal.