700 Degrees It's gotten to the point where the cigarette burns aren't keeping me up anymore. Most people wish they could just sleep their lives away. I'm the complete opposite. I wish I could just stay awake long enough to live life. I keep waking up confused, surround by strangers. My body still reeking of burnt flesh and singed hair. They help me up and ask me if I'm okay. Angels. My useless angels. They hover around me as I stumble and try to casually walk away. It wasn't always like this. After I hit my head in that car accident, something got…knocked loose. The doctors diagnosed me with narcolepsy. One day I just woke up to fall asleep to wake up to fall asleep… Most people think narcolepsy is a kind of blessing. You'd think I'd be well rested. You don't get good solid sleep. A good sleep is if you don't wake up. You know, the Great Sleep. Reality is hard to pain down without a sleeping disorder. It gets that much harder when you don't know when you're dreaming or not and then wake up on the ground in a strange place. Maybe the useless angels moved you inside when I fall asleep outside. The last thing you remember is the sun and a blue sky. The first thing you see is buzzing fluorescent lights and a cold grocery store floor. Welcome to world with padded floors in your apartment. Welcome to a world where no matter how long you've worn it, the medical alert bracelet that dangles off your wrist still itches. It's a world where you have to tie your head to a chair every time you want to eat soup so you don't accidentally drown in a clam chowder. I forgot that once, all I could smell was fish for two hours. My dad thinks my "condition," that's what I call it, is God's punishment for being gay. The joke's on God then: I'm not gay. I've tried to explain to my dad that it's hard enough to find the right woman when you don't have to worry about falling asleep over dinner or a movie or drinks or anything else that would pass for a date. I think he's still bitter over mom leaving him for another woman when I was nine years old. Now, anything he hates or if anything goes wrong in his life, it's because of those "God damned homos." It was about five months after my discharge from the hospital that I started lighting fires. I didn't start the first one. I just happened to walk by it. I was out in the fresh air taking in the sights of the city and waiting to wake up, look up and be surrounded by useless angels. The burns on my arms were starting to heal and I realized I was almost out of cigarettes. The clerk at my convenience store must think I'm a fucking smokestack. I buy a carton every three or four days. I smoke some of them, but mostly I light them up and jab them into my legs or arms or chest. It used to help out a lot until I got used to the sensation. I was walking back to my apartment, my hole-in-the-wall, my live-in outhouse, when the sirens caught my attention. The empty warehouse six blocks away was burning down. Faulty wiring, I heard. I just smoked my cigarettes and watched the flames dance, framed by steel beams and smoldering two-by-fours. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. As I finished walking back to my place, skin still sweaty and warm from the fire, I kept thinking about the burnt out husk of the warehouse. As I turned on the television, focusing on the flickering infomercials, I slept. I slept for nine hours. That was the longest I've ever slept naturally since the accident. I woke and watched a newscast about the fire. The cameras did not do it justice. The third fire I started almost killed me. Before that, just the broiling heat, endorphin rush, and sheer beauty of watching the condemned housing go up in a blaze of glory was enough to keep me going, keep me awake. The third fire, I got careless. As I sloshed the gas can from left to right to left to right dousing old wood and matted moldy carpeting with fuel, I didn't realize I was getting a little too high. The rooms kept the fumes in. I must have found the only poorly ventilated projects house in the city. Every other abandoned house had cracks in the walls, holes in the ceiling and empty window frames if there wasn't jagged remnants of the window itself still there. I didn't even think I was tired from breathing in all of the gas fumes until it was too late. As I threw the lit book of matches down the dusty pungent hallway, I made it two rooms away before I passed out. Or fell asleep. I really, to this day, don't know which it was. I don't know how long I was out, not long enough by my new standards. Not long enough for the Great Sleep. It was fight or flight time. It was run or die time. I watched the wall studs and marveled at the way the ash held the strobe effect of the embers together. Just as I started to wonder if I'd still be a narcoleptic in heaven…or hell, a blazing ceiling support crashed in front of me like a lead weight. A lead weight on fucking fire. I don't remember leaving the house, I just remember being three blocks away, out of breath and hearing the fire engine sirens wail. After that, I took some time off of arson. I started walking up to fall asleep to wake up to fall asleep to wake up to... I started buying an extra carton of cigarettes a week. Now, the burns never have a chance to heal and I'm getting used to the smell again. I tried to watch the day go by, sitting in front of my nicotine stained window. I'd lose one or two hours for every four I'd watch. It's like watching every hundredth frame of a city skyline time-lapse. Or like blinking for a minute when you're watching the weather channel. It only took two weeks of this and that perpetual smell of singed leg hair from all of those ineffectual cigarette-sized circular burns for me to get a full gas can and a new book of matches. Between the fourth and sixth fire, between the running from sirens and getting good sleep, I noticed her. Her long dark red hair floated on the warm air currents as the reflection of my fire danced in her eyes. She smiled at the house, its empty windows coughing out acrid smoke, and looked over at me. Now, not since that warehouse fire, had I seen anything or anyone that beautiful. She slowly walked over to me, her shape shimmering in the haze and backlit by the fire. Stray embers floated and followed her like an aura, like a halo. She looked perfect as she came close, stood on her toes, and whispered closely in my ear. "I love your work." All I could do is stare at the back of her head as she turned and disappeared into the night, her drab black dress blending and merging with the thick black billowing smoke and the darkness that came with the malfunctioning or broken out street lamps. I didn't move until I caught a glimpse of the throbbing lights, red to blue and back to red again. I stayed in for the next couple of days, except to buy more smokes. I was afraid of that girl. I'd sweat when I thought of her and I couldn't stop thinking about her. I'd dream about her in my short fitful bouts of sleep. Thinking, dreaming, sweating, shaking, waking up, falling asleep, and waking up. After the seventh fire, I started being careful about two things. The first was to start to scatter my little projects. I realized I was going to get caught if I started all my sleeping aids in the same couple of square blocks. It's hard to scope out new areas with people staring at you burning yourself with half smoked cigarettes so you don't fall asleep, fall, and crack your head open on the pavement. I found a few low income neighborhoods, each with several empty houses ripe for the razing. The second thing I was being careful with was her. She knew I was the one lighting fires in crack heads' and disabled alcoholics' backyards. She could turn me in in a heartbeat. She kind of knew who I was. And I loved her. I didn't know it then, like I know it now, but I did. I was already afraid of her. She made me wish I were sleeping great, you know, like sleeping great. Around the tenth fire, I saw her as I had been, but then she talked to me like she hadn't been. She grabbed my hand and led me away, down the trash-strewn streets and homeless-strewn alleys. I kept trying to tell her we needed to go back, that I needed to watch the fire. Then I tried to ask her where the fuck we were going. She kept shushing me. "The police, the fire department will be there by now. Haven't you been watching the news?" "Maybe," I say, "it's hard for me to watch TV." "They call you a monster, someone who needs to be brought to justice." "Justice?" "You think burning down nine—" "Ten now." "OK, fine. Burning down ten houses, that someone wouldn't notice?" I lied. "It never really occurred to me. Where the hell are you taking me?" "Back home." I started noticing all of the squad cars and fire engines racing past us. Then I noticed we were standing in front of my apartment building. Her hands started to search my pockets for the keys. She asked what apartment was mine when she found what she was fishing for despite my finding this all very uncomfortable. "211. How do you know where I live?" She shushed me again. She pulled me up the stairs and down the hall. She shoved me through the unlocked door and locked it behind us after she walked in. It must be nice to go somewhere without someone pulling or pushing you there. "You don't lock your door?" "I always imagined the paramedics, those useless angels, being too late to save me from a bowl of chicken noodle soup because I want the illusion of safety. That's why I don't lock my door." Shit! I said that all out loud. She looked at me like a dog being taught a card trick. She looked around my apartment, the grand tour is just doing a slow 360. I tell her these are the kind of dumps the city gives people on permanent medical disabilities. I didn't have to tell her I was a narcoleptic. I think she got the point when I fell asleep right there in front of her. I woke up an hour later, her face hovering over me, the most beautiful useless angel I had ever seen. "You okay?" she asked. There was an endearing concern in her eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine. Help me up, please." "What the fuck was that?" "I'll do that. It's the narcolepsy." "Huh." "So, how did you know where I live?" "Can I get some coffee?" "I don't really drink coffee. I've got some stimulants in the bathroom?" "Where?" "Uh, the door on the right." She seemed distant as she hollered from the bathroom. "Which ones are good?" "I don't really remember. I've got blue ones, red ones and green ones. The green ones are pretty strong." She took three green ones and sat across from me on the couch. I awkwardly sat there and watched her until, after a few minutes; she grabbed one of my matchbooks and started lighting the matches one by one. She was hypnotized by three matches, right in a row, letting them burn all the way down to her fingertips until she finally broke the silence. "It's so beautiful," she said. "What?" "The flames, the way they move like poised cobras. I thought you liked it, too. I thought that's why you had your...hobby." Her eyes met mine. "Your 'hobby' is my lifestyle," I say. "I have to have the endorphin rush, the heat, the...feeling of seeing the result of something I've done. The physical result." "So, you don't like to watch?" Her voice turned deep and throaty, mockingly sexual and sensual. "Well, I, that is to say...I-I" I had obviously started to bludgeon her with my clever conversation. "I-I-I don't like, I mean I do but not like that, though I've done it..." More of my suave, glib and intelligent witticisms. God damn it! This was the first girl I've met since my "condition" that I haven't fallen asleep in front of. Well, except for that first time, but I was never very good at first impressions. Wait a minute! I haven't fallen asleep since that. I look over the coffee table, one of those giant wooden spools stolen from a construction site, and wearily eye the pack of cigarettes. I grab one and go fishing for and yank a matchbook out of my pocket. I light it and take a deep drag. I wait for the urge to drill the cherry into my arm. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand... Nothing. I end up smoking the entire thing. I pull another out and light it with the smoldering end of my previous cigarette. "Jesus, chain smoke?" "It's an experiment," I tell her. We sat in silence as I smoked that cigarette and then another. "What are you doing? You're turning green." "Just shut up and keep talking." "You know how stupid that sounds, right?" "Keep talking while I smoke. I'll tell you why after another one." I have two more cigarettes, I stop when my lungs feel like they're full of blood and ready to fail. While I puff away, she tells me her life story. Her parents divorced when she was in her late teens. Her father gave her the idea to leave when he kicked her out of the house for wearing lipstick and "looking like that damn whore of a mother." She lived on the streets for years until she was "discovered," her words, and made her straight-to-video debut in the martial arts pornographic romance, "Cum-Fu: Enter The Member." Her acting career was cut short by her burgeoning pyromania. She lit the director's sets, read: his house, on fire. She said the only drawback of the act was the smell. Well, smells actually: scorched hair and skin, burning silicone body parts and the stench from the sizzling lubricants. She said it was God damn awful. She said it almost took away from the flames' natural beauty. Almost. Ever since then, she's bounced from shitty job to shittier job. Waitress for a week. Gas station attendant for three days. Hostess at a diner for a week and a half. She earned just enough to keep her going. She also lit fires, small fires, in empty parking lots with old newspapers, or in half-full trashcans. Just enough to keep her going. Eventually, her dad's parents died and left her a lot of old money. She held on to it all, stocked all of the money away in some clandestine savings account. She moved into a low standard of living apartment building complex, withdrawing only the money needed for rent and food. It was around her low income area that I had started lighting all of those shoebox homes ablaze. She had noticed me running away from the third fire. I interjected that I had almost died in that burning shanty. She didn't seem to care. After a second, after I said it, I didn't care much either. She kept a lookout for me after every fire I lit. She knew that the police would be arriving at each scene more quickly than the last. They would be trying to catch what the media called, "a monster needed to be brought to justice." She thinks she saved me. She imagined me as a struggling, amateurish pyromaniac. I didn't pass out the entire time she was talking. I haven't pushed lit cigarettes into my arms or legs. It never occurred to me what it was about this girl. I never imagined I would be in love. At that moment all I knew was the urge to kiss her, which I did to her initial dismay. Her hands jumped to my chest pushing me gently until a second later when they moved up and wrapped themselves around my neck. My modesty prevents me from revealing the details but, long story short, we made love. We had sex, humped, screwed, fucked, did the bone dance, whatever you want to call it. It was great. Afterward, my bedroom held these easily identifiable scents: dirty sheets, sweaty sex, burnt hair, smoldering carpet and cigarette smoke, not in that order. As we revived the dying art of cuddling, held each other like the normal couple we weren't, ashing cigarettes on the floor, watching more matches burn to her fingertips, she asked me when I was going to light another fire. I said I didn't know. I didn't know there would only be two more fires. We stayed in bed the whole night and throughout the following day. Looking back now, we were making up for lost time and, eventually, the time we would lose. I ended up regaling her with my less-than-epic childhood. It was a blur of nothing important until my mother had an affair. My father had (and still has) the ability to repress even the most extreme of emotions. He was aptly prepared for her to have an affair. Just not with another woman. In every sense of the phrase, except literal, he flipped his shit. Our living room became a graveyard of broken lamps and thrown furniture. The quiet anger buried deep in beer and football watched from the armchair exploded like a time bomb thirty years overdue. From the cracked open door of my room my father's yelling extended my vocabulary with words that would take years of cable television to fill in the definitions. My mother was the eye of the storm. She was the calm figure standing statuesque in the man-made hurricane of anger and debris and anger and accusations and anger and threats. I imagine her knowing that that fight was going to be as bad as it was going to get for her. Soon, she would just walk out the door and everything else would fade away. Her new life with "Susan" was a great escape. It would be like that Steve McQueen movie, only if he was plotting to break out of a prison run by a middle-aged out of shape welder from Detroit and her freedom was, instead of a motorcycle, a same sex partner. And she actually escaped. I haven't seen my mother since the morning before the fight. She gave me some lunch money, told me to have a good day at school, and not to worry about her. She said she would be okay. Looking back, she was saying good-bye. I just wanted to leave and get out into the sunshine. I was on my way out off the house, too. I think that's why she chose to tell my dad about leaving him. With me away at school there wasn't a kid to stay together for, even momentarily. She knew my leaving the proverbial nest would be her chance to do the same. The next morning, my father woke me up for school. Before he sent me off, he told me to clean up "that mess" in the living room when I got back home. In the years that followed I got my degree in English, had dated some nice girls (who were nothing like my current one, I assure you) and, not surprisingly, drifted away from my father. We were already close, if you consider the earth and moon close, but now we were more like Los Angeles and Pluto. I don't think he blamed me for what happened between him and my mother. I think he just sunk into that armchair deeper and switched from beer to whiskey. Whenever I'd call him to let him know I was still alive the conversations would degrade into a bitter lecture about "that bitch that ruined him." Eventually, he'd pass out and that was my cue to hang-up. I could always hear the phone drop on the floor. I never told him where I moved or where I was working. I was just confirming we were both still alive and kicking. "My mom was married to a guy like that before she met my dad," she said, putting out a cigarette and watching another match burn down to smoking blackened stick. Usually, that kind of information would spark another conversational tangent but, it like when I mentioned my near-death experience. I didn't care and by the second after, she didn't care either. We were dressed and I was walking her home as the sun sank towards the horizon. The sun's golden halo diffusing and filtering through the million-car-exhausted sky, imbuing it with enough red and orange to make the pale ocean blue sky look like soft edged flames or blood. The day we spent apart was only punctuated by me falling asleep over lunch, face down and kissing a grilled cheese sandwich, and a call from her. It went something like this: RING RING CLICK "Hello?" "Hi, it's me." "Me, who?" "Beth, the woman you spent the day with in bed..." "Oh, you. I never caught your name." "Clever." "What was yours?" "My what?" "Name?" "Oh. Michael. Michael Juno." "Nice to meet you, Michael Juno. Bethany Staples at your service." "......" "Hello?" THUD "Hello? Are you there?" "Whuh? Uh...sorry about that. How long was I out?" "For about five minutes." "Did I miss anything?" "Not really. I was just calling because I was kind of sick, not really sick, but, y'know, sick. What were those pills I took?" "What color were they again?" "Green, I ate three green ones." "That was, um, you took 75 milligrams of Desoxyn." "Is that bad, you think?" "Well, I was only supposed to take one a day. How do you feel?" "I've been nauseous and sweaty." "Those are pretty common side effects. Good thing you didn't take three DextroStat." "Huh?" "The blue ones. Hundred eighty milligrams. You wouldn't be able to call me from all the severe stomach cramps and intensely blurred vision." "Really?" "Oh yeah. I think enough Ephedrine or Vatronol and your heart would over-clock, causing fainting, debilitating chest pains and aneurysms." "I'll have to try that next time." Then she laughed a weird little laugh and I couldn't tell if she was kidding or not. We saw each other again the next day. She had recovered nicely from the Desoxyn and was looking forward to another night of stimulants and sweaty, cigarette-burned sex. I told her about the DextroStat, or the Dexotrine, or the Dextroamphetamine Sulfate. "Take your pick," I said, ""they're all the same pill, really." It's all the same stuff in Dexatrim. That's the diet pill that had all of the high school girls addicted, jittery, and looking as thin as those kids on the Sally Struthers infomercials. "Did you say amphetamines?" "Dextroamphetamine Sulfate," I added. "Like the drug?" Her eyes darted around the room, getting sharp when the "blue ones" hit her bloodstream and slammed into her brain. "Yeah," I say, "like the drug..." "It must be great being a narcoleptic..." She mused aloud as her hand dove into her pocket. I kept thinking about death by cream of broccoli. She pulled out a butane lighter, one of the ones where you click a hidden button and a sharp steady blue flame erupts from an equally hidden nozzle. We both stared at it, silent. My hand crawled across my lap like a crippled spider and entwined itself with her free hand. Her grip was vice tight and slightly clammy. Our eyes never left the flame. I blindly reached for my cigarette pack and my sudden movement broke the spell. Beth's head snapped in my direction. She took the lighter and lit two cigarettes at once. It made me think of James Bond or a really classy call girl. We smoked in silence until Beth stood up and headed to the bedroom. My hand still in hers, I followed and shut the door behind us. After we were spent, we laid naked in bed, basking in the moonlight and draped in sweat and smoke. "Do you take any of those pills," she asked while staring into the orange embers of her cigarette. "Which ones?" "Any of them, really." "No, I hate having to take them all the time. Even the once-a-day ones." "Ever thought about selling them?" Her head lolled up on my chest and her eyes met mine looking down at her. She eyed me like a Catholic school girl. "It never really occurred to me." Her head turned away from mine to take a deep drag off of her smoke. I must have fallen asleep because when my eyes opened back up the sun was shinning, the birds were chirping and Bethany was gone. So was the orange bottle, kept on the nightstand, of Dextroamphetamine Sulfate. The DextroStat. I sat on the edge of my bed thinking and smoking. There was no way she'd steal from me. I must have run out; she must have taken the last of the pills and thrown the empty container away. Yeah, that was it. I calmly walked to the bathroom thinking and hoping and knowing I would find that orange bottle with the white childproof cap and label that said: Juno, Michael Dextroamphetamine Sulfate (60mg) Take once a day by mouth (signed) illegible doctor signature I casually meandered to the trash can. It was next to the toilet which, by now, could have been mistaken as a jellyfish graveyard, what with all of the used condoms floating on the water's surface. I peered down into the can. Nothing but ripped open condom wrappers, wads of used tissues and a soiled sanitary napkin. God damn it! How could she do this to me? Why would she do this to me? I had the seething feeling she was going to start her own private black market drug ring out of my medicine cabinet. I ran into the kitchen. Maybe she dumped the bottle in that trash. It was sitting out from where it should have been. I didn't need to take a good look over the bin's lip to realize she had a lit a small fire in there with some old newspaper. No pun intended, she was really starting to burn me up. She fucking stole from me. She fucking stole my drugs. I sprinted to the phone, tripping over and kicking things out of my way. That total bitch! I mentally ran though all the things and all the names my father called my mother on that fateful night, suddenly realizing how he felt. Even with all of the anger, betrayal, and heartbreak, I knew I couldn't come up with a thing, a name, a phrase crude, cruel and apt enough to describe her or how I felt. I got to the phone in such a rush that I almost knocked the end table over when I was grabbing for the receiver. You'd have thought I was trying to punch the phone's buttons through the phone itself and all the way to China, like when Bugs Bunny digs there in all of those cartoons. That's how hard I was dialing. Her phone rang forever on the other side of the line. I hung up. I tried again. It was nothing but an eternity of digitized rings. Maybe she isn't answering because she knows that I know. Maybe she OD'ed and breathing her last breathe on her single mattress in her low income bedroom in her low income apartment. Maybe she's dead. Maybe I smiled. A second after I hang up again, and when I say "hang up" I mean slammed down the receiver so hard I thought I broke the cradle, it rang. I hesitated a moment. Then: "Hello?" I said reluctantly. "It's me, Bethany." I meant to say, what the hell is wrong with you? How could you steal from me? I hope the money is worth it, you fucking bitch whore! It came out as, "Hi." "Sorry I didn't answer before. I'm screening my calls now." I am going to snap your Goddamn neck and shit down your throat came out as, "Why?" "Both of my parents are in town and willing to be in the same room together long enough to see me for dinner." I want to cut you open, put your bladder in your stomach, stomp down and make you vomit your own urine. That came out as, "Really?" "I was thinking we could all meet up." I was dumbfounded. I was angry she would stake claim on my medicine cabinet but, at the same time, soothed and touched that we had gotten to that critical "meeting-the-parents" stage in our relationship in just short of a week. I'm sure we set the record for moving fast in the "narcoleptic-serial-arsonist-dating-a-rich-junkie-pyromaniac" category. If there wasn't one, I'd consider us pioneers in the field. "Why?" "Why do I want you to meet my parents?" "No, why did you steal from me?" My blood ran cold and my skin ran sweaty waiting for an answer. "Steal? The pills? I didn't steal them, I took them." I could see her smiling and playing with her hair coyly. "Do you plan on returning them?" "Maybe," she said. She had no idea how I felt thirty seconds ago. "When you take something without permission with the intent of not returning it, that's fucking stealing." "Are you mad?" "Of course I'm mad." "I bet you're cute when you're mad. I didn't think you'd mind. You said you never use them and I ran out of Folgers's crystals a couple of days ago." "You took them because you ran out of instant coffee?" "No offense but, after taking these, coffee seems like jerking off to bad porn when you could be having great sex." "Oh." I think she heard me blush over the phone. "I can give them back, if you want...maybe after dinner?" The dinner! I had placed it on the backburner when I moved the livid ordeal to the front burner. They switched places as I changed gears and mixed metaphors. "Dinner? When?" "Tomorrow night at that Panucci's place on 3rd." I knew of it and told her so. I also told her to keep the pills. I still had all of the Vatronol and Desoxyn if I needed. "Thanks sweetie. I'll see you tomorrow at seven." "Bye." CLICK One second later... RING! RING! "Hello?" "It's me again." "What's up?" "I know you said you hate it, but could you take something before you show up? I'd love it if you didn't repeat the legendary first impression from our first night together. "So, are you asking me to be all hopped-up on meds or not burn the restaurant to the ground?" We both had a good laugh in a creepy way or a creepy laugh in a good way. "The other one, the hopped-up meds thing." "Yeah okay." "Thanks. Love you. Bye." She hung up before it even registered in my brain. She said she loved me. As I thought about it, I found I loved her, too. It was like when two people in a book or movie only spend a short time together but find out they're both their true loves. I wanted to call her back and tell her. I wanted to brave Mt. Everest and scream it from the summit. I did neither. I would wait and tell her at dinner, declaring it in front of her parents. Maybe. Yeah, well, while that was my best intention, we all know where the road paved with those lead... I fell asleep to wake up to fall asleep to wake up all night. I tried to watch some television but the late night movie (some schlock sub-Hammer quality horror movie about a killer leprechaun on a space station) that turned into an infomercial (a leggy blonde and a busty brunette both wearing prom dresses and smiling while they displayed the use of some food processor with a useful sounding name like: Prepare-A-Tron 2000, or Super Turbo Chef 2000, or You'll-Only-Use-This-Once-For-The-Next-Thanksgiving-And-Never-Again 2000) that turned into a kids' cartoon (some old man was revealed to be scaring away people from his "haunted" theme park so he could sell it to rich land developers and he would've gotten away with too if it wasn't for those pesky kids and their dog, who I think had some kind of speech impediment). The best part of watching television with narcolepsy is, with a bit of luck, you never see any commercials. You just keep waking up to actual shows. Sure, it may take you a minute or two to figure out it wasn't the show you were watching an hour ago, but sometimes it was worth it to not be bombarded by ads for cars, beer, feminine hygiene products or new low-carb foods. I must have fallen asleep one last time because, when I stirred, cracking my eyelids open slightly, the sun was up. It wasn't the morning, but probably closer to the afternoon. I couldn't see the clock from where I was on the couch. My neck quit straining from the impossible effort of trying to twist my head around to see what time it was. My head slammed back down on the pillow hard. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and flicked away the gunk and crusty things left on my fingers. While last night I was so excited about telling Bethany I love her that I would have used the word jubilant, now I was gripped by a dread almost existential. Maybe she didn't mean it. Maybe it was just something she said all the time. Maybe she was just all fucked up on big blue pills. Maybe I'd lost my nerve to plunge into "the relationship sea" with only five great days and my hope as a floatation device. Maybe I wouldn't have the guts, the courage, to tell her how I felt. Maybe her parents would hate me. Maybe they would see through my Sunday best clothes, see through the glazed over look in my eyes as I came down from the stimulants. They would see through all of the pretending and see a fire lighting disabilities case balls deep in their daughter for three out of the last five days this week. They would see the real me and hate me for all that I am. I saw in my mind's eye, Beth and I having a huge falling out after I punched her dad, breaking his nose, because he called me a "little shit" over our complimentary basket of bread. I could hear Beth scream at me, scream she never wants to see me again. She screams she'll tell the police everything. Her mother would look up from nursing her father and say, police? Yes, she'll say, this is the sicko that's been lighting all of those fires in all of those abandoned housing projects. Men, patrons and employees, would hold me down on the floor so I can't run away. My only thoughts will be to wonder just how clean the tiles I'm now kissing are. What strength industrial bleach or cleanser do they use and what exact do they put in it to make that sterile citrus smell. The cops will come, handcuffing me, mugging like they're on a reality TV show. They'll put on their best game faces, the "we serve and protect" faces for the restaurant full of people. They'll soak up the applause and know raises and citations will be forthcoming for finally arresting me. Useless angels. I'll be tried and convicted, no doubt of my guilt. The cell they put me in will either be full of hardcore gangsta wanna-be's with something to prove on "the inside," ready to skewer me. Or, my cell will be dark and dank and empty. My own thoughts driving me closer to the suicide I can't commit because I have no belt or shoelaces. I'd only have barely fitting elastic-waistband pants and orange rubber flip-flops two sizes too big. The pants aren't strong enough to hold a person's weight as a noose; they've already thought that much ahead. The flip-flops are just fucking useless. Knowing then what I know now, I really wish the night played out just as I had imagined it. I sat up on the couch and stretched. My face met the clock's; it was four-thirty in the afternoon. I had time to spare, really. I took a good long hot shower, picturing the sickly sweat from sleeping on the couch run off of me like mud from a 4x4 jeep in a high-pressure car wash. I soaped every, and I mean every, part of my body. I hadn't met a girl's parents in years and fear and paranoia were excellent motivators to get clean. Not just to smell and look nice, but to try to lather, rinse and repeat away all of the unreasonable doubts and nagging insecurities. I was ready by five-thirty. I set my alarm really loud just in case I fell asleep in the next hour. At six thirty, I would have just enough time to meet her parents at precisely seven.