Cthulhu's Breakfast
Sea urchin isn’t a food but a deadly toxin that attacks the central nervous system. Jesus—named so because of his vague resemblance, in his early college years, to the legendary deity—orders two of the foul rolls and offers one to his wife. “Karen, watch out,” I warn her. “That shit tastes like metal.”
All appears well as she chews and swallows but I know what’s coming. It’s the aftertaste that gets you: that heady combination of mercury and light sweet crude. Cthulhu’s breakfast. Karen convulses, her eyes bulging. She lurches forward to grab her glass and immediately downs half a pint of Kirin. “My god that was vile.”
The sushi chef smiles.
It won’t quit raining tonight and like a dumbass I wore my leather jacket. After dinner we quickly duck into a cab and once we’re shuttled across town we dive just as quickly into the wine bar Jesus and Karen had picked out for us.
Talking politics in a bar is about as close as you can get to public masturbation without getting arrested. “You know,” I’m telling Jesus as he examines his wine flight, “I don’t even have the vocabulary to describe my political philosophy anymore. Up is down. Left is right. I find myself in bed with some strange people. The postmodern nanny-state bureaucracy troubles me.”
Jesus is a steadfast progressive. I admire this in the way one always has to admire heartfelt conviction. “What about corporate welfare? I think Wal-Mart is more of a problem than your nanny state.”
“They go hand-in-hand, don’t they? The nanny state provides a steady supply of docile wage-slaves to the megacorps, and of course we foot the bill for our own incarceration. Hell, Alfred Krupp had the good sense to look after his own workers and that was the nineteenth fucking century! I think capitalism has taken a big step backwards. At any rate, people used to be wary of concentrated power. What happened to good old rugged individualism?”
Fap fap fap.
I step out for a smoke. An old broken fellow on crutches hobbles across the wet street while looking over his shoulder and arguing with a pack of queued club kids. “Don’t make me come over there,” he yells. “I’ll cut you bitches!” He pulls a chair out of a doorway and lowers himself into it, then looks up at me and grins, his cheeks deeply creased and his mouth missing a tooth or three.
I mirror his grin. “They giving you trouble?”
“Somebody gotta teach them assholes a lesson,” he says, except when he says assholes it sounds like asshewls. He informs me that $25 is a good deal for a tablet of ecstasy.
When I finally meet Nikki I come unstuck in time. It’s the summer of 2001 again and she’s my partner in sin and we party on and on and on because somehow we know New York is about to plunge into a singularity.
“Heyyyyy,” Nikki and I say more or less in tandem. She has the same smoky eyes, the same curled brown locks, that same wickedness in her smile. I study her face as if I’m gazing at my reflection in a mirror, looking for signs of my own aging. When I gather her tiny frame in my arms I of course still tower over her, and she makes the obligatory crack about me being a couple inches taller now.
“So, both you and Jen are on the prowl these days,” I say. “Look out Seattle.”
“It’s complicated. Assface is finally in a place in his life where he can be independent, and since I’m moving back East that’s exactly what he wants to do. I’ve been dating like crazy but it’s still hard.” I only have foggy memories of Assface; he hadn’t been around long enough for me to form an opinion one way or another. Nonetheless, Nikki always had a fondness for troubled men.
Our party wanders around in search of another place to go but we wind up back at the wine bar. Leslie and our college friends talk among themselves. Nikki and I pair off to catch up. It’s typical banter for two people who haven’t seen each other in a long time—the remember so-and-so routine. Oh, he’s probably in jail now. Don’t know about her; quite possibly living in a crack den. The usual. Nikki asks about Stymie and I tell her about the Halloween party in Philly.
“So what else is new with you, wild man?” Nikki asks after a comfortable silence.
I muster the most lecherous look in my arsenal: a cocked brow and a suggestive, lopsided smile. “Well, I shave my balls now.”
Later on Leslie and I share a smoke outside in the drizzle. “You okay?” I ask. “I thought you’d quit.”
“Yeah I’m fine… just buzzed.”
“Weird how everyone’s breaking up, huh?”
“I still have you.” And now her pretty dimples have come out of hiding. She wraps her arms around me and I grab her face, making a vice of my hands and lightly squishing her features, which, oddly, makes her look silly without in any way diminishing her beauty. We kiss and then sort of dance around each other.
The old man from earlier, still seated upon his wobbly perch, notices us. “You gotta good woman there, baby!”
Nikki’s got this phone that opens up like a moth’s wings, its illuminated keys arranged in neat rows on either side of the display. The bright screen announces a text message from Ruben, who is apparently holding court right down the street at Duvet. So we’re off again. The door isn’t too much trouble, except I realize too late that Karen, a solid Midwestern blonde, wasn’t comped. We jockey for position around the bar and I let Nikki and Les know what happened. Nikki shrugs and tells me that’s how life is. Leslie frowns and disappears for a few minutes, returning with a stack of damp singles which she promptly hands to Karen.
“You didn’t just do what I think you just did?” I say. Les just winks at me and laughs. Questionable ethics, to be sure, but the hobo’s comment echoes in my mind: somebody gotta teach them assholes a lesson. “You’re one crazy bitch but you’re probably the best friend anyone could have.”
We tour the club—the conceit here being that half the floor space is covered by mattresses—and then we congregate by the open space near the stairs. We dance, Nikki in combat boots that must be standard-issue in Seattle. Everything’s getting hazy. Eventually Jesus and Karen leave, and the rest of us locate Ruben’s entourage on the mattresses at the center of the room. He’s got the usual bottle service but at this point I’m already too far gone. I’m saying things and I’m not making any sense. Leslie dances with what looks to be a pretty young woman and this event barely registers.
As I stumble out of Duvet, every bit as broken and disheveled as my old hobo friend, I remember why I’ve been taking it easy this year. I tell Leslie I’m never going to drink or party again. Nope, never again.
Before she steps into her waiting yellow cab, Nikki turns to face me. “So, same time tomorrow?”
I feel a big smile coming on, cutting through the haze. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
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