Baby Geisha by Trinie Dalton Page B

in cursive letters into the air like smoke rings, like the airplane artist’s love message in cloud writing, there would be the drug’s valiant sword dueling with F-E-A-R then slaying it. Chunks of smoke would fall to the ground. I’m not always panicky, but when weather gets ominous I crawl into my foxhole.
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    Two strangers who looked like carnies—teeth blackened or missing, ripped Shakespearean peasant blouses—hunched in the corner of our tent taking hits off a nitrous tank. I wondered if Zane had packed the tank in his duffle bag, until I realized tanks don’t fit in backpacks.
    â€œWho are those guys?” I asked Zane.
    â€œYeah, huh. Get out of our tent!” he yelled. “And leave the tank!”

    Zane was my ally. He was always himself, always in his body. Especially while high. He drove too fast and every time I rode in his Bronco, I knew I would die. He was 26, and I was 23. He played fast, noodly music exclusively on this road trip to Lake Mead in Nevada’s salty desert. When I told him to slow down, he pointed to his radar detector.
    â€œThat’s illegal,” I said, lighting a joint.
    â€œThat it is,” Zane said proudly.
    Zane had stringy, curly red hair, and a speed-addict’s rosy, pockmarked face. His cheekbones protruded out in a skeletal V. He was tall and the holey concert t-shirts he wore made him look even more like a bone man. I didn’t find his punched-up but underfed look attractive. Rather, I studied Zane to learn how to live. I used drugs to gain access to his friendship, and to numb my instinctive sadness that he would die young. I felt gloomy picturing his demise, which I did constantly because deep down I’m a little goth. Knowing each day could be his last endeared me to him.
    We became best friends one night after we bamboozled cash out of an ATM machine. Zane did it; I just spent the money. We drove into downtown Eureka, where we lived, to score. I still admire drug-dealer’s code, the I’m riding a bike , or wearing a blue shirt , or have new Nikes on language that tells you who’s selling. My friend Cara, who had just lost her baby in a car accident, was back at the house getting cranked. When we got home, and I saw her dull bleached hair draped over the coffee table littered with paraphernalia, I told Cara to leave; I never wanted to see her again. Somehow, a woman destroying her and her baby’s life was more intolerable than a solo guy needling away his time. That night I thought, No one here will learn their lesson . But the following week, I still hopped into Zane’s Nevada-bound Bronco.
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    Zane brought two dorks on our camping trip to Lake Mead, Micky and Beets. Beets—named after the root vegetable—was
pudgy with a swollen purplish complexion, and he hobbled around like a gopher. Micky was taller and had hesher black hair covering his eyes, more death metal than speed metal. After arrival, and hitting the glass pipe in our heavy canvas tent, I took a beach chair to the edge of the lake and hallucinated flames spreading across its surface. The guys stayed inside the tent sucking nitrous.
    I peeled off my clothes and set them in a pile next to the shore, then waded into the water after the flames died down. It was 90 degrees, black night except for the glowing lantern-lit tents. The water was tepid and glassy. Swimming out to the reeds, I listened to crickets chirrup. The reeds chirruped back.
    One reed whispered, “Meet me.”
    Another reed said, “Do good deeds,” and “Breeze,” all these EEEs.
    I put two and two together—EEEs, REED—Lake MEAD. I was really getting to know the place. I swam towards shore. Dripping, I walked to the beach to discover my clothes stolen. I wandered back, naked, into the testosterone tent.
    â€œWhere are your clothes?” Zane asked in a low nitrous warble.
    â€œPilfered,” I said. I turned my bag upside down and