POKER NIGHT 1987

Sometimes I think the only thing I’m good at is destroying everything beautiful.

We met Lopez and Rita out at Bowie Beach. They were a couple of city slickers who didn’t know that you can’t drive a Corolla onto the soft sand, which was how they wound up stuck and how we wound up pulling them out, and then how they wound up stuck again and we wound up pulling them out a second time. After that, we were bonded for life.

This one time, they invited us to their place in Houston for a poker night. Me and Sloane, the two of them, their neighbor, Celeste. Usually, we hung with them at Rita’s mother’s river house, down near the coast—it was this dingy structure that looked like it was two hurricanes away from blowing over, though it wound up catching fire before that could happen.

I hated going up to Houston. The homes towered over us and I felt so goddamn inadequate. River Oaks ain’t the place for me, but Lopez promised free coke and I wouldn’t—couldn’t—turn that down.

We each had our own little pile in front of us—I don’t know how much Lopez was spending on that shit, but I snorted enough that I probably should have died, my heart turned into a nightclub, and then at one point I went to grab a beer and I guess I slammed the fridge door too hard. There was a crescendo of crashes. No one told me they were getting their cabinets replaced and their wedding china was temporarily atop the fridge. The shattering felt like it went on for hours even though it was only a few seconds.

Rita walked in sobbing. I put a hand on her back, but Lopez came over and pushed me away. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t not look angry—somewhere in that gray space between emotions. Sloane took my arm, ushered me outside. We were too messed up to leave but I couldn’t imagine staying there, so I stripped down to my underwear and jumped in the pool. The water felt so good on my skin—cleansing, almost. I must have been in there for hours. Days, maybe. Shit, if I close my eyes, I’m still out there, and Lopez and Rita are still inside. Still together. Still alive.