Page 78 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

In real life I snorted, then froze, but Bodhi didn’t wake up.

“Oh yeah?” I asked. “This Will Ferrell bod getting you all hot?” I didn’t have a lot of emotes, so I put one on that made me play an extended, highly sexual saxophone solo. Little Red stood stock-still, watching my weird elf body humping the air.

“My wires are real crossed right now for sure,” JB said.

“I don’t even think I have wires anymore,” I said. “That’s how crossed they are. I think I have, like, veins.”

There are certain things I’ve had to lie to you about. I want you to close your eyes and actually remember what it was like to be twenty. I want you to remember your house or apartment or dorm room. Whom did you have a crush on? How did it feel to be inside your body, letting your legs flop over watching TV? Think of how ridiculously, insanely, terrifyingly stupid you were, how many things you just did not know. I have tried to hide as best I can the fact that I was young and, by virtue of being young, a fucking idiot, but there are some moments in which you can’t understand it any other way: an idiot comes against the hard surface of the world as it is.

The next morning Jinx was taking forever in the bathroom. Suzie was desperate to pee. “Dude, your dad has been in there for nine years,” she said.

Bodhi was still asleep, and Margo had been hoping to drink her coffee unmolested. She’d help Suzie, of course. She knocked on the bathroom door. “Dad?”

There was no response.

“Dad, are you okay?”

If Jinx’s back had gone out and he was in pain, he would still answer. The fact that he wasn’t seemed to imply he was unconscious.

“Hold on,” Suzie said, going and getting her Ralphs grocery discount card. She slid it in the crack of the door, weaseling it back and forth, until suddenly there was a click and the door swung open. Margo stepped inside, and as soon as she saw him, she slammed the bathroom door shut so Suzie couldn’t see. He was in the dry bathtub in his pajamas, unconscious, a needle still hanging out of his arm. It made her sick, the way it stayed in his skin. He had used her velvet scrunchie as a tie-off. She reached out to feel his face, terrified he would be cold. When she finally let her fingers graze his cheek, he was warm, and she could breathe again. She grabbed him by the chin and gave him a shake. His eyes peeled open. His pupils looked small like a snake’s.

“Hey,” he said, dreamy, happy. He raised his eyebrows, amazed to see her.

All Margo’s terror turned to disgust so quickly she could barely parse it, and her hand flashed out to the shower knob and turned the cold water full on him before she’d even planned to do so. Jinx sat up sputtering. “Stop! Margo, stop!” She turned it off.

“Get the needle out of your arm,” she said as quietly as she could, close to his ear so Suzie wouldn’t hear. He reached over and patted his arm until he found the needle and took it out. “Why the fuck,” she whispered. “I mean, how long... ?”

“I’m so sorry, Margo,” Jinx whispered back. “I’m so sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“Are you kidding me?”

They stared at each other. He was soaking wet, and his face was puffy. He looked stupid, like an animal, the muscles around his mouth slack. While she tried to think of what to say, what to do next, he fell asleep again and she slapped him hard across the face. He snapped awake.

“Are you OD’ing?” she hissed. “Should I take you to the ER?”

Jinx laughed. “No, I’m not OD’ing. I’d be having the time of my life if you’d stop slapping me in the face. And it’s cold. Why is it so cold?”

“Because you’re all wet.”

Jinx looked down at his completely soaked pajamas, totally mystified. “How’d I do that?” he asked.

“Okay,” she said, “I’m bringing you dry clothes, you change into them, and then I’m putting you in your room, and you’re staying in there. Do you understand?”

He seemed to grasp that he was high and this should be a secret, even if he was hazy on the exact situation. A familiar paradigm to his blasted mind, maybe. He nodded. “You get my clothes, and I’ll knock ’em dead,” he said. Margo didn’t know what that meant. She went to get his clothes.

“His back went out in the shower,” she told Suzie, who was waiting outside the bathroom door. “He’s incredibly embarrassed. So I’m gonna help him get dressed and move him to his room. He’ll be fine in a few hours when his meds kick in.”

Suzie nodded sympathetically and remained by the door waiting to pee.

Margo had hoped Jinx would be able to dress himself, but when she returned to the bathroom, he was asleep again. She woke him and turned away while he changed, but he had trouble with the pants, and she wound up having to guide his foot for him as he clung to the shower bar. Jinx kept giggling.

“Stop laughing,” she said. “This is not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” he said.

“Head,” she said, and he bowed his head so she could jam his shirt on. “Come,” she said, taking him by the hand. It occurred to her to look for the needle, which he’d left on the side of the tub. She snatched it up and rolled it into the ball of his wet clothes, led him out and to his room.

Jinx immediately went to his sleeping bag and climbed into it. “Paradise,” he said.

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