Page 54 of Rat Park
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Dominic didn’t skip enough Thursdays for it to become suspicious, but he started missing an evening here and there, claiming exhaustion most Mondays and avoiding more and more of Cat’s and Esteban’s calls. He knew Flor had left for college again, and the texts between them had stopped completely, which was only natural.
Dominic told himself it was a good thing.
Most days after work he would hang out with Prince, who seemed to be unoccupied most of the time. They sat around in his living room smoking pot, and it was just that for a while. The familiar smell of the burning hash, the way everything went hazy and time lost meaning. It was strange to be back in that world. It didn’t feel great, but it was where Dominic belonged. Back to being Nickie.
He stayed at Prince’s late one night when the man turned to him, a small glass pipe in his hand. Dominic watched Prince prepare the rock, placing it in the transparent bulb and heating it with a lighter against the glass. Dominic’s stomach was sinking even as his heart raced, and when Prince turned to him with a, “Do you want a hit?” Dominic knew the answer before the “Sure” was out of his mouth.
The high felt like an old friend. Like more than that, an ex-lover who had beat and betrayed him but always dragged him back, his will weak and afraid of being alone, of what he would be without it.
It was exhausting to have. To try, to be, to worry about everything he held and what he would eventually do to lose it all. It was easier, at that moment, to just give in. To let himself be taken away and forget, to finally scratch the itch under his skin and feel warm and good for once.
Dominic managed to turn Prince down when he was offered a few rocks to take home.I’ll just smoke at Prince’s. It’s recreational. Nothing wrong with that.
Too bad Dominic knew exactly how his lies sounded.
Dominic started spending more and more time outside his apartment, scared Cat would come over and know as soon as she saw him. He avoided their calls, stopped going to therapy, pushing the world away so he could be left alone to ruin his own life and not drag anybody down with him.
It wasn’t so bad, he told himself. As long as he didn’t buy any drugs for himself, it didn’t mean anything. But the walls of his apartment started feeling more claustrophobic than ever.
Late one night, the anxiety was so rampant he could barely unclench his jaw. Dominic tried exercising, but moving just seemed to loosen the pieces of the emotion so that they rattled around his body. They clawed around his guts and between his ribs and up his throat until he found himself pacing around his apartment like a caged animal, like a lunatic or a prisoner. He imagined himself ripping all his skin off, layer after layer, digging around bloody muscle and bone until he could just get the feeling out, until he could just feel calm for one goddamn second,please.
Dominic threw himself down on the couch, opening his laptop to stream something to watch. He clicked on a program at random, searching for anything to distract his eyes, to fill his head with something other than the unintelligible thoughts racing each other. He watched the buffering circle go ’round and ’round and ’round until an error message popped up.
CANNOT LOADM3U8
CROSSDOMAIN ACCESS DENIED
A feeling like a wave of dirty water rose up inside him.
He was drowning. He was drowning and he couldn’t do this anymore.
The emotion became muffled and distant as Dominic got up. He put on his shoes, his jacket, grabbed his phone and wallet and keys. His mind was an empty room and his body a numb vessel and he stepped outside and thought of nothing.
When he got to Prince’s, it was almost two in the morning, but his lights were still on. Dominic walked to the door and knocked, feeling nothing as he waited. When Prince appeared, he looked a little surprised but not put out, his expression flattened by his own high.
“Hey, man. What’s up?” Prince asked.
“Hey. You got some stuff to sell me?” Dominic said, hearing his own voice as if it were coming from someone else.
“Sure,” Prince said. “Come in.”
Dominic watched himself disappear into the house.
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Dominic cut off the voice message Cat had left on his phone halfway through. He didn’t need to hear any more. It was the seventh one. He knew exactly what it would say.
Dominic, where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you—I’m worried. Call me back!
“That your mom?” Prince asked, weighing little mounds of cocaine from a brick and putting it into individual baggies.
“Nah. It’s no one,” Dominic replied and barely felt sick at the guilt that tried to make itself known.
It had been two months since he had last seen the Romeros. He’d left Cat a message a while back assuring her he was okay but had avoided her beyond that. He had no doubt they knew what had happened to him, why he was never at his apartment, why he never called back. They’d give up soon. It was only natural.
Dominic had quit his job and gone back to bagging. He couldn’t drive while high. Not even he was stupid enough to do that.
