Where does your father do his barnacles? Part 5

Floating on the water, scabbing through stoned thought fragments trying to salvage the helpless little pieces like an enzyme that uses the dead, discarded parts of mitochondria to build functional proteins. Every once in while it does the mind good to do a life inventory or so I’ve been told. What did I have? I had a lot of debt, no skills, experience in a field that requires certification I don’t have, and some knowledge, but enough to know that I don’t know enough to do much. Like heat I felt destined to radiate away if I stopped moving, if I stayed in this place. I focused on loose, controlled breathing. No past, no future and barely a present, I could slip under the surface of time just like I could slip under the surface of the water I was floating in. I could gift myself to chaos. I could be a transparent membrane floating between air and depths of cold inviting earth matter. It’s good to forget your inventory or so I’ve been convinced. It’s good to forget what you are in a stretch or a breath. There has to be some new kind of nerve, one that only lights up when it’s completely surrounded by darkness.

A lot of debt. No skills. Useless experience. Some knowledge, but not enough. Good looks. Some charm. Where did my shits go? Stoned skin can be as tricky as wearing clothes made of slowly boiling water. I once got so high that my balls started hurting for no reason. My eyes opened just as I started to shit myself. From my brown shorts arose a brown cloud and, like a cuddle fish freshly inked, I lightly blooped away from my mess towards more pleasant and cleaner seas. When you poop in the ocean you feel a cold, gentle hand in the doorway of your anus. It pulls your filth out from inside you and then beneath you it feels like some sort of feeder creature is under you lapping at the fountain of your backside with a phantom, opposable tongue.

“I’m eating your sausage!” Called out Steve from the shore. A few more bloops and I was away from the brown cloud. I fanned my shorts in the saltwater to make sure all filth was washed away before coming ashore.

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you so full of life so early.” I grabbed the sausage from his hand. “You can have a croissant if you want.”

“That Goddamned hostel dorm. You can barely open the windows, I guess, as some sort of suicide preventive, but the sun comes through the glass, man and I mean, half the fucking room is glass so the place heats up like a God-damned terrarium, just one full of sweaty drunks. Disgusting. Cigarette?” Steve took up smoking the moment we stepped off the plane. He was a chemist destined for a decade more of schooling.

“No thanks.” I took the half-smoked joint from a rolled corner of my towel, lit it and took a hit before passing it. A cool wind was tainted with a mild touch of sewage and I became paranoid that Steve would somehow know that I’d shit myself in the ocean.

“Do you remember talking to the two Japanese girls and their guy friend last night?”

“Nope.”

“You told them that you had a complimentary genetic code that would be ideal for a potential mate and then you went on about it in detail for way longer than anyone cared to hear. You also kept referring to them all as emeralds.” He passed the joint.

“Wait the three Japanese that are here at the same hostel?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought they were all ladies.”

“Nope he’s either gay or metro or what have they been calling it? Nonbinary? Two-spirit? I don’t know. Fluid, that’s what they’d called it, yeah. He’s gender-fluid.” Steve giggled to himself. “He’s just flowing over to whichever gender he feels like that day.”

“He was mostly lady fluids when I saw him. Where did Burger end up? This is about cashed.” He pinched the centimeter of yellow paper behind the little ember.

“I don’t fucking know. Last I saw him he was following some hash-passing Turks towards a McDonald’s near the club.” He took a few hits, holding the smoke as long as he could. “Did you hear about the Persians?” The smoke dripped from his nostrils.

“Girls?”

“Yeah, the ones with big brown eyes, but the kinda fucky lookin’ teeth. They were at dinner last night, think of the tightest red dress you could see and the other had this little white top where you could see her navel. She kinda had a happy trail, remember?”

“I thought they were fuckin’ Brazilian. I’m always thinking girls are fucking Brazilian.”

“Apparently they broke some sort of Muslim law or some shit by going out like they did. You remember those guys standing around smoking like a pack of gibbons about a block down from the club?”

“I remember, they looked Arab enough, I guess.”

“Yep, well one of the hostel guides had to call the cops after the guys started yelling and shoving the two girls. They clocked the club guide when he tried to step in and then they dragged those poor two girls down an ally.”

“Fuck’s sake.”

“Apparently the cops spent most of the time treating the hostel guide. They didn’t even bother going down the alleyway. There were too many of ‘em, I guess. Those two girls didn’t stand a chance.”

“Fucking dogs.”

“The cops or the Muslims?”

“The cops didn’t do anything?”

“Apparently they never do. Those Muzzies set up checkpoints to keep their own in line. Apparently the cops have ‘no-go’ zones here. So depending on where you walk you could be in a different country. Two of the guys that ended up talking to the cops turned out to be cousins with the two girls. This bitch in my dorm wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it while we were all in bed this morning. Those two girls were at the police station this morning getting a rape kit done.”

I lit up a second joint and passed it. Steve took a hit too then held the joint pointed out as he exhaled and forgot what it was that he was doing. “Fuck, I’m thankful I was born in Kentucky.”

“I’m thankful I didn’t have dogma shoved down my throat and up my ass.”

“Their own cousins, man.”

“Fuck ‘em.” Steve passed the little joint. “I don’t remember did you say you got into a medschool?”

“I never said that.” I took one last hit. “Here, kill it if you want. I’m going to lay down for a bit.”