Further Out Than You Thought Read Online Free PDF Page B

purple bong.
    Water pipe, the salesgirl had corrected. We don’t sell bongs.
    Gwen had thought it might be fun. Getting high now and then, watching movies. A way to relax. She didn’t foresee how he would take to it, need it like a kite needs wind. High and higher. How far off the ground could he go?
    She filled her jar with water, drank it down and filled it again.
    â€œThis is serious,” Leo was saying. “Gwen, watch.” He took her arm and sat her down. A black man was pulling a white man from his truck and beating him on the pavement, bashing his head with a cinder block. It had happened early that evening.
    â€œIt was the Rodney King trial. The bastard police that beat him got off. All of them white, by the way. And now this. You can’t hold a people down,” Leo said, his eyes blazing.
    How long had they been showing this? How long had Leo been watching?
    Gwen’s stomach turned. She felt sick. “Can we switch the channel?” she said, snatching the remote from the table and clicking.
    â€œDamn it, Gwen.” Leo took it from her, but on his way back to the news, he stopped on the Home Shopping Network. A woman turned her hand, and the ring on her finger sparkled in the studio light. A man was talking fast. If you called in the next five minutes you could purchase this ring for only $59.99.
    Gwen watched Leo pick up the phone and dial. “What are you doing?”
    His eyes shone. “My mama’s always wanted a diamond.”
    â€œIt’s cubic zirconia.”
    â€œThey say you can’t tell the difference. But can I use your card?” he said. “I’ll pay you back.”
    â€œWhat about rent?”
    â€œThis is important. My mom thinks I have a record deal. She believes in me.”
    He was standing on the sofa, bouncing up and down and wearing a hopeful smile, dimples and shiny teeth. She could hear her bathwater running. It had to be getting high. She tossed him her wallet.
    In the bathroom, she closed the door that didn’t lock, turned off the water and peed.
    No blood. Not even a tinge in the toilet, and on the paper, nothing.
    She wiped off her face—the creamy whitish base that made her look like a china doll, the mascara, the eye shadow and the residual lipstick—with Luvs Baby Wipes, unscented. It took three towelettes, both sides, to get all of it. She washed her face five times with the good soap her father had given her at Christmas—the last time she’d been to Phoenix, her yearly two-day visit. She undressed, lit the blue devotional candles at the head of the bathtub and slid into the hot bath.
    The purple-and-black art deco tiles around the tub were coming loose. A few had fallen off. Mildew spread from the faucet. The shower didn’t work. And to the side of the window facing the street, the plaster was bubbling and the cream-colored paint was peeling off.
    Leaning back, relaxing, she noticed faces in the peeled paint. In the candlelight they wavered, a circus scene. The thin male profile by the faucet had whispered something to the ringmaster, his face a twist of a smile. And, up in the corner, two girls were waiting—one with her eyes lowered, the other gazing out the window at the night.
    What were they waiting for? If they didn’t like the circus, why didn’t they up and leave?
    She closed her eyes and the bruises on both her knees were a vague ache that seemed, as she soaked, to spread over her whole limp body, as if to combat her apathy. To feel pain, she thought, was to be alive.
    Leave Earth, the man had said. Maybe he was right. Maybe that was the answer.
    She slid under the water and let her breath bubble up.
    Isn’t that the test?
    When you think you want to kill yourself, you take a bath instead and, under the water, let go of all your air. You hear your heart in your ears. And then, you feel it—your survival instinct, alive and well in every cell, pushing you up. And by the