Bad Glass

Floyd stood up and walked over to the window. The window was in the wall over the futon, providing a view of the street out front. “I didn’t used to be such a pussy,” he said, shaking his head. “Fuck, I’ve laughed off shit worse than that.” He pointed toward my hand. “When I was living in Santa Cruz, I wiped out jumping off the side of a parking garage, fell ten feet onto a concrete divider. I broke my ulna—my fucking forearm,” he said, seeing the question on my face. “A compound fracture. And I walked six blocks to my friend’s house, laughing the whole way. Granted, I was pretty fucking delirious, but I wasn’t a shrinking pussy about it.”

I poured rubbing alcohol onto some paper towels and began scrubbing my open palm. “What happened?” I asked, gritting my teeth against the chemical pain. “What changed?”

“My knee,” he said, reaching down and rapping his knuckles against his right kneecap. I remembered that gesture from my first night at the house; it seemed like an automatic motion, some type of unconscious reflex. “And I didn’t even see the blood that time. I was in a competition, and they had a medical staff—they put me right under when my knee exploded. The kicker is, it wasn’t even a spectacular wipeout! I just landed wrong, my weight coming down just a couple of degrees too far forward.”

Floyd let out a disgusted grunt, a low sound, like a growl, at the back of his throat. “And that was it. No more Pretty Boy Floyd. And now I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

When I finished cleaning my wounds, I found bright pink rings starting to form around the punctures. I ran my finger across the puckered flesh: the damaged skin felt hot to the touch. It’s just bruised, I told myself. Just bruised flesh, flush with blood.

“Help me wrap it up,” I said. I hid my wounds beneath a fresh bandage, then nodded Floyd toward the roll of gauze. He wrapped my hand up tight, securing the dressing with a fresh strip of tape.

“Does it hurt?” Floyd asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It throbs. And my whole arm’s sore.”

Floyd went over to his guitar case and set it atop the futon. He opened it up, revealing a shiny red acoustic guitar. Unlike the case, the guitar looked like it was in pristine condition, its lacquered finish polished to an immaculate sheen. He lifted the instrument and began digging through a small compartment hidden beneath its neck. After a couple of seconds, he came up with a handful of picks and several prescription pill bottles. He studied the labels for a couple of seconds, then upended some pills onto his palm. He bounced them a couple of times in his loosely curled fist, his face screwed up like he was engaged in some inner debate, and then handed them over.

Four pills. Small green circles, light and insubstantial in my uninjured hand. “OC” etched on one side, “80” on the other.

“Oxycodone,” Floyd said. “They’ll help with the pain.”

“No shit, they’ll help with the pain.” I stared at the pills for a couple of seconds. I’d had oxy once, after oral surgery, and I remembered the fuzzy-headed warmth of the stuff. I’d lost three days under its sway, camped out in front of the television, barely able to flip the channels.

But there hadn’t been any pain.

“My knee still aches,” Floyd explained, “especially when it’s cold. And my doctor is … well, let’s just say he’s generous. He keeps me well stocked.”

I hesitated for a moment, staring down at the pills. Then I flexed my left hand. The pain was immediate, enough to make me wince. The way I saw it, I didn’t really have much of a choice: on the one hand, I had pain and discomfort; on the other—resting neatly on the other—I had fuzzy-headed oblivion. I grunted and tossed one of the pills to the back of my throat. It was bitter going down, a chalky floral taste.

It’s just a temporary thing, I told myself, putting the other pills in my pocket. Just until I’m healed.

Floyd smiled. “Cheers,” he said, raising the pill bottle in a toast. And: “Down the hatch.” He bolted the rest of the bottle like it was a shot of whiskey.

I was pretty fucked up. After dinner, we smoked a shitload of pot, and on top of the oxycodone, it left me feeling numb, floating free from reality.

And that was a good place to be.

Here, in this place, I wasn’t feeling my hand. I wasn’t worrying about the shit I’d seen: the body in the ceiling, the face in the wall, the spider with the human finger. I wasn’t thinking about the soldier and his fall from the hospital window, the way his limp body had spun in the air, so eerie and silent. Instead, I was just sitting there, at peace, watching Taylor from across the backyard.

And despite the evening’s frigid cold, I felt warm. I felt comfortable. I felt good.