The road sheds its asphalt skin as the car rolls along its spine. We go uphill. I’m wrapped in a wool blanket and I have my arms crossed with my hands in my armpits like I’m wearing an invisible straightjacket. My legs are also crossed, at the knee like a lady and my sit bones ache but I don’t move. I’ve chosen this position and I’ve gotta stick with it now. I stare and my view is a headrest and Pop’s oily hair and my face is both cold and sweaty and I bite my mouth shut to keep my stomach in.

The man took the sleepy times off me and the ones for fucking and the ones for sanity and the ones for insanity.

I expected him to do that. Why else would I have a condom full of pills shoved up my ass? I go through the mental inventory over and over again like a catholic reciting hail Marys. 10

20

sleepytimes, 0 for fucking (cause they’d just remind me how I’m not), and 1 vial of medical grade Oblivion.

The man’s never stocked Oblivion. Rots your teeth, he says. Turns your blood black, he says. On the streets it’s called junky sugar. In the veins it’s called the little death.

I pretend I won’t take it, all the while having seen enough plays to know that if you introduce a gun, it’s gotta go off before curtain.