How to Lose Everything Read online

  We transferred to another train, rode that one for a few more stops, then got out. The rain had stopped. I took it all in: the puddles reflecting red, yellow, white, and blue, the honking of car horns, the snippets of conversation from people passing by, the tall trees lining the streets, and the brightly lit signs for an ice-cream parlor and a McDonald's.

  “They sell syrup around here,” said Eric. Syrup, he explained, was slang for codeine, and lots of heroin addicts ended up on it. He knew that from Zafko. Schulz reached for Lena's hand, but she pulled away.

  We reached Babaloo. A cluster of people was pressed together in front of the steps, which led downstairs. Everyone looked two or three years older than us, which made the place even more interesting. We forgot about what had happened at Terminal. We had scaled a mountain. We were in the city, and doors that used to be closed to us were now open. We had money.

  The bouncer sized us up with a snide look, but once he saw that Lena was with us, he let us in. Eric paid the cover charge for all of us, and a bored-looking girl gave each of us a stamp on the wrist. We went down the steps, past the bathrooms and the coat check. I felt the bass vibrating in my chest. The air was full of steam, sweat, perfume, smoke. It was like a strange skin that covered all of us.

  Eric went to the bar and came back with five shots of tequila. He insisted that first we put salt on our hands and lick it off. Just as we were clinking glasses, someone shoved me from behind, and half of my shot spilled over my hand. We drank, then Eric bit into his lemon slice and indicated that we should do the same thing. Without realizing it, we'd arranged ourselves into a little circle. We teetered shyly to the beat—you couldn't really call it dancing. Lena had calmed down. She looked relaxed again, like she was actually having fun. She stuck her tongue out at me. I smiled because I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. She smiled back. I blushed.

  For two songs we stood in our circle, then I went to the bar, ordered five Smirnoff Ices, and handed the bartender a fifty. I gestured to him to keep the change. Elbowing my way back to our circle, someone bumped into me again and a Smirnoff Ice splashed over my hand. That annoyed me. I wasn't drunk enough not to care. But if we kept up the pace, then at some point everything would just start happening on its own; I could let the night run its course. Eric pointed at Sam and started to laugh. Probably about his stupid sunglasses. A cigarette was hanging from the corner of his mouth, and he wasn't actually bothering to light it and smoke it. I saw a little smile forming on Lena's lips. And when she looked at me, her smile got bigger. Eric's arm landed forcefully on my shoulder. He bellowed something into my ear, but I couldn't understand him. I could only feel drops of his spit.

  “What!?” I shouted back. “I can't hear anything!”

  Then he made a motion with his hand that looked something like “fuck it” and went back to the bar. Even here, in a club in the city with hundreds of genuinely cool people, Eric didn't lose any of his self-confidence. He moved through the crowd like he owned the place. I didn't know what to do with my hands, so I went for the simplest option: I lit a cigarette. While Schulz and I shifted stupidly from one foot to the other, and Sam buried his hands in his pockets, Lena was dancing for real. Her whole body was in motion, her hips circling right and left, her arms falling loosely to her sides. With each movement her hair fell into her face, and she was constantly pushing it back behind her ears. She repeated this about every two seconds. Eric came back with five beers. Despite a huge effort, I couldn't make my body move the same way as Lena. After trying for a whole song, I remembered Daniel once said that dancing is for homos. I looked for a wall to lean against and found one. I was glad to find that it was slightly quieter there, too.

  Sam stood next to me. “We've gotta watch out. They're f-f-following us.”

  I started and straightened bolt upright. “Who? The guys from Terminal?” I glanced at the door.

  “No, the other ones!”

  “Who?” I shouted.

  “Th-the . . . w-w-women!”

  “What women?”

  Instead of answering, he slowly stuck a new cigarette in his mouth. He looked like one of the Blues Brothers. He turned around, and without saying a word, dove back into the dancing crowd.

  I put out my cigarette on the floor. Schulz and Lena were shouting in each other's ears while gesturing chaotically. The bathrooms had to be somewhere on the other side of the dance floor. I pushed forward, gently touched shoulders, and moved sideways past all the people, most of whom were a full head taller than me.

  Eric was in front of the bathroom talking with someone. The other guy was ugly. Everything about him was puffy. His skin was pale, and red spots were scattered all over his face. His head was shaved on the sides, and the hair on top was totally greased back. He was wearing a Body Count T-shirt. He pretty much looked like a pig. When Eric saw me, he waved me over.

  “This is Zafko.”

  I shook a limp, damp hand.

  “What's uuup,” said Zafko. The way he stretched it out was probably meant to make him sound chill, but I couldn't hear him over the music. So I said, “Huh?”

  “I said, ‘What's up,' you ass,” barked Zafko.

  He turned back to Eric and ignored me. I remembered why I'd come in the first place and went into the bathroom. Everything started spinning. I had to hold myself up on the doorframe.

  When I finished pissing, Eric was standing at the sink.

  “Zafko's gonna get me some pills, too,” he said. “No more weed. Weed's too small time. We're gonna go straight for the big business.”

  I splashed cold water on my face.

  “And then we'll buy a house in the Caribbean,” I said randomly.

  “Yeah, or in India! You can live like a millionaire down there. We'll buy a house and live on dealing: you, me, Schulz, Lena, Susie, Sam.”

  “Susie? The India girl” I asked.

  “Yeah, I was actually at her place yesterday.”

  “What did you do? Anything happen?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, we just smoked pot. She told me all about Indian religion. It's really interesting. Like, did you know that Ganesha—that's the one with the elephant trunk—Ganesha . . .”

  “I don't think Sam's doing so good,” I interrupted. “He was just babbling something about women following us.”

  Eric looked at me in the mirror.

  “He's just gotta chill out. I've been telling him that since forever ago.”

  “But he's acting kind of weird . . .”

  “Think about it. We could be in India by fall. Susie told me that her dad lives there, in Goa. We could all live together. We could smoke pot the whole day, eat, and then go for a swim. Once we've earned enough from drugs . . .”

  “Maybe we should do something about Sam, like take him to a doctor or something,” I said.

  “Of course we'll help Sam. We stick together.”

  He held out his hand for me to shake. Then we hugged.

  India . . . , I thought. Eric was right. This India thing really wasn't such a bad idea.

  Then I went to the bar and ordered another round of beer, and then another round of Smirnoff Ice. Later I got myself a glass of wine. Sometimes I drank with Eric, sometimes with Sam, and sometimes with some random strangers. And finally, after a while, I stopped thinking altogether. Finally.

  I cleared my throat again as I pressed the doorbell. Half a minute later she was standing in front of me, in jeans and a white top. “Come in,” she told me.

  I took off my shoes (the house smelled like fabric softener and cat food) and climbed the carpeted steps in my socks. Her room was pretty big: a pinewood dresser, a small, organized desk, and next to that a little table with a mirror, perfumes, and makeup. There was a small sofa, a TV, and a twin bed covered with a blue satin comforter. I'd never been to Lena's house before.

  It was the beginning of August now, school was over, and Lena had called me earlier to ask if I wanted to watch a movie. I'd said yes, of cours
e. I wondered what Schulz would have thought if he knew about it. Then again, watching a movie together wasn't cheating, so how could he really object. We were just friends. And anyway, Lena was the one in a relationship, not me.

  I sat on the sofa, and Lena went over to put on the movie. Something was clearly wrong. She pressed at some random buttons, fumbled with plugs and cables, and then swore and sat back down. She laid her hands on her knees.

  “It's not working. I don't know how to work a VCR,” she said.

  I offered to take a look at it. I was actually pretty good with electronics, especially with VCRs, because back when Eric still lived at home, we used to watch lots of slasher movies, and his VCR always had problems. Anyway, I got up to check it out, but she grabbed my wrist and pulled me back onto the couch.

  “My life is a total disaster!”

  “What? Why?”

  “I'm getting held back a year. I'll have to spend a whole year with kids a year younger than me. It's gonna be horrible!”

  “But I thought you weren't worried about that. You . . .”

  “And my boyfriend is just as dumb as I am,” she interrupted.

  She had tears in her eyes. “Just as dumb,” she repeated. She said that things had been different since Schulz had hit her. She couldn't get over it, and she didn't want to. Besides, she said, they weren't really a good match for each other. All he ever talked about was money, cars, and everything he was going to buy her. I tried to be understanding. I told her that the money wasn't really that important, in the end, and that what really mattered was us—all of us. At that moment I meant it, too. Her hand moved, slowly, from her knee to mine. Her fingers looked so delicate. I took her thumb and gently pushed it backward. At first it was just, I don't know, a thoughtless reaction, but her thumb just kept going back as I added more pressure, so that in the end it was almost at a right angle. It was crazy.

  “What the hell, Lena? What's with your thumb?”

  “Yeah, it's funny, right? Look, the other one does it, too. But only if I do it.”

  The sadness melted away from her voice. She pulled one leg up onto the couch, turned her body toward me, and holding her other thumb in front of my nose, she bent it back ninety degrees. When she pulled her hand away again, her face was only inches away from mine. She came closer; it just happened. Her lips were soft, and I just barely brushed the tip of her tongue with mine. It was a cautious kiss because I remembered reading somewhere that it was better to be too careful than too pushy. It wasn't like we were at some wild party; this was her house. Lena stood up, put some soft rock on the stereo, and sat down again next to me.

  We moved to the bed. Lena kept the CD on, and the lame music ruined the mood a little. I guess it was kind of romantic, but we weren't in love, and we definitely weren't a couple. But here I was in this important moment, listening to Bryan Adams singing “Everything I Do.”

  I'd been carrying a condom in my wallet for the last six months, and now, finally, I got to actually use it. I moved on top of her, trying to keep a pretty steady rhythm. She said “faster” and I went faster, but then she asked me to slow down again and that was much more difficult. A few minutes, and it was all over.

  It's hard to describe what I was feeling, and it's hard to explain why it felt so monumental, but it changed everything. I'd actually done it. I wasn't a virgin anymore. That was important. But it was also important because I was starting to realize that I didn't just think Lena was “cool.” I actually liked her.

  We lay on top of the comforter and smoked. The afternoon sun warmed our skin, and outside we could hear the kids in a nearby playground. I wanted to ask her if it was any different than with Schulz. But I stopped myself; I got the impression that it hadn't been as important for her as it was for me. So I didn't say anything. Lena's head was resting on my shoulder, and her blonde hair was spread over my chest. I couldn't help myself and kissed her just under her ear. She said that it tickled.

  After we'd finished smoking, Lena stood up and threw the window wide open. Then she sprayed a perfume through the room and waved it around with her hand. It smelled like strawberries.

  “My mom will flip out if she realizes we smoked in here. She'll take away my allowance.”

  What did that matter though? I still had a thick bundle of cash lying in my desk drawer. It wasn't as thick as before, maybe, but there was still enough to cover any expenses. Come to think of it, I'd actually been spending a lot lately. In the last few weeks I'd bought about a thousand marks' worth of clothes—that was the only big expense I could allow myself without my parents getting suspicious. The rest had gone for . . . well, for what? Taxis, pizzas, cigarettes, alcohol, tips—stuff like that. Several thousand marks in a few weeks. I don't think she would have really wanted any of my money anyway.

  I stood up and got dressed. Every so often there would be a pft pft, and the room would light up with the smell of strawberries. I wrinkled my nose.

  “This is the one Schulzie got me. He thought he had to get me something. But I hate Opium. I wanted the one from Calvin Klein. It smells awful, right?”

  I nodded. I didn't really want to think about Schulz just then.

  “By the way, just so that we're clear: What happened today stays between us. I don't want people thinking I'm the school slut or anything.”

  A gust of wind blew through the room. With a quick motion, she slipped her hair three times through a black rubber band. All of a sudden she was in control again.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Promise?”

  I nodded.

  She left to go to the bathroom. I waited for her on the bed.

  “I've gotta go now,” she said when she returned. She'd gotten dressed and put makeup on. Now she was wearing a black miniskirt instead of the jeans. “I'm meeting up with Sarah.”

  She kissed me on the cheek and somehow made me understand that I was the one who was supposed to go. I pressed her hand and left the house.

  On my way home, the first waves of guilt started to crash over me. The more I thought about it, the more helpless I felt. No matter how you looked at it, I was definitely in the wrong. Despite all their fighting, Lena and Schulz were still officially a couple, and to make matters worse, he was still my friend. I'm not sure what happened next, but something inside me definitely changed. I guess it was maybe a function of the fact that so much seemed out of control: Sam was losing it, Eric had his own crazy plans, and sooner or later, me and Lena wouldn't be able to stay friends because she was my friend's girlfriend and I'd just slept with her. Considering everything that was happening, it would have been surprising if I didn't kind of lose my shit.

  When I got home, it was late afternoon and my parents weren't home yet. I took Hilda Stetlow's letters out and struggled to make sense of her spidery handwriting again. I was hoping that I might find something new. Then I took the rubber band off the bundle of bills and counted them. Their coating of dust was disgusting, which meant that I couldn't lick my fingers to gain a better grip. So I fumbled through the bills, counted, miscounted, and started over again. When I was finished I had a total of forty-six hundred marks. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

  The money had to go. It had to go. Far, far away. The letters, too. The sooner, the better. I wanted everything to go back to the way it was before.

  I went to the kitchen and got some plastic bags. Then I got a garden trowel from the garage and headed out. I hadn't used my bike in ages. At first the motion felt strange because it was literally the first time I'd ridden it since I was about twelve. I knew where I was going now. I was heading to the duck blind.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in the woods about a mile out of town. The sun filtered through the leaves and the pine needles in thin beams. I could hear a bird cooing somewhere close by in a strangely deep tone. It smelled like moss and trees. The ground sank down a little with every step I took; cracking twigs broke the silence. I looked around and made sure that there was no one watchi
ng me. It was the right thing to do, the money had to be buried. Lena was right; it brought bad luck. It had to disappear. This was the only way everything could return to normal again.

  As much as I hoped that would be true, I also knew that you can't turn back time. I made my way over to the duck blind and—like pirates in movies always do—I took seven big steps to the right. I stopped in front of an oversized tree root and looked around, making sure I could remember the exact spot. Then I used my hand to sweep aside all the little leaves and pine needles until I could feel the dirt. The soil was dark and damp. No one would look here, no one.

  I started to dig. Not too deep, but deep enough that you would never be able to see the plastic. About eight inches. An earthworm turned away against the flood of light.

  Now, even if anyone found the money, it couldn't be linked to me. The police couldn't launch an investigation with just a wad of cash. I saw more worms, beetles, and other insects that I couldn't name. There, in that unsecured damp hive of activity, I left the plastic bag with the letters and four thousand marks. No one would ever find it now, not even by accident. When I'd refilled the hole with dirt and covered it with pine needles and leaves, I stood up, took a few steps backward, and made sure I'd memorized the spot. Seven steps to the right from the right-hand front corner of the duck blind. Right in front of a fat tree root.

  It was done. I'd buried my money in the ground.

  I wanted to give away everything I still owned.

  Then I would be free.

  When I got back home, I called Daniel. It had been a while since we had talked. He picked up after the eighth ring. I told him what had happened with Lena. Twenty minutes later I was standing at his front door.

  “Well done,” he said.

  He held out his hand and I shook it. He turned around jerkily and scurried back to the couch and his Play-Station. I sat down next to him.

  “How was it?”

  I shrugged because I really wasn't sure whether it had been good or not. I guess you can only say that about something when you have something to compare it to, and this was just my first time.