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Chapter One January 12 and Weasels, Weasels, Weasels I live in Portland, Maine, and I love the place.     I love Portland's red-brick buildings and clapboard houses, the salty smell of the Atlantic blowing through the streets, its mix of being semicosmopolitan and a working port at the same time, and the way the sun ducks below the pines and melts into the ocean.     But what I like most about Portland is its bizarre citizens, of which Portland has more than its fair share. What's great is that few people here actually try to be bizarre. Sure, you can go to big cities and find flashy people trying to prove how freaky they are--but those people don't interest me at all. I like the people who're different because they're being themselves, and, let's face it, deep down, people are strange.     I have an affinity for people who are characters. In elementary school, I was drawn to the kids who were different. Most kids enjoyed doing things in groups, but what I liked was talking to the kid sitting at the far edge of the playground, away from all the slides and swings, the kid who was mumbling things to herself, playing with a twig like it was a doll or a rocket ship while all the other kids were playing dodgeball. I wanted to kneel down and ask her what she was saying to her twig, I wanted to know where her rocket ship came from and where it was heading.     Portland is that kid. * * * It's Thursday night at Das Den, a Portland club that will let anybody play who knows how to plug in their instruments. It's one of those places where everybody's chemically stimulated because it's the only sane way to deal with how bad most of the music is. The band I sing for, Purple Nurple, is second on the bill, sandwiched between The Skumquats and The Magical Mystery Whores.     "Purple Nurple" isn't the best band name in musical history, but it's the one we've got. Once you have a name that people know you by, it's hard to change it--that's why you should always be very careful how you name things.     For tonight's show, I'm dressed in a slinky, silvery cocktail dress; Tara, our drummer, wears her old private school uniform--pleated plaid skirt, white blouse, blazer with school emblem, knee-high socks, and oxford shoes; Caroline, our bassist, wears a yellow Laura Ashley dress and black Chuck Taylor's; Syd, our guitarist, wears pink spandex tights, a long-tailed striped shirt, and a fake-fur coat spray-painted silver with matching silver lipstick. Syd always says we'd be a manager's nightmare because we don't have a consistent image, and in the age of MTV, image is everything.     Before our set, I head downstairs to pee. The gray, concrete basement hallway smells of mildew and stale beer. I reach the gouged wooden door of the women's room, the music from the stage so loud that I can feel the bass in the handle. Upon entering, I smell pot and ammonia-based cleaning products.     Some woman with raven-like hair and too much mascara is washing her hands in the sink.     "Wanna buy some X?" she asks, looking at my reflection in the grimy mirror.     "I'm all set," I say and head for the first stall. The toilet seat is cracked in half and the bowl is clogged with paper. The next stall is filled with ongoing graffiti conversations like: I like Ike. I like Dike. It's I likedyke, you idiot. I like Dick Van Dyke.     I have to admit: I just wrote that last line.     After peeing, I head back up the concrete stairs and cross the dance floor, narrowly avoiding getting steamrolled by a ponytailed cokehead sneezing blood. The guy's eyes are glassy; his pudgy friend escorts him out of the club.     I wade through a thick haze of smoke to the back of the room and see Syd, our guitar player, and, if you'll excuse the elementary school term, my "best friend." She's sitting on a stool, looking pensive, head slumped against the graffiti-covered pay phone, removing a Camel from her pack and dangling it between her teeth. Syd's five foot four with long, beautiful chestnut-brown hair. On her back, she's got a tattoo of Betty Boop with an arrow through her head.     "How's it going?" I yell over the music.     "Very Sylvia Plath."     "What does that mean?"     She lights her cigarette and arches her eyebrows. "You know exactly what that means."     "Yeah, I've actually got a Bell Jar buzz myself."     Syd blows several lush smoke rings, watching them rise and fade into nothingness. The stage lights dance in her eyes. She doesn't ask me what's wrong and doesn't seem to remember what today is, even though we talked about it less than a week ago while drinking kamikazes at Two Dollar Tim's.     It's January 12.     January 12 is absolutely the worst day of the year. Some people hate their birthdays, others hate the first day of school, still others hate the big holidays like Christmas or New Year's, but I hate January 12 because today's the anniversary of the day my mother left me sitting in my aunt's kitchen with a note, fifty dollars, and a bright orange Popsicle.     January 12 isn't that far from New Year's, so you almost wonder if leaving me at my aunt's was one of my mother's resolutions. I can just imagine her list: 1. Lose twenty pounds 2. Quit smoking 3. Ditch daughter     "So what's wrong with you?" I ask Syd.     "We still have a huge backlog," she says in between puffs. She reaches inside her backpack and pulls out a copy of our self-produced cassette, Always a Bridesmaid . "I just sent a copy to get reviewed. At least that might get us some publicity."     I hold a copy of the cassette in my hands. The cover was drawn by our drummer, Tara--it's of a freckled little girl in a yellow dress, sitting on a stoop, wearing sunglasses, and holding a pistol. There's a destroyed flower bouquet strewn at her feet.     "We'll sell them by the truckloads tonight," I assure her, and she just smiles her signature jaded smile. When Syd was seventeen, she ran away from her parents' New Hampshire home to live in a decrepit apartment in Boston with her thirty-year-old boyfriend, Tim. The relationship lasted all of three months. Tim decided to split for Los Angeles, leaving only two things behind. The first was this note, left in a red envelope on their kitchen table (Syd still has it stuck on her refrigerator with a magnet):     Dear Syd: Something came up and I had to go to LA. I feel I should tell you not to come out West because I'm also thinking we should break up. I left my money for my half of this month's rent. I'll never forget you. Love, Tim     P.S. Sorry.     The second thing Tim left was one of his guitars.     Syd worked in a Burger King for a while, teaching herself at night how to play guitar. Meanwhile, people kept telling Syd how beautiful she was with her perfect legs, great figure, and deep hazel eyes. It went to her head: She quit her Burger King job, took her guitar, and drove down to Miami Beach to pursue a modeling career.     When Syd reached Miami Beach, she scanned the papers and spotted several advertisements for modeling agencies. The few places that agreed to interview her told her that she had a beautiful face ... a million-dollar smile...all she needed were the right photographs of herself, pictures they could provide for hundreds of dollars.     With what little money Syd had saved, she bought a portfolio from a bogus agency, expecting that it would lead to a fabulous modeling career; it didn't. Syd had no money, no agent, and no fabulous career. So she did what she knew best: She got another job at Burger King.     After a few months, living in a cramped basement apartment next to a popular crack house, Syd realized the truth: at five foot four, it was virtually impossible to break into modeling. She had been told there was a market for "petites," and there was, but it was extremely small.     To get out of her basement apartment, Syd supplemented her Burger King income by working in a massage parlor. She claims that she didn't have sex with any customers, but she did perform "hand release," or, hand jobs. ("That gig gave me forearms like Popeye.")     One day, by a strange twist of fate, the talent agent who'd conned her into buying a portfolio wandered into the massage parlor where Syd worked. When Syd spotted the agent in the lobby, she dashed out the back door and sprinted across the street to a health-food store where she bought a jar of Chinese tiger balm. She then returned to serve the client who had no memory of who she was. She made small talk while bringing him to an erection; when the agent was finally at full mast, she gobbed tiger balm in her palms, and continued masturbating him. His look of pleasure soon switched to an expression of confused horror:     "I feel a burning," he complained, face contorting with terror.     "You're just getting hot, baby," Syd purred.     She kept rubbing the balm into his skin and soon he howled with agony and doubled over.     "Jesus, what the hell is this stuff?!?" the guy yelled, clutching his member.     "It's what you get for taking advantage of people's dreams, fuckhead," Syd spat, and then stormed out of the room and quit. The next day, she packed up all of her things and drove back north.     Syd now works as a waitress at Peter's, a cafe that serves Mexican and Middle Eastern food on Exchange Street in the Old Port, the touristy section of Portland down by the water. Syd makes good money at Peter's, but she's got huge credit-card debt so she also works as a dominatrix at a private club. There's no sex according to Syd (although I have my doubts), just bondage and domination. Some people say Syd does S&M, but she always corrects them:     "I do bondage and domination, not S&M. It's just not the same." The stage lights up. Tara counts off with her drumsticks and we begin our set. It's not our best show ever. The drums are miked way too loud and Caroline, our bassist, can barely hear herself. Bert, the regular mixing-board guy, was recently suspected of robbing veterinary hospitals and stealing special K (the drug not the cereal) and selling it to high school kids to get stoned. He's fled Portland, and his replacement is clueless.     There are a few people dancing during the set, but while we're huffing and puffing, we're not exactly blowing the house down. The low point of the show is when, during "Pants on Fire," some frat boy slams against the stage and spills warm, sticky beer all over my legs. If you had to summarize the Das Den audience in one word, that word would be wasted .     I keep peering out into the audience to see if I can spot my boyfriend, Max--I don't see him anywhere.     After our set, we get a fair amount of applause from the sweaty crowd and then clear our equipment. Syd's in a foul mood.     "You okay?" I ask her.     "We need to practice more," she grumbles, pushing her way out the back door.     We all lug our equipment outside to the parking lot where Tara's black van is parked. Nobody's speaking; tensions are running high. Lazy clouds drift past the moon. It's freezing tonight; another big storm has just ravaged Chicago and it's marching its way east to smother us with the third major snowfall in two weeks. There are towering snowbanks everywhere. It's almost as if Mother Nature's trying to make some cosmic point because she's convinced we're just not getting it .     There was talk of going over to Tara's, but I don't know if that's still happening. I definitely want to go somewhere, do something, get my mind off of January 12.     As we're loading the equipment into the van, a big steroid abuser of a guy with a bushy mustache and bloodshot eyes stumbles out the back door.     "Hey! You guys were great!" he bellows. "You totally didn't play like girls." Syd shoots him a look like she wants his head to explode.     "Can I offer you a helping hand here, ladies?" the guy asks, voice booming.     "We're okay," Syd says.     "Awww, you girls look like you could use some aid. Here, lemme take that," offers Mr. Gold's Gym, grabbing an amp out of my hands. He staggers over to the van, almost tripping over his own feet, and drops it in the back.     "I really dug your drumming," he keeps repeating to Tara, occasionally staring at her ass.     "Mmm-hmmm," Tara mumbles, avoiding eye contact.     After we've packed up, he says with animated hands, "Honestly, man, you girls rocked my world! You're seriously one of my favorite bands of all time. Seriously. I'm feeling the need for hugs here." With that he hugs Caroline who just rolls her eyes, too polite to refuse. He then approaches Tara.     "Awww, the drummer." He opens his arms wide and smiles a sickly grin.     Tara retreats, holding out her hands and muttering "No thanks."     But the man whines, "Awww, come on," and opens his arms wider, a smarmy grin on his face, hugging her against her will.     Bad, bad move.     As he breaks out of the hug, Tara kicks him hard in the shin with her steel-toed boot.     "Ahhhhhhh! Shit!" he yells, clutching his leg.     Tara hurls open the van door. "Are you guys coming or what?" she asks.     "Yougoddamnwhore!" he spits, holding his shin, doing pained little bunny hops on the snow-covered asphalt.     We quickly pile into Tara's van and speed away, laughing once the shock wears off. In life, sometimes it takes a random asshole to bring people back together. Tara has long, black hair and brown, soulful eyes. She grew up in South Portland with five older brothers, all hockey jocks. I've never met any of her high school friends, because she didn't have any (her nickname was "Cujo"). Tara spent most of her time by herself, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and immersing herself in existentialist literature. Needless to say, Tara didn't fit in with any of the high school crowds. Even the angst-ridden life-sucks-so-let's-dress-in-black-and-worship-death crowd didn't like her, because they thought she was a downer.     Things got worse when she started sleeping with her English teacher and soccer coach. Tara went from loser to Lolita in a very short time--and when rumors of their affair circulated, she soon graduated to leper. Students whispered behind her back and shoved nasty notes through the airholes in her locker; her nickname changed from "Cujo" to "Jabba the Slut."     The administration apparently found out about the affair, but wanted to avoid any embarrassment; at the end of the year, they quietly released the teacher. I think he and Tara still write letters to one another.     Both of Tara's ears are double pierced; her favorite earrings are these cheap plastic skeletons they sell at Halloween, which Tara likes to wear year-round. She also wears a large crucifix around her neck, but, although loosely raised Catholic, she's not religious. She just likes to accessorize. We drive over to Tara's. She's painted the walls and ceiling of her apartment in a swirling kaleidoscope of colors. Tara's got a bottle of cheap vodka in her icebox, but no mixers. Someone suggests we could drive to a convenience store, but, after a brief discussion, we decide that it's too much trouble (not convenient enough, I guess), so we search the apartment. Syd and I find a two-liter bottle of Fresca behind a box of vanilla wafers.     We kick back on tattered futons in Tara's apartment drinking vodka and Fresca. I plan on spending my final moments of January 12 in a drunken haze, and start pounding drinks down. Syd rolls a joint with the focus and intensity of a glassblower, making sure it's not too lumpy. After smoking half of the joint, Syd finishes Tara's vanilla wafers.     I stick to vodka and Fresca; I could be setting myself up for a bad night if I got stoned. When I was sixteen on this very same date, I bought a nickel bag from a pock-faced dealer in Boston Common; it turned out to be laced with PCP. I sat in the shower for eight hours, completely dressed, rocking back and forth, thinking I was dying, and hearing voices shrieking out my name. Ever since then, I've just said "maybe."     So I keep downing vodka, staring at the clock, watching the seconds tick away.     It's 11:04. Less than an hour.     Caroline enters the bathroom, returning with a green tube made out of gelatinous plastic.     "Tara, what is this?" Caroline asks.     Tara and Syd, both sitting sideways in their chairs, legs dangling over the armrests, exchange a significant glance and then crack up.     "What? What is it?" Caroline asks, smiling, sticking her fingers inside the tube. "It feels so weeeird ... it's like a Chinese finger torture."     "It's the sea cucumber," Syd says, still laughing.     "What?" I ask.     "That's Syd's nickname for it. It's a sex toy I bought for Chad when we were going out," Tara explains. "You stick it on a guy's thing and the suction's supposed to be pleasurable."     Caroline's face drains of color. Her smile dives into a frown. She suddenly begins yanking on the tube, trying to free her fingers. "Well, I can't get it off now."     "You realize," I say to Caroline, playing upon her germ-freak fears, "Your fingers are where Chad Smith's member was."     Caroline looks up with horror and then pulls harder on the tube, her voice panicky. "Oh, this is gross ... please tell me you washed this thing, Tara?"     "I think so--"     "Oh, this is definitely sick. Help me get this off!" Soon Syd and I are yanking at the tube, trying to pull it off, but we can't.     "Pull, pull!" Caroline barks at us.     "I think it's stuck for good, Caroline," I say.     Her face is bright red. "Well, it's cutting off my circulation now!"     Syd puts her hands on her hips. "I think we need some Astroglide."     Tara shrugs, "I don't have any."     "Screw Astroglide. Just keep pulling!" Caroline orders.     We finally pry the green tube off her fingers. Everybody except for Caroline dissolves into laughter.     "Jesus, Caroline," Syd laughs, "You're a trip."     "More like a whole package tour," I add.     "Whatever I am, could somebody please get me some antibacterial soap?" * * * When Caroline was ten, her mother died of pancreatic cancer. Caroline became withdrawn, and her father started sending her to shrinks. The only thing Caroline remembers about the shrinks was that they made her draw and persuaded her father to buy her a board game called the Ungame in which there were no winners and no losers ("I would have killed for Monopoly, or Battleship," she says of those days).     Two months after her mom died, Caroline's stepmother, or The Devil's Ugly Daughter, as Caroline once referred to her, moved in. The Devil's Ugly Daughter, who's actually quite attractive, gets regular liposuction and has more plastic in her face than is in the average backyard wading pool.     In her early teens, Caroline was committed to an institution. After a few weeks, doing the Thorazine shuffle, her roommate and only friend hung herself with a bedsheet. Caroline walked in and saw her, body dangling and face purple.     Once Caroline got sprung a few months later, she was shipped off to boarding school, where she was a great soccer player; she was recruited by Yale. After graduating, she moved to Maine, where her mother's side of the family spent their summers. She got a job as the assistant director of a shelter for juvenile delinquent girls. My amateur psychologist reading of Caroline: After being raised in sheltered luxury, she gets a vicarious thrill out of being around girls who've torched houses, shot family members, and stabbed teachers. Syd and I say our good nights to Caroline and Tara and stumble out onto the streets. It's eerily quiet; no people or cars are out. The stars are in force. The snow glows, reflecting the crescent moon. As we trudge past the red-brick New England buildings, the shops dark, my brain tells me I should be freezing but I'm so drunk that I just feel a mild chill. I look up at the digital clock on top of the Channel Eight building--     11:35 ... 28ø... ABC8 ... NEWS ... 11:35 ... 28ø ... ABC8 ... NEWS ... 11:36 ...     The worst day of the year's almost over. Syd and I walk in the moonlight, our steaming breath rising and dissipating, neither of us saying a word for half a block.     "Guess what?" Syd eventually offers. "I'm going to be in a play next weekend. Somebody dropped out at the last minute and they asked me to fill in. It's just a small part."     "What's the play?"     "Weasels, Weasels, Weasels" .     I laugh. " Weasels, Weasels, Weasels ?"     "Right," Syd chuckles, creating a fog in front of her face. "It's written by this local guy, Blake Connor. Wait 'til you see the thing. It's like a fairy tale on crack."     "You a weasel?"     She shakes her head. "No, I play a witch."     "Typecasting."     "I knew you were going to say that. You're so predictable sometimes, Justine."     "I try."     She stops. "Hold on, I have to light my cigarette."     We stand on the corner, huddled under the glow of a street lamp as Syd fumbles with her cigarettes. A strong gust of wind blows from the South, whipping snowflakes off the tops of the drifts. I stick my hands in my pockets.     "It's cold out here, Syd," I mutter, bouncing up and down, watching the wind snuff out her matches.     "Just give me one second here ..."     A rusted Chevrolet Celebrity, bumpers crooked, pulls up behind us. The driver's side window rolls down. There's two guys in the car--one's fat with a hillbilly beard, the other with red hair and a splotchy birthmark on his face.     "How much?" the fat guy asks.     I bend down, putting my hands on my knees. "What?"     "How much?"     "Sorry ... but we're not prostitutes, fellas ..." I say, standing back up and folding my arms across my chest. "And if we were, we'd be so damn expensive, you couldn't afford it."     "Well, do you girls feel like partying?"     "Drop dead," Syd says.     The car screeches off. "Frigid bitches!" we hear one of the guys yell.     "Kotex cunts!" the other screams.     "Dickless dorks," Syd grumbles.     "Yeah," I say, because I can't think of anything.     Suddenly, the car pops a U-ey and heads back toward us. Syd and I snap into action; she flicks her cigarette at the ground and it snuffs out in the snow. We both get down on our haunches, and start packing snowballs.     The car whizzes by, the red-haired guy giving us the finger; we stand up and chuck our snowballs at him. Syd's misses by a mile; mine flies through the window, smacking the guy in the face--a one-in-a-million shot.     "Ohmygod! Nice shot, Justine!" Syd yells. We both start laughing until the car slams on its brakes and goes into reverse.     "Uh-oh," I gulp. My stomach drops and breath catches. We bolt down a trash-strewn alley, arms and legs pumping. Just before we turn the corner, we hear a crashing noise that sounds like a car flying over a curb and smacking into a lamppost; loud cursing follows. We take a more circuitous route back to our apartments, creeping through dark-side streets and dingy alleyways, keeping a constant eye out for the rusted Chevrolet Celebrity.     "Tonight was definitely full of weirdness," Syd comments as we approach her apartment building.     "I was just thinking that. Maybe terrorists stuck something in the water supply," I suggest.     "Maybe," she says. "But at least another January 12 is almost over."     I stop and stare at her, shocked. "You actually remembered? But--"     "Of course I did. I just didn't think I should mention it. Why bring it up? I wanted to help you forget it."     I'm touched. We hug each other good night.     "Thank you," I whisper over her shoulder.     " De nada ," she says with a squeeze, then heads into her apartment building.     I continue trudging toward my boyfriend Max's apartment, the lights of the downtown high-rises at my back. You can't see the Channel Eight clock anymore from this angle. I just want this day to end.     As I stumble in the cold, hands deep in my pockets, I think about this boy I knew, Daniel Stone, who was so drunk that he passed out in a snowbank and froze to death. His parents found him in the morning, his face pale and his lips blue. I start walking very, very carefully.     Before Daniel Stone, the only death that affected me was when our mutt, Molly, got hit by a Good Humor truck. Barbara Elkins was at our house; we were trying to mate my gerbil, Speedy, with her hamster, who was inexplicably named Emu. Just as we had placed them in the same cage and put on the Grease sound track for mood music, there was a series of noises: the chimes of an ice-cream truck, the screech of brakes, and a thump.     I remember standing in the middle of the street, a crowd of kids gathered, everyone staring down at Molly, a pool of blood growing around her body, her neck and legs bent in strange angles, eyes staring blankly up at the clouds, her tongue dangling out of her mouth and onto the asphalt. I cried and cried as the truck driver just stood there, looking guilty and stupid.     I boycotted all forms of ice cream for years after that. I tried to get the other neighborhood kids to join me, but ice cream was just too good and it wasn't their dog. It was my first encounter with pragmatism.     I was not as attached to Daniel Stone, our neighborhood sadist; I had seen him beat kids up, blow up bluegills with firecrackers, shove cats in mailboxes, and attempt to ram a number two pencil up the ass of the Carvers' dachshund, Champ. There was a rumor that he'd forced the Cerellis' retarded daughter to give him a blow job in the woods; I believe it. But whatever I thought of him, one night he was drunk and staggering down Weller Road, and the next morning he was dead.     I walk through the streets whistling songs, trying to be alert, avoiding snowbanks with the kind of concentration that thousands of elementary school girls used to have when, walking on the sidewalk, we'd think, "Step on a crack, break your mother's back."     The difference is, when I was in elementary school, I would jump up and down on the cracks, hoping it would shatter my mother's spine. Max meets me at the door wearing a white T-shirt and light blue boxers. He's got brown hair down to his shoulders and is more "handsome" than "cute"--you could see him modeling charcoal gray suits in GQ ...well, maybe not quite GQ --maybe the Sears catalog.     Max grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, getting kicked out of school after school, usually for grades, but once for an underground newspaper article speculating on the pubic hair colors of every faculty and staff member. After seeing a production of Marat/Sade , Max announced that he wanted to devote his life to acting.     Max's parents were surprised, but happy he'd given up his earlier plan: running off to Tibet and banging gongs for a living.     Max won't act in any plays he thinks are frivolous or commercial. He'll only act in plays he considers "serious."     When Max isn't acting in his serious plays, he's a waiter at Dante's Floating Restaurant, a seafood place in the Old Port, which is located on a permanently docked boat and where waiters are referred to as "skippers."     "Hey there, kid," he says.     "Where were you tonight?" I ask.     "I was memorizing my lines and lost track of time. I'll definitely be there next week." He's said the same thing for the past two months. I can count on my nose the times I've seen him at a show.     "Okay, Max." I shuffle past him and look at the clock--12:01. I made it. Safe . 364 days until the next one.     "Have you been drinking?" he asks.     I nod and collapse onto his lumpy couch knocking off several playscripts perched precariously on the armrest. Even though it's January 13, I don't magically feel better. I wish I could pass out now, slip into unconsciousness, wake up tomorrow.     "You're not going to puke, are you? I can't deal with puke right now." He sits down on the couch and it groans.     "I'm not going to puke," I mutter into the pillow.     "Lush." He softly slaps me on the butt.     "I'm not a lush," I protest, sitting back up. "But I really should drink some water before bed." I brush the hair out of my eyes. "Would you please get me some?"     "Will you grant me sexual favors?"     "Max ..."     "Just a few sexual favors, that's all."     "How about I don't puke on your couch?"     Max gets the water.     I don't know why I haven't told Max about the significance of today's date. Maybe it's because we've only been dating for a few months. Maybe it's because I don't trust him yet.     "Syd just got cast in a play," I report in between gulps.     "Does Syd even act? She doesn't have any training, does she?"     I wipe my mouth on my sleeve. "It's just a small production. Something called Weasels, Weasels, Weasels . It's written by this local guy named Blake something."     Max rolls his eyes. "Blake Connor?" he says with contempt. "Blake Connor's a hack. All he writes are these inane comedies with no depth whatsoever."     "So you're a big fan?" I take another sip of water.     "Not particularly," he mumbles.     He then grabs my left breast with his right hand. Two minutes later, Max and I are having sex on the shag rug in his living room.     Max and I are goal-oriented during sex. Max always tries to make me come as soon as possible. You always hear about guys who are overly concerned about their performance (especially on those sex-therapy shows on cable). Max could be the official mascot for this tendency--I can just see the slogan now: Don't be like Max. Relax.     Here's what usually happens with Max and me: there's an adequate amount of foreplay, I'll give Max that. Yet, when we get down to the straight sex after all the kissing, petting, groping, licking, and sucking, it's usually furious at the beginning, a rapid bang-bang-bang where he maneuvers and positions himself, desperately trying to please me. I'm sometimes pleased and then, when the burden's off his shoulders, Max relaxes and tends to his own orgasm.     I'm sure, to many women this seems whiny. Most guys don't give a shit about anyone but themselves, so having a boyfriend who's actually concerned about my orgasm might seem a godsend to some. Furthermore, Max has the control to hold out for me, which must seem superhuman to women who must coddle the bruised egos of their prematurely ejaculating boyfriends, stroking their hair, cooing to them not to worry about it, telling them it's natural (all this as their spent partners drift off to sleep). And while I suppose I should be thankful for being spared that, there's something too mechanical and predictable about our sex life. We always follow the exact same routine: me first, then Max. We've never come at the same time. Furthermore. when we have sex (I hesitate to call it "making love"--which sounds like something only beautiful, well-adjusted people engage in). Max almost seems like he's not there, I've pointed this out to him and he assures me, looking at me with his soft blue eyes, that he's very, very there, but I don't feel him. Sometimes I have this sensation like I'm only aiding him in masturbation, like I'm an inflatable love doll or a porno magazine with sticky pages that he tucks under his mattress. When I wake up the next morning, I realize I didn't drink nearly enough water the night before--my head's throbbing. I feel stiff and sick to my stomach.     I lie there for a bit, gazing up at the lightning-like cracks in the ceiling, congratulating myself for making it through another January 12.     I always secretly hope that my mother also remembers the significance of the date. I fantasize that maybe she'll feel such a profound sense of loss that she'll be compelled to get in touch with me. Last January 12, I was drinking margaritas with Tara in Taco Amigo, so drunk that I was having trouble staying on the stool, when suddenly I had this ESP flash--my mother's going to call me. Tonight.     I abruptly stood up, almost falling over, excused myself, and pushed my way through the crowd and out the door. I sprinted home, stumbling and falling on the ice, banging my elbows and knees. While crossing the street in front of my apartment building, I narrowly avoided getting run over by a snowplow and twisted my ankle.     "What the hell's your problem?" the snowplow driver screamed at me.     "I'm expecting a call from someone!" I shouted back, as if that explained everything. I hobbled to my building and hopped up several flights of stairs to discover there were no messages. I pressed *69 just to find out who the last caller was--it was Caroline.     I waited by the phone for hours, the room spinning. At one point, a call came in, and I leaped to the phone, only to discover it was a telemarketer. I yelled at the woman to go fuck herself and stop tying up the goddamn line.     I stayed up as late as I could, eventually passing out at three in the morning, curled up next to the phone. The next morning I could barely move, I was so bruised and battered from banging myself on the ice the night before.     I looked at the phone: no messages. I realized then that my ESP moment was no more than a severe case of wishful thinking. On top of that, I realized I'd really injured my ankle; I had to use crutches for weeks.     If my mother actually ever did call, I can imagine the opening of our phone conversation:     ME: Hello?     FEMALE VOICE: Is this ... is this ... Justine?     ME: Yes. Who is this?     FEMALE VOICE: This is (prolonged, emotional pause)     ... This is your mother, Tina ...     Her voice would tremble, then break, releasing a flood of anguish. Tears and expressions of love would, of course, follow.     It has yet to happen. Max, who doesn't have to be at work until eleven, is dead to the world, mouth hanging wide open, snoring. He's recently got into the habit of doing speed before going to work, and this morning, Hefty-sized bags under my eyes, I'm tempted to do the same.     Forgoing the chemicals, I rise, but do not shine. However foolish I may have felt last year, I still call my machine to check my messages, just to make sure.     Zero messages.     Maybe next year.     I take a quick shower and get dressed. Before heading outside, I wrap one of Max's woolen scarves around my neck. My stomach's doing somersaults.     I stumble out of Max's apartment building. Jagged rows of icicles dangle from the roof. The sky's a bright and beautiful blue, speckled with white clouds. I pull my winter cap over my ears, put on my shades, and cut across Longfellow Square, passing the big statue of Henry Wadsworth sitting in his chair, glaring down at all those who pass by. I always think that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would be the greatest name for a porn star.     I turn right onto Congress Street, the main street in downtown Portland, passing by stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and municipal buildings. There's a strong wind, burning my cheeks. I finally arrive at Monument Square and cross the street to Milt's Used and Rare Books. * * * Milt's Used and Rare, which smells like pipe smoke laced with mildew, is crammed with homemade wooden shelves, each one overflowing with books. There are piles on the floor, stacked above and below the shelves, and even outside in racks. To the right of the entrance sits an old, beat-up antique desk where Milt Riley, sixty-year-old poet and eccentric, holds court. The desk is covered with mimeographed literary journals and various yellow sheets torn from legal pads with scribbled, half-finished poems on them.     Milt worked most of his life in a mill in Pine's Falls, Maine, writing poetry on the side (some small presses printed chapbooks of his work: {{S}}lumber, Daily Log , and Milltown's Paradise Lost ). Not long after his fiftieth birthday, both his parents were killed in an auto accident, sideswiped by a large truck while driving home in a newly purchased car. After grieving their deaths, Milt sold their house, quit his job, took the money for their life insurance claim and traveled to Portland to pursue his dream: starting his own bookstore.     Milt's isn't the kind of bookstore where you're likely to find the current bestsellers, but that book you once glimpsed but could never find again, the one that's been out of print for years and was published by a vanity press in southwest Uzbekistan--Milt's got two of them. In different editions. One of them autographed. I'm reorganizing the Self-help section, nauseated and hungover from my annual January 12 brain-cell stomp, trying to avoid any books with the word alcohol in the title. Milt sits behind his desk, smoking a pipe, supposedly working on The New York Times crossword puzzle.     "What's the word I'm looking for ..." I hear Milt calling out in his raspy voice. "What's this word, Justine?"     "What are you talking about?" I grumble from behind Self-help. I peer around the corner to see Milt huddled over his desk, crystal-blue eyes squinting down at the paper.     "It's this damn crossword puzzle ... I need a synonym for vomiting," he mumbles. Copyright (c) 1999 Brent Askari. All rights reserved.