Sasha

AVITAL BALWIT

My phone buzzed.

"Sorry man, something came up, I won't be coming over tonight." "What's her name?" "lol how'd you guess. It's Helena. Fuck, Elena I guess. The brunette from karaoke."

I put the phone back. I guess I'd hit up the music solo. It wasn't the first time Eric had flaked on our weekly house show date.

Everything came easy to Eric. He splashed through life with this simple joy that seemed so foreign to someone like me. Women? Adored him. Jobs? Always there when he needed them, always easy to leave when he inevitably got bored. I felt blessed to have even found a part time job doing what I liked -- a small column on local music in the Oregonian, our city paper, while also working as a shop assistant at Powell's Books. Eric, on the other hand, managed to find enough DJ gigs to avoid a day job. He was attractive. A rough, bearded blond who seemed like he had just finished baling hay or hunting deer or whatever lumberjack fantasy his onlooker was concocting. More than that, he oozed confidence like pheromones. He looked at men like he could out-spit, out-piss, and out-fight any one of them. I knew he had never been in a fight. He looked at women like he was taking their clothes off, and they looked back like they didn't mind.

I turned on the stove. The show started in an hour, so I probably had time for a quick dinner. Eggs and toast would have to do, seeing as that's all I had left. I threw on some coffee to complete the breakfast-at-dusk theme. Thinking better of it, I poured the remainder of the bulldog whiskey into the coffee. The concoction was truly abysmal, but would have to serve as a necessary pregame to attending a show alone.

I hated walking into the house shows the most. Once the music actually began I was happy enough to hide myself in the crowd, anonymous, just another awkward observer with a notepad in one hand and a cheap beer in the other. Everyone would be high anyways. If I was lucky, perhaps on something stronger, no one would notice me.

I waited for the eggs to finish. I always either undercooked or burned them. Today I was determined to outsmart this crusted skillet. While I waited, I turned to watch the darkened street below the apartment. I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the darkened window -- lanky, awkward. I had always struggled to look women in the eyes, let alone talk to them. I turned back to the egg. It was burned.

I arrived at the house show at 10:30. A dilapidated craftsman in Northeast. Cars lined the street, and I struggled to find somewhere to park. I entered feeling jittery. The line of stoned hipsters on the porch scanned me up and down, but said nothing as I paid my recommended donation of $5 and entered the house. I found my cheap beer and settled myself in the back of the concert room. The band, an indie rock group called "Whale's Tears", was still setting up. Suddenly, three girls stumbled towards me.

"Hey! You're Eric's friend, right?" began the tallest one, a pale thing with those silly spock bangs and a "vintage" leather jacket. "Yeah, my name is Sasha." I tried to shake her hand, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Is he coming tonight?" chimed in her small friend with pale pastel purple hair.

"No, I don't think so." "Awww. Tell him that we miss him. In fact, I'm having a house party next weekend, do you think you could give this to him?" She handed to a flier, wished me a good night, and sauntered away with her backup dancer pals. Mercifully, the music started shortly afterwards and I was spared any further interactions.

It was that night that I started having the dreams. The first one was odd. Eric and I were driving somewhere. It was dark, looked like the interstate between here and Vancouver. No other cars were around. We had been sitting in silence when Eric suddenly turned on the radio. I asked him to turn it down. I don't remember why, but I felt like I had to concentrate, as if something horrible were about to happen.

"Please, Eric, just turn it down." He had only laughed. "Sasha, don't be a pussy. We are the only ones on the road. What are you afraid of?"

Just then we had rounded a curve. A curve I knew didn't exist on that interstate. There was the bridge, but I didn't point at the bridge. I pointed the car at that sickening gap to the side of the bridge.

"I'm not afraid of anything." I turned to Eric with an odd smile as the car careened into the darkness.

I woke up and went through the day still feeling detached and shaken. I tried to toss it from my head, but I saw that gap over and over. "I'm not afraid of anything." That next night I dreamed again. Eric and I were at the gorge. He was out on the ledge over Multnomah falls. He had crawled past the mossy fence with its rusty sign reading, "Do not go past this point." He turned back with his boyish smile, "Come on Sasha! The view is great."

"Eric, I'm not really a fan of heights." "Don't worry. I'll hold your hand if you want it." He stood then. Just at the edge, silhouetted by the sinking sun, he looked like a god. And here I was, crouched in the mud a few feet behind him. I crawled under the fence and stood behind him. I put my hand on his corner. He turned to me with his smirk, "Wasn't so hard, right?"

I smiled back and pushed. I saw his eyes widening as he tumbled backwards down through the falls. His blond hair in all that pouring water looked like a flash of sun.

I woke sweating. I shook it off and headed into work. By midday I had already scanned three people's orders wrong, placed graphic novels in the poetry section on accident, and almost set off the fire alarm with the toaster in the breakroom. I told my manager I was feeling ill and clocked out. I wandered down burnside. It was starting to mist. Or perhaps it had been misting for a while -- I hadn't been outside since the morning. On 5th street I saw a homeless man shouting at pigeons. I could relate. I wanted to scream at the pigeons too, or perhaps just a lamp post, what had the pigeons done to me?

But what had my best friend done? Yet, twice now I had dreamed of his death. I would have put it off as odd dreams, the mysterious subconscious at work, but even now, in the gentle midday light, I didn't mind the thought. I was just so colossally bored, so hopelessly average, that even murder seemed better than my usual activities.

The next Friday, Eric was busy again. This time he was heading to a Flume concert. At midnight he sent me a picture. "Yo, is this E? Think I can take it safely?" The text was accompanied by a grainy photo of a blue pill.

I was Eric's drug guru. I had gotten pretty into drugs in my first year in college. It was necessitated out of a regular mix of experimental psychedelic experiences for "finding my true passion," and sad Adderall fueled study binges to keep the grades I needed for my scholarship. An older friend in high school from my Comp Sci class had showed me the dark web and I had quickly mastered it, as it wasn't too far off from a slightly sketchier eBay. Ever since then I had made my rounds of most substances. Eric on the other hand, while a champion drinker, didn't know much about drugs from his rather conservative upbringing on a ranch in Bend. "Send a better photo." He sent a clearer one. It did look like low grade typical club E. I told him it was safe. "Thanks, man." He had asked me a few days later if I would watch his apartment while he went to LA to do a gig. One of his old clients' birthday parties. Of course I agreed. I just had to feed his fish and make sure nothing caught fire.

"Let's do something when I get back?" He had messaged. "I feel like I haven't seen you in forever."

I had another dream that night. It was Sophomore year and I was in the student newspaper offices when Eric banged through the doors. This was how I had first met him -- he wanted the newspaper to do a write up of his band's performance. I told him that we didn't really do things like that. He had demanded to speak to the editor, and someone he had convinced Natasha to send someone. In the dream though Natasha never appeared. Eric turned to me with a grin that looked feral and his face shifted to that of a bear. He loped past me into Natasha's office and I heard a horrible high pitched screaming. Eric reemerged, a human again, with blood all through his beard.

The dream morphed again and Eric and I were in Powell's. He was begging me to leave work early to see a Blazer's game. I told him that I couldn't -- I would get fired. He turned to me calmly and said, "What if this place didn't exist? Then you'd be pretty free." He extracted a zippo from his pocket and calmly flicked it on. He slowly approached a table laden with that month's bestsellers and lit one book. I screamed but no sound came out. Eric just laughed and laughed. The whole room was burning and neither of us moved.

I woke. It was 3am. I couldn't fall asleep so I got up and paced my apartment. My roommate, thankfully, was a heavy sleeper. He was a quiet philosophy grad student named Philip, who didn't take much interest in my comings and goings. I decided now was an ideal time to check on the fish. I pulled up outside his apartment. It was right on the waterfront. I always wonder how he found the place, it looked like any number of yuppies would commit murder for a location like this. He'd probably fucked the landlady -- I wouldn't put it past him. He didn't even have a roommate -- just a bunch of fish. He had originally bought twelve beta fish. I had warned him that male beta fish eat each other, but he had brushed it off saying it was just an online rumor. Sure enough, a brutal civil war ensued until one male beta, four females, and some gore and fins remained in the tank. Dejectedly, Eric went out and purchased some more placid goldfish to round out the tank.

Now they swam calmly in front of me. I sat on his couch and considered the lights of the city on the other bank. I looked around the messy apartment and thought of its innocent owner, probably somewhere on the highway between here and LA. I'm sure he wasn't thinking of me, so why did he manage to take up so much of my head? Why had he been in my dreams so often recently? He often joked that I was in love with him, but I took that simply as a joke. Of course at least once in college I had wondered if I was gay, but by now I was fairly certain I wasn't. Then it wasn't love that kept Eric in my dreams. I just could never reconcile that confidence, that ease with life. I was taken with it. I would give anything to have it. Hurting Eric wouldn't give that to me -- I knew that. This wasn't some ancient Mesoamerican tradition where I could absorb his energies -- I wasn't insane. So why did I still want to do it? "Let's do something together when I get back." A request like that from Eric usually meant music or drugs. Likely both. He had been pushing me to get him some cocaine. He had always wanted to try it. I sat down at his computer. It took me two second to guess his password, "Tits69", and I was on. I had downloaded Tor for Eric a while ago, but he had never taken to ordering his own drugs. He had said it was too complex, but I guessed deep down it was because he preferred that I took the risk. I logged on and quickly found what I was looking for, pure fentanyl, a potent painkiller that was the new recreational fad -- particularly when cut with cocaine. Ridiculously cheap too -- funny how accessible it was considering that about four salt grain size chunks of this could kill a grown man. I ordered 5 milligrams, far more than I would need, to Eric's address. I next ordered half a gram of cocaine. That was quite a bit more expensive, but hey, it was a onetime splurge. It was almost his birthday anyways -- or at least that's how I could justify it. I fed the fish and then locked up the apartment.

I crawled back into bed at 5am. I woke at 12 and scrambled out of bed. My column was due at 2:00 so I quickly made coffee and huddled over my desk. I sent it in at 1:52pm. It was only when I sat back and thought of last night! What had I done? I felt like I was smothering. I stood and cracked the window, letting the icy November air flow in. I hadn't done anything wrong, I told myself. With the right dose, Fentanyl was merely recreational. People mixed it with coke all the time and lived. Eric wanted to try coke! It was a goddamn birthday gift. No need to feel so crazy.

Eric got back that Wednesday. "The fish are stillalive. Thanks man. Btw, didyou order these packages?"

"Yeah, it's something I thought we'd try this weekend." "Sounds dank." I got to his apartment at 8 that Friday. I had parked my car by a bar on Ankeny, and I walked the final three blocks. Music was blaring when I knocked and it took him a few minutes to hear my knock and answer the door.

"Hey man, how've you been?" He opened the door with a wide smile. He was wearing one of those tawdry "California Republic" shirts that had the two bears fucking. If asked, he'd say it was ironic. "Pretty good. How was LA?" I asked, closing the door behind me. "Fucking mind-blowing. Now is this what I think it is?" He gestured to the two packages on the kitchen table. He'd left them with their labels -- perfect.

"Yeah, it's coke plus something else I thought we'd mix it with. Get pretty wild, right? I mean you're basically 24."

"Shit man, let's do it then. Right now. Then let's head to Trio, we'll probably wanna dance. I'm gonna make myself a drink, want anything?"

"Naw, I'm fine." Idiot. You can't drink with cocaine. This kid could easily just kill himself, would hardly need any help. Eric has disappeared into the kitchen and I was left alone with the packages. I pulled my sleeves down over my hands and opened them. I left the packages with his name on the table but put the inner bags which I had touched through his shredder.

The two tiny bags of white stared back at me. Eric called from the kitchen,

"I think I'll be a heavyweight. Give me a solid amount -- I want to really feel it."

"Don't be too sure man, wouldn't want to overdo it." "No, seriously, Sasha, I don't want to do this half assed. I want to feel how I felt on my last night in LA." "What was that like?" "Shit man, they loved me. The venue must have had like 500 people."

I grabbed his credit card from his wallet on the shelf and put a black magazine down on the table. I slowly sliced through each of the bags.

He kept talking from the kitchen, I heard the clink of ice. "And everyone was drunk, or high, or rolling. And they were just screaming, screaming at me 'we love you Eric!', 'Play one more song!' I even put on some of my own band's music, I know I don't usually, but these people would have danced to anything. And you know what? I put on fuckin 'Raptor', that one I wrote Junior year, and they loved it!"

I had drawn out both lines of coke now. Pretty big, but definitely not lethal -- a bit intense with the alcohol. I brought out a tiny spoon for the fen. One milligram to each.

Eric's voice wafted through the door, "I couldn't do anything wrong. Man it was intoxicating. Imagine if you became editor or some shit, and people just begged you to keep writing, just fucking imagine because, yeah, you know it probably won't happen, but it fucking did for me man. It did."

Of course it would never happen for me, Eric. Why remind me? Of course it happened for you. Everything would happen for that golden haired adonis, every door would open to his rough but insistent touch. Whatever angel watched over him clearly had a thing for farm boys, and I doubted there was a guardian angel for awkward part time writers.

I thought about my car, far enough away. No one had seen me come. These bags? Addressed to him. The online section untraceable, our snapchats long deleted. They'd see that one drink and know what kind of kid he was -- another reckless kid trying something he knew nothing about. Another tragic overdose. If only idiots didn't do drugs. I added another milligram to his, then another. I looked at them both -- you could hardly tell.

He came through the door then. "They loved me. And while I was packing up they just kept yelling, 'Don't leave LA! Don't leave!' I think I'll head back man. If that's how they feel about me. Wow, are those it?"

"Yeah, this one is yours. You said you could handle almost anything."

"Shit man, what song should we play?" "Drop the Game, Flume?" "Kind of a downer, no?" "I kind of like it." "Alright, dealer's choice then." I suddenly shuddered. What was I doing? I could stop this anytime. I wonder how Judas felt. Electrified, revolted, or like he wouldn't have to follow that arrogant asshole around anymore? I was frozen, holding my tightly rolled $50 in my hand. "Come on, Sasha, what are you afraid of?" I smiled then and put the bill to the shiny black paper—it was done in a second. I passed it to him and he followed suit. I turned to him, his eyes going wide, and I answered, "I'm not afraid of anything."

Avital Balwit is a Portlander currently living on the East Coast. She studies political and social thought and cognitive science at the University of Virginia. She is currently writing a thesis on technology regulation about the novel policy challenges posed by Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon. In her spare time, she practices karate and writes short stories and essays.

Patrick Guenette