Bad Sex On Speed

Jerry Stahl

THIS IS A GENUINE BARNACLE BOOK

A Barnacle Book | Rare Bird Books
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Los Angeles, CA 90013
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All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For more information, address: Rare Bird Books | Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 453 South Spring Street, Suite 531, Los Angeles, CA 90013.

Portions of this book have been previously published in The Speed Chronicles (Akashic Books, 2011) and Slake: Los Angeles, A City and Its Stories no. 3: War and Peace (Slake, 2011)

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Stahl, Jerry.
Bad sex on speed / Jerry Stahl.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 9781940207001

1. Methamphetamine abuse—Fiction. 2. Drug abuse—Fiction. 3. Heroin—Fiction. 4. Addicts—Fiction. 5. Sex—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3569.T3125 B23 2013
813.54—dc23

CONTENTS

BAD SEX ON SPEED

IN THE DE-SPEED WING

AMERICAN GIRL

SMURF

DOPA BONER

TO BE ALIVE IS TO BE ADDICTED

POINT COUNTERPOINT

JIMMY CRYSTAL

SHALOM REST HOME

THE MINDER

SHALOM REST HOME TWICE

CRANK-TASTICS

TIMES SQUARE

BAD SEX ON SPEED

Jerry Stahl

BAD SEX ON SPEED

THE RUSH! THE TERROR! The acrid stink of your sweat soaking through furniture three blocks away! Speaking of stink—what is that? Did somebody piss under your arms? Is that possible? Could they have pissed in your armpits three weeks ago, and you just now noticed? Like, say, when you get in a cab, and the seat’s wet after a pack of frat boys beer-up too hard and leave Bud puddles. Hop inside and—QUESTION: Why does your God hate you?—you hear the splat when you hit the seat. But—ANSWER: Because you’re a tweaker!— you don’t know you’re full wet-ass till you squish out of the cab. (“People never call the police until it’s wet-ass time.” Al Pacino, Sea of Love.) Speed keeps you so clammy you can’t feel damp. Just one of the many advantages!

Fucking alcoholics! Where’s the dignity? Remember that dancer—Lola? Lurleen? Patricia?—with the misspelled devil ink
on her neck. HAIL SATIN! “It’s not a mistake, it’s a statement!” It was Lurleen. She had some kind of jailhouse harelip that slurred her words to the left. “You ass-maggot, you think I’m a fucking creatine?” Upscale. After eleven vodka tonics you’d see day-workers hand her five sweaty dollar bills to lift her skirt and gaze in her labia, which weirdly resembled a pair of chimp ears. You’d seen one once, in a French Quarter Voodoo store. It was supposed to bring its owner lifelong protection and success. From the moment the Sisters of Marie Laveau Gift Shop door hissed shut behind you, you knew you should have bought the thing. Everything would have been different. Why are you such an asshole?