“That’s really interesting, Tonk.” Your Mommy would paste an expression on her face, but it was always uneven, the panic crippling her smile, anxiety clouding her red-rimmed eyes. “You’re a man with so many talents.”

She tried to sound sincere, but it came out sarcastic, and Tonk’s nerves were delicate.

“What does that mean, bitch? You saying I’m a faggot? You hear that tone?”

“Tonk,” my mother would plead, “don’t start.”

“See that? That tone, right there. That’s why your fucking pig daughter thinks I’m a sack-lapper.”

“Tonk stop it!”

“No, it’s okay. It’s fine. I like it. You believe this?” This he’d say to his friend, Fishoil. Whenever Fishoil came by, Tonk introduced him as a “friend from college,” ha-ha, old prison joke. Fishoil was wound tight, but you never really saw his face, because you could not take your eyes off his moustache. It always made you think of a chipmunk splattered on the windshield. You’d never seen one, but you’d imagined it; figured it could happen if, say, you stood on a freeway overpass with the chipmunk in a bag and dumped him out at just the right moment, from just the right height, onto an oncoming windshield. And he’d have to be alive. Because dead bodies don’t bleed. You knew this from TV…

After you started licking crumbs after the grownups, wet fingering the tails of lines, the way you’d seen your mother do—after you started doing the shit—you discovered something neat. Something fun. More fun than being alone with meth freak grownups who won’t let you out of their sight usually is.

You found out, like, with speed in you, that you could just close your eyes, and if you really thought a situation, you could see it. Watch it. But not just watch it. You could be there, for what seemed like years of your life. It was like watching TV. But it was your show. Your own Outer Limits. You could watch, or you could do walk-ons, or you could star in the show. And you’d come back, from dreaming and twitching, and not be sure if it happened or not. Or how long you’d been standing by the window, flexing over whether to peek between the blind-slats or stay where you were, not moving, not moving with all your strength, until tendons in your neck hurt. The first time you smoked was when Tonk and Mommy crashed at the same time. Usually they tried to out stay-up each other, so they fuck other people and tear the house apart looking for the other one’s stash. You knew he was passed out. But at the same time, you could see things you didn’t want to see. Be in situations you wanted to never be in. Like, you’d be thinking—freaking: Tonk’s face in the window.

And then, like just thinking made it so, his face would just be there. Which gave you such a jolt, you thought, I’m having a heart attack. A childhood heart attack. They happened. You heard about them on the news. You imagined your mother’s face as she played sad for the social services, so she could get a check. You’d heard her say it, more than once, “If you just died, I could get a check.” And now you could hear her, milking it. “My daughter…nine years old…heart attack!”