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At Paul’s apartment Maggie volunteered to help Paul juice fennel, celery, cucumber, lemon while Erin showered and Calvin did something in Paul’s room. Paul, who had been silent most of the night, partly because he and Erin ingested 2mg Xanax each before dinner, asked if Maggie had asked her brother about “the thing,” which he was surprised he remembered.

“Shit. Yeah. I forgot to tell you.”

“What did he say?”

“I don’t remember,” said Maggie absently.

“Are you depressed about you and Calvin?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to talk to him. I feel really depressed.”

Paul organized three bags of heroin into four different-size piles—Maggie only wanted a little—while Erin bought tickets for
X-Men: First Class
at 12:35 a.m. Paul drew lines connecting three names to three lines of heroin and heard Calvin say “I think I just figured out I can be happy no matter what people around me are doing” to what seemed to be himself and earnestly thought “funny” in a monotone with a neutral expression, then snorted his heroin and showered and ingested 15mg Adderall, two Advil, half a marijuana cookie. Paul vomited on the street twice before they got in a taxi with Erin in the front passenger seat and Maggie in the backseat between Paul and Calvin, who was commenting on the taxi’s TV, which was talking about Shaquille O’Neal.

“You should tweet it, stop talking about it,” said Paul, and opened his door at a red light to vomit, but didn’t and received from someone a plastic bag, which he vomited in twice with an overall sensation of disconcern-based serenity. He tweeted “in cab to theater, ‘already’ vomited twice (jk re seeming to imply xmen will make me vomit)” and read a tweet that said “put hand through cab glass to pet Paul as he vomited into a bag, cabdriver looked at me in a sitcom-like way” and said “Erin, you forgot the hashtag” while staring at his own tweet. “I forgot the hashtag also. We’re all just going to keep forgetting it. What’re we going to do?”

“I recommend copy and pasting.” said Erin.

“We’re all just going to keep forgetting it,” said Paul “pessimistically,” he thought, and when he exited the taxi he walked into, instead of onto, the sidewalk and fell stumbling ahead in an uninhibited, loosely controlled, briefly uncontrolled manner reminiscent of childhood, when this partial
to complete abandonment of body and/or limb (of rolling like a log on carpet, falling face-first onto beds, being dragged by an arm or both legs through houses or side yard, floating in swimming pools, lying upside down in headstands on sofas) was normal, allowing his unexpected momentum to naturally expend, falling horizontally for an amusingly far length. He imagined continuing forward in a pretending of momentum, transitioning into a jog, disappearing into the distance. He vomited on the street, then turned around and jogged to Maggie, who stood motionless with a preoccupied expression.

“I’m okay,” said Paul. “Where are they? Calvin, Erin.”

“Buying water,” said Maggie.

“How do you feel?”

“Floaty,” said Maggie with a neutral expression. “Good. How do you feel?”

“Good,” said Paul smiling. “I just used too much.”

When they entered the theater the movie had already begun. Paul sat in a stadium-seated area, above and behind everyone else in the front area. After a few minutes he went to Maggie, who was in an isolated seat, on the right side of the theater. Maggie pointed at Erin and Calvin, twenty feet away, talking to each other.

“We agreed to sit separately,” said Maggie.

“I want separately also,” said Paul.

“I feel upset,” said Maggie.

“I’m going to see what’s happening,” said Paul, and crossed an aisle, past five empty seats, to Erin, as Calvin left the theater. Erin said Calvin had wanted to share her phone. Paul said Calvin “should just go charge it for like ten minutes.”

“I know. That’s what I said. He’s doing that now.”

“Calvin went to charge his phone,” said Paul to Maggie, and returned to his seat. He tweeted “someone in my row
is snoring #xmenlivetweet” and “kevin bacon had something like 10 hands #xmenlivetweet.” Maggie tweeted she wanted more heroin. Paul tweeted “i can hear someone snoring ~8 seats to my left #xmenlivetweet” and saw Maggie leave the theater and stared absently as Kevin Bacon talked to people. Kevin Bacon walked outside, where it was snowing, then he turned around and talked to the same people as before, who had followed him. Paul tried to remember why Kevin Bacon had gone outside. He read tweets from Maggie that said “feeling lonely #xmenlivetweet” and “i am in the bathroom contemplating chugging my beer,” which had no hashtag. Paul saw that Erin had left the theater. Paul cautiously entered the women’s bathroom, a few minutes later, hearing Maggie’s voice and movement noises from the handicapped stall.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said Paul in a loud, authoritative voice, and the movement noises stopped.

“Yes?” said Erin after a pause.

“It’s me,” said Paul.

“Oh, shit,” said Maggie, and the door opened.

“I was scared,” said Erin, partly in view.

“You’re in the women’s bathroom,” said Maggie.

“Sorry,” said Paul grinning, and left and sat on the carpeted floor near an emergency exit and tweeted “where is everyone . . . i’m sitting in darkness near the women’s bathroom #xmenlivetweet” and that he was going to try to scare Erin and Maggie again. He read “just stood up, lost ‘all control’ of left leg and fell into an arcade game, making a loud noise and ‘yelping’ #xmenlivetweet” by Calvin. He read “someone just said ‘we did it!’ while seeming to float in an indoor ‘future area’ #xmenlivetweet” by Erin. He heard Maggie’s voice and walked quickly to her and Erin and thrust his glass bottle of water at them but water didn’t leave the bottle until, as the bottle neared himself, some splashed onto his chin and neck. Calvin was sitting on the floor by the candy machines, smiling
calmly at his phone. Erin gave Paul and Maggie tea-tree toothpicks. Paul went in the theater to his seat and tweeted “why is ‘beast’ flying a jet plane . . . #xmenlivetweet” and “is this world war 2, i don’t understand anything #xmenlivetweet” and “i’m going to stand to look at who has been snoring loudly for ~15 min. #xmenlivetweet” and “someone seems to be laying across 2 seats sleeping #xmenlivetweet.” He became aware of the tea-tree toothpick’s wiggling, outside his mouth, and of his intensely concentrating expression, as he worked on editing a tweet, a few minutes after credits had begun scrolling down the screen, when the white shape, of Erin in a white dress, in Paul’s peripheral vision, stopped enlarging, indicating an arrival.

In the lobby, by the bathrooms, Paul said he felt nauseated. “I feel,” said Erin, and was quiet for around five seconds. “Never mind.” Paul asked carefully, with vague aversion toward himself, if she usually thought of what to say before speaking, or would start talking without thinking. “I think at least fifty percent of it before talking, I think,” said Erin. “Why?”

Paul said it was annoying sometimes to wait for her to think, and they stopped talking—Calvin and Maggie were ahead, sometimes looking back—until they got on the L train, when Paul apologized for saying it was annoying and said he understood her behavior. Erin quietly said it was okay. Paul asked if she felt okay and she said she did, and asked if Paul did. Maggie jumped in front of them and posed with the sleeping, drooling, middle-aged man in an opposite seat. “I’m okay with everything,” said Paul distractedly, with some confusion, after moving his iPhone into position and photographing only the middle-aged man because Maggie had returned to her seat.

“Are you sure?” said Erin.

“Yeah. I’m okay with everything if you are.”

“I am,” said Erin.

“I feel nauseated,” said Paul a few minutes later. “But I’m okay with everything. If I’m not talking it’s because I’m nauseated.”

“Okay,” said Erin. “Thank you for telling me.”

In the large deli below Harry’s apartment Paul walked away, at one point, from everyone else and, alone in an aisle, turned into a barrier-like display of heavily discounted tomato sauce. None fell, or seemed to have been disturbed, or affected, to any degree, and no one saw. After buying beer, fennel, celery, a plastic bag of apples, three lemons and walking six blocks Paul and Erin sat on a sidewalk waiting for Calvin and Maggie to get their sleeping bags from where they’d been staying.

“You’re really quiet suddenly,” said Erin.

“I’m really nauseated,” said Paul, and rested the weight of his head facedown on his open palms, covering his eyes and cheeks and forehead. It began raining lightly, in a mist, as if onto produce, or probably an air conditioner was dripping condensation. Paul weakly tried to remember what month it was, stopping after a few seconds, and moved his shoulders to indicate he didn’t want to be touched when Erin began rubbing his back.

Maggie was in the bathroom and Paul was sitting cross-legged on his mattress, around half an hour later, absently reading descriptions of mutants on
X-Men: First Class
’s Wikipedia page—“scientist who is transformed into a frightening-looking mutant in an effort to cure himself, but is kind at heart”—when Calvin asked if “anyone” wanted to sit with him on the front stoop while he smoked.

“Me. I will,” said Erin, who had been drying her hair with a towel after showering, and Paul saw her looking at herself in the wall mirror. He clicked “Kevin Bacon” and looked at the words “Kevin Bacon (disambiguation)” without thinking anything for a vague amount of time, until Maggie entered the room, when he stood and went in the bathroom and heard Erin say “actually, I’ll have a beer” and Calvin say “really?” and “cool.” The thick carpet of the bathmat, folded like a soft taco, was in the bathtub, sopping and heavy. Paul thought with some confusion that Maggie must’ve put it there, maybe for slippage prevention. While showering he thought about what he’d done during the filming, last year, August to December, of
X-Men: First Class
: hid in his room, gone on a book tour, gotten married, visited his parents. He entered his room wearing boxer shorts—Maggie was sitting in a far corner looking at her MacBook with a serious expression—and turned around and put on a shirt, sat on his mattress, placed his MacBook on his lap, stared at the words “Bacon in 2007” with slightly unfocused eyes. Maggie said she had a stomachache and moved onto the mattress asking if Paul wanted beer, which she held toward him and which he mutely held a few seconds before moving it near Maggie, who drank some and put it on the floor and resettled herself on the mattress with the sides of their knees touching.

“Calvin and Erin have been gone so long,” said Paul.

“Maybe they’re watching the sunrise,” said Maggie.

“I don’t think you can see it from here.”

“Maybe they went somewhere.”

“I don’t think you can see it from anywhere near here.”

“I don’t know where they are,” said Maggie.

“Do you feel depressed still?”

“Yeah,” said Maggie.

“Because of you and Calvin?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you end the relationship or him?”

“It was me,” said Maggie. “He didn’t want it to end.” She said she felt depressed because she’d been really close with Calvin, so now something in her life felt missing. Paul asked about the singer, of a punk band he listened to often in high school, who had kissed Maggie, she’d said in an email, in someone’s car after a concert. Maggie said the singer didn’t want to bring her in his hotel room because his friends would think it was weird she was 17 and that he wanted to perform oral sex on her but she didn’t want that and he’d said they could “get naked but not have sex” and Maggie had said she didn’t know what that meant. Then the singer had told intimate secrets about his ex-girlfriend. Paul had idly opened iMovie on his MacBook and they’d been absently looking at it, not recording, as they talked and he accidentally clicked—and quickly closed—one of the movies.

“That might be porn. Erin and I made a porn.”

“What’s that?” said Maggie pointing at “ketamine.”

“A drug we used before going to Urban Outfitters.”

“It seems like you and Erin have a lot of fun together. Is that true?”

Paul said they saw each other once every ten days and usually started “fighting” after one or two days. Maggie asked what they fought about. Paul vaguely remembered when, on a large dose of Xanax, alone one night in his room, he fell on his way to his mattress to sleep—pulling down his high chair and causing his shoulder, he discovered upon waking eleven hours later, to bleed heavily from two places into a dark pile on his mattress—only slightly aware that this was unrelated to Maggie’s question. Paul remembered when he calculated three divided by two as three-fourths regarding an amount of heroin and vomited steadily eight to ten hours, beginning around noon. He and Erin, who’d been resilient, maybe from weeks of Percocet after her car accident, had
snorted the miscalculated heroin upon waking and, after riding the L train, he’d begun vomiting—near Union Square on streets and sidewalks, in Pure Food and Wine’s bathroom, while walking thirteen blocks south, in Bobst Library’s bathrooms. When they left the library at night he stopped every ten to fifteen feet to vomit nothing and Erin began expressing a previously suppressed concern, insisting Paul drink water. Paul vomited repeatedly after each sip and sat—and, at one point, briefly, lay—on the sidewalk outside a New York University dorm by Washington Square Park, inaudibly mumbling that he was okay and, when Erin said she wanted to call an ambulance, barely perceptibly shaking his head no with a sensation of reluctantly imparting an ancient wisdom. In his room, an hour later, around 9:30 p.m., Erin wanted Paul, covered by his blanket on his mattress, to drink a glass of water and didn’t think he should be lying with eyes closed because people in his situation died by sleeping. After an increasingly tense exchange culminating with Paul “sarcastically,” he thought, chugging the large glass of water—in a display of functioning that probably seemed unlike that of a dying person—Erin, to some degree spitefully, Paul felt, had said she was driving home to Baltimore and, to Paul’s surprise, had left him to sleep alone.