The Return of the BBQ Killers
Craig B. Foltz · Chicago Review · 2008
That was the summer we rolled out the painkillers. Some were pink and yellow and orange and blue. Others were yellowish-blue, or light greenish-lightly ringed with crimson. The SAT test was sitting right there on the horizon, so we studied. From dawn to noon and from noon to dusk. There were two of us, but we were inseparable; if there was one of us, you could always count on finding the other. Under the simmering blue light of a computer screen, we continued to study. I improved the structure of my sentences, identified errors and resolved them. You sat at the other end of the table, pencil in hand, solving standard multiple-choice math questions. In between these ferocious periods of study, we got high. We learned the difference between Seconal and Panadol. Panadol and codeine. Tablets and pills. Pills and capsules. Capsules and ovals. Ovals and ignition sticks. Fraction and percentage. Probability and chance. We were innate, which is to say we existed within each other. I curved my fingers over yours and we fell into this cloud of purple smoke. That morning you asked me, What's the difference between freeway and thoroughfare? Thoroughfare and racetrack? Explosion and outburst? Outburst and outbreak? Outbreak and epidemic? Your questions never ended and I resolved to let them trail off and echo into space. Perhaps if I don't say anything the answers would reveal themselves. I learned it the day before that morning and the day before that as well too. You crunched the numbers into the calculator and held it up to the light. I said, That isn't going to tell us anything. But when you turned it upside down, the numbers spelled out the word hello. The sun pursed through the blinds. Three days in a sentence. You breathed in my ear. There were words in that steamy pool but they dissolved in a tingly wash that started at the top of my spine and slid down. I love you too. You put your pencil down and looked at me curiously. This is how the story ends or this is how it starts, no one is ever sure. Under the table, my fingers quivered and scratched at the hinges. There. I said it. You sure did. Down the street, someone inadvertently bumped a Lexus and it exploded into sound. The distraction provided us a way out from our conversation and so we posed in the mirror, martyrs. Each action was as involuntary as the next. We built little shelters out of the cushions from the couch. One of us turned the music up. We were constantly slugging from our cans of Coca-Cola. Aluminum predictions: a pancreas will serve as Alzheimer s bed. If we weren't the kids next door then we were the kids down the street. Our bodies had become inscribed with the branding of material goods. The tattoos were little more than temporary advertisements. Curled around each other. A substance, perhaps? Black powder and nitrate paste. I learned the difference between art and non-art. Between non-art and hyperbole. Between nitrogen oxide and ibuprofen. We didn't share the same genes, but our breathing was synchronized. Something between an in and an out. Our thought processes were hidden behind a cascade of dyed hair and hopelessly translucent eyes. We argued about the order in which events happened. You said, You said it to me first. But there was no first or second, no beginning or end, just one continuous moment, which ultimately was indistinguishable from the moment that came before. We took our cues from the various instruction manuals that were available on the internet. These taught us how to experiment with explosive devices and sex toys. Each thrum of our fingers was another entry into the catalog of nonverbally communicated information. One day, as we rode by the mall on the bus, its garish fluorescent colors offset by the hard-coded geography in the background. You said, We should just burn that place to the ground. Every morning, when our parents rolled out the door, we hit the miniature red plastic bong in your room. …