Singles Going Steady: Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years"

Victor was stretched out on the couch, smoking a cigarette, "What do you want to do tonight? Buddha told me about a party—"
"Nah. I don't feel like a party. Dinner? Movies?"
"Yeah, okay. I don't really feel like dealing with people, either" he sat up and stubbed out the cigarette. "Do you need to go home first? Get some stuff? I can take you."

I'd been staying at Victor's place, fearful that if we stayed at mine, or went anywhere close, he'd somehow figure out what I'd been up to. I wanted to be as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. My fear of suspicion was approaching absurdity. And of course, to make matters worse, everywhere I went I saw reminders: A Lens Crafters commercial=glasses=Matthew. An empty bottle of Arizona Iced Tea on the coffee table=tea=Matthew. Victor's copy of Les Enfants Terribles=Jean Cocteau=Cocteau Twins=Matthew. Skinny Marie talking on the phone to Rareman=Rareman and Skinny Marie speak English=people who speak English= Matthew. …

"No, I'm good. Maggie's got some family coming and they're all going to be there," I was sad at how quickly and easily the lie rolled off my tongue.
"Cool. Want to go out or rent?"
"Let's go out to a movie and eat Chinese and sleep in tomorrow."
"Alright. That sounds good," he yawned and started rubbing my feet. "I've got some of that opium left. Or some trees—"
"I'll pass. I'm not wanting to get high." Really, I did, but didn't need the paranoia that sometimes came with it to amplify the paranoia I already felt.
"Wow," he walked over to the bookshelf. "Why are you so hugs-not-drugs all of a sudden?"
"I'm not," I lit a cigarette, "But—" What I wanted to say was, But I cannot remember the last time we did anything together sober. "We'll never leave if we get high."
He was rooting around, looking for his rolling machine, "If we're going to dinner, I want to be hungry…"

For the first time in forever, I studied Victor's frame. He was always skinny, but he seemed skinner than usual, gaunt, even. His jeans were hanging low on his hips. His cheekbones, which were somewhat angular anyway, seemed unusually sharp. His Adam's apple stuck out way more than I'd noticed before. He looked unwell.
"Here. Smell this," he handed me a Ziplock. "Maybe it will change your mind." It was filled to the top with bright green buds covered with crystals. The fumes alone made me feel stoned.
"Wow—Where did this come from?" I took another deep breath; it smelled faintly of pine and incense.
"Mackey," Victor took the rolling papers and roller and started working. "I'll roll a joint. Then we'll go out."
We smoked in silence, sitting on the couch, watching cars go by down on Lane Avenue. Near the end of the joint, I started to feel like I was wearing a jumpsuit made out of heated velvet.
Victor was staring at me, "I feel like you're so distracted lately. I miss you." His moments of sensitivity were rare, though they usually surfaced when he was stoned.
Paranoia and smoke were both creeping around my head, "But—we see each other all the time. And we talk 10 times a day…"
"I know. But—" he inhaled, "God, I sound so cheesy—being around you makes me feel like everything is going to be okay. Here."
I hoped he hadn't noticed how much my hand shook when I took the roach. I passed it back, and sat on my hands.

The phone rang and Victor reached for it, "Hello? … Oh yeah, man. What's up? … The trees? … Yeah. … Any time's cool. We're just chilling. … Cool. Late."
"Who was that?"
"Joose. I told him he could come by."
"When? Tonight?"
"Yeah."
"But we're going out, aren't we?"
"Yeah, but…" he walked into the bedroom closet and came back with a shoebox filled with the crystal-y pot. More than I'd ever seen in one place outside of High Times.
"Holy shit! Where did you get all that?"
"Mackey," Victor pulled some smaller clumps from the box and put them on the coffee table. "I told him I'd unload it for him."
"Wait—selling this for Mackey? Why?"
"Well," he got out his scale from under the couch, "I was a little short last time I was over there—"
I narrowed my eyes, "What's a little short?"
"I don't know—90, 100 bucks."
"But why?"
He was shuffling around the apartment, trying not to look at me. Whatever he was going to tell me, I knew it would not be good. "I, uh, bought some yay for myself. Just to have around."

When we bought coke, Victor was always in charge of doling it out. In the beginning, we'd share one of those origami-like tiny envelopes one of us would cobble together from whatever magazine was lying around. But that got cumbersome, especially where gender-specific restrooms were concerned, and so we'd started cutting it out into two envelopes. I'd long suspected (right around the same time I started noticing his OCD behavior) he'd been splitting it unevenly, and what do you say to your boyfriend when you think he's cheating you out of drugs? But there it was—we were both cheaters. While this information was certainly alarming, it wasn't what bothered me the most—it was that he was beholden to Mackey.

Jason Mackey was a thug, or, at least, as thugged out as a skinny white boy from ____, Ohio, could be, at any rate. He didn't appear to go to school, though we sometimes saw him on campus. He didn't live in the student slums. He had a condo. A nice one, in the Short North. The insanely loud rap music booming from his apartment and the constant foot traffic seemed to me a perfect recipe for getting busted. There were random people coming in and out all the time—one of them could easily be a narc. Mackey didn't seem to be the least bit concerned. And I suppose I wouldn't, either, if I had a posse of enormous, scary-looking guys at my side all the time. And he was a complete sleaze. Every time I saw him, he oozed over to me, wearing one of his many shiny Adidas track suits and matching Gazelles and practically dived into my cleavage, wanting to know what I was "getting into"—his favorite phrase: "What are you cats going to get into tonight?" "I know a party, if you want to get into that." "You getting into something off the hook later?"

But even worse were the stories I'd heard about what Mackey did to people who owed him money—rather, what his minions did to those people. Some of the stories involved pistol whippings and broken limbs. Understandably, I was quite disturbed.

"How many times has this happened?"
"Look—You know I don't make much at the bar and I have too much school stuff to do to get a full-time job. I'm trying to stay on the Dean's list. It would be fan-fucking-tastic to graduate with honors. Seriously, this is no big deal."
I hated when he waltzed around my questions, and he knew it, "Victor, how many times?"
"Okay, this is maybe the second time. I swear."
I felt bewildered and anxious, "Do you have to do this for him? I'll loan you the cash. You can just—"
"It's my problem and I'll take care of it," he started breaking up the neon-green clumps into small chunks, "I told you—It's not a big deal. It'll be gone in a week. Less, probably. Promise. That's why Joose is coming over, to buy a half." He sat down and held my hands, "This is the last time, okay?" He stared into my eyes, making me want to believe him.
I fished around in the couch for the lighter and lit a cigarette, "God, Mackey is such a fucking loser."
"I know he is. When I went over there, he was looped. Watching some porno in his boxers."
"I wish we'd never met him," I said quietly.
He looked a little sad, "Me, too." Satisfied with the weight, he put the chunks into a Ziploc. "Don't worry, please?"

The phone rang again, "Joose? … Yeah, man. … Okay, when? … Oh yeah? … Okay, that's cool. … Yeah. … Fine. … Late." He sat next to me and sighed, "That was Joose again. He talked to Def and Def wants an eighth. They'll be here in a few."

An hour and three bowls of cereal later, the doorbell rang. "Come up," Victor yelled out the window.
Joose and Def brought a case of Bass. They both kissed me hello and sat down.
"Damn, man," Def inhaled. "You guys have been into it, haven't you? Want a beer?" He walked to the kitchen and brought out some bottles.
"Iseult," Joose pulled a CD out of his pocket, "here's that Steely Dan CD I was talking about—Can't Buy a Thrill." He leaned over the table to give it to me, "Put this in?"

By the time "Reelin' in the Years" started playing, I knew where the evening was headed, and it wasn't to China Super Buffet. I shouldn't have been surprised—so many of our nights went off the rails in much the same way, all because of drugs—getting them, buying them, waiting for them, doing them. I sat back on the couch and smoked a cigarette, watched the three of them laughing at nothing and pounding beers, and listened:

Your everlasting summer/
You can see it fading fast/
So you grab a piece of something/
That you think is gonna last/
You wouldn't know a diamond/
If you held it in your hand/
The things you think are precious/
I can't understand…

In my uber-stoned state of mind, I was quite certain the song was about us. Our relationship—it's like a fading summer, isn't it? I think it's fading. And who's the diamond? Is it me? Maybe it's Victor? Wait— it's Matthew. Maybe he's the diamond and I'm letting him slip through my fingers. I wonder what he's doing right now? I know he's not doing this. Why am I doing this? This is bullshit, isn't it? I can't keep doing this. When did this stop being fun? Was it ever? My head hurts…Something has to change...

Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years," from the album, Can't Buy a Thrill
Purchased at Used Kids Records, sometime in early 1996