hose aren't going to help you," she says, pointing at the pills that lie in my shaking palm.

They aren't going to hurt either. But I only think it. Words anger her because she doesn't know how to use them yet. She wastes them, wrapping her luscious tongue around each syllable in a sexual dedication to her meaningless speech. It's all meaningless. This one only knows action.

I throw the pills back and swallow them dry. There's some action for you, bitch, I think as loud as my mind will allow, hoping to somehow reach her across the expanse of our living room. I feel the pills bump down my gullet, tripping over my rough, dry throat. But curing, always curing.

She just shakes her head and crosses her arms.

"Fine. I guess that means you'll be too fucked up for any of this tonight." She lifts up her skirt and shows me her bush. She plucks a pubic hair from her dark patch and blows it at me like a profane kiss. What an obscene whore. Is that supposed to be some sort of threat? Again no talking. She walks away muttering. Something about, "You lying, fucking pill head."

Whatever. It's too soft in my head now for her words. She's just a blur. I can't even remember her name. Clarice. No, Barbara. No, I got it. Claudia. I start to feel light and detached. I am the third person. I feel so goofy that I walk into the room where Claudia is watching TV and say, "Golly, Claude. What's all the hubbub?" She doesn't like this. It offends her. She thinks I'm demeaning her, which I am. Then I say, "Nickel words for nickel people, Claude. Dollar bills for bigger boys."

It goes over both of our heads. She gets up and charges me, knocking me to the floor. On the way down the earth turns its whoring tricks on my brain, and I land in a painful heap with my wife on top of me. She bangs her fists on my head and I laugh to keep from killing her. She doesn't realize it though, and starts to cry until she lets up with the pounding. She is depleted, but I feel like a brand new day.

I push her off me gently and spank her bottom. She doesn't respond. "Go mix me a drink, Claude. The day's not getting any shorter and I've still got some pain."

She sits up, concern and congeniality have invaded her soul. These fights are her reset button. Bad wife to good wife in fifteen seconds flat. "Where does it hurt, Hank?"

"Here," I point to my dick and lay her down on the floor and stick it in. The pills start to kick in harder, and between that and the fucking, I forget about the pain in my stomach that really is kicking the shit out of me.

When we are done she falls asleep. The pleasure is too much for her. It's too difficult for her to contemplate without aggravation. Her system just shuts down and she sleeps. It's better that way, I think. She snores some, and then a smile creeps up on to her face. A little dream smile that pisses me off because she's probably dreaming about a better life than the one she thinks she has now. One where I'm maybe not as sick as much as I am, or maybe one where I'm not around at all. Keep dreaming baby. I'm so mad that I almost kick her in the head. But I don't. Instead, I down a couple of Vicadin, put on a jacket and leave.

t dawns on me, as I begin to lose my way in a neighborhood that I've lived in all my life, that I am lost. That means that the pills are working. The pain in my stomach has faded. It is my compass, my point of reference. It is my 'You are here' arrow on the map in my mind. It is good to be lost.

Trees unravel as the twilight hour wreaks havoc on the landscape. Square sycamores, oblong pines. A dog comes padding by and it looks a bit disoriented as well.

"Hey there, you mangy bitch. What's the good word?"

The dog looks at me, but only for a second. It's too busy trying to stay on its feet to talk to the likes of me.

"Well fuck you too, pooch. You dizzy little motherfucker."

The dog runs away. I win.

That still doesn't solve my lost problem, though.

I suddenly find myself in front of Le Hair, the hair-cutting salon where Claude works. I don't feel so lost anymore. The unexpected recognition of this place brings back the pain in my stomach. I chug down a pain pill and wait for a few minutes. Then I enter the salon starting to feel good and lost again.

Two of the women that Claude works with are in here. Neither of them is working at the moment. Doris sees me first. She's a fat piece of ass who's as unforgiving as hell because she figures she never got a break, so why should anyone else get one? I gave her a break once, though. In the back room during a Christmas party at the salon a few years ago. I thought I was doing her a favor, playing Santa to Fatty. But when it was over, she said, "You're a weak fuck, Hank. It's a shame your cock isn't as big and loud as your mouth. A real shame." Then she left. The pain was pretty bad that night, so I hit Claude across the mouth with the back of my hand when we got home. And you know, despite what they say, it actually did make me feel better.

The other girl is new. Her name is Betty. She has a long stringy body, but a pretty face. She is definitely fuckable. Betty and I have never said that much to each other, but that's okay. Here I am in fine form, bursting from ear to fucking ear in a winning grin and wearing my cool green hunting jacket that Claude gave me for my last birthday. I saunter in practically ablaze with happiness.

"What's the good word, ladies?"

I try to swagger, but it's no use. I'm practically tripping over my ass as I stumble over to the nearest chair. Neither one of them is too clear to me, but I can tell that Doris is frowning. Through the mist of alcohol and narcotics, Doris' face is still so big that I can make out a frown.

"Well well well," she bellows in a barely human voice, "If it isn't Hank the hypochondriac. How goes the life of the pill head, Hank? Got any good stories to tell us about waking up in a puddle of your own sick? Huh? Speak up. I can't hear you over all that rattling you make when you move."

"Jesus, Doris," I whine to her, "cut me some slack, would ya? It's been kind of a rough night. My gut's killing me."

This gets a response out of Betty, who involuntarily pipes up, concern in her voice, "Oh no," she says, genuinely worried that I'm in pain. "You poor man."

Doris and I both look at her in shock, each of us disbelieving that anyone was actually taking my bellyaching seriously. Shock quickly turns to vindication and I say to Doris, "See. Not everyone around here is a jaded bag of shit like you, Doris. Thank you, Betty." I give her a soft stare as she swims lovingly in my bent field of vision. "Thank you very much."

Doris is flabbergasted, destroyed by an innocence of conscious that was driven from her the morning that she woke up and faced a mirror that would no longer connive and plan with her about good times and better days ahead. She is depleted like all of the women in this town, good for nothing but a second income and an occasional taste of pussy that ages you quicker than a heart attack.

Betty, on the other hand, is new. She still writes poetry and laughs at jokes that aren't funny. She'll try a slow gin fizz and she'll make you wait a few weeks before she'll let you fuck her blind. In other words, Betty doesn't know any better.

She smiles at me. It is a toothy grin with snowflakes all around it. Her mouth sparkles and invites, and suddenly I am conscious of the fact that I'm telling her a story that is untrue. I'm telling her a lie because I know that she'll get behind it, and because I know that neither Doris nor Claude would ever believe a word of it. My lie starts with a proclamation. It is, "Out with the old! In with the new!"

From the corner of my eye I can see Doris wince. She does not move, though. To leave now would be to give up, and she's far too stupid to know when to do that. I continue anyway, my eyes focused squarely on Betty. I try to exclude all of the Claude's and Doris' from my thoughts, but it is a difficult thing to do. They are in there for a reason, and at this stage of the game, a reason is all it takes.

My story is long and dumb. It is a joke I once heard some late night talk show host tell. But it's useful because it gives me the chance to think about this thing that I want to do to Betty. I am entertaining her, making her laugh hysterically with drivel that wouldn't get a rise out of a six-year-old child. But what is really happening is that I am taking her in, coveting every nuance and movement that makes Doris squirm and makes me forget the sinking feeling in my gut that I am falling towards a place that will no sooner give me leave to comprehend compassion, as it would bestow a gentle touch of grace to this nightmare of existence.

Doris can take no more. A cry escape her, she leaps up, grabs her things and turns to the door. She knows my intentions with Betty, and for a moment I think that this bothers her because deep down inside she feels love for me. Love that was acted out in a room not fifteen feet from where I now stand. Love made in a sweaty heap fueled by loneliness and pity, and consummated ever since by anger and regret. But as she speaks, I know that this thought would not occur to a better man. She yells in a voice that is being viciously dismantled by sobs and panic.

"Don't do this, Hank. Be a better man than this. Think of Claude. Think of that pain in your gut and about all those pills you take to get you high. You've been a bad man all your life, Hank. Lazy, cheating, mean. All of it. Make it stop. Let this be the night when it all stops. I see Claude come in here everyday. She's spiritless because you drain her. Every word. Every action. You're just draining her away so that one day there will be nothing left but a pile of bones where your wife once was. Don't do that, Hank. Don't do it to any of us." She jabs a stubby finger toward me. "Be a new man. Starting tonight, please be a new man."

Her words hit me hard. How could they not? She is pleading with me for our lives. In her mind we are all intertwined, made inseparable by the gooey tendrils of coitus and the firm belief that dreams are useless, and only through each other will we find an easier state of mind. This all makes sense to me. Once again I'll ask, How could it not? But Betty is watching. Her worried eyes dart back and forth between me and Doris, and confusion pounds her lips into a trembling piece of flesh as she ponders the drama at hand. Even though it is wrong, I'm unable to resist her like this.

I flash a broad grin at Doris and say as sarcastically as possible, "Gee, Doris. That looks like a useful finger."

She swallows a sob and reels her embarrassed digit back into the safety of her sweaty hand. Then she turns and leaves, angrier and sadder than she was before.

Betty asks me uncertainly, "Is what she said true? That you take drugs and cheat on your wife? What did she mean about being a new man? Was she mad at me, Hank?"

I am shaking hard on the inside. I feel like I am coming undone and that my guts are unraveling and squeezing the life out of me. I take out my bottle of pills and swallow two. They taste like piss burning in the back of my throat.

"What was that, Hank?" Her eyes widen in fear. "Was that drugs?"

I chuckle to let her know what a silly idea that is.

"Drugs?" I ask rhetorically. "That was just some herbal crystal meth. Totally legal. You can send away for it out of the back of Mad Magazine. Say Betty, do you ever read Mad Magazine?"

She giggles.

"I used to. So those aren't drugs? Are they like vitamins or something?"

Holy shit.

"Vitamins. Of course they are. That's all they are. Vitamin C. You want some?"

"Sure," she answers, totally at ease now. "I love vitamins."

I drop four of the Vicadin into her palm and she swallows them down with a mouthful of Pepsi.

"Okay. What do you want to do now?" she asks.

I feel sick to my stomach as I get up and walk over to her barber chair and sit down in it.

"Give me a haircut, would you Betty? I think it's about time, don't you?"

"Sure," she says, yawning. "Is that what Doris meant about you being a new man tonight? That you should get a haircut?"

"That's probably it," I tell her.

"She just gets uptight about these things. You know?"

"Yeah. Sure," she says, yawning again.

She picks up her scissors and a comb and begins to work on my hair.

"I'm so sleepy all of a sudden," she tells me after a few minutes of cutting. "I don't understand it."

"That's okay," I say to her as her eyes flutter under the heavy, teasing hand of the sedatives. "Just take your time. It's not an easy thing to make a new man."