Creative Types and Other Stories by Tom Bissell

Author:Tom Bissell [Tom Bissell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

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For the next few days Maarit stayed in her apartment, touching with obscure disgust the many clothes in her massive walk-in closet, drinking wine from the bottle while wearing a leopard-print fur coat, walking Mimu as far as ten feet from 12 Rataskaevu’s front door, and trying not to think about the strange American. She knew where he lived. Why not simply ring his bell? That was not how Maarit worked. After a few days she decided it was the cocaine she missed and texted Jaanus for a delivery. This turned out to be a cunning form of self-deception, because the moment she return-texted Jaanus she realized the only reason she wanted to see him was to ask questions about Ken. Jaanus, at any rate, did not show up; his brother Eero did. Eero had her requested two grams but apparently knew little about Ken; he’d met him only once. She did a few lines of one of the grams and then retired to her exercise room to run on her treadmill (a gift from her father). Although cocaine did not have any calories, it was still technically a carb, and Maarit was taking no chances.

After incinerating five hundred calories, Maarit, sweaty and wired and crashing with the subtlety of a 757, returned to her living room to find Mimu licking the surface of her shin-high glass coffee table. It was upon this coffee table that she had poured the portion of her gram, of which no earthly trace remained. She had been mindful enough to seal the rest of the baggie, and had not opened the other, but nevertheless left both on the coffee table. Mimu had discerned some method of ridding himself of his muzzle (it was distinctly possible she had forgotten to put it back on), after which he had licked up Maarit’s poured-out coke and, apparently, eaten both baggies.

She went for her cell phone but had no idea who to call. What would cocaine do to a dog? What would it do to Mimu? She grabbed the first items of clothing in reach—pink T-shirt, baby-blue sweatpants, high heels—leashed Mimu (whose tongue was hanging from his mouth as though it were made of lead and whose blinkless eyes were already 90 percent pupil), and ran down the street to Ken’s.

Halfway up the stairs to his apartment she heard explosions and barks and machine-gun fire. She pounded on the door over the clamor and fell weeping into Ken’s arms when, at last, he opened up. Near the back of the room, on his television screen, was a great tiger-lily-orange explosion frozen in midburst. Ken was, of course, stoned. What was strange was that his neck smelled like perfume and his face like…yes, Maarit had gone down on enough girls to know: his face smelled unmistakably of vaginal sweat. She could not bring herself to care about that right now, even though she did, very much, and explained to him what happened. While Ken stood there,

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