Part 9 (1/2)
Neal said, ”No, Sarah wasn't on the flight.”
”Did someone say my name?” Sarah appeared at the door with a magnificent spray of cellophaned pink orchids, which she tossed to Fiona. She came to my bedside, sat down on the edge and smooched my cheeks while every other man in the room began to mentally schedule his next w.a.n.k. ”Ray, your Survival spirit saved you!”
We all stared at her.
”I'm kidding!” she said. ”Fortunately, your ex here has come to help us.” She looked fondly at Fiona. ”And even though Fiona was extremely busy, I thought it would be a nice gesture if she came to visit you.”
Fiona rolled her eyes.
”How do you two know each other?” I asked.
Fiona looked at me cagily; Sarah was nothing but sweetness and light. She said, ”Fi and I have been helping each other with all sorts of casting calls over the years. We see each other at industry events all the time.”
Fi said, ”Sarah gives the best backrub in the business.”
Sarah blushed. ”I just don't like seeing people tense.”
”She's coming back to my hotel room after this to give me one,” Fi said. ”I can't tell you how badly I need it. I've been living on planes the past few days, and recasting a show from scratch is a Herculean task. We can't find any of Bradley's casting notes.”
It was funny, but right then I had a tiny out-of-body experience-one of those rare moments where you step outside of yourself and see the human condition whole. You experience a warm glow, and you get the big picture and realize what's important in life and what isn't. ”What about me?” I asked.
”You have to stay in the hospital a bit longer,” said Neal.
”It's that bad?”
”No,” said Fiona. ”It's just easier to keep you here instead of booking you into a hotel. Besides,” she looked around, ”you have so many new friends.” She glanced at her iPad. ”Whoops! Backrub time!”
”You bet!” said Sarah. ”It'll be the most amazing one you've ever had. I'll make sure every inch of you is thoroughly de-stressed-anything to ensure that this season is the best season ever.”
Everybody laughed except me.
Sarah kissed me goodbye, while Fiona shook her purse like a maraca.
”What's in there?” I asked.
”About a thousand OxyContins I swiped from the dispensary during the fire drill an hour ago.”
My posse left, and I fell asleep to the sounds of my roommates discreetly pleasuring themselves to their memories of Sarah.
OxyContin is the brand name of a time-release formula of oxycodone produced by the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. It was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1995 and first introduced to the U.S. market in 1996. By 2001, OxyContin was the bestselling non-generic narcotic pain reliever in the U.S.; 2008 sales in the U.S. totalled $2.5 billion. An a.n.a.lysis of data from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency found that retail sales of oxycodone ”jumped nearly six-fold between 1997 and 2005.”
In 2001, Purdue Pharma permanently suspended distribution of 160 mg tablets in the U.S. It is speculated that the DEA had requested Purdue to discontinue manufacturing them.
n.o.body ever mentions the good side of OxyContin: it makes you feel like Jesus f.u.c.king a horse.
When I came to again, I found a note from Neal on my bedside table, penned on the frayed corner of the cover of a five-year-old copy of Us Weekly magazine. I looked at its central photo: an off-the-rails starlet whose t.w.a.t must, by this point in her career cycle, be dangling between her legs like Luciano Pavarotti's tonsils.
Ray! Off to a 4G with the nurses on night duty.
Meet you at the airport.
Airport?
Just then, Fiona, clad in jodhpurs, entered my room once more, looking annoyingly relaxed.
I was polite. ”Had a lovely time p.u.s.s.y-boxing with Sarah?”
”Yes, indeed. Our bodies sang.”
”I'm sure.”
”Her flesh-so velvety yet muscular-soooo pliable. I suppose I shouldn't tell tales out of school, but she blows off heat like a cheap baseboard radiator.”
My tallowy Polynesian roommates snapped to attention.
”Am I allowed out of this wretched hospital or what?”
”You are. In addition, out of the warmth of my heart, you're coming to the airport in my limo. We're on the same flight. Lucky us.”
”Lucky us, indeed. Wait-why did you come up to the room to fetch me instead of sending an a.s.sistant?”
She rattled her purse, newly refilled with Oxy, and smiled. ”Tabitha is downstairs waiting for us.”
”Tabs is here?”
”You're not the only one who wants a slave, Raymond.”
Fiona burst out laughing, and two of my Samoan cohabitants threw soiled garments of some sort at me.
I got out of bed. ”That's our cue to leave, dear.”
Haole, in the Hawaiian language, is generally used to refer to an individual who fits one (or more) of the following categories: ”White person, American, Englishman, Caucasian, any for-eigner.” Its use historically has ranged from a sociological description to racist epithet. Anyone who's spent time in the Hawaiian public school system knows it is almost exclusively used as a racist epithet.
14.
The limo was waiting for us out front. Tabs stood beside it, chewing gum and smiling as a trade wind blew up her schoolgirl-style skirt to reveal the cleanest, whitest, softest panties in the western hemisphere.
”Ray! I was so worried about you!” She gave me a smas.h.i.+ng hug and we clambered into the car.