Read Happy Mutant Baby Pills for Free Online Page B

carols. They wore colorful shirts. Sometimes, we’d all fix in the office—I’d never done social heroin before Tulsa, but shooting up together was what we did instead of bowling. After hours, Jay, Riegle, and I would amble into the snack pantry and stare up at those posters. The clear, doubt-free, Jesus-loves-me gaze of the believers answered all the questions we might have had about what to write, or how to write it.
    The big issue with Christian daters was sin. Old-fashioned sin, like drinking and smoking. But you couldn’t just come out and ask, Do you drink? At least Pastor Bobb didn’t think so. The idea was to appear accepting, when what you were really doing was trying to let your applicants relax enough to hang themselves with the truth. It’s okay, we’re just asking was the tone we were going for. No judgment. Not Do you smoke? or How do you feel about smoking? but How often do you smoke? Give me a medal for that.
    The answers were: Never. On occasion . Frequently. Whenever I can . Fucking genius. The loveliness of that. Whenever I can was Jay’s idea. “Don’t make it a negative,” he explained, “except for believers. Let Satan show his hand.”
    We went the same route with boozing. How often do you drink? Really. What kind of party ferret is going to answer whenever I can on a Christian dating site, unless it’s Christian Alcoholics? (Which, by the way, is not a half bad idea. One more reason to feel bad about not having money is not being able to immediately invest it in your own brilliant ideas before somebody steals them. Results not guaranteed for all participants. )
    I wanted to believe there was some guy out there—or some woman—who was going to answer, proudly, whenever I can when asked how often they drink. Somebody who wanted to come off like a drunk so they could meet somebody just like them. Maybe drive drunk to church together. If somebody picks you after a deal-breaker like that, how could they not be perfect for you? Juiceheads for Jesus. The Double J’s. Results may not be typical, and are not guaranteed. “No two experiences are alike.” Like I say, I would have invested.
    W e had to wear white shirts and ties to work, but Pastor Bobb was so pleased with my contributions that one day he said I could take off my tie. I said I preferred to leave it on. Pastor Bobb just winked at my pals in Creative, Jay and Riegle, told them to let him know when they de-Jewed me. It was such a disturbing thing to say, I couldn’t even say why it was disturbing. I preferred keeping my shirt and tie on because I had learned that the best thing, if you were doing heroin in the normal world, was to blend in. Especially if you were newly released from an institution.
    Theoretically, I was supposed to report to a probation officer and take random pee tests. But somehow—well, probably because of Pastor Bobb and his Colson connections (nothing was ever formally acknowledged)—I was spared that indignity.
    More than once, I had a conversation with Jay, how it was he could shoot heroin and consider himself a Christian.
    â€œSimple,” he said. “It’s not a drug when it’s medicine.”
    â€œWouldn’t it be easy to just get a script for OxyContins?”
    â€œOxys don’t mortify your flesh,” he said, combing his long brown hair and then checking his tortoise shell comb for whatever it is people check their combs for.
    â€œMortify your flesh?” It wasn’t that I didn’t think I heard right, I just wasn’t sure I understood. Or I thought I did, but wasn’t sure I wanted to.
    â€œThe spears that pierced Jesus’s side,” Jay said, pulling out a syringe and waggling it in front of my nose like a stage hypnotist. “What we’re doing is an homage to the suffering of our Lord. It’s like being a flagellant, except we’re not marching down the street whipping