Nevada: A Novel

by Imogen Binnie

There’s a Kids in the Hall skit where Satan gives a stoner the ability to grow weed out of his head in exchange for his perfect denim jacket: that’s the kind of denim jacket Maria has. Satan would kill for her jacket. Here are its patches: the Bouncing Souls, White Zombie, the word fuck, a little girl holding giant scissors (on plaid), Hello My Name Is DYKE, and, the coup de grace, the whole back is the cover of the first Poison album. It’s not even ironic. Poison rules.

She has so goddam many books.

She’s thinking about Kieran, sitting in the burrito store, bouncing and munching all unperturbed. That motherfucker does not sit still.

The apartment to myself tonight. I am going to take such a fucking nap.

it’s like her head has been plugged up for so long that she didn’t even realize it was plugged up, and then she coughed really hard, or wasabi went up her nose, and suddenly she could hear.

heroin totally rules. Like, being asleep rules, and being high on heroin is like being asleep times twenty. You just feel at rest.

She has a journal! An honest-to-god paper notebook journal like our ancestors used to use.