"If Jesus loves me, why am I in h.e.l.l?" I say.

Then he goes, "The end is near."

I go, "Big woop." You'd think the guy was the first one who ever came up with that line, he was so intense about it. I was tripping pretty heavy by then. "Repent and be saved," he says.

He had an orange stain on his collar. How the h.e.l.l do you get an orange stain on your collar? I mean, gravy or lipstick or red wine, I could understand. But here I was grooving on this orange stain that was sort of shaped like a flower. Then the flower turned into a burning bush, and I started freaking a little.

The guy was all smiles then, figuring he'd got himself in good with Jesus by setting me on the righteous path and putting the fear of G.o.d in me. But I've always had the fear of G.o.d. That's what G.o.d's all about, isn't it?

Didn't some dude in the Bible see a burning bush out in the desert? Maybe he found some psychedelic mushrooms or something. Visions have to come from somewhere. They don't just pop out of thin air. I hope the guy with the Jesus sign is the first to fry when January One rolls around. I'd pay money to see that happen. Sleepy now. Took two Quaaludes to come down from the acid. Good old stumble biscuits.

Nighty night.

November 2 That was a h.e.l.l of a party.

Halloween. Let's see, was that two or three days ago? Whatever.

Me and Lonnie went over to Denita's. Her folks were gone. They're as rich as royalty, and they figure you can't take it with you, right? So they're jetting all over the world, trying to see it all before the big bang or whatever.

They left the liquor cabinet stocked. I was lazy this year, I went as a b.u.m. I traded Reneau one of my Dad's suits and five bucks for his nasty rags. I put them on, and I smelled like I'd been sleeping in a hog pen. Pretty cool.

Denita was dressed as a ballerina or something. Made herself up to look like a little girl, with buckled shoes and a big bow in her hair. The jocks were on her like flies on s.h.i.t. I don't know how many she had that night, but she was never one to turn anybody away, even back when AIDS and getting pregnant mattered. n.o.body's going to live long enough to die from AIDS anymore, so why not go for it?

Lonnie was dressed in some kind of silver get-up. He'd found one of those '70's disco outfits, with the bell bottoms and wide lapels, and the crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d had spray-painted it with silver glitter. Lonnie really gets into Halloween. He's the kind that will spend two months working on his costume.

Roget was there, too. I used to think Roget was a total d.i.c.k, because he sat at the front of the cla.s.s and wore gla.s.ses and was in the Chemistry Club. But he did an about-face when we learned the end was near, that it was really going to happen and wasn't just an excuse for a televangelist with big hair to beg for money. Now Roget's as wild as a one-eyed jackalope.

We must have smoked twenty joints. I had a fifth of tequila all by myself, and Roget had some c.o.ke. I did a few lines, even though the stuff always makes my nose bleed. The jocks kept going in and coming out of Denita's room. The other girls there were jealous, but what the h.e.l.l, it was her party, right?

I had the hots for one of the girls there. Melanie. I love that name. But she's kind of shy and serious, and she hung out in the corner talking to one of the fat chicks all night. Probably debating Shakespeare or something. Even as buzzed as I was, I couldn't get up the nerve to go over and talk to her. Did I just write that? Looks stupid as h.e.l.l, right there in black and white. The world is over, and I can't get up the nerve. Well, h.e.l.l, these are weird times.

I didn't talk to her, but I sure checked her out. She was dressed in one of those j.a.panese things, a kimono. Her black hair was tied back and she'd done some makeup to her eyes that made them look slanted. She pretended like she didn't notice what was happening in Denita's room.

By midnight, I was pretty wasted. I almost took a turn with Denita myself, but I was afraid of what Melanie would think if she saw me. As it was, I ended up going home with Lonnie. He does it as good as a girl, and he doesn't need cuddling after. Don't you dare tell anybody, Diary.

I don't want anybody to think I'm a f.u.c.king queer or something.

November 3 I hate Dad.

f.u.c.ker accused me of stealing one of his suits.

He's a lawyer. A lot of people quit their jobs when they found out what was going to happen. Like, what's the point of working, right? No need to sock it away in a bank account.

But Dad can't quit. It's in his blood. Dad's a lawyer like Reneau's a b.u.m like I'm a junkie. You gotta be you, I guess.

Dad likes to brag about how he didn't have to pay Mom one dime of alimony. And he got custody. Like keeping me was some kind of victory or something. I guess it was, at least on paper.

I hate that f.u.c.ker.

November 6 Roget beat the rush.

I heard the sirens, and usually I don't give a d.a.m.n if the whole town is on fire. But this time I got one of those p.r.i.c.kly feelings when the hair on the back of your neck stands up. Of course, that could have been the four hits of speed I'd taken.

Turns out Roget had eaten a bottle of Valiums and washed it down with a pint of vodka. Lucky he died pretty fast and left a clean corpse. Sometimes, something like that will make you vomit, and you go messy. Or you end up in the hospital with a machine doing your p.i.s.sing and s.h.i.tting for you.

Me and Lonnie held a private little service for Roget. As a kind of half-a.s.sed tribute, I did some c.o.ke that Roget had left at my house.

"Here's to memories," I said, and hoovered two big chalky lines of the stuff.

"To Roget," Lonnie said. He had some champagne and two of those dainty little gla.s.ses with the long stems. We touched gla.s.ses and drank, then smashed the gla.s.ses in the fireplace, like they do in the movies.

My nose was bleeding, and suddenly I started laughing like a stoned hyena. I don't know why. It was just funny. Roget was dead, Dad was going to raise h.e.l.l when he saw the mess, Lonnie was going to f.u.c.k me, and my nose wouldn't stop bleeding.

It was just funny, that's all.

November 12 You won't believe this.

You just won't f.u.c.king believe it.

I talked to her today.

Melanie.

I was down at the game room in the mall, trying to score some X. Ecstasy is mostly a s.e.x party drug or when you want to pull an all-nighter dancing at a rave, but the way I look at it, no need to wait for a special occasion, right? So I was. .h.i.tting up the skinhead peddlers who worked out of the back of the arcade. You know you're a bad motherf.u.c.ker when you hang out in the pinball corner. Besides, the games are always busted, so it's the darkest part of the room. All you can see is their eyes shining like dirty dimes.

n.o.body had any X, so I scarfed a baggie of marijuana that was laced with angel dust. On my way out I saw Melanie playing some dorky karate game. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I'd seen her at parties and stuff, but I never expected to see her in the arcade. I guess I'd put her on a pedestal, in a way. I kind of walked up beside her and pretended to watch the game. She got killed pretty fast. Her player, I mean. Those video machines eat quarters like hippies eat mushroom caps. When the game was over, she finally noticed me, except I think she might have seen my reflection in the screen first.

"Hey," she says.

I go "Hey" back.

"You went to Northbrook." She said it just like that. Not a question at all. So she remembered me from high school.

"Yeah," I said. "Seems like a long time ago. You know, school and all."

She nodded. Her hair brushed against her cheeks. It was a little stringier than it had been at the Halloween party. "It was a different world then," she said.

"Yeah," I said. I looked into her eyes, trying to see if she was wasted. Nothing there that I could see. She was just naturally weird, I guess.

"You were at Denita's party." Again, not a question.

"Yeah," I say, feeling like a doll with one of those pull strings, when you only have about four lines to say. "It was pretty wild."

"Yeah. Wild."

Just then some muscle guy in a tank-top came up and put his arm around her. He gave me the evil eye, like I was a bug he wanted to stomp. Melanie turned and smiled at him. He had a face like a f.u.c.king bus. I figured I ought to get the h.e.l.l out of there. He was giving off some seriously heavy vibes.

f.u.c.k him.

f.u.c.k them both.

Well, maybe just Melanie.

Reneau got me a half-gallon of port. Tasted good with the dope.

November Something-or-other It's all Lonnie's fault.

Here we are, clipping along toward doomsday, high as a Chinese kite and as f.u.c.ked up as a football bat, coming to grips with the idea that we all got about six weeks to live. I guess you kind of take it for granted after a while.

I mean, who knows where the idea first started? You know, that the world was coming to an end. n.o.body knows why or how the world goes b.a.l.l.s-up. All we know is when.

And Lonnie comes up with a jewel.

We were eating pizza for lunch. I was wasted on the angel dust and a few Quaaludes I'd found in one of my pants pockets. Lonnie was pretending to be an artist. He was drinking wine and smoking dope, wearing one of those goofy berets. He kept talking in a fake French accent.

"Zee end, wheen eez it?" he goes.

"What?" I said, even though I'd heard him. I was staring at the pizza. If it was a galaxy, then the pepperonis would be like planets or something. And the crust would be, like, the edge of the galaxy.

"The world, when does she blow?" Lonnie said.

That kind of threw me. Everybody has their own idea about how the world's going to end, though n.o.body talks about it much. Me, I go in for the "Rain of Fire" theory. It's popular with the religious crowd, too, I hear. A few swear by the big flood, but that's kind of hard to picture. I mean, have you ever been to Montreal? Those f.u.c.king buildings are tall.

Others buy the plague-and-famine business, but that's too messy and drawn-out. I think it's got to end in the blink of an eye.

But the date is not even a question. It's the end of the year, and that's that. Everybody knows it.

I pretended to check my watch, although I've never worn one. "That's easy, Frenchie. The end is about six weeks away. Uh, six weeks minus a few seconds. Minus another. And another."

"Why eez it then, and not later?" He was talking with his mouth full, blowing his sophisticated act all to h.e.l.l. He started talking normal English again. "I mean, is doomsday when this year ends, or when the next year starts?"

He was giving me a headache. I fired up a joint. After I'd toked a good lungful of brainf.u.c.k, I said "What does it matter?"

"They said in Social Studies that the calendar's been f.u.c.ked with plenty over the years. Who knows what time it really is?"

"Everybody knows. January One is when we all go boom."

I didn't like the way the conversation was going. That kind of talk kills a good buzz.

"Who says?"

"Who says? Who says? Why, everybody says. Preachers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, those pointy-headed guys on the eleven o'clock news."

I pa.s.sed him the joint. He looked at it a long time before he took it.

"I just wonder, that's all," he said between tokes.

"Don't wonder. It's party time."

I stuck some cheese up my nose and pretended it was a booger. He started laughing, and we were just two buddies again, hooting and raising h.e.l.l like there was no tomorrow. We wiped out a case of beer.

Lonnie stayed the night. s.e.x with him was getting to be a habit. I don't think Dad found out, or he'd have thrown me out on my a.s.s. He's a big f.u.c.king hypocrite.

Not that I'm a f.a.g or anything. But try explaining that to Dad.

Anyway, what Lonnie said bothered me for a while. What time is it, really?

November 21 It blows my mind.

It's Sunday morning, I get up and go downstairs. Dad's sitting in the kitchen in his suit and tie, his hair slicked back and smelling like the perfume samples in a fashion magazine. He kind of avoids looking at me, which ain't at all unusual, but this time he's actually putting effort into it. He pretends to give a d.a.m.n about what's in the newspaper.

I go to the fridge and get some orange juice. "Who died?" I say, meaning why was he dressed up.

Dad's a lawyer, like I said, but he could have made a h.e.l.l of a good actor. But being a lawyer pays better. Plus, if you end up on stage instead of in the movies, there's all these f.a.gs in stockings mincing around all the time.

Dad clears his throat and says, "Son, would you like to go to church with me?"

Yeah, Diary, you heard me right. Church.

"Church?" I say, kind of smirking, probably.

He gulps so hard that I can hear him across the room. Then it hits me: the b.a.s.t.a.r.d is scared.

Dad, scared.

Dad, who had dated and f.u.c.ked a Prime Minister's daughter in college, while Mounties stood guard outside the door of his dorm room.

Dad, who once hit a top speed of a hundred-and-sixteen miles per hour in his Mercedes on the Buffalo freeway. During rush hour.

Dad, who had the b.a.l.l.s to sue a judge for slander. And win.

And here Dad was, just a plain old ordinary mortal. Scared. He looked like he was going to p.i.s.s in his two-hundred-dollar tailor-made pants. Wanting to go to church, for Christ's sakes.

What could you say? The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had never set foot in church since he married Mom. Mom was a big-time Catholic. I think that was one of the things that led to the divorce, all her waving her hands around praying over dinner and having to "Hail Mary" this and "Hail Mary" that. Even got on my nerves, and I kind of liked Mom.

So now Dad was playing the Jesus card, hoping to save his a.s.s. Like five weeks of giving money to the church would save him from something that was written in blood thousands of years ago. What a dumb f.u.c.k.

"You're scared," I said. This was better than a nitrous oxide rush.

"No, I'm not," he said, real fast and loud. "I just think it's a good time to get in touch with our spiritual sides. It's never too late for salvation."

It was obvious he'd been talking to some of those sign-carrying Jesus freaks that walked the streets.

"Forget it, Dad," I say. "The devil's got his hooks in your a.s.s and is just waiting to reel you in." He crossed the room in a flash, his eyes bright like a meth junkie's as he knocked the orange juice from my hand. He was trembling, he was so p.i.s.sed off. Dad used to play football, so he throws a big shadow when he stands over you. He drew back his hand like he was going to slap me silly.

I dared him with my eyes. But the b.a.s.t.a.r.d wouldn't let me have my victory. He stormed out the door and burned rubber hauling a.s.s to church.

Good luck, G.o.d. You got one more f.u.c.ked-up Christian soldier in the ranks.