Thalo Blue by Jason McIntyre

corkscrew ahead—the blinded, backwards loop still to come.
    But he took a page from the book of Jackson Cavanaugh: the page about fame, fortune and importance. Those things, Jack made it clear, were as fleeting as a sheet of paper caught in the wind. Though he never said as much outright, the implications lay like a rug under every tone in his voice, under every sentence he mouthed.
    Zeb was with Vivian all the time, and out of coincidence by association, that meant he became a liked and respected member of the senior class. And why not? Vivian Leland was of the attractive and connected set, and what was good enough for her, despite Zeb’s apparent differences from the rest, was good enough for them.
    Time was spent on that perpetual motion machine, like the sine waves of coaster tracks coursing towards an infinitely unstretching horizon. Activities weren’t limited to such but, most often, sneaking into clubs on Saturday nights or finding a house party to crash and trash were the favored goings-on. And whether they all ended up at Jackson’s, Vivian’s or another’s later on each night, Zeb was always in attendance. It was another high point on the irresolute circle, the peak moment before the coaster cars do their patented plummet. His popularity was a steeple, and everyone wanted to hear what Zeb Redfield, Vivian Leland’s man-boy of choice, had on his mind.
    His painting slowed briefly—he was caught in the whirlwind of new activities and new social circles—but it reached an all time high just after Christmas break when Vivian introduced him to the wonders of methamphetamines. Reluctant to even try a drag from a joint at first, he finally gave in to her powers of persuasion. “ ’I am your captive’ ,” she reminded him, as she licked a rolling paper, and plopped nude on the bedsheets beside him one night. Adams, she called them, came next; they were little dirty white pills she shook out of a vial into his palm. Soon after downing his first two, he became swept away in a fury of color and sound sent to his brain like a bullet. The little white magic pills she had miraculous—and mysterious—access to created effects so simultaneously intricate and glorious that he could scarcely come to a sense of what they all meant initially.
    The world was music, it was crimson and clover, it was a marvelous night for a moon dance, it was London burning, it was a whiter shade of pale, it was twisting the night away. The assault on his senses was electrifying in the beginning and his cravings for renewal came like clouds running across the sky at a train speed’s rhythm. When he took an Adam there was a sheen across the world, a shine that glittered and sparkled and added a reverb to every voice and every sound. It was so breathtaking that he took to chasing the pills with alcohol just to dampen their effects a little. And he understood, finally, the fascination other friends had with the substances. Though he doubted they ever experienced them quite as he did.
    But hell, was there power in that stuff; that raw, unleashing kind, that kind that made Zeb flex every part of himself. Crimson and clover, over and over—it was as though Adam brought Zeb to the doorway, the lynchpin, holding clear every admonished concept his exhausted brain had ever fumbled with. Skipping the light fandango, as the miller told his tale, he came to understand the reality behind things; just as there is a scribe to every written word, Zeb now discerned, there too must be a painter’s stroke to blame for every mask on every face he had ever seen. Over and over and over and over and over.
    He set up his easel in Vivian’s spare bedroom and spent time there throwing paint on canvas after canvas. They became some of the most intense works he had ever produced. Jackson thought so. Vivian thought so. Everyone thought so.
    So he continued. And he stayed away from the house in Vaughan, his parents’ house, as much as possible. He painted on