Black Hole Read Online Free

the thick, fat-fingered hands. There’s a difference between tall and big, but this guy is both at the same time.
    He eats a microphone-sized protein bar like it’s a job, methodically taking bites, chewing, and swallowing. There’s no joy in eating among bodybuilders. It’s only fuel for a constantly draining tank. Anyone else would have fun eating six thousand calories a day. Anyone else would die in a year from eating this much.
    We’re driving out to the racetrack in Berkeley. I always forget there’s a track out here. Once a year or so I’ll drive by it and think, I should really go there sometime, but I never do. Have a Bukowski day at the track, lay down a few bets, and drink some beers in the sun that only exists in the East Bay and never in San Francisco.
    I’ve been up all night working the midnight-to-eight shift at MiniWhale, but the Dexys are treating me right. Pharmaceutical-grade speed is so nice. All the up and the pep without that teeth-grinding, fist-clenching tweakiness. This is the real shit. That street shit is garbage. Absolute trash. There are so many different better drugs to do than that. If you’re doing street speed, you’re doing drugs wrong.
    It’s been a long time since I crashed without the help of something else. Naked. That’s how it feels. Coming down without the right drugs is like walking out your front door naked. You shouldtake something to either numb out or amp up. And I’m not talking about taking some downers and passing out in a corner.
    I need to really crash free of everything, let my body squeegee the bloodstream clean and start over. There’s so much bullshit in my system that I can’t tell when I’m high or crashing until it gets really bad.
    Big Mike sniffs around.
    Bro , he says, crack a window. You smell like a cat peed on you.
    Yeah, I know, I say. There’s some gnarly shit we use to clean the whale tanks. I wash it off, but it gets in my pores and the speed is wringing it out of me. I think everyone at work is numb to the smell. They don’t notice.
    Bro. I notice. That’s the problem. I don’t give a fuck what your coworkers think. This cab isn’t that big.
    So tell me, I say, rolling down the window and changing the subject, when did all this giant skinhead stuff happen? I mean, you were always big, but this is ridiculous.
    San Quentin. I got busted bringing back a truck of roids over the Mexican border. With my record, I wasn’t sure if I was getting out. That’s when I got real about lifting though. I did all my time just eating, sleeping, and working out. It’s not enough to be big in there. You have to be big and scary, and the skinhead thing was good for that. But it grew on me. I like it.
    Big Mike stuffs the rest of the protein bar in his mouth like a shovel of coal going into a furnace. Even his chewing and swallowing is aggressive. Then he continues:
    Scary is good. Scary works. Scary is better than a gun. If you’re not scary, people will fuck with you so that you have to fight them or fuck them up or shoot them. If you’re scary, you don’t have to bother with any of that shit. They will find someone else to fuck with.
    The sad irony of it is, some people get big for protection from others, but the roids fuck with their heads so much, they start fucking with everyone else. Roid rage is real, bro.
    I knew this dude who got so jacked on roids he tried to fight a truck. He was going bananas with his sets, running around the gym after them, and we told him to run outside, so he’d get done with a set and run out the emergency exit, across the street, touch the wall of the parking garage, and run back. Well, one of the times, on the run back, he stops in the middle of the street, winds up, Popeye-style, and tries to punch this delivery truck as it slams on its breaks. Truck won. The truck always wins.
    We pull in behind the racetrack through a service