Sweet Adaline

Chapter Seven

There's a moan outside. The temper of June threatens with fits of her vicious monsoons. For a couple days running, something seemed off. Not right, like the spin of the planet's askew. Like the pit of my stomach was devolved and my body grew tight on me. To hell with the rocks, it came straight from the jar to the glass to the gut. To fuck with the drive to dissolve my addictions. Something was wrong in my head, and I knew there were lies upon me somewhere. I drank through the mason jar. It was one of the special ones, the storm. You could smell it, thick as ranch atmosphere. The sweet musky creosote infused in the air. The storm inside was hardly as sweet. It gnawed. My body was exhausted, hair too drunk to stand on end.
Survive long enough in a stupor, and feelings begin to take on different hues. Colors become less vibrant, but imply more. Hot, cold, wet, whatever. Discomfort or sadness can all be moderated with a warm splash. Not even to keep the demons at bay. Then, it's clear. You are the demon. The lifeless burden. Vermin. Pestilence. A biblical repercussion of cowardice.
But this feeling kept creeping, paced like a metronome. A sick like the tail end of too many hits. The mind fuck, a sinkhole, the sot mind's infinity. Slinking, it sunk into the flaccid barrier of my pathetic constitution.
The image of you in my mind. In the cradle. In a real life, where you were a child and I was a man. You're a true angel. And I, withheld. The room I was in swept out from beneath me. My stomach seAngieed. All that remained was the random array of brown and tan patterned linoleum tiles and the hot pool of vomit that left my cold and ragged lips.
Time slipped. A throat so parched and pickled with bile, cursed me. The weight of granite, my flaccid arms failing, I pushed my carcass up to kneel. Swooning in stagnant space, again I seAngieed, but now with nothing to show for the effort. I tried to rise to my feet, but stirred more phantom vomit. There's no telling if they were tears of misery, fear or agony, those that bled from my blackened sockets.
You would have been one year old this day. You would have spoken a word maybe. One you'd been working on. They say  "Daddy" comes before most any others. Who knows, it might have been mommy. She was always there. She was the one who stayed with you.
Not strong? She was the strongest woman I'd known. I was the coward. I ran from you. Day after day, I ran towards a dream that I could have just as easily run towards. I ran from you. I was frightened, but so was she. She was terrified.
Responsibility? Crazed aggravation? Your cries? Any of those could have been the nails that drove her to her knees. They drove me mad. My heart would race as I envisioned myself clenching fists and shouting "God dammit! What do you want?!" Never did though. She wanted so badly to make me happy. To keep my love. She had the motherly racket down. Down for the first two months. She was as prime as any new mother. She'd feed you and clothe you and burp you to sleep, and I'd run. I ran from her. I ran from you both, and I suppose she was right when she said, one day I just didn't come back.
Day after day it was just like they say, it was father knows best (how to come home and eat and sleep). When you're fragile and unmedicated and the hormones taper thin, patterns like this one tend to bottom out. Profanities rattled like lottery balls inside her locked cage. Her eyes reflected the words she ached to belt out. They grew old from them. I saw them a thousand ways in our last failing months together. And no matter how quickly I rose to the plate when your cries broke the calm, her expression had grown cold and blank. Straight forward. The only thing real was her bourdon. That was promised. If not right now, then I'd expect her to burp you, or put you to sleep. And the nights that I fed you and burped and sang to you, smoothed out your noises to whimpers of slumber, even then you'd awaken. You'd wake, though I slept on.
I saw it all, desperation, disdain. I watched and went on the same. Penny haunts me now, and Kayla, sweetheart. I couldn't even remember your birthday. But here's another haunt. Even now, I wonder if... Oh fuck. Why bother with it now we're all three dead. Each in our own grisly discourse.
The phone rang. I grew from the disheveled pool of shit that I was, dragging myself like a casualty. Penny, I thought only partially lucid. I answered though, "hello?".
"Hey Ashe. You ok? You sound... kind of... rough." She said in that soothing tone of hers.
The receiver touched my lips, wet from my breath. It was cold, cold like linoleum. Foreign the way it felt so heavy in my hands. Heavy ache. My knees sank. A crumpled heap, hung by a spine and my sadness. "I'm fine." I said lost of expression. "You caught me in the middle of something." I lifted the mouthpiece away from me as my strength sank. My voice grew weak. Swollen tongue. Strangled throat. It ached like my ankles, my arms and my body. I sank a little deeper in this convolution.
"You don't sound good. You want me to come over? You've got me a little worried..." Her voice drifted further from my consciousness. All I heard was the mad world.
"I'm really in the middle of something. I need to, just, I need to call you back." Her voice was just too sweet for this perdition I steeped in.
"Who the fuck are you kidding? You don't call back." She joked lightly, "Just let me come over. We'll fuckin' hang out. Skip in the rain...or you could just talk to me"
Talk? And say what? Murder. How I drown them in open water. What? Should I say this so she could assure me that, despite not knowing anything genuine about me, she's certain it wasn't my fault. Whatever to soothe the torment of my guilt. That I did not need. To be placated to by a child.
"I'll call you back. I've really got to go. Really." I hurriedly pushed.
"Ok. I'll just call later." She replied, softly.
"Good bye Adaline," I drove the call to its end before I could hear her respond. My throat was swollen above a clamorous heart. My hands shook, clammy. My shirt was tight, and constrictive at the sleeves. I hadn't noticed it until now, how my veins were so extruded. I slumped away from the phone, from awareness, into an alien solace. MesmerAngieed I gazed at the blue canals that rose from beneath the grey flesh. It seemed so thin, the skin, like paper. It wasn't hardly anything at all. So thin.
I'd swear I heard a cry. It wasn't mine. Those I'd grown familiar with. No, I don't always remember, or sometimes even feel myself as I sob, anymore. It seems innate, as though I breathe, exhaling tears. This was another cry. Something sharper, unmistakable. It didn't exist, but I heard it around that corner nonetheless. There she waited, to punish me for all I never did, for every minute on that couch while she sobbed in her mother's arms. All those lunches alone, only minutes from home, so I could enjoy my time. But now, it was my time, and she cried for me. "Kayla, sweetheart? Where's momma? Did momma leave you in the bath? I'm coming sweetheart. Daddy's coming."
I crawled on my hands and knees. The ethanol in my veins pushed me around like a hurricane. Collapse, I'd try to rise, the room spun. I'd crawl again. A whale on wooden pegs, I fell against and slid my carcass across the wall of the corridor. Then the jamb of the door hit my face, my brow over eyes of quietus, and I stopped. It wasn't fear any longer that held me. Well, I lie, not fear of the unnatural. I was no longer afraid to see them, to see her. I didn't fear what they would do to me. My breath was lost to the unconcealed guilt. The descent of my heart fell to the promise. She would speak to me. I knew this. I just knew that she'd say it. She'd say my name. She'd say, "Daddy, this is your mess. Mommy says clean up the glass." she'd say it, I knew, and she'd tell me how cold she was. I don't have any towels, I thought. I dry off with yesterday's clothes. The head in my hands throbbed. I could feel it in my fingertips. It was foreign, the shape of it, separate from each other part of me. Foreign, the way my wrist appeared, extending from my constrictive sleeves.
A hand gripped the doorjamb, the other clutched the bathroom sink and I pulled myself to my feet. In the mirror before me stood a gaunt empty vessel of a man. Shallow eyes peered into me, seeing nothing. Shallow, pitiful caverns, riddled with anger and guilty of weakness. Cowardice, they saw, and reverence. Fearfully, they hung onto me so as not to pear into the tub beside. My hands trembled, like my empty stomach. My lungs drew choppy breaths of mildew.
His skin was pasty and aged as I'd ever seen it. Hair a mangy mess, oily with sweat and sick. The bones of that face, as defined as rock shards or sticks beneath cellophane. It stared at me with hate. He knew what I'd done. He looked with disgust at the kind of waste a man could become. I wanted to apologAngiee, but instead he looked to the sink, where my razor sat, dry and white from shaving cream and neglect.
"Pick it up", he told me in a voice cold and grave. "Cut out all the life. It doesn't belong in you. You don't deserve to keep it." He looked through narrowed eyes, the corners of his mouth were white. "Cut out the life!!!" he cried out in apocalyptic fury. "Coward." he continued in a whisper through lips that shimmered with spit. "Let it go. Look at you. Barely able to stand, barely a man. Just cut your paper skin and let it go. Life..." he smile consolingly, "just doesn't belong in you. You're already dead." he said to me. So we reached together, I picked it up, and he looked into me as if to assure me I was able to let go.
It was the first thing that felt right in my hand, familiar. It felt warm, delicate the way I held it languidly with my fingertips. The rubberAngieed grip coarsely ridged beneath my thumb. The sharp flat letters of the brand were distinguished on my pads. I dug my thumbnail into it, noticing the way the rubber gave, and then returned unharmed. I marveled at its simplicity. It's closeness to me. Our trust.
This razor was marketed as the closest shave. Three blades. And every morning for years, though I adored my life, I drug these three razors across my face and over my throat. Day after day I used them to tailor me as closely as any blade could without cutting me. I trusted them. Without even the slightest of thoughts, I dried from the shower every 8am and trusted myself to their edge. Now I asked of it something it was designed to never do. I clenched my fist on the rubber grip and stared hard into it, and I asked it to cut me, to take my life.
It was not obliged to deny. It was a razor, inanimate. Despite that, I now betrayed it, just the way I had everyone else. Now however, came something more complex. I needed tools to dismember it. All I owned was enclosed in my trunk, in the storm. A furious storm I had yet not noticed until thunder cracked and shook me with violent terror. The lights flickered out. My ears muted out as well, for a moment. The cries continued. No longer could I trust my sanity. They seemed so real.
I sat at my kitchen table with it and a butter knife. The only utensils I owned consisted of four knives, two forks and a spoon that looked more beaten than I was. I'd collected them all from cheep restaurants. I chose to use only the knife and my fingers so as not to harm the blades. Certainly they'd be thin and brittle, and it was my only shot for a clean cut.
The powdery stains of shaving cream made it slippery, and the rounded edges of it were no convenience either. The tighter I squeezed it, the harder it wanted to flip onto my fingertips. Clouds filled my head so thick, my vision was distorted. The nausea was getting old. I'd be done with it soon enough, I thought. I smiled, or rather I believed I smiled. My face had become a separate entity from me, and expressions often faltered.
It looked like such a simple device. Black plastic casing with thin metal clips that surrounded both ends, holding the blades in place. I lay the blade face down and pressed hard with the tip's edge of the knife in to bend the clip. It lifted just slightly, until slipping free, snapping back down securely. The task was only as complicated as my fingers were cumbersome. I needed a drink, I thought. Then the sack of weed I scored from OrtAngie next door, came to my befuddled mind. That would be nice. Much nicer. And of course that too was stowed away in the car. Well, what was left of it. I'd been burning through it so vigorously, the high was hardly transcendence.
Again I pried at the clip, forefinger at the back. It pulled further away, and then gave, snapping just short of the curl of it. Still it hung tight. A new tool. I put a spoke of the fork to the broken end of it, lifting it just so for space to release the god forsaken fucking thing. Again I dug in, the outer spoke into the edge, pried, and drove it deeper into the space around the side of the razor. It was just nearly out of its plastic canal before it popped out of my feeble grip, flipped and sliced a piece of the print from my forefinger. The cold pain waited for me. It waited for me to see it, revolted, before it rushed to stage to take hold of me. "Fuck!!!" I balled out with all the air in my lungs, over the thunderous storm. Over and over I spat the word, and spun it with other creative curses. All I had for a dressing was a washcloth, so I poured a bit of whisky over the finger and wrapped it tight, chasing it with a half shot of the stuff.
No matter how meek it would be, a little enlightenment could be useful, I pondered, abstracted from my convictions. Wind swept thatches of hardened rain beat the front door so hard I took it for hail. It assaulted in waves of strength and sloth striking so hard against the roof and about, there was no discernable sound but the storm. It howled cries of absolution, the promise of death. It shook the walls, beat the doors like a mob starved of sanity. It wailed and wailed, hungry for its feast of me. The vicious rage of it grasped a bicycle, and pounding the truck just outside with it, wrapping it over the hood and then out of earshot. It rapped so hard, with my ear near by the door, I could hear its gavel against the hood of my Toyota. My heart was racing again. I fucking needed a hit of that weed.
Simultaneous to my grasping of the front door knob, the clatters of the onslaught retreated. Perhaps it was only my charred mind that caused it to feel so real. I turned it and drew in the door, and I stood there staring at what looked like the edge of the world. It poured less than yards from the door, as if held at bay with some godly presence. It poured hard up to the clear perimeter before me, alive. The eye of the storm looked into my own, and saw itself. It's own emptiness and malice. Perhaps it feared me as I feared it, as I feared myself in this moment. I shivered with the glory of its immensity. Charcoal silver and black clouds undulated, devouring one another in their violent struggles. Blood rained down from battle as showers consuming life, as the gods fought to slaughter each other.
I tore out from my door to the car, but it saw me. Fumbling at first with my key at the lock, at last fast I thrust it with a turn and dove inside to cover. As quickly, the gods bloody slaughter engorged me inside its carnage again. My hand was cold and wet from the car door handle. I dried it on my shirt, the other clung tight to the excess of the washcloth. Blood from the rag soaked into my faded black t-shirt. I hardly was concerned. Soon, there would be more than just a spot of it.
I popped the compartment and fished out a film canister and a cheep plain glass pipe with a half cashed bowl still in it. From the Ash tray, I pulled a box of Diamond wooden matches. I lit one and drew hard to burn away the pain. A fit of hard, gravelly coughs wrought a powerful rush to the head. In the rush of the smoke was the flood of serenity. Awareness departed with liftoff. The dank ambiance grew so thick it was tangible, compressing my skull. That musky sawdust flavor of cheep dry skunk shrouded my tongue, compelling my thirst. But the hunger that was rising, was satiated for a fleeting moment of serenity. It would certainly rise again in dangerous extreme. That's the nature of the high. My tongue was dusty stone. Each heady breath reminded me of the cheapness of the smoke. Still the rainwater washed over the windows relentlessly till there was nothing to see but the tide. I looked out to see my world had become an aquarium, and I, so parched. It was sadistic irony. I had to laugh. It was the first time in days, since last I'd been with Adaline.
The cab became stagnant, so I cranked the ignition for air. Besides, I could use the company. Adaline, the dear, left her cassette in the deck. The high metallic rhythmic strums, led by the Tennessee twang of a wah-wah, well reserved. His voice was sugar, inescapably Cockney. It could only be Blur. Epically, he sang to me, "This is a low". How true the words rang out. God, how clear every element of the track came to me. Lost in it, too soon it was finished, and was rewound. Round to the last chorus again and again.
"Finding ways to stay solo" And they drifted away the last time in tremolo. After a moment of silent reflection, Elliott began with his lean acoustic strums and brought with them, hypnotic vocals. "They say that god makes problems, just to see what you can stand, before you do what the devil pleases." He sang. "I was bad news for you just because I never meant to hurt you." Pitsella.
Sheets and sheets and sheets poured over me like translucent earth on my tin casket. I could simply drive, hard and fast, drive into my oblivion. This was it. I could be, but to leave without ever hearing that voice again. It was not unlike some angel's plea. Listen please, there are scents and voices, the voices of roses, and spirits within them that call out to you. Listen please, and if this ethereal supplication continued, it would tell me, "It's what a man must do. To know he is alive, he tests the dams of sanity. Test the frailty of his existence. A spirit walks with a body, carries meat like a suit and speaks in words that vibrate rather that resonate with celestial vitality. A spirit does this because it knows the beauty of the man. It knows men can love. And they can only know this. Men can live, experience this love. A man feels with glorious excitation, and he knows he is alive. Blood pumps through a heart of muscle. It drives him to his dreams, to capture his intangibles. He can do this as a god might, but to the man it is profound. To the man, it is unimaginable. He fumbles with the physical world, that image drawn from his mind. To do this, to feel these things, a spirit must wear the body and carry the meat, the weight, and the pain that comes with the loss of all these things."
It would say all this, and I would say. "Man is the marvel. There is no argument, but I am a weak man. Again, to this there can be no dispute. I am weak and I'm empty of all those things and the weight of this body has made me tired. I've already known all those beautiful things. I found them, made them and threw them away. I am a rag, as bloody and filthy as what's wrapped round this finger. This finger that hurts because I've sliced away its identity. To allow it to suffer without absolution would be to deprive it of its purpose. This pain is the only purpose. Take your appeals to a man that isn't already dead, because here in my watery casket, I won't wait for death any longer."
These would be the words, though no ears would lend themselves. I was done with them. I stepped out from the car as it idled, into the rain, letting the showers cleanse me of my sin, as clean as rats can become. The rain beat hard against the flesh. Gluttonous monsoon washed over me, warming me as if it were the womb. Rivers of it ran over my stringy hair, over my sodden eyes, into my ears. It washed over my shoulders, through my collar and down my naked skin. It rushed so strong it separated me from the clothes that hid me from the world. It was so purifying, I tore away those clothes, ripping at the collar like a ravenous Hyde. I ripped it from my body, popped the button from my jeans, struggling, stumbling from them and my shoes. At last I was free from them all, standing alone, newborn naked. I'd shed myself of the final bourdons of this world. All but one.
I threw my arms in the air, warm soapy rain coursing over me unobstructed, as though I could cut out the middle man and allow the lightning of my wishy-washy god to strike, welcomed. My sense of physicality, of weight and space was dulled by the harmony of TV static warbling in my watery ears. My head hung forward, black strands of rain soaked hair hung before my face like black paint draperies bleeding away.
But then the rain died just as quickly as it burst from its tumultuous skies. It was the antithesis of revelation. All I knew and brooded over was flushed, rushed over with the stormy skies of morphine. Yet another taunt and I fell to my knees, beating the earth that bound me. "God damn you! Give me nothing!!" I bellowed. I was blood in violation of the hearts law, stagnant. Black. Futile in it's course. There was no time for this.
Up from the flooded sod, I lifted myself and stormed inside, slamming shut the door and cranking the lock with such force it's bolt struck the door jamb with a bold shunk! With the bloodied, soaking rag, I wrapped the razor blade. One last persistent pry popped that one incessant clip. Then the other side. It took two tries before it too popped free, unworthy of imprisoning my destiny. The plastic cartridge fell from the cloth to the table, where I pressed out the blades with the knife. Innocent things, they appeared to be. White stained and so thin. What harm could they possibly do. No emotion. No fear. Just curiosity. Three blades on the rickety table. These were the doorway out. They were filthy. Chemical poisoning is a nasty way to go. I pulled on a pair of dry pants from the floor and then in the kitchen, poured a plastic cup half full with alcohol and dropped the tiny blades in where they sank to the bottom.
I stared down into the booze at the blades as they grew bubbles in deep amber and sat patiently for their moment of stardom and betrayal. Ideas of existence rattled around my mind. My last thoughts before the cuts are made, I thought over the deeper contemplations. I remembered an idea I'd heard before. We are all contributors of a mutual dream. We can be whatever we desire. It made so much sense at the time. I bought into the idea, when I looked for that sort of thing. Something that might divulge the logic of destiny.
But what a cruel notion, I pondered. To believe that I've only imagined all this tragedy. That my life, as unkind as it's become, was by my own choosing. These paths that led Penny to slaughter our baby and kill herself, where partly chosen, imagined, by me. Let the sheer audacity of its theological implications alone, I in part did this to my angels.
But, it must extend if it is indeed a shared impression. Then the rest of this miserable populous, that is anyone she'd known and anyone she could affect, also dreamt up their demise. So how many forces truly played against her. Against them both. Were they subjects of a planet's treachery. Was Penny a mere patsy in her inevitable conclusion. Certainly that would be easy, wouldn't it? To kill and discard without want or fight. To slip blameless into the night. If it were only the way it went down. It's not, though. She is to blame. I am blamed. Even Kayla. Everyone contributed.
They brought me here, to this hovel, to this table, to this cup of alcohol, and to these blades that I've shaved with long enough. They sat there with me, awaiting resolution. If indeed there is salvation, this door will not lead to it. Perhaps it can only lead to a greater torment. Her cries persisted in my ears. If there is a release from this agony, I cannot imagine it anywhere but far from here. And if I am indeed only a dream, may I wake up and find my Penny awake with me. Maybe she'd be making me eggs and tortillas. Or perhaps she'd laying on her side head propped, watching me as I'd cringe and grit my teeth through the last horrific frames of my nightmare. Perhaps she watched me adoringly, waiting for me to wake. And when finally I would, we'd be simple again. I'd love and adorn her the way I've ached to so grievously.
Pouring the alcohol over my palm and into the sink, the blades landed in a neat stack, nearly perfect, bridging a gap between my love line and lifeline. I dropped the blades into the cloth and wiped them clean. They shimmered at the edge. Now the terror swept me, exciting my pulse. Here it was. Here it was to be. The veins were so visible, three crossing my wrist. I watched them, blue under grey skin. In the light, it all looked so fragile. Life is fragile, I thought. And indeed, it can be. A deep breath...and then another. My heart beat so fast now it frightened me. But not more than the death that it courted.
With the cloth, I pinched a blade and analyzed it. The edges didn't meet the ends. I couldn't pierce the skin, I'd have to slice it. I imagined that's the way one generally goes about it. I held it across the canals. Then I sputtered apology. The dams of remorse and wretchedness collapsed and submerged my threads of sanity. Foul, sopping defeat let loose from every orifice of my pale grey repugnant face, the blade across the blue tracks of my wrist. I grit my teeth, but my arms grew weak, my head swam against chilled wet atmosphere. It was too much, just all of it. I drew the thick air deep into my lungs, clenched my teeth like god almighty's fist around my solace and I pulled it across. It must not have been deep enough. It didn't feel deep enough.
For a spun out moment, in the belly, and yet out of body, staring at the image of me locked in the eternity of my future's event horAngieon, nothing. A thin trace of the blades path reddened as I twisted wrist slightly with a pang of heat and icy coldness. It was as I exhaled, the crimson beaded the surface. My heart skipped between breathless lungs. I'd made the cut.
I sat as the blood seeped out to pool at the table. Exhaustion pulled me down and took me as my heart pulverAngieed my labored breaths. It was all there. The transitory blackness and the chilled air. Not a breeze, but constant brisk cool ambiance. My vision blurred. Penny sat across me, a faint silvery imprint of her. "Ashley" she said with confection, "she still needs you. You're brought to her for a purpose. Carry her. Protect her. Stand strong against future. He will take her." As fast as she faded, so did I.
A pounding's echo at the door brought me consciousness, and came with another beating. The blood had stopped its flow. There was blood in my hair from the pool of it, as I'd lain my head on my arm. The pounding came again. "What the fuck, Ash?!!" Adaline called through the door. "I know you don't want me to call anyone, so just open the door. Come on, you're scaring the fuck out of me." Her words quaked from shaky frightened chords.
"Adaline" I recalled to her, uncertain. Then again, "Adaline?"
"Ash, open up. Let me in."
"You can't." My awareness multiplied with each word to her. "You don't understand. You need to just go." I said lifting my voice with bitter confidence. "You shouldn't be here! Just go!" I yelled.
"I need you, Ash. Whatever you're doing, I need you to just stop it. I need you let me in." She pleaded. "I don't anyone else."
"You don't fucking need me! What do you need? You need to carry me? Is that what you need. You need someone to save? Someone to show you that you're not as messed up as you think you are? And you think you'll save me!" I called back at her, defiant, drunk. I took a shot, from the mason jar that sat across from me. "Fuck that," I muttered.
"No" she replied softer, "I need you to carry me." We paused. I remembered the words. I hurled the shot glass at the door, smashing all but the base of it.
"Don't take this away from me" I bellowed and crumbled and sputtered to myself. "Let me just have this."
"I need you, Ash. I need you. I'm not strong and hard. I try to be, but I'm not. And neither are you Ash." Her words were close, pressed hard to the door. I crept towards it as she spoke, to hear every careful word. "But now I have you here. That makes me believe in something. If I lost that...I couldn't do it again." she said. Again, there was something real comforting me, and again, it was Adaline.
"I'm sorry." I said meekly. "But you can't come in now. Not now." I was scared, disheveled and frightened of my ghastly self.
"Why? You naked in there?" Her strained words were as playful as she could manage. "From the way it looks out here, you had yourself a striptease for the neighbors," She joked. If only she knew the absurdity of it. "Shoes and everything. You never said anything about being all exhibitionist, but hey that's cool. All the kids are doing it." She wasn't laughing, just hoping I'd smile and forget about the gravity that was drawing me away. Even if only for a second.
"I can't let you in." I said grimly from the wall I sat against, beside the door.
"Ash..."
"I won't let you in."
"Look, there's a book I accidentally left in there. The white one by your guitar. Least, that's where I think I left it." She said calmly. "Do you see it?" I knew exactly the book. I also knew it was her personal journal, and left it alone for that reason. She'd searched her bag for it the last night I brought her home. The next morning I thought to play something on her new dropped-D tuning and discovered it.
"I didn't read it." I said
"That's ok." she cajoled
"I didn't. I promise."
"Maybe you should," she said, waiting for my reply. There was confidence, strength in her silence. "I want you to read it, Ash." I could feel her, ear and palm sealed to the door infusing it with promise, visualAngieing me picking it up and sitting awkwardly on the couch, carefully opening it. Her eyes closed by captured breath. She whispered in her mind, 'You need to know me Ash. I'm so much like you.'
"Why?" I asked. I couldn't understand. It seemed so trivial at the moment, but yet so urgent. Anything would do. Draw me someone, something, draw me out of my grotesque self. "I don't understand. What for?" I implored.
"Just... Fuck, Ash!" She snapped, a scared girl aware of the life in her hands. It was that afternoon in Jacks office, all over again. She wanted me to read about it. Then I'd understand why. I sat devoured by this thing that held me open to winter of my guilt. I obliged her. Meekly, with the warbled voice of a cried-out tired child, "Ok."
My finger stung, skinned and gruesome, so after searing it with, ethanol I tore a shred of cloth and wrapped it. Never thought my alcoholism might serve so helpfully. Fucking disgrace, I thought in response to the previous pardon. Took a loaf of bread from the counter and brought the book to the couch with me where I sat at the center, and read.