Stuttering out “Jesus Christ” is the best I can do.
“Well, whatever, I was so goddamn young—a little kid. I don’t regret it. I mean, how could I? It’s made me who I am. I had to go through it. And I got this awesome life now—good friends, good food, good drink, all good things, right?”
I scratch absently at the back of my neck. “Yeah, man, I know what you mean. You really can’t regret that shit. I mean, it takes what it takes for each of us to learn and, yeah, like you said, grow up.”
His head nods. “Yup, I’ve lived life just about as hard as I could and, man, I wouldn’t take it back, not any of it. Hell, maybe I’ll get the courage to write a book someday, too. That’s always been a dream of mine.”
“Hell yeah,” I tell him. “You should.”
We go on talkin’ like that for a good long while—him mostly telling stories and me mostly listening. I mean, fuck, man, I could go on listening to his stories all night. I just want to absorb everything—hold on to it forever—and I’m pretty damn sure that’s not just ’cause of all the chemicals I got pumping through my bloodstream.
But, anyway, yeah, we keep on talking until Russell’s girlfriend, Kelly, opens the door and jokingly scolds him for being rude to the other guests, so we both get up and head back out to the party.
“Hey,” says Russell, as we half stagger down the hall, “you got work tomorrow?”
I tell him I don’t.
“All right, then,” he slurs, whacking me on the back in an awkward display of male affection. “Then I’m gonna take you crabbing, okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, sure, what’s that?”
He ignores my question. “Good, good. You don’t have a phone, right? So I’ll pick you up at noon. You got that?”
I nod again, figuring he probably won’t remember any of this tomorrow, anyway.
When Sue Ellen sees me, she seems pretty happy Russell and I have hit it off so well. Somehow it seems to mean a lot to her. She kisses me publicly, which is rare for her, but I figure she’s a little lit herself.
“I love you,” she says.
And I tell it back to her, fumbling to get a cigarette out with my useless hands.
It’s then that we hear the cat shriek loud, and I glance over to see it bolting from the grill like a blur of gray shadow, scaling a tree and continuing to meow pathetically.
“Russ,” says Kelly, all panicky, “she must’ve jumped on the grill. We gotta do something.”
Russell scratches at his cheek thoughtfully for a few seconds before answering in an even more exaggerated drawl. “Ain’t nothin’ we can do, honey. I mean, yeah, it’s gonna hurt her like hell for a while, but I guarantee you one thing: She ain’t never gonna do that again.”
Everyone kinda laughs, and the cat lets out one last pissed-off-sounding meow from the top of the tree.
I reach into the cooler to get another beer.
Thinking, man, even that cat’s got enough sense not to jump on a hot grill twice, no matter how good whatever’s left cooking on there might look to her.
But me? Well, I figure I can outsmart that fucking grill this time.
I put my hand over the coals glowing orange, smoldering.
I lower it.
Closer and closer.
So far, so good.
So far, so good.
So far…
So good.
Ch.22
It’s barely even light out yet when I convulse awake from a vivid, anxious sleep. Sweat that has soaked into the sheets makes me shiver uncontrollably, and my heart beats fast and panicked. The gray morning fills the room, shining through the slatted blinds, bleeding all color out pale and muted. My eyes are pinned back wide open. My fingers clutch at nothing. My stomach crawls up through my throat and out my mouth as I bolt for the bathroom.
I vomit red, yellow liquid projectile into the porcelain toilet. My brain swells. My skull cracks from the pressure. The vomit comes again—gagging—my face a mess of snot and tears, with veins standing out all over.
The smell’s enough to make me pass out right there. I hit the cool white-tiled floor, my burning-up cheek pressing helplessly against it. There’s nothing to do but lie here shivering, my knees pulled up tight against my chest.
I try to slow my breathing down.
I try to hold it together.
I try to blink the world back into focus.
As the gray light filters in.
And a fat spider with long, coarse-looking hairs crawls cautiously up the side of the toilet toward the stench there. It disappears behind the dirty rim, and I quickly reach up to flush it away, along with all the vomit—or, well, some of it, anyway.
I pull myself along the floor out into the kitchen, managing to stand, but still really shaky.
What I need is a drink.
I mean, I swear, it’s not that I want to or anything, but I’ve got no choice. It’s the only way I can possibly get through this day. And, besides, I have to go crabbing with Russell. So I need this drink.
First, though, I gotta make sure Sue Ellen’s really asleep, ’cause she’ll freak the fuck out if she sees me drinking at, like, seven in the morning. Already she’s been gettin’ on my back a whole lot about how much I’m drinking. And she’s only aware of maybe half of what I’m actually consuming. So I go sneak back into the bedroom and see that she’s definitely still passed out, with the blanket pulled up so that only a mass of tangled black hair is visible against her pillow. Despite getting so sick, whenever I get drunk at night, I’m always jolted awake at six or seven. It’s been that way as long as I can
