So we do.
I mean, we keep lowering the goddamn net and drinking beers while he tells me stories and I tell him mine.
“I’ve been through some dark times,” he says. “Doin’ coke and whatever else. Somehow, you just got to learn how to fall in love with life, you know? I mean, shit, man, just look around, right? How great is this? We ain’t got shit to do but sit in the sun and maybe catch a few crabs, or maybe catch nothin’ at all. It don’t matter. And then we’re gonna go back home and boil these fuckers up and melt some butter and talk some more, and maybe a game’ll be on. That’s it, man. That’s fuckin’ it.”
There used to be this TV program in the ’70s called The Dick Cavett Show. I have an old tape of one of Cavett’s interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. On the show, John talked about wishing he could be a fisherman—pulling his dinner from the sea, connected with the tides and the swells and whatever. He said he wished he coulda been that kinda person, instead of someone who needed to perform and question everything and be forever unsatisfied and wanting more.
Looking over at Russell, goddamn, I want to be a fisherman so badly.
I mean, why can’t it ever be enough?
What is this craziness and pain in me that rips apart a beautiful day like this? The sun, the marsh, Luna hiding in the shade behind us. Why is there this restlessness that won’t let me alone?
I look at Russell and I admire him completely.
He’s figured out the greatest challenge for any of us: just being content.
So as the sun starts setting, we head back to his place. Then we cook up the crabs and eat them with melted butter and a big hunk of bread.
We sit in the living room smoking pot and drinking until both Kelly and Sue Ellen show up from work.
Russell and I get up and greet the girls. We decide to all go get some Mexican food.
I want so badly for this to just be enough, you know?
I smile and laugh and drink. But there’s something in me that opens up and swallows all this and keeps demanding more. I can’t be satisfied.
And I hate myself so much for that.
Ch.23
Is this really all there is—creating little tasks for myself to get me through the day—a schedule repeated in my head over and over so I never forget and never have to face a moment of stillness?
I write five pages. I make a cup of tea, smoke a cigarette, take a belt from the vodka bottle I have hidden under the back porch—eat something—write five more pages, smoke a cigarette, take another hit off the bottle—trying not to get too drunk but trying even harder not to get too sober. I listen to Syd Barrett, John Coltrane, Robert Johnson, Marc Bolan, the Yardbirds, Joy Division, Nick Drake. I put on my VHS copy of the Who’s Tommy and let that play through while I keep working.
Five more pages.
Hit the bottle.
Smoke another cigarette.
Take a shower.
Brush my teeth three times to cover up the smell.
Rinse with mouthwash.
Get dressed.
I have to work a shorter, closing shift tonight—from three to eight.
It’s important not to get too drunk.
It’s important not to get too sober.
I’m working with that goddamn, super-uptight Elaina girl, so I definitely don’t want to be any more sober than is absolutely necessary. And while I am fairly lucid at the moment, the alcohol’s sure to pass out of my system before my shift is over, so a trip to the liquor store is beyond crucial. I mean, my life might just depend on it.
Unfortunately, however, I’ve already spent all of my last check, so I’m forced to rummage around through the jar of spare change Sue Ellen keeps on top of her dresser. The entire collection is a little under five dollars, but I guess that’s just going to have to do now, right?
I take the money, the coins heavy and bulging in my pocket—jangling as I walk, like I’m some stupid cat with a bell tied around my neck.
The sky has blown clear again, the storm clouds like black floating mountains passing over the horizon. The rubber soles of my shoes are sticking to the sidewalk, and I find myself actually praying for the rain to come pouring down again—washing us clean. Though that’s never how it works. Charleston is a swamp. When it rains, we’re left floating in a clogged, piss-warmed toilet. The gutters overflow—the parks are all flooded—and the rats convene on the telephone wires, looking down on us and laughing, with fat, bloated bellies.
I go into the liquor store—cooled by the powerful air-conditioning unit.
I sigh real loudly, wiping the sweat off my forehead with my T-shirt and saying, “Goddamn, it’s hot.”
The woman behind the counter raises her eyes from the magazine she’s reading—thick, Coke-bottle glasses perched on the tip of her pinched little nose.
“Hey, now, boy,” she says, not smiling at all. “Don’t you blaspheme in here. This is a Christian establishment. We don’t need your kind comin’ in here.”
I wonder whether she means ’cause of my language or ’cause I’m white. That is, now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any white folks at this liquor store. Still, it’s not like I’ve ever been given a hard time before, so maybe I really just offended the ol’ girl. Christ, a Christian establishment. Well, at least maybe she’ll demonstrate a little Christian charity by having patience with me while I count out five dollars’ worth of change on the plastic-sealed counter.
“I’m sorry, ma’m,” I tell her, stacking the coins in little piles of nickels, dimes, quarters, and pennies.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” I continue, kinda stumbling over my words. “I just, uh… I’m sorry. It’s been a rough day is all.”
She eyes the mounting columns with one painted-on brow arched significantly higher
