(i wrote this after meeting a charming bartender downtown.)
THE WELL
Jameson, rocks.
It is two in the afternoon on a Tuesday and there are only three people at the bar. Rebecca is not really used to it being real busy, maybe 45 minutes around lunch but she usually leaves before the night hawks come and ravage the place. She pours the older man his Jameson.
There ya go sir.
Thank you ma’am.
That will be four fiddy.
Open up a tab, will ya?
Sure thing. Would you like a menu.
Nope, ill just be drinking a bit.
Well good.
She has her brown hair tied back with two ink pins. No makeup ever. Naturally pretty.. The guy is some older guy who obviously is hitting on her but he is being sweet and inoffensive so she doesn’t mind. The dishwasher, some Mexican, runs up.
Glasses?
Yes sir here you go.
She hands him a bin full of shot and beer glasses.
Her body feels sore and her head hurts. A semi truck of an image explodes in her mind of her running down the side of this crisp blue ocean, naked, with somebody who loves her chasing right behind her. She never cares to imagine who he is. There are dark circles under her eyes but there is not the rot of depression or dread in her bones. Some people have it and are born with it but she is not. Still there is a red mask of sadness that you can inhale and wear every once in a while. This one of those red mask days.
I dropped out of college and now I am here in a bar with guys looking at my ass, not that I have an ass but they get drunk and anything will do. pays nice. Art school fuck. Art school, fuck. I hate this fucking job and I hate the people and…
The old man says something to her in German and starts laughing.
Do I even want to know what that means Henry?
I reckon you would slap me in the face if I did…hahaha…
He chuckles loudly and smiles. She smiles back.
Your something else Henry.
The bar is wooden and old, and everything collapses onto itself. Old newspaper articles about something that happened the year the bar opened or when a fire broke out or when word war 2 was won, the black words bleed ink into the floor and people leave inky footprints as they run out of the destruction and death of being a bartender in the afternoon.
Another Jameson please.
Later that night she is at her apartment and her roommate has just left to go to some reggae night at some stupid bar. She is in her pajamas and watching a sitcom where this dad has to put up with crazy shit from his bitchy wife and his insane kids. She rubs her hands over her legs and is disgusted with how long it has been since she has shaved them. Whatever, its too cold for shorts and there is nobody around to see them. They can be as hairy as I want. That red mask slips on for a second. She thinks about maybe masturbating, just out of boredom, but she doesn’t feel like putting the energy into it. off to the fridge and off pops the cork in the wine.
She is running naked again. The ocean is now black and it looks there are a million arms drowning in it. There is nobody running after her but she is not scared. The sky is red and there are pieces of it falling into the ocean, red square pieces. She stops running and cups her breasts. She looks down and her belly is big and pregnant, and there is blood running down her legs. All of the arms are wailing and dieing but there are only arms. She whispers to her self that the arms are the only things that are alive. The blood reaches her foot and runs into the sand. Some pieces of the sky fall on the hands and they explode in silent little blasts of blood. The blood runs down from inside of her, down her leg, over her foot and it starts to trickle down in a straight line in the sand. She hates the thing inside of her belly and she looks behind her for something to cut it out with. The line of blood reaches the ocean and all of the hands get pulled down and the sky just falls and now everything is red. The sand is red. She hates the thing inside of her.
She opens her eyes from the dream. She isn’t scared but she feels over her belly. Thank god she says and lights up a cigarette.
I don’t fucking care you don’t talk to me like that.
Hey girl I didn’t mean no harm baby, I was just letting you know…
You were calling me a fucking whore and no one talks to me like that. Go fuck yourself.
Sounds like you need to be checked girl.
What does that even mean? You would be very smart if you walked away from me right now.
How about I start over? Whats yo name?
How about you go somewhere and fuck yourself you big faggot.
Fuck you bitch.
You’re a faggot.
She leaves the coffee shop and lights up another cigarette. Some ghetto ass piece of shit who thinks he is a hustler or whatever wannabe wigger shit who thinks anything they say is gold and every girl will just melt. She has always been the first to make an advance, innocent or not, end quickly. Guys who talk like that should be fucking shot. In high school and even now her reputation is only that she will tell a guy off or that she is meaner then most girls, which she hates. That’s all I am? A chick who is slightly smarter? I’m different because I don’t blow guys ten at a time? What the fuck is wrong with this place. She walks to work, cigarette in her left hand and coffee in the other, thinking about how rad it would have been to pour the coffee all over his face and hear him cry and scream ow it burns! that’s not right, I shouldn’t think like that. But she giggles anyway.
Lunch is busy that day and she loves it because it makes the time go by faster. 3:00 rolls around and no one is in the bar and she is bored. She turns the radio station to ballads from the seventies and Fleetwood Mac starts playing. She does a little dance. She is so fucking bored. A guy walks in. He looks to be about her age. He isn’t immediately attractive but he looks all right and he says hi but really doesn’t seem to pay too much attention to her.
You want something to drink?
Well shit, what’s your cheapest whiskey?
Um I don’t know, let me look… everything from the well is four bucks.
Is there Jim Beam in the well?
Yes sir.
Well Beam it is.
Rocks?
Nope, no rocks.
She pours his drink. His voice is low and gravely. She likes him. He sits and doesn’t look at her and he is just in a t-shirt and jeans. His eyes, she likes his eyes. His face is shaven and his hair is short. He looks clean cut but his eyes say to her that he isn’t.
Never seen you in here before.
I don’t think I have been here before.
You from here.
No I live out in boonies. I’m in the city kind of site seeing.
There isn’t much to see, isn’t there?
Not really. I went into a catholic church. Never been in one before.
He sips his whiskey.
This is a nice little bar though.
Yeah it isn’t too bad.
You usually work during the day?
Yeah.
That sucks.
Not really. I get the evenings to do whatever. Tips could be better but I’m not complaining.
I guess so. What’s your name?
Rebecca.
My name is Mike. Nice to meet you.
They shake hands. He looks at his watch and downs his drink.
Maybe ill stop in again sometime.
Yeah, I’m always here.
She goes home and her roommate is gone again(she is always gone, Jesus, how does she afford the rent?) she goes into her room and locks the door and turns the lights off and takes off her pants and gets out her vibrator which is shaped like a little turtle. She gets off quickly and cleans it off and puts it back in her drawer and turns the lights on. She makes her self some noodles and watches the news. She thinks to herself that she wants a boyfriend, and that pisses her off.
She walks down a hall and every man she has ever had sex with or dated, every ones picture is hanging on the wall. Some pictures make her feel sad, other ones maker her furious; others make her happy sad furious and lonely all at the same time. The past is the worst kind of monster, every thing that is gone will always be standing in a hallway waiting for you to walk down it and feel it and remember with teeth that tear your heart out. She runs to the end of the hall and stands there. There is no tragedy in my life. There is no drama. There is just everything that was. I need to get something and blow it up. I need to live. And I know it and nothing is permanent.
The sky swallows up the bar and the bar explodes again into tiny shiny pieces. She is naked on the beach and she is not pregnant and Mike runs up to her. It’s not the Mike she met at the bar but some perfect lover, some perfect thing who loves her and doesn’t think she is just some mean independent chick who hates everything and loves cats and reads horrible vampire novels, no she is a good and kind person who knows who she is just enough to be ok. Mike comes up and looks at her and beer bottles are falling out of the sky and he holds her and she rests her head on his shoulder. She knows this is a dream but the warmth is real and she loves it and she loves him, this Mike, oh Mike you smell and kiss and make love and listen better then anyone else, you listen to me and like me and in my dreams my heart is big idiot but you love me right now, whatever subconscious figment you are this is love. The sky doesn’t turn on her, but the bottles keep raining.
She rolls over in bed. She thinks about work in the morning, and how much of an alcoholic her roommate is. She does not think about Mike, dream or otherwise. She goes back to sleep.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Seed Part One: Silver Moons
(Seed is the name of a long term project of short stories that i begun writing about two months ago. the first story is called Silver Moons and it is a pretty good summary of my writing style, which will send some english majors into a fucking seizure. here it is)
SILVER MOONS
Harvey is sleeping on his friends couch when his friend shakes him to wake up I have to go to work you can stay here but just lock the door when you leave. Harvey sits up and shakes his heavy and numb head around a couple times and says yeah sure ill be gone in a minute. His friend shuffles around getting ready for some restaurant job somewhere. His apartment is not shitty but it isn’t big and his friend lives alone. His friend puts his work hat on and tells Harvey that he will talk to him later and then he leaves.
Harvey stands up. He is in his mid twenties, has black hair that is the length of someone who stopped giving a shit about cutting their hair about two months ago. His beard says the same thing and his jeans and t-shirt is one of three or four. His eyes are sunken and black and tired and he stretches his arms above his head. Besides his obvious lack of self, certain people would find him attractive. He does not. He walks through his friends kitchen and opens the fridge and gets out a beer and opens it. Beer in hand he goes into his friend’s bathroom and opens up the drawers under the sink. He shuffles through toothpaste and q-tips and pennies, nothing here fuck, second drawer he finds a bottle of aspirin, he takes two, finds a bottle of generic hydrocodine, not as good as the real thing but it will do. he takes two.
Back in the living room he turns on he friends TV. and takes the two pills and crushes them up with the end of a lighter. He makes three very big white lines and snorts them with a dollar bill. They burn his face and his nose explodes but he manages. Harvey finishes his beer and goes into his friends bed room and opens his bed side table and takes a twenty dollar bill out and puts it in his pocket. In his friends bedroom there is a laptop and Harvey opens it up and goes to a website with a banner called “teenage cum dolls” and loads up a video of a dark hair somewhat punk rock looking girl sucking off three black guys very violently. Harvey watches this and masturbates to it and finishes and uses his friend’s sock to clean it up.
His eyes are blood and his heart rate is high and he gets another beer and drinks it and gets his wallet off the living room table and brushes his hair back and walks out of his friend’s apartment knowing he will never be there again. Fuck it.
It is bright and the weather is very mild and nice and it feels like noon. Harvey is buzzing but he doesn’t look happy. There is nowhere safe to go, at least nowhere where someone could get away for just a little bit. Besides a bar maybe. Oh yeah,that’s right I have some money. Twenty dollars can get you quite a few cheap beers, or about five or six cheap shots of horrible whiskey or horrible vodka. Or you can walk down the liquor store and buy a bottle of something almost undrinkable for under ten bucks, then have money left over to eat or do something later. But the bar is a place where it is ok to be there drinking. If you go to a bar in the middle of the day on a fucking Tuesday then no one there is going to hassle you.
The unease and frank terror of the fact that he should just call his parents, his mother, and ask for help and ask to get out of this life he is making himself live washes over him like slow boil for one horrifying second.
But he shakes his head and rids himself of conscience and good sense. Nope. The liquor store is about five blocks away, stop at the gas station for a drink and some chips and all will be good. The weather is nice. Harvey likes nice weather, fall weather, and the light breeze makes him think of jumping in piles of leaves when he was a little boy.
He walks into the gas station and there is a very long line in front of the cashier. He gets a fountain drink and a candy bar and stands in line. There is an overweight man in front of him, sweaty and dirty, obviously out on lunch from some construction job. In front of the fat man there is a young girl, maybe seventeen, talking on her cell phone, speaking in a round a bout idiotic lingo that he does not understand because even though he is young the youth now is a different type and he doesn’t understand it. But he looks at the girls tight and firm ass for a split second, and fantasizes about stabbing her in the back while she talks on the phone, the blood coming out of her mouth and the big deer in headlights open O face she would make, surprised and stupid, the story of her entire stupid pointless life. Harvey would never kill anybody, ever, but the idea of killing people makes him feel better.
Standing in line still, 2 minutes pass, and he starts to get paranoid. Every asshole in here is looking at me and they think I am a fucking hippie drug addict and I am not and they do not know what I have been through, but maybe they do and I look like someone who has gone through it and they will respect it and fear it, no, yeah right you’re a fucking faggot and everyone in this place knows it.
He walks up to the counter. The cashier tells him it will be 1.75.
Harvey says that it is a nice day out, isn’t it.
A tornado of hate and death and self loathing but on the outside Harvey is charismatic, charming, can hold a conversation with anybody.
Its supposed to be in the lower sixties tomorrow, the cashier says.
At the end of august, this weather is crazy.
The cashier hands him his change.
You have a nice day.
You too.
Harvey walks out and a guy pumping gas, a big mean looking guy gives him a mean look. Harvey gives him a meaner look back and in the land of nothingness and boring small towns this happens all the time, both men thinking that the other is a threat but neither will look away. Harvey keeps walking but stares him down until he reaches the sidewalk.
He walks by the library. The library where you went with her to check out movies and books and you always used her card because you had too many late fees on yours and how good she was to you and how she was the rock that held you together and keep you afloat and little things like letting you use her library card or paying for dinner or any good and kind thing she did was the proof, the absolute proof more then anything else in the world that she was the best person to ever live in the universe and now she is gone and now there is no good, there is no god and no faith and no hope, now there is a void where you walk around, where you walk around a shitty town because that is where you are and no one can listen to you and no one can relate to you and no one can help you, no, the library, the library where everything started and where you went before it ended.
Harvey has a constant image of a shotgun going up against his forehead and blowing the top of his head off, he has that image a lot. Harvey would never kill himself.
Five hours later Harvey is drunk. He has a half empty bottle in a brown paper bag and he is at a sometimes friends house who is the towns biggest pot dealer. People shuffle in and out of the dealers trailer all day, but Harvey knows him well enough to just sit there and drink, bullshit about the some new blockbuster movie, how much it sucked, or about Pink Floyd, or about any other random nerd discussion that pot heads care about. Harvey does not care about anything, but he knows the cards, and he knows the arguments, so he can hold a fake conversation with anybody. The sometimes friend offers him a bowl and Harvey smiles and says no thank you.
You never smoke with us man, that’s so weird.
Harvey fakes a smile a little wider and says that weed isn’t his thing.
I just don’t understand how someone can turn down bud.
I just don’t like it. it makes me think too much.
Different strokes different folks I guess.
Harvey tips the bottle back and the cheap vodka all but tares his throat apart. The sometimes friend and his two friends are button mashing a controller playing some game and Harvey doesn’t want to be there so he asks to use the phone, he doesn’t have one. His sometimes friend throws him new and fancy mutli-purpose phone and Harvey tries to figure out how to open the fucking thing he hasn’t had one in a long time what the hell is this. His friend tells him to push the front to the left and Harvey opens it and leaves the room with his friends phone. He dials a number he knows from memory and the butterflies ignite in his stomach but ah fuck it lets do it anyway.
A sultry woman’s voice picks up.
Hello?
Hello? Hey what is going on?
Who is this?
Harvey.
Jesus Christ.
We haven’t talked in a while and somebody said something that reminded me of you.
Whose number is this?
It’s a friends. It’s his cell phone.
Well what do you want.
I just wanted to say hi, god damnit.
Well the last time I saw you, you were a total asshole, you fucking embarrassed me and I don’t have a lot to say to you…
That was a long time ago, and fuck I just figured we were together for three years and I just wanted to say hi, because fuck we were together for three years.
In fucking high school Harvey.
I loved you just the same. I still love you.
Oh my god you are a fucking joke.
Fuck you then. I am a different guy. I am a better man.
Haha yeah I’ve heard. I heard you’re a fucking drug addict.
I don’t do drugs.
Well everyone says you do.
Well fuck them too.
She is silent for a long time.
I am sorry about what happened.
Its ok. It was a freak accident.
I heard it on the news. Are you ok?
No I am not. I just called to say hi.
Well you said hi. I am sorry about what happened to your girlfriend, but I am in a very serious relationship right now and I don’t think he would be comfortable with you calling me again. I don’t think I would either.
Your right. It was wrong for me to call you…you were a real cunt and a half when we were together, you know that? Everyone of my friends thought you were a crazy bitch
Goodnight Harvey, don’t fucking call me again, asshole.
The woman hangs up.
He looks at the phone in silence. He knew that was going to happen. And he knew how shitty it would make him feel to call her. And he did it anyway because he doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing.
He walks back into the room with his friends playing the game, throws the phone at his friend, sits down, and starts drinking and drinking and drinking. Time passes and everyone passes out and Harvey stretches out on the couch and tries to go to sleep but instead his thoughts stab him and molest him and he stays in a state in between sleep and awareness all night:
Whose friend was it that had the cd? Every body you know makes an album. You can tell whose album is good and whose is going to suck just by what you know about them. Art is so relative and abstract that only differing opinions hold truth over anything. She is gone every day you are here. You are a stupid little fucking baby with no good side. There is no good side to you. Everyone thinks your cool and smart but you are not and she knew that and she tried to help you and you laughed her off and she went away and now you are left with the cold ground of your own self neurosis and ego. You want to be a man but you are not. The coyotes must be howling. The most beautiful sound in the universe. Free and wild hounds of prey out there screaming to whatever they are screaming to. Its either coyotes or ghosts calling out for your veins, wanting you to bleed and suffer for everything you have done and said. You are young but who have done enough damage to others to be a fucking murderer, and maybe your bad karma brought all of this on you, you little fucking baby. My album would be good though, it would not pretentious and it would only be ten songs long and the first song would be epic and loud and long and the last song would be epic and loud and short.
Harvey tosses and turns and thinks about these things all night, in random segments and sound bites. He wakes up and it is still dark out but blue is starting to shine through the sky. He walks into the kitchen looking for a clock and it says 5:25. He is awake enough to leave and he does and walks outside, past rows of college houses all full of passed drunken girls and guys and every other house has a couple people on the porch still awake from coke or booze or love sitting there and talking about this and that. He remembers that feeling, of being really young and really high on something new and watching the sun come up and talking about the most inane things that anybody had every thought of but oh my god all of the truth in the world bled from those early hours with the woman you love and the booze that you love and the sun beginning and someone’s porch being the center that could suck the sun in and make you a god. Those days are long gone and dead but he still smiles thinking about them, and he carries empathy for those people, not firefighters or hero cops or superheroes people dieing of cancer or burn victims or poor people, empathy for the young and fucked up still awake and still alive at six in the morning.
He walks for about two hours, climbing up a narrow road on a narrow hill. He walks and walks and he is tired and hungry and he has never been sadder and more empty in his entire life. He walks down a long narrow driveway and steps up to a front door and pulls a key out and opens it. the house is warm and cozy and when the safeness of the space hits him he almost starts weeping. He walks down a hall and a women’s voice calls out.
Harvey?
Hey mom, I’m sorry to wake you I am just going to bed…
Are you ok?
I am fine, really I am fine I just got dropped off by a friend…
Ok baby, ok, I don’t have to work until noon, will you be here? I haven’t seen you in a while and I want to talk .
Yeah ill be here mom.
You promise?
I swear on my life ill be here.
I love you so much.
I love you too mom.
Harvey walks into his empty and clean room. He pulls the most comfortable blanket over his body and lays on the softest pillow he has ever laid on. He is calm and warm and good and he knows that the feeling will pass but while the warmth is over him he wants to bask in it. he goes to sleep, a solid and complete sleep.
Something is howling and moaning far away in the forest. His eyes slowly open and focus on the sound, the same sound he heard at his friend’s house. It is a beautiful sound and he knows it his real and he listens to them cry and sing, sing their long and haunting note of death and love and he starts to cry and cry and cry. He thinks about her and every time he thinks about her a new a different pain comes up, something different that hurts in a unique and clear way. He loved her more then anything else. He will never get over her. He thinks about cutting his wrists right now and shakes his head really hard and lays back down and goes back to sleep. He loved her more then anything else and he always will and youth and joy and death and all of the most horrible things never die and never live and nothing makes sense. He loved her more then anything else.
SILVER MOONS
Harvey is sleeping on his friends couch when his friend shakes him to wake up I have to go to work you can stay here but just lock the door when you leave. Harvey sits up and shakes his heavy and numb head around a couple times and says yeah sure ill be gone in a minute. His friend shuffles around getting ready for some restaurant job somewhere. His apartment is not shitty but it isn’t big and his friend lives alone. His friend puts his work hat on and tells Harvey that he will talk to him later and then he leaves.
Harvey stands up. He is in his mid twenties, has black hair that is the length of someone who stopped giving a shit about cutting their hair about two months ago. His beard says the same thing and his jeans and t-shirt is one of three or four. His eyes are sunken and black and tired and he stretches his arms above his head. Besides his obvious lack of self, certain people would find him attractive. He does not. He walks through his friends kitchen and opens the fridge and gets out a beer and opens it. Beer in hand he goes into his friend’s bathroom and opens up the drawers under the sink. He shuffles through toothpaste and q-tips and pennies, nothing here fuck, second drawer he finds a bottle of aspirin, he takes two, finds a bottle of generic hydrocodine, not as good as the real thing but it will do. he takes two.
Back in the living room he turns on he friends TV. and takes the two pills and crushes them up with the end of a lighter. He makes three very big white lines and snorts them with a dollar bill. They burn his face and his nose explodes but he manages. Harvey finishes his beer and goes into his friends bed room and opens his bed side table and takes a twenty dollar bill out and puts it in his pocket. In his friends bedroom there is a laptop and Harvey opens it up and goes to a website with a banner called “teenage cum dolls” and loads up a video of a dark hair somewhat punk rock looking girl sucking off three black guys very violently. Harvey watches this and masturbates to it and finishes and uses his friend’s sock to clean it up.
His eyes are blood and his heart rate is high and he gets another beer and drinks it and gets his wallet off the living room table and brushes his hair back and walks out of his friend’s apartment knowing he will never be there again. Fuck it.
It is bright and the weather is very mild and nice and it feels like noon. Harvey is buzzing but he doesn’t look happy. There is nowhere safe to go, at least nowhere where someone could get away for just a little bit. Besides a bar maybe. Oh yeah,that’s right I have some money. Twenty dollars can get you quite a few cheap beers, or about five or six cheap shots of horrible whiskey or horrible vodka. Or you can walk down the liquor store and buy a bottle of something almost undrinkable for under ten bucks, then have money left over to eat or do something later. But the bar is a place where it is ok to be there drinking. If you go to a bar in the middle of the day on a fucking Tuesday then no one there is going to hassle you.
The unease and frank terror of the fact that he should just call his parents, his mother, and ask for help and ask to get out of this life he is making himself live washes over him like slow boil for one horrifying second.
But he shakes his head and rids himself of conscience and good sense. Nope. The liquor store is about five blocks away, stop at the gas station for a drink and some chips and all will be good. The weather is nice. Harvey likes nice weather, fall weather, and the light breeze makes him think of jumping in piles of leaves when he was a little boy.
He walks into the gas station and there is a very long line in front of the cashier. He gets a fountain drink and a candy bar and stands in line. There is an overweight man in front of him, sweaty and dirty, obviously out on lunch from some construction job. In front of the fat man there is a young girl, maybe seventeen, talking on her cell phone, speaking in a round a bout idiotic lingo that he does not understand because even though he is young the youth now is a different type and he doesn’t understand it. But he looks at the girls tight and firm ass for a split second, and fantasizes about stabbing her in the back while she talks on the phone, the blood coming out of her mouth and the big deer in headlights open O face she would make, surprised and stupid, the story of her entire stupid pointless life. Harvey would never kill anybody, ever, but the idea of killing people makes him feel better.
Standing in line still, 2 minutes pass, and he starts to get paranoid. Every asshole in here is looking at me and they think I am a fucking hippie drug addict and I am not and they do not know what I have been through, but maybe they do and I look like someone who has gone through it and they will respect it and fear it, no, yeah right you’re a fucking faggot and everyone in this place knows it.
He walks up to the counter. The cashier tells him it will be 1.75.
Harvey says that it is a nice day out, isn’t it.
A tornado of hate and death and self loathing but on the outside Harvey is charismatic, charming, can hold a conversation with anybody.
Its supposed to be in the lower sixties tomorrow, the cashier says.
At the end of august, this weather is crazy.
The cashier hands him his change.
You have a nice day.
You too.
Harvey walks out and a guy pumping gas, a big mean looking guy gives him a mean look. Harvey gives him a meaner look back and in the land of nothingness and boring small towns this happens all the time, both men thinking that the other is a threat but neither will look away. Harvey keeps walking but stares him down until he reaches the sidewalk.
He walks by the library. The library where you went with her to check out movies and books and you always used her card because you had too many late fees on yours and how good she was to you and how she was the rock that held you together and keep you afloat and little things like letting you use her library card or paying for dinner or any good and kind thing she did was the proof, the absolute proof more then anything else in the world that she was the best person to ever live in the universe and now she is gone and now there is no good, there is no god and no faith and no hope, now there is a void where you walk around, where you walk around a shitty town because that is where you are and no one can listen to you and no one can relate to you and no one can help you, no, the library, the library where everything started and where you went before it ended.
Harvey has a constant image of a shotgun going up against his forehead and blowing the top of his head off, he has that image a lot. Harvey would never kill himself.
Five hours later Harvey is drunk. He has a half empty bottle in a brown paper bag and he is at a sometimes friends house who is the towns biggest pot dealer. People shuffle in and out of the dealers trailer all day, but Harvey knows him well enough to just sit there and drink, bullshit about the some new blockbuster movie, how much it sucked, or about Pink Floyd, or about any other random nerd discussion that pot heads care about. Harvey does not care about anything, but he knows the cards, and he knows the arguments, so he can hold a fake conversation with anybody. The sometimes friend offers him a bowl and Harvey smiles and says no thank you.
You never smoke with us man, that’s so weird.
Harvey fakes a smile a little wider and says that weed isn’t his thing.
I just don’t understand how someone can turn down bud.
I just don’t like it. it makes me think too much.
Different strokes different folks I guess.
Harvey tips the bottle back and the cheap vodka all but tares his throat apart. The sometimes friend and his two friends are button mashing a controller playing some game and Harvey doesn’t want to be there so he asks to use the phone, he doesn’t have one. His sometimes friend throws him new and fancy mutli-purpose phone and Harvey tries to figure out how to open the fucking thing he hasn’t had one in a long time what the hell is this. His friend tells him to push the front to the left and Harvey opens it and leaves the room with his friends phone. He dials a number he knows from memory and the butterflies ignite in his stomach but ah fuck it lets do it anyway.
A sultry woman’s voice picks up.
Hello?
Hello? Hey what is going on?
Who is this?
Harvey.
Jesus Christ.
We haven’t talked in a while and somebody said something that reminded me of you.
Whose number is this?
It’s a friends. It’s his cell phone.
Well what do you want.
I just wanted to say hi, god damnit.
Well the last time I saw you, you were a total asshole, you fucking embarrassed me and I don’t have a lot to say to you…
That was a long time ago, and fuck I just figured we were together for three years and I just wanted to say hi, because fuck we were together for three years.
In fucking high school Harvey.
I loved you just the same. I still love you.
Oh my god you are a fucking joke.
Fuck you then. I am a different guy. I am a better man.
Haha yeah I’ve heard. I heard you’re a fucking drug addict.
I don’t do drugs.
Well everyone says you do.
Well fuck them too.
She is silent for a long time.
I am sorry about what happened.
Its ok. It was a freak accident.
I heard it on the news. Are you ok?
No I am not. I just called to say hi.
Well you said hi. I am sorry about what happened to your girlfriend, but I am in a very serious relationship right now and I don’t think he would be comfortable with you calling me again. I don’t think I would either.
Your right. It was wrong for me to call you…you were a real cunt and a half when we were together, you know that? Everyone of my friends thought you were a crazy bitch
Goodnight Harvey, don’t fucking call me again, asshole.
The woman hangs up.
He looks at the phone in silence. He knew that was going to happen. And he knew how shitty it would make him feel to call her. And he did it anyway because he doesn’t know what the fuck he is doing.
He walks back into the room with his friends playing the game, throws the phone at his friend, sits down, and starts drinking and drinking and drinking. Time passes and everyone passes out and Harvey stretches out on the couch and tries to go to sleep but instead his thoughts stab him and molest him and he stays in a state in between sleep and awareness all night:
Whose friend was it that had the cd? Every body you know makes an album. You can tell whose album is good and whose is going to suck just by what you know about them. Art is so relative and abstract that only differing opinions hold truth over anything. She is gone every day you are here. You are a stupid little fucking baby with no good side. There is no good side to you. Everyone thinks your cool and smart but you are not and she knew that and she tried to help you and you laughed her off and she went away and now you are left with the cold ground of your own self neurosis and ego. You want to be a man but you are not. The coyotes must be howling. The most beautiful sound in the universe. Free and wild hounds of prey out there screaming to whatever they are screaming to. Its either coyotes or ghosts calling out for your veins, wanting you to bleed and suffer for everything you have done and said. You are young but who have done enough damage to others to be a fucking murderer, and maybe your bad karma brought all of this on you, you little fucking baby. My album would be good though, it would not pretentious and it would only be ten songs long and the first song would be epic and loud and long and the last song would be epic and loud and short.
Harvey tosses and turns and thinks about these things all night, in random segments and sound bites. He wakes up and it is still dark out but blue is starting to shine through the sky. He walks into the kitchen looking for a clock and it says 5:25. He is awake enough to leave and he does and walks outside, past rows of college houses all full of passed drunken girls and guys and every other house has a couple people on the porch still awake from coke or booze or love sitting there and talking about this and that. He remembers that feeling, of being really young and really high on something new and watching the sun come up and talking about the most inane things that anybody had every thought of but oh my god all of the truth in the world bled from those early hours with the woman you love and the booze that you love and the sun beginning and someone’s porch being the center that could suck the sun in and make you a god. Those days are long gone and dead but he still smiles thinking about them, and he carries empathy for those people, not firefighters or hero cops or superheroes people dieing of cancer or burn victims or poor people, empathy for the young and fucked up still awake and still alive at six in the morning.
He walks for about two hours, climbing up a narrow road on a narrow hill. He walks and walks and he is tired and hungry and he has never been sadder and more empty in his entire life. He walks down a long narrow driveway and steps up to a front door and pulls a key out and opens it. the house is warm and cozy and when the safeness of the space hits him he almost starts weeping. He walks down a hall and a women’s voice calls out.
Harvey?
Hey mom, I’m sorry to wake you I am just going to bed…
Are you ok?
I am fine, really I am fine I just got dropped off by a friend…
Ok baby, ok, I don’t have to work until noon, will you be here? I haven’t seen you in a while and I want to talk .
Yeah ill be here mom.
You promise?
I swear on my life ill be here.
I love you so much.
I love you too mom.
Harvey walks into his empty and clean room. He pulls the most comfortable blanket over his body and lays on the softest pillow he has ever laid on. He is calm and warm and good and he knows that the feeling will pass but while the warmth is over him he wants to bask in it. he goes to sleep, a solid and complete sleep.
Something is howling and moaning far away in the forest. His eyes slowly open and focus on the sound, the same sound he heard at his friend’s house. It is a beautiful sound and he knows it his real and he listens to them cry and sing, sing their long and haunting note of death and love and he starts to cry and cry and cry. He thinks about her and every time he thinks about her a new a different pain comes up, something different that hurts in a unique and clear way. He loved her more then anything else. He will never get over her. He thinks about cutting his wrists right now and shakes his head really hard and lays back down and goes back to sleep. He loved her more then anything else and he always will and youth and joy and death and all of the most horrible things never die and never live and nothing makes sense. He loved her more then anything else.
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