The door of the tiny Boston apartment flung open. It hit the wall with a terrible Bang and slid back on it hinges. Edmond was through the threshold as the door rounded on its arch. He looked around: a filthy couch, a coffee table cluttered with beer bottles layered in shirts and mail (most of which was strongly worded letters about a final something or other). Over a short bar -yep there it was- the kitchen light flickered. He’d hoped it would burn out while he was working. It hadn’t. The tubes flashed suddenly bright then dim, it was laughing. The door gave a haughty, giggling creak as it swung back open. Somewhere above him pipes rang and cackled all joining in at his mockery. Edmond lit a cigarette. Back lit by piss yellow hallway lights he cast a short, thin and insignificant silhouette. Smoke drifted around him, engulfing his form. It drew close, swarming him like a thick cottony fog. Edmond was oddly aware of the ground lifting from his feet. A moment later he was air born. His cloud bore him upward; he drifted through the crumbling ceiling tiles, through Garrison’s flat with its ceaseless, cackling pipes. Now he was peering down over Huntington ave. from atop a boiling storm cloud. A brisk charge of lighting rumbled in the surrounding nimbi. Edmond plucked out his cigarette and stomped out the clouds. The kitchen light flicked on then rapidly off. Two choices: stay and be driven mad -madder he corrected- or go and replace that -fucking- light. . Edmond thumbed the pill bottle in his pocket. Danté, Edmond 2 tablets per day as needed. PR: Miranti, Vincent J. He concerted it, the way one considers a tooth canal. Do I really need it this time? Maybe it’ll get better.
George’s was open almost all the time. Except Fridays and whenever the Patriots were playing. A great red sign announced: HARDWARE. SUPLIES. The door chimed as he entered.
“Eddy!” the cry came from a great mountain of a man sitting behind a stubby counter. A swath of sandpaper-grey beard greeted him with a toothy grin. “How da Fuck ah yoo, man?” George’s bulbous form wobbled at some joke Edmond failed to understand.
Edmond had been attacked twice on his way over. Once by a loin and once by a twitchy man with ash'd skin. To the latter he’d offered his immortal soul which the man wanted nothing of and promptly let him alone. “Fine.” He answered.
“Da Sox’s on, watchu need?”
“A light.”
“I thought chu quit smokin’... c’mon, J.D.!”
Edmond was about to offer a reply but Sosa crushed a ball into far right field. He decided to leave George to his swearing at the Red Sox’s right fielder. Edmond found himself moments later staring at cardboard-wrapped glass. Most of them were frosted, some were clear. None, however, looked to be the ones he needed. Moments of thought came rarely to Edmond. Mostly driven away by the growing chaos of his brain; or ceaseless chaos of the world outside his brain. It these rare moments of tranquility he thought mostly of Sandra. Had she been real? That’s stupid. Of course she was real. She used to be a regular at Hitters. Mikey even talked to her.
Sandra, of course, was real. Bourbon on ice Sunday through Thursday at 8pm at Hitters - she was clockwork. She sat at the corner of the rail in the inkiest of shadows. Black hair cascaded over her ears and pooled at her soft shoulders. Steel blue eyes pierced her bangs. Her eyes burned blue holes wherever she looked. Sadly they mostly looked down or away. She was impossibly pale. Her skin looked as if it should reflect silver light as the moon yet it was dull, almost hidden in the night. Edmond had never seen her outside the bar but he often imagined her – when he could. Not in a profane manner (though he’d not deny his brain bearing images of her supple body). Rather, he pictured her rare smile. Lips like merlot would part ever so slightly, revealing pearlescent teeth in a demure grin. Those lips never showed more than a little incisor before falling away. Rarer still were her laughs. Her voice-
“Oi! Eddy!” George boomed from the store front, “ah yoo al’ight, man?”
“y-yeah.” Edmond held his head, “How long was I standing there?”
“Only, like, an inning – c’mon!” George swat the T.V., “Can yoo b’lieve dis?” He gestured to the fuzzy screen. “ne’ermind. Its 8.50.”
Edmond patted his pockets. “Shit.” He recalled, vaguely, giving his soul and wallet to a crack head earlier that night. “I forgot: I got mugged.”
“Only yoo, man” George shook his head.
“I offered him my eternal soul but…” Edmond shrugged. George wobbled with laughter. “Eh. I should've known it was worthless.”
A silence passed between them.
“Hey, I got these.” Edmond pulled the pill bottle marked: Danté, Edmond 2 tablets per day as needed. PR: Miranti, Vincent J. George looked at the bottle for a moment and handed it back, minus two tablets. “Thanks.” He collected the cardboard-wrapped glass tubes.
“Yoo workin’ tomah'o?”
Tomorrow was Friday. Sandra was never at the bar on Fridays. “Pr’oly not.” Edmond nodded and the two parted with farewells and went separate ways: George to his T.V. and Edmond to … well, who really knows?
Dude. This was awesome.
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