Page 66 of Expressionate
I fumble for my pocket again. Headphones. I always carry headphones with me. I finally manage to get the tangled little fuckers out of my pocket, plugged in, and in my ears. I don’t have any music uploaded to my cellphone, so I play an internet radio app as I start walking. I stumble again and catch myself on a car parked by the curb. I groan as I shift my foot against the car to push away. The car makes an ear-splitting noise and I tumble backward, landing hard on the ground. My ass feels numb and my skull feels like a jackhammer is going nuts on my graymatter.
It’s just too difficult to get up. The car alarm is still going off. I ignore it, lying back, and letting the music drown it out. But the music takes on an edge. The songs change and each one reminds me of Love – fucking Love. Fuck love. I yank the headphones out only to realize that the car alarm isn’t screaming at meanymore.
"Spare a dollar, man?" I start at the sound of a gruffvoice.
Craning my neck, I see it's nothing more than a pencil thin, elderly man with a shock of white scruff for a beard across his chin and the sides of his cheeks. I fish around in my pocket for a few bucks, stumbling as I make my way over to him. I slap the bills in hishands.
"'Scuse me, man, but ya just gave me like fifty bucks." He tries to hand two of the twenties back, only keeping theten.
I wave him away. "Keep it," I snap. "It's only fucking money. Just don't go spending it on needles or no shit, you get me?" He nods and then as I continue stumbling across the parking lot, falling into yet another car, he stops me. "You know I seen you 'round here before," he callsout.
"Yeah?" Where are my damn keys? Fuck. I need my...wait. Where's my fucking Jeep? Oh, yeah.Blake.
"Somethin' bugging you? I ain't never seen you drunk before." I slump down on the sidewalk, copping a squat right there on the wet concrete. I know when I get up, I'll have a big ol' stain right across my ass like some water monster used it as a slapstick or whatever. Feels like Love used me as a punching bag earlier so why not a slapsticktoo?
"I've been drunk before," I say absently as the man ambles closer, tucking the money I gave him into his dirty jeans. He sits next tome.
"Yeah, but people don't get the type of drunk you are right now if there ain't nothin'wrong."
"What can I say, man?" I lean back and look at the cloudy sky. "It just isn't my fuckingnight."
“Got yourself a woman problem?" When I remain silent, he scoffs. "'Course it is. It's always awoman."
"Oh yeah?" I can't really tilt my head the way I am now, so I just let the damn thing roll on my shoulders until my chin is tilted down and I can barely make out the old man's face in my peripheral vision – as blurry as that shit is. "You got yourself some girl problems, too, oldman?"
He shakes his head. "I've had my fair share. Enough to know when to recognizeit."
I sigh, rolling my head back to my original position. "I don't have fucking woman problems," I say. Love isn't just a woman. "At least, notanymore."
"That, therein', my man, is as much a woman problem as any," hesays.
Boisterous noise sounds as the front door of the bar slams open, and a couple makes their way out. The female is obviously intoxicated as she's being carted by her boyfriend, or husband, or whoever the hell he is; the man practically lifts her stumbling form into his arms and carries her the rest of the way to theirvehicle.
I wait for the car to make its way out of the bar parking lot before I speak again. "Alright, then, if you're so knowledgeable—" I pause, repeating the word three times before I feel like I've gotten it right. "If you're so knowledgeable about girls – women – then yeah, I got a girl. Or rather, I had agirl."
About where we're sitting, with our backs facing the wall of the neighboring building, there's a tiny little awning that manages to catch most of the rain as it begins to pour. It doesn't catch everything, and a loud splash of water hits in front of me, arcing up to hit the bottoms of my already soaked jeans. I don't flinch or move away, but my gaze is drawn in by the water. I picture it frozen over, a mirror of ice and in that mirror, I can see Love's face. The way her cheeks round out when she smiles. Or the way they wane when she cries. The way her lips purse when she's thinking, or when she curls a finger around a strand of hair and tugs it back behind herear.
"She leave you?" the manasks.
I shake my head, and thennod.
"Well," he says, "which isit?"
I don't even fuckingknow.
Fucking women like Love are hard to read. Why are women always so hard to understand? Ally says they aren't, not really. All you have to do is be direct and listen to them. Well, Love isn't good with the talking bullshit, so how the fuck am I supposed to listen? I'm starting to feel like I understand her less than the woman that gave birth to me – and that's fucking saying something since I still don't understand the fucking cunt that shoved me out – kicking and screaming – into this God forsakenworld.
I huff out a breath, the air fogging up in front of my face. Funny, I didn't even notice when it started getting cold. But I guess summer really is over. Fall is here and soon winter will be in season. Cold. These bitches are always cold.Love.
And my Mom. She was thecoldest.
* * *
7 yearsold
“Mommy?”Mommy’s tired again. I can see her face as she lounges on thecouch.
“What?” she grumbles, her speech soundingweird.
