We suck, Don't we?

He sits at the table and pours a glass. It’s semi-dark, murky, mercurial; a greenish tinge mixes into the gold of the fading sun; dying sunlight captured in grey-green threadbare curtain and spread across the iron-brown of the table. The colour is a mixture of olive and ochre as it shines through the whiskey.

Is this his fifth glass or his sixth?

He remembers a time when it used to matter.

#

The door clicks and clatters, the doorknob turning open.

She’s standing there in the doorway, and he doesn’t know what on Earth he feels. Is she beautiful? Yes, and no. Both. Neither. She’s thin, gangly, her hair is still curly, but it’s been tamed up to a point. Her red dress hangs loose on her, showing off the bladed shoulders, the small, intimate breasts; and there’s nothing that can get in the way of her dark eyes, or the plush, plum fullness of her lips.

But he knows what else she is too. Unsteady. Volatile. She’s the tempest; and she’s the black hole he keeps finding himself dragged towards. Effort and energy; hapless, endless laughter. She sways a bit on those strappy heels he can’t believe she’s wearing.

“Hello, Vince.”

“Hey, Lauren.”

#

She busies herself in the kitchen making some kind of dinner. Enough for one. She moves noisily, but easily, as if the owns the place. As if she lived here for the year-and-a-half before she was gone – which she did. Her scent, her tastes, her damage: all over this square little dungeon of a place to live. Her idea to buy that chequered, crochet throw that still clings to the old couch. That rug on the floor was a present form her uncle.

She slouches down onto a chair and looks at him in the eye. “So, you couldn’t even have come down and got me, huh?”

He gestures at the bottle of whiskey, it’s half-emptiness. He couldn’t very well drive a car after downing all that, after all.

“And you’re going to drink around me too?”

“Look.” He pushes the glass a little bit to the side, but he knows he’ll be back for it, “I’m happy for you that you got sober. But I’m not. I can’t join there. It’s not the same for me. You don’t know how it is, you don’t know what I’ve got up inside my head here. You don’t know the shit I have to keep out.”

“Oh, and you’ve been in my head?”

“You don’t compare. You’re a fucking wannabe. You always have been.”

“You want a fight already?”

He makes himself soften: “Not really.”

“Good. Cos let me tell you, it’s fucking hard. Having done this, and having to keep on doing and doing and doing this. And then watching you not do it, right in front of me. Well, so be it, but I’ve got nothing left for a fight.”

He lets the pause happen. He doesn’t know what should fill that space up anyway. He tells her eventually, “I fixed that window.”

“Oh.”

“You know, the one-”

“I know which one.”

“Looks all right. You should check it out.”

“Yeah.”

The microwave beeps. She takes her macaroni out and walks into the bedroom with it.

#

It’s all a bit of a mess. The bed hasn’t been made, and of course his clothes and underwear, and some, damp, mouldering towels are all lying on the carpet. She thinks first: he needs me. And she finds some comfort in that. She finds some strength. There’s a small nugget of purpose in having to look after him. And the window is fixed, it’s clear and clean, and has the twilight shining through it, refracting all purple and pink.

There’s that hole still in the wall, and the modern-art splash of green paint across the faded wallpaper. I did that. Didn’t I? The memory of screaming at him and having him scream back at her, the moment when she’d clambered up on the bed, standing there wobbly, just wanting the height over him so she could make whatever had been her point. There are gaps in the memory: she doesn’t remember how she came to be kicking the wall, but she remembers that she got there. And she remembers telling him she was going down to the garage to get that can of paint. And now: there is the evidence. She can’t remember what it was supposed to prove, but there it is in green, proof of whatever, in the mist of inebriation, had been what she’d meant to be saying.

This was such a bad idea. This place is just a pile of triggers.

Call Sally.

Sally’s such a stuck-up little miss. I can’t stand the sound of that voice.

She can feel the heartbeat pounding away in her ears. The what-am-doing-here? And it’s exacerbated by the smell of his whiskey in the other room. Not even for one fucking night, Vince? Not even for one fucking night?

#

She’s standing there in a different dress – blue this time, but it hangs on her the way the other one did, it brings out all the stark features, the ugly-lovely mix, the sharpness coupled with vulnerability. The heels are even worse. A little black handbag over her shoulder. When has she gotten that?

“I’m going out,” she says.

“Okay.”

“Out, out.”

“Yeah. Got it.”

“Don’t worry about me or anything.”

“What? You’re a grown-up. You worry about yourself.”

She leaves him with one angry finger jammed into his face, with a hurt and mangled expression on her face.

“I love you,” he says, not really knowing why he says it, or if he means it.

She just keeps marching out, letting the door slam behind her.

#

It’s light and dark and bright and endless, tempting and dangerous and too loud and not loud enough. She threads her way through the crowds, along a street that’s alive with noises. She wants the noise to drown out the cravings, and the accusations, and the overwhelming sense of failure. The voice in her head is only part her mother, it’s also some parts her dad, and her two sisters, and that teacher she had in high school. Ironically: it’s bloody Vince as well. And it says: you can’t hack it? already? You’ve been out of there for six hours, and here you are. Well done, sweetheart. Nicely done.

What she really wants to do is crouch down, right there on the street, throw her arms up over her head and just shriek until somebody comes along and saves her and puts her whole world right for her.

But since she knows – from experience – that that person never comes, she walks through the first open door she comes to.

#

The clock says 4:21.

She comes stumbling in. She tosses her bag on top of the bed. “Wake up, you little shit.”

“I was awake.”

Still dressed, but kicking her shoes off: “Move over.”

He obliges. “You smell like smoke.”

“You smell like drunk useless fat guy.”

“Sit and spin.” He has a middle finger too.

She lies next to him. She moves up close. He can feel the warmth of her skin and the warmth of her breath as she presses herself against the back of his neck. There’s a silence that’s long enough to make him wonder if she’s fallen asleep, then she says, “We suck, don’t we?”

He just asks her: “Where did you go?”

“All through town. Most Sid’s.”

“Did you drink?”

“No.”

“Did you breathe in the fumes?”

“Some.”

“Was it good?”

“Not exactly. It was better than awful.”

He reaches backwards to take her hand in his, draw her a little bit closer. “Well, maybe we don’t suck quite that much then.”

“You kidding?”

“Sure. But we could still be worse.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” She suggests.

He settles into the shape of her, into the familiar warmth. “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow.”

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work.