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It's Free. You Can't Get A Refund.This story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Shoosh Russelcrust | |
| Thursday, 28 February 2008 | |
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Share it:      But sitting on Jen's porch, the cigarettes kept burning. Not mine. I stopped being able to afford regular packs of cigarettes months ago. Jen and I made home on this porch. I always had the chair that leaned on the back pegs so I could put my legs up on the table. She took the couch, and whoever she had over filled the other spots. I could do without the other spots. Cigarettes smoked dirty. It was no match for Jen. She was always pale, and her hair was always stringy, and she always looked like she just woke up. She cleaned up well and that's what kept me from being repulsed by her the rest of the time. One of Jen's girlfriends went inside and when she came back she was holding a bottle of wine. It was white. And she didn't have a corkscrew. Zero for two. They talked some and passed around the bottle some more. Jen was taking too many hits and you see it in her eyes. They were distant and round. We sat on the porch, only I was more of a seperate entity. They were talking about wines. Jen and one of her friends like whites, while the other friend liked red. I kept my mouth shut. Every time the pro-red started talking, Jen cut her off, volume over quality. Red wine should never lose to white; cheap or expensive. It was like comparing an email to a handwritten and handmailed letter. I left when my pipe stopped flaring. I dumped the ash on the porch, went inside and went to sleep. I woke up to a crash. I was on the couch. A rickety, pale green couch. It was so beat that it was comfortable. I looked into the kitchen and the wine bottle was in pieces on the kitchen floor. Jen was drinking a glass of something. Hopefully water. I got up and she heard the couch creak. We caught eyes; we'd been here before. She'd crash on me in tears or she'd pick up a chunk of glass and try and kill me. And we'd done this before, even talked about it after making up, called it "the gathering of crazy". We never talked about what was on our minds in that peace, the few seconds of clear thought, the kinetic chaos waiting to roll down a hill, because it meant something different and important to both of us. "You ******* loser," she screamed. "You stupid, lazy, ******* loser!" She picked up shards off the floor and started throwing them towards me. An awful shot, especially when she was boozed up. The first time this happened, she got lucky with a water glass. It hit me in the back of the head and sent me to the ground. It was strong enough that it didn't break. But this time, like most times, she missed badly. I checked my back pocket and felt the corncob pipe. Tobacco? "Baby," I said. "Relax. Please, calm down." "**** you," she said, picking up the bottleneck. "You've always been a loser. It never changes with you, does it?" She was crying pretty heavy, but they were wine tears. I'd like to say the steps she took towards me with the bottleneck in hand were wine steps but I don't think they were. "O.K. I'm leaving right now," I said, sliding away from the door and looking around for the bag with the two ounces. She charged with the points facing and wasn't even close. I kept shuffling around the room and she kept charging. When a matador dodges a bull, there is a rhyme and a reason behind his steps. There is some authority when he dodges to the side. When I did it, I knew it looked as dumb as it felt. I guess the bull just wasn't very threatening right then. I worked my way through most of the house where I had been and hadn't seen the tobacco. She was screaming at me, loser, ****, all that jazz, but she wasn't trying to kill me anymore. "Look," I said, "Jen. Where's my bag? With the tobacco?" She was exhausted. Not so much physically, but she just looked bored with the idea of hating me. The tears had stop coming, but she flipped me off and I felt it meant something. The tobacco was on the porch and a matchbook was in my pocket. I sat on the chair, leaned on the back two legs, and kicked my feet up on the table. I heard the television come on inside the house. I packed the bowl with tobacco, real tight, lit a match and fired away. Copyright 2008 Shoosh Russelcrust |
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| Last Updated ( Friday, 29 February 2008 ) |
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