Remembering

A bit of insight into the life of Simone. I hope you enjoy it.

 

            Nicholas had awakened two weeks previous with nothing more than a pressing desire to pee out the last of the previous evening's alcohol, and scrape away a layer or two of the filth that had slowly accumulated over the weekend.

 

            Then, he thought, pulling down his lower eyelids and examining the bags beneath, I might think about calling in sick to work.

 

            He showered gently, with the flow turned down to a trickle, wishing that the goddamn f*****g water would be a little quieter so he could at least enjoy a f*****g migraine in miserable peace.

 

            He turned off the water, wincing at the slow squeak, and selected the least filthy towel off the floor. He rolled out the last two squares of toilet paper, blew his nose into it, and checked for blood in the foul-smelling mess—his last two experiences with cocaine had taught him a lesson—and tossed it in the toilet, satisfied that his day would not be ruined by blood, at least.

 

            Thank heaven for the little blessings, he thought, toweling out his hair. Sometimes they're all we get.

           

            Wrapping the towel around his waist, he opened the bathroom door, feeling a bit like a rockstar, riding on a cloud of steam.

           

            The tiniest suggestion of a doubt was worming its way through the bookshelves of his mind, but it had thus far eluded the attention of the librarian.

             

            Nicholas Simone, wholesale bargain, wandered through the rooms of a too-small apartment looking for last night's jeans, where at least half-a-pack of cigarettes and a well-used Zippo were calling out with faint but insistent voices. He pressed the button on the answering machine.

 

            *Beep*

            He rummaged through the pile of slowly mildewing laundry by the door.

            “Hey-hey-hey Nicky! This is Amy, your favorite f*g hag! Gimme a ca-all!"

            “No.” He pressed erase, and moved on to the second pile of laundry, stuffed in a bag by the door. He vaguely recalled thinking at some point over the muddled weekend that he would send it to Goodwill to avoid washing it, and, once he'd smelled it, thought it sounded like a good idea sober, too.

 

            *Beep*

            “Nicholas, this is your mother. I haven't seen you since—”

            Erase. He didn't want to think about his mother or her greasy casseroles loaded with suspicious fatty tissues, or her eerily sweet, strangely metallic-tasting box wines.

 

            *Beep*

            He caught sight of his jeans, suspended improbably from the light fixture, knocked them down with a nearly strawless broom, and fished out a cigarette with the crazed efficiency of the terminal nicotine addict.

 

            “What the f**k were you thinkin', you sick piece of s**t!”

 

            He spun around slowly, transfixed by the machine like a mouse before a cobra. The cigarette, seemingly forgotten, dangled from his lips.

 

            The voice in the machine continued on, calm, but orbiting an axis of rage like a rogue planet around an star going supernova:

 

            “I ever…ever…see you around my f*****g house again, I will personally use your fucken head to pound a hole through the fucken pavement—oh my god, you s**t in my piano, you crazy sonofabitch! You killed my fish! Yeah, yeah—you poured Drano in the fishtank before you left—with all my goddamn money and my f*****g stash!”

 

            Nicholas leaned back against the wall, and sank gently to the floor, listening to Freddy Lowell, ex-lover and now ex-dealer, scream curses at him through time and space.

           

            The tape ran out before Freddy's litany did, and Nick sat in momentary horror, searching his mind for the worm of doubt.

           

            Where was the weekend? He pulled his jeans on and began to pace back and forth. The last thing he remembered clearly was the first three lines at Freddy's, and deciding at f*****g one-thirty in the morning to re-write Hamlet, setting it in the South of the 1930's.  After that?  A careful block: as though a deep and painful wound had been expertly bandaged over with layer after layer of flat, white gauze.

           

            Leaning over his balcony rails, Nicholas Simone, wholesale bargain, smoked another cigarette and prayed for a sign.  In the distance, a rainbow—heralding a storm sweeping across the distant parts of the city—refracted flat, white light into red, and violet, and all the colors standing silently between.

 

Reviews

[Yvonne Heidt]

Whew - intense and graphic. I love the description of the lost weekend. Great imagery.
Bravo.

[Emily B]

I read all the way through before I realized it was Chapter 2. You have style. You have me wondering what might happen next . . .

[Requiem]

Wow... A little insight into his life. It's quite interesting to see how the character has developed over time. Interesting.