A Case For Albee

A short story I did for writer's craft, trying to mimic Albee's character tone.

The inkwell fell over with a pompous thud and I rushed into our room. She laid convulsing on the hotel's outdated carpet, her cigarette being smashed into its orange pattern over and over as her arms bounced themselves madly in her seizing state. They had told me earlier that she could be at risk, and I knew they were right, these episodes were becoming near daily. The drug and alcohol use was wearing her meds down and she was in the same danger she was at as a child, but she said she had a handle on it, as though it was controllable. The drugs helped her form plotlines and the vodka spritzers helped her discover the creative moods she felt her medications suppressed. 

I rushed to sit her up firmly and began to call 911, halfway through my call to the operator she started saying "f**k" repeatedly under her breath and I knew she was back, I apologized to the nice woman with the Boston accent and put the phone back on its base. 

"Have a nice trip, Lydia?" 

"Oh f**k off," 

She hopped on to the squeaky double mattress and began to clean up (feebly, and at an arms length) the mess of India ink she had been using before the seizure had begun, 

"I need a f*****g cigarette, where the f**k did I put my cigarette?" 

"Into the carpet, several times." 

I tried acting on the anxious witticism that came after these episodes, be they withdrawal adled nights or seizure filled mornings. She flicked her neon orange lighter and breathed in through her Malboro Light, getting fresh drags of nicotine air. I released myself from my fear fixed placement in the middle of the bedroom and walked over to the bar. I really shouldn't had judged Lydia so harshly for her use of "artistic influences", I picked up a gin and tonic as often as she picked up her vodka spritzers. 

At least you can walk straight, Adam; same can't be said for your wife. 

My inner voices always slammed her, despite her original existence as a muse, now she was just a hastily done oil painting and an old flame. 

I walked to the main room of the suite and sat on the wool sofa, letting myself drift back into the documentary on plants that was on the television. She bumbled her way out, barely understanding what a door frame was, or why it was in her way. 

"F**k, f**k, f**k..." 

I shot her a look; I didn't understand how she could sell so many stories when it seemed like "f**k" was the only word she ever used. She flung the mini fridge door open, nearly cracking it off, 

"Jesus Christ, Lydia, do you want more hotel debt?" 

"I want some f*****g orange juice, Adammmm..." 

I knew she was still coming down, she always reached for orange juice on the way down. 

"Why do you always use my name, huh?" 

She swung around, silk dress circling her ankles, 

"'Lydia, Lydia, Lydia', it's so patronizing," 

Coming towards me, breasts damn near swaying on the way, 

"YOU'RE F*****G PATRONIZING, ADAM" 

She kissed me, spitting her orange flavoured tongue down my throat, and walked away, 

"Who the f**k says someone's name that often... f*****g fake... f**k..." 

She mumbled as she walked back to her room and got back to inking the rough illustrations for the next sold story; she'd be sending the scripts off to the Post early next week, and then it was off to the next town to try to scam another crumbling motel in the inner city . 

These days I don't know why I stayed, she was always high or on the way down from a high, and when she was coming down, she was drunk. She was wrinkling faster than my discarded poems, and seizures were far too normal, despite what I told myself; despite my shock after each one. See, each one still felt like the first, the fear, the rationalization, and the phone call to help. I could barely stand it, I felt like an illustration I had seen in a magazine from the last hotel, a man who was peeling the skin off of his face, leaving his eyes to witness the blood and muscle leaking from his new wound; I knew he and I were one in the same, I knew I was in a constant breakdown, I was becoming a constant insanity plea. But we kept going. "Don't look back", right? It was a comforting, "together forever" wish, but now I wish I had looked back, or at least looked down, to see what we were doing. 

I heard her swearing her way through her outlining of reused characters to lounge beside her pompous Post piece, and I fell asleep on the wool sofa to the hum of the plant documentary. 

"Plants feel things too, as live beings they have a nervous system, an experiment was... conduc... on... pla...sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss......." 

As the television skipped words and I fell; Lydia fell out the 24th story window and I realized that she had put "wifey's little poison" in my gin and tonic when her tongue met the back of my mouth. 

My last thought was that of cursing vegetarians, if plants feel things too, where'd their spank bank of morals go now?