Falls (Pt. 15): An Anchor

35.

It was still a little light out when I laid on the bed for the night. Bev had disappeared somewhere but I could smell pot and I figured she was in the attic. Marie was in the kitchen and I thought I could hear dishes and I didn't know if she was cooking or cleaning and in my drunken fog I assumed cooking and hoped it was sloppy joe's or maybe a meatloaf, or a boston creme pie, but I was asleep before any of those would have finished.

I slept heavy and dreamless and when I woke in the morning I felt the weight of two of me, pressed into the mattress and fighting for unconsciousness. I pressed my eyes shut and tried to force sleep but for the first time in a few weeks I felt no one next to me. No sweat that wasn't mine. No hair in my eyes or mouth. No tangle of arms or legs, only a distant sense of loneliness, like a pinhole of light.

I crawled from bed. I was wearing the clothes from the day before and as I stood I peeled them off. Shirt first, then socks, then shorts and I walked to the bathroom nude, dropped into the tub and kicked the water on hot and the drain down. The water burned my feet at first and I rolled onto my side and let the water scald me in layers, rising and burning, rising and burning. When the tub was full I kicked the water off and laid on my back and exhaled into the water.

An anchor in my chest.

36.

"I'm sorry about before," Bev said. We were in the attic. I had been trying to write and Bev had pulled down the ladder and climbed up with a bottle of wine and a joint and kissed my forehead, and I knew what it meant. 

She was sitting in front of me and looking at the typewriter, and around the room, and at me when there was nothing else to look at. "I don't know what my problem is. I'm jealous, I guess."

"Of what?"

"I don't know, you and Marie. Maybe I'm just, I don't know. Tom kind of fucked me up, I think, and then I thought maybe you guys were the answer. Like, maybe Tom had to leave. Maybe it was supposed to be the three of us, you know?"

I watched her. 

"Here's the thing..." She took a hit and a swallow and continued. "I should leave."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the summer's almost up anyway, and I think maybe I've made things weird. I know it's you and Marie, and I know that we're friends. I know that we all had a good time and, it's probably just my time to leave. Before anything fucking stupid happens."

She passed the joint to me. 

The things I wanted to say boiled up my throat and filled my mouth and had I opened it they all would have come pouring out in waves and nothing could have been taken back. Instead, I said; "When?"

"I haven't decided. Soon."

I nodded. "I'm going to miss you."

She smiled only a little. 

We finished the joint and wine.

37.

"Bev's leaving," I told Marie later, as she painted and I sat on the floor watching. 

"Yeah, I know. She told me."

"Oh, I guess, I just expected you'd be bothered."

"No, not really. Why? Are you?"

"I don't know, a little maybe."

"You sure it's just a little?"

"I don't know, maybe more than that. I don't know. It's probably for the best."

"Yes. It probably is." She wiped a long band of red across a sea of purples and oranges.

I chewed on it. There was a strange detachment in the way she said it and I wondered if it was because the painting had her then and maybe it was a conversation for another time. "You okay?"

"Fine," she said, smearing the brush across the canvas, blending. "I'm just fine."

"I feel like you aren't. Like I'm missing something."

She set her brush down and looked at me. "You aren't. I'm fine. Yes, Bev's leaving. We get to be alone. Is that so fucking bad?" She looked back at the painting. "Christ. God forbid you only have your wife now. I'll try not to fucking bore you to death."

"Marie, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Forget it. Go see if Bev needs help packing."

"You don't bore me. And time with only us is going to be great and really good for us to come back to some sort of normalcy. I don't know where all of this is coming from."

"Nowhere. It's nothing." She dropped her brushes in a small cup filled with water next to her, stood up and looked at me. "I'll go help Bev, you just stay here and do nothing, I guess."

"Marie what...? Bev's not even..." 

It didn't matter. Marie was already out of the room. 

I drank the last of whatever was in her glass and I thought it was Saki and I didn't know if that explained anything, but still, an anchor in my chest.

Falls (Pt. 14): Frail Was the Girl

33.

Bev and I shared another couple of rounds, the first in silence and after she began to speak.

"I don't know why it's a problem," she said.

"She's just worried about you," I said. "After Tom."

"I know. I get that, but..."

She drank from the can and I finished my last before switching back to what remained in my water bottle.

"She doesn't have to though," she said. "I mean, why bother?"

"She loves you, Bev. You're our friend. We worry. She worries."

"She loves me. Yeah."

In my head the Beatles sang and I smiled a little to myself. I considered singing it soft to Bev, maybe it would make her feel better, but maybe it wouldn't. I didn't.

Bev finished her last beer and I left twenty dollars on the bar. "Let's walk," I said.

"To where?"

"It doesn't matter. Just get some air."

"Okay."

We left the bar and I held her hand and kissed it and we walked together along the shore and soon there was a bench and Bev sat on it and pulled me to it and I sat next to her. In the late afternoon the sun danced in orange balls across the ripples of the lake, forming trails and piles of glowing promise and I missed August. I missed July. I missed June. I missed coming out here and I thought maybe I hated being here now. She pulled herself into me.

"We never do this," she said.

"What's that?"

"I don't know. This. Sit close. It's nice."

She was light against me, and I thought I could fit her in my hands. Frail was the word. Light in the air and in my heart and in the world. Frail was the word and frail was the girl. Her hair smelled of the day trailing behind her and the watermelon shampoo we had at the house and then, as I had taken to doing, I kissed the top of her head.

"No," she said after a moment.

"No?"

"No." she sat up a bit and re-positioned. She looked long at me and her dark eyes were rounder than I remember. Red around the lids and strained, but beautiful. A vacuum. "Not there." She leaned in and I pulled back and then with only hurt she pulled back too.

"Bev," I said.

"What?" her voice slid. "Why?" 

"Bev, it's just... it's not like..."

She stood off of the bench and stood only a few feet away but seemed to tower above me. "Not like what?" Her brows came together and I should have kissed her. "Like I'm not fucking good enough? Right? You come down here. You buy me drinks, you take me down here by the shore, you kiss my head, you keep telling me you love me. You tell me you fucking love me and you can fuck me but you won't even kiss me?" Tears came silently and instantly from her.

"Bev. Marie..." I said.

"Oh, no I fucking get it. Yeah, Marie. Marie and not me. Marie and never me, right? You and never me. Both of you. I'm great when you're shitfaced and bored for you guys, but oh, god forbid I need something else! Love. I get it, James. I get it." She leaned in close to me. Her hair smelled of the day trailing behind her and the watermelon shampoo we had at the house and I wanted my fingers through it and her eyes, dark and round, and her skin, and her mouth, and... "Let's just pretend nothing means a fucking thing."

"You don't understand," I said.

She took a breathe, paused and said; "No, James. I understand perfectly. Have another fucking drink. I'm going home." She turned, and walked and the setting sun shone through her dress and she was form and body and I wondered what the hell I was doing.

I finished my water bottle, threw it in the lake and after a few minutes, followed.

34.

The sun sets behind Hope Mountain, casting screaming sheets of dying sun across the town and the lake and crashing into the mountains on the east shore, burning up the forest lining and the day gone. Climbing the hill  it was in my face and I was glad to have an addiction to sunglasses. My head swayed with the wine and beer and in a haze I thought I had fucked up. I knew I had fucked up.

"Bev," I said under my breath rehearsing and stumbling toward the house. "I don't know what you want me to say. I thought we were just living. I think you're great and I love fucking you and I think I'd rather be near you than most people and I think you are beautiful, and you're a girl for me, Bev, I think you're a girl for me Bev. I think Marie is the girl for me and I don't know what that means. I love being near you and I think I said it wrong, Bev. I said it wrong, you know, and I think you're a girl for me."

In the fantasy, Bev understood. She nodded and smiled and Marie was there then and she nodded and smiled and said "Kiss her, James. Kiss her, I want you to. I want you to love her, and I want to love her." In my fantasy, drunk and stumbling, I pulled Bev to me and held her close to me. She wasn't Marie. She was smaller framed. She smelled differently and she smelled differently and when we closed our eyes and I kissed her she tasted differently and she kissed me differently but all of those things weren't worse or better. They were Bev. They were Bev, and in my fantasy they were right and I stopped at the corner of our road and thought shit.

Falls (Pt. 13): The Fall Had Begun

30.

September 1st. I couldn't understand why the date mattered, or why it had any bearing on anything, but it did. The world felt different. I was standing on the front porch, taking a break from the tension and it was a little before noon and the world felt different. Something had shifted overnight. I was ignoring it.

It was the mid-day and I was standing staring at the rustling leaves and sipping from a bottle of Merlot. I was never a fan of merlot, but it was that, cognac, or chardonnay. I thought I might walk to the beach. Walk it for the thousandth time. Walk to the park. Walk it for the thousandth time. Walk to the boardwalk. Walk it for the thousandth time. I wanted nowhere. I stayed on the porch, stared at the leaves, sipped the merlot.

There were no pills. Only coke.

It had been an argument.

Bev had climbed into the shower. Stumbled in.

Marie sat on the toilet and talked her down and when Bev was done she had opened the shower curtain and reached for a towel and fell out of the shower, knocking over the towel rack, the toothbrushes, and her purse, which spilled the entirety of it's contents across Marie's lap and the bathroom floor. Among the lipstick, the wad of balled up ones and fives, the bobby pins, was a corner of a plastic bag, tied off with a hair band.

Bev had laughed and tried to shovel everything back in and Marie let her and apparently said "I'll be in the kitchen."

I sat in the living room with cognac and Nick Cave and Marie had come out.

"We need to talk," she said, still stoned but sobering.

I had followed her out to the porch and as she relayed the last twenty minutes to me we could hear Bev stumbling and stomping around and then the attic door opening and closing.

Marie wanted to kick her out at first. Then she wanted to get her help (whatever that meant). Then she thought she might ignore it.

I only listened. I didn't know what to do. Maybe it was nothing, I thought. Maybe it was just now and it wasn't forever and maybe it was never really a problem to begin with, and maybe, just goddamn maybe, it was none of our business.

Maybe I was hiding.

Marie had slept with the anger of loss and I thought it was unjustified, but it wasn't my place to judge that either. In the morning Marie had gone to the attic and for fifteen minutes I had heard nothing. I had a bowl of granola cereal. Then yelling and Bev had said loudly what I was thinking and I thought that might mean I was wrong. Marie came back downstairs and took a shower. I finished my cereal and when Marie was done showering she came to me in the kitchen and said "I don't know what to say," and then she got dressed and left.

I showered and put my cutoff sweat shorts on and took the Merlot out onto the porch and told myself Marie wasn't upset because she had fallen in love. The fall had begun.

31.

In September you could still swim, though you never want to. You could still barbecue, but you never want to. In September you waste days and you are a criminal. Winter hides just behind the next couple of calendar pages and then in December you think of the last day you laid in the park and the long warm month that followed it and 'why didn't I go one more time?'. You get drunk on summer and when you're drunk the night will never end and the summer will never end and there's plenty of time left and then you're out of time and you look around and you think 'fuck'.

32.

Bev came and went. Marie painted and came and went. I didn't write but I laid on the couch and watched Marie paint and drank wine and sometimes the thought that I was lying in rubble would come close to the front of my mind, but I never paid it much attention, and before long I'd be thinking about something else.

Three days later I was shitfaced and around three I decided to walk to the bar. I didn't know if it would be closed or not, but I figured I'd give it a shot, worse come to worse, I'd get some air. The whole fucking house had been silent and odd and I was tired of it. After Tom, and after Bev and Marie and myself, and now this. I was fucking tired of it. Fresh air would be fine enough.

During the week the streets were empty and with my water bottle of wine I moved down and through them and I know that people looked out there windows and saw me and thought "there goes that fucking guy," and "does that piece of shit live here now? fucking great" and a million other things. The summer was dead and they wanted me gone. Drunk and stoned and music and arguments and fucking and "goddamn", they must have thought. "Goddamn, it's supposed to end in September."

I could not have fucking cared less.

I walked heavy and loose down the street and to the bar I had grabbed a burger at a month before. The bar Bev had thrown shit looks at some girl before that. It had become mine. The sun was warm. The walk was long. The air was clean. The tension was nowhere, as long as I ignored it in my chest.

Through the neighborhoods and across the main drag and down the strip and down the hill. The lake was still beautiful and I was still in love with it then. I still am now. I can't blame the lake.

When I got to the bar I wasn't entirely surprised to see Bev there.

"Hey," I said, pulling up to the bar next to her.

Her hair was pulled back but barely. She was high and she tapped her fingers against the bar in a beat I couldn't comprehend. As I sat and spoke she laid her head on my shoulder.

"I love you," she said.

"I know, Bev."

The bartender came to us. It was someone I didn't know and I thought that maybe the college kids had left. Maybe she was an owner. Maybe an owner's kid. to fill the weird spot in the season. Always making up backstories. "What can I get you?" she asked.

"Two beers. Whatever's cheap."

"Sure. PBR?"

"Sure."

She nodded and took two cans out from under the bar and handed them off and walked off.

"You okay Bev?"

She kissed my shoulder. "I fucked it all up."

"Why?" I drank from my water bottle, cracked my beer and set it in front of me. I cracked Bev's beer and set it in front of her. She drank from hers.

"I fucked up Tom. I fucked up you and Marie. I fucked up, I don't know."

"You didn't fuck up Marie and I," I said. "We love you. We're just worried about you."

"I don't know what to say. I love you. I love Marie."

"We know."

"No. You don't." She drank from her beer. "You don't."

"Of course we do. What do you mean?"

"I mean, you and Marie, you'd fucking, I don't know, you'd rot without her. You'd cut your arms off for her. She is everything for you. Right?"

"Of course."

"I mean, she's your wife. She's the girl for you. She's, everything."

"Right."

"That fuck's me up, man." She kept her head on my shoulder and drank more.

"Why?"

She was silent for a moment and sighed. "Nothing. Forget it."

She looked forward and I looked forward at the mirror behind the bar and at Bev and Bev let tears roll down her cheek and her fingers tapped a rampant alien code against the wooden bar.

I kissed the top of her head.

Falls (Pt. 12): Tangled and Unruly

28.

I wanted to forget writing. I wanted to sit around and drink and fuck my girls and paint and burn out the summer but I paced around the kitchen. I sat in the attic. I stood in the shower mumbling back stories and character names and heartbreak and it wouldn't shut off. 

Breaks from the noise would come. In drinks or girls or sleep but the noise was never far. 

I had something coming out. I was in contractions. I had the hospital on speed dial. I had a diaper bag packed and I was waiting for the water.

I paced around the kitchen and sat in the attic and mumbled to myself in the shower.

29.

Bev was at the bar. Marie had her hair up and was sitting on the floor of the living room dabbing chunks of black over a blue and white canvas and Nick Cave played soft on the stereo. I was two bottles of wine in and my body was electric and numb and I felt all right. I felt no deadlines. I felt no contracts. I felt no stress. No  marriage. No worry. Nick Cave sang of microscopic cogs and I was pacing and talking to myself and Marie nodded her head to the music.

"...but he wakes up. Wife's gone. It's been years. You know. Just, an eternity really," I said.

"Yep," Marie said, having no idea what I was saying.

"I mean, people are always like 'I'd wait' or whatever. You know. Like they should wait and just forget themselves. Like I'd know the fucking difference.  I'm in a fucking coma, you know."

"Yep."

"So, like, what the fuck do I care? Go fuck somebody. I'm as good as dead. So fucking what. But, I don't know, try not to get AIDS or whatever. I might wake up."

"Mmmhmm."

"So he wakes up, forever has come and gone. You know, the world has just, moved on. Whatever. It's gone. He wakes up, world's gone, she's gone." I sat on the couch and drank from my glass. "What do you think?"

"Sure."

"Sure?"

"Yep."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Hmm?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I don't know... I..." She twisted around and looked at me. "What?"

"I was talking to you."

"Oh, sorry. I was in the painting."

"Oh. Right on."

"What did you say?" she asked.

"Nothing. It's fine. Just rambling, I guess."

She gave a puzzled look. "You sure?"

"Yeah."

"All right." She twisted back to her painting. 

Bev burst into the room. "Fuck. Guys. Hi."

"Hi Bev," Marie said and laughed.

Bev's hair was tangled and unruly. Her make up was everywhere.

"You all right?" Marie asked.

I drank from my glass. 

"Um. Yes." She spoke quick and in bursts. "Listen. Let's get stoned." She rifled through her purse. "You know, maybe kitchen."

"Okay," Marie said.

"Sure," I said.

We went in the kitchen, not that it mattered, and sat around the table. Bev pulled two joints out of her cigarette pack, lit both together and passed one to Marie and one to me.  

Nick Cave went on in the living room and after the rotation took over (Me, Marie, Bev, with two joints in play), I was glad for it. 

"So you guys are painting, or, you know..." Bev said.

"Yeah, I don't know what it is yet though. Pissing me off."

"You all right Bev?" I asked.

"Yeah, listen, I don't know. This guy downtown. He gave me this fucking pill but I mean, he was a fucking asshole, you know, giving pills and shit to girls or whatever I mean, I just came home. I was like, you know, where's you guys? I just wanted to you know, you guys wouldn't fucking pill me up."

"Yeah we would Bev," I said.

She nodded. "Yeah, well, I know, but that's fine you guys, you know. You're mine. My guys. You know. You're not going to be a fucking villain or horrible. I love you. You know. So, I was like, where's you guys."

"Maybe you should take a shower, Bev," Marie said.

I agreed.

"Oh, yeah. Fuck," she laughed. "Don't I know it. I mean, I saw my fucking face. I don't know I don't..." Bev stood up. She took both joints and pulled off of them together. "I was hoping the fucking pot would calm me down. Marie, uh, you know, just hang out with me for a bit?"

"Sure hon," Marie said.

"Okay. James, I mean, I love you too, I don't think, I mean, I don't want you to think, but you know, women know, you know?" She bent over and kissed my forehead. "My dude," she said and then stumbled through and out of the kitchen.

"Jesus," I said.

"Yeah." Marie looked worried. I had no idea what Bev had taken but we both knew we'd be up for the rest of the night.

I switched to cognac and marie made a pot of coffee.

I wished we had a television in the house but I had thought it would have killed the "romance". Whatever the fuck that meant.

Falls (Pt. 11): Passion Fruit

26.

I bleached my hair. I was standing in the bathroom with a towel around my waste and my scalp burned and the wet and now nearly white hair fell to my shoulders and I thought I really looked like I was losing a good amount of hair and I thought that maybe bleaching it was a horrible idea. I imagined it falling out in clumps in the shower.

Fuck it, I thought. It's too late now.

My face seemed to have more color in it than before. The circles under my eyes were dark though now. Or darker. Or maybe I had just noticed them.

I smeared in a wad of blue dye. I had found it upstairs in a small pile of Tom's things and didn't want it to go to waste. It was a small tub and I wasn't sure how to use it and with a few eight ounce glasses of Ezra Brooks under my belt I wasn't interested in reading the small label. I smeared more in and mushed it around. When I thought I had got all of the hair I assumed it needed to sit and I threw a plastic bag over it and went to the bedroom to find my cutoff sweatpants, now sweat shorts.

Sun came in through the window and a breeze that smelled more and more like fall everyday drifted in and I threw the towel on the bed and put my shorts on and a shirt from the band The Unseen that I had cut the collar and sleeves off of and I realized I looked like some kind of fucking drummer. 

I threw back the last of the whiskey in my cup and went to the kitchen. Marie was perched on a chair with her back to the window and an easel in front of her. Incense and pot smoke filled the room and she peered out from around the easel at me. 

"You dyed your hair blue?"

"Yep," I said. 

"Okay." She went back behind the easel.

I poured another glass and sat down at the table. My legs were getting a bit unreliable. "You don't like it?"

"No, it's fine. It's your hair." She moved a paint covered brush around in a glass of water next to her and picked up a different one and resumed painting.

I sat for a minute. "Where'd you get pot?"

"The fucking weed man."

"Are you mad at me?"

"Nope. But where do you think I'd get it?"

"I didn't realize we had a 'weed man'. Sorry."

"Bev does. Met him a couple weeks ago, I guess. Surprised you didn't know."

"Why's that?"

"No reason." 

"Okay." I took a drink and thought that maybe I'd just take a nap. I was drunk enough and I wasn't looking for a fight. "What are you painting?"

"I don't know. Letting the brushes do their thing."

I nodded and after a while, listening to the sounds of the brushes in the glass and on the palette and my own breathe, I went into the living room and turned on the radio and fell asleep on the couch. 

27.

"You're going to have to cut it out," Bev said.

"Fuck." When I woke up the bag was stuck to my head. Blue stains covered the couch where my head had been and there were clumps of hardened dye in my hair. "It'll probably wash out."

"I don't know. I'm pretty sure it won't." 

I was sitting up and Marie and Bev were sitting across from me, on the floor drinking coffee. Marie had been shitty to Bev the past few days and in the morning Bev had apparently decided it had been enough. I woke up as they had been sitting on the floor talking it out. I pretended to be asleep for a while, but I think Marie knew I was awake. Bev convinced Marie that we hadn't fucked and that was probably true, but I didn't know. When I woke up the conversation had slowed and drifted and nothing was quite resolved, but we all felt a little better and Marie had her head on Bev's shoulder and now we were figuring out what to do about the fucking mess I had made. As if nothing had happened and that didn't sit right in me but I would worry about it later. 

"I still don't know why you dyed it," Marie said.

"I don't know. I found the dye. Got bored and drunk. What else am I going to do?" 

My coffee had been on the table in front of me cooling off and I took a drink from it. My head weighed forty six pounds.

"Makes sense," Marie said.

The radio was playing a block of local folk artists. It was nice. Everything felt mostly nice. Except for the headache and the clumps of shit pulling out what little hair the bleach hadn't burned away. And the pissneed.

"I have to write today," I said. "I keep blowing it off."

"So write," Bev said.

"I don't want to. I quit."

"Oh, just like that?" Marie asked.

"Yeah. Fuck it. I wrote a book. Achieved that. Had a good time. I don't want to use my head anymore. I don't want to think. Prop me up in front of an assembly line. Let me zone out forever now. Pack me a sandwich and a juice box and pick me up in eight hours."

"What kind of juice?" Bev asked.

"You couldn't work an assembly line. You'd kill yourself."

"I'm killing myself now," I said. "Passion fruit, Bev."

"Shut the fuck up. You're being melodramatic. You're just trying to hard. Just scribble some shit and polish it later. It's not like you need a new book now. What was it, three books, five years?"

"Yeah."

"Do they make passion fruit juice boxes?" Bev asked. 

"So," Marie said, "Just relax. Take your break. Don't even think about writing for at least a couple more weeks. Breathe a little."

"Come shower with me," I said. 

"Who are you talking to?" Marie asked. 

I shrugged. "Whoever."

I finished my coffee and I kissed only Marie and after the shower I ended up cutting chunks out of my hair. Goodbye, long hair. It didn't mean anything.

Falls (Pt. 10): Porch Swing

24.

We stopped by the liquor store on the way home and picked up a bottle of tequila for Bev and Marie (to my hesitation), and a bottle of gin and a box of wine for me. The liquor store was a few blocks from the house and after a while I regretted buying the box of wine. The girls laughed as we walked and I laughed with them and they knocked into each other and me and they held hands but I couldn't. Fucking wine.

By the time we got to the house the girls were quieter, hand in hand and ahead of me. They stopped on the stoop and turned back to me.

“Come on, pokey,” Marie said.

“My arm is going to fall off.”

“Oh shit. I forgot you had the wine. I could have helped carry things.”

“It’s fine.”

We went inside and I set the box and the bottle on the ground and shut the door. The girls were already in the kitchen, filling glasses. I heard the radio turn on, and up. A song I heard in a movie once. An old song. I couldn't remember the name of it. I decided to save the wine for tomorrow and took the gin into the kitchen. I was sobering after the hike and if the girls were going to be up all night I figured writing was a bust and I should try to keep up. Gin it was.

I took the bottle with me into the bedroom to change out of my wet shorts and put my cut off sweats on. I took a few deep drinks from the bottle and I hated gin in the first few glasses but by the time it hit it wasn't so bad. I threw an old Sex Pistols shirt on and took my wet shorts and threw them in the bathtub as I walked by the bathroom toward the kitchen.

In the kitchen the girls were still in their bathing suits and dancing to “Come and Get Your Love”. Swinging their hips and sort of pretending to swing dance and grind at the same time. Laughing and taking large drinks from their glasses, surprisingly not spilling.

“Dance with us,” Marie said over the music.

“No, I’ll watch you guys.”

“You’re no fun,” Bev said.

They went on and I sat at the table and put my feet up and drank from the gin until I began to feel warm and okay.

Bev would dip Marie. Marie would spin Bev. It went on and I had no idea how they had the energy for it. They refilled their glasses and resumed the dance.

Bev was a fit. Marie enjoyed her. I enjoyed her.  I knew I wasn't supposed to be thinking anything or guessing anything or trying to plan or know or assume, but I was. I knew I was a step too far and we were supposed to be living in the moment and just living but Marie and I were now actually living with this girl and she wasn't some no strings attached situation. We hung out with her. We were her friends. There were strings attached.

“Shit!” Marie slipped and down she went, and as she went she grabbed Bev’s wrist and pulled her down too. Their glasses fell. Marie’s spilled and rolled and Bev’s shattered a few feet away into a puddle of tequila and glass.

“Fuck,” Bev said from atop Marie, looking over at the glass.

Marie laughed. “Good fucking job. Where are we going to get another glass?”

“Up your ass!” Bev stuck her fingers into Marie's ribs and Marie laughed and jerked, squirming around and trying to get away and Bev kept going. “Right up your ass!”

“Stop! Stop you fuck!” Marie said, laughing.

“Make me! You fuck!”

I drank from the gin and now I was normal again. I smiled and watched.

“I’m going to pee!” Marie said.

“Do it,” Bev said. “I dare you!”

“No… Seriously! Stop!”

“I said make me!”

Marie reached behind Bev and under her bathing suit and her hand disappeared and Bev jerked upward.

“Ah! Cheater!”

“Right up your ass,” Marie said.

“God, I feel so violated.”

“Well,” I said, “she did warn you.”

Bev stood up, smiling and adjusting her bathing suit. “I think your nails ripped my asshole.” She pulled her suit and shifted her hips. “I’m not going to be able to sit right, now.”

From the floor, Marie laughed at her. “Next time you’ll stop when I say stop.”

Bev laughed. “Where’s the broom?”

"Whoa, that's taking it a little far."

"Not for that." Bev laughed. "To clean this shit up."

“Seriously?” I asked. “We've been here how long and you've never used the broom?”

“Listen, I do the dishes sometimes. And I pay the delivery guy. I contribute.”

“I pay,” I said. “You hand him the money.”

“Honestly though,” Marie said, “that’s worth it on its own.”

“See?” Bev said. “So, no, I have no idea where the broom is.”

“Maybe it’s up your ass,” Marie said and laughed.

Bev squirmed again. “Jesus Christ. Feels like it.”

“I’ll get it,” I said. I stood up, took my gin, and stepped carefully through the kitchen, not knowing how far the glass had spread.  I couldn't taste the gin anymore and I didn't feel like digging through the closet to get the broom. “Let’s just go in the living room. Take the booze. We'll clean in the morning.”

The girls got new glasses and filled them, took the radio and went to the living room. I stacked two dining room chairs in front of the doorway to keep us out and followed the girls. 

25.

I woke up on the couch and the clock on the wall said it was almost noon. My head ached like it had been most mornings and I had to piss horribly like I had most mornings. Bev was on me, nude and breathing heavily. Her hair was in my face and I pushed it off and looked around for Marie but she wasn't around. I rolled out from under Bev and she stayed asleep. As I walked quiet through the house I saw the chairs were still stacked in front of the kitchen. I went to the bathroom, then after to the bedroom. Marie was not there. I went back into the living room and through the window saw Marie sitting on the porch swing with a mug.

“Morning beautiful,” I said and sat down next to her.

“Good morning honey,” she said. She sipped her coffee and put her head on my shoulder. “Did you get coffee?”

“No, I didn't realize there was any.”

“You want me to get you some?”

“No, it’s fine. What time did you get up?”

“About seven, I think.”

A car drove down the road slow, and a breeze pushed gently through the leaves of the neighborhood. I wished I had taken a few ibuprofen while I had been in the bathroom and tried to make a note of it for later.

“Why so early?”

“I don’t know.” She sipped again. “I love you.”

I kissed the top of her head. “I love you. What’s on your mind?”

She inhaled and exhaled with effort and kissed my shoulder. “Nothing. Just hung-over, I guess.”

I put my arm around her and the rustling in the leaves would slow and pick up again and I thought the air was the perfect temperature. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

A moment, cool and slow, passed before; “Why didn't you come to bed?”

“What?”

“Last night. Why didn't you come to bed?”

“I have no idea. I don’t really remember much.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sorry honey.”

“Did you fuck Bev?”

“What?”

“Did you stay up so you could fuck Bev?” She sat upright and moved away and was looking at me now with her eyebrows down and her jaw tight and I couldn't decide if it was worry or anger.

“Honey, I…”

“I saw you on the couch this morning.”

“Well, yeah, I know, but… Honey, I am super confused.”

“Never mind. It’s fine. I don’t care.” She looked away and sipped at her coffee again. After a few minutes she went inside and I heard her turn the shower on. I went in to get coffee. Bev was in the kitchen pouring her own.

“You want some?” she asked.

“Put some fucking clothes on, Bev.”

Falls (Part 9): We're Not Going Fast. It's Okay.

21.

I walked to a bar by the shore a day or so later and ordered a burger and a beer. The bar was the same that Bev and I had sat at a few weeks back. It was empty now and a breeze swept off the lake and into the open patio. One other guy was there, talking to the bartender. Over my occasional chewing, I could hear their conversation a little and even though it was only about one in the afternoon the guy was loaded and trying to pull the bartender back to his hotel. He looked a few years out of college and it didn't seem like he was living for much, but we all have bad days and we all end up looking like shit once in a while. She was playing nice. Trying to get a decent tip, I supposed. Eventually the guy gave up and left a twenty on the bar and walked away. The bartender came over. 

"How's everything, sweetie?" 

"Good, thank you." 

"Is there anything I can get for you?" 

"No thanks. Well, maybe another beer, and then the check." 

"Sure thing, sweetie." 

I wondered if the other guy had been called 'sweetie' and if he took it literally. It happens. 

I looked at my phone and thought about calling Tom. I'd finish my meal and think about it later. I missed his songs, but maybe it was better I didn't call. I thought maybe I'd go look for a panama hat. 

Marie was home. She had an idea for a painting that she wanted to get out of her and Bev was halfway into a bottle of wine and had no desire for clothes apparently, so I was alone. I wondered if Marie was getting any painting done with Bev around and a blade of jealousy crept up under my ribs and I drank from my beer and my mind wandered. 

My girl. 

I imagined her smiling and kissing and without me and moments between them would happen and I'd have no part in it. I drank my beer and finished my burger and the bartender brought over the second beer and the check. 

"Actually," I said, "I'll have a whiskey, too. Double. Neat." 

"Sure thing, sweetie." She took the check back and I drank most of the beer in the time it took for her to pour the whiskey. She gave me the drink and took my bottles and my plate. 

I threw it back. 

I thought that maybe I was looking at it wrong. Maybe jealousies were going to pop up. Maybe nothing was happening and nothing would happen. Nothing had happened since the other night, save for Bev foregoing clothes and everyone seemed to be a little more comfortable. 

I never thought of myself as jealous. It didn't taste well. 

The check was a little under twenty and I left thirty. 

"Thanks sweetie," the bartender said. "Have a nice afternoon." 

"You too," I said. The whiskey had warmed me and I had the beginnings of a day buzz. 

I had my love, Marie. We had talked about it all a few more times since. Well, I had and she had listened and reassured, cool as a cucumber. I still had her though and I trusted her when she said she loved me and that I shouldn't worry. 

22. 

I had moved my typewriter upstairs into Tom’s space. There were dark corners and in the evenings if I cracked the small window, a nice breeze would sometimes slip through the attic and I understood why he was always up there. 

Crouched in the dim lamp’s light with a tape of Tom’s guitar playing soft I began another story. It felt like the eightieth one in a month, and probably the eightieth one to be left unfinished. A man lying in the road and cars drove over him and over him and as they drove they would slow and the drivers would stick their heads out of their windows and say ‘We’re not going fast. It’s okay.’ I liked it but it felt more like a dream than a story. It wasn’t novel material. I pulled the sheet out of the machine and set it beside me. I stared at the tape deck and in weeks passed his fingers had changed and bent and the melodies changed and bent and I closed my eyes. 

We’re not going fast. It’s okay. 

I was unsettled. 

23. 

We were at the beach. The air had begun to cool and there were moments sometimes that felt like autumn, but not then. It was warm and the sun was going down. There was no one else around and the three of us were sitting on towels, each with a bottle of wine and Marie played old Joan Jett records through her phone. I sipped from the bottle and stared at the lake. 

“You going in?” Marie asked. 

“Maybe,” I said. “Not sure if I’m ready yet.” I sipped again. 

Marie rested her head on my shoulder. “I love you.” 

“I love you.” 

Bev stood up. “Come on. Get up. We’re going in.” She took a large drink from her bottle, corked it and threw it in the sand. “Let’s go.” She ran in and after a few crashing steps fell hard into the water. “Jesus fuck it’s cold!” she yelled as she came back up. “Get in!” She pulled herself up and then dove back under and swam out. 

Marie stood up. 

“You hate cold water,” I said. 

“Come on, let’s go.” She reached her hand down to me. I took it and she pulled me up to her and kissed me. 

“Come on!” Bev said from the lake. “The waters horrible!” 

I took a long drink. “Okay.” 

Marie ran in after Bev, and was more graceful than Bev had been, but still ended in a crash. “Oh!” 

Bev laughed and swam over to her. 

“Jesus Christ!” Marie said. 

I walked toward the water, bottle in hand. “You should have brought wine. Keep you warm.” 

Bev swam up close to Marie and wrapped her arms around her. “She don’t need no stupid wine. She has me.” 

“I told you before Bev, you’re going to have to fight me for her.” 

“Then drag your ass in here, tough guy.” 

I walked slow into the water and my legs were nearly numb by the time my stomach was wet. My toes were. The two swam over to me making boat noises and then Bev started mumbling the theme from Jaws. 

“Don’t do it Bev,” I said. 

Marie circled around me in the water, continuing the boat noises. Bev slowed and the theme grew quicker. 

“Don’t do it.” 

Quicker. Quicker. Her eyes grew wide and she leapt out of the water and crashed on top of Marie. 

Marie yelled and gurgled and then came back up and laughed and Bev laughed and they threw each other around and I sipped from my wine. 

The water was black where the girls weren't and further out reflections of the town and the dim sky. If they were still they’d be hidden. I finished my wine and threw the bottle back toward our towels. It hit the beach and rolled a bit and I listened to the girls and laid back into the water. The cold ripped into every poor and crack in my skin and filled my bones. My lungs stopped for a second and my heart and my blood but my brain was electrified and I went under. I kept my eyes open and liquid sky above me was small, no larger than a dinner plate, and black all around me. My chest, filled with air, pulled me toward the surface. The air was cold and I stayed a bit crouched. Bev swam to me and took my hand and pulled me to Marie and where they were playing and when I was there Bev put her hand on the back of my head, through my roping hair and kissed me. I kept my eyes open and she used her whole mouth and it was a kiss she meant. I watched as she pulled Marie closer to us and Marie pulled at Bev and kissed her and it was a kiss she meant. I kept my eyes open and the dimming grays and purples in the sky above me were small, no larger than a dinner plate, and black all around me. Their hands moved and disappeared under the water. Into each other’s mouths they made soft sounds and hands were on me and soon our clothes were on the shore and the world was black, save for streetlamps.

Falls (Pt. 8): And Under the Empty Sky

19.

The girls were loud but not shouting. Everything is louder at night. Marie had put on a light dress and Bev had thrown on cutoffs and a bikini top. They were holding hands and swinging back and forth down the road, passing a joint back and forth and the other tequila bottle swung heavy in Marie's bag. I had a messenger bag around my chest and in it was the Franzia, gutted from the box. I had a full water bottle in my hand and when it was empty I would just refill it. I drank from it and Marie offered me the joint but most of the time pot gives me panic attacks and I can't breathe or move and for weeks afterward I know how terrible I am. I passed.

I was looking for the baseball field.

"Wait," Marie said, stopping. "Fucking... Rock." She pulled her sandal off and shook it and something bounced off of the pavement and Marie put her sandal back on. "Better."

"Carry me," Bev said to Marie.

"Fuck you. Carry me," Marie said.

"Carry us," Bev said to me.

"Carry me," I said. "It's my birthday."

"Ha," Marie said. "I got you a typewriter. Make Bev carry you."

"Bev," I said.

"What?"

"You know what. It's piggy back time."

"What? How'd I get roped into this?" she said. "I wanted to be carried first."

"Marie bought me a typewriter," I said.

"Yeah, but, I didn't tell you about it."

"I'm coming aboard," I said.

"Ugh," Bev said, stopping and squatting down. I pulled myself a little up her back and immediately all was lost. "Oh,  shit..." Bev's legs gave and we fell hard against the pavement. My bag swung heavy around me and we laid in the street while Marie laughed.

"Fuck," Bev said.

I got up and readjusted my bag. "Bev you need some muscles." I helped her up and she elbowed me.

"Fat ass," she said.

Marie opened the tequila and drank and passed it to Bev. I drank from my water bottle.

"My knee's bleeding," Bev said.

"Oh, Bev," Marie said moving closer to Bev and brushing her hair away from her face. "Your head too."

"Christ, don't touch it."

"Does it hurt?" Marie asked.

"It's fine. Ugh, stupid fucking birthday boy. Fuckin' birthday piggy back bullshit."

"You might have a concussion," Marie said.

"No, I'm fine."

A small trail of blood ran from her hairline and down to her eyebrow.

"Okay. we'll see in the morning," Marie said.

Bev drank from the tequila and passed it back to Marie. "What happened to the joint?"

"Gone," Marie said.

We rounded the corner where I had first seen the field.

"What time is it?" I asked.

Marie dug around in her purse and checked her phone. "A little after ten."

I looked at the houses in front of the baseball field. One of them had the lights on and there were people moving around but another did not and I thought that at ten or so that meant no one was home. I thought about going inside but then thought I shouldn't. "We can go through the backyard," I said.

"To where?" Marie asked.

"The goddamned ball field," Bev said. "I knew it."

"You didn't know shit," I said.

"I knew as soon as we left."

"We don't have to," I said. "We can go down by the water. Or the park."

Marie rested her head on my shoulder. Bev took another drink of tequila. "Come on," she said and quickly walked across the front yard. She was hidden in shadow and gone.

Marie kissed my neck and wrapped her arms around my stomach. "I love you," she said.

"Where'd that come from?"

"I just do."

I kissed the top of her head. We followed Bev.

At the end of the backyard there was a chain link fence and plants grew along it, over it, through it. I could see the field clearly now and a fair amount of brush between it and us.

"I'm going to climb this in a dress?" Marie said.

"Yep," Bev said. She climbed up the fence and it rattled and sang. She got to the top and swinging her leg over slipped and fell off the fence into the brush below. She laid there a second. "Ow. Shit," she said, rolling over and pulling herself up.

"You all right?" I asked.

"Fine, just, you know, on the ground again."

"I'm not feeling super confident," Marie said.

"No, it's fine," Bev said. "You can do it, I'm just drunk. I'll catch you if you fall."

Marie began her climb and pushed a hand against my shoulder and I held her steady on my end and looked up her dress because I always will. She swung a leg over and took Bev's hand and Bev grabbed her leg and then hips and Marie put her arm around Bev and I thought they would fall, but they didn't and then Marie was fine. Standing in the brush. "Thanks hon," Marie said to me. "Hons, I guess," she said, kissing Bev on the cheek.

I threw my bag into the brush then wondered if the wine burst inside it and if it did I might just leave the bag there. I climbed over and looked in the bag and the wine was still in the bag and I drank from my water bottle. I took Marie's hand and we stumbled through the dark and the overgrowth. The field opened up in front of us. We were in left field. and I wondered how many snakes could have bit me just then.

Bev ran out into the field with the tequila bottle and spun herself around with her arms out. "It's better now," she said when she stopped. "Better."

Marie and I walked out to her, onto the short grass under the large sky.

"What is?" Marie asked.

"Just, everything." Bev collapsed onto the grass and laid back, staring up at the sky.

I dropped my wine down and sat next to Bev and Marie laid down with her legs across my lap and her head on Bev's stomach. I thought about Tom. I had heard nothing. Bev seemed to have forgotten. I laid down on the grass and I thought about him in the hospital. If he was awake, or home, or anything else. I pulled my bag near my face and pulled the sack of wine out of it and put the spigot in my mouth and opened it up. The warm wine poured into my mouth and my head swam and the night was warm and the ground was firm and my girls whispered to each other. I was starting to lose my mood to the booze and found myself nestling into the depths.

Marie shifted herself around brought herself up onto her elbows on the ground. "You have blood on your face," she said to Bev.

"Still?"

"Yes."

I looked at the sky. The stars. The void and the chaos I'll never know and will never know me.

"You're beautiful though," Marie said.

"Still?"

"Yes."

"I love you," Bev said.

"I love you."

I could hear them pull from the tequila. I looked over at them. Marie kissed Bev, or Bev kissed Marie, and they shifted themselves to be closer and in the empty field, under the empty sky, I drank more wine and Marie came to me and kissed me. Bev came to us.

And under the empty sky.

20.

I felt as though I was in concrete before I could open my eyes in the morning. Thick sheets of fog and nausea. Heat poured in through the window and Marie was everywhere all around me, making it impossible to shift. I had to piss and I was hungry but I feared that if I moved even off of the bed I would collapse and throw up the box of wine from the night before. I attempted to open my eyes but the tiniest splinter of light shot through my retinas and bore straight through my skull and brain and skull again. I kept them closed and laid still deciding which terrible problem I would face first. I needed coffee and a shower and a good teeth brushing.

Marie was all around me and on my right she shuffled. She pulled her head close into my shoulder and made a soft noise against my skin. Her hand moved across my chest and I realized there were too many limbs around.

Bev was with us and I felt skin. Sticking hot, and everywhere. Marie curled up against me raising her leg across my torso, doing nothing to lessen my pissneed. Her fingers ran through my chest hair and I could feel Bev's foot between my ankles and her thigh against mine and her arm stretched across me, landing somewhere on Marie. All of our breath was horrible and the lingering sweat hung in the air all around us. I was panicked now and as my heart beat faster I tried to remember everything.

The walk, the field, the stars. The girls, hands, the sounds. The dark. I didn't, probably couldn't, remember coming home. Everything was in shards and piecing them together seemed impossible and I tried desperately to figure out how to get Bev out of the room before Marie woke up.

Marie kissed my neck. "Good morning my love," she said gently.

"Hon, Bev's here," I said.

She lifted her head a bit and smiled. "She was tuckered." She put her head back down on my shoulder and continued rubbing her hand on my skin. "Do you want coffee?"

"Well, yeah. I do. Is this okay? Are you?"

"What, last night?"

"Yeah?"

"Come on. Let's let Bev sleep." Marie slowly moved off of me and I followed. Bev must have felt us leaving somewhere in her dream. She moaned and rolled flat on her stomach and spread out across the bed. I could still see dried blood on her face and I could see we all had dirt and grass marks on us and shit in our hair. I followed Marie out of the bedroom. She didn't wrap up, but I threw on my cutoff sweatpants and then I watched her ass wiggle and hips sway, but my heart was still beating quick and and I was trying to figure her out.

My head was heavy and swayed with each step and when Marie carried on into the kitchen I stopped at the bathroom and couldn't piss fast or hard enough. Even after I was done I felt like I still had to. I washed my hands and splashed water on my face and looked at the bags under my eyes and the dirt marks on me and pulled a small twig from my hair. There was dried blood on my side and I assumed it was Bev's. I didn't think I would throw up, but the anxiety wasn't helping. I brushed my teeth and swished around a shot of mouthwash and then left the bathroom. In the kitchen I found Marie drinking a glass of water and sitting nude at the kitchen table while the coffee pot gurgled.

"I didn't think you were ever coming out," Marie said.

"Christ. Had a lot in me."

"Coffee will be done soon."

"Cool. So, last night...?"

"Are you okay?"

"Well, I mean, are you?"

"I am. I'm pretty hungover, and I'm not sure I'll be very adventurous today, but I'm good. How much do you remember?"

"Not a ton, really. I mean, I know we all, in the field, but I don't remember coming home or, really anything after the field."

"Yeah, it's all pretty hazy for me too, but, I still love you."

"I love you. Why do you say it like that?"

"Well with Bev and I sort of being together last night."

"I was there too."

"Oh, yeah, I know, but we kind of started it. I didn't want you to think I was just moving on, or moving away or whatever. I don't know."

"What about me?"

"That's what I'm saying, I want you to know that my feelings for you, and us, haven't changed."

"No, I mean, I had a part in things too. You aren't afraid I'll, I don't know, feel differently?"

"Do you?"

"No."

"Then no. I love you. I trust you."

The coffee stopped. "You want a cup?"

"Yes please."

I got up and took two mugs from the dish drainer and filled them with coffee and gave her one and I sat down again.

"So, where does that leave us?" I asked.

"Don't get weird on me."

I laughed.

"It doesn't leave us anywhere. I don't know. Do you need to claim everything? It moves us forward. Right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we crossed this line in our relationship and we both woke up in the morning, and no hearts were broken and we're sitting here smiling and having coffee and we both feel good about everything. We moved forward, right?"

"Yeah, I suppose we did."

"Do you not feel good about it?"

"No, I do, I guess, I don't know. I guess I just didn't expect it?"

"Really? With all of the flirting the past couple of weeks? With all of the 'your girls' stuff? Of course it was going to happen. And honestly, I'm pretty glad it did. I don't know, Bev's a mess sometimes, but she's, what's the word... refreshing."

I let that word rattle around for a second. Refreshing. I wondered if that meant she thought we had become stale or if I had become stale, but I couldn't see it on her. Not before, and not now and I thought that a perfect day could always be better with a glass of wine, and maybe that's what she meant. Bev was wine. Refreshing.

"Are you into her?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" she laughed. "I mean, I fucked her, so yeah, I guess you could say I'm into her. Am I head over heels, butterflies and sonnets for her? No, but I really like being around her. I feel comfortable with her, and I think she's beautiful. I don't want to be all like 'I like-like her' or anything, but like I said, I'm into her. I like her. I'm glad."

My coffee was cool enough to drink now and I drank about half of it. "Okay."

"Are you upset? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to.."

"I'm not upset. A little surprised is all."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Listen, I don't know what's going to happen next. Maybe nothing, maybe who knows. I'm not hoping for anything, I'm not thinking anything, but things do happen. If you think a line is getting crossed that shouldn't be, or if jealousy gets you, or if you think at all that our relationship, yours and mine, is in danger, we can stop. Just say the word."

"It seems like you're thinking a little seriously about this now anyways."

"I'm just trying to look out for you and us is all. I feel like these things should be brought up and discussed as soon as anything is a possibility. Like I said, maybe something will happen next, maybe nothing happens ever again. I just want to be prepared."

"Okay."

"I love you," she said.

"I love you."