45.
"I have coke." Bev said. She was standing in her bra and underwear. Her hair was sticking up everywhere and she had smeared a patch of blue into it and she was trash and she was as beautiful as I had ever known her to be.
"You're back to that?"
I was sitting on the living room floor, painting and listening to the radio. I didn't know the band, but I could sing along. I didn't change out of my sweat-shorts anymore.
"Your roots are showing," she said.
"I saw."
"So...?"
"Coke?"
"Yeah."
"No. Thanks though."
"More for me."
"I guess. Hey, will you do me a favor?"
"Depends on what it is."
"Fill my glass?" I handed it to her.
She took it. "What are you drinking?"
"Gin."
"Sure."
She went to the kitchen and I heard her pour the gin and then I heard her sit down. I heard the rail. I heard the choke. She came out and handed me the glass. "Here you go beautiful."
"Thanks."
"What are you painting?"
"I don't know. Face? Me? I'll probably paint over it and start over."
"Don't do that," she said.
"Do what? Paint over it?"
"Yeah, you shouldn't paint over things. Cross things out. Anything like that."
"Oh? Why's that?"
"Well... I mean, the rejects are just as important as the final product. Why do you think you always see like, fuckin' Bob Dylan home demo tapes getting remastered and shit? Because, sometimes the process speaks more for the artist than the finished product, you know? Don't paint over it, just start something new."
"I don't want any one to ever see this."
"Oh fuck you," she said, and dropped onto the couch. "Yeah, everyone is rushing out to see your fucking paintings. Come on."
"They might."
"No, they won't. Listen, I love what you make, but, no one else gives a shit. Just start a new painting."
"I need a canvas. This is the last of it."
"Let's go get one."
"There aren't any art stores here."
"And?"
"What do you mean?" I drank half the gin.
"Let's take a drive. That fucking car just sits there. Shit, when was the last time we drove anywhere? Months ago?"
"Yeah, probably."
"So let's take a drive."
"I'm pretty drunk."
"I'm not."
"No, but you're fucking coked up."
"Attentive?"
"I guess. Okay."
"Okay." She smiled and when she stood I reached for her hand and she took mine and I pulled her to me and down to me and I kissed her. She sat in my lap and I laid back and ran my fingers their course and her mouth made sense to me and under my fingers her body was both familiar and exotic and I kissed her mouth, her face, her neck, her breast and it was a bit longer before we left.
46.
Black cutoff skinny jeans. Black hoody. Dark Wayfarers. Bev was in the driver seat and I sat next to her staring down at myself wondering why I dressed like such a fucking idiot. I wondered if I was mourning. We were flying down the interstate toward Springer and when I glanced at the speedometer it said 85-ish and I had my window down and a water bottle filled with the last of the gin and The Birthday Party crashed through the stereo as loud as Bev could tolerate it and the air would have been cold if I was just standing still but Bev kept saying she was hot and over heated and needed air. I had my hood over my head and in the side-view mirror could see myself I kept trying to look away.
"Flame on!" the stereo bellowed.
I stared at my legs. It was too cold for shorts. I was too old to dress like this. To be like this. I was shit faced in the middle of the day, careening down the highway with the coke-riddled corpse of the girl that may or may not have destroyed the only thing I had ever given a shit about and dressed like a fifteen year old suburban rebel shithead. I closed my eyes. Bev sang along to the music. I drank from the water bottle and thought crash.
Crash.
My book will sell millions.
I'll never have to feel anything.
Marie would never have to work again.
I'd be remembered.
Respected.
Crash. God, Bev.
Crash.
I wondered where Marie was and took a drink. I thought about the smell of her hair and took a drink. I remembered her hips and her skin and her taste and her taste and I took a drink. I took another drink and tried to push her out of my mind.
Bev had thrown on a sundress and a large hat and also had dark sunglasses on. The wind threw the dress up to her waste and I watched and looked at her thighs and her underwear and my dick was too gin-jured to do a goddamn thing but I thought I might try anyway.
Crash.
Please.
I didn't think it, but it was there. Floating behind my eyelids and under my skin.
Crash, you bitch.
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