I'm under the semi-harsh LED light, recessed along the ceiling in Charlie's basement apartment downtown, sitting at a long make-shift table with twenty-three other people for a passover seder. I'm exhausted. Phasing in and out of the conversation and comradery and Charlie's well-prepared haggadah. Not drinking fast enough. Not enough time between passages to make small talk and distract myself. Phasing in and out. A barrel under my chin and then skull in shards and particles across my living room wall. Blood. Don't fuck it up. Don't fuck it up.
The haggadah is fascinating. I'd never been to a seder and Charlie loved them. Was excited to prepare and perform it, though perform may be a diminishing term for what she did. She was the seder. She loved it and you knew it. It was beautiful to watch and hear and be a part of. I was exhausted and uncomfortable around so many new people, but I was grateful to be there.
Exhausted.
Daydreaming of
giving in.
Something like that.
I had been drugged the night before. A bar a few blocks over. Hadn't been able to walk. Could barely see. Certainly couldn't drive. Took a half hour to start my car and another to drive the block home, but I got there. Ran the chance of smashing up the car, yeah, but it was a hundred percent chance a cop wouldn't have taken it easy on a roofied shithead passed out in their car all night. Crawled up the stairs to my apartment, hand after knee after hand. Slow. Difficult. Passed out on the floor behind the couch with the apartment door open. Woke a little after six and stumbled to bed. Slept a couple more hours. Spent all day on the couch trying to figure out who had done it. I had an idea, but wasn't certain. Didn't know how to proceed. Took another nap to hide the death before the seder.
Charlie had done wonderfully. I bounced my eyes from the ceiling lights to the new faces to the haggadah to the ceiling lights to the food. It is a lovely seder.
