The Pharmacist

She was the kind of girl that shy guys don’t realize love them until years later when someone else tells them and they realize they blew it.  Casually pretty. She looked like a librarian with a secret life. Cool glasses, thoughtful clothes. Delicate in finger.  He was worried about what his death would signify.  Would people still be forgiving of the stupid, simple, routine of mistakes and let downs? The old woman was incensed that there was no alternative to buying something poor people could afford.

            “So, what, this is made of powder?  $3.65!?!”

            “It’s the generic version of the medication.”

            “But I want the name brand. I’ll pay for it.”

            “They don’t make the name brand anymore.”

            “What are you telling me? It is checked right here for generic.”

            “Right, that’s what they usually do so we can fill the generic.”

            “I don’t want the generic. Can I get it someplace else?”

            “I don’t think so…I don’t think it’s produced anymore…the wholesaler can't get it.”

            He stared at the rack of .99 cent items and fought the urge to buy a scarf. There was no sense to it. A lady’s scarf…but some part of him wanted to be a consumer…on a level he could handle. He stared at the back of the old woman’s head. What medicine could be worth this much trouble?

            “So, I can’t get the brand…this is what you are telling me?”

            “Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. I’m sorry.”

            Her eyes were tired but lit at the corners with wry amusement. The old woman looked for her boy. He was dark-skinned with long hair and a private school uniform. They hugged and then he spun off into the aisles of multi-colored packaging.

            He looked at the boy and wondered if he knew how surreal it all was. The acid-trip aisles and the blatant wealth and the inhaler he was about to put on his swollen credit card. He thought how happy he would be to pay four dollars for a prescription. He knew he would always wonder. It had to be something good for someone to care that much.

Dead

A stale fog hung on the edges of evening. Joe slipped the pint out of his pocket and took a deep drink. It burned. He was not a drinking man. He did not consider standing because he was not sure he could. The building would hold him up until he was feeling better. Through the grime of tears, Joe stared numbly ahead, watching the parade of commuter thighs.

            It still lived in him too strongly. It was too bright and too strong for him. Drinking stopped it. He tried to remember the last time he had felt right – the last time that he had looked into his home. The blood and lingering smell of gunpowder had gagged him. He would never forget the smell. He was speechless. Then it was pure shock. And that was the last time he had been home.

            It had been weeks. Months? Shit, he had no idea. He could still hear the police…someone to call?  Someplace he could go? But there was no place. There was no one to turn to, no place to go, just the streets. On the streets, he could almost convince himself that he was on his way home, ready to see what Jen and the kids had made for dinner.

            He wasn’t even angry. That amazed him. There was nothing to be angry at. A force. A disaster. Like being angry at an earthquake. The anger had left quickly, replaced by a deep hole that he could not fill with anything resembling decency. His faith, the little he had possessed, was now gone entirely.

            For days he had read the paper, read about the murders, and he had not been able to understand that they were talking about his family. He knew it – knew it in the way that you know you have offended someone – it was a glancing acceptance. But a larger part of him did not believe it was true.

            An image sliced through his brain and he winced, reached for the bottle. He would always see it. The small, innocent faces he had cupped in his hands. The woman he loved.

            Don’t think. Just don’t think about it. Don’t ask the questions. Don’t start the goddamn questions. Why? Why not just rob the house? Why this? Stop it. The police. They were looking. Sure, they were. He could still hear the young cop ask, “sir, is there anything missing?” He could feel the gape-mouthed incomprehension on his face. Then the older cop pulling the younger one aside. Anything missing? Don’t fucking think about it.

            He took another drink and tipped the bottle high. He was forgetting. He was becoming wooden. His mind was skittering slowly over something, like a scratched record, pebbles in a stream. A whisp of dream. He was no longer there. With the liquor in him, he was there – death – the real home he had chosen. The body could give up any time it wanted. As long as there were buildings to hold him and liquor to drink, he would just be dead. And if he kept being dead long enough, the questions would stop.

Eyes

She looked into the mirror and hated her hair in fifteen distinct ways. She felt the past behind her like a dragon’s tail. She looked into her eyes…green. She tried to see herself. She couldn’t.

So many years ago. It all seemed like a vague memory. It wasn’t a dream. It was déjà vu of a dream. It was looking into a mirror for ever and ever.

The sound of the door shocked her. Then she knew. Time had been moving quickly again. He was home. She should have known that he would come home. Any minute. Goddamn, what time was it?

There are things that no one wants to remember. Then there are the individual things…things the rest of the world ignores…the personal indignities that scorch and burn. Knife cuts. Abandon.

He was making his usual noises. Goddamn, he was so fucking noisy. He made animal grunts as he heaved himself around the house, breaking the calm. He would want to know things. She would hear questions behind the screeching in her ears. Concentrate.

Look into the eyes. Just the eyes. The eyes are everything and they hold the answer. Don’t break the stare. She heard him calling her name. She ignored it…just stare. 

When she was a little girl, she had wanted  to do everything. She often did nothing because everything was too big.  He didn’t know about any of THAT shit.  He didn’t know as much as he thought he knew.

A tear kissed the eyelash. Don’t let the tear drop. Keep the eye contact. Don’t answer. Don’t hear. She had been in love with a guitar player when she was in college. He was not a good musician, but he thought he was, and she had loved him for it. That was long ago, but it was all jumbled really. That was the problem.  She had been shaken.

Eyes. Always the eyes. They were sometimes unkind, but they spoke in truths. There was no avoiding their honesty. They had no stake in the game.

He was in the kitchen. Probably making a drink. She tried to remember how to greet someone. The right way to smile. The words she would be expected to say. She couldn’t. She accepted that it would be awkward. It always was. She always knew it would be and that was that.

He stood when she walked into the room. He was sweating. Tired. He looked tired and broken. Like something that needed taping. She fell into the hug and let go. Closed her eyes.

1:59

I am sitting in a dark room. There is no light, just the glow from the laptop screen. My eyes shudder and try to close, and I force them open with terrible memories of the past. This is not normal human behavior. I force myself to watch friends die in my mind. I wonder at the last clutch of breath, and I can't fucking stop it. Sleep is a narcotized darkness. But it will come. And then morning. And then I will prick my brain again to make it bleed onto this little white box so there are words where before there was only potential.

Upon Impact

Leaning on the cold shoulder. Car idling. Heart racing. The ground is hard. Pebbles, each one distinct. All meaningless upon impact. The impact pulverizes the body, turning the inside into a kind of soupy mess. Bones snap like twigs. The car still idles and will do so until it runs out of gas. It will be auctioned and purchased by a family happy that there are no blood stains. It was a good car. Life was not so good. But the impact solved that.

Blurry

John lay on his side on the edge of the bed and watched the texture of the wall go blurry.  Outside, the sun was shining and birds were probably chirping and all that shit.  But inside of his room, John was a monument to darkness.  The room was dark.  His mind was dark.  The skin under his eyes was dark.

            

The walls weren’t doing much except giving John something to stare at.  And there wasn’t much else in the apartment.  A few milk crates to serve as tables, chairs, stools, etc.  John had only been living in the apartment a few days.  It was a mistake.  He knew that.  It was all a mistake. 

            

John’s brain was about the size of a nerf football with the ends chewed off.  It was a lump of magic that he did not understand.  He had never given it much thought.  But now it was all he could think about.  This is because John was lost in the Guantanamo Bay of the mind.  His thoughts were water-board nightmares.  He did not know how to make it stop.  He did not have the energy to make it stop.  It wouldn’t stop.

            

John’s brain was asking questions.  It had doubts.  It wanted answers that John did not have.  He did not know why he could not remember important things.  He did not know why he had sabotaged his life.  He wasn’t even sure if he was the one who had done it.  So, he spent hours lying on his bed, turning the wall blurry, and wondering.

The Ice Cream Man

The ice cream man is your life. You are forever late and chasing the dangling bells. It's hot, and an ice cream would have tasted all right. But they don't stop. Weird fucking business. Park outside. Let me scramble to find the loose change in the pants that cover my floor like roadkill. Give me a minute, brother. I'll be there. I'll take the rocket pop. But you don't ever wait. It's a 'right place at the right time' kind of gig, and I never am. In the right place. At the right time.

I might make it in time to see all the smug motherfuckers eating their ice cream. I smell exhaust and sour milk. What kind of business strategy is this anyway? It's like a drug dealer that runs full speed through the neighborhood calling out 'buds! thizz! shrooms!'. Ain't no way your customer base is gonna chase you down, brother. I don't see any flocks of kids chasing your little wagon. Why don't you chill the fuck out for a second and let me think! Shits always gotta be all rush fucking rush all the time. That's not the way I want to enjoy my ice cream.

So, fuck it. I return to my oven apartment and let the cold water run for years until it is actually cold. I'm all propped up in front of my fan. Whatever. But listen Ice Cream Man; I'm a businessman, too. I got no beef with you, but you might want to reconsider your MO. I would've put that buck 35 right into your hand if you'd been patient. But I guess you're chasing something, too. I wonder what your ice cream is.