The jail cell was cold, at least the floor was, and that's where I slept. That asshole Statone was just standing there, waiting for me to wake up, watching me sleep like a fucking creep. I would have reached through the bars and taken that smug grin off of his face if I could have, but some mix of the alcohol remaining in my system, the hangover I was already feeling, and what I imagine was some significant blood loss prevented me from standing up.
And I'm out again. Everything turns black, and truly, I'm relieved. I've been arrested too many times to want to deal with that shit anymore.
I come back to in the hospital. I've got more lines hooked up to me than a fucking Japanese fishing boat. My wounds are covered, I've got blood coursing through my veins again (as opposed to pure booze), and the hydration IV is a miracle cure for a hangover. I speak from experience. Seeing as nobody's watching and I've been through worse, I disconnect the hoses and walk out. Sometimes I wonder if I truly am a dead man in the land of the living, nobody even notices I'm here. Maybe it's the other way around though.
When I get back to the shop there's someone banging on the back door. "Hold your fucking horses man!"
"Actually, It's chickens."
Oh yeah, it's the third Wednesday of the month, chicken delivery day. What a smart ass. I open the door and he's standing there with his clip board.
"I got 3 dozen chickens for Dave Gor-lome-e."
"It's Gorlomi, and I only ordered 10."
"Well I've got three dozen here for you, you can take it or leave, but it's not my job to barter."
All of a sudden there's an uproar from the chickens and by the time we turn to look, the guys already down the alleyway with a dozen chickens in suit.
"How about you just give me 10 fucking chickens."
I got 10 chickens.
I wonder what happened to my car. I guess I'll check the garage for it. Stop by the DnD, too; I am WAY too sober for this shit.
It didn't take long to find my car, there were skid marks going around some chick with a trumpet on the floor leading me right to it. I ask her if she saw how it got there.
"Where is here?"
Fucking drug addicts, I may drink, but I haven't gone bat-shit crazy yet.
The car is unscathed, at least not more than it used to be. It's my baby. A 1969 Lincoln Continental with suicide doors and a sort of green-rust coloration. I had my first kiss in this car. It was a long time ago, but I think it actually happened, but you never know about the past in a place like this.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Gabriela had gone almost a week without any troubling visions. She made a loose routine of sleeping in the abandoned warehouse in a nook on the first floor, well away from the stairs. She was making enough money playing jazz on Mercy street to eat three meals a day and had even bought a couple of old blankets to sleep on. The weather was starting to warm up. She got up around sunrise and bought a cup of coffee from Mr. Yilmaz. She could almost hear him thinking she was too young to be drinking it. I think I did hear him say that, she thought, but his mouth was closed. You can't hear a thought though. That's—crazy. She shook her head and kept walking.
ReplyDeleteAs she neared her favorite spot on the corner when she heard clucking. She turned around. A chicken was following her. Gabriela kept walking. She stopped. It stopped. She moved. It followed. The next time she turned around, there were three. As she reached her corner, a fourth came down the street and fell in line. I don't know much about chickens, Gabriela thought, but this can't be normal. She decided to ignore them.
As Gabriela played, two more came out of an alley and one came down from a roof. Seven large chickens were sitting at her feet and listening. The butcher, limping and bleary-eyed, peered out of his shop window and stared. Gabriela saw a lurching movement in the corner of her eye and spun, still playing, to face Dave the butcher who had come out of his shop with a cleaver. He grabbed a chicken. Gabriela stopped.
“Wha-?” she said. He slammed the bird against the side of a building, hacked off its head, and grabbed another. “No!” She pulled the horn to her lips and blew a high, sweet, fiery blast that rattled the window of Jory Rae's and scared the pigeons in the trees. A piece of a cracked window on an upper story slid out of its frame and shattered on Dave's head. He fell, and Gabriela could see blood coming from the gash. She ran away.