Without Condition (1)
Branson Storm

 

It was just past three in the morning and the ringing phone grew louder as I climbed out of a drunken sleep and reached over her soft, warm body. My room was dark, save for a shallow glow cast in by the moonlight off the bay. It was much too early to be awake after so much wine. My head ached and pounded. My mouth dry, layered thick with warm cotton or sand. A strong, viciously controlling hangover. Normally I’m fortunate enough to sleep through this stage of it, but not tonight. It’s the irresistible taste of a bone-dry cabernet that does it to me, one of the few things in life I still love, maybe too much. One glass with a pretty girl and the blood will flow and flow until there is no more or the sex begins or I pass out. I refer to it as “blood” because it is my blood. It’s more my blood than my blood is my blood and I don’t see this as any particular problem. Lucky for me this is America and I can do as I please and was pleased to be doing it without any regard for the consequences. Single malt scotch, too, though it makes me a bit aggressive, we’ve always had a strong attraction to one other, whiskey and me. I was exhausted and dirty from all the sex, even my room smelled like sex; stale, hard, finished sex. The air was stagnate and warm due to my fan burning out a few days prior. I was just getting used to sleeping without it. Uncomfortable and nauseous, my skin burned from deep inside. Too much wine and already, in this sudden moment of uninvited sobriety, the self despise was swelling to life inside me.

“Hello.” My voice was coarse and dry. It reminded me of the cigarettes and how I smoke sometimes when I drink, but can’t stand it when I’m sober. Smokes can be a very effective drinking regulator, but seem to worsen my headache tenfold. Though completely aware of the consequences, I never hesitate. There’s no denying myself the opportunity for more numbness. I already knew who was calling. No one else would dare call me at this hour. “Fuck off” and hang-up, that’s why. She always called late and at first it angered me and I didn’t want to speak to her, but she was lovely and I knew soon her voice would make me want her, no matter what. Another painfully euphoric addiction of which I could not deprive myself.

“Joseph?” She asked concerned as if I were sick. It was her and it angered me more because she called me Joseph. Between us it was formal and meant that our conversation should be serious. I was in no condition for this. I should have never answered, but something about Lauren, maybe everything about her, made me want to hear her demented heart calling out for me. A hyper-drug of another breed, more addicting and destructive than all the others.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. How have you been?” She asked, giving me a chance to wake before she started.

“Fine.” I said. “I’ve been fine. You?” She answered but I didn’t listen. I wasn’t fine. Nothing was fine and I knew it.

I laid back down, propping my head against a pillow. The girl lying next to me, whose name I couldn’t remember, wrestled in her sleep then snuggled under my arm and laid her head on my chest. We had met earlier at the beach and she was exceptionally beautiful, but her name was not, otherwise I might have remembered it. Maybe a color of some type or a jewel of some fashion, Amber or Jade or Diamond or Violet, I have no fucking idea. As soon as she told me her name I could only think of how it could possibly be that something so beautiful was named after something so aloof as a color or a rock. I imagined myself kicking her father in the balls and face-pushing her mother to the ground, scolding their collective shallowness. It made me smile just after she had said something cute. Perfect timing.

“Where were you tonight? I called earlier but there was no answer.” Lauren spoke to me out of concern, but for whom I wasn’t sure. I sensed that her intentions were tainted, that she was after something other than my well-being. She was a thousand miles away and I could still feel her digging, hoping to catch me doing something to her disapproval, giving her more reason for not having me in her life anymore. Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was just being the quietly amazing girl that I had fallen in love with so long ago.

“I was in up near Lake Conroe doing some research so I can finish this fucking article.” It was all a lie, but I’ve lied to her before, even more so lately and I felt no guilt for it. My day was actually spent the same as all the others, wading in the salty waters of Bastrop Bay drinking beer and smoking dope, pulling in bull reds as the sun crept up over the Gulf of Mexico. For some time now Lauren was under the false impression that I had taken a position with Texas Fisherman and was writing under the pen name of Sam Shaw Buckley. It was all bullshit. I’d had a collection of essays and short stories published about a year ago called Shredded Thoughts of an Animal. As a result I received a rather large advance (at least to me) from an upcoming publishing house in New York to complete my first novel. It’s about a heroin addict who becomes so lost in reality that his life consist of nothing more than waking from the fog of his addiction and drudging about in search of anything that affords him escape from what he has become. Eventually he begins to believe that he is a direct descendant of Erwin Rommel, the Third Reich’s own “Desert Fox”. After fathering a family during the war in Vietnam, he abandons his Vietnamese wife and their three children without notice, striking-out for Germany in search of a male descendant of Adolph Hitler who, he so desperately hopes, will order him to kill himself, justifying the end of his agony. The guy’s just whacked-out. I despise the sick bastard and can’t stand to write about him anymore. I’ve created a monster and now I want to kill it, but they won’t let me. They read the first one hundred pages or so, and with some evil coercing from my agent in Dallas, they decided to take the chance. He’s a snake in the grass, my agent. The meanest, backstabbing Jew you’ll ever find and a smile worth every penny you’ve got. My deadline for the first draft was over three months ago and yet I had written no more than what they had already read. I was still living off the little that remained of my advance, and the fairly modest monthly royalty checks from Shredded Thoughts were just enough to keep me in quality booze and drugs without allowing me to appear to be the strung-out junkie that I really was. It was a matter of pacing myself with the timely influx of money and it was working perfectly. I just ignore their calls and reject the certified letters, occasionally dropping a note by mail that things are coming along fine and a “bit” more time will be needed to adjust for some last minute changes. I feel a law suite coming on but not much else.

I slipped my fingers into the soft, shimmering auburn colored hair that lay across my chest. It reeked of cigarettes and fine perfume, a blend of fresh peaches and blooming honeysuckle beneath a finely spun web of smoke. The brilliance reflecting off the hues of cinnamon and scarlet were engaging and the touch was soft and cool and she excited me. I moved my hand down the small of her back and rubbed the warm firmness between her inner thighs. She was a beach junkie from what I could tell. Her tan body was smooth and tight, painted with narrow tan lines from her white g-string swim suite, which seemed to fictitiously enhance her already perfect figure. She was absolutely gorgeous. Exactly how I got her here, I’m not sure. The details dissolve away in a twisted haze of pot and Valium and beer. My only definitive memory of the day was seeing a rather large alligator, nine feet or so, leap to the water’s edge and devour a Whooping Crane in less than a second. Just in front of me the water crashed, shattered by the lashing strength of a brilliant, scaled survivor of eternity. The Crane vanished and the great dragon disappeared again beneath the muddy surface. Within seconds the water was calm and quiet, as if it never happened. It was both amazing and beautiful and being that I was standing in the same muddy water some fifteen feet away, it scared the shit out of me too. Had I been less experienced in the pleasures of getting high, I might have let it pass as a possible illusion, but those days are far gone and it was real and awesome and in my own sick way I felt damn lucky to have seen it happen.

“I miss you, Joseph.” Lauren said. “It’s been hard being away from you like this.” I could hear her voice breaking. She wanted to cry. I wished she wouldn’t, but said nothing. “Why is this so difficult? Why can’t we just let it go? Why Joseph?” This was just too much for me at this point and I wanted to be sleeping again, but it was Lauren, my Lauren, and I couldn’t stand the thought of tears in her eyes and she knew it.

Lauren asked questions for which I had no answers. She knew I didn’t have the answers. She just wanted me to know her questions and wondered if mine were the same. Mine were the same, I just never asked them. Not to her. Not to anyone. After all it was her decision to separate before she left for Italy to spend several months sharpening her already brilliant painting skills. I fought her hard on this but she was determined to go away without leaving any ties behind. Ten years being side by side cut loose and left to drift in the past in case something better lay in waiting overseas. Though it could have been payback for my deserting her in Chicago after we had both worked so hard to build a life there together. “I get no inspiration here.” I remember telling her. At least that was my excuse. I believed it anyway, and eventually she did too. Really it was nothing more than my being homesick, away from the warmth of the coastal waters and my insurgent love for fishing the saltwater bays cut just inland off the Texas coast. “Everything’s frozen here!” I screamed. “I’m frozen here!” It all happened so fast. It wasn’t until after I’d been gone for several months that she gathered I had chosen home over her. I had to. It wasn’t just the water, it was everything that home had always meant to me. The weather. The space. The pace and the people and the black brush of south Texas. People are few there and most are good and honest and humble. I’ve hunted there since I was a child. It’s all there for me; White-tail Deer, Bob White quail, Blue Quail, White-Winged and Mourning Dove, hogs, campfires, unobstructed sunrises and sunsets, absolute silence, stunning solitude, I could never imagine living without knowing there will be more of those times in my life. It is there, in the midst of all that is natural and real that I see God. Hidden away amidst the mesquite and pear flats and caliche pits, I feel the presence of something greater and more humble than myself, surrounding me, loving me fully and without condition. As a result of my time in the bays and brush, I’ve eaten wild game only since I was about sixteen. In Chicago I was called a murderer on several occasions by some of Lauren’s concrete-footed, fake, air-kissing friends, but they always seemed short of recourse when I’d comment on how lovely their leather shoes were or how beautiful their calfskin purses might have been. “That’s calf, you know?” I’d say with a smile. “The small ones that look so cute when they’re stumbling around the herd stirring-up trouble. Don’t worry though, I’m certain there’s lots of important shit stashed away in that little fold of soft, baby skin.” Krisie, Lauren’s friend from home, came to me one night at her own opening at the Art Institute of Chicago and rather nonchalantly called me a “killer” in front of several of the other turtlenecks. This kind of disturbed me, “Krisie, I must commend you, it takes a lot of balls to drive through McDonalds and you should be very proud.” I said. “What?” She snapped. “You’re blushing.” I said as her face boiled red. “You might want to rub some more seal fat on those chubby cheeks, or are you anemic?” I killed my beer and, upon exiting, dropped my plastic cup under one of her oil paintings to let her know that it resembled nothing more than an overflowing garbage can. Lauren, who stood next to me during this little exchange but kept silent, stayed while I strolled down Michigan Avenue smoking a joint then hopped a train back to Wrigleyville. When she got home we laughed about it and then she laughed some more. I loved her so much for being righteous that night. She was never one of them, but they needed her there to be able to say they worked with the best. Fuck them and their bleeding hearts. There are few things more appalling to me than an outspoken socialist-wannabe who dares not live beyond the soil of America. It’s the weak-minded tenants of the present who force upon the world the repetition of historical bloodshed by not tending to the dying calls from the past, thus denying their own generation and generations beyond, the God given, humanly sacrificed freedoms they so arrogantly dispose of in the name of fairness to everyone. All this without a thought to the difficulty of regaining that freedom once gone. Half of my descendants are Choctaw Indians, the original Americans who lost all that they had become. As a child I remember the glowing look of fear in my great-grandmother’s hard leather face as she tried to be a part of the white man’s world. That look still haunts me today and I can only trust that she was able to smile as a child. I still try to live by the philosophy that I once summarized in the short poem that follows:

Listen to All the Stillness, You Dripping Pig’s Ass
Do your thing.
I’ll do mine.
Shut your narrow-minded ignorant foul smelling third world cesspool of a rat hole and
Leave me be.

It truly did hurt me to leave Lauren. I’ll never forget the salty taste of her tears as we kissed goodbye. I hoped that she would come with me, but she couldn’t. Her life was in Chicago and she was flourishing there, but I was only happy there when I was with her. These times were just too infrequent and when we weren’t together I was no different than the leafless maples that the lined the corner of Racine and Addison - cold, still and unseen.

“Have you been seeing anyone?” For this question she did expect an answer. Fuck you for asking. Knowing she was anxious I waited to offer my response. Her audacity angered me and it was none of her business anymore. She’d have to wait. That was part of the game and it was punishment for prying into my life after throwing me away without a thought. “Joseph, have you?” Why are you doing this to me? I love you so much. Fuck you crazy person.

“No.” I lied again. It was easy now and I was getting better at it. We sat there for a moment in silence and I wondered if Lauren sensed a different tone in my voice or if she somehow knew I wasn’t alone or that I was trying to hide something from her. Maybe my voice did sound strange. Maybe I just thought it did. Either way the silence was making me paranoid. Her possible suspicion and my unwanted sobriety made me self-conscience. This whole situation tore through me and made me hate myself. It seemed I’d lost all of the simplicity in my life and that my problems were rapidly growing larger than my ability to solve them. Closing my eyes, my head throbbed and spun. My stomach swam with hollow nausea and I held back a strong urge to vomit. Maybe I was just feeling guilty. But guilty of what? I had done nothing wrong from the beginning. If she loved me she’d know that was true. Giving love, true love, is granting unconditional freedom and then living in a complete state of trust. If she had understood this I wouldn’t have had to wade through all the conciliatory bullshit.

“Do you miss me, Joseph?” She asked. “Do you ever think about me anymore, Joe-Joe?” She was strategic with her questions. They were always loaded in one way or another. Either I could answer to her liking and she would be happy or satisfied or whatever she felt when I showed her no opposition, or I could play hard and lie to her and say that I didn’t miss her anymore and that I went days without the thought of her. Then she would curse me and my name and my pathetic life of drunken emptiness and the line would go dead. This was no time to argue and I tried to speak as little as possible, but she called me Joe-Joe like she used to when we were together and happy.

“Of course.” I said quietly, trying to answer without making the girl next to me suspicious. Not that it really mattered, I didn’t even know her name nor did I really care for her being there anymore. I was done with her, but I knew that if she spoke or coughed or even made a noise that I would never speak to Lauren again. Ever. But she seemed to be sleeping and she looked peaceful and sexy and her hair still glimmered between my fingers. I hoped that she didn’t care what I said or to whom I was speaking. It was really none of her concern. But I was unsure of anything that I might have said to her earlier in the night; any drunken promises I might have made. I could have told her anything. That’s how I get them here. Say anything. Do anything. Be anyone. Whatever works. Find a way to unleash that first smile and the path is clear. You have to work them hard, especially the really fine ones like her. It’s imperative that you make them feel good about giving themselves to you, even if you don’t mean a word of it. I never did, but I had become an expert at it and it felt nice to be successful at something again. That good guy shit had gotten me nowhere but Pop’s Cabaret down by the overpass, spending money as though it would last forever. What a waste. At that rate my advance would have been devoured in a month or two and the wine and whiskey would stop flowing and I’d have to go back to work. Even more frightening I’d first have to dry out. There’s always a better way.

“You do what, Joe?” Lauren asked, forcing it out of me.

“Miss you.” I said softly. The auburn haired girl didn’t move and Lauren seemed to accept my weak response without suspicion. I wanted to hang-up now and sleep and forget about my life for a while. “I’ve got to sleep now. I have a deadline to meet tomorrow and I’m exhausted.”

“Okay, Joe-Joe. I’ll let you rest.” Her tone was sorrowful and shamefully lovely. It made me want to hold her and make love to her again and when we finished, entwined together on top of the sheets, she’d whisper in my ear, “I love you, Joe-Joe. I’ll always love you.” and I’d say, “I’ll always love you too, Lauren, you’re everything to me.” and we would stay that way through the night until daylight or work or until something of this unfair world forced us to break away from one another, leaving me with that horribly empty feeling of loss until we were able to be together again.

“Goodnight. Be careful.” I said trying not to say ‘I love you’.

“You too, Joe-Joe. Goodnight, sweetie.”

The line went dead and I gently reached over the auburn haired girl and hung-up. Laying back down she looked up at me. I could tell from the fresh look in her eyes that she had been awake the entire time. “Someone important, Joe?” She asked, smiling a syrupy, chalk-white smile. Her face, cut so sharply, was a living sculpture of perfection. Just the sight of her overwhelmed me with sexual desire. Crimson colored lips, plump and portly. My god, then her name, her parents. What the fuck were these simpletons thinking? It was something similar to a stage name for a topless dancer or a funny nickname from childhood, but she wasn’t joking nor did it seem to bother her. Understandably so, beauty in such great proportions overshadows any name, even Cranston. Cranston! I have friends who named their second daughter Cranston. I don’t even know what that means and I refuse to speak the name/word aloud for it brings to mind the look and smell of heavily soiled carpet padding. Though I dare to categorize this murky stew of vowels and consonants a name much less a meaningful word in any language. I heard that it might be the name of some town outside Pittsburgh but I can’t bring myself to do the research. Should I see this condemned, jagged string of letters on a map I fear I may rage uncontrollably and shit myself. Then I’d be forced to wander about unsure if I had ever met or seen anyone from Cranston, PA. A Cranstonite. A Cranstonian. Cranstoniods. The night after my friends bequeathed to their newborn the aforementioned “C-name/word” as a name I slept rather restlessly due to the trauma of maintaining my silence when I so desperately wanted them to take it back, to sleep on it, to try again. The name/word seared itself into my mind and I dreamt that there was a thirteenth apostle named Cranston. Jesus asked him to go out and bring back to him the Son of God. Cranston took off with great fervor but never came back and they all chuckled and joked about it at the last supper. Cranston? That poor little girl better ripen in a ground swell of beauty or it’s going to be a long life. I just call her ‘gal’, just as I did with the auburn-haired girl.

“No… No one important, gal.” I lied. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t important what she knew and I was tired of thinking about it.

She brought her face to mine and we kissed. The cigarette smoke in her hair made me feel sick and I tried to lie still and not think about it. We kissed again and she laid her head back on my chest stroking my stomach with her thin hands and long, clear fingernails. She moved her hands beneath the sheets and rubbed her fingers through my pubic hair then massaged and stroked me with her hand. Soon I had forgotten about being sick and I felt no guilt about lying to Lauren or not writing at all or drinking too much. I wanted this beautiful stranger next to me and soon I was in her and we danced and swayed like thick, warm fluid. She was lovely and soft and perfect. Her movement was strong and commanding and her sweat felt good.

When we finished I stayed on top of her and she lightly rubbed my back as our breathing relaxed. We said nothing and I did not look at her. It was still warm in my room but I was cold and wet with sweat and began to get dizzy again. Closing my eyes it only worsened. Quickly pulling out of her, she gasped and smiled as though unexpectedly being splashed with cold water. I moved to the edge of the bed and sat up trying to fight off the twirling room. Slowly standing I made my way down the hall toward the bathroom. I could feel her eyes on me as I stumbled away, nauseous and cooked from the sun and drugs and booze.

“You alright, Joe?” She asked genuinely concerned. “You gonna be okay? Can I do anything for you, sweetheart?”

“Yeah, leave.” I snapped. “Shut up and get the fuck outta here.”

I shut the bathroom door behind me and locked it. Falling to my knees, cold sweat beaded on my back and I vomited in the darkness. The sour smell stung deep in my sinuses as I spat into the commode trying to catch my breath. I was lucky not to see it as I flushed it away and lay down on the cold tile floor embracing a dubious sense of relief, unsure if I would vomit again. Hoping once was enough, I prayed for the same. It seemed to be the only time I found myself asking anyone for help.

Grabbing a towel off the floor I covered myself. It was still damp from my shower earlier but it was soft and heavy and felt like the arms of my mother. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, to forget, to go numb, to die. Nothing was good. Nothing was right. Nothing was easy anymore. I thought of Lauren and how far away she was, and the strange, beautiful beach junkie with her shining auburn hair and if she still lay in my bed. I thought of being with Suzanne tomorrow and wondered how I would ever have the time to recover and appear normal for her. It was all too confusing, this unwanted storm of reality forcing itself into my life. What about love and respect and self-control? What about none of them and existing without them forever? Suddenly I vomited again though this time it was more painful and empty much like the day had been. I laid back on the cold floor exhausted and spent and soon fell into the sleep that had been evading me for too long.

* * *

    Suzanne and I had a quiet dinner at Louie’s Backyard Grill on the edge of Galveston Bay. We ate fried alligator and lobster and drank wine as the sun fell behind the oceans edge. This was my favorite thing to do, watching the sunset. It was so Godly and beyond any of us and I was glad to be sharing it with her. The night sky was perfect, glimmering with sparkles of strange and different life and I was relaxed in the moment. The warm, salty breeze and this simple sweet girl made me smile.
    
Suzanne and I had only been out twice before and she still seemed very new to me. She had that freshness about her that made me believe there was more to her, deep inside somewhere that she just wasn’t ready to expose. No one was this grounded, I believed that and still do, but I was almost anxious to unfold the mystery behind her content. I knew it had to be there. Evil has the consistency of water, and somehow finds its way into the most unexpected places. Suzanne was what I considered to be normal. Normality being something I had never known before and I wanted to know her better because I found it interesting. Her shoulder length hair was sandy blonde with no distinctive style to it. It was natural and humbly innocent, yet as the wind blew her hair across her blue eyes she was sexy and small and exotic. Though she was not the type of girl that I had always been drawn to, I pursued her as though she was, just as I had done with Lauren. Suzanne was educated and articulate and when she spoke I thought of Hemingway. I told her this but she had no response, as if I had told her nothing new. I never mentioned it again.

 

 

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Copyright © 2001 Branson Storm
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"