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Giving Shit


She could not taste the gin, but she could feel the gin and the slow burn down to her belly every time she took a swallow.
She looked around the room and noticed her half-read Emily Bronte. She wanted to be like her.
Just like a man.
Maybe, if she were just like a man, maybe then she could forgive herself for wanting to do this. For allowing her heart to be part of this.
And then she threw out the thought completely. Stupid, men are always right; therefore, never in need of forgiveness...
“What is the matter with you?” Her mother asked her twice through dinner and Becki had been Emily Bronte then. Stone-faced, she had stone-walled her mother’s questions and asked others.
“Mother, are those new shoes?”

Edward Julian Watson had let the cold water run hard and fast earlier, so he could make juice, and now much later, he was trying to fix the kitchen faucet because it had never fully shut off after. The big drops of water hit the sink loudly,interrupting his reading now, but had not bothered him earlier in the evening because he had been out. sitting atop his copy of The International Jew.
"You better not be pissing on that, Orange!" He yelled into the next room. "I'm reading that!"
But Orange did not answer him. Did not even look his way.
And Edward Julian Watson did not know how to fix a faucet and even if he did, the hardware stores were closed now.
So he lined the sink with a roll and a half of paper towel and when he went back to his sofa, he could not hear the dripping any longer. He was proud of himself.
Edward Julian Watson went back to his reading.

It was a miracle she could still stand on her feet. Working all day long at the bookstore, and then walking all the way to mother's and then to her home. And with all this drinking...What was she thinking?
She was not thinking about being in Chicago; midnight the next night.
She was thinking: Maybe Mzzz. Johnson would like a drink.
So she grabbed her bottle and went downstairs to the porch.
And they laughed and they drank and she cried.
But she woke-up Friday feeling fine.

And Edward Julian Watson was feeling fine too. Styling and smiling in the hallway mirror, he snapped his fingers, before pointing at himself.
Edward Julian Watson was wearing a yellow and purple-striped golf shirt.
And he and Amy were having breakfast together.
And breakfast turned into lunch.



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Comments

Karri Bowman said…
you know, whenever you're writing about Edward Julian Watson, you have a very Stephen King sound about you...
Monday, 18 June 2007 at 13:41:00 GMT-4
Karri Bowman said…
you do. i was quite obsessed with him for a time and read everything up to "Tommyknockers" (ironically) not that it sounds like horror but it's something...i think it every time...i think it's the things you mention and the succinct way you mention them...and the strangeness of the characters...
Tuesday, 19 June 2007 at 12:26:00 GMT-4
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