Hollywood Nights
Part Seven
Sleep didn’t last long, I woke screaming, reaching out for history that didn’t exist. Something absolutely horrible had happened, something involving a cat, you were there, so was my mother. I lunged up and away from the couch, absolutely sure I would be covered in blood. I was suddenly certain that you drained again, the rest of the way, a horrifically delayed death.
I wasn’t coated in blood and gore though, you weren’t dead. I reach over and I could feel shallow breathes when I put my hand up to your nose. You weren’t just asleep though. The word catatonic came to mind. Howie was nearly as impossible to get a reaction out of or move. I had to step over him to get out of the t.v. room.
I got your card out of your purse and made arrangements for a new bed and disposal of the old one. That all seemed easy by comparison to walking into our room and seeing it all, in the cold light of day as they say. Our bed wasn’t in a mostly dark room anymore, only visible where the light from the bathroom hit it. Our bedroom curtains were sheer and even with the blinds closed plenty of light bled through. You used to love all that morning light; sunrises were your favorite thing to watch before you fell asleep.
There was no maid service for what had happened on our bed. No people to call. Not that I knew about back then anyway. I took off my shirt and put on some kitchen gloves and started pushing and pulling at the gory mess. Three big trash bags got to the bare mattress that had clear outlines of your ass and legs where the blood flowed and pooled around your body. All I could think to do at the time was folding the mattress up as best I could and tying it closed with twine. By the time I got a shower and moved the trash out to the bins Howie was awake and offering to help me move the mattress into the garage.
“There was a lot of blood huh?”
I could still smell the stuff. The shower couldn’t wash the stink out of my nose. “Too much.”
Howie nodded, “Well she’s still alive, we really ripped it up last night.”
I wondered if that wasn’t my turn to get angry for once. Was it my turn to get in someone’s face? Would that have saved Howie? I don’t think so. I think what happened would have happened either way. I wanted to drop the mattress and point at the thing in the t.v. room. You call that alive! I wanted to remind him of how pale you were, how cool to the touch, your waxy skin and how light you were. You couldn’t have weighed more than your skeleton and skin, what is that, 30 pounds, 50 tops. I wanted to explain to him how wrong you felt. How suddenly sad and guilty I felt about spending the pre-dawn hours fucking the thing in the t.v. room wearing your pretty face.
Instead of speaking my mind I grunted in disgust and motioned at the mattress we were carrying. “Not like it matters. She won’t go to a hospital either way.”
Howie and I waited around and showed the movers in with the new mattress and went out for dinner while you slept. We ate and I left a token dinner in the microwave for you that I assumed would wind up being eaten by Howie later that night. You simply refused to respond to us until the sun was a pale orange hue in the sky and even then, you barely acknowledged us. You came out of the t.v. room, hugged me while I tried to resist the urge to pull away, looked over at Howie and smiled and asked him to call his contact to meet up asap. That was that, our night planned out. You asked me to mix you a drink and took a shower in our still filthy, blood smeared restroom.
Howie was busy making those sorts of, Hey, how are you calls everyone who has ever been fixed on a substance knows all to well, you were busy showering and I was busy, wondering how long our old family fortunes would hold out under the weight of our increasing habit. I also had to wonder how long I would last under the pressure of the insane new reality I found myself living in.
You came out of our room, a room I now avoided at all cost and motioned at the hallway behind you. “After careful review of my finances, I think its high time we hired someone to come in and clean up after our routine disfunctions.”
Howie was busy furrowing his brow at our coffee table and the shelves we installed in the dining room for all our booze and mixers. I was transfixed on you, wearing the blue sun dress and white flats I first met you in. I don’t know if it was intentional or not but the new, well, you, in that outfit felt like a fresh insult, an outrage.
Worse, you didn’t come to me, or at me, you passed me by and headed for the front door, only stopping long enough to look at Howie and motioning for the door when he didn’t immediately go to follow you. “Well, I assume we have some people to meet, yes?”
Howie nodded and I started toward the door as well but you only smiled sweetly at me and planted one of those waxy hands on my chest. “You did your part babe, thanks for cleaning up our bed. Toss on a record and we’ll be back before its over. I promise.”
There was no room left for questions in your statement. There was never any room left in anything you said after the night before then. I was in the passenger seat and you were there to remind me. When I didn’t immediately ease up you leaned in and pressed a handful of twenties into my hand and whispered, “You did your part. Go get us all some steaks, rare. Oysters too for you. You’ll need the energy. No more of that Mexican crap, not for us anymore.”
I spend nearly an hour just wrestling with the idea of rare steaks and oysters. Where the hell was I supposed to get that kind of stuff? It was 1985, there was no phone app to order out any fucking, gourmet delicacies. Restaurants didn’t do simple carry out orders for stuff like that. You were making five-star room service demands on our shitty, three-star budget. I began to panic because I remembered how strong you were, how I was so suddenly afraid of you. You wanted rare steaks and oysters, I wound up spending two hours just finding a place that would do a take order for that and by the time I got it all home it was cold and rubbery.
I stuck the high-end mess in the oven and hoped you would have some idea of how to reheat it all and I sat there with a drink in my hand until one drink turned into three. You and Howie didn’t come back until near eleven at night and there was no time for anyone to admire all the work I put into our cold, dry, rubbery five-star feast anymore.