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Honesty

The most honest feeling in the world is hot sunlight burning away the night before and illuminating a hangover. At that moment, you are feeling nothing else; there are no thoughts lingering in the back of your mind, no distractions from the edge of your senses, and no predictions whatsoever for the future. At that moment you have no mind, no senses, and no future. You sit in that harsh sunlight for a moment, part of you hoping that it will burn you out of existence.

That’s what I was doing on the steps of Vanessa’s apartment building. Half of my face was molded into the cement step while the other half was letting the sun do its work. Neither was helping, so I pushed myself up and moved into the shade, which was a painful move and far too ambitious for my condition. A half-smoked cigarette sat by my left foot; I knew it was mine because I could still taste it in my mouth.

I went to breakfast.

The diner’s vinyl booth wasn’t much of an upgrade from the cement stoop, but I didn’t care. I scanned the table for an ashtray and remembered that I hadn’t seen an ashtray in a restaurant for years, not even in a shithole like this. Some forward-thinking law or other had gotten them all removed.

“If you call that progress,” I muttered to no one.

“What’s that?” A scrawny waitress, too old to be cute anymore but still just too young to be called old, had sidled up next to the booth.

“I was bemoaning the decline of civilized society in the name of progress.” She gave the blank stare I deserved and I continued, “And I was saying that I’d love two eggs over easy and some wheat toast, no butter.”

“Coffee?”

“Yeah, black as hell. And water.”

She went away and came back with my drinks. “Any chance this coffee’s any good?”

She snorted. “Always tastes like shit when I drink it. I drink it anyway.”

“Yeah,” I said, “me too. Doesn’t matter. I’m here for the ambience.” She didn’t bother with a stare this time, she just walked away.

It was true, though, about the ambience. Who wanted to be hungover in a nice restaurant? A diner was perfect: it was unadorned, ugly, and never changing. You could criss-cross the country and eat at the same place everywhere you went, as long as you found a diner. A diner was honest.

Honest. There was that word again. Why did I keep thinking things were honest? Did somebody lie to me? Did Vanessa lie to me? That wasn’t it; I wouldn’t care if Vanessa lied to me. I probably lied to her. Damn, that was it.

I went over to her place and woke her up at about three the night before. I was drunk and angry about having been kicked out of a bar, and I went over to her place… well, I didn’t remember why. Maybe it was for something sordid and deviant. Maybe her place was more comfortable. Maybe it was something else.

Right when I came in I should have turned right around. It was trap, and sitting in the booth drinking bad coffee I could see that clearly. She said I woke her up but she was dressed and the TV was on. She was waiting for me. Yep, I should have turned right around.

“You can’t just barge in whenever you want,” she said. She had straight dark brown hair that was flat against her head and shoulders. It barely moved even as she shook her head at me, stumbling in. “What the hell, David?” The long, pale features of her face were turned to me angrily.

“I know it’s late, darling, but this is the only place I want to be,” is what I wanted to say, and very probably what I should have said. What came out was, “I dunno… tough.” I sat down on the couch via the coffee table.

The anger had all but disappeared and was replaced with a kind of curiosity. She was trying to see through me, somehow. “What is it with you?”

Now, I don’t recall the entire diatribe word-for-word, but I know it was something like, “We’ve gone to dinner twice, I’ve been to your place a few times, you spent the night here most of last week. But you don’t call me- ever- and we don’t talk. You just sit across the table or the sofa or the bed and don’t say anything. It was mysterious at first, but now… I don’t get it! What is it you want?”

I know it went like that because it was true. We didn’t talk and I had never really tried. We chatted sometimes, of course, about the food or the movie or whatever was in the area, but it was nothing substantial. I didn’t know what I was doing with Vanessa. I just liked being there, and every molecule in my body was aligning itself, like iron filings under a magnet, against the idea of telling her that.

And that’s when l lied to her: “It was… I just… a booty call. All I wanted,” I mumbled. I don’t think I could pinpoint anger or shock or grief in her expression, but they were all there. The look was enough to get me out of the apartment. Apparently I had only made it as far as the steps.

* * *


I think this is the second post I've made that starts off with a hangover. I don't know why, but whenever I sit down to write something just by stream-of-consciousness a hangover always seems like such a great place to start. What do you think?

Comments

Deborah said…
Nice. I felt as if I was reading Hemingway. Keep going with this...build all the way around it.
Trisha said…
The realism in this short work tells me you are no stranger to the brain tissue shredding, ears ringing, eyes watering consequences of a night spent imbibing. And I'm with Deb...expand.

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