The dancefloor was packed. I wasn’t quite drunk, but I wasn’t quite sober and I was making out with a girl that wasn’t quite pretty but wasn’t quite ugly. It was Saturday night at Beauty Bar. The girl led me off the floor and suggested that we find another place to go. I scanned the rest of the club, wondering what I would be missing if I changed locations; wondering if I could find a hotter woman than the one I was with. The girl whispered something unintelligible into my ear and then gave my neck a quick bite.
She’ll do.
Before I could leave, I had to make rounds. I went around the club and shook all the hands that needed shaking and hugged all the bodies that needed hugging. I made plans for Tuesday night with Lynette. I made plans for Thursday night with Teresa. I double-booked my Friday plans, using the word “tentative” with Dan, knowing that I’d cancel.
The girl and I decided on one more drink. We went to the bar, ordered our cocktails and finished them in silence. She put her arm on mine and tilted her head and smiled. She excused herself to the ladies’ room, promising to return shortly. I checked my phone for text messages and found nothing of interest. I decided that it was time to take some Levitra.
I walked into the men’s room and I was a different person. I was literally a different person. I was taller. I was older. My life history had changed. I had different goals. I had different needs. The restroom was not the men’s room at Beauty Bar. It was the bathroom at my apartment. I checked my pockets; keys, wallet, and cell phone. No drugs. The other person, the person that was me a few moments earlier, should have swallowed his penis pills before he opened the door. He wasted his money.
I checked my cell and saw that I had a text from Amanda. She was checking up on me. She did that a lot after my hospitalization. I replied and I thanked her for her concern, deflecting her kindness and shifting the focus to more trivial subjects. Intimacy is vulnerability. We texted back and forth a few more times and then I put my phone away. I glanced at myself in the mirror and I bowed my head and I rubbed my hand over my bald scalp. I brought my head back up and I looked into my eyes. I relaxed my muscles and I exhaled. I opened the medicine cabinet and I took out a small white envelope.
Twenty minutes later, I walked to my bed and I found a woman sitting there. “I figured that you’d show up in another one of my stories,” I said.
“It’s not my fault. You’re the one that puts me here,” she said.
“Fair enough,” I said.
“Does your blog get a lot of hits?” she asked.
“Eh. It gets a few.”
“What happened with the guy at Beauty Bar? Are you abandoning that story?”
“No. Not abandoning, just ending. That part of the piece is over. Those first few paragraphs were a set-up to bring us here. I wanted a shift.”
“You don’t care about your readers, do you?”
“Sometimes I do,” I said softly. I paused. “Not always,” I confessed.
Dawn said nothing.
“I shouldn’t have you as a character,” I said. “It isn’t good writing. It’s self-indulgent.”
“You say that, but here I am,” she replied. “How will your readers even know who I am?”
“I’ll tell them.”
Dawn was my ex-wife. And by my, I mean me; Richie Corelli, the person who wrote this blog. She and I were together for a number of years. We shared everything. She was my family. But the relationship soured and we split apart. Our divorce was amicable, but still hurtful. I addressed the pain with maladaptive behaviors and Intrusive Thoughts.
I sat next to Dawn, a couple feet away from her, and didn’t face her. My eyes traced the subtle pattern of the design on my curtains and then I looked at my floor. “You’re wearing the shoes that we bought on our wedding day,” I said.
“Yeah. They’re cute. I got these shoes and you got a hat. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah, I remember the hat.”
“You left it in the back of a cab after we left the courthouse in Vegas,” she said
“I remember. How could I forget? You went back to the store and bought me a replacement. It was really nice –you were always really nice to me.” I looked back to the curtains. “I remember your shoes too. But, strangely, I’m beginning to forget your face.”
It wasn’t entirely true. I remembered most of her facial features; the slant of her eyes, the curve of her nose, her long, auburn hair; but the details weren’t as clear as they were before. And I couldn’t remember her mouth. I couldn’t remember her lips. I kissed those lips thousands of times and now I couldn’t picture them.
“No worries. I look different now anyway,” Dawn said.
“It makes me sad.”
“That I look different?”
“That I can’t remember all the details of your face. It makes me sad.”
“Everything makes you sad,” she said.
“I know. You always had a hard time with my depression,” I said.
“Sorry. The suffering artist thing got on my nerves. It’s self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “You know that I have some chemical issues though, right? I’m not using that as an excuse or anything. I’m just saying. Serotonin and whatnot.”
She shrugged.
I nodded.
“So why am I here?” Dawn asked. “Why did you put me in your blog again? It doesn’t even make sense, in terms of story, to have me here.”
“I’m not sure. You’re a symbol, I guess.”
“Of?”
“Heartbreak? I don’t know.”
“That’s cliché.”
“I don’t care. It’s real,” I said. “A lot of my stuff comes from cliché. I’m okay with that if the cliché is real.”
“Your stuff is depressing,” Dawn said.
“Is it?”
“You know it is.”
“It’s a necessary part of relationships,” I argued.
“Depression?”
“Heartbreak.”
“Not always.”
“Usually. I mean, most relationships end poorly, right? The people involved either break-up, or one of the two dies. There are a few lucky ones, I guess, that get to die at the same exact moment. But I’d bet that doesn’t happen often. Every other relationship –and I mean real relationship- ends in pain.”
“That’s a pessimistic view.”
“I don’t think it’s pessimistic. I think it’s just how it is.” I shrugged.
“I hate your cynicism.”
“I know. You told me that before our divorce. But I don’t think I’m being cynical. I think I’m just accepting the way things are. I think it’s okay to acknowledge that relationships die. The grieving part of a broken relationship is important. If there was no grief, then there was no love.” I chanced a glance in her direction. She wasn’t looking at me. “In that respect,” I continued, “most of these blog entries that I’m writing are love stories.” Dawn frowned with a mouth that wasn’t hers. “Even the stories that deal with ineffective coping measures, like alcoholism, are indirectly about heartbreak and, therefore, love stories.”
I watched her in my peripheral vision. She looked at her cell phone and then looked at me. “I’m sorry. I have to go,” she said. “I’m meeting some friends online.”
“Final Fantasy XI?” I asked.
“Yeah. We have a mission tonight.”
I swallowed.
“What?” She asked.
“Nothing,” I said. There was no point in getting into it.
I heard movement. There was another person in the room, a second Dawn. I didn’t notice her until that moment, but I believe that she was there the entire time. Her hair was a little darker than the first Dawn’s; it was black, and her face was a little rounder than the first Dawn’s; it was older. Otherwise, she was the same person.
Black-Haired Dawn spoke to Auburn-Haired Dawn; “I don’t play online games anymore. I don’t have time.”
“I just want to beat this one boss,” Auburn-Haired Dawn said to Black-Haired Dawn.
“I know,” Black said to Auburn. I watched them. They made eye contact.
“Say hello to him for me,” Black said.
“I will.”
“It’s your turn to talk to Rich, isn’t it?” Auburn asked.
“Call me Wrylab,” I corrected.
“Yes,” Black-Haired Dawn said, ignoring my comment. “Good luck in your game.”
I heard the theme song to Final Fantasy XI playing. It was playing the entire time, it just took me a while to hear it. Black-Haired Dawn sat next to me and crossed her legs. I looked at her shoes. They were new and unscuffed. I stopped paying attention to the music. I stopped paying attention to Auburn-Haired Dawn. There was only me and Black-Haired Dawn.
“You look sick,” Dawn said.
“I am sick. I was in the hospital last week.”
“You need to eat,” Dawn said.
“I know.”
“Spewella died. I don’t know if you heard about that,” Dawn said.
“Yeah. Your sister e-mailed me. Sad. I loved that cat.”
“I know you did. I’m sorry,” Dawn said. I felt that her empathy was sincere, if guarded.
I got up from my bed and I walked into the kitchen and grabbed a pair of juice glasses. I poured Diet Coke for Dawn and Jameson for myself. I walked back to my bed and I sat down. I handed her the drink. My stomach felt upset. I was anxious. I thought about my breathing and tried to relax myself.
“How’s your family?” She asked.
“Good,” I said. “Mark and Amy had a baby.”
“That’s good. Your mom and dad must be really happy.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say.
I finished my whiskey and got up and poured myself another. I retook my position on the bed and returned my attention the curtains. “You know what’s weird,” I said, a statement more than a question. “I feel like I’ve recovered from our relationship. I honestly feel that we did what was best for both of us and I’ve moved past it.”
“Same here,” she said.
“But in spite of that, I feel like I’m more fucked-up than ever. It’s like I’m afraid to leave my sadness. I identify too strongly with it.”
“I could see that. Again; suffering artist,” she said.
The curtains were a dark red with a traveling pattern etched in. A few years ago, the same curtains hung in the bedroom of the place I shared with Dawn. The curtains came with me when Dawn and I split. I liked them in the old place, but I thought they fit the new place better. They looked good with the rest of the decor. They felt like they belonged here.
I turned and I faced her. “Tell me about him,” I said.
Her eyes met mine. “No.”
I was alone.
I finished my whiskey and poured another glass. I needed something to wash down the Ativan. I went into my bathroom and I closed the door and I, again, took the white envelope from the medicine cabinet.
Forty minutes passed. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked old and I looked haggard. My beard was colored with grey. There were dark circles beneath my eyes. I decided that it was time for another love story. I massaged the wrinkles from my face. I let my beard fall to the ground. I blinked hard and the circles beneath my eyes vanished. I shook my head and hair sprouted out. My pigment got darker. My hips widened. My shoulders collapsed. My skin tightened. My sex changed. I was a twenty-four year old Asian girl named Sukie.
Another transition.
I opened my bathroom door and I walked into Friar Tuck’s, a bar in Lakeview. I was suddenly very drunk. My friend Beth was at the bar, doing a shot of something pink with some douche-baggy guy. There was another douche-baggy guy sitting next to them. This was, most likely, the guy I would be fucking tonight.
I missed Chris, but I didn’t want to think about him anymore. I didn’t want to think about any of it.
I took a spot near Beth and the douche-bags. Standing across from us, a guy with a microphone was hosting karaoke. He called the name “Rye-Lab” and a skinny, bald dude began singing a Lady Gaga tune. I rolled my eyes. In my opinion, Karaoke was little more than an excuse for drunkards to publically display their alcoholism through song. I liked it.
I scanned the bar, checking out the men, figuring out my options. There weren’t many. The douche-bags with Beth were the best that the bar had to offer. I decided to accept my evening’s fate and I did a shot with the guy sitting closest to me. I looked at his cheekbones as I laughed at his stupid joke. He was, at least, better-looking then Chris. He whispered something unintelligible into my ear and he gave my neck a quick bite.
He’ll do.
