Stupid Chapter 38 Page 4


	Chapter 38/Page 4

“Hi, Hon, just calling to say I love you madly. Miss you.” Repeat.

I hit the answering machine’s repeat button over and over. Booze returned to my life that night like a steamroller, thanks to my newly invented drinking game: Shot of Jack, listen to the message bearing false hope, repeat till blind.

“Hi, Hon, just calling to say I love you madly. Miss you.”

Stay calm. Listen to her voice. Do not smash everything in the tomb. Resist the urge to cut your own hair.

Shot, message, repeat. Shot, message, repeat. Shot, message, erase.

“Message erased.”

What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!

I pounded the repeat button with my fist, trying to rescind my error of hitting the wrong button on the fucking digital answering machine that used no tape but there was no going back. The message was gone forever. The shot glass hit the floor. I hit the floor. The Legs went into spasm and folded up till the Knees were pressed into the Chest. The Chest heaved, and air ripped through the Lungs like a straight razor. My sight left me from the outside in. Everything went white then blue then black and flashed red around the edges. Then there was the ringing, the awful, incessant ringing in the Ears.

The phone. It’s the phone. Answer. It might be her, calling to straighten out this horrible, horrible misunderstanding.

“Uh?” I finally found the phone and gasped out as much as I could.

“Are you all right?” I didn’t recognize the voice at first. She repeated the question. The first time 3b had called in months just had to be that moment. She asked again, “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“What happened?”

“You know- “ Exhale. “That thing that used to happen-” Inhale. “To you when you got upset and couldn’t move and couldn’t-” Exhale. “See straight?”

“A panic attack?”

“Yes!”

“I’ll be right over.”

Something like two seconds later, 3b appeared in the tomb. I had crawled into the hall between the bedroom and the bathroom and was curled up in a ball in the corner, tugging at my pants leg.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” I kept repeating. She put her arms around me and started rocking.

“Shh. It’s okay. Everything will be fine.”

“No, no, no. It’s all wrong!”

“Shh. Don’t worry.” She stroked my hair. “You’re soaked.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here. Tell me what happened.”

I fell into her and sobbed till I was completely dehydrated. I couldn’t say what really happened, not to her, but she was unrelenting. Once the floodgates opened, I couldn’t stop. It all came spewing out how 4 had broken my heart, crippled me. In only a few minutes I covered every aspect of our relationship from our casual flirting before my birthday party, through the mind-blowing sex, through the closeness we’d achieved, to the love I thought I’d never feel again, and finally to our tortured breakup, and the way she was talking on the phone to whoever it was.

3b was nothing but comforting and encouraging -- not one derogatory comment about 4, no satisfaction in my distress, no anger or jealousy at the intensity of my hurt over another woman. All she did was hold me, stroke my hair, and tell me over and over that she loved me and everything was going to be all right, until I believed her.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“No, it’s late.” It was only about eleven. The night had just started for insomniacs all over the Pacific Standard time zone.

“I can stay.”

“I’ll be okay. Really.” Only after a thorough examination satisfied her that I would indeed be okay, did she reluctantly leave.

“You call me if you need me to come back.” She kissed me. “Get some sleep.” The door closed behind her. She never did say why she called in the first place.

I stared at the ceiling for an hour and a half before I put on my shoes and grabbed my new car keys. The worst was over, my head was clear.

All four cylinders of the yellow Beetle sputtered to life. Reverse made its location known only after a metallic quarrel among the forward gears. Though there was never a shortage of traffic, Santa Monica seemed desolate as I turned east past the Century City mall. Really Hot Barmaid had already given last call and even at this distance could be seen wiping down the taps. The valets who applauded my single-round decision at Trader Vic’s were hustling the last few cars out of the lot so they could get on with their own lives. The pitch-black stretch of road past the intersection at Wilshire looked extremely uninviting at this hour, so I took a sharp right and followed my familiar bus route.

Beverly Hills rolled up its sidewalks hours earlier -- no place for night owls. Department stores, restaurants, and boutiques had all closed. The only sign of life was a gas station near La Cienega awash in mercury light.

Waiting for the left turn light at San Vicente, I stared up at my office and felt remarkably better. All the floors were dark, except for the second floor suites where maniacal editors and their flustered assistants burned the midnight oil, fueled by equal parts inspiration, desperation, Pad-Thai, and cocaine. A light came on in my office window. I sat through the green and then another red light watching the cleaning crew dust, vacuum, and polish. I could make out the spent Alka-Seltzer wrappers as they emptied my wastebasket into their giant rolling garbage bin.

Between the pockets of nightlife sprinkled randomly across the Southland, the streets of L.A. are utterly comatose. Even a major thoroughfare like La Cienega lies sleeping until you reach the light at Sunset Boulevard, where if you don’t turn, you’ll smack into the apartment building that was the first place I lived in California. The thought occurred to me.


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