The clock ticked; 4:29:08 AM.
Maybe this time –
With a start she awoke, the .44 revolver dropping from her mouth to the floor with a loud ‘thud’, the scent of wet copper thickening the air.
Ouch!
For a few moments more, she lay where she awoke, pain exploding behind her eyes. Concentrating through the pain, she tried to remember where she was and how she had arrived. As her memory slowly returned, she whimpered with despair.
It was always the same; a barren one-room apartment on the fifteenth floor, dingy and dank, old in use and time; a mattress tossed absently in a corner, found in the alley below; an egg crate with an antiquated computer; and bottles of Southern Comfort and packs of black djarum cigarettes. Again, yet again, she had awakened. Sleep was but a dream. Inhaling so she could exhale, she fancied his cologne lingering in the air. ‘He’s never been here!’ she mentally snapped at herself.
But I am, lover.
The sheets on the mattress were drenched, sticky, and stunk. Her eyes rebelled against the light tattooing her retinas. Light with a flickering hum meant night, light with silent mockery meant day. She listened; it was night. Casting about with her hand, she found the revolver and put it back into her mouth.
Mmmm. You are so good at that.
Gun oil mixed with bile and gunpowder, and she gagged. She spit the barrel of the revolver from her mouth wetly and it fell with a dull thud to her chest. Feeling around on the floor again she found the djarums carelessly dropped only moments before. Lighting a smoke and taking a euphoric first drag, she wiped a bead of sweat from her cheek. It could be a tear for all she knew; she had given up trying to tell the difference months ago. Sitting up and ashing in the general direction of an empty Southern Comfort bottle, she clicked open the cylinder of the revolver.
Ooh! You get inside me so well!
A lonely round in a cylinder made for six, it was hollow point, acid filled, and deadly. Something so exotic was unnecessary where a simple lead slug would suffice. She spun the cylinder violently, listened to it buzz, and clicked it back into place. Leaning against the revolver, she let its cold metal barrel cross her right eye, the front site dig into her forehead.
Maybe this time -
*Groan*! Again so soon?!
– she took a drag from the djarum –
Suck on *me*, baby!
– suckled the barrel –
*Gasp*! That’s my b-baby!
– pulled the trigger –
God, yes! Touch me *there*!
– hammer retreated –
I’m gonna - oh, God I’m gonna —
– hammer fell –
Click!
The dry fire jarred her teeth.
*Giggle*. Not this time, baby.
“SHHHH -,” she struck the floor with the barrel, hard, ” - IIITTT!!”
Loosing the grip, she leaned head on trembling hands and propped her elbows atop her knees. The smoky air of death crept from nostrils and mouth.
“Johnny.”
Stumbling to her feet, she staggered to the window. She leaned against the windowsill and, ignoring the vehement protests from her eyes, split her eyelids to look down to the snow covered streets. A thick layer of nicotine and condensation covered the glass, showing her the world when viewed through an ashtray. A pounding in her ears thumped its way to clarity – her neighbors were engrossed in their nightly romance. Neither was particularly graceful nor quiet. Thankfully, their stamina was as hair-trigger as their grace was grotesque.
Just like me, baby.
“Shut-up!” she flared, aloud, glaring at the revolver. “Fucking whore.”
In the distance she heard a howling dog, its desolation mirroring her own. The snow drifted down ambivalent to its destination, pure and unspoiled. She watched a lazily descending snowflake until it met with the soot and tar on the narrow street below.
‘Therein lays the answer to so many questions,’ she mused to herself, leaning heavy against the wooden window frame. Once again her eyes returned to the loaded revolver lying on the floor near her mattress, as carelessly discarded as the pack of smokes.
You want me. You know you do! I want you, baby.
‘And therein lays the answer to life.’
Plain and simple, quick and painless, it was the answer. What hope she maintained rested on stale packs of djarums and half-empty bottles of Southern Comfort. Who’d be left to drink and smoke what stayed behind?
“Who are you?”
There was no ending this everlasting repetition. It was an eternal absence of finality and so she lived it in torment. Pulling the trigger meant she would be with him, or free from him. It would end the sleepless nights and unending days. Shaking her head she knew her thoughts were lies. How many times had she thought them before only to find herself there again, thinking them once more?
She closed her eyes against the vision in her mind, him scoffing her weakness for love. His skin was ruddy and coarse, tanned and lined by the sun; short black hair, combed just so and greased into place; thin, firm lips holding a cigarette and smiling only a little; eyes a-twinkle with mischief and arrogance. Relentlessly, he teased her with his rugged handsomeness. Love for him welled inside her, and it burned.
A searing pain from her lips and her head snapped back, waking her from the hallucination. Nothing left of her djarum but a splintering cherry and throbbing burn on her lips.
Love. How could there be love for a man wholly in her dreams, a ghost who never knew flesh? Closing her eyes against the pall upon her heart, she swore her indifference; pleaded her hatred; begged her distain.
Throat constricting, she flung open the window and stepped onto the fire escape. Shivering, she gulped down the frozen night air as deeply as she could. The sweat on her skin evaporated in slender tendrils of steam.
I’m in here, baby!
“Leave me be,” she sobbed.
Heavily, she leaned against the cold metal rail and looked down at the street. Without warning her vision flew out of control, eyes tolerating the needling light no longer. The street twisted violently and snowflakes spiraled like water down a toilet. A sudden cramping in her stomach sent her to her knees, retching as she fell. Bent over in the most humble position a human could know, she knelt in the shallow remnant of her earlier drinking binge. Absently, trying to scrape the taste of bile, undigested whiskey, and gun oil from her tongue with her teeth, she lay in her own vomit and retched again. The first round was successful in emptying her stomach, leaving nothing for the second but pain.
You didn’t jump did you?
For a moment, she lay there, feeling her body’s heat stolen by the frigid air.
Quit teasing me, baby!
“Leave me be,” she whined, tears escaping her tightly shut eyelids.
Such a time passed, she in that position, that when she did sit up, she was covered by a thin layer of snow. Slowly, she climbed the rail back to her feet. Trembling fingers brought a fresh djarum to blue lips. She bent down against the rail and rested chin on folded hands, looking carefully over the edge. Her vision held.
You don’t want to jump, baby. Not when I’m here.
Ash from her cigarette joined the snowflakes in their irresponsible descent. She let the smoke lick and tease her eyes with its acidic touch, daring herself to keep them open for just a little longer and avenging her stomach.
‘At least in my dreams’, she sobbed in thought, ‘I am someone. I am cared for. And Johnny is there.’
With unyielding purpose, her thoughts strayed back to the orgasmic chorus of hammer hitting loaded chamber. It would be sweet release – to him, or from him.
Right here, baby!
“Can’t sleep again, Frankie?”
Her neighbor Felix, him without stamina, then joined her on the fire escape. Oh, joy. Sweating as bad as Frankie, Felix reeked of sex - a slightly less foul odor than that of one’s own vomit. “No. Again.”
Liar!
Frankie propped herself up and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Her hand and wrist were bloody.
“Been to the doc?”
“No.” She flicked the butt of the djarum over the side of the escape.
“Fall asleep smokin’? That’s a nasty burn on your lip.”
“Yeah.” And the world began to spin. “How’s Chantel?”
The grin of sexual arrogance, “You know. Wore out!”
Frankie grinned in response, humoring a con, “Should ‘ave known. Is gettin’ cold. I’m back to bed.” Another lie, but Frankie couldn’t stand another minute of social grace.
“Try shutting your eyes,” Felix jibbed, “might sleep then.”
“Right.” Frankie closed the window, her eyes finding the revolver again.
Crossing the room with resignation, Frankie sat on the rancid mattress and reached for the revolver.
Touch me, baby!
Maybe this time -
*Groan*! Again so soon?!
– she raised the revolver to her mouth –
Suck on *me*, baby!
– suckled the barrel –
*Gasp*! That’s my b-baby!
– pulled the trigger –
God, yes! Touch me *there*!
– hammer retreated –
I’m gonna - oh, God I’m gonna —
– hammer fell –
*MOAN*!
The recoil from the shot shattered her incisors, embedding the front site in what remained of the roof of her mouth.
BABY!
The round was so hotly loaded that muzzle flash followed the slug through the back of her head. Smoke from the spent cartridge trickled out her nostrils and other openings it found in her newly evacuated skull. Slowly, she fell back, gone before assurance it had been her time. Falling back into herself, her canvas melded with frame, ether with corporeal; her spirit again rejoined with flesh.
That’s my baby! That was *so* good for me!
The clock ticked; 4:29:09 AM.
Maybe this time –
With a start she awoke, the .44 revolver dropping from her mouth to the floor with a loud ‘thud’, the scent of copper thickening the air.
Ouch!
