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CHAPTER 9, EXCERPT 5
Frank stayed silent for the entire drive, dwelling on the past. He thought Nikki seemed ticked off as she swung the Honda into the short driveway alongside his house. “You want to come in, Nik?” he said, struggling his large frame out of the little car. “Might be something on the tube worth watching.”
“I doubt that,” she said, “but I’ll come in anyway.”
That was a surprise but he rolled with it. He put the key in the lock and opened the door to his house and was hit by a musty smell and the odor of something decaying in the kitchen garbage can, perhaps a whiff of dirty socks lingering on the edge of it all. Shit he wouldn’t think twice about if he were alone. He stepped into the tiny living room, flicked on the television and collapsed into the aging couch, one of those fuzzy old maroon jobs seemed like every second-hand shop in the area had two of. He’d just seen one in Johnny Beam’s store. Nikki slid in next to him on the couch looking like she wanted a kiss but Frank was fighting it, a dark cloud enveloping his mind now. For the sake of easing the tension, he leaned over and gave her a peck, one of those kisses old married couples do, a reflex. A conditioned response, the sociologists—like Nikki—would call it.
“You tired, Frank?” Nikki said. “You seem distant.”
“Yeah, I’m a little tired. And just a smidge burnt. Been a long time since I did that kind of labor. It felt good but now my body is rebelling. Seeing my mother also has a draining effect on me at times.”
“She’s a sweet, sad little old lady who just lost her son, Frank. And I know you’re grieving, too, but try not to be gruff and terse around her. She’s hurting and needs your support.”
Frank didn’t have the energy to dig into that one. “Hey,” he said, Rockford Files is on. Sometimes that’s pretty good.”
Nikki snuggled up close until Frank could feel the heat of her body like an electric blanket for his soul. But he was still fighting it, his mind continuing to look for reasons he shouldn’t be with her. So he pretended to be nodding off, snapping his eyes open and uttering a dazed, “Huh” whenever she said something.
And then he was waking up on the couch with drool dripping on the pillow and Johnny Carson on the tube making a crack about the guys in the band getting stoned. Every downstairs light was on. He got off the couch and went into the kitchen, saw the dishes were all washed and stacked in the drainer and the garbage can was empty with a fresh plastic bag inside. But Nikki wasn’t around. He called her name and nothing came back. He shrugged, figuring it was probably for the best, turned off the TV and the lights, locked the front door and trudged up the goddamn too-narrow staircase to his bedroom, checking on the pistol in his sock drawer before pulling off his clothes and collapsing into the sagging mattress. He could hear some kids shouting and kicking around a tin can in the playground across the alley but he fell asleep before it disturbed him.
He dreamed he was tending bar at the Metropole on a Sunday. He knew it was Sunday because he had that cloying, grey, chest-in-a-vice feeling. All the regulars were there: the old ladies, the front row whiskey pigs, Johnny Beam, Jenny the waitress, Moran, Waverly, Tom Meagher, the bikers, the retards, the nut jobs… and Christ, over in the corner by the juke, Ray-Ray and Judy were slow dancing to that Blood, Sweat and Tears song “You Make Me So Very Happy.” Ray was crying, tears flowing down his cheeks. Watching them didn’t bother Frank and he was thinking it should. But it didn’t. Frank was behind the bar, as usual, but now there was a thick glass partition separating him from the patrons, who were milling around in slow motion, distant in their own little worlds, voices a hollow drone like a swarm of sedated bees. Gazing at the numerous hands clutching paper money poking through the rectangular slots in the thick glass, Frank was craving something, needing something. He searched the crowd but couldn’t find what he was looking for. Glancing down at his arm, he noticed his skin was wrinkling. He watched, transfixed, as it began morphing into something strange. Lifting his forearm to his nose and sniffing, he was reminded somehow of Viola Stemwaggen, she of the tight blue-gray curls, cheap perfume and Ban deodorant. Feeling a dull, rising panic, sort of a queasy inevitability in his stomach, Frank turned and stared into the mirror behind the bar. The flesh on his face was beginning to move and pulse. Now he was no longer Frank Ford, but a generic creature with a thousand different features struggling to gain purchase. And, Jesus, man, now his skin was turning red, a worn, faded red matching the vinyl on the booths behind him. He rubbed hard on his crimson forearm. It was greasy, slick and shiny, just like the upholstery on the booths. He spun around to ask for help but the figures on the other side of the glass were totally indifferent, moving in their familiar patterns, oblivious to his needs, all of them wearing faint apathetic smiles—except Ray and Judy. Those two were absorbed in each other to the point of isolation from the rest, the couple waltzing in a slow circle, Ray clinging to her, tears still rolling down his cheeks.
Couldn’t any of them out there see the place was swallowing Frank up? Absorbing him like an amoeba sucking in bacteria? Somebody needed to do something before it was too late.
Gasping for breath, Frank woke up rubbing his forearm, a thick layer of sweat greasy on the skin, and was glad to see the light seeping in around the edges of his window shade. He wiped his face with the sheet, rolled over and set his alarm for seven o’clock. Moran wasn’t scheduled to arrive until quarter to nine but Frank wanted to eat something before work and have the time to choose some halfway decent clothes, something that didn’t make him look like a decaying barfly.
(End of Chapter 9)
