Blasting through the darkness the chimes rang and Earl shot up out of sleep with a gasp. He grabbed his phone and silenced it.
“Goddammit.” said Earl.
“Is it that kid again?” mumbled Sarah.
Earl powered his phone off and tossed it into their laundry pile by the door.
“Of fucking course it is. He’s not a kid either, he’s in his twenties at least.” he replied.
“Honey, he lost his friend.” she said.
“Yeah, six months ago, it’s enough. I’m going to change my number.”
“Have you tried talking to him?” asked Sarah.
“Not since that first night, I’ve listened to plenty of ten minute long rambling ass messages. I don’t need to talk to that idiot.” he replied, rolling over and covering his head with a blanket.
“Well maybe you should try once or twice, it might be enough.”
“How about next time he calls you fucking talk to him?” said Earl.
“I will.” said Sarah.
“Great.”
They fell back asleep back to back.
______________________________________________
“Give me four shots Sammy.” slurred Burt.
“Burt, you can’t order four shots for yourself.” the bartender replied.
“They’re for me and my friend.”
“Your dead friend? That worked the day he died Burt. I sympathized, I did. You have to give it a rest though Burt, you have to start moving on.”
“Fuck you asshole.” said Burt, as he stumbled away.
“Burt, don’t come back here for a while, I’m not serving you anymore.”
“Like I give a shit!” he screamed and slammed the door behind him.
Burt slept in his car, the keys stored safely behind the bar.
He awoke covered in sweat. The sun beat down on the windshield, black spots swam in his eyes, his pants were soaked is piss. He collapsed out of the car to the ground, swallowing the air in loud gulps. He crawled to his bumper and hoisted himself just up enough to puke without getting very much on him. He sat against his tire until his head stopped throbbing, and slowly stood up. The bar was open for breakfast, Burt stumbled inside.
“Hey Jerry.”
“Hey Burt, you need to clean that shit off your shirt before I give you anything to drink.”
“Alright man, alright, take it easy.”
Burt walked to the bathroom and cleaned the puke off of his shirt with a dry paper towel. He vom-ited again in the toilet, took a shit, washed his hands and face, scrubbed some water under under his armpits, and went back to the bar.
“Bloody Mary Jerry, make it strong.”
“You sure you want to start this early Burt? How about a glass of water, go home and actually take a shower, maybe come back tonight?”
“Sure man, just one BM, then I’ll go home.”
“Fuck Burt, alright man. You got work tomorrow you know.”
“Don’t worry about me Jerry, just one drink to get my head back to normal.”
Nine hours later Burt was kicked out of the Coach and Cabin bar again. He woke up on the ground next to his car in the parking lot, this time Sammy had placed a bottle of water on the hood with a note rubberbanded to it. The note said:
Burt, yer fucking 86’d for a long fucking time, figure yer shit out.
Burt read the note, drank the water, checked his phone, saw his outgoing calls to his dead friend’s phone, reminded himself to call that number sober sometime, to actually talk to the guy on the other end, apologize for calling all the time.
He drove home and showered, went to work, made eleven dollars in tips, bought a bottle. When he woke up in the morning, slumped on the floor in front of his recliner, he checked his phone. Burt saw one outgoing call to his dead friend’s phone, though this time instead of a 15 second call, it was over a half hour long. Burt stared at it, wishing to god he could remember the conversation, wondering what was said. He didn’t remember a thing.
_____________________________________________________________________________
“So you talked to him for a half an hour last night?” asked Earl.
“Yeah Earl, I did, he was so sad. But I think I got through to him a little, he seemed better at the end.”
“That piece of shit probably don’t remember shit Sarah, why you using up my minutes on that ass-hole?”
“What about a person sad about their dead friend makes them a piece of shit asshole Earl?”
“You gotta get over it sometime Sarah, can’t fuckin’ cry over spilt shit forever.”
“Ok Earl, I’m going to work.”
“Don’t be using up my minutes like that anymore.” said Earl, determined to exercise authority over something somehow.
“It don’t count after ten at night anyway Earl but don’t fucking worry about it. See you later.”
Sarah slammed the door and walked out. She looked at her phone on the way to the car, making sure she had properly saved the newest addition to her contact list.
“Jesus, what a sad fuckin’ story, so what did you two talk about?” asked Darlene, Sarah’s friend and coworker at Cuties Coffee, a bikini barista stand on the highway out of town.
“He just kept trying to tell me how it weren’t that he loved his friend like he’d love a woman, but that he loved his friend in a way that people who are married and never get divorced love each oth-er, you know?”
“Maybe,” said Darlene, trailing off as she adjusted her ill-fitting bikini top.
“You know, they’d fight and sometimes they’d disagree something fierce over somethin’ that didn’t mean shit to either of ‘em, you know, the kind of fights you can only have with somebody that you love with all your heart, but at the same time you know you’re stuck with ‘em forever, you know?”
“Well, are you gonna call him again?”
“I think so, I need to catch him sober though, and I get the feeling that might be tough.” said Sarah, as a blue Datsun rolled up to her window. She leaned through the window, letting her titty slip from her top, her not-so-secret for a five dollar tip every time.
“Sorry about that sugar,” as she tucked it back in, “What can I get for you?”
______________________________________________________________________________
Burt sat in his car drinking his coffee, spiked with an airplane bottle of whiskey, outside the Coach and Cabin, considering how he would approach Sam to make things right, so that he could get a drink in the last place he ever had a drink with his friend. It had been two days, that was usually enough, he’d just have to take it a little easier tonight. Burt slicked the hair back from his eyes, chased his coffee with a swig off the tall-can in his lap, and started to open the door. Just then, his cellphone rang. Burt stared at it for a minute, trying to remember the last time that had happened. He closed the door, picked his phone up, and reached for the answer button. The ringing stopped just before he clicked the green button and the silence that followed was palpable. Burt sat in it for a moment, then clicked the green button anyway thereby sending a call to the last number that called him. Straight to voicemail.
“Probably a fucking collection agency.” Snarled Burt, not considering the fact he had no collec-tions. He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and went into the bar.
Sam was chopping limes and lemons, the mirror behind him had been broken, and a pile of barstool pieces sat in the back corner. He looked up and saw Burt surveying the damage.
“Yeah, don’t remember any of it do you? Wouldn’t expect you to.” Sam shook his head, “I fucking told you to stay out of here for a while, if I owned this place it’d be forever, so kick rocks!”
“Sammy, I’m sorry man, I...” Burt trailed off.
“What? Miss your friend? It isn’t a fucking excuse to be an asshole Burt! Not forever. Beat it.”
Burt went back out to his car and drank there instead.
_____________________________________________________________________________
“I just don’t know how I’m ever going to stop.” Burt sobbed into his receiver.
Sarah sat in the front seat of her car in the driveway of the home she shared with Earl, she spoke low in response to Burt’s screams and wails, “Burt, people die, it’s not nice and it’s not fair, but it’s the truth.”
“Well what the fuck is the point then? We’re all just going to die, and then everything will go back to normal pretty much immediately, it’s like he was never even fucking born and it’s only been a few months!”
“I’m sure his family remembers him, and his other friends, but just because he’s dead doesn’t mean everything has to be miserable forever. Do you think he would want you to be kicked out of the bar every single night?”
Burt stopped talking and Sarah heard a long sloppy swallow on the other end. It made her smile.
“Burt, let’s meet up. We’ll get coffee, we’ll sit in the sun, I’ll try to show you life is worth living and the fact that someday you’ll die is a good reason to enjoy stuff.” said Sarah, just shy of elo-quently.
“Yeah alright, I’ll meet you at that slut coffee stand out on the highway.” Burt slurred, already for-getting who he was talking to.
“Burt,” Sarah exclaimed, “that’s where I work! How funny! Sure come by at five, I’ll just be getting off.”
“Hey that sounds great Suzie,”
“It’s Sarah.”
“Sarah. I’ll see you then, it’s been great talking to you. You really helped me out tonight.”
“Well I really enjoyed talking to you too Burt, I’m looking forward to meeting you tomorrow.”
“Yup. Good night Sarah.”
“Good night Burt.”
______________________________________________________________________
“Sarah it’s after seven, go home.” said Darlene.
“Yeah, I guess I will. Call me if he shows up ok?” said Sarah.
_______________________________________________________________________
“Shit, I thought I was supposed to be somewhere today, just fucking didn’t know where.” said Burt.
“Just tell me where you are now Burt, I’ll come right now and I’ll be with you in the morning.” said Sarah.
“Why? I’m a sorry ass piece of shit who you don’t even know, and I don’t even know what you look like. ” said Burt, hiccups interrupting every third or fourth word.
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Sarah barked.
“Shit, nothin’, I don’t know what I’m sayin’ anymore. I’m losing my mind Sarah.”
“It’s fine. Just tell me where you are Burt, I’ll find you.”
“I’m at the lookout off Fourteenth.”
“Stay there, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Sarah hung up and Burt walked to the edge of the cliff. He stood swaying as his gaze dropped from the city in the distance to the drop inches from his feet. Burt took a pull from his bottle, his drunken brain not so much thinking as flashing images, snapshots of options, and stared into the abyss.
_______________________________________________________________________
Sarah drove with reckless speed, but when she pulled off Fourteenth and up to the edge of the cliffside, where the lights of the city sparkled below, all she found was a blue Datsun, its lights and radio on, and a bottle of vodka smashed on the rocks.
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Topic: Beatrice Domond pro for FA very soon (Read 276763 times)