Page 89 of Intoxicated
Okay, okay, back off. I’m notactuallysuicidal. Please, ignore the empty bottles of whatever I scrounged from my cupboards. Don’t look at the dirty dishes left on my nightstand. Have I showered yet today? I don’t think so. Don’t care. I’m not going anywhere. I did, however, forget to cancel the cleaning lady for the week. She walked in on me feeling sorry for myself and was unable to look me in the eye for the rest of her visit. At least she did my dishes for me. God knows I wasn’t about to.
I will get over this. I have to.
I simply don’t know what this actually means for my future.
Of course, I want to change my profession. Have a few ideas of how to go about that, but how do I dissolve my current business? What do I tell Rothchild?“So, I really pissed her off and made her feel like a disgusting bitch, but I’m not charging for that. I’m closing shop after this one. Thanks for being my last, you prick!”Sigh. I still haven’t told Brent that I plan on perhaps,maybeswitching to a matchmaking service for the rich and terribly infamous. It will mean dealing with a bunch of wannabe Chers looking for payday. Maybe that’s the hard part.
Maybe it’s setting up men for love. You know, when I’m not really feeling it for myself.
On the fifth day, I finally rise from my bed, bedraggled and slightly hungover. I take a shower for the first time in two days. I throw my dirty clothes into the washing machine. I make myself a vegan smoothie in the hopes it will perk up my mood. The only thing I’m allowed to watch on TV is old cartoons. Stuff that I loved when I was a kid. Stuff I had long-loved before I knew someone named Cher.
SpongeBob is on. Damnit. Didn’t I watch that with her when we were high?
I turn off the TV and pack an overnight bag. There’s a voicemail from Brent telling me I have a new client. I don’t respond.
Instead, I get in my truck and head up I5 toward Centralia.
The sun is bright, the pollen thick, and the trees so green that it’s almost possible to forget Cher for two seconds as I stare at the wonders of nature. My truck glides around turns. My elbow leans against the opened window, one hand on the wheel and the other enjoying the breeze. Horses graze behind fences along the highway. The wildflowers are in full bloom, perhaps their last hoorah before summer heat comes to claim their dried-out souls. They occasionally get fires up here around August and September. I hope it can be spared this year.
I need these wonders to exist. They’re the only ones that can somewhat clear my mind when I’m desperate to see the most toxic woman on Earth.
Might as well see another one.
My grandmother acts as if she’s expected me all along. With a silent wave, I’m invited into her house, where she’s already baked an apple pie and has leftover fried chicken from two nights ago, when she entertained a pair of neighbors for dinner. I slather my grandmother’s special sauce on the chicken and eat it on her back porch, where I gaze at the green hills, purple mountains, and thick, dense woods full of bears, hawks, and deer.
This is the good shit. Realizing that you’re a small speck of dust in the cosmic stratosphere. Who needs romance and petty heartbreak when there’s a whole universe out there? Blue skies, white, fluffy clouds… some chicken is screaming bloody murder because another chicken got too close and ruffled some feathers, but that’s nature for you.
I feel you, screaming chicken. I want to scream, too.
“You gonna tell me what’s wrong?” My grandmother steps onto the porch, her old and worn boots scraping against wood. The screen slams shut behind her. A few birds take off from the nearest tree. Sure, the chicken wasn’t enough to scare them off, but a little old lady marching onto her porch is. What kind of relationship does my grandmother have with wildlife, anyway?
Right. I’m deflecting.
“You look like your dog’s died.” Grandma snorts, right side bumped up against the post. She doesn’t smoke anymore, but if she still did, there would be a cigarette in her hand right now. “What the hell happened? You lose a big client or something? That was the only thing that brought the humanity out of your grandfather. That and a pair of perky tits.”
I shake my head. “Worse than that. Cher broke up with me.”
“’Bout damn time!”
My grandmother certainly knows how to make me turn my head. “Thanks.”
“Girl like that has better ways to spend her time than with the likes of you. That’s a woman who doesn’t need playboys. If there’s anything I know, it’s that you’re a cad.”
“Again, thanks.”
“I’m only joshing you, boy.” The porch creaks as she sits down beside me. “Didn’t think you felt so strongly about her.”
“She came to meetyou,didn’t she?”
“First time something like that ever happened! So, what did you do to piss her off enough to dump you? Don’t tell me you didn’t fuck up.”
Her faith in me is awe-inspiring, isn’t it? “I insulted her. Accidentally, but…”
“There ain’t no accidentally when it comes to insulting people. I don’t know what you said, but you probably meant it.”
Our pause in conversation grants the neighborly quail to run across the yard. Mama quail, papa quail, and five little quailettes sprint in a zigzag pattern from the underbrush to the vegetable garden. Somewhere, my grandma’s chickens know there are trespassers, and they raise hell about it.
“Would you lot shut the hell up!”
