I collected my thoughts and swallowed another sip from the half-empty liquor bottle. I swished it around in my mouth, feeling the burn in my gums and throat as I swallowed. I shook the bottle, watching its contents dance around. Tina's hand rested on my upper thigh. She patted it and then stood abruptly. I looked at her in curiosity, watching her disappear into the kitchen area. She emerged a few moments later with a fresh bottle in hand. She placed it on the small mahogany table beside me, kissed my cheek and sat back down on the couch.
"In case you get the urge to find an excuse to stop sharing. Liquid courage," she said. Her hand moved up my thigh and rested. This time, she did wink. I gave my best smile and patted her hand before clearing my throat.
"Thanks. Let's see, dark and stormy night, check. Favorite liquor, check. Lovely company, check. All seems to be in order."
"Byron, you're stalling. Careful, ya might lose this girl's interest," she teased. Her southern accent seemed thicker and slurred as she raised her glass.
"When I was young, there was a kid named Jack that I used to hang out with. He lived down the street. I'd walk over there after school on Wednesdays and Fridays. We'd play basketball on the corner of his house, using the quiet side street as needed. There was hardly any traffic because the road went down a few hundred feet but then dead-ended. There used to be a house at the end of it, but it had burned down years before. There were still large pieces of splintered wood and plaster in the yard, blackened but still littering the ash tinted grass behind this worn chain link fence. We would play ball, sometimes having to chase the ball into the busier intersection across from his house. Neither one of us were that damn good at sports, but we had a good time. Until the day of the accident, anyway," I said, pausing a moment to face her. She swallowed another sip and motioned for me to continue.
"There was an old Ford Buick that had come flying through the intersection, tires screeching as it skidded into the turn. The basketball had bounced towards the vehicle which, luckily for me, sent the car down the side street. I just froze and stared. The hood crumpled almost instantly when it slammed into the dead end sign just four or five feet ahead of us. The windshield shattered, shivers of glass sprinkling the cracked asphalt. I rushed over to check on the driver. My friend ran inside. My heart was racing and as I approached the driver side door, I noticed the guy wasn't even in the seat at all. He had launched head first into the chain link fence. His body was limp and his face covered in gashes from the force of the crash. It was hard to tell where the rust in the broken chinks of fence started and the blood began. He twitched twice, his face still stuck in the fence. Then he fell limp to the ground with a heavy, wet sound. I fought the urge to puke and wondered where the hell Jack was or his mom or dad."
"My God, that's horrible," she said. "How old were you?"
"I guess I was ten or eleven. I had just started middle school. Anyway, it seemed like at least half an hour before there was an ambulance on the scene. But, there were plenty of onlookers. At least twenty people had gathered in that time. There weren't even that many people that lived on my street."
"Everybody loves a good tragedy. An accident draws a crowd, unfortunately," she said.
"Honey, that's not the worst part, it was the fucking crowd that gathered. They seemed to come not just out of the houses, but from behind the houses. The bushes. There were seven that came from behind the piles of burnt wood in the deserted lot. They walked, almost in complete unison. Their mouths hanging open and their sunken eyes wide with shock. Some shook their heads solemnly. Most of them just pointed with a low collective sigh. My eyes tried to make out the details of their faces. I couldn't. Every time I tried, tears would start forming in my eyes. I shouted at them as they approached the body and they turned their pointing fingers from him- to me," I said.
I tipped the bottle to my mouth, throwing my head back. The last swallow passed my lips and I placed the empty bottle next to the full one. I began to open it when I felt Tina's fingers pinch my arm. Shocked, I looked at her and laughed. "What the hell, Tina?"
"You ass! I appreciate your homage to Ray Bradbury's 'The Crowd' and all, but I already know that story," she said, her tone playful and sarcastic. "The least ya can do for me is tell me a new one, a personal one. Don't make me regret not making you get that bottle your damn self!"
"Of course I would be stuck with the one gal in New Orleans who reads Bradbury. Well played, biggest fan," I said, patting her hand. A cold tightness in my gut strangled my laugh just as I finished speaking. It crept from there to my chest. The hairs on neck seemed to squirm, alert and agitated. Confused, I shook my head and forced a smile.
"Bradbury did it better, anyway," she said.
We both laughed and she pointed to the bottle. I obliged, filling her glass. She spilled some as she reached for it. Her legs pressed against mine as she relaxed, placing them across my lap. My hands lay on her smooth calves, moving upwards to her knees and resting. She stretched, crossing her arms. I watched her breathing become sharp and then settle. She gave a knowing glance and sighed. Her eyelids were heavy and I could tell she would not be drinking too much more tonight. I tapped her thigh and placed the cold bottle against her legs. Her eyes snapped open.
"Can't have you falling asleep. Not yet, at least. This story is true and something I've never shared with anyone. It was the day of Megan's funeral. Mort had sent a car to come and get me from the hotel I was staying the night before. When he had called to check on me, I had been incoherent. Second worst bender of my life, in all honesty. How I had managed even getting dressed remains a mystery to me. Her parents had decided to have the service in New York. I guess her great grandmother was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and since she loved the lady so much, they wanted her buried there. Historical place and we paid a ludicrous amount for the plot, too. You have no idea the paperwork on that. Christ. Which, if it had been someone else, I would've loved the whole Sleepy Hollow thing. Maybe would've appreciated the atmosphere and mausoleums there. Considering our trip to New York was the fucking reason we were all 'gathered here today', drunk wasn't even the word for me. Angry and shit-faced, I just remember staring out towards the Hudson until my eyes were as wet as the damn river itself."
Tina sat up, and patted my shoulder as I took another gulp from the bottle. I coughed. Her lips trembled as she kissed my cheek. She handed me her empty glass and closed her eyes. Placing it on the table, I cleared my throat. "Go on," she said.
"Dan, her father, glared at me with tears in his eyes through the entire burial. I knew he blamed me. Hell, I blamed me. After the service, he announced there would be a small get together at some fancy restaurant. I knew I wouldn't be there. As everyone said their goodbyes and dispersed, he approached me. I was already reaching for my flask. Dan slapped it out of my hand. His eyes were burning and his breathing heavy. 'Don't you think you've done enough of that? That's the reason this happened, why we she's dead, you talent-less fuck!' He threw a punch at me, swinging wide and to the right. I could've avoided it and almost did. I allowed him to at least catch some of my jaw. It stung, but if he needed this to heal, maybe it would help me as well. His wife came rushing to his side, followed by his two brothers. They pulled him away from me, his arms flailing as he screamed obscenities between lunges. I just picked up my flask, turned away and continued drinking. I dialed Mort and asked him to send another car. Thirty minutes later, he showed up himself. We went back to the hotel together and Mort tried his best to be a friend. Looking back, I'm pretty sure he might be the only one I have left."
"Not true," Tina said, sliding closer to me and resting her groggy head on my shoulder. "It's not your fault. Not mine. We both need to understand that, believe it." She raised her head to look at me. There were tears in her tired eyes, the whites of them bloodshot and murky before she blinked them away.
I sighed. "Deep down, sweetheart- I know that. Underneath everything, I do. It's just those phone calls the other night, they reminded me of something. Something I had blocked out. The night that Mort went back to the hotel with me, my cell phone had rang multiple times. I ignored them. Too drunk to answer them, anyway. Mort was three steps away from holding my hair out of my eyes while I puked, like I was some helpless teenager at a fucking house party." I laughed at that, but it was a choked noise, a drowning man's attempt at humor.
"But the next afternoon as I stumbled towards the shower, I checked my phone and guess what? Megan's cell number was the last one that had called. Four or five times. No messages, just goddamn static on the voice mail. I was angry, fucking pissed. I called Mort up, accusing him of some sick joke on me. I mean, we had both been shit-faced. It wouldn't be the first time a prank in poor taste went awry while boozing. I really hurt him, some of the things I said that day. My head cleared some and after calming down, I apologized. Probably a good thing because Megan's father was next on my list. That would have been worse, by a mile."
"Shit," she said. "Yeah, ya calling him up the day after his daughter's funeral, especially after getting into it would not have been wise."
"Either way, it dawned on me that I still had her phone in the luggage. I had buried it in with our things after I had grabbed some photos from it. I was a madman, throwing clothes everywhere as I searched for it. There, nesting in the folds of her wedding dress, I finally found it. I plugged it into the wall, charging it enough to power it on. Just like my damn phone, it glitched then froze and then- nothing. No messages, no contacts. Nothing. I kept turning it off and on, over and over. Not a single fucking thing on the phone. No photos left. No reminders of her or that she had even used the phone at all. Clock frozen at 0:00 and taunting me. I know it's a silly thing, me focusing on the fact that her presence had been erased from a goddamn cell phone. Maybe that's where we are at in this digital age. To me, it was a relic. A piece of our history together. I popped out her SD card, shoved it into my phone. I prayed that at least a few of the pictures I had left on there due to space, still remained. Nothing. Blank as the day I had set it up for her. Blank as the stare in the bathroom mirror as I eyed her wedding gown laid out on the bed behind me, right before I smashed that image staring back at me. Broken glass and a bloody hand and more liquor. I never bothered to put her dress back. Simply laid it out beside me and pretended that I wouldn't wake up. The joke was on me. I always do."
Tina stood, taking my hand as she did. She looked down at me, her curly bangs falling across her wide and concerned eyes. "Come on. We're going to bed. I'll help ya outta those clothes, but I may need someone to lean on to get there. Not all of us can drink and think the way you do. Some of us admit when we are drunk. No matter how this sounds right now, you are not sleeping alone right now. Or with a dress. Neither one of us need that, especially you."
I stood and we walked towards the bedroom. She wrapped her arm about mine, leaning her head against my chest as I opened the door. She turned and smiled, missing my cheek and kissing my chin instead. We both laughed and stumbled forward into the darkened room. The rain outside streaked the windows in fat drops, illuminated by wide arcs of lightning. Thunder bellowed and echoed its anger in the distance.
"Perhaps you're right," I said, trying to focus my eyes between the alternating flashes and shadows. "I really wish you had just let me tell you my rendition of that Ray Bradbury story. It's a better narrative than mine."
I felt her hands run down my side and tugging at my shirt, she lifted it up and over my head. Her voice was a slurred whisper in my ear, but it made perfect sense. "I may not be a writer like you, but even this gal can tell that you're long overdue for some revisions."