Suicide and Keg Stands - Chapter 6 - December 3, 2007

Sunday morning I woke up to my phone ringing.

"Can you come over?" Lynn asked. "I don't want to be alone here." Her voice was small on the phone.

She was lying on the couch when I came in. She patted the space in front of her and I sat down.

"You alright?"

"I've been better."

"You didn't come out last night."

"I didn't feel like seeing anyone. Then, I don't know, this morning I couldn't stand being alone."

"Want to get breakfast?"

"Let's just lie here for a moment," she said. I kicked off my shoes and slid onto the couch with her.

When we woke up Lynn made mimosas. It was ten in the morning and I didn't feel like drinking but I wasn't going to say no. We finally left for lunch at one or so and I was feeling tipsy.

"Who do you have to fist-fuck to get a waitress around here." she said, more to herself than to me, the moment we sat down. When the waitress came over Lynn ordered double whiskey cokes for the both of us with a whiskey shot on the side. She must have seen the shock on my face.

"Don't even try and tell me you're not going to drink with me."

"I just don't think I've ever seen you combatively drink on this level before."

"Gotta fake it to make it."

"I think that's what they say when they're trying to sober up."

"Don't be a pussy," she said and that pretty much settled it.

We moved from lunch to McMurphy's, a faux Irish bar that everyone raved about. Lynn ordered round after round of car bombs until she smashed a glass on the floor and the bartender cut us off.

"You better get her out of here before I throw you both out." He said when I tried to tell him that it was a mistake. He'd seen Lynn throw the glass down though.

"Yeah. Just let me use the bathroom." I told him and proceeded to throw up all over the sink.

"Come on. We gotta go," I told Lynn as I led her out on unstable feet.

When we got back to her place I tried to put her to bed but she pulled me down next to her and rested her head on my chest. Then she burst into tears.

"I don't know if I can do this". She said.

"You can, it just takes time."

"I miss him." She said. "It's like something was torn out of me."

"I know, but it gets easier."

"It does?"

"Maybe you just get used to it."

"I don't know if I want to get used to feeling this way," She said.

I don't know that we get a choice, I thought but didn't say.

That night I woke up and Lynn was crying next to me. Silent sobs that shook her body as it curled in upon itself. I tried to think of something to say but before I could she got up and walked into the bathroom, shutting the door softly behind her. I lay helpless in that bed, the sheets sweaty under me. Eventually she came out and lay down next to me. I put my arm over her and she pulled me close to her. I could feel her breathing get more even and soon she was asleep. I was awake for a long time.

In the morning sunlight coming through the window we both looked worn out. Finally and without enthusiasm she got up and showered. I found her sitting on the couch. The TV was off. Her brown eyes were red and puffy and she looked broken, defeated. She was picking at a thread in the cushion she was sitting on.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know," she said. I didn't have much to do for the day and I didn't want to leave her sitting on the couch looking like she did.

"You want breakfast?"

"I don't know if I want to run into anyone," she said.

"There's this place out in the desert we could go to. I've never eaten there but it looks interesting."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come on. It'll be fun."

We drove out of town into the desert to a little place I'd been past before. It was a gas station and restaurant that was fifty miles from anything. It was a wind-blasted building with peeling paint and pumps so old we both stood dumbfounded looking at them. Finally the waitress came out and flipped levers down and pressed buttons. Then she hit the thing on its side until it came on with a bang and a noticeable shudder.

"You two wanna eat?" she asked once the gas was pumping.

"Sure."

"Lemme get Earl up. He'll cook. I'm Emma."

"Emma and Earl?" I asked.

"No jokes about our names or I'll poison your food," she said and disappeared into the back behind the restaurant.

We went in and stood looking at the jukebox and I knelt down and plugged it in. We dumped our change onto a table and ran up a bunch of songs.

"I was watching the TV," Emma said when she came back in. I grabbed Lynn and spun her and we danced around the tables back to our booth.

"You two are crazy." Emma said with a smile and flipped off the TV. She took our orders then sat at the counter, waiting for Earl.
"Why are you out in the middle of nowhere?" I asked.

"Whaddya mean?" she asked.

"There's nothing else out here."

"There used to be. Used to be a crafts market here when we opened up. Indians would sell that or produce. Turns out people needed gas more'n they needed that other stuff."

After we ate we asked Emma if there was anything to do here and she said eat, get gas and walk so we left the car in the parking lot and walked out into the desert. It was flat except for tall sandstone pillars and we found one that had eroded sides and scrambled to the top. The desert stretched away from us and we sat at the top, the rocks warm in the afternoon sun.

"I think it's my fault," She said.

"It's not your fault."

"I know. But it doesn't stop me from thinking it. How could I have not known? I should have seen it in him."

"You don't even know why he did it."

"It doesn't matter. I should have known."

"His fiancé didn't know."

"He wasn't engaged."

"That's what the old lady at the memorial service said. But she was old so she's probably dead by now anyway."

"That's horrible," she said with a laugh. "She probably just broke her hip. The memorial wasn't that long ago."

"Well, if the hip thing didn't kill her, I'm going to run her down."

"Not in my car. There's no way my insurance will cover the body work."

The sun had begun to set. It burned a deep gold across the clouds and Lynn was not much more than a silhouette. When I looked at her, her hair burned red and curly and I blinked my eyes until they cleared. The gold faded into blue then to black in the east.

When we got back to the diner, it was closed for the night. Emma had left a note under our windshield wiper that there was two cups of coffee sitting on a table next to the door if we were interested. We watched the stars come out and the moon come up and even as it grew cooler we stood sipping the coffee and warming our hands on the cups not wanting to get back into the car.

"Let's go somewhere," I said to Lynn.

"Where?"

"Who cares, let's have an adventure." She looked at me for a moment and I could see that she was trying to make up her mind, that it could go one way or the other.

"Yeah," she said after a moment. A slight grin on her face.

I drove all night. It was the first time I'd been back to the coast in years but it was all still familiar, nothing had changed. I hit the place on the highway where I used to turn north and my hands shook a little and my mouth dried up. I felt sick to my stomach at the memory and kept the car headed west. Lynn slept for a while and when she woke up we were rolling through small coastal towns.

"Where are we?" she asked with a yawn.

"There's a motel up here that's pretty cheap but it's nice. At least it used to be here." I said. I hoped I had the right town. It was just about dawn by the time I found it. Once we checked in we were asleep almost immediately.

"How'd you know about this place?" She asked.

"I used to come out here freshman year."

"Really?"

"Yeah, every weekend."

"To this motel."

"All over the coast. There's a bed and breakfast called the Seaside further north that I used to stay at but ..." I trailed off for a moment "... it's kind of a far drive." I finished lamely. I didn't know if she could hear the tremor in my voice.

It was too cold to swim and mornings on the beach were bright but cool. That didn't stop us from walking along the water for an hour or so. I found a café I remembered. They'd added an outside patio and we sat out there in heavy sweatshirts we'd bought. Everyone else clustered inside and we were alone for the most part. Lynn read the paper aloud, looking for the funny or weird. She'd read the headlines, then pause and look up to see if I was interested.

In the afternoons we would walk in the hills behind the town. Lynn's mom worked in a greenhouse and Lynn pointed out plants she knew as we walked. Every once in a while she'd bend down and pluck something up, telling me it was edible.

"What's the matter?" She'd ask grinning as I held something green or brown in my hand. I'd look at her sideways for a moment.

"You want me to eat this?"

"You don't trust me?" Her grin would grow into a smile.

"What if it kills me?" I'd say "Maybe that's why you brought me out here."

"You brought me out here."

"You tricked me into it." I'd say and she'd laugh. I took distrustful bites of this or that while she watched until she too ate whatever she held.

We spent the days like that. We'd picked up a nature map at the motel and we would drive off to see a meadow or waterfall or whatever looked interesting. She'd scroll through the radio stations looking for something to listen to and when she couldn't find anything, she'd stop on the crazy preachers.

By Friday her laughter had begun to falter. When I got out of the shower she was sitting on the bed and I could tell she'd been crying. We went to breakfast and sat drinking coffee but when she didn't bother with the paper, I knew it was time to go.

Chapter 5 | Suicide and Keg Stands Index | Chapter 7

Posted by Ben Corman at 7:42 AM

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Comments

I don't know that we get a choice, I thought but didn't say.

Would it not make more sense to replace 'that' with 'if'?

Great read. Unfortunately too short. This chapter is relatively short to the others probably because of the dialogue. Guess I have to wait for next Monday. Until then, expect some good blog updates. Keep it up Ben.

Posted by: JP at December 3, 2007 11:16 AM

Eatable should be edible, for the sake of the English language and all that jazz.

Posted by: Liam at December 3, 2007 10:32 PM

Lately I've been reading all my Hemingway stuff again and I can't help but think how much this reminds me of Farewell to Arms style storytelling. A bit more self-involved by the narrarator but still a good read.

Posted by: Harrison at December 4, 2007 03:09 PM

Cool. Keep it up! I'll probably re-read everything after the completion. The only thing that threw me off was how much the narrator was affected by his past. I guess I didn't realize how important his past was to him.

Posted by: Wayland at December 8, 2007 09:45 PM

Great chapter. I'm beginning to see maybe how things tie together.

Here's my take on what JP said. I love that line, but wouldn't it pack more punch if you just wrote it as "I don't know that we get a choice." ?

Posted by: Marcus at March 21, 2008 06:17 PM