The Mercy Clock
By Robert Earle Stanton
Excerpt:
We’re
both laughing, and I’m like, “Shhh, stop,” and she thinks I’m playing so she
keeps it up and I’m not fucking kidding.
I do not want to get beat up tonight – some guy that rides a motorcycle
and works on cars could surely kick my ass – I mean, well, yeah. At the moment,
however, this cocaine is running down the back of my throat and it’s pumping me
up and my dick is hard when she closes the door. She backs up and laughs and I laugh, sniff hard, feel the
cocaine dripping into the back of my throat and I light a cigarette and
inhale. If your husband…”
“Would
you stop? You think I’m dumb? He’s
hitting on your girlfriend.”
“Not
my girlfriend.”
“Who
is it?”
“She’s
a…” I’m about to say writer but she can’t come up with one thing, I mean, I
gave her two things and they want the ending to have one thing, and the one
thing can’t be any of the two things so I say to Linda, “Two things,” and she
says, “What?” and I say, “pornography." Bathroom is big and I feel safe. I hear rap music in the background mixed with laughter and
dialogue I can't make out.
“What
are you…”
“And
high school.”
“What
are you talking about?”
“Those
two things teach you everything.”
“Then
that’s the number one.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
I
suck on my cigarette and think. “Nah… what’s everything mean?”
“All
of it.”
“It’s
a thing so it can’t be all of it.”
“Sure
it can.”
“How
is that?” I say, frustrated, sucking cigarette one more time to turn on the
faucet and put the cigarette under it and get some water on my fingers to put
up to my nostrils to sniff.
“Everything
can be nothing.”
“This
is going… nowhere.”
“When
I first met you, you were such a different…”
“How?”
I snap, then, “I mean… different in what way?”
“So
quiet, shy, insecure, and fucking cute.”
“You remember that um… ya know?”
“You remember that um… ya know?”
“Of
course,” she says.
“Um…
of course?” I say
“How
could I forget?”
“Well,
you were um… a hot older chick and I was a kid with mullet and every time I got
nervous my face got red…”
“Yeah,” she laughs, “that’s right, every time I talked to you… red face.”
“Yeah,” she laughs, “that’s right, every time I talked to you… red face.”
“Christ.”
I pull the bag coke out of the empty cigarette pack in my left pocket – “You
wanna hit this?”
“No,”
she says and I’m surprised at how much I have left. I put down a nice amound,
chop it up, and she says, “Like this.”
“What?”
“That
innocence.”
“What
are you talking about?” I’m saying, chopping the shit into one line to two
smaller lines.
“You and Jeffery came to ask me…”
“You and Jeffery came to ask me…”
“Oh,
shit,” I say, laughing, and I blow a line, then the next one and run my finger
over The Essential Michael Jackson CD case and rub it on my gums and inhale
though my nose and I get a slight pain in my ear for a second and remember the
airplane ride in sixth grade.
“You
guys came in my room and asked me how to smoke pot," she laughs.
“Yeah,
it was your pipe. You lent us a wooden fucking pipe.”
“I
was young, too,” she says.
“I
can still see you,” I say, “now.”
“Can
you?”
“Yeah,”
I say, “I can, I mean, yeah,” I say.
“I
don’t see you.”
“No?”
“Not
at all. It’s totally… different,
it’s not the look or anything… it’s…”
I light a cigarette. “I
guess you grew up,” she says and I say, “I never grew up,” and she says, “You
have a pretty good job,” and I say, “I can write dialogue, like… this whole
scene will appear somewhere at some point so if you don’t want to be written
about then don’t talk to me,” and she says, “See.”
“What?”
“The
attitude.”
“I
don’t got an attitude.”
“You
do.”
“I am in no way a guy that acts like he’s cooler than someone and I don’t have a big head…”
“I am in no way a guy that acts like he’s cooler than someone and I don’t have a big head…”
“I
know,” she says. “It’s like… you
don’t care.”
The
drips move along in song, slowing building me back up for another taste cause I
can’t get back to that first line I had tonight and at least I got some dope to
come down with. “What does that mean?” I ask and then I say, “Never mind,” cause I don’t think I want the answer.
“It’s like you don’t care about anything at all, especially not yourself,
and...” I cut her off with, “Is this the part where intervention comes in or
the part where I molest you?” I
push my hair back. “I want to
taste you. I don’t know what you
taste like and I have to know.”
She
looks at me. “I thought you said
you wanted to, like, make love and hold me and…”
“Yeah,”
I say, “Let me see one of your tits.
No,” I say, “just… a nipple, show me one of your nipples,” I say and she
looks at me, blank. “C’mon,” I say, “I’m just a voyeur, entertain me.”
After
I jerk everything out she tries to touch me and I back up and turn around and
turn the sink on and wash my hands and put water on my dick and then put my
pants back on and then dry my hands and
I turn around and she’s sitting on the floor wiping her hand off with a
towel. Then she lights a cigarette
and I gotta get outta here so I say, “Well, um, thanks,” and I laugh and she
says, “What was the shit about wanting me to hold onto you?” and I’m a little
stunned by the question, and go, “Well, um, Christ, that was… I was fourteen,
or thirteen." I think.
"Christ."
“Innocent,”
she says.
“I
wanted you to hold me… then,” I say. I look at her sitting there and I think
she’s older and fatter and I just don’t see her. She’s not even that great looking. “Everyone, ya know?, everybody tells me to get over the
past, but, I make a screenplay about kids and it's a hit. My hindsight is clear
and all I hear from anyone, whenever I bring up that summer…”
“What
summer?
“That summer where everything is possible and every feeling is attainable and everything is so new and great and yeah... everyone keeps telling me to get over the past. So you, you can’t see me? Good, cause I… ha,” I laugh.
“That summer where everything is possible and every feeling is attainable and everything is so new and great and yeah... everyone keeps telling me to get over the past. So you, you can’t see me? Good, cause I… ha,” I laugh.
“What?”
“I
was about to say, I don’t care.”
“Why
is that funny?”
“Cause
you said that’s how I was acting.
Like I didn’t care.”
“You
think that’s funny?”
“I
care about shit, not you, I mean, it's nothing personal. I don’t even know you.
When I was fourteen I kinda did. You had a boyfriend and you were cool and I
wasn't and I had that crush and now?
It’s… there’s… nothing there, so… get over the past. That's what people
tell me. But I make money off it. I
don’t see the fucking problem. I mean, are you mad at me?”
“No,
no,” she says.
"And
I can't go back in time. Trust me,
I would. Not for nothin'... it's
all or nothing."
She
sucks on her cigarette. “It’s just
been… a rough year with… everything.”
I shrug and open the door and walk out and everything.
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