A Carton of Cigarettes and a Bag of Double Bubble

9



I didn’t go home that night, just fuckin’ kept walking. Five, count ‘em, five motherfuckin’ days going without sleep. I was fuckin’ wired, man. I was ready to fuckin’ blow apart at the seems. I walked all night, stumbling through the snow, through that fuckin’ pea soup brought on by my own fucked up mind. I chewed so much gum that night I chewed over half my fuckin’ supplies Thursday. I was just fuckin’ seething over at the brim. If I could just fuckin’ make it ‘til Monday I would fuckin’ live. Just fuckin’ pull through a few more days and I would be A-fuckin’-OK.
It was about midnight when I fuckin’ come to a stop. The snow was still fuckin’ falling from cloudless skies as I stood under the El train. I decided to fuck walking for a little while or I was gonna fuckin’ drop dead. I got on the El and just fuckin’ watched New York slide by. I was fuckin’ staring out that window and wondering what else there fuckin’ was in life. I swear to Jesus that fuckin’ city will chew you the motherfuck up and spit you out on the sidewalk for the police to scrape up and throw away.
I was getting fuckin’ fed up, images from the last few days were beating on me again, the homeless guy with the garbage bag for a fuckin’ cape, the epileptic kid, the grunts of whoever the bastard was with Tina, those sons of bitches in the Jungle, most of all John and Ronald. I had fuckin’ been bumping into the bastards all week. I was about to scream, I was so damned fed up.
You see, you take a modern motherfucker, and fuckin’ plop him down in this city. Any goddamned day take some poor bastard from backwoods Kentucky or Tennessee and fuckin’ put him in this hellhole. I would fuckin’ bet money on it he would be slam crazy after one week. I mean just fuckin’ walking around this place. Its like a fuckin’ battlezone out here. This is fuckin’ civilization, folks, make me an offer and you can have the whole fucked up mess. Opening bids start at a goddamned dollar.
I fuckin’ heard the door open up behind me, and halfway expected to bump into John and Ronald or Slim and Shorty or some fuckhead wanting to kick my ass. No, it was just a girl. I had never fuckin’ seen her before in my life, I was so damned glad of that I coulda screamed. She came down the fuckin’ aisle and sat across from me. I didn’t really let her see me, but I was stealing glimpses of her from the corner of my eye.
Damn, man. She was so fuckin’ pretty I couldn’t stand myself. She had her hair tied up in a ribbon, and a nice dress on. You don’t usually fuckin’ see girls wearing dresses anymore. It wasn’t really damned old fashioned, but she looked like she had just been to a fuckin’ school dance or something. I was fuckin’ wondering what kinda guy would take a girl to a dance then fuckin’ make her ride the goddamned El home. I was getting pissed again, but fuck it.
Anyway I sat there until I fuckin’ worked up enough courage then I talked to her.
“Hello, you go to a party?” Jesus H. fuckin’ Christ that was abotu the fuckin’ dumbest thing I coulda said. Oh, but she was damned nice about it and all.
“No, I was coming home from church.” Coming home from church. Jesus, I didn’t even know they had church on Thursdays, and it musta been a fuckin’ midnight service, ‘cause it was awful fuckin’ late.
“Oh, that’s nice. I never have really fuckin’ gone much.” I wish I coulda fuckin’ blown my brains out. Her eyes got really fuckin’ big and she started blushing. Her I was cussing like a motherfucker and she had just told me she got outta church.
“Oh man, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to be rude, its just I’m really bad about cussing.” Brilliant statement from me there.
She kinda hesitated a minute then smiled and told me it was OK. That made me feel better. Well, I talked to her a while and found out that she had been to a special mass service and she had fuckin’ gone with her friends. I fuckin’ told her she needed to be careful about where she was going, and how she fuckin’ needed to watch out for nuts and psychos. She fuckin’ laughed and told me not to worry about her, God was watching over her. I told her I talked to God a whole fuckin’ lot and I would tell him to put double time in for her. I think I kinda put her off balance with that last one, but she was nice. She got off a coupla stops later. I tried my best to get her to let me fuckin’ walk her home, but she kinda got nervous and rushed off before I had the chance. Damn, I felt bad allova sudden.
So I rode the fuckin’ El the rest of the goddamned night, just fuckin’ think and watching the snow fall. I saw the rest of the night in relativity, to me it was all fuckin’ night. I watched the snow pile up, that wasn’t there. I fell asleep for like thirty fuckin’ minutes, and had this crazy dream. I dreamed I was fuckin’ hunting, when I come on these two fuckin’ bears attacking this girl. I knew this girl, I had fuckin’ seen her one of those pictures John and Ronald had sent me. I had this big fuckin’ cannon of a gun and these bears had these really fuckin’ shard claws and were about to fuckin’ attack her. I started running towards them, and then it all fuckin’ started getting blurry. The bears changed into two guys, John and Ronald, and the girl she turned into Tina.
She was crying scratching trying to get away from the bastards, the claws had changed into blood soaked knives in their hands, they were fuckin’ laughing at Tina. The bastards were fuckin’ gonna do for real what I had seen in those pictures. Not in my motherfuckin’ dreams. I fired my gun and it shattered them bother, both the fuckers with one shot. They shattered like fuckin’ mirrors, man. Then I saw Tina looking up at me from the ground and smiling, then she came over and started kissing me.
I fuckin’ screamed when I woke up, it was that goddamned vivid. I didn’t know what the hell to fuckin’ make of it. Anyway it was early Friday morning. The snow still clung to the window of the train, and it was still fuckin’ dark as hell out. I had come to accept the fact that it would be night the rest of my fuckin’ life. Life didn’t make sense anymore, it was all muddled up, fucked up, screwed up, and just about every other kind of ‘up’ you can name.
I got off the El and found myself right back where I fuckin’ got on. I headed back to Tina’s, I had to have somebody to talk to. Then about halfway there I fuckin’ realized she had told me she was fuckin’ working that night. She would probably either be gone or otherwise occupied so I decided to do something different. I went into a nearby movie theatre. I was gonna fuckin’ watch a movie.
There wasn’t much on, but I sat through a movie anyway. I watched the screen move and just fuckin’ stared. I don’t even fuckin’ remember what the movie was. I damned near went blind trying to read “The Catcher in the Rye” in the dark. Then I fuckin’ left. I wanted to fuckin’ do something crazy, something fucked up, you know? I thought about stealing a fuckin’ car, but then I decided against it. I felt a fuckin’ need in my bones, man. I didn’t fuckin’ realize what it was at the time, all I could fuckin’ think about as I rubbed my shoulder, was the feeling I had in the dream when I blew those motherfuckers away. It was like I fuckin’ wanted to cut John’s throat and drink the way I did from my own wrist. Or maybe bite his neck and suck the life right the fuck out of him. But no love for him there, just fuckin’ hunger, man.
I won’t fuckin’ bore you with the details of Friday, other than to say I had no fuckin’ fights, I got drunk as a bastard, and fuckin’ tried to slit my wrist. I cut a pretty good goddamned gash, but it wasn’t fuckin’ deep enough. However it did help the hunger I had. Told ya, motherfuckin’ madman. I wanted more, but I decided not to indulge myself just yet, after all, what the hell, you can’t have everything, right man?
I guess about the time I need to fuckin’ start is around seven Friday night. I had given Tina the day just because I didn’t fuckin’ wanna run her to death with my presence, you know didn’t wanna fuckin’ make her tired of me. So I started over around seven, got there about eight. I came up the fuckin’ stairs, I had cleaned myself up some, but I stilled looked like. I had so many bruises and scabs it wasn’t even fuckin’ funny.
I knocked on the door, and waited a minute. I heard her come to the door, she asked me who I was, even though she knew. I heard something in her voice I didn’t fuckin’ like. Still she opened the door and let me in. The fuckin’ room was dark, so I reached over to turn the light on.
“H.C. wait, don—“ I flipped the light switch on then looked at her. Jesus H. fuckin’ God Christ! She looked like she had been beat the hell and gone over. I nearly had a fuckin’ hemorage, the whole while she was fuckin’ crying telling me it was fuckin’ A-OK and how everything was fuckin’ peechy-keen. I was seeing fire, I was seeing blood, I wanted to fuck the motherfucker that did this shit up so bad he wouldn’t even fuckin’ know he was in hell for a year.
“Tina, who the fuckin’ hell did this to you?” I was cradling her face with my hands and crying. She just shook her head. She didn’t have to tell me, I fuckin’ knew who had done this shit. Her pimp. I didn’t know who the fuck the bastard was, but I was sure a s motherfuckin’ hell I was gonna fuckin’ cap the bastard.
But try as I fuckin’ may she wouldn’t tell me. I held her, and fuckin’ apologized for not fuckin’ being there, even though she told me I couldn’t have fuckin’ known. I didn’t fuckin’ care, she wouldn’t tell me. She actually got fuckin’ mad because I wanted to go after the bastard. I couldn’t fuckin’ believe it. Still I stayed with her that night. Then the rest of the fuckin’ day. It Saturday night when she fell asleep in her bed, I left her a note telling her I might no see her for a while. I told her I had something to do. I told her if the sun was ever gonna fuckin’ come back up and if the snow was ever gonna stop falling I had to do something and goddamned quick.
I signed it “With all my love, H.C.” then I headed home one last time. The music screamed at me all the fuckin’ way.