Dying With a Dying Fall

I never liked night. Even as a child. Everything was too dark and the shadows moved too slowly. Now, as an adult, perhaps I was moving too fast. As I stepped out into the city, I snorted with disgust. During the day you could see the activity. Hear it. But night? You could only feel and the feeling made my skin crawl. I felt like J. Alfred subconsciously touching the top of my head. I sighed as my fingers slid through a full head of hair.



I strolled to Stoko's with my hands in my trouser pockets. The foolish call Stoko's a dive bar, but it isn't. It's a psychiatrist with four walls and a cracked countertop. You measure out your life in shot glasses and you pay by each intake of breath and not by the hour. The lonely, the depressed, the forgotten, and I all go to Stoko's. You sit and the only sound you here is the liquid from your drink murmuring. The more you drink the clearer it becomes until it tells you: We all die.



I smelled him before I adjusted my eyes in the clouded smoke to see him. He smelled of cheap liquor, faded dreams, and unrealized brilliance. I was shocked he sat down next to me. That's nothing you do at Stoko's. The barstools are like urinals, you always leave one between you and the next guy. His body slumped against mine a bit as he sat down. I took in the way he drew circles in the dust on the bar, breathing heavily. He turned to me with bloodshot eyes and declared: "I shoulda never loved that selfish bitch!" Then he looked away.



I stared, waiting for him to continue, and for a while he didn't. Just kept making sphere after sphere on the countertop until it looked like he'd created the universe all over again. He grunted and turned to me again. A grimy finger reached out to touch my side. "You ever been in love?" he slurred. I shook my head, swirling the wine in it's glass as my thoughts drifted to the morning she told me she'd never leave me, but never came back.



He laughs and it sounds like the cracking of knuckles after a long day of work. "Well ain't you a lucky sumofabitch!" I watch carefully as he produces a faded photograph of a young woman. She's a dark beauty, her eyes avoiding the camera. Her legs are crossed and something about the way she holds herself seems forced and unreal. He taps the photo with the same grimy finger. "This one," he pauses and shakes his head. "Oh boy, this one," he whistles. He sits thoughtfully and so quiet and so still that I think he's passed out upright.



He rubs his temples before downing the last of his drink. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and burps. "The last time I saw 'er, she was laughin." He licks his lips. "Head back 'n all. It was real full like. Deep." He makes a motion with his hands. "Throaty, y'know, cuz she smoked." He runs his fingers up and down the edges of her photograph. "It was real rich..kinda...kinda like expensive brandy...yeah, yeah, brandy." He takes a deep breath. "She kept blinkin' at me all weird like. Steel gray them eyes. Pupils were real dilated." He laughs awkwardly. "Shit, I ain't never seen 'em that big. Did'n know they could.."



He trails off and looks over at me. I stare back at him. "You got bitch eyelashes. Just like she done. All curly." My hand moves back up to the top of my head. Still no bald spot. I open my mouth to speak and am surprised to find the insides dry. He waves his hand and mumbles, "Ain't no matter no way." His head tilts as he keeps examining her. "Then her nose started bleedin. Real slow." He drags a finger down her front. "See me. See me I was worried about her. Always told her to stop. But no. No tellin' her nothin."



He's quieter now and his fingers have started to curl around the picture. "She just wiped the blood away. Said it matched the color of her fingernails." He scoffs and orders another drink. "I could see her stumblin...I could hear the sound of them damn heels 'gainst the linoleum. Goddamn echo still in my head." Again he rubs his temples, the crumbled photo lying in the midst of his dust universe. "I tried to catch 'er. I swear on everything I tried!" He slams his fist against the counter. "Selfish bitch! Wouldn't let me save her!"



He's gasping and I don't know why. "She fell. Right there on 'er feet." Yet another scoff. "I remember 'er hair flowin' like she was in a summer breeze. It was brown. Like fresh earth after a rain." He finishes the rest of his drink and stares into the glass. I imagine his tells him what mine told me: We all die. "She ain't never got up. Never seen a body so still..." I see a tremor move through is body. "Left a fuckin' bloody fingerprint on the counter. Brand new it was, granite."



Suddenly he's standing, unsticking the bar stool from the floor and moving back. He tosses a few crumpled bills and gives me a rough pat on the back. "Don't ever fall in love kid. Ain't enough bleach in the world to clean ya of the memories." He staggers back out into the world, leaving a heavy truth in my soul that won't ever go away.