Call me what you want

by Alan Stokes

I was lying on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, studying the crack which had grown bigger since the last time I saw it. The TV was on. A nature programme. Something about an antelope or a giraffe, I forget which. There was a beer on the table next to me and a cigarette burning in the ashtray. I’m not sure what time it was. I don’t even know what day it was. All I know is that it was late and that I did not want to be here. I wanted to be anywhere but here.

And I had told her that. When Shaz came home from work I told her that I was leaving her. Maybe not today, okay. But soon, very very soon. This weekend, maybe. I will leave at the weekend. Sunday. In the afternoon sometime. After dinner; I will go after dinner. Around four. Or five. It depends. Because it’s not easy, you know, leaving someone. It takes guts.

I reach for the can and swallow some beer. I put it back on the table and inhale on the cigarette. I lean back and look up at the ceiling. Again, I study the crack. I try to work out if it is getting bigger or whether it is all in my head.

I decide it is getting bigger. The idea that I am imagining that it is getting bigger is too much to contemplate. I don’t need that.

I told Shaz that she was suffocating me. I told her all sorts of things. The words just poured out of me. Once I got started I couldn’t stop.

But she didn’t answer me. She just continued chopping vegetables.

I took a last pull on the cigarette and stubbed it out. I wiped my face and told myself that everything was going to be okay. I told myself that we are alone in this world and we cannot rely on anyone but ourselves.

There’s a wall between us now, this huge big fucking wall and it’s pointless trying to climb over it, knock it down, punch a window in it, a hole, a pinprick, anything. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re beyond that now. I could set fire to myself and Shaz wouldn’t blink. There is nothing, absolutely nothing I can do about it now. We no longer want each other and we both know that.

I’m in the kitchen now, grinning, sitting at the table, puffing on a cigarette, watching Shaz trying to pull a string of spaghetti out of the pan to test whether it is cooked and ready to be sieved or strained or whatever the fuck it is you call it.

I hate her. I fucking hate her.

I’m a bad man. I don’t deserve to be happy. I hear you.

Maybe you’re right. But that doesn’t change anything; that doesn’t help me. If anything it makes things worse. And I don’t need that right now. What I need is for someone to tell me that everything is going to be okay.

I just want my life to be different in some way. Each day I get up and I know what to expect. My life is whizzing by and nothing is happening to me. I look at my dad and I relate to him. I understand his apathy, the way nothing touches him anymore.

Shaz puts the plate in front of me. I stare into the food. I’m hungry, so fucking hungry man but I don’t want any of it.

The last time I felt like this I packed a bag and went to Ed’s. That was two years ago now. That was when I fucked Ed’s wife. That was when Ed stopped talking to me. That was when Shaz stopped talking to me.

No one talks to me anymore.

I drop my fork onto the plate. I’ve had enough of this. I have to do something. Anything, it doesn’t matter. So long as I am not here. I can’t bear being here. This is killing me. How many times do I have to tell myself that?

Up, man, just get up and move your legs, put one foot in front of the other and see what happens, see where it takes you. You can do this. You just need faith in yourself. Confidence; you just need some confidence.

I get up. I push back the chair and head towards the door.

And even if there was or is a crack in the ceiling who cares, who the fuck cares. There are more important things to think about here.

Okay. I hear you, I hear you.

I mean you cheated on her but so what, what’s done is done. Deal with it. There are worse things you can do to someone in this life. If she doesn’t understand that, well, fuck her, that’s her problem.

You tried. You came back to her and you did your best. Don’t you know that? Don’t you fucking know that?

Come on, man, it’s time to let go of this because it’s killing you now, it’s fucking killing you. There’s a world out there. You just have to believe in yourself again.

The truth is she was like this before you met her. Cheating on her changed nothing. It just gave her an excuse not to talk to you.

You want to know the truth?

There’s fuck all in her head, nothing. She’s dead inside. She’s an antelope. A fucking beast, man.

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~ This piece was posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 and was filed under Writing, Featured. You can make comments on it below. ~