Loose Ends

by Amos Gunner

CHAPTER 30: ZEKE

  After Gavin’s, I wanted to get ripped. I’m talking seven sheets to the wind. After all, IA’s verdict deserved some celebration. And hell, it was a Thursday.

  I pulled teeth to find some company. All my acquaintances claimed to be indisposed. I eventually roped in a guest. It doesn’t matter who. He came over and we spent some time doing the whisky and coke thing. Then he bitched out and left. That was last time I saw him and I don’t expect him to visit anytime soon.

  I wasn’t hungry but I needed to eat. Didn’t work. Everything I tried tasted bad. Nothing was right.

  I went to get something from my jeep. Outside, I learned the hard way I had forgotten my keys. Locked out of my car, locked out of the building. Thank God I had my cell on me. By the time the landlord arrived, I didn’t want to go to my jeep anymore. I decided to give it a day.

  I slept and dreamed I was having sex on a vibrating bed. I don’t remember who I was boning. I woke to my cell phone ringing and vibrating in my pants pocket. That explains that.

  My jelly muscles couldn’t answer the phone, so I told it to fuck off. Believe it or not, the rings and vibrations stopped.

  I wiped away crumbs of eye gunk. I blinked till my vision wasn’t checkered. Took a while.

  My cheek was sopping wet. I’m a drooler. I admit it, but this was ridiculous. I marveled at the small lake on the cushion. Crazy night.

  Then the phone rang again. I flipped it open and yelled a few bad words.

  My heart beat, which was good, but it hurt a little. The viper? I don’t know. I tried to stand. Bad idea. I rose, like, an inch off the couch and gravity pushed me back. The day didn’t want me. Well I didn’t want it, but you never get a day off from a day, you know?

  The phone rang again. I was still holding it. When that thing goes off in your hand, it’ll wake you faster than coffee, even when you’re expecting a call and you know the exact second it’s coming, which I wasn’t.

  And who needed me so bad? I somehow made out Brenda’s name on the caller ID.

  I don’t think I’ve explained my position on Brenda. I wanted her, sure, but I knew she wasn’t worth having. Still, it bugged me that Adam of all people had her. Love is a selfish thing. Not that I loved her. It’s too complicated a situation to correctly explain. And in the end, it doesn’t matter.

  She spoke fast. “Z. It’s Brenda. Don’t hang up. I need you.”

  When she’s in bitch mode, she’ll make you wanna sever your sack and hang yourself. But when she acts like a normal woman, she’s irresistible.

  Too bad I felt like roadkill. I promised to stop by later and give her a good scrumping. She didn’t want me, she said. She needed me. Like I said, irresistible. I told her not to start without me.

  So that was worth getting out of bed for. Or the couch. Whatever.

  I wasn’t confident I had the strength required to put out her fire, but after I smoked a cigarette I was able to stand. I was getting better by the minute. If my body stayed on this course, I’d probably have the strength to put out her fire when I got to the scene. I looked forward to the challenge.

  But after a long leak, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I punched it. Didn’t break the mirror though. My knuckles turn red is all. I went back to the living room and made a thin line from the powder on the coffee table. It didn’t do much.

  So then what? I showered. You know, it’s not just an expression, “guilt weighing on me.” I was shorter and weaker than I’d been a few days earlier. The shower spray could’ve tipped me over.

  All would’ve been fine if I was pure evil. I envied those psycho fucks that could sit down and enjoy a bowl of Rice Krispies after taking an ax to their entire family. But that wasn’t me. I had a kernel of goodness inside me. A soul. But I had neglected my soul for as long as I’d had it, so it was dirty and dilapidated. And since I wasn’t using it, a thin viper had attached itself to my soul and had been sucking on it. If I didn’t do something fast, the beast would suck it dry.

  Who’s the guy who fell off his horse and saw a cross in the sky? I can’t remember either, but it doesn’t matter because the story’s not that special. When we’re down in the dirt, earthbound, that’s when our celestial daddy makes known his grace. Miracles are so commonplace, there’s nothing miraculous about them.

  I’m in the kitchen. I scoop out a rounded tablespoon of coffee from a can and I’m about to dump it in the machine when I am frozen. A beam of light shoots out of the sky and pierces my skin. It batters my heart. With that, I break and burn to a heap of ash.

  “Are you happy?”

  “No.” My tears start to drip to the carpet.

  “Does anything make you happy?”

  “No.”

  “Are you really living?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you want everlasting life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then why have you abandoned me?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Prove it, lest you be a clanging cymbal.”

  Trippy, huh? I insist this moment of witness occurred exactly as I reported. True, I had a lot of chemicals in my system, but I’ve always been able to handle my shit. Never hallucinated before, if that’s you’re feeble explanation. And yes, I’d been under a lot of stress, but I’d been in tight spots before and I retained sharp use of my faculties. No, all attempts to explain the miracle away will fail. What happened happened.

  Immediately, my world transformed. For example, I returned to my position above the coffee maker, the spoon still in my hand, and in the distance, church bells rang. What’s strange is there weren’t any churches near my place. Explain that, if you can. Me, I’d say it was a sign to get working.

  But how to clean a soul? No one ever taught me. I rummaged through what I knew of religion and I decided I was going to confess. Why not? People have been doing it for thousands of years. It must work. You list the shit you’ve done, say you’re sorry, and presto--you’re forgiven. I’m not saying Catholicism’s the way to go. I’m just saying in my condition, I latched on to their confession thing. It felt right. I still like it. I think it’s almost the only thing the Catholics ever nailed.

  But a confession wouldn’t be enough. I knew I also needed to perform some good deeds. A big great deed, I would think. Not that I needed one good thing for every bad thing, but the debit side was way too low and needed to be raised a few notches.

  So I came up with a plan for the day: find a church, receive absolution, bang Brenda, then volunteer at a soup kitchen. And to think the night before I was ready to end it all. Humbling.

  Brenda called to ask what was taking me so long.

  Yes, God was telling me, “Now that you know what to do, what are you waiting for?”

  So I’d skip the church. Confess to her. Why not? It was perfect. I’d threaten to expose our affair to Adam and she’d have to listen to my sins. She couldn’t say anything other than, “I will listen,” and, “You are forgiven.” Besides, it’s a priest’s job to listen and forgive. It’s like banging a hooker. It doesn’t really count. They do what they’re supposed to, half the time without sincerity. Brenda’s forgiveness would mean more than the lip service of a thousand priests. Even the Pope.

  I didn’t finish making the coffee. I should’ve been dead tired, but my eyes were open wider than they’d ever been before.