Drawing Dead

by JJ DeCeglie

  I was up with sun and knew it was due immediately. Threw up within ten minutes and drank enough water to make it happen again and again. When that was through with I sat in shower for about forty minutes.

  Just let the scalding hot water hit my head and alleviate the constant ferocious hammer. When I’d had enough of that I got out and dressed. I felt like I’d been in a car crash. Like my skull had been crushed in a vice. I couldn’t clench my fists properly. I doubted I could swallow food. It was too early to buy more booze and I wasn’t sure I wanted that anyhow. I stared long and hard at the mini-bar, I can tell you that. I decided I’d just regurgitate the stuff right now anyway. I’d been here before. Over and over. You gotta weather the storm before you started trying to sail again my friend. Standard procedure. I made it as best I could out onto the street. The walking fucking dead. Poster boy for ‘Hobo Weekly’. The morning’s itinerant rays of sopping yellow sunshine all pleasant. The cool of the air somewhat bracing. I couldn’t feel those things but I knew them to exist. Not enough to make me wish I weren’t dead and buried, but enough for me to think very quickly about suspending the looming sentence. I shuffled head in hands down to the corner store like an escaped mental patient. Bought painkillers and a coke. I downed five in a gulp right there in the street and had to concentrate hard so as to not bring it straight back up and all over the sidewalk. I struggled back to the room. Tried for some sleep. It wouldn’t come. Just the thumping and pulsation and constant pull of oblivion. Back in the shower, then back in the bed. Nothing feels right, perhaps it never will again.

  What do you do when going on simply makes no sense?

  Simple…you just keep going.

  I’m not gonna lie to you. There have been times in my life when I’ve realised that God has had his oversized finger on my throat. I’ve known it and felt it and believed it to be true. My entire fucking life. Almost there but never making it, close but no cigar dumbass. Get back in the line and wait for the next round. You’re not bad hotshot, but you ain’t that good either. Problem is that I don’t take to it very well. I thrash and wail like a fish on a hook fighting not to be yanked from the ocean. Back of the line my ass. And God’s up there laughing his almighty balls off I bet. Shooting the shit with Satan thinking up what the fuck they can pull on me next. You know how many times I’ve been so close to the glory and fucked it up or had it fucked up for me. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. One time I thought that perhaps I’m like Job himself. Well similar. Except that in my case God went to Satan instead and said something sounding like this:

  Hey motherfucker I want to run something like you did that time.

  What the fuck are you talking about?

  Job.

  Oh, well, let me hear it then.

  Your boy there, Jack. I think I can make something of him. I’m sure I can.

  Jack boy huh, good luck, he’s a bona fide smartmouth shithead.

  I can do it I tell you. I see promise in the sombitch.

  Well, I’ll take the bet, I mean I got the best of it, he’s a fuck-up and he’ll stay that way I bet.

  Nah I can make this asshole come good. I’m sure of it.

  Well good luck with it, you’ll need that shit too. He’s a drinking, gambler, whoring no good beast of a man, I love that bastard.

  So it’s a bet then.

  Yessir. It surely is, but you’ll see, it won’t matter what you put in front of him, no matter the chances you throw the boy, he’s mine and was born it and it’ll stay so till he’s dust.

  But it’s a bet.

  Its money in the bank you dimwitted so and so.

  I dozed until the cleaning woman bashed on the door. When I rushed up this time my weightless head had settled into the drifted vagrancy of a subtle soaring hum with only the intermittent zing of dormant soreness. She let herself in as they do and I just sat there naked atop the bed and asked her to give me twenty minutes to clean myself up. I showered for the third time that morning and dressed for the second. Hit the street and the sun was flexing her muscles already. The bitch musta been on steroids. Scrapping my retinas like fucking sandpaper. When I got to my car I had a parking ticket. Like clockwork baby. I crunched it my weary fist and threw it into the wind. Worked as well as pissing into it. I’d already decided what I was going to do that morning. I couldn’t go home and I couldn’t go to the office. Both were the first place they’d be looking. In fact after what I’d pulled yesterday nobody would be stupid enough to go back to the office. Nobody.

  I ate some breakfast before I made for it. At the University in Nedlands. I parked in the staff lot and hoped for the best. Coffee, scrambled eggs, hash, sausages and beans. It all sat pretty well inside me and the price was right. The third coffee made me gag some but I figured the extra caffeine in my bloodstream was very necessary.

  When I got back I didn’t have a ticket but that’s how it is isn’t it, you win some, you lose some. Even with the level of shittiness I was feeling I still noticed the girls. Sweet hell did I notice them. All variety of’em. Tall, small, fat, skinny, black, white, yellow and brown. Pretty, not so pretty, asses, breasts, hips and lips. Hair shining and voices singing and all on God’s green earth.

  The sun accentuated their form as it lifted the remains of the dew from all things rested and I just sat back watching'em live and die and not ever notice. I wondered had any of’em read old Nietzsche. Or old Fyodor. Or even old Jean-Paul.

  Then I wondered did it matter, and if not then what did, or if so, then why? You could get into this current of shit with yourself for all time. You could and did. But they should at least check out Hesse, Siddhartha right, that badass told Buddha to go and fuck himself. My kinda asshole friend. And there it goes again, on and on and on, the bedlam of the annulled, the invariable buttfuck. It was best just to watch their asses as they walked. And hope for some liberation to come on rapid.

  I pushed on toward Fremantle. It was a double bluff. No asshole would be stupid enough to go there. There was too much heat. So it was where I’d go. I’m smarter than they’ll ever be. I parked about half a kilometre away and walked it in. The office is very much out in the open so I spied awhile before making the last walk out and across the parking lot. The coast seemed clear. I made for it. I was expecting the place to busted up but it wasn’t. I guess those three were too busy licking an array of wounds to worry about it. Maybe they bought that camera bullshit I spun.

  I covered the bloodstains on the carpet with a rug from the anteroom. The faint smell of spilt bourbon was covered up when I made some more coffee and smoked a cigar. I wasn’t supposed to smoke inside but the way things were I was having trouble giving anything of a shit. So I got on the table and removed the batteries from the smoke alarm and went for it. I tried calling Chenko from the office phone while I smoked. He didn’t answer and I swore out loud and then paced the floor for a time. I decided what I needed was a drink. Then decided I wasn’t dumb enough to be doing booze runs from my office into the nearby surrounds with this much fire on my ass. That bottle of vodka in my car was calling my name but I’d have to save that sweetness for later. So I sat and smoked and swore some more and watched the immeasurable ocean uninterrupted out my dirty salt-pocked window.

  She walked in and it just wasn’t fair. A dynamite petite package with rock’n’roll in all the right places. She lit the joint up, obviously always had and would. Every part of her was stacked so that she was unavoidable. A vixen, a kitten, a demon. With a body that made it impossible and a smile that men would murder for. That damn smile. I’d never seen anything like it. Not in my lifetime. Not until she came in and let me have it. Didn’t matter what was happening or when, that smile could flatten you, knock you out and then revive you. She could be all there was when she wanted to. I can’t put it any better than that. Like the air you breathe boy-o, you needed her that bad. Worse even.

  Wearing a summery red dress that finished most of the way up her thighs and understatedly showed what her breasts were m
ade of. She had tan olive skin that was natural to her, effortless, and her eyes and hair went the exact same way, dark, shimmering, all loveliness and sparkling. She was alive and it throbbed from her. The truest beauty can do that I think. And she had it, she really damn well did.

  Mr. Andrelli?

  Call me Jack.

  Could we speak?

  Sure…shoot?

  I’d like to hire you.

  She must have seen the local advert. Terrible timing. The job I mean, meeting her could never be such, hell she could be the one flicking the switch on the juice when you were strapped into the electric chair, about to meet your maker, you’d still be glad you got to meet her, trust me now, you wouldn’t want it any other way.

  Well uh, yeah… sorry…what should I call you?

  Evangeline, Evangeline Lorenzi…Evie though, everybody calls me Evie.

  Ok then Evie. I’ll be straightforward with you, it's best that way I think. I’m trying to travel incognito at the moment. Trying to stay outta trouble, move in the shadows, you know what I’m saying.

  I really need your help.

  What’s going on?

  You’ll hear me out then?

  Of course I will. Can’t hurt can it? Sit down. You want coffee?

  No…thank you.

  She smiled right then. Right after she’d said she didn’t want any coffee. I couldn’t breathe a moment. You don’t have to believe me but it’s true.

  How do you think I can help you?

  She took a deep breath herself then. Followed it with the pitch.

  There’s a man. I was in a relationship with him. You know how it can be. He’s a violent, mean son of a bitch. I ran from him and he followed me. Convinced me to take him back. I did and it was the same thing again except this time he was even more violent and an even meaner son of a bitch. He drank more, there were other women. So I ran away again. And he found me again. Said he was going to kill me, but only put me in the hospital.

  She started to cry. I let her. This guy she was talking about, this asshole loser, I can’t say I hated him, in fact, he sounded vaguely familiar to me. I wondered if he had a regular drinking partner.

  I got away again. Out of the town I was in, he found me again, threatened to kill me again. He will too. I know he will. He’s crazy; he is, especially when he’s drinking.

  I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the guy, another sorry sack of shit trying it on and failing. I also felt extreme jealousy for him, 'cause he’d been naked with this girl and I hadn’t. That said, at least I was her type.

  I’m through running. I want my life back.

  I watched her closely when she finished. Partly because of how she was built, and partly to get a make on her. If she wasn’t such a world-class piece of ass I woulda turfed her. I wasn’t buying what she was trying to sell.

  What do you wanna do? Kill him?

  No.

  She uncrossed her legs, recrossed them in opposite, put on a serious as hell pout and then went on talking. Her eyes were beautiful. Large and clean, milk fresh from the cow with a dash of velvety melted chocolate in the middle, made-up just enough to matter, lashes like taunting fans wafting her perfume at you, brows that framed the whole of it into perfection.

  I want you to kill me.

  I was pretty sure I understood her from the get go but I let her go on with it to be sure.

  Make it look like I died. Then get me new documents. A whole new life. A brand new one. Your advertisement said that confidentiality is assured.

  It is baby.

  She didn’t flinch.

  I can pay you well. Twenty thousand dollars. Please, Mr. Andrelli.

  After she mentioned the money saying please didn’t really sweeten the deal much more. I fished a little further though. I didn’t purchase the narrative she’d worked, not one bit. But she was sitting there making life worth living for a change and had offered me twenty large. It was gonna be a right awful bitch to pull off but I knew I was capable of it. I played hard to sell for a minute.

  Call me Jack.

  Please, Jack.

  Sold! Make like you’re not.

  Evie…What you’re talking about doing isn’t easy. There’s a great amount of risk involved, and even if we pull it off it doesn’t mean it will stick. It’s fraud. Could land us both in jail.

  I’ll pay you more. Double. Forty thousand. I can’t live like this anymore Jack. Looking over my shoulder all the time, checking my locks ten times before I go to bed every night and then not even sleeping anyway. A new damn town every damn month.

  Just leave the country.

  Seemed easy enough. Not sure why I was putting such stupid ideas in her head though. I wanted her here and wanted her money. She started crying again goddamnit.

  I like it here. Why should I leave? Why should I! Look if you’re not going help me I don’t know what I’m gonna do…I can pay you more. Would fifty do? Please. I only have this much on me.

  Girl like this, money like that, situation I was in. Devil musta been laughing so hard he almost shit himself. I looked at Evie hard, I figured she rarely had to sell so hard to get what she wanted. She reached into her handbag and took out five pink-banded wads of cash. Five thousand in each I was guessing. I was starting to like her even more than I thought I did.

  Fifty is fine. This is half yeah, I’ll take this now, and then the rest when we’re done. That work with you?

  You’ll help me then?

  Yes. But there’s no guarantees. You understand that right?

  Yes.

  And there’ll be other expenses that come from your end.

  I understand.

  I let it settle a second. For both our sakes. I sat up straight in my chair and gathered the money into a neat stack. Counted one wad quickly and it was five large on the button and real. I placed the lot of it into the top drawer of my desk and then wished I had a drink in my hand and Evie in my lap. When I looked into her eyes she smiled at me again. It was too much and I had to look away. Oh sweet lord for that vodka in my mouth and gushing down my throat.

  It’s going to take me a day or two to get some things together. Hopefully everything runs smooth. I’ll take a couple of passport style photos of you now. That way we don’t have to see each other again until it’s time. Write your number down for me. I’ll call you from a payphone when I get everything sorted. If you need to call me, which I don’t want you to do, but if you absolutely have to, make sure you use a payphone. Chances are I won’t get it anyway, I don’t have a mobile. So call here, and don’t leave any messages. If things get crazy, we can’t have a trail of us calling one another, or your voice recorded on my answering machine. How old are you Evie?

  Twenty-four.

  No chance. She was lucky to be twenty. I took three or four photos of her. Just her headshot. I got her to smile for one of them, I couldn’t help myself. In those brief instants of daydream I fantasized about a number of things. You can guess at them I think. Wouldn’t be a stretch. Yeah you got it, Evie’s delicious mouth, that’s right, her luscious breasts, right again, her supple legs, her delicate wrists, her balmy armpits, her firecracker ass, her illicit and had to be buttery honeypot. But there was other stuff too. Flashes shot through brutal to the surface.

  Knifed in the dark and left to die.

  Lexy, at the beach and in the sunshine.

  Lexy, platinum blonde in my bed and arms.

  Lexy, bleeding now forever, pulling silly faces at me like she would, the bugs swarming in and around her rotting rancid flesh.

  Her blues eyes burning like a hurtling planet.

  So much dirt in between me and the coffin.

  I could run away too. Take the money, square the debt, get on a plane and use my credit card to get anywhere but here.

  Anywhere but here...

  When Evie left she kissed me on the cheek and I breathed her hair and skin in. It was an agony worth enduring. Sun in winter lifting scents and joy into this isolated hellish sphere. />
  I’d went over everything once more to the letter and added a few other things I’d thought of in the meantime and she said yes, Jack that’s fine. I said ok then but thought to myself yeah, well, we’ll see about that won’t we honey, and when she left I printed out the photos passport style on high-quality polished paper and deleted them from my camera right after. I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t print out the one of her smiling to put and keep in my wallet and gaze at from time to time. And the other one where I'd zoomed out and got her breasts in shot too.