Joseph Gant

CURBSIDE

 

 

I haven’t worked in over three years. When I received the diagnosis, it was a death sentence. At least that’s how I took it. Regardless, that year, I gave up trying. Now the only thing I do resembling work is lie to my sponsor about Step 2 and the work I stopped doing on it.

 

I started writing while waiting for my disability to clear, if only to show to those supporting me that I was doing something productive. Success in that arena was a mixed bag--promoting my three-year nail-biting session. Oh well, a book’s a book, so I’ve been told.

 

“You gonna cash that check today, Davie?” Adrian affixes fake lashes in the mirror. I hate fake lashes. I wonder why the make-up this day, why any day, anymore.

 

“Which check?” It’s only 3:00 pm but past my well established drinking time. Sobriety is a bitch, but so are hospitals, treatment teams, and County Cops. And I’m told, this time, there’s a carrot, but I still look for the stick each sunrise that passes.

 

“The check from the publisher, Sweetheart. The royalties check.”

 

“I just deposited my social security into your account,” I remind her. Bourbon always went down smoother than my fiancé’s behests.

 

“Can’t I just frame this one? Do we really need the sixty-two dollars more than I need a self-esteem boost right now? It would look nice framed on the dresser.” But I don’t own a frame. “This may be my only book. Think of this check as the son we’ll never have . . . spent on lashes and strapless bras.”

 

But I knew we needed the cash. In three years I drank away nearly everything we, or she, owned. Sixty days sober and I am resigned to a life of signing checks in the name of forgiveness.

 

“Davie, I’m taking the car tonight.”

 

“Another date?”

 

Adrian is done making her face and slowly zips her make-up bag. “When you fucked that van-driving stripper, you solidified the nature of this thing here. So why do you care? I love you dearly, but I can’t be everything to you, nor you everything to me. We’ve been clear on that for some long time.”

 

The poor syntax of her statement bothers me more than anything. Triggers everywhere.

 

But she is right.

 

Since getting sick, I relied on her for everything. I loved her, and I never felt she didn’t love me back. This open nature of our relationship had been on the horizon for years. When I let the driver for the hospital’s outpatient transport program blow me at the Sonic drive-through, I opened the door to full execution of our open arrangement.

 

“And now is the best time to flex your progressive ideals? Trying to make me to drink again? How therapeutic of you, dear.” I am being childish, and I know it. It’s what I learned to do best, and it always gets me what I want. There’s no such thing as an addict without skills, whatever your drug of choice. Now, I am slowly dying because of it. She ignores my play for attention.

 

After a detour through the medicine cabinet, I lay out on the couch. I haven’t slept in our bed in months, and the smell of cushion-crevasse ass has become so familiar, I can not sleep without its rank bouquet. Under my blanket, my hands grope through pockets for my little amber bottle. A brief rattle, and my hopelessness is compounded for the day. Only three left. I can tell by the goddamn sound. The last of my Xanax goes into my mouth. I roll them under my tongue and taste the chalky residue as I turn into the back of the couch.

 

“Be sure to take care of yourself tonight,” the words she parts from me with. I pretend to be asleep and watch her in peripheral turnings. Fuckin’ box-goblin, I think as I watch her shadow exit the apartment.

 

I sleep all afternoon and wake with pain behind my eyes—sober dreams, the worst part of recovery. That’s something they won’t tell you in rehab. You expect the shakes, loss of concentration, and restlessness.  But if you drink for years without break, even a modest 6-10 per day, you find, weeks after detox, your sleep is plagued with the most vivid and persistent dreams you’ll ever fear to encounter, forgotten upon waking. When I get to my feet, I check the driveway through the window-blinds to verify my isolation. Boredom is the bigger bitch in this scenario. Time is my bottle, and it brims with aimless motion tonight.

 

Adrian’s smile and eyes and still hang like playground double-dares in the forefront of my unplanned evening. If this is how my dakini-angel takes flight of the sick-in-need . . . second step my ass; I start making plans.

 

Where could she have gone for such a long time? Will I be able to do it tonight? I bite my nails, not because I’m nervous, but because it’s what I do. I know she hates me for what I did with Niko. She’s likely getting her slut-venge now with some asshole that can’t even spell. Whore. I love her so much, how could she do this? She takes such care of me. The sun has gone down. I see darkness through the blinds. She wants to hurt me, control me. She loves that I am sick, and she resents my giving up liquor to show her I’m serious about my health. I check the clock on the wall. Three hours before Niko will be here.  Another trip to the hospital. More medicine, more shame, more awkwardness riding in the van with a hospital employee and her broken code of ethics. I pace the rooms with an unlit cigarette until my search for matches fails. I light the thing with the toaster oven. Adrian hates that. What were my plans? She can go to hell.

 

I pass out again and awake strangely as the hospital van pulls away from the apartment. She's going to kill me, I think, and go back to sleep.

 

I was approved for the transplant. Adrian returns home with that news to find me dead beside my bottles. Less than a year later she gets engaged to that asshole who can't spell, and I'm here hung up on my second step.

 

 

 

 

Joseph Gant is a New Jersey Born poet and fiction writer. His poems and prose have appeared in places such as Red Fez, Full of Crow, Criminal Class Press, and Gloom Cupboard. His first full length poetry collection, Zero Division, was published with Rebel Satori Pres. Tibetan Vajrayana, chess, and archery take up his time when he isn't pumping gas on the turnpike to pay his bills.