Scenes from memory

We were driving up to Georgia along the gulf coast and we were both pretty drunk. You were wearing the dolphin earrings that you’d stolen from the last rest stop. You kept trying to correct the wheel, but you were drunker than I was and so we sent a few oncoming cars careening off the road as they tried to avoid us. I told you to stop or I’d turn the car toward the sea and keep going. You sat there quietly. After a while the car rolled harmlessly into a watery ditch, but it was only because I’d been watching you run your fingers over your bottom lip in a sort of rapture.

By coincidence, I was behind your car on the St. John’s Highway. I saw you stop and let a prostitute inside with you. Back at home, the liquor cabinet was empty. I went to my stash, but you'd drank all that, too. I stood in your room and sang quietly. I shot your gun out the window. Why was the wreath I’d made you broken on the floor, why was it partially burned? I imagined you lighting some gin on the wicker and then just staring into the fire, drunk and suddenly transcending your own life. I slept that night in your bed, which smelled so much like you -- rotten wood, stale tobacco -- that I was glad I could enjoy it alone.

You were sleeping heavy off Xanax and vodka. I pulled up one of your eyelids and looked into your iris. It was darting around like you were frightened of me. I’d expected your eye to tell me something about you, but I had no idea what it was seeing. You'd gotten mascara all over my fingers. I poured a cold Mr. Pibb out onto your face, but you still would not wake up. This is bullshit, I thought.

We’d taken a weekend in the Carolinas. Swimming behind waterfalls, fucking in the clovers, nuzzling your dirty neck under the stars. I watched you stand tall and draw from your wine jug or smoke while looking at the sun and I thought, Magnificent. You made me feel like I was born to be a woman of the trees and to touch the Smokey Mountain sky. On the way back, we stopped at an overlook. You stood there on the edge of the cliff, looking out. The big world curved below you. I took a drink and passed the bottle to you. I’ll admit I wanted to end it right there in that last perfect moment. It would have been so easy to just lean on you unexpectedly. I took deep breaths and pictured your whole fall. In the end, I didn’t do it. Forensic technology is amazing these days, plus I could have never faced your family.

You were out downtown somewhere with your sister from West Virginia. I don’t remember why, I was bored I guess, but I picked a pair of your panties up off the floor and tried them on. Then I found the blue lacy bra that went with them and I hooked that on. It was pulled pretty tight. I sat there with my penis tucked underneath me and I rubbed my hairy thighs. It was scary because I felt like I’d left my body. Then I imagined me, the man, lowering himself into me, putting his hands on me. I couldn’t wait for you to come home. I changed back into my regular clothes and waited in the big chair across from the door. You had said you’d be back at one a.m. I had a bottle of Jim Beam and a glass that I was filling. One o’ clock passed without incident, and by one forty-five I wasn’t even a little bit horny any more. At three thirty you finally came home and that’s when I threw that bottle of Jim Beam against the wall.