The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death - Charlie Huston [51]
—So I was at home, on break, and we'd stayed up together watching It's a Wonderful Life or something, and I'd been smoking a lot because we were having some Christmas cheer together. I was standing with the door to the deck open, blowing smoke outside. After he went to bed, I stayed up to watch something else. White Christmas'? I don't know. But I cheated and snuck a cigarette inside. Didn't finish it though.
She turned, facing me, left foot tucked under her right thigh.
—And I was a little loaded so I forgot to put the ashtray back out on the deck. And in the morning.
She leaned and snagged her jacket from the back of the chair and reached into an inside pocket and came out with a small journal.
—In the morning I came down and found this.
She opened the journal and flipped some pages and pulled out and unfolded a deeply creased sheet of notepaper.
She handed it to me.
FROM THE DESK OF WESTIN NYE
WESTLINE FREIGHT FORWARDING AND TRADE
When I was smoking (in the 1970s) I learned that when returning to a partially smoked cigarette, you should put it to your lips (before lighting it) and blow your breath out and through it—thus removing most of the foultasting residue that you would otherwise be drawing into your mouth on your first “drag” after lighting up.
With love,
your father
I handed it back, and found my T on the floor and pulled it on.
—Did you crawl into a closet and bang your head against the wall?
She stood and went to the door to the bathroom.
—No. I laughed. He didn't mean it to be funny. Which made it funnier. Which was kind of his style.
She fiddled with one of the buttons on the old blue gas station shirt that hung to tops of her thighs.
—I keep thinking there's a good laugh in his suicide somewhere. But I haven't found it yet.
She ducked into the bathroom, the taps ran, she came out with her cigarette doused and pitched it in the overflowing wastebasket by the desk.
—I think I need to go.
—OK. Let me get my shit together and I'll give you a ride.
I started looking in the blankets for my jeans and underwear.
She shook her head.
—No. I want to walk a little.
I found my BVDs and pulled them on, taking particular care as I snugged them into place.
—Pretty long walk to Malibu.
She looked out the window, balled her dress tightly and stuffed it into one of the large outer pockets of her jacket.
—I can catch the bus in Sherman Oaks and over the hills and out to Santa Monica. The coast bus from there. I'm not, as you may have noticed, in a hurry to be home.
I sat with my jeans in my lap.
—Sure, but the bus sucks.
She shrugged.
—I like the bus. I like to watch the sides of the road.
I looked at the floor, trying to keep a lid on something that didn't seem to want to cooperate at that moment of exhaustion and postcoital confusion.
—I don't like buses.
—Don't like riding them?
That was a tricky question.
—No. I mean, yeah. I don't like riding them. But I also just kind of don't like them.
—Have you always felt this hostility toward public transportation?
—Not public transportation. I'm fine with light rail or trams. Subways. Just buses I don't like.
—Forever?
I thought about that. But I didn't need to, really, I knew it wasn't forever.
—Um, no, no, not forever. I used to ride them quite a bit.
—When you were a kid?
—No. I mean, yeah, but.
Words just kept occurring to me, kept finding ways to put themselves together. While I was trying to corral one bunch, another slipped out. These were the next ones.
—Yeah, come to think of it, it is kind of a new thing. Not liking buses. Hating them, really.
She took a step over.
—Web, you're killing me. Are you serious? Are you trying to cheer me up? Because I hate that. If you're making this up to cheer me up I will be so fucking pissed at you.
Again, I tried to get things under control, knowing where this conversation ended. Not wanting to go there. Ever again.
But things, they have a way of going out of your control sometimes. Have you noticed that?
And I kept talking.
—Yeah. Hell yeah. I mean, no. I mean, really, I can't