In Nickie Lynn’s cramped, kitsch-filled apartment, the scent of stale cat piss blossoms outward from each corner. The ammonia-laden funk clings to everything in her living quarters: the pink, floral decorated wallpaper; her spindly, scratched-up furniture; even the bowls and plates.
Both of her cats are girls: one black and muscular, the other, petite, pink-eyed and white. Life together has synchronized their internal clocks, and, of course, both of them go into heat about the same time each month. During the mating season they like to moan and showcase their kitty privates like a couple of gaudy bar-whores. For Nickie, the thought of having them fixed is offensive in some fundamental way, just like the thought of marrying a nice, clean-cut man with steady employment. Just like before she left.
I haven’t seen Nickie in two years, ever since she migrated to Georgia with her shit-kicker, coke-addled ex. God knows I never liked him, and deep down, I knew he’d split as soon as he siphoned everything he could from the poor woman. She’s grayed a bit, and Christ, does she tremble -- dried out and exhausted at forty-three. Maybe she doesn’t think I notice her shakes, or, quite possibly, she just doesn’t give a shit.
“I relapsed four times in rehab” she tells me. “I met this guy called Bear – a biker – and we just felt this incredible connection. He liked crystal-meth, and I kind of got into it too. You know how I am with bikers, Silas.”
It’s always a man with her. I mean, it’s miserable entertainment to watch this half-expired woman express her taste in men – a taste that roughly mirrors the flawed, emotion-driven judgment of a fourteen-year old trailer-park hussy trying her damnedest to piss off Daddy.
“Well…….you finally cleaned up, didn’t you?”
She looks at me like a tired, recovering, middle-aged bar-fly and nods her head, blowing out a lungful of cigarette smoke. Basics 100’s or Winstons, I think.
“Clean for over nine months. April’s proud of her mama. At least she can finally be proud of her mama for something.....for doing something good.” Nickie smiles. I notice that her dental hygiene hasn’t picked up at all. Both of her front teeth are yellow as mid-morning hangover piss.
It’s funny when you really think about achievement; how some folks can accomplish seemingly supra-human feats: win Noble prizes and hold successful hostage negotiations with un-medicated manic-depressives, while others are stopped dead in their tracks by “givens”, like sobriety or continuous employment.
It’s even harder to think that I had, at one time, fucked this woman………made out with her… licked her vagina and asshole. But I’ve also changed in two years. Now I’m twenty-four, and I don’t expect things to get any better. I know that nothing worthwhile happens unless it draws this carnal cesspool of humanity closer to God – and that's a walk that most of us aren't willing to take.
1 comment:
You licked her asshole. . .you must have really loved her, at one point then. . .you took the worst of her, and you could love it. . .even if only for one night. . .there are marrieds who have been together for years and years, and have never fully loved each other, as you loved this hardscrabble woman. . .
There are, of course, those fetishists or those possessed by anal mania, who will lick any anus. . .I must assume you are not one of these. . .I chalk this up to my prejudice for those who have the poetic sensibility. . .
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