the end.

I could see her laying under the slide, shaking. I though it was just the alcohol playing tricks on my eyes. But then she stopped. And her coat was no longer moving up and down in a rhythmic breath. Somehow, I just knew. I watched the life float up out of the fortune teller..Madame something or another, I think. I turned to around and threw up. And then, for the first time I can remember, I went home sober.

I couldn't sleep.
Tara had offered to let me crash at the pub for the night, but I knew if I woke up with bottles of whiskey and scotch, I'd down my breakfast with hard liquor. And that probably was not a good idea. So, I left the pub and headed home around 3:30 in the morning. But once I was tucked in my bed, sleep did not come. And the room would not stop spinning.

I should probably stop drinking, I thought to myself.

Around 6:30 the next morning, my eyes were still open. Sunlight was coming through the windows in broken shards, forcing me to get up . I grudgingly swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up slowly. The pounding headache came immediately. I limped over to the bathroom for a long gulp of water. I was thirsty all the time now, since the only thing that truly satisfied my thirst was a taste of alcohol.

I decided that today, I was going to attempt the hold off on the brews until at least 3 in the afternoon. This probably was not going to be a good day. As I began my walk down to the bus station, I ran into a little boy heading off to school. His sister was handing him money for the bus. But this small child did not look old enough to ride by himself. He gave me a timid look, and I sneered back. Today was not the day for random kindness.

And with that in mind, I broke my promise and headed to the pub.

I wasn't used to having to meet new people. It had been awhile since I'd had a conversation with anyone other than Tara. She was usually the only one interested in chatting with me while I sat by the window and downed shots of whiskey. On this particular night, I was well into my 13th shot, when a man I'd never seen around before passed out at a table near where I was forgetting my sorrows. He had a small girl with him. She too was asleep on his lap. My heart fluttered. This little child had been me. I could remember falling asleep with my drunk mother in a bar almost every night. "Well shit" I muttered under my alcohol-sodden breath.

"TARA!" I yelled. "I need another round!"

She hurried over to me and poured yet another beverage for me.

"You need to slow down, Madalene" she said, never taking her eyes off the small girl.
"Your going to kill yourself one of these days" she remarked as she walked away.

I pretended I hadn't heard her and went back to forgetting life as I knew it.

I was beginning to forget everything. The only route I could remember clearly was how to get to the pub. It was the only place I ever went anymore. Tara and I would sit by the window-me downing my tenth or eleventh brew, and she would tell me of her problems. Stories about her life. Things she thought I didn't remember. Truth is, I remembered more when I was hammered than when I was sober. Sober life was shitty and miserable. Nothing that I thought was worth taking up space in my memory compartment. I slept until two in the afternoon everyday. The sunlight only made me grumpy lately.

I was startled awake by a continuous ringing in my ears...one I thought my hangover had generated, only to be surprised that the fire alarm was sounding. “Shit,” I mumbled under my breath. I rolled over and tried to ignore the blaring noise. With no luck, I grabbed the nearest sweater I could find and trudged down the stairs, bumping into Sidda on my way out. She turned back with a sneer and nudged me. She never did care for me much. I could hear the sirens of the fire truck in the distance, hurrying to save the building they thought was in flames. Just my luck though, no smoke was billowing out. A false alarm. I had hoped this dump would be burned to a crisp. It certainly deserved to be. I reached into my right pocket to fetch a cigarette, only to find nothing but lent. I began to make my way over to the pub. Hopefully there’d be some drunk left over from the night before who would let me bum one. I hadn’t had a drink in nearly 8 hours…I was desperate for a taste of anything with liquor. Anything to make me forget the events of the morning. My mother used to take me down to the diner on the corner when I was little. She’d bundle up my cousin Margaux and me and lead us to sit alone in a booth with a cup of lukewarm hot chocolate. Margaux always looked as though she was mortified, but I used to pretend I was drinking coffee in New York City, waiting for my big break as an actress. My mother would walk across the street to the theater, and return hours later with her make up smeared and the smell of vodka streaming from her pores.  

magdalene

I woke up ten minutes later than usual, and didn’t bother to climb out of bed until another hour had passed. The minutes ticking had no meaning to me. I had nothing needing to be conquered. The sweater I’d worn for the past three days was cramped up in a stale pile of cigarettes and reeked of the Irish Pub. I couldn’t remember how I’d gotten home last night, but I was sure I’d seen Felix on the street somewhere along the way. As I pulled on the sweater, I clasped my broken watch on my left wrist, and I scrounged around for some quarters to buy a bagel down the street. The watch was a waste of time since it no longer ticked, but then again I didn’t have much use for seconds and minutes anyway. It wasn’t like I ever had any engagements.  I figured I should wait until at least noon before I downed my first brew, so I took my time getting my bagel. I saw Jacen Vaughn on my way, and I desperately wished I had something to say. Any sort of conversation would have been fine. I even would have been happy to chat with Yung Li. I was beginning to feel like I was invisible. I decided I’d spend my extra change on a bus ride. It was getting too chilly to walk. As I paid my change, I found an empty seat next to the window. I recalled a conversation I’d heard the other day. A girl I had never seen before was asking directions.

 “Can you tell me how to get to Le Royale?”  She asked.

 The women she was asking snickered a bit, and I held in my comments. It had been years and years since I’d stepped foot into that place. I never thought I’d ever return. But just hearing the name of the theater made me curious to see what had become of it. I decided that was to be my destination for the day. I’d just have to hold off until later for my beer. 

Magdalene Manor-Apt. 300E

I was getting used to being confused. I couldn’t quite pinpoint when everything began to run out of my memory before I could lock it away, but these days nothing was making sense. I wondered the streets for hours on end, searching for clues to my missing past. The Irish pub on the corner was becoming my second home. I slurped drink after drink in hopes of finding some semblance of an answer at the bottom of one of my frosted beer glasses.  My childhood memories seemed like vivid Technicolor dreams, but that certainly wasn’t what I wanted to remember. Growing up in Jupiter apartments wasn’t what I needed to relive. Why I had never left that thirteen-story nightmare was the answer I desperately needed. The cold still seeped through the windows of apartment 300E, in the same flowing way they did when I was a child.  I couldn’t recall how my mother had kept the cold air out during the dark nights, but my solution of a couple drinks at the pub certainly wasn’t doing the trick. My nightly visits to the playground near Jupiter didn’t seem the help my memory either.  So as I trod the barren, run down streets of this old city, I continued to search for an answer. And I continued to be confused.