Chapter 64
Donnie Seaky Story
The man's name was Donnie Seaky, fucking a woman who wasn’t his wife, thrashing her on the hotel mattress, pounding downtown thunderous like a worker on the clock. The woman- a whore known as Gloria- naked, angry slop, head smash against the headboard, taking the cranial abuse with a mixture of indifference and nonchalance. Tom watched from the window, shoes in the dirt, his camera click in time between thrusts, wanting for a ginger ale, wondering if his favorite soda girl would be working to pull on the pump and pout like she do. He loved the way-
Donnie Seaky threw the hotel chair out the hotel window, shattering glass above Tom’s head, cutting his face jagged nasty while asymmetrical shards collected on his hat brim. Seaky naked- his member at attention and still dripping with affection- flying to the open window- and in the split of the instant Tom understand old.
He didn’t always feel this way: at one time, years gone by, he had been invisible: cat lapping at a sloe-gin fizz. He could take pictures in broad daylight and not draw an eye, he could slip into a building without waking the doorman. But time had worked him over with the back of its hand, his body sore, his mind a library with all the books on the high shelf. And today this dumb muscled kid, this adulterous Donnie Seaky- no more than thirty years- had spotted him through the window, figured him out and tried to kill him in the time it takes to think of ginger ale.
Atari was slowing, maybe, time to buy that bakery, but right now it’s time to stay alive: cheating husbands fight hard.
Glenda Seaky, country girl in a summer dress, freckles on her droop cheeks, begging with her eyes for Tom to take her right there on his desk, begging with her mouth for him to follow her husband Donald Junior on the way to work, to confirm her worst fears and tell her whether the man she loved had his fingers in anybody else’s pie. Tom, desperate for cash, nodding, “yes, I will do this... I will find out... I will let you know,” wearing his funeral face, playing Johnny Honesty for money.
Maybe whore is a two-way street.
Tom dropped the camera in the mulch and Seaky saw it fall, ran past the proof in pursuit of Atari, which meant trouble: Donnie angry/mad enough to want blood. Tom was not in the mood to donate.
And so they were across the parking lot of the pastel Packard Motel, Seaky sic upon Atari like an august dog, bare feet bunching up the green spring grass, onto the scratch and blister heat of the cracked pavement, where his hardened heels begin to bleed.
He was a construction guy, this Donald, according to his wife, and ‘a good man but I think he takes his chances.’ It was her polite way of calling him a pussy bear. Atari, running, felt his lungs try to escape through his mouth. His brain- charred- his synapses misfiring, seeing in his mind’s eye a beautiful nurse named Diane, from long ago, from his days in med school, handing him a chart and a secret smile, her eyes full of moon, telling his heart to beat. “This way, Dr. Atari...”
Tom turning at the corner, making the sign of the cross, praying to God for victory, praying not to go to the gun and end another life. Without looking back he knew Don was more than serious: he could hear him pounding out every step, knew he wasn’t gonna stop to think when he finally got Atari in between his angry knuckles.
On the boulevard Tom ducked into a candy store where they don’t let naked men. Take a breath now, think of sugar...
Donnie at the door, yank wide, six foot of fury in his finest first birthday suit. Tom dashed and Donnie followed, his flaccid cock flopping wild, slapping the bag of candy from a little girl’s hands, spilling her cherry delights to the floor. Her jaw hung open, broken. No comment on the penis.
Tom, overturning glass jars of red hots- shatter- lemon sours- glinx- wild blueberry juju abba zabba slo-poke caramel molasses jelly slice- the floor of the sweet shop a minefield- but the bad boy kept coming.
Atari busted out the back way, into the train yard, spitting distance from the church, Donnie after fast, his feet full of sweets and shatters, lightly salted with blood.
“You catch me fucking!”
Words don’t mean a thing.
Tom, tumble on the tressle, falling to his knees, just a few hundred yards from the holy glow of St. Jude’s, ready to accommodate, prepared to atone. “Your wife hired me... I won’t say a word!”
In the old days Atari would have put a bullet in the boy’s skull, give him something good to think about. But today, for reasons he could not yet understand, he was ready to die before taking a life. Maybe it was time.
Donnie, eager to destroy, stepped onto the tracks as the train came immediate, both men deaf to all but the howl of their overworked hearts. The locomotive struck the construction worker and it was no contest: Seaky was obliterated on schedule, his atoms scattering even among the overgrown grass.
Tom waited in the dirt after the train plowed out of town, feeling the throbbing in his hip, holding out hope for a happy ending, the minor of a punchline.
All he got was a train whistle in the distance. And he knew that it was true.
He stood up, dusty- limping- older than eight minutes ago, decided to go to church, to pray for forgiveness, to humbly beg for guidance.
He wound up getting a ginger ale, watching the girl pour.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment