Here’s an excerpt from the start of my first novel. I’m still not sure where it’s going and I’ll probably edit it about a zillion more times before this is over, but right now, this is where it begins. Sometimes all you have is a starting line.
“I WOULD WALK 500 MILES AND I WOULD WALK 500 MORE….” Ugh….My cell phone blares out at deafening levels from the nightstand on the side of my extremely old and very comfortable twin bed. I’ve forgotten to turn the ringer down.
“..JUST TO BE THE MAN WHO WALKS 500…”
You know, I really used to love that song. Funny how your aptitude to love a thing suddenly diminishes when it roars out into the still darkness of four in the morning. Who is calling me anyway? It can’t be good. Nothing good comes from unexpected calls this early.
”…DAH DA DAH!! DAH DA DAH!!!… “
Okay, okay!
Unwillingly I roll over and stretch my fingers past scattered hair pins on the cluttered stand to silence my persistent phone. Squinting against the lightning bright screen I can see it’s my mother calling.
“Hello?”
Yikes. I sound like death frozen over as I pick up.
“Hey sweetie…it’s your mom.”
Yes, I know this already, but sensing the stress in her tone I decide against pointing out the obvious.
“Mom, what’s wrong? Why are you up?”
“It’s Aunt Jo…” she replies. “She’s gone Reine.”
Damn. I can’t say I’m surprised, or otherwise label my feelings at the moment, but the finality of receiving this kind of news is never easy. It’s always heavy and awkward finding out that someone you know has died. Like the seconds of embarrassing confusion that follow tripping over thin air.
Aunt Josette was my dad’s only sister and she had been sick for a while now. We’d received the news about 9 days earlier that her organs had started failing. Cirrhosis. No viable transplant option. Man, alcoholism sure is a bitch. But then again, so was Aunt Josette. For a while, when I was a child, she was my favorite relative; outspoken, beautiful, spoke 6 languages and taught some to my brother and I, and she always had a treat for us from her travels working as a translator. I was born with her hazel grey eyes, and it was she who inspired my parents to name me Reine, a French word for queen.
But as life would have it, things changed and so did Aunt Jo. She went through so much in such a short time it seemed. She lost her job to downsizing, her husband to a busty blonde named Cheryl, her lavish Mediterranean home in the divorce, and lost what was left of her looks to emotional eating and depression. It was an extremely trying time for her. 54 and jobless, with her severance used up and nothing in savings, she was left to find whatever work would have her on board. My parents tried to help her as much as they could, but she was enormously stubborn and became very bad tempered. I can’t begin to count the times my father and Aunt Jo got into shouting matches and the numerous attempts she made to steal from our home. After a while, we just grew apart from Aunt Jo and she sought comfort in the numbing oblivion at the bottom of scotch glasses. She could’ve easily run herself a bath everyday with the amount she came to drink.
I tried to make it a point to visit her when I was old enough to go on my own, but the days of colorful stories and sweet international treats were long gone. Her one bedroom on the backside of Pucett Alley stank of old grease and stale beer. There were stains in the carpet, holes in the walls and furniture…and I’m pretty sure the paint sealed windows were obscured in lead poisoning. It was a dump. Aunt Jo would sulk for hours on the threadbare sofa, budging only to get another drink. Occasionally she would scowl at me with those once bright eyes and say things like, "And what the fuck are you looking at?! Don’t get no ideas about takin’ my shit! I’ll slap your little narrow ass! Matter fact, sit down on your hands where I can see ‘em! And give me my goddamn remote!” 30 minutes of Days of Our Lives and 5 glasses later, Aunt Josette would be slumped over, snoring into her chest, and I would make my exit. I was raised to mind my elders, and once upon a time this sad little woman had been my favorite, so I never gave her any lip. But I no longer felt a connection to her and soon came to regard my visits to her dingy hovel as little more than charity.
Then my parents got a call one morning from the hospital near her home. Aunt Jo had been admitted unconscious and soaking wet, bruises over almost every inch of her body. To this day we can only guess at what happened to her. I was with my mother and father when they got the call. I remember their stony whispers on the ride over and how they seemed more exhausted than worried. I heard the doctors tell my parents that they had stopped the internal hemorrhaging and got her blood clotting again, but that Aunt Jo’s cirrhosis was extreme. There was a slim chance for improvement, but the effects could not be reversed. The best option for her would’ve been a transplant but since alcoholism is viewed as a self-inflicted disease it was difficult to get her on the list. And now my mother is on the other end of this call telling me that it’s happened. Aunt Josette is dead.
Mixed emotions wavered around in my head. Death is never a positive thing, but for some reason I felt relieved. Relieved for myself, relieved for my family, and mostly relieved for Aunt Jo. Maybe now her once beautiful spirit could emerge free. Freed from the hells of a world that she worked hard to build up only to have it all collapse as if it were made of cards. Or maybe she would continue to be tortured by her decisions in the afterlife…Who can really say?
It’s now 4:25am….My mother is asking if I’m alright. I reassure her that I’m okay and tell her she should rest. Advice I intend to apply to myself as well. There’s still time to sleep before I have to get up and get ready for work. Hearing the line go dead I hang up and make sure to turn my noisy phone to silent mode before I lay back down. As I close my eyes a soft melody resonates in my mind…foreign and sweet…a lullaby I think. I don’t understand the words but it is very familiar. I can see Aunt Josette, lovely and young again, framed in sunshine as she smiles and waves out of a doorway, whispering "A plus tard mes petits cheris.” Yes, see you later indeed Aunt Jo. See you later indeed.
