End of the Road (11 page)

“
The hell with
it.”

One or two of those old people were still
married and living together, but most were women alone. A few of
them still had husbands but usually the husbands were in nursing
homes. It was rare to see a man limping down the narrow paths.

It was a long time since she’d had a man.
But God she’d had a lot of them. Which was really, when you got
right down to it, what had stalled her acting career. She had
discovered men. Well, she had discovered sex.

“
Always a late
bloomer.”

What she loved about sex, aside from the
physical sensations, which were fantastic (even now she smiled as
she thought of those long ago physical sensations) was the feeling
of intimacy, closeness, and caring. But the great thing was, you
didn't really have to care. You didn't need a real relationship,
all you needed to do was fuck. That wasn't a word they had used
much in her 20s and 30s. Mind you it had been used, but it was used
more as a curse word, or for emphasis.

Nowadays, if one was to believe the movies
and books, it was used almost as a greeting. ‘Hey girl, want to
fuck?’ Or ‘Fuck, my man, how you doing?’ She herself never got to
use the word very much, which was alright, there were plenty of
other words. The important thing was not talking about it, but
doing it.

Back in the bathroom she
took up a blue sponge to wipe off the counter. Dog hairs caught in
the dampness of the sponge. She ran water over it and watched some
of the hairs detach and swirl down into the drain. How many dogs
had she owned? Sparrow, the Beninese whose name was—YoYo!
Fuck you Alzheimer’s.

Then there was Freckles, the neurotic
Springer Spaniel, who looked like beauty personified when he loped
gracefully over the fields. Somewhere in between there had been one
other. And of course, there was the last one. But she wasn’t going
to think about him.

Change the subject.

“
How many men did you
fuck?” she asked the mirror.

By today's standards, at least according to
what she read and occasionally overheard, she'd actually been
rather miserly. The first was David. They had met at the White
Horse Inn in Greenwich Village. After a few dates they had gone to
New Orleans for Mardi Gras, where he had introduced her to sex.
Which she had liked immensely, and from then on was an enthusiastic
participant. She had been annoyed though because, up until then
(she had been twenty-two) everyone had made such a big deal about
it. As if the world would spin off its axis if she had sex before
she was married, and in the end, it had turned out to be such a
simple thing.

“
What was the big
deal?”

Then she had gone to summer stock in Vermont
and had slept (well, not actually slept) with two different guys.
What were their names? One of them was Ron Somebody. It bothered
her that she couldn’t remember the other one’s name. Well, it
didn’t matter. They had all been older than she and were almost
certainly dead now. The stark eyed woman in the mirror shuddered.
All dead. She had never thought of that before.

She had never loved any of
them. What she
had
loved was having them chase after her. She loved their sweet
talking lies. She had been hungry, hungry, hungry for people to say
nice things to her. To just pretend to love her. She hadn't wanted
real love because love involved emotions. Love
involved--.

She made her way slowly
into the kitchen
and got out a glass. She
filled it with equal parts orange juice and gin, then dropped a
couple of ice cubes in and stirred it with her finger.
Breakfast.

So the truth of the matter was, that as long
as the man was not absolutely repulsive, and as long as he talked,
and talked, and promised her the world, she would go to bed with
him. She needed to be desired and admired. She wanted flesh on
flesh, not heart upon heart. Above all, she did not want to be
loved, or to love.

She sipped her drink. In the end she’d
fucked maybe fifteen guys. She married one of them. Jesus, that
turned out to be a mistake, a premature ejaculator who got her
pregnant.

Another swallow of her drink. She shuddered,
the gin was strong. She’d always liked gin. It wasn’t fashionable
but there was something about it, a flowery smell. Anyway it was
her favorite drink. She sipped at it as she carried it back to the
bathroom, where she carefully applied her makeup. Trying to make
her eyebrows look more like eyebrows and less like unraveling
strings, was a lost cause. She smudged a little eye-shadow on her
eyelids. It didn’t help. Her eyes still looked sunken and
desperate.

“
So what do you think,
pal?” She looked around for—oh, right. He was dead.

“
Probably being burned to a
crisp right this minute,” she told the woman in the mirror, then
added, “Here comes the pain.” And the pain did come. Waves of agony
tearing into her body, grasping her around the throat, squeezing
her heart, doubling her over, as thick, salty tears poured out of
her eyes.

“
And there goes the
make-up,” she muttered to herself.

The drink was finally hitting her. About
time.

Her husband was dead too, of course. Had
been dead a long time. She had divorced him years before he
died.

“
Did you divorce him for
cruelty? No. Did you divorce him for adultery? No, but I could
have. So tell me, lady, why did you divorce him? He bored the shit
out of me. He was lousy in bed. He couldn’t handle money. He got me
pregnant.”

She went back to the kitchen, staggering
slightly, and poured herself another drink. Her son, Brent was
dead, too. Buried long ago in a military cemetery. Pain dulled. She
had vowed that that was the last pain she would ever feel for
anyone.

But, oh, God, Riley was dead! A pain like a
slicing knife thrust though her chest. Maybe she was having a heart
attack. Maybe she would die right here, right now. She waited,
bathed in pain, breathless…

“
Nope, going to
live.”

She opened the bottom drawer, the deepest
one, reached way in back, and pulled out a large, clear plastic
bag. It was filled with brown bottles with white caps. She brought
them back to the kitchen, hitched up one of the tall chairs next to
the counter and settled herself, wrapping her feet around the legs
of the tall chair. Like a child, her feet didn't touch the
ground.

She took a sip of her drink. Reached into
the plastic bag, removing the medicine bottles one by one, lining
them up on the counter. Damn, she’s forgotten something. She took
another sip of her drink, got down from the chair, and walked to
the cabinets where she kept her dishes. As she pulled out a small
bowl, she glanced out the window. Naturally it was a beautiful day,
God had a nasty sense of humor. She climbed back up on the chair,
put the bowl in front of her, and began opening all the medicine
bottles. Some of the damn things had childproof caps. True, she
wasn’t arthritic, but that didn't mean her hands were strong. She
used to be very strong for woman, all that hiking, and sailing, and
horseback riding, and fucking built a girl up. But now she seemed
to get weaker every day. She was breathing easier now. As long as
she didn't think about him.

She opened the first bottle, Compazine.
Anti-nausea medication. She swallowed three pills quickly. That
should keep it all down. A delicate swirl of dog hair dust-bunnies
floated in the air near her face, stirred up by breeze from the
open window. With an impatient gesture she pushed it away than
watched as it landed gently on the floor and wrapped itself around
one of the legs of her chair.

Maybe she should vacuum?

“
Fuck that.”

One by one she opened the other bottles and
poured the contents into the bowl, stirring them with her finger.
Pretty. Different colors, different shapes. Pretty.

“
Now what else do I
need?”

She walked back into the bathroom, opened
her medicine cabinet and took out two small clear bottles filled
with a clear fluid. She carried them back to the kitchen and placed
them next to the bowl of pills. Anything else? Oh, of course. She
went to the silverware drawer reached in the back and pulled out a
large syringe. Her hand encountered a folded piece of paper which
she pulled out and unfolded. It was a photocopied page of
instructions, complete with illustrations. She took both the
syringe and the paper back to her seat. Took another sip of her
drink. Anything else? Oh, yes.

Damn, you’d think that today of all days she
would be organized. Although come to think of it, why should she
change now?

As she climbed down from
the chair her head spun and she grabbed the counter. She spread her
legs so that she had steadier base, and waited for the dizziness to
pass.
Shouldn't of gotten up so
fast.
She moved slowly into the kitchen one
hand trailing along the wall, along the refrigerator, along the
stove, until she reached the drawer where she kept her plastic
bags. None of those Ziploc things for her, she pulled out a white
kitchen garbage bag with an orange strip around the edge to make it
easier to close, then staggered back to her chair. Now. Now she had
everything.

No wait, there was something else. This
suicide crap wasn't as easy as everyone said it was. With another
sigh she got to her feet staggered back into her bedroom and picked
up his photograph that was sitting on her chest of drawers. Then
she staggered back to the kitchen. She carefully put the photograph
in front of her, leaning it against a vase of dying daffodils. It
was just a snapshot. Taken, God how long ago? At least five years
ago. It showed him standing knee-deep in a pond surrounded by leafy
trees, a slash of sunlight illuminating his happy grin. Just one of
several snapshots she had taken that day. This one had come out
perfectly. How had she let him get under her defenses? One minute
she was happily heart-free and alone, and the next he was there,
crowding in, taking over her heart. Well, that’s what she got.
Served her right.

She grabbed up three or four pills, popped
them in her mouth, and took a swallow of her drink. She poured a
little more gin into her glass, and stirred it with her finger. She
was dizzy now. But her stomach was holding.

She raised her glass. "Here's to Compazine,"
she said, and drank some more. When she put her drink down her
fingers brushed against the folded pamphlet that had been stuck in
her door. Unfolding it, she tried to focus her bleary gaze on the
words. It was one of those tracts that religious busybodies were
always forcing on you. But this was not some expensive religious
publication, it was a home grown piece of work, probably done on
someone’s computer.

GOD IS LOVE

Whoever does not love,
does not know God, because God is love
.

JOHN 4:8

She snorted and took another drink. “I don’t
believe in God,” she told the paper and crumpled it up before
tossing it on the floor. “And I don’t believe in love,” she added
for good measure. But that was a lie, because she had loved him and
he had loved her.

“
Crap.”

She picked up the folded page of suicide
instructions and tried to make out the words.

Apparently she had a choice, she could
inject 60 mEq or more of potassium into her veins, or she could
finish taking the pills, lie down and put the plastic bag over her
head. Proactive or contemplative, which should it be?

While she thought it over she popped a few
more pills. The potassium, she knew, would give her a massive heart
attack and she would die within minutes. On the other hand, it
would hurt like hell. Just injecting it into her veins would feel
like someone was dissecting her arm without anesthesia. If her hand
wasn’t steady when she was injecting the stuff, the needle might
pull out of the vein. She looked down at her hand holding the glass
of booze.

“
Not so steady.”

If the needle slipped it would burn up the
skin and tissue and by the time it finally got into her heart there
might not be enough to do a quick job.

“
That doesn’t sound
good.”

She looked at his photo. “Does it sound good
to you, Riley?”

Dogs had it easy. The vet just injected
Riley with something that made him sigh, close his eyes, and
peacefully go to sleep. No more pain, no more sickness.

“
No more love,” she said to
the photo.

Yep, the booze and the pills were definitely
getting to her. She could tell because in the photo, really only an
enlarged snapshot, Riley’s lovely bushy tail waved gently at
her.

If only she could pet him one last time.

If she took the pills she would go to sleep,
and putting the plastic bag over her head pretty much guaranteed
she wouldn’t wake up. Unless God was in his usual trickster
mode.

“
But you don't believe in
God." Of course with her luck he probably did exist, which meant
she was going to hell. “What’s one more sin? I mean if you go to
hell for all eternity He can’t add years to your sentence can He?”
She started giggling and popped a couple of more pills.

Served her right. "That's what I get for
loving you," she yelled at his photograph. He looked so happy, so
beautiful. Oh God she missed him.

Funny, well not really
funny, considering all the people she’d lost over the years, all
the things she'd walked away from, his death— God, his
death.
A Goddamned dog, for crying out
loud.
She started crying. Drunken
crying.