square_the_circle_chapter_11_ crOwl tim poured three fingers of jameson's into a reidel tumbler, and brought it to his nose. it had a perfumed aroma that made his head spin. he brought it to his lips and sipped. it was smooth, mellow, and full-bodied as he let it roll over his tongue and swirl against his back teeth. though he wasn't aware that irish whiskey differed from scotch in the way it was distilled (3 to 1) and the way the barley was cooked in sealed ovens instead of smouldering over peat fires, tim did notice its oiliness compared to the normal dryness he was accustomed to. when kayla's moans of mounting pleasure broke the silence of his mourning, he decided to shoot the rest of the glass, downing it in one burning gulp. the sound was torture, fingernails on the slate of his soul. the measure of distance by which he was separated from even the hope of having kayla consider him. the heated sting in the back of his throat was how he was going to distract himself and the subsequent numbness which was his goal would make him forget. he refilled the tumbler and then downed half of it. he grimaced with the intensity and shook his shock of black curls like the shiver of a dog after a bath. he dug his pack of lucky strikes from mr. dupont's armani jacket and fired up. he sucked hard, the hollows of his thin cheeks concaving. the smoke bellowed upwards as he lifted his face and exhaled towards the vauted ceiling. he looked at the tupperware again and his stomach growled. he hadn't eaten since breakfast and when he had thought of lunch he was too busy gambling. he located the microwave and popped the top. some kind of pasta. then the phone rang. he hit the cigarette. in the initial delusions of his calculated inebriation, tim checked his pants pocket for his cellfone, the lucky strike dangling on his lip. on the second ring he pulled it out, saw the battery had died and realized the ringing seemed to be coming from everywhere in the house. he finished off the tumbler, grabbed the bottle of jameson's and stumbled out of the kitchen following the chirping. he slammed the bottle down on a small lamp table and finally chose a wall mount in the foyer and answered on the fourth ring. he bobbled the receiver and almost dropped it, catching it before it banged to the floor. "hello?" tim said. he hit the smoke again and then stubbed it out in a crystal ashtray. waitng for someone to talk he reached for the bottle and took a long swig. he felt the sting all the way in the pit of his empty stomach. he noticed he had bumped a framed david hockney and tried to realign it, but he only made it worse. he cracked the glass and didn't even know it. "hello? is any one there?" tim heard the voice from faraway and quickly turned the receiver around the right way. "i'm sorry," tim said, laughing. he could smell the alcohol on his own heavy breath. he took another quick hit from the irish whiskey. "i had a little accident here." his tongue felt swollen, too big for his mouth. "that's alright," the voice on the other line said. tim instantly recognized it as feminine. somehow it sounded vaguely familiar. he had heard it somewhere. recently even. "i was wondering if you could tell me if clara is home this week-end? she said it would be this one or next." clara? that's who i thought it was, tim thought. he hit the bottle again. but who's this then, if she's asking for clara? tim heard deadspace. "i'm sorry," he said, forgetting what the girl said. he closed his eyes for a moment and felt the whiskey hitting him like a hammer. "what d'you say?" he slurred. "who are you?" the girl asked. "are you clara's cousin from new york? she said she might be bringing him on this flight back." tim was mesmerized by the girl's voice. it was a bright light cutting through his drunken fog. must be one of her hot, little friends, tim thought. he tilted his head back and gulped three huge mouthfuls. "are you there?" the girl asked. her voice held the same inflection that clara's had, that youthful exhuberance tainted by drugs. "yeah, i'm here." tim mumbled. suddenly he felt the gloom of kayla's rejection dissolving. replacing it with equal revelation was the vague assemblance of a devious plan. all he wanted to do was have some fun. some wicked fun. he wanted to find out who it was without blowing his cover and somehow try to set up a meeting. clara owes it to me, his wasted head told him. "actually, i am her cousin and clara is here, but she's in the tub. you want to leave a message?" "really?" the girl said, giggling. tim could hear her muffled voice speaking to what must have been others with her. "um, yeah, tell her that sydney, jamie, and justin will meet you guys at the barnes and noble at the mall west." she spoke with an excitement in her tone that thrilled tim. i'm fucking smooth when i'm toasted, tim thought. "right on," tim said. "i'll tell her." "awesome," she said. "i can't wait to meet you." "same here," tim said. he chugged the bottle once more. there wasn't much left. "what's your name?" "sydney." "that's a sweet name." "thanks." "you're welcome." and then an awkward silence. "hey." "what's up?" "um, where's the west mall?" "clara knows." "oh yeah. I'm so stupid." sydney laughed. "i'll see you soon, sydney." "um, what's your name?" tim had already hung up the phone. he left the empty jameson's bottle on the antique hutch, opened the front door and staggered down the concrete steps to mrs. dupont's lexus. he opened the door and fumbled the key into the ignition. he managed to start the car and drove off into the warm desert night, the lexus swerving into the left lane, then righting itself. "OH YEAH!" tim yelled, zipping down the window. 050213 ... unhinged kayla and scott lay quietly entangled in each other and his last question echoed through her mind 'what makes you think that i don't need you too?' she could feel a drop of their comingled sweat roll off of her belly and onto the soft, high thread count cotton sheets. rolling away from him towards the nightstand, her hands began to feel around for her pack of cigarettes. scott hated when she smoked; he told her it ruined her taste. grabbing her hips, he forcibly rolled her back to him nibbling on her lips until her body relaxed under him. between kisses the breath of his words inflated her mouth, 'no...no...please, don't smoke.' she audibly pouted and began to squirm underneath him, reaching her arm back up towards the nightstand. she wriggled onto her belly and stuck her free elbow into his sternum wedging some space in between them to manuver in. scott was always shocked at how strong she was and how she always managed to out-manuver him. he collapsed on top of her a minute too late; he could see the wisp of smoke coming up from the back of her head. 'ha. i win again.' she wriggled back on to her back and stuck her tongue out at him, while she ashed the cigarette without looking. scott watched some of the ash tumble from the crystal tray onto the expensive wood inlay of the nightstand. 'i can always brush my teeth if you want. but after that, i'm sorry; i needed a cigarette.' kayla cast him a flirty look up through her downcast eyelashes that made him bury his face in her chest. suddenly, she started smacking his back. 'let me up, let me UP. i dropped my cigarette.' kayla vaulted out of the bed, picked up the cigarette and the ashtray and walked into the bathroom. 'hey...come back.' scott followed her into the bathroom. to his disappointment, she had a nightgown on. 'what is that?' he tugged at the strings of the robe she had on. kayla grabbed his cheek in the hand she held her cigarette in and directed the smoke she exhaled comfortably above his head, 'we need to talk scott about us. i do enjoy you in bed,' their lips became dangerously close as he pulled her close to him and the cotton and silk of her nightclothes rubbed on his bare skin, 'but i don't want it to be just this.' scott pushed her away to look in her eyes. he was visibly faltering with his words. 'tim asked me why i was with you and not him today.' he heard the challenging tone in her voice and let go of her. 'why do you have to bring him up right now?' she huffed past him back into the bedroom. 'because i should be with him. because he's just like sammy. because i am always with guys like that. you are too sweet for me.....' 'why am i too sweet for you kayla? because i'm not asking you to make choices that i don't have the right to ask? because i'm not getting you hooked on serious drugs? because i want to help you instead of hurt you? what is it about me that you can't see yourself with?' kayla was frantically shaking her head and biting her lip 'boys like you don't deserve girls like me.' 'stop....STOP....just stop saying that. you really don't know so much about me kayla,' he climbed into bed next to her and laid his head on her belly. 'i'm more like tim and sammy than i wanted you to know. but i guess i have to tell you. so you can trust me. that i need you just as much as you need me.' he sat up and stared into her teary eyes. 'i'm in love with you and you need to know the truth about me.' 050221 ... crOwl tim leaned over heavily. his whiskey-fogged breath steamed up a small section of the windshield. with a clumsy, misguided effort his left hand overtly grabbed the steering wheel, while his right arm extended, fingers straining to push open the glovebox. the lexus swerved to the left again. he saw the blur of an approaching car. what was it, he thought. a toyota camry? oh shit. he righted the wheel to narrowl miss a head on collision. his tires squeaked. his engine roared. "WHOO HOO!" he shouted, and if it was because he barely avoided a sure crash or because he found what he was scrambling for, the new dresden dolls disc, it didn't seem to matter, it simply took care of both. he slipped it in the velvety slick player and pumped up the neon digital volume to twenty. he ran his thick tongue across his smooth teeth. he could barely feel them. "FUCK!" he yelled. he knew from past experience something crazy and dangerous was going to happen. he came to a stop sign, ran it, and squealed to the right, the lexus nearly exalted to two wheels. he could barely hear the blaring horn of the car that abruptly stopped to skin of the teeth avoid hitting him. he punched the gas with his sudden luck and in seconds saw the victim car as a bug-like speck behind him, its headlights flashing on and off like a silent scream. "goodbye, little fucker!" he howled, reaching inside his armani jacket for his pack of lucky strikes. he fingered the leaness of the pack and suspected the worst. it was empty. "MOTHERFUCK!" he screamed. he threw it with force against the windshield exactly in tune with one of the pounding piano chords. he listened to the searing, theatrical vocals and applied it immediately to his sudden bad luck. he shook his shock of black curls and looked off to the left. there was an arby's. a burger king, and then, fucking right on, he thought, a bp shoppe. without thinking to check behind him he jerked the steering wheel. another horn sounded angrily behind him, this time from a ford pick-up. "OH YEAH!" tim shouted, awkwardly dancing across four lanes, narrowy missing oncoming traffic that screeched to a sliding, shrieking, hollaring stop. he floored the gas pedal, lurched past a ups truck, and hopped a curb until he found a handicap parking spot right in front of the store. he flicked up on the door handle and pushed, letting the engine purr and the music pour forth. an elderly man who was walking from the gas pumps looked over at him with suspicion and judgement. "what's up, you old fucking geezer?" tim said. the old man was on his way to see his great aunt in a las vegas hospital who had recently suffered a stroke and couldn't speak. his bespeckled eyes met tim's for a brief second and with a snobby glance quickly looked down. tim laughed and slapped his leg. he took a single step, teetered, tottered, and fell to his knees. "whoa!," tim said, laughing harder. "jameson, you done kissed my punk ass, brother!" he stood up, dramatically wiped his knees, and then headed towards the doors. he tried to focus in on the handles, but instead of seeing one, he seemed to see three. he reached out and evidently got the wrong one for all he had in his hands was air. "whoops," he said, giggling. he reached up and ran his right hand, scraping across his two day beard, dropping it to where it joined his left one. he rubbed both hands against the silky fabric of his armani pants and tried again. he noticed to his right a blur of humanity. blinking his eyes and waiting until his sense cleared, he gathered it was a fine looking lady, no doubt a m-i-l-f he surmised, dressed nicely, some kind of maroon velvet work-out suit he figured. "after you," tim said, finding the aluminum handle. he pulled it open, giving her an alcohol-induced onceover. "whoa, you have nice tits," he slurred. he reached out without thinking and cupped them with all the force he had stored up for kayla. they were soft and yielding in his brief euphoria. the woman was completely stunned. acting as though she had been stung by a bee or better said, attacked by a lion, she lurched to the side away from him, emitting a sound of resistance that no language could effectively translate but all could properly guess and bumped herself unavoidably against the glass and quickly disappeared into the shoppe. the closing door swung back and hit tim squarely on the forehead, as if propelled by the victim herself. "OUCH!" he yelled, lifting both hands to the point of pain. he sloppily gathered himself and re-opened the door and stepped in. he saw the tightly packed shelves of convenience foods, the orderly rows of glossy magazines, the fully stocked coolers of tempting drinks, the brightly polished linoleum floors, and sighed deep. his head was spinning. his vision blurred once more. he was having a heck of a time gaining his bearings. he watched the lady that he had just molested make her careful way to the restroom. the old man was at the counter paying for his gas purchase. tim could smell hot dogs and popcorn. "D'YA HAVE ANY LUCKY STRIKES?" tim yelled. it wasn't like he was directing it to the salesperson. he simply blurted it out to the snack food scented air. "sir?" tim felt a presence at his arm. he turned and nearly stumbled over and fell. he caught himself and focused. he could see a uniformed person, looked like a teen boy with a severe case of acne and bad hair. he felt his skinny arms around him, a weak, oppressive hold as if he was being ostentaciously accused of being a danger to society. "fucking let go of me boy," tim said. he pulled away with a force that sent himself crashing against a display of red bull and the salesboy slightly off his feet. several cans fell to the floor. "SORRY!" tim yelled. he began picking them up, kicking two that rolled down the aisle and rested next to a plastic box of white bread that was on sale. the salesboy helped him clean up. "don't worry about it," the salesboy said. tim jumped away from him and crashed into the orderly rows of chewing gums, lifesavers and altoids. he made it look like it wasn't his fault and performed a few awkward dance steps to prove he was fine. he ended up on his face with a bloody lip. the salesboy stepped quickly past tim to the counter where he grabbed a pen and paper and then hustled to the outside like his boss had told him to do when encountering unruly customers and he wrote tim's license plate down on a post-it note. he would call 911 as soon as he left. tim bought his smokes when the worker returned, slapping a five down on the counter. "keep the god damn change," he said. and when he turned to go he saw the woman he had accosted. she was frozen against the beverages cooler, obviously waiting for him to do his thing and leave. tim headed straight for her and stood inches from her face. she could smell the whiskey hot on his breath and she wanted to puke. she wanted to slap his face and call him names. she had never been in a situation like this. she could still feel tim's grubby hands on her breasts and all she wanted to do was reach out and stick a knife in his stomach. how dare you, she thought. but later, when she left and rejoined her husband, she would never tell him what happened. instead, it would haunt her dreams for many sweaty nights and there would be times, much later, when she would be soaking in a hot tub of swirling bubbles, an extravagance that both of them had worked many overtime hours to afford, that she would recreate the disturbing memory, even use it, perversely, as a sick fantasy to get off, bringing her soapy fingers slowly up her thighs. tim surveyed her ample cleavage, her belly visible between the end of her shirt and to where her pants began and he broke open his pack of cigarettes. he smacked the box against the palm of his hand with relative ease and confidence and popped one into his mouth. with an automatic thrust of his lighter, he urged it towards the dry tobacco and allowed gravity to ignite it. he puffed deep on it, as if it was the only cigarette he ever had the liberty to enjoy, exhaling the smoke upward with a tilt of his head skywards to the ceiling. then he looked straight into the eyes of the frightened woman. "want one?" he said, the fag hanging from his lip. he pushed the pack of lucky strikes against her chest. "no, thank you," the lady said, swallowing hard. tim watched her adam's apple jump nervously. her whole body was trembling with fear, but tim didn't know it. her husband was impatiently waiting for her in their ford explorer out at the gas pumps. he was using his mac card to get fuel. "fuck!" he was no doubt saying, oblivious to the fact that some wasted dude was feeling up his wife. "$1.92 a gallon!" one night, perhaps a month later, when he would force his way upon her, she would be thinking of tim instead. she was just so sick of his selfish attempts at love-making. all she wanted was a bottle of sparking water. they had been walking along a city trail in west reno. she was thirsty, that was all. now she had to fear for her modesty. "sorry about before," he said, hitting his smoke again. his cheeks hollowed and he exhaled off to the side. "i guess i couldn't help it. i know i'm a fucking idiot, most men are. it's just that we think about sex most of the time." tim moved aside and extended his right arm, encouraging the lady to go on to whatever she had come in to the store to do. frightened, she seized her opportunity and bolted without eye contact away from him. tim hit the lucky strike once more and watched her ass. he made his way back to the car. "fucking whiskey," he said to the teenboy, who was coming back inside. he felt the dry desert air and got back into the lexus. "oh fuck!" he said. "i need to find out where west mall is." he pushed the door open again. 050223 ... unhinged he stumbled back in the shoppe and tripped over his feet on his way to the counter. 'hey KID,' his odd drunk emphasis made the salesboy cringe, 'you know where west mall's at?' the salesboy pointed at the lit cigarette dangling from tim's lip. 'you can't smoke in here sir.' tim threw the cigarette on the floor and ground it out with his shoe. 'yeah, sorry about that. you know where that mall is?' the salesboy came out from behind the counter and guided tim towards the coffee. he leaned in and covered his mouth with his hand to direct his whisper ' honestly dude, i don't think you should be in public. usually, i hate fucking drunks like you that come in here. i saw you grab that lady man. you're lucky she didn't go get her husband out of the car to kick your ass. now how about you make yourself a cup of coffee on me and sit here til you can drive?' the kid pulled a stepstool away from the wall and placed it in the middle of the floor safely away from any displays tim could knock over. 'cause if you leave here now, i'm gonna have to call the cops after you. i have your liscense plate written down. i'm not sure why i feel like helping you. like i said, i hate customers like you. but somehow, you just seem out of place. so chill and have some coffee so i don't have to call the cops.' tim got quiet as the salesboy mentioned the police. and suddenly his stupidity hit him like a rock. what the fuck was he doing driving a car right now anyways? oh yeah, that was right; kayla's moaning echoed in his head. too drunk to worry about cream or sugar, tim pulled a large styrofoam cup out of the dispenser and poured some dark roast black coffee into the cup. he plunked his ass down on the stool and gulped down the hot coffee; it burned his esophagus on the way down and the burning sensation chased away some of the drunkness. the salesboy eyed him sideways from the counter. kayla pushed scott off of her and headed towards the stairs. 'i'm thirsty. do you want anything?' scott held his head in his hands 'no, i'm fine.' she made her way to the kitchen. when she got to the refrigerator, she noticed the open tupperware and whiskey bottle with an empty glass on the counter. as she picked up the glass, a small amount of residual whiskey swirled around the bottom. it hit her then that it was absolutely still downstairs; no television, no breathing....where was tim? 'tim? hey, tim where are you?' she walked to the door that led to the garage. the lexus was gone. kayla shrugged and walked back to the kitchen. she smiled at the thought that her and scott were too busy to hear any noise of him leaving. suddenly, her stomach turned. things had gotten too serious too fast with scott. she couldn't run away from him forever. they lived in the same house for christ's sake. her eyes found their way to her purse and her throat automatically contracted as if swallowing a pill. that was right; her pills. she began to dig through her purse when she felt a hand on her shoulder. 'come on kayla. you don't need that shit.' 050223 ... crOwl square_the_circle_chapter_12_ 050225 ... a must read red blathe . 050804 what's it to you? who go blather from