ON A TUESDAY MORNING BY SIMONE SCHNEEGANS

Simone sent this for issue 4. Sadly I had no room to include it. I am sad because I really enjoy her writing. Very brutal but with a sinister sense of homour. My type of writer.

On a Tuesday Morning

On the morning front porch she had to watch the corners closely. She was careful not to look at him when he came from the bathroom because she was sure his face would melt.
“Maybe I’m just bored with you,” he said, “but probably not. You just want me to say something.”
The corner was splattered with paint. His roommate had forgotten to wash out the brushes and now they lived hardened on the floor. She thought turpentine would help, but decided it might be better for drinking.
“I just want someone to sleep next to and you are here all the time,” he said.
She laughed and took a mouth of vodka and spat it on the floor. “Now you are boring me.”
“You have too many feelings,” he said.
If she did it quickly, she could catch that perfect color. His eyes were so sea foam glowing when he did smack.
“Are you going to cry? Maybe you should drink more,” he said.
She stood up with a cigarette in her mouth. It smoked into her nose and hands and she shook. Could she put it out on his tattoos and watch it sizzle through to the muscle and bone?
The vodka in the bottle was almost gone.
Looking out the window, they saw an asshole with a ponytail try to steal her bike.
“Hey, I’ll kill you! You’re fucking dead!” he yelled out the porch.
“Let him steal it,” she said.
He thought he had lost weight, said smack ruined his eating, said he hoped to OD. His voice was so flat. She wanted to shoot him in the head and kiss his blood and lay the brains in the bed and sleep in them.
“You want me to shoot you up?” he asked.
She wanted to suck his veins. Touch the pin pricks with her tongue, feel the little bumps, maybe something would seep out of his arm into her mouth.
“No. You are a piece of shit,” and she meant it. “I am going to drink all day and maybe quit my job.”
“You’ll be ok. Are you sure you don’t want me to shoot you up? You might OD,” he said. He was a kind person.
She walked from the porch and through the kitchen, down the stairs and out the door. Really, she could not tell anyone about this, they told her not to trust a junkie. She couldn’t tell them how his face changed into pillows and that the way his breath smelled sour after he puked made her want to lick his lips.
The pavement with so many potholes melted her hands into her arms and those into her shoulders and she remembered she needed booze. The liquor store 5 blocks from his apartment had just opened and she found the best velvety shit whiskey they had.
She was glad he saved her bike from the fucker who tried to steal it.
By the river, she drank and smoked, watched one million Asians walk by, saw her feet and hated them for being part of her ankles calves knees.
He sent her a message, “I miss you.”
And another, “I will die alone.”
And she believed him. And thought about his funeral.

simoneschneegans@msn.com