Heart Grows Tipsy

[Gundam Girl]

Yes, it's me! What am I doing here? Scaring the crap out of myself! This is just a little, angsty ditty I came up with last summer. Not my best work, but not my worst and one of my favorites that I've done.

Feedback would be better than great! Enjoy!

---
Concrete ? cold, hard, flat, straight. It leads him right to where he wants to be, has needed to be all day long since before noon. Wind rushes against him on his left side, and he can?t decide if it feels good or bad against the injury there. He decides it doesn?t matter because now Quinn?s is in sight; he can hear the talk and the tunes seeping through the wall in front, and what he wants, what he needs is just behind that door. So it doesn?t matter that he?s hurt. It doesn?t matter that he?s just gotten mugged without putting up half a fight.

Honeyed light and body heat welcome him in a way that?s familiar now. Heads turn, heads of people who know him, think they know him, or wish to God they do. He doesn?t mind the attention. He?s used to it, and if there?s fault for it then the fault is his. He doesn?t try to drag interest to his own person, not anymore. But he deals with it. If he resented it, he wouldn?t be here night after night after night. The drinks are hard and they come fast, which is all he desires from the time here. Not the people. They crowd around the jukebox that plays the songs that speak to him, blues and jazz, songs about pain and lust and everything in between. They wait for their turn, waiting to hear those lyrics that are kindred to themselves.

He recognizes a few people now. After so many evenings spent here, it?s only right that he does. The man on the left with the booming laugh, the black woman in the far corner with the slow, slinky s?s, the guy in the booth who draws scribbles in a notebook because he?s too drunk to form actual letters and words, and the lady that sits across from him who always sounds like she?s delivering a monologue no matter what she?s talking about.

The women, no matter who they are or what they look like all have the same reaction to his entrance. They point to him like the needle of a compass points north, shifting until their knees are aiming at him, their eyes staring at him while they try to think loud enough for him to look their way.

He doesn?t blame them. They?re like he used to be, lonely without wanting to admit it, hungry for the You can look if you want, you can touch if you want, I don?t care, I?ll let you emanating out of him like the scent of whiskey and cigarette smoke.

He makes his way to the bar, easing himself onto the tall stool while meeting Quinn?s gaze with the hint of a smirk. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that a long-legged brunette has noticed the back of his scarred hand wipe his mouth, her eyes half-entranced. He licks his bottom lip once, slowly for her benefit, and sees Quinn crack one of his big smiles with raised eyebrows while thinking You lucky bastard?

?Lucien. What?s yer poison, kid??

?What isn?t, mon ami??

Same answer, same question every night; hasn?t gotten old yet. Quinn always grins and slides him a glass, and he downs it as soon as it reaches his fingertips. Tonight he swallows hard, almost choking, eager for that warmth to be down down down in his icy insides. He slams the glass facedown on the bar and receives another of the same thing. He shoots that one too, desperately, greedily. Quinn thinks it?s funny, that he?s green, that he hasn?t felt like tossing them back since well before his twenty-first. He mistakes his urgency for some kind of post-teenage rebellion. He certainly looks the part, all tough leather and slouching indifference, but this is something he?s cultivated, this You have no idea what I?m thinking, I could snap any second kind of air. It drives the chicks wild, wondering how much of a bad boy he really is. They become crazy to find out.

He picks up the third glass, lifts it to his lips. You have no idea what I?m thinking? The drinks keep disappearing, one after the other after the other after the other.

Liquor and women.

Teenage rebellion.

He?s over that. All he wants is a little anesthetic for his aching heart, a little tonic for a pain sharper than the one in his abdomen. Quinn lights him a cigarette and he inhales and releases, watching the smoke curl in gray, wispy tendrils to the ceiling. The ice in the glass of the man next to him shifts. The fact that he notices means he isn?t drunk yet and that isn?t good enough for him.

He leans slightly over the bar, presses a hand hard to his stinging side when he moves the wrong way. Quinn doesn?t see the look of pain cross his face, he just smiles and pours and pours and pours?
He thought he saw her today. In the park this morning.

She?d been sitting against a tree, reading a book. A crimson scarf was in her hair, waves of light-colored brass, like fire flickering over gold. It was caught by a sudden gust of wind, and the strands went streaming over her cheeks, her neck, closing his throat. She looked up, met his eyes.

Hers were blue, like he?d needed them to be. In the next instant they were green, changing back and forth with each movement just like hers had.

He lets go of his side, letting it hurt, downing another shot. He flips a fourth glass over, pressing his forehead to his palm. His hair falls in damp clumps in front of his eyes.

It wasn?t her.

??nother.? He raises his eyes, daring Quinn to back off.

The mouth was wrong. He?d realized it when she smiled ? smiled like the way every woman smiles when they see him, not at all like how she?d smiled at him. As though he isn?t a character from a personal fantasy, as though he?s as real as any dull-looking man.

This morning isn?t the first time something like this has happened. Any average feature on a girl, the line of her hip, the fall of her step, the curve of her fucking ear in one case, the sound of her laugh?which is ridiculous considering he doesn?t think he?s ever heard her laugh once.

They all drag his thoughts back to her, no matter how hard he tries to keep them away.

He?s unable to count the upside-down glasses now. He just knows there?re a lot of them, lined up in a sloppy row. They glint like jewels in the smoky lamplight. Part of him wishes they were, because then he?d be the richest man on earth and he could afford to do this all day long, to keep brainwashing himself.

He should be facedown in the pretzel bowl by now. He usually doesn?t have to try so hard to let the world melt away. He turns over another jewel, leaving a trail of liquid on the bar, and he runs his finger through the small puddle in lazy circles, around and around.

This is all a routine now. He comes, he drinks, courting numbness with dollar bills and cold loneliness with fiery beverages. He wants to forget her and can?t, and the only thing he can do about it is sit here and get so far gone that he can?t remember his own name, let alone her face. In the end, all he gets is this place and the concrete that leads him here.

In the overhead bar mirror, he can see that the brunette with the killer legs has made up her mind, is walking toward him with her hips swaying suggestively. He turns his face over his shoulder, says hello and doesn?t mean it. She smiles to his smile and thinks, He?s mine. He raises another jewel to his mouth.

The jukebox crackles a bit as the song changes and Nat King Cole starts up, his voice heard by every half-alive soul in the room.

?Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you??

He entertains the idea of screwing her. A year ago he wouldn?t have thought twice about it, and a cracked rib wouldn?t have stopped him no matter how much it would kill, but he?s hesitating.

?Embrace me, you irreplaceable you??The bar, the girl, the music bring back memories of her that won?t leave his head, refusing to be let go, killing him a little more each time they come to mind. Like when she asked him to dance that one time in the nightclub and he had been astonished. Her eyes had stayed on his shoes, never meeting his. She?d actually been afraid he?d say no. But, differing from her, he hadn?t been able to take his eyes off of her, watching with fascination almost to the point of obsession, how her sun-colored hair was dyed red, then green, then orange, then purple by the revolving lights.

?Just one look at you, my heart grows tipsy in me??

He?d wanted to tell her, No man will ever say no to you, Selene.

Selene?

?You and you alone bring out the gyspy in me??

He looks at the brunette, sees her long legs and high cheekbones and knows he can?t sleep with her because if he does, it won?t help.

?I love all the many charms about you?above all, I want my arms about you??

Her brown hair will turn blond, her gray eyes will turn green and blue, and her tanned skin will pale right before his eyes. He?ll be back with Selene once more without her ever being there, and he?ll go mad. He?ll go mad all over again.

?Don?t be a naughty baby, come to papa, come to papa do...?

He gets up from the stool and staggers past the brunette, leaving her confused and a little hurt: nothing he can do anything about. Hurting people can?t help other hurting people.

?My sweet embraceable you??

He goes to the jukebox as the song ends. Another starts, the one he and Selene never danced to and he laughs and it hurts and his eyes burn like the whiskey in his gut. He digs in his pocket for a coin, needing to change it, needing to change everything.

--------------------------------------------------

Feedback would rock my world!