There was no sleeping on Saturday night. Casey left the glass on the floor and the table overturned. Joel would have hated that. On Sunday morning Casey took his pills, left three messages on Joel’s phone, and didn’t sleep. He ate the leftover meal Joel had cooked, microwaving the baked pasta with meat sauce and eating it alone at the kitchen table. The apartment was silent. For once, Casey hated it. On Sunday night he cleaned up the mess he made in the bedroom, put on his shoes and left.
At Jay’s Diner Casey drank coffee and wrote in his journal. Harold sat in the booth across from him, long and skinny with his lip-ring and mess of greased hair. His skin stuck to the leather seat where his colorful t-shirt and cargo shorts showed, making a squeaking sound when he covered his mouth to cough. Up close he had a white stud in his nose and gold irises, details Casey had taken for granted under the dingy light of the Grab-N-Go. There was a neat square carved into his chest, heart thumping wildly between his splintered ribs, peeled open like knotted fingers. The blood trickling from the corner of Harold’s eyes made Casey lean away as it began to pool on the scratched tabletop. Harold licked his dry lips.
“Hey,” Harold said wetly, mouth beginning to fill with blood. It oozed down his chin to collect with all the rest, running off the table and onto the floor. “I think you left something at the store, man.”
Casey’s vision cleared like the snap of fingers. Black to Technicolor, his skin was hot and his stomach tight with the urge to retch. He was alone at his table with his open notebook, pen and coffee cup, ink smudging his knuckles between journal entries.
4/6/10
I dreamt about Dad and Mariska yesterday. Joel won’t answer my messages. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Looking at what he’d written, Casey sighed. Blinked, rubbed Harold’s face from his eyes and felt sick with himself.
Somewhere across town, he was sure Joel was asleep in his mother’s guest room, on some downy bedspread with a thread-count and department store label Casey couldn’t afford. The thought of Joel stretched out in a bed other than his own was distressing, strange sheets wrapped around his long legs that for four years had bracketed Casey’s ribs while he slept, when he did sleep. He had taken Joel’s body for granted, the weight of it beside him on the mattress, the ebb of Joel’s breathing and the way his stomach tautened each time Casey turned to sleep against Joel’s diaphragm. It was like a shiver held in place as he sighed into Joel’s navel, fingers tracing the tips of Casey’s ears until he slept again.
“You having another bad spell, Hun?”
Casey looked up. Sherrie was at his table with a fresh pot, looking at him like a wounded animal. Her eyes were wet-looking, hemorrhaging pity every time she came by to fill his cup. It only made Casey feel more pathetic than he already did, hiding in the corner trying not to think of Joel.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a horrible human being,” Casey answered. He closed his notebook, slid it to the end of the table, even if the ink on his hands gave him away.
“You’re not horrible, Casey. You’re just a human being.” Three booths over, an old man waved his tea glass at Sherrie, the spoon clacking loudly against the plastic cup. “Sorry. I’ll be right back.”
“It’s okay.” Casey got out his wallet. “I won’t keep you.”
“Hey, don’t worry about the coffee.” She smiled. “Just take care of yourself, okay?”
His smile was so faked it hurt. “I will.”
Casey left a ten dollar bill on the table when Sherrie’s back was turned. He packed his notebook and pen in his bag and made his way to the door before she could come back and be nice to him. He didn’t need nice. Instead he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked to the Grab-N-Go, navigating crosswalks until he saw the sickly orange neon sign blinking from across the street. Looking both ways he jogged across two lanes until reaching the yellow double line, stopped.
There was a box in the middle of the street, battered and made of metal. Casey stared at it for a moment, nudging it with his foot. There were three dents on the belly of it, the torn edges of faded color stickers pocking it where they had been scrapped away. It had been left there without evident purpose, abandoned on the street. It looked like the box at the house, sitting in the fireplace with the old magazines and condom wrappers. Déjà vu made his palms sweat in his pockets, but Casey just stared. After a moment he shook his head, left the box in the street and jogged the rest of the way to the corner store. Inside Harold nodded at him, setting his magazine on the counter. He found himself inwardly grateful for that. Trying not to think of blood, Casey bought two packs of Reds and paid with a nod of thanks.
“Hey man,” Harold started to say and pushed the cash drawer shut with his hip.
“Yeah?”
“You feeling okay? You look like shit.”
“Yeah, sure,” Casey lied. “Have a good night.”
He put one cigarette in his mouth before he left the store, stuffing the pack into his pocket. Cupped a palm around the tip, lit it in a sigh and a stream of smoke from his nostrils. Outside the box was still in the street where he had left it. He stood for a moment, expecting something to crawl out of it and inch its way across the street, like a half-dead animal or a disembodied hand, lurching to the stoplight. Neither would have surprised him but neither happened. Casey let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding and walked home in the dark, trying not to look back.
