The Door

I guess the door knocked, I stumbled down the stairs.The opaque light glowing, intrusively through the glass.I wiped last nights beer across my face, standing there at the door and saw uniforms, multiples of questions entered my mind.In a mental stalemate I went to the door.Two police officers were standing there fluorescent uniform, an unwelcome sight.

I asked myself what I’d done.I fumbled to put my shirt on properly, whatever it was it was too late, as they’d seen me for sure.”f**k f**k f**k”. I thought about bolting upstairs or out the window but the morning light doesn’t make for a mid read, they’d find me stuck in a hedge.There might even be officers the back door f**k..

I manoeuvred, awkwardly across the slim strip of ground from the stair case to the door, slowly unlocking it.

There was cocaine upstairs I’m sure of it.That early onset sweat had kicked in.When you’re a drunk ass alcoholic and abuser of drugs it’s to be expected.

if you don’t open it they’ll probably just smash it in like they did your last place.I run my hands through my curls, instinctively curling them in my fingers, as I thought about the situation before it’s too late.

”Jason, Jason are you there?”

I don’t know am I?

Ok here it goes.I opened up the door to see the officers both middle aged.I had seen plenty before.

I’m guessing they were the ones who had arrested me before.”Are you Jason Connelly?”I nodded.The officer that I considered to be the senior one looked stern but concerned.”I’m sorry to tell you Jason but we think we found your mother on the beach”. “On the beach doing what?”

” We think she’s dead Jason.”

”Nah mate what d’ya mean?”

”I’m sorry Jason”

Every trivial concern of mine, just vanished.

I fumbled nervously,there isn’t a pint expressing the gravity of the situation., It had ripped through my body.

The magnitude actually made me want to apologise.

For all the f****d up things and all the people that I’ve hurt.All the people I’ve lost, anyone.

I don’t have anything to trade.”My sister, oh my sister where is she”.

The coppers felt it was sufficient time to part ways.They'ddone their job while the tears were welling.I waved them back to their car, said thank you and closed the door.If I’m honest you I didn’t think you could be in so much pain, so instantaneously but you can.

i didn’t even ask anymore parting questions, I just ran my hand over the door and left it.I lent my head against the glass.Breathe, breathe, breathe.I closed my eyes.

I guess I came too at some point over the next couple of weeks.I didn’t go to the funeral.I couldn’t.I went to see her in the morgue.Her soul was gone, just an empty vessel.I wanted to fight the man theirs for telling me I was messing up here hair,” feel like this mate” I went to the beach instead.

It was cold, bitterly, I scratched the sores probably from the lack of vitamins that had accumulate.Id lost wait, it was cold.I didn’t care.How she made that last walk, I couldn’t understand or contruct in my mind.I drank vodka.

I must have passed out, because I awoke to the wind and the sky getting dark.

there were no conversations to be had.No one I wanted to speak with.

i wondered where she was.The salt bit my lip and sting my eyes.I jumped in and swam to no avail.

how could she do this to me.My mother, my love.God was on the table so was anyone else who had been anointed.I swam again, my skinny frame forcing itself against the freezing wake, and still nothing.

How could it be that she had died here, my toes in the sand, sticking too my ribs and hands.

i realised then, the gravity and magnitude.She wasn’t there anymore.

the alcohol and drugs weren’t making her come back.I swam once more, out to the buoy that had stood fast as

a part in my childhood.A place to test wills and a place of reckoning.The beach that had so long been my home.I ran my fingers through the sand.I just wanted to be anywhere but there.

And then nothing.I just left, the next few weeks were much the same.I didn’t know what to say or deal with the fractured family.

I bought the gun from a sports store in Tennessee, it became my focus.Years had passed since those fleeting days after the fact.It was a 308. Remington, capable of doing considerable damage, I had learnt my lessons in the Marines.I would clean it, take it a part, load it and reload it.

it would ride with me, cold in its grip, stay in the bed like freezing nights in North Carolina under the stars.

i felt it would be my end.I often held it and wandered what my Mums last few steps were like, was she scared while she was taking on water.I would stop and smoke a cigarette, imagine how those last breaths were.It had been three years almost to the day that she had passed.The time never ending like yesterday.

I called my sister.I was about to break, “Charm what do I do?” I wasn’t even depressed, I was passed the point.

I took the bottle of pills and emptied it out.20mg of trazedone in multiples of thirty.I had a fifth of vodka also, I wasn’t interested in the drink.Id got off that in my stint in prison, Valium easing the anxiety and shaking.It was hard to be a thirty five year old with no clue.

i took the pills and swallowed the Vodka looking for a romantic escape but it burned.I thought about my children, I thought about an empathic entity that I thought I should have been.

i thought about tomorrow and the next day.Rehab hadn’t taught me anything and the Thai heat had seen to a wash of emotions and shortcomings while I was there for three months.I wasn’t scared to die, my choice was final.The woozy aftermath of the pills had started as I lay there, the finality kicked in.

It wasn’t like the movies, and this wasn’t over.There were many more stories to tell before it’s end.Nah I wasn’t going as much as it wanted me too.