Читать книгу The Blind - A.F. Brady - Страница 29

I’m sitting on my couch waiting for Lucas to show up with takeout. He said he was going to be here an hour ago, but he’s not here yet. I’m trying to read a book, and I have to close one eye to see the words. I’m distracted and hungry, and I keep checking my phone to see if Lucas is going to text me. Nothing. I texted him thirty minutes ago, asking when he’s planning on arriving, but I didn’t get a response. I reread the same page over and over again.

My glass is empty now, and so is the bottle next to it. When I’m anxious, I drink faster than I should. Even though it’s cold outside, colder than the last few Novembers, I’m still drinking white wine. I carefully wipe up the condensation on the coffee table with the sleeve of my sweatshirt and tiptoe to the recycling bin. I plop the still-sweaty bottle into the bin and crack open the twist-off lid of another one. It’s better if Lucas doesn’t know that I already drank a whole bottle. As I’m tiptoeing back to the couch, my phone buzzes and my foot catches the leg of the coffee table.

It’s Lucas. Buzz me in, forgot my key.

I write back, You have to push the button first; it won’t work if you don’t buzz.

The buzzer blares a long and angry scream into my apartment, and I depress the button to release the door. I can see Lucas’s bad mood on the grainy security camera. He slaps the up button for the elevator. He usually takes the stairs, because I’m only on the third floor, but when he’s pissed, or drunk, or carrying something, he takes the elevator. Tonight, it seems he’s all three. I leave the front door ajar and return to the couch. I pour a small glass of wine and clutch it as I wait. I pull my knees up to my chest and hunker down into my pillows.

Lucas marches in the front door and promptly dumps the take-out bag on the floor. He shoves it into the kitchen with his foot and angrily peels off his coat.

“Well, you could offer to give me a hand.” He huffs at me. I pop up off the couch and greet him with a kiss on the cheek. I pick up the take-out bag, which is filled with something that has gone cold, and I lift it onto the kitchen counter. Lucas is very obviously on drugs. His hair is matted down to the back of his neck and his collar is soaked with sweat. He is clenching and unclenching his jaw, and he has thick white spit gathered in the corners of his mouth. Cocaine. He doesn’t say anything else to me and instead walks to the bathroom to tidy himself up. As I hang his coat on the back of a barstool, I reach into his pockets to see what I can find.

A half-smoked pack of cigarettes next to an unopened pack. A black Bic lighter with gouges at the bottom from using it to open bottles. A crumpled credit-card receipt from First Wok with today’s date on it. The time stamp was from two hours ago. I stuff the contents back into his pockets and reach into the breast pocket. A rolled-up fifty-dollar bill with one end wet and the other end powdery, and a tiny empty bag that used to house a gram of cocaine. Adrenaline burns in my stomach as I drop the contraband back into his coat.

I sit down on the couch and take a big gulp of wine. I light a cigarette and wait to hear the toilet flush. He usually muffles the sounds of his snorts by flushing the toilet. He probably has another bag in there with him. My building is old, and so is the plumbing. He overflowed the toilet once from flushing too many times because he was snorting so many lines. Somehow, he still thinks I haven’t figured out what he’s doing in there. I hear the telltale flush, and then he appears outside the bathroom door.

“Whew, sorry about that,” he says as he plops down on the couch next to me. “Been a long day, and I’m lugging this Chinese food here, and I can’t find my keys, and I just got frustrated. Hi,” he says, turning to me and kissing me on the mouth. “How was your day?”

I can taste the coke and it immediately makes my lower lip numb, so I pull away from him and wipe my mouth. “My day was fine. How was your coke?”

“Oh, Sam. I don’t want to get into this.” He rolls his eyes and flaps his hands at me. “I had a long day and I needed a pick-me-up. Brian from the office was holding and he gave me a bag as we were leaving. We were working on a very important merger, and it was sort of a celebration. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I knew you would make a big deal out of it.” He reaches down and takes a sip of my wine. He is leaning forward on the couch, hovering over the coffee table, picking at the label on the wine bottle. He’s not looking at me. I’m not responding. Instead, I stand up and walk to the kitchen to get him his own wineglass. The adrenaline kick sobered me, and I feel like I haven’t had anything to drink at all.

He keeps picking at the label until I sit back down and pour him a glass of wine. I refill my own glass and lean back, silent. I know the coke isn’t going to let him stay quiet for long, so I wait and give him the rope to hang himself.

“I’m not trying to lie to you,” he implores me. “It’s just that we’ve had this coke conversation so many times, and I told you that I was going to cut down, but honestly, it just comes with my business.”

“This isn’t the ’80s, you know.”

“Maybe not wherever you live, but in the finance world, the ’80s are the revered decade. Everyone is hoping to get back to that, and sometimes, we behave as if we are back to that. It’s not a big deal; it’s not about you.”

“Lying to me is about me.” We are both smoking cigarettes now, and the smoke is hanging in the air like a gray aurora borealis.

“I shouldn’t lie to you, you’re right.” He turns to look at me and squeezes my knee with his left hand, his cigarette tucked between his fingers. He holds his wineglass with the other hand and continually slurps tiny, noisy sips. He is looking at me with wild eyes between his little sips, and he begins rubbing my thigh.

“Why were you so late tonight?” I ask.

“Because Brian and I were doing drugs, Sam. How many times do I have to explain this to you? You don’t need to punish me; I’ve already admitted it. Can’t get anything by Detective Sam.” He pulls his hand back, and his cigarette leaves ashes on my pants.

There were about thirty seconds when I had the upper hand as he was apologizing, and now I see it falling out of my grasp and rolling under the couch. Of all the things that Lucas does and then lies to me about, for some reason I have attached myself to the cocaine. The Serenity Prayer has taught me that there are some things I cannot change, but for some reason, I think his coke use is one of the things I can. Baby steps. I’m chipping away at the vices. One day I’ll have the strength to stop him from all the other damage he does, to me and to himself.

Lucas is reeling now, angry that I caught him. I’m contemplating my exit strategy when he suddenly pops up to his feet and offers me a hand to help me off the couch.

“Why don’t we eat something? There’s all this Chinese food in the kitchen; let’s just have a bite to eat and forget this shit ever happened, okay?” He is clenching my wrist and pulling me into the kitchen. He takes two plates out of the cabinet above the sink and slaps them both down on the counter. He reaches into the First Wok bag and pulls out two white cardboard containers. Lucas drops my wrist and it falls to my side with a thud, and he begins unloading lo mein and sesame chicken onto the plates. I can see him getting angrier and angrier with each shake of the to-go containers; I start slowly backing out of the kitchen.

“Where the fuck are you going? You asked me to come over and bring dinner, and here I am, preparing dinner for us. Don’t sneak out of here and pretend you didn’t ruin our evening together with your accusations and your detective work. Here—” he shoves a plate of cold Chinese at me “—eat this. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” He leaves his plate on the kitchen counter and stalks toward me with his head bowed and his eyebrows clamped in rage. I’m holding my plate between us with both hands, backing up.

“Thank you for bringing Chinese food, but I didn’t ruin our evening. You’re the one who came over hours late and coked up.” I keep backing up.

“So, I ruined the evening?” he growls.

“Look, the evening doesn’t have to be ruined at all—” I implore him, but as soon as he’s close enough, Lucas slaps the plate out of my hand, and sesame chicken and lo mein and broken shards of plate scatter on the floor around us. He pushes the mess out of his way with his foot and keeps lumbering closer to me. I hold my hands up against his chest and try to push him off me, but he is too big, and too angry, and already nearly on top of me.

“Hit me,” he says calmly, with a twisted grin. “Hit me, since I fucked everything up. I ruined dinner, didn’t I? So hit me.” He starts yelling and chest bumps me, sending me stumbling back into the wall. “Hit me!” He points to his jaw and chest bumps me again, and now I’m pinned between him and the wall, and I can’t find the room to squirm out. I feel the handle to the closet door with my left hand, and I try to pull it open, but Lucas’s big arm is over my head, holding the closet door closed. “Hit me,” he says again as his other hand rises up and grips me by the throat. “Hit me!”