Читать книгу Freedom’s Child - Jax Miller - Страница 11

My name is Freedom and my eyelids are heavy. Through the hangover, I stretch my nakedness across the unkempt bed. My mouth tastes like death, the whiskey seeps grossly from my pores, cheekbones soggy with rye. 11:30 a.m. Not bad. My thighs, sore from hip bones; I know the feeling well. I turn over to Cal on his stomach, his naked ass in the air as he lies stiff in a dead man’s pose.

“You cockroach,” I yap as I kick him right off the bed. He takes the tangled sheets with him. “Who the hell said you could come over and fuck me?”

“You called me in the middle of the night and threw yourself at me,” he yells up from the floor. I have no reason to disbelieve him, it’s not the first time. Cal’s a cowboy, and that’s the best way to describe him. Five years my junior and looking even five years younger, Cal’s the rare sort who can pull off long blond hair and cowboy boots. I, of course, will never admit it out loud, but he has the body of a god and is hung even better than Christ himself.

I throw his white tee at him and slip into a CBGB extra-large T-shirt and stumble into the kitchen. I don’t know whose shirt this is. Could be anybody’s. It’s mine now.

I find a clean dish among a pile of ones I plan to wash someday. I pour dry farina into a chipped bowl and drown it in spiced rum. I sigh. “Was I at least good?” I tend to black out during my romps in the hay. He comes up behind me, turns me around. He picks me up and I wrap my legs around him on the dirty sink.

“As always, Free-free.” He smiles. I’m too hungover for his smile. I push him away.

“Careful, cowboy.” I take a shot from the rum, just to bite the hair of the dog. The cap’s been MIA for days now. There’s a silence that some would regard as awkward, but it isn’t, not to me. In fact, I like quiet. Quiet is good. He gulps orange juice from the carton in front of an open refrigerator. He breathes the tang from his cheeks like a fire-breathing dragon.

“Who is Mason?” He doesn’t care. He reads the ingredients of the juice. He likes the organic shit. Hippie.

“Who?” I observe the filthy kitchen. I just don’t have the energy to clean it. I haven’t had the energy in a long time.

“After you passed out,” he speaks into the pathetically empty fridge. “You were having a nightmare and kept on yelling Mason.” I play dumb, an act I play well. What can I say? I live in a world surrounded by incompetent retards, including Cal. But his skills in the sack compensate for a head full of rocks.

“I never met no Mason.” It’s a double negative, therefore I still tell the truth. A simple manipulation of words to sneak past Cal. “I probably just heard it on TV or something.” The phone rings and I rummage through the kitchen cabinets for it. I put it there when the headaches come. Cal looks at me like most people do: confused. I follow the cord to where the phone sits on a few cans of peas in the back. “Yeah?” I answer. “Yellow? Hello?” I hold the receiver tight against my jaw. I pretend to end the call, covering the hang-up with my hand. “It was the wrong number. Those good-for-nothing salesmen or something.” I’m not telling the truth.

“Your face says otherwise, Free-free.”

I hate when he calls me Free-free. It reminds me of a kid’s pet hamster. The carton of orange juice is back to his lips for seconds. Must be the gin I added to it the other day. And with that stupid grin and those washboard abs, I pretend to watch a commercial ad for Tropicana. I think of their slogan: Tropicana’s got the taste that shows on your face. Sure, if dumb is a flavor.

“I gotta shower.” I untangle the phone cord and walk for the bathroom. “Please be gone by the time I’m out.”