Pain Killers by Jerry Stahl Page B

in contact with whatever was soaking out of the seat cushions. I didn’t know where the light switches were. My lighter, for the cigarettes I no longer didn’t smoke, was in the pocket of a jacket I couldn’t see. It was amazing how fast things went to shit when you started drinking, after not drinking. An hour and a half after I’d begun to slurp from the wine carton, I was already reeling in the dark, cracking my knuckles and scratching myself, gripped by cellular torment and trembling at the notion of trying to make it through the next five minutes. What I really wanted to do was pour the sparkling rosé up my nose to kill the stench.
    Instead, I began to sneeze. I tried to believe this was from trailer spores, but I knew it was the Windexy Gallo.
    Just retasting the stuff resulted in testicle pain. I clamped a hand over my mouth and nostrils, but I could not escape the smell. I tried to imagine the man who’d occupied the trailer before me. I unclamped my nostrils and shut my eyes. Breathing in, I visualized a molting pile of sweat socks and frayed underpants. In the middle of that sat a naked fat man eating rotten meat out of a greasy paper bag, jerking off over the August ’99
Shaved Amputeens
. I could almost hear his sock-swaddled meat slapping off the face of the one-armed cover girl.
I know what you want, you little stump slut!
    No doubt the snailback’s previous occupant had pleasured himself precisely where I was sitting. As if to back up my wine-box vision, the banquette gave a phantom squish.
    One can only do so much damage in an alcoholic stupor (assuming one is not behind the wheel, like Movern). But, as hard as I tried, I never made it to unconscious. I bolted out of the breakfast nook, swiping the air in front of my face like it was trying to bite me. It took a while to find the door. I fumbled with the locks, convinced a cockroach had flown into my mouth.
    Spitting and gasping, I forced the lock and hurled myself in the dirt beside the trailer, where I threw up with quiet dignity.
    I remained in the dark, wondering if my performance had been recorded by the video cameras mounted on the prison walls. Perhaps they could run it for my drug awareness class, a sterling example of the kind of life they too could enjoy. The possibilities were endless.
    The lights were on in the double-wide opposite the fence. This was what Rincin had called the “love shack.” A conjugal visit in progress.
    I stood up and saw a face in the double-wide’s porthole window and dropped to the ground again.
    It couldn’t be.
    When I raised my head again, the face was gone.
    It…could…not…be….
    But it was.
    The door opened and I saw Tina, naked. She stepped out of the trailer and lit a cigarette. Even if I couldn’t completely make out her face, her naked sway gave her away. Tina liked to light up naked outside at night. And she swayed when she smoked. The tip of what I knew by the waft of stale menthol was one of her bought-by-the-carton Newports glowed brighter orange. The sight was so familiar, I forgot I was watching and not remembering. Somebody else lurched out the door. In the moonlight I saw the shaved head, steroid bulk and full-body ink of a man who doesn’t work for Prudential Life Insurance. When the bullet-headed freak lunged for my ex-wife, I stood back up. Like I could do anything. Like I had to. If anybody could take care of herself it was Tina.
    Tina turned, almost casually, and the moon went behind a cloud. In the darkness I could see the orange chaser of her lit cigarette moving fast. Then sparks. Then nothing. Just a muffled
“FUCK”
as the man staggered backward, clutching his arm, and stepped back into the open trailer. Tina stopped just long enough in the doorway to light another Newport and show me her body in silhouette.
    We’d been married a year before I could finally decipher her body. Her left shoulder angled slightly higher than her right, due to a drunken stepfather’s penchant for