myself. I switched to wine. I know a hell of a lot about wines now. They’re interesting. They’re kind of like customers with their quirks and ins and outs.
After a while, one smoke wasn’t cutting it, and I added another with my morning coffee in my car, holding the damn thing out the window so it wouldn’t smell up the vinyl, and then, boom, I was back up to a pack. Tay’s fault. She got sick when Snow was born. Sick enough to die, the nurses were white-faced, and it scared me. What would I do without her, what would I do with a baby? I spent the whole night outside, smoking, freezing, and praying. I called my mom and asked her to hustle her ass to church, light some candles, and pray to Saint Jude.
I was a rube about marriage. I believed all that shit about sharing. I believed in honesty, and this is when it started changing for me. “I’m smoking again,” I told Taylor.
It began as a trickle, pretty little tears, then Tay was bawling that I was going to get lung cancer and leave Snow without a dad. Taylor, sitting up in bed, in her white frilly nightie her bitch mom sent, had got Snow sucking her tit while the tears flowed.
“Whoa, stop,” I said. “The baby’s not getting your milk, she’s getting your feelings.”
I wonder. It crossed my mind and continues to—Tay was wacko those first few months. Wailing like that wasn’t like her.Did her mood swings affect Snow? Did they cause the shyness thing? They say, if you breast-feed, the baby gets all your good stuff, antibodies and shit. If they get that, can’t they get other stuff too? It doesn’t make sense that breast milk when you’re happy tastes the same as breast milk when you’re bawling. Besides, all Tay’s wailing was a lot for a baby to handle. Did it make her bashful? She didn’t get it from me.
I tried to comfort Tay, but the baby was in the way. She used the baby’s blanket to wipe her eyes, which was cute.
“Cheer up, I’ve got an insurance policy.” I’d signed it the week after Snow was born. “You’ve got a reason to murder me.”
She laughed.
That was when she laughed. All my dumb was funny then.
I like to look at Tay. She’s a babe. I like it that other men look at her and she’s married to me.
After dinner everyone went to bed and I was free. I’m a night guy. Like a vampire or a werewolf, I come alive when it’s dark and when I’m on the prowl. I lit up and walked. There were people out everywhere, teenagers in huddles, guys straddling their Vespas, groups of tourists, lots of fat ones, I noticed. Rolls stretching out their tees, fanny packs sitting on big round butts. Some real beauties—Romans, I’m guessing. The women seemed to know where they were going and they had that southern Italian flavor—black hair, dark eyes, skin the sun loves, smooth and silky, shiny lipstick. Noisy with laughter and brio. Brio—where did that come from? I told you I could tell this as well as the next. Did I use it correctly? I passed a piazza, jammed—which one I was clueless—music screaming from boom boxes, nutsshooting red flares, other nuts sticking carnations in my face. I gave a beggar with a scrawny Pekingese a couple euros and got out of there.
Speaking French—alone, I’m French—I picked up a couple of tall Swedes, Brigitta and Karin, and walked across the river to a bar. The bridge, one more magnificent relic, spooked me the way I was getting spooked all over Rome, but more so because it was night. Every twenty feet or so a stone angel ten feet tall reminded me of how I never go to church and how puny I am, in the scheme of things, worthless. Vowed to give up smoking somewhere in the middle of the bridge but lit up as soon as I hit the bar. Karin said it was a hanging bridge. Not possible, it had to be sacred, not a place of execution, but Catholics are twisted, I know, I’m one of them. Ever heard of Saint Agnes? You could jerk off to Saint Agnes, stripped nude and dragged through the streets for
After a while, one smoke wasn’t cutting it, and I added another with my morning coffee in my car, holding the damn thing out the window so it wouldn’t smell up the vinyl, and then, boom, I was back up to a pack. Tay’s fault. She got sick when Snow was born. Sick enough to die, the nurses were white-faced, and it scared me. What would I do without her, what would I do with a baby? I spent the whole night outside, smoking, freezing, and praying. I called my mom and asked her to hustle her ass to church, light some candles, and pray to Saint Jude.
I was a rube about marriage. I believed all that shit about sharing. I believed in honesty, and this is when it started changing for me. “I’m smoking again,” I told Taylor.
It began as a trickle, pretty little tears, then Tay was bawling that I was going to get lung cancer and leave Snow without a dad. Taylor, sitting up in bed, in her white frilly nightie her bitch mom sent, had got Snow sucking her tit while the tears flowed.
“Whoa, stop,” I said. “The baby’s not getting your milk, she’s getting your feelings.”
I wonder. It crossed my mind and continues to—Tay was wacko those first few months. Wailing like that wasn’t like her.Did her mood swings affect Snow? Did they cause the shyness thing? They say, if you breast-feed, the baby gets all your good stuff, antibodies and shit. If they get that, can’t they get other stuff too? It doesn’t make sense that breast milk when you’re happy tastes the same as breast milk when you’re bawling. Besides, all Tay’s wailing was a lot for a baby to handle. Did it make her bashful? She didn’t get it from me.
I tried to comfort Tay, but the baby was in the way. She used the baby’s blanket to wipe her eyes, which was cute.
“Cheer up, I’ve got an insurance policy.” I’d signed it the week after Snow was born. “You’ve got a reason to murder me.”
She laughed.
That was when she laughed. All my dumb was funny then.
I like to look at Tay. She’s a babe. I like it that other men look at her and she’s married to me.
After dinner everyone went to bed and I was free. I’m a night guy. Like a vampire or a werewolf, I come alive when it’s dark and when I’m on the prowl. I lit up and walked. There were people out everywhere, teenagers in huddles, guys straddling their Vespas, groups of tourists, lots of fat ones, I noticed. Rolls stretching out their tees, fanny packs sitting on big round butts. Some real beauties—Romans, I’m guessing. The women seemed to know where they were going and they had that southern Italian flavor—black hair, dark eyes, skin the sun loves, smooth and silky, shiny lipstick. Noisy with laughter and brio. Brio—where did that come from? I told you I could tell this as well as the next. Did I use it correctly? I passed a piazza, jammed—which one I was clueless—music screaming from boom boxes, nutsshooting red flares, other nuts sticking carnations in my face. I gave a beggar with a scrawny Pekingese a couple euros and got out of there.
Speaking French—alone, I’m French—I picked up a couple of tall Swedes, Brigitta and Karin, and walked across the river to a bar. The bridge, one more magnificent relic, spooked me the way I was getting spooked all over Rome, but more so because it was night. Every twenty feet or so a stone angel ten feet tall reminded me of how I never go to church and how puny I am, in the scheme of things, worthless. Vowed to give up smoking somewhere in the middle of the bridge but lit up as soon as I hit the bar. Karin said it was a hanging bridge. Not possible, it had to be sacred, not a place of execution, but Catholics are twisted, I know, I’m one of them. Ever heard of Saint Agnes? You could jerk off to Saint Agnes, stripped nude and dragged through the streets for
Similar Books
