King of Wands [Reversed]

Our Rooming House—NIGHT

It is my wedding night or at least my first night alone with Andrea in our new place.

I am in our room watching old videos of us and thinking how happy she makes me. Amazing to have such happy moments on tape forever, I think and suddenly wonder where my bride has wandered off too.

I get up and look in the back room, as well as the bathroom. She is not there. I shut the TV off and sit to think. In the silence, I can hear her talking low with my next door neighbor. That is, she talking to the old crank as low as she can tone down her French squeal anyway. I stand near the doorway straining to listen. At length, friendly laughter becomes hushed.

It sounds like they are hooking up.

I wonder what to do. I slam and bang some drawers so they know I am up and will catch them. They ignore me. I can hear the neighbor’s door open and shut. Soon she is moaning. At least I swear that is what I hear.

I grab a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey and announce loudly, “Andrea, I am leaving! If my new wife is fucking someone, going out and blacking out someplace seems the thing to do.”

The neighbor yells back, “Stay! It’s too late to go out on the streets!”

“Fuck you, you fucking old crank!” I say.

“Hey, don’t be an asshole.”

“I’m the asshole? I’m leaving.”

Sadly it’s almost dawn. And I hesitate throwing on pants, jacket, shoes. She comes home.

But she ignores me as usual, and breezes past me to our bedroom, where she shuts and locks the door quietly, as I stand there dumbfounded.

I grab some whiskey from the kitchenette, and leave. I go as far as the caretakers quarters down the hall where I knock on the door hoping either the old sailor, Lou, will come out to share a drink with me or Maggie his wife will come out and take some pity on me. But no one answers here either so I go back to my place to get wasted. As I quietly stand in the kitchen area drinking and fuming, I can hear Andrea come up to put an ear on her side of the bedroom door to listen.

“Tough,” I think, “She had her chance. I’ll stay locked in this apartment drinking for days, and she can worry.”

I collapse near but not on the chaise lounge as will be my habit. I decide that I ought to open my own suicide hotline. I don’t know what I will tell people, but I will get a lot good stories. Or at least a lot of bad stories that will make me feel better.

I myself am falling apart. My legs are not working. Perhaps I should drag myself to the City hospital.