FRIDAY NIGHT
She lights a cigarette and inhales deeply with relief. Her nerves steady. The blue smoke curls into a memory. Nikki’s mom walking blocks to buy a pair of shoes for her high school performance. That night, her mom sitting so proudly in the dark watching her perform. Her dad no where to be seen.
She turns on the radio and there’s a news bulletin that the north bound 405 freeway is on fire. “Of course, it is. The north is cursed.” She smirks and changes the station to music — 1980’s British alternative — and pulls onto Sunset, towards the west, the red skies, the low-hanging sun. She merges with the endless stream of cars and the screaming sirens. And she drives without direction, as she does so many nights, sometimes for hours, until she’s too tired to feel lonely and her mind calms down — her mind calms down — her mind calms down.
She’s exhausted. The d.j. is killing her with his nonstop playlist of heartbreakers — Stay with me keens from the radio, followed by Sweet Dreams. Lights of oncoming traffic zip across her eyes. The pent-up loneliness, fear, and loss rise up as a sob, surprising her. Another sob. Tears blind her. She tries to steady herself. Keep the tires on this side of the white line. Or is it the other side. She can’t see. A horn honks impatiently behind her. Praying to an unknown god, she guides the car more through feel and luck than outright seeing and parks it down a side street. She sits and lets it come. The tears. The sobs. No one is around. No one can hear her.
Spent and hollow and shaking, she glances at herself in the rearview mirror. Black rivulets streak her face, mocking her. She laughs. She looks a fright but she’s too exhausted to lift her hands to repair her face.
I need a drink.
She fishes out a crumpled tissue from her purse and with water from an old Arrowhead bottle she tries to spot clean her face — clean the black streaks, the mascara clumps, the clown red of the lipstick. She swipes and digs and scrubs at her skin, turning the tissue into a motley rag of white, black, and red. She checks herself in the mirror one more time. Her skin is red and raw. She rubs a little harder with her fingers.
The smears lighten. Satisfied. Like a drunk rider on a horse that knows its way to the barn, Nikki lets the reins drop and allows the car to find its way to her corner liquor store. She drags herself inside. She startles a pimply-faced clerk who calls her ma’am — jerk! She goes and picks up a bottle of vodka, slams it down a little too hard on the counter, and motions to the kid to give her a carton of Marlboros.
“Excuse me, ma’am, what did you say?” he says laughing.
“Marlboro! A carton of Marlboro! She smiles sweetly at him…Asshole.
She hands the kid her debit card and prays it’s not declined. The god of drunks smiles on her tonight. It goes through and without waiting for the receipt or the bag she heads to her car.
She lights a cigarette with unsteady hands and takes a taste of the hair of the dog that’s killing her, the warmth flowing through her like water in a desert. The thought floats by — It’s gonna be okay. I got you. She finds the strength to drive home, where she crawls into bed with the bottle and drinks until her eyes close and darkness covers her.