Get Dressed for Death

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The world had been whirling — full of too-loud music and the acid rasp of cheap liquor. But I couldn’t pin it all down. I knew something had gone wrong. Something big. So big that I couldn’t let myself think about it. So I filled the days and nights with cheap photomantage of the town — wet rings on a bar top, grey sheets in a buck hotel, dark grinning faces over a thumping boogie beat, the tired white flesh of a too-old cigaret girl, the prostitute grin of a chiseling waiter. Oh, I forgot whatever it was. I did a swell job. I nearly forgot my own name.

Not that I made a habit of doing this kind of thing. But once in a while, when something went very wrong, I would go out and drink myself into a stupor. It was my way and my friends were used to it and nobody said much after each bout had been finished.

Then there were new impressions. A scorched patch on the tip of my tongue from scalding coffee. The drenching chill of a needle shower. A repeated ringing crash as a heavy hand slapped my face with blinding monotony. The mad dancing world began to slow down. It ran slower and slower and then stopped moving entirely. My eyes felt as though the lids were cracked like alkali lips. I peered out into the suddenly silent world and saw a square heavy face hanging in the murk, dark sad eyes staring into my own.

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