I awaken to the sounds of a whirring dirt bike engine and the helpless screams of street trash crying out into a barren, uncaring city. My left eye gazes through a crack beneath the window shades. The sky is black. No stars tonight. No moon.

          A barrage of firecrackers pop off and soon everything goes quiet again. It’s not long after that I’m back asleep.

          When I was a child, I feared my own demise. Intensely. At night I would stay awake, staring through the darkness for as long as I could, terrified of somehow accidentally drifting off into a nothingness that, as an adult, I find myself silently yearning for.

          I’ve always known death is the end. I was never raised to believe in heaven or hell or any of that bullshit, and I never met anyone I respected enough to let trick me into any of their comfort cults. Rapidly approaching a century of life, I’ve evolved into something much scarier than any of my adolescent phobias. I linger in the epilogue to my life.

 

**************************************

 

          The lobster landline I’d purchased decades ago from the Dali Museum rings endlessly atop a small, stained glass coffee table. A small, subtle weight crawls along my stomach, resting on my chest. The hot, decaying breath of a criminally neglected teacup-yorkie seeps slowly through my nostrils. I lift an embroidered sleep mask and sneer. Behind the dog, still images of a young Bronson Pinchot take turns bumbling into the different options scattered along the DVD Menu for Blame it On the Bellboy. I don’t care what anybody else thinks, I know in my heart this movie is one of the greatest love stories of our time. I turn my nose away from the malodor and screech, “Virgil!”

          There’s no reply. I shriek his name a second time and am once again met with silence. I retrace the events that lulled me into my last bout of unconsciousness. Virgil had failed to get home prior to his curfew. Again. I’m certain he stayed out all night cruising Newtown and I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay for another round of VD shots.

          Bogart hasn’t been walked since sunset. Every available surface in the penthouse is damp with his mildewy urine. The mangy pooch, somehow still too demure to defecate indoors, pleads with me. I fling the beast from atop my languishing breasts. It splatters onto the floor with a pained yelp. I have a flash of panic concerning his tiny, fragile limbs, but that’s quickly replaced by an unquenchable thirst known only to vampires and the most dire of alcoholics. I pour the rest of a plastic bottle of vodka into the crusted goblet on my nightstand.

          “Ah shit,” I lament, realizing the Bloody Mary mix was left out all night again. I unscrew the already loose cap and takes a sniff. I shrug and fill the rest of my cup with an elixir of room temperature tomato juice and beef tallow. Carefully leaning over the side of my bed, I dust off the purple, glittery crazy-straw tangled in the green, shag carpet. The swirling utensil stirs the concoction for only a brief moment before I jam it into the depths of my gelatinous drink. Several long sips are taken. I pant breathlessly between each one, only ever pausing because I’m too old and weak to swallow it all in one gulp.

          Bogart yelps. He grows weary of his master’s complete and utter indifference. The phone continues to ring. The restless entertainment system automatically restarts Blame it on the Bellboy.

 

********************************

 

          A sultry, black and white portrait of a horizontal Bette Davis is emblazoned on the window shades. Her glowing eyes beam sunlight onto the blots of red wine adorning my cashmere sofa. Bette’s pupils were recently burned out with the cherry of a cigarette when I was feeling particularly bored and artistic one lonely evening a couple months ago.

          I gradually rise from my bed. I use two fingers to divide the starlet’s eyelids and peek at the outside world. The sun is unnaturally large today, peering over my luxury suite like a narcissus flower. The entirety of the sky appears white in its massive wake. I press my skeletal hand to the glass and takes note of its warmth. I have to embrace these small, meaningless moments. I know there aren’t many of them left for me. Yesterday, I cracked the surface of my crème brulée in solitude and wondered, ‘Will this be my last instigation of that gratifying crunch?’

          I’ll be rotting in hospice soon enough. They won’t serve the things I like there, and no one will care enough about me to have them delivered. I’d briefly considered having children, but Jack didn’t want my tits to sag. They did any way.

          Seagulls pass overhead, squawking gently. Outside, there’s a leather faced homeless woman taking a shit in the parking lot behind Mattison’s. Inside, an upsettingly sober Dudley Moore argues with Bronson Pinchot about his hotel room’s lack of accommodations.

          Bogart claws at the front door, scraping away the last bits of paint from the base. His predecessors had already carved a series of intricate distress signals for him to work off of. I assure you I’ve been absolutely devastated by each and every one of their demises.

          Coco choked on a chicken bone. Alonzo fell off my yacht and drowned. Virgil accidentally ran over Groucho’s head with the Benz and we had to put Ernest down after we caught him humping my fox fur. Bogart implores me. Bronson Pinchot somehow trips over his shoelaces and tumbles down eleven flights of stairs. This movie is a goddamned tour de force.

          “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter, staring at the lobster as it continues uttering its shrill jingle. I light a very long menthol cigarette and take a considerable amount of time to finish my drink. Finally, I pick up the phone.

          “What,” I don’t ask as I blot clumps of Prussian blue onto my drooping eyelids.

          “It’s Virgil,” a deep, scratchy voice answers even though I already knew.

          “What,” I bark again.

          “I’m at Holy Foods. They said I couldn’t keep using their courtesy phone but I told them they were being racist so they left me alone,” the pride of this accomplishment booms in his voice.

          “What do you want,” I growl.

          “Buzz me in,” he begs.

          “No.”

          “Baaaby, please,” he consciously dissipates the hubris from his tone and attempts to sound as pathetic as possible, “I slept in the car like uh animal last night.”

          I struggle to wriggle a pre-wrapped turban over my thin, crimson hair, “What kind of animal sleeps in a car? That’s not a thing.”

          “Well I mean, I slept outside,” when I don’t respond he immediately feels the need to interject clarification, “like a cat or a dog or a horse that sleeps outside, you know?”

          “You weren’t outside,” I exhaustedly huff, “you just said you were in a car.”

          “Baby, that’s how Bill Cosby’s son died,” he shouts incredulously before lowering the volume of his voice, “I coulda’ died!”

          “He died from sleeping in a car?” I ask, scribbling in a beauty mark above my lip, “Was it the carbon dioxide? You’re not supposed to leave the engine running, you dumb ass.”

          “He got shot,” his voice trembles, “you got crack heads smokin’ spice, walking all up and down Main Street like zombies all night, rubbin’ vortex in they butts. I’m tellin’ you it’s dangerous out here!”

          My mind wanders to the nightstand and the dusty, .22 caliber handgun with its jeweled handle, hiding inside it. I empathize perhaps a bit too much with the former Dr. Huxtable, “Poor Cosby.”

          I met Dr. Cosby once at a fashion show in the summer of 1974. He flirted with me. I politely reciprocated. We shared a whimsical moment identifying different acne consolations on the coat check girl’s oily face. Alas, I was engaged to Jack at the time. Later in the evening we found Cosby stuffing a barely conscious super model into the trunk of his car.

          Virgil interrupts my brief spell of nostalgia, “The man is innocent!”

          “Whooores,” I agree, spritzing myself all over with a forty year old Elizabeth Taylor perfume, “bunch of jezebel whooores. They knew what they were getting into.”

          “Just cause he’s black,” he grunts.

          “It’s because he’s rich,” I blow kisses at my reflection in the vanity, “Cosby transcended race.”

“That’s none of your business,” my muffled lover yells at a concerned customer servant in the grocery store downstairs, “so you gonna’ let me in or what? Baby?”

          “No,” I cough, lungs rattling in my chest as I hang up.

          In my heart, I know that if Jack had found out I’d be fornicating with a negroid, he never would have let himself die before me. Perhaps there’s a small chance I’d courted Virgil solely as a means to some sort of morbid revenge. I still get angry every time I remember the hole in the ceiling, or the teeth and brains Jack left for me all over the bathroom floor. I swear there are still bits of him clinging to the grout between the tiles. Tiny maroon splotches. The last of his memories and regrets.

          My cleaning lady, who’s name I’m still not sure of after a decade of service, assures me that she’s already scrubbed the last of him away many times over. She’s obviously lying and lazy and probably doesn’t know enough English to clean it properly anyway. At least he didn’t do it on the carpet. I dress myself from head to toe in silk cheetah print and wrap a lavender scarf around my neck. I squeeze Bogart into his tiny harness and depart.

 

************************************

 

          The tiny dog pisses in the elevator on the way down as I hide my lit cigarette from what I think is a security camera. The metal door slides open and we’re eased into the garage by the dull grunts of two filthy vagrants wrestling on the hood of an old Roll’s Royce. Their pants quiver around their ankles. I stare deeply into one of their filthy assholes long enough to see a dozen or so pinworms dancing around like flappers. The flame on the tip of my menthol flickers as I take a long drag. I leave when it dawns on me that they don’t actually care if I watch.

          Moist, boiling heat erupts upon us as we step out from the shadows. Sweat oozes immediately from my every pore. Perspiration drags caked makeup down my face. I catch my reflection in a puddle. I look like a lightly microwaved Barbie doll. A water truck lumbers down 1^st street, showering thousands of gallons onto the pavement. The entire block is one big biohazardous kiddie pool. Feint whiffs of barbecue and sewage permeate the air.

          Inch by inch we limp along the Shoppes at Sarasota Row, gazing through the glass at the lower class, their dark aprons wrapped around them sadly like chains. They work robotically, going through the same motions, asking the same questions, repeating the same conversations over and over ad nauseam. I wonder why they work here. Why don’t they get better jobs? They must be stupid… or lazy. Probably both. People get what they deserve.

          I nod in agreement with myself before gazing upward toward my balcony. It’s littered with dead plants and dog turds. Bogart stares at me as he shits on the sidewalk.

          A fat, elderly man drags his teenage girlfriend toward us by the arm. His melon head is adorned with a tan, backwards cap and gold-rimmed, wraparound Oakleys. Sandalwood mala beads cling to his bloated wrist.

          His ingénue is dressed modestly, in a mournful, midnight-blue dress that falls past her knees. Her hair is wrapped in a babushka. They’re each trying to meet the other halfway in age appropriate attire and I feel embarrassed for both of them.

          They glare at Bogart’s diarrhea Jackson Pollock until I half-heartedly mime that I’m just letting it cool off before I pick it up and dispose of it. I patiently wait for the couple to vanish around the corner, flick away the butt of my cigarette and flee my dog’s mess.

          “Hey!” A man’s voice shouts from behind us.

          I won’t turn my head to look back when I shout, “That’s not our shit and I’ll sue you if you say it is!”

          “Baby, no-”

          We keep up our slug-like sprint as I groan, “I don’t carry any cash, leave me alone!”

          “Come on, baaaby,” Virgil howls from a block away, “I need a shower. I need breakfast! I ain’t got no money.”

          I can hear the sweaty, Bo Derek beads clattering against his thick shoulders as he chases us. He comes at me surprisingly fast, one hand firmly holding down a pin-striped, glittery fedora (mine) to the top of his head.

          “Kill yourself,” the words fall out of my mouth with complete indifference.

          He finally catches up and begs, “Baby, I didn’t do nothing wrong!”

          “Bullshit,” I strut away dramatically. He continues his pursuit.

          “I promise I kept my dick in my pants last night,” he places my hat over his heart in a gesture of sincerity as he maneuvers to block our path, “let me in the apartment, you can smell it.”

          “I have no interest in smelling your penis,” I pinch the bridge of my fifty year old nose job, “where were you?”

          “Well, you see, I saw a stray cat get eaten by a pitbull outside the Hob Nob, and so I went around knocking on everybody’s doors to see if it was they pet. I been callin’ all night but you don’t pick up. Now my phone’s dead. Tha’s on you. As uh animal lover, I’m you know, traumatized. I was too in shock to come home. I got the PTSD.” I shoot him a look of disbelief and he roars in response, “I told you, you can smell my dick!”

          The balding mass of polo-shirted patrons at the nearby Starbucks gaze upon us with manufactured looks of concern and disgust. The vagrants lounging about Five Points Park also take a momentary break from their conspicuous dogpile to stare silently as our romantic conundrum plays out for the crowd.

          I savor my audience, making sure to speak loud enough for everyone to hear, “Just because you washed your dirty dick in some gas station bathroom doesn’t mean it’s clean.”

          “You know,” he twiddles his dimples at me impishly, “you spend all this time creatin’ elaborate fantasies around my dick when you could just be gettin’ it.”

          “Oh please,” I guffaw, “give me back my hat.”

          “Live the fantasy, baby,” he sings as he gently places the fedora atop my turban and gets down on one knee, “come on, let me in. I’ll eat your pussy.”

          I take a long moment to consider that perhaps forcing him to unravel the greasy, fried chicken lips of my descended cunt and smearing toxic waste all over his face would be sufficient punishment for any of last night’s indiscretion.

          I revel in everyone’s suspense just a bit longer but eventually relent, “First, go to Mal’s and buy me a bottle of vodka.”

          “Aw shit baby,” he conjures up the shame to hang his head and admit, “I ain’t allowed back in Mal’s.”

          “What?” I squint and ask even though I’m not sure I want to know, “Why?”

          “They had me trespassed,” he cowers bashfully.

          “For what?”

          “Racism,” the word reverberates with a false strength perched upon self-pity.

          I roll my eyes as hard as I can at his lack of social ingenuity.

          “I don’t have any money,” he whines, pulling the tattered insides of his pants pockets out for everyone to see.

          I jingle my golden change purse. A ten dollar bill slithers out of it and into his hand.

          “Ten dollars ain’t enough for no Vodka.” I skeptically bulge my eyes out at him and he takes the hint, “Okay, okay.”

          I hand Virgil the leash and he immediately tries to hand it back, “I can’t take no dog into a liquor store.”

          I scream, “It’s a service dog!”

          “What service am I gonna’ say this two ounce, squirrel-dog does if they ask me,” he shouts back.

          “Tell them you fuck it when you’re stressed out, I don’t give a shit just go buy me my fucking booze, you mongoloid,” I bid them farewell as gently as I’m capable, “what the fuck is taking you so long?!”

          “Okay baby, chill,” he takes a few bowlegged steps toward Main Street before calling out, “I love you!”

          “Get the fuck out of here!”

 

*********************************

 

          I jam another long cigarette into my mouth as Virgil and Bogart fade into the horizon. I strike a match and try to remember the last time I felt happy. It takes me a moment, but I pinpoint it: when Tom Jones came to the Asolo.

          I sat in the front row and could perfectly make out the imprint of his massive cock through his pants the whole show. The entire thing. Veins and all. He was visibly circumcised. It was like a king’s scepter. I’d brought red, worn, crotchless panties in my purse. I had Virgil fling them onto the stage during Thunderball.

          They hit the crooner perfectly square in the center of his beautiful face. They had to stop the show and have my Nubian companion escorted from the concert. Sometimes I wonder if Tom Jones kept those panties. If he ever pulls them out late at night and sniffs them and thinks of me. I could feel him watching me the whole performance. Gazing deep into my soul.

          I could’ve been famous. Or at the very least I could have married the actor who played Mr. Belvedere. I’m almost positive he’d been madly in love with me for a brief stretch of time in the early eighties. It was the way he looked at me. We’d lived in the same neighborhood in Connecticut. He always politely waved whenever we’d crossed paths walking our dogs.

          I could have been famous by proxy. Mrs. Belvedere. The beautiful Mrs. Belvedere. The gorgeous, intelligent, provocative Mrs. Lynn Belvedere. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why Jack did what he did. Perhaps he couldn’t live with the regret that he’d stifled my potential stardom by trapping me in a loveless marriage.

          Oh well, that’s life. We’re all struggling in our own way. All are equal in the eyes of pain.

          I remove the glittery hat from atop my turban. It reeks of him. Like chewing tobacco and bacon grease. He disgusts me. But, I suppose, in their own, special way, everybody does.