Read Online Gray by Pete Wentz, James Montgomery - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Pete Wentz, James Montgomery
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couldprobably use some of the advance to eat a little better, so almost immediately we start going out for proper meals. We ring up a bill fitting of major-label artists-in-waiting.
A week later, the recording is done and we pack up to head home. For the first time in forever, I’m not anxious to return. Her and I haven’t been speaking all that much, and when we do, there’s nothing to say. I don’t know what will happen when I show up on Her doorstep tomorrow morning. I’m not sure who will answer the door. I sift through the pocket of my coat to find my Ativan. I fill my hands with water from the tap in the bathroom and swallow the pill. I feel the benzos enter my bloodstream, like tiny psychoactive snow flurries. I turn off the tap and shut off the bathroom light. This time, I take my phone with me, but I’m not really sure why.
11
E xpect the unexpected. We jump right back into bed, we don’t skip a beat. We make loud love while the sun rises on Chicago; we wake up Her roommate with the noise. When we’re done, she falls asleep with Her body wrapped around me, and I listen to Her breathing, rhythmic and shallow. I feel Her body go still around mine. I let my eyes drift around the room: our clothes, tangled on the floor like the skins of ghosts; Her books, stacked on the desk— Cognitive Psychiatry, Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman (“one of Sweden’s most prominent novelists”), The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde, bound in bright blue—proof of a life that continues on without me; an open pack of Marlboros, an overflowing ashtray, evidence of Her growing imperfections. The radiator hums away in the corner, and the midmorning light spills in around the curtain, casting the walls in a dull, white hue. Tibetan prayer flags hang from the light on the ceiling, fluttering slightly in the heat. It’s like a photograph of a crime scene . . . What went on here? Who where these people?
Her cell phone lies on the table beside the bed, face-down, green light flashing. It’s beckoning me to investigate, to pick it up and flip through the text messages and discover that she’s been unfaithful, but I don’t, not because I’m particularly trusting, but because I don’t want to risk waking Her up. Instead, I bring the covers up to my nose slowly, smell them for evidence of transgressions—someone else’s sweat in the fabric, some DNA left on the threads (I’m guessing it smells like bleach)—but all I can get off them is the scent of Her body. And cigarettes. It occurs to me that I might be going crazy.
“Why are you smelling my sheets?” I hear Her ask from behind my head.
As far as I know, there is no manual for moments like this, when you’ve been caught smelling your girlfriend’s bedding for traces of a stranger’s semen. No caddish article has ever been published on the subject in the pages of GQ or Esquire (“I was simply admiring the scent of the Egyptian cotton”), no father has ever pulled his son aside and explained how to get out of this situation (“Just tell her, Son . . . that you were blowing your nose”). The Smithsonian archives don’t contain a single shard of Macedonian pottery depicting an instance like this. In fact, given the resources available to me, it’s entirely possible that, since the dawn of time, no man has ever been caught doing something this stupid. Which makes me a pioneer, I suppose. So, in an inspired moment, with the winds of history at my back and the gazes of my forefathers fixed upon me, I do the one thing I’m confident they would tell me not to do: I apologize.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I—”
It was a historic miscalculation. Somewhere in the Great Beyond, Abraham Lincoln cringes. From inside his golden sarcophagus, Alexander the Great slaps his forehead. Cain mutters to Abel, “Jesus, what’s the matter with this kid?” I am an idiot for the ages.
She launches out of the bed, pulling the sheet with Her. She’s shouting, What the fuck is wrong
A week later, the recording is done and we pack up to head home. For the first time in forever, I’m not anxious to return. Her and I haven’t been speaking all that much, and when we do, there’s nothing to say. I don’t know what will happen when I show up on Her doorstep tomorrow morning. I’m not sure who will answer the door. I sift through the pocket of my coat to find my Ativan. I fill my hands with water from the tap in the bathroom and swallow the pill. I feel the benzos enter my bloodstream, like tiny psychoactive snow flurries. I turn off the tap and shut off the bathroom light. This time, I take my phone with me, but I’m not really sure why.
11
E xpect the unexpected. We jump right back into bed, we don’t skip a beat. We make loud love while the sun rises on Chicago; we wake up Her roommate with the noise. When we’re done, she falls asleep with Her body wrapped around me, and I listen to Her breathing, rhythmic and shallow. I feel Her body go still around mine. I let my eyes drift around the room: our clothes, tangled on the floor like the skins of ghosts; Her books, stacked on the desk— Cognitive Psychiatry, Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman (“one of Sweden’s most prominent novelists”), The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde, bound in bright blue—proof of a life that continues on without me; an open pack of Marlboros, an overflowing ashtray, evidence of Her growing imperfections. The radiator hums away in the corner, and the midmorning light spills in around the curtain, casting the walls in a dull, white hue. Tibetan prayer flags hang from the light on the ceiling, fluttering slightly in the heat. It’s like a photograph of a crime scene . . . What went on here? Who where these people?
Her cell phone lies on the table beside the bed, face-down, green light flashing. It’s beckoning me to investigate, to pick it up and flip through the text messages and discover that she’s been unfaithful, but I don’t, not because I’m particularly trusting, but because I don’t want to risk waking Her up. Instead, I bring the covers up to my nose slowly, smell them for evidence of transgressions—someone else’s sweat in the fabric, some DNA left on the threads (I’m guessing it smells like bleach)—but all I can get off them is the scent of Her body. And cigarettes. It occurs to me that I might be going crazy.
“Why are you smelling my sheets?” I hear Her ask from behind my head.
As far as I know, there is no manual for moments like this, when you’ve been caught smelling your girlfriend’s bedding for traces of a stranger’s semen. No caddish article has ever been published on the subject in the pages of GQ or Esquire (“I was simply admiring the scent of the Egyptian cotton”), no father has ever pulled his son aside and explained how to get out of this situation (“Just tell her, Son . . . that you were blowing your nose”). The Smithsonian archives don’t contain a single shard of Macedonian pottery depicting an instance like this. In fact, given the resources available to me, it’s entirely possible that, since the dawn of time, no man has ever been caught doing something this stupid. Which makes me a pioneer, I suppose. So, in an inspired moment, with the winds of history at my back and the gazes of my forefathers fixed upon me, I do the one thing I’m confident they would tell me not to do: I apologize.
“Yeah, I’m sorry, I—”
It was a historic miscalculation. Somewhere in the Great Beyond, Abraham Lincoln cringes. From inside his golden sarcophagus, Alexander the Great slaps his forehead. Cain mutters to Abel, “Jesus, what’s the matter with this kid?” I am an idiot for the ages.
She launches out of the bed, pulling the sheet with Her. She’s shouting, What the fuck is wrong
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