Read Online Light Before Day by Christopher Rice - Free Book Online
Authors: Christopher Rice
Tags: Fiction, General, Psychological, Gay, Thrillers, Mystery & Detective, Horror, Authors, Journalists, Serial Murderers, Missing Persons, Gay Men, West Hollywood (Calif.)
Ads: Link
ankles go lax against his lower back, and suddenly the words coming out of my mouth were so desperate and profane that if you played a recording of them for me now, I would have to leave the room. Over the next few hours, I traveled the arc from shame to bliss, a short but irreversible journey.
Some time in the night I awoke to a strange rustling sound. The vertical blinds turned the streetlight outside into a series of orange bars that fell across Corey's naked back as he studied my bookshelves. I blinked and saw that he was taking books off the shelf and flipping through their pages without reading a single word.
He pulled out the Merriam-Webster's dictionary and opened it. The center of the pages had been hollowed out, and inside were two tabs of ecstasy, an ounce of cocaine, and five two-milligram pills of Xanax. He closed them all in his fist, put the book back on the shelf, and disappeared inside the bathroom. A few seconds later, the toilet flushed.
When he slid back under the covers, I expected him to turn his back to me and then leave before I woke in the morning. Instead he wrapped an arm around me and pulled my back against his chest so tightly I could feel each breath he took. Later I awakened to him making breakfast in the kitchen. When he saw that my eyes were open, he asked me how I wanted to spend the day.
On Sunday morning at nine A.M., as I lay in bed pondering the death of Daniel Brady, the phone rang. It was my boss, Tommy Banks. He had never called me on a Sunday morning before.
"Heard you had a little incident at The Abbey the other night," he said without saying hello.
"Is it true you almost killed someone?"
"Sort of."
"What happened to quitting drinking?"
"It's a definite now."
"Were you aware that we're doing a promotion at The Abbey with GLAAD next month?"
"No."
My feet hit the floor as I struggled to come up with a good cover story.
"There are two thousand AA meetings a week in this city," he said. "I suggest you find one of them."
"I'll think about it," I said.
Tommy groaned as if he had called me from the toilet. "I'm sorry, Adam. I just can't take this anymore."
"What are you talking about, Tommy? The only time I've missed a day of work in the past year is when I went home last month." Since he'd figured out that I had gone home to bury my mother, I thought this might shut him up.
"Enough, Adam."
I let a silence fall and waited for him to fire me explicitly. He couldn't. Finally I said,
"There's no promotion at The Abbey on the calendar. I keep the calendar, remember?"
"You know, Adam," he began in a calmer voice, "some people like being a big fish in a small pond. You like being a piranha in an aquarium. This magazine is never going to go in the direction you want it to, so there's no point in your staying—"
"Who called you?" I asked. He didn't answer. "Did Scott Koffler call you himself, or did he get one of his rich friends to do it?"
"You have a key to the office, Adam. Go in and clean out your desk this afternoon."
"I don't have a desk. You gave it to the intern you're fucking." The next thing I knew, my portable phone was lying on the other side of the room and the vertical blinds were tossing as if a sudden wind had torn through my apartment.
I spent the next few hours listening to a Dido CD. I called Rod's cell phone and left him a message telling him that I had been fired. I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and watched a few hours of professional bowling. Somewhere along the way I came to terms with the fact that the Daniel Brady story was too big for Glitz magazine anyway.
By noon I had managed to convince myself that getting fired was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I wasn't giving up on Daniel Brady's foray out of the closet and into the Pacific.
I had to take stock of what I had. If I was going to take the story somewhere else, it was time for Nate Bain to officially go on the record.
Nate Bain's apartment building was a four-story
Some time in the night I awoke to a strange rustling sound. The vertical blinds turned the streetlight outside into a series of orange bars that fell across Corey's naked back as he studied my bookshelves. I blinked and saw that he was taking books off the shelf and flipping through their pages without reading a single word.
He pulled out the Merriam-Webster's dictionary and opened it. The center of the pages had been hollowed out, and inside were two tabs of ecstasy, an ounce of cocaine, and five two-milligram pills of Xanax. He closed them all in his fist, put the book back on the shelf, and disappeared inside the bathroom. A few seconds later, the toilet flushed.
When he slid back under the covers, I expected him to turn his back to me and then leave before I woke in the morning. Instead he wrapped an arm around me and pulled my back against his chest so tightly I could feel each breath he took. Later I awakened to him making breakfast in the kitchen. When he saw that my eyes were open, he asked me how I wanted to spend the day.
On Sunday morning at nine A.M., as I lay in bed pondering the death of Daniel Brady, the phone rang. It was my boss, Tommy Banks. He had never called me on a Sunday morning before.
"Heard you had a little incident at The Abbey the other night," he said without saying hello.
"Is it true you almost killed someone?"
"Sort of."
"What happened to quitting drinking?"
"It's a definite now."
"Were you aware that we're doing a promotion at The Abbey with GLAAD next month?"
"No."
My feet hit the floor as I struggled to come up with a good cover story.
"There are two thousand AA meetings a week in this city," he said. "I suggest you find one of them."
"I'll think about it," I said.
Tommy groaned as if he had called me from the toilet. "I'm sorry, Adam. I just can't take this anymore."
"What are you talking about, Tommy? The only time I've missed a day of work in the past year is when I went home last month." Since he'd figured out that I had gone home to bury my mother, I thought this might shut him up.
"Enough, Adam."
I let a silence fall and waited for him to fire me explicitly. He couldn't. Finally I said,
"There's no promotion at The Abbey on the calendar. I keep the calendar, remember?"
"You know, Adam," he began in a calmer voice, "some people like being a big fish in a small pond. You like being a piranha in an aquarium. This magazine is never going to go in the direction you want it to, so there's no point in your staying—"
"Who called you?" I asked. He didn't answer. "Did Scott Koffler call you himself, or did he get one of his rich friends to do it?"
"You have a key to the office, Adam. Go in and clean out your desk this afternoon."
"I don't have a desk. You gave it to the intern you're fucking." The next thing I knew, my portable phone was lying on the other side of the room and the vertical blinds were tossing as if a sudden wind had torn through my apartment.
I spent the next few hours listening to a Dido CD. I called Rod's cell phone and left him a message telling him that I had been fired. I ate a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and watched a few hours of professional bowling. Somewhere along the way I came to terms with the fact that the Daniel Brady story was too big for Glitz magazine anyway.
By noon I had managed to convince myself that getting fired was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I wasn't giving up on Daniel Brady's foray out of the closet and into the Pacific.
I had to take stock of what I had. If I was going to take the story somewhere else, it was time for Nate Bain to officially go on the record.
Nate Bain's apartment building was a four-story
Similar Books
