Read Online The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Andrew Davidson
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Psychological, Romance, Historical, Literary Criticism, European, italian
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how my plan is coming together.
I’d put the noose around my neck, working quickly because I’d be getting dizzy, Miss Frizzy. I’d take another shiny new razor blade out of its package. See how it sparkles in the light, like the wink of an imaginary God! With a single deft stroke I’d slash my right wrist, deep and clean, and then I’d slash my left wrist in the same manner. This is important: I’d cut along the length of the veins instead of across them. People who cut across the wrists either don’t really want to die, or are too stupid to pull it off.
I’d sit on the edge of the balcony. With bloody hands, I’d lift the loaded shotgun and place the muzzle into my mouth. I’d carefully angle the barrel so that the blast would travel through the roof of my mouth and into the meaty gumbo of my brain. The advantage of a shotgun, as compared to a handgun, is that your aim doesn’t really matter. The hundred pellets will immediately spread out to rip your damn head right apart. This is a beautiful thing.
My body would be positioned, back to the city, so that the blast would send me over the edge of the balcony’s railing. As my brain was shredded, I’d fall, but this fall would be brought to an abrupt halt by the noose snapping my neck. For a while, I’d just hang there, feet bobbing. Actually, perhaps I’d jerk around spasmodically; it’s hard to say. My wrists would be flowing red and my skull would be a gooey gray-matter mess, something like Picasso’s very worst painting. What was left of my brain would start to starve for oxygen. My stomach would be brimming with Scotch and sleeping pills. My veins would run the happily morphined blood right out of the gashes of my wrists. Now, if I’d cut the rope just right, it would begin to unravel. The braided strands would spin away from each other and, in a few minutes, let go entirely. My body would fall twenty floors to the sidewalk below. Beautiful. Completion. Now
that’s
a suicide, so much better than a cry for help.
Anyway, that was my plan. Never has a man looked forward to his death more than I.
III.
L et me begin with a description of her hair—because, really, it would be impossible to start with anything else. Her hair was like Tartarean vines that grow in the night, reaching up from a place so dark that the sun is only a rumor. It spread wildly everywhere, dark curls so cascadingly alluring that they looked as if they would swallow your hand if you were lucky enough to run your fingers through them. Her hair was so outlandish that even now, years later, I am compelled to create these ridiculous metaphors, which I know I’ll regret in the morning.
Her eyes, also, are going to force me to embarrass myself. They burned like the green hearts of jealous lovers who accuse each other at midnight. No, I’m wrong, they were not green: they were blue. Ocean waves tossed around her irises, like an unexpected storm ready to steal a sailor from his wife. No, wait…maybe her eyes
were
green: mood eyes, perhaps, like the bejeweled rings that purportedly change color according to one’s frame of mind.
She appeared in the burn ward door dressed in a light green hospital gown, with those unsolvable eyes and that riotously entangled hair, and I waited for the gasp that inevitably came whenever someone saw me for the first time. I waited for her to cover her mouth with her hand, in shock and dismay. She disappointed me by only smiling.
“You’ve been burned. Again.”
Generally I make it a rule not to respond to bizarre proclamations by strangers, but, honestly, in this case my silence was because I didn’t want her to hear my broken toilet of a voice. My throat was healing, but my ear (the one that still worked) was not yet used to the corrupted quality. I wanted her to know only the voice I had had before, the one that could talk a woman into bed.
In the face of my silence, she spoke again. “This is the third time you’ve been burned.”
I
I’d put the noose around my neck, working quickly because I’d be getting dizzy, Miss Frizzy. I’d take another shiny new razor blade out of its package. See how it sparkles in the light, like the wink of an imaginary God! With a single deft stroke I’d slash my right wrist, deep and clean, and then I’d slash my left wrist in the same manner. This is important: I’d cut along the length of the veins instead of across them. People who cut across the wrists either don’t really want to die, or are too stupid to pull it off.
I’d sit on the edge of the balcony. With bloody hands, I’d lift the loaded shotgun and place the muzzle into my mouth. I’d carefully angle the barrel so that the blast would travel through the roof of my mouth and into the meaty gumbo of my brain. The advantage of a shotgun, as compared to a handgun, is that your aim doesn’t really matter. The hundred pellets will immediately spread out to rip your damn head right apart. This is a beautiful thing.
My body would be positioned, back to the city, so that the blast would send me over the edge of the balcony’s railing. As my brain was shredded, I’d fall, but this fall would be brought to an abrupt halt by the noose snapping my neck. For a while, I’d just hang there, feet bobbing. Actually, perhaps I’d jerk around spasmodically; it’s hard to say. My wrists would be flowing red and my skull would be a gooey gray-matter mess, something like Picasso’s very worst painting. What was left of my brain would start to starve for oxygen. My stomach would be brimming with Scotch and sleeping pills. My veins would run the happily morphined blood right out of the gashes of my wrists. Now, if I’d cut the rope just right, it would begin to unravel. The braided strands would spin away from each other and, in a few minutes, let go entirely. My body would fall twenty floors to the sidewalk below. Beautiful. Completion. Now
that’s
a suicide, so much better than a cry for help.
Anyway, that was my plan. Never has a man looked forward to his death more than I.
III.
L et me begin with a description of her hair—because, really, it would be impossible to start with anything else. Her hair was like Tartarean vines that grow in the night, reaching up from a place so dark that the sun is only a rumor. It spread wildly everywhere, dark curls so cascadingly alluring that they looked as if they would swallow your hand if you were lucky enough to run your fingers through them. Her hair was so outlandish that even now, years later, I am compelled to create these ridiculous metaphors, which I know I’ll regret in the morning.
Her eyes, also, are going to force me to embarrass myself. They burned like the green hearts of jealous lovers who accuse each other at midnight. No, I’m wrong, they were not green: they were blue. Ocean waves tossed around her irises, like an unexpected storm ready to steal a sailor from his wife. No, wait…maybe her eyes
were
green: mood eyes, perhaps, like the bejeweled rings that purportedly change color according to one’s frame of mind.
She appeared in the burn ward door dressed in a light green hospital gown, with those unsolvable eyes and that riotously entangled hair, and I waited for the gasp that inevitably came whenever someone saw me for the first time. I waited for her to cover her mouth with her hand, in shock and dismay. She disappointed me by only smiling.
“You’ve been burned. Again.”
Generally I make it a rule not to respond to bizarre proclamations by strangers, but, honestly, in this case my silence was because I didn’t want her to hear my broken toilet of a voice. My throat was healing, but my ear (the one that still worked) was not yet used to the corrupted quality. I wanted her to know only the voice I had had before, the one that could talk a woman into bed.
In the face of my silence, she spoke again. “This is the third time you’ve been burned.”
I
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