Killing Kate(2)

At Morris I get off the El, walk down the stairs and head east toward Sheridan. The beach is just a block away. May isn’t exactly swimming weather in Lake Michigan since the water is still about thirty degree. I’m not here to swim. The sand is cold and grainy on my bare feet as I kick off my shoes onto the sidewalk and leave them there to run along the shore. I don’t care about shoes or whether anyone takes them - my apartment is three blocks south. I run and run and run until I can’t breathe and collapse on the cold sand. It smells like dead fish and morning. I can smell coffee brewing at some café that’s close. I lie still until my breathing is normal again and get up and trot back as far as I came, taking my time at a slow jog instead of a sprint. After a night in a cage it’s good to be able to move. I let the lake wet the bottom of my jeans, knowing I will just peel them off the minute I walk in the door.

As dawn starts to glow I miraculously find my shoes exactly where I left them and head home to my cheap one bedroom apartment on Sheridan road. As soon as the door is closed behind me I kick off my flip flops and strip out of my jeans and sweater so I’m left wearing the black Saigon top and a pair of black bikini panties. My apartment is bare bones in décor and furnishings but the rent is decent for the space. I have a two person loveseat facing a television that’s never on and I’m actually not sure it’s hooked up or plugged in, but it’s something to look at. I have an end table I occasionally use as a dinner table, and a plate, some cups, three forks, a really good chef’s knife, one large ladle, a spatula and a frying pan. I wrap myself in a fleece blanket and sit on my mattress. No fancy bedframe for me. I have a mirror in every room hanging on the wall because I have a thing for mirrors, but there isn’t a single clock anywhere except the one that’s already on my phone. That’s literally everything I own. I guess you could say I’m a minimalist. Oh, I have one other thing that’s propped up against my bedroom wall, which is an oil painting by my brother Devin of seagulls feeding during a Lake Michigan sunrise. Its seven feet tall and six feet across and it’s the only thing in the entire apartment with any sort of color in it, which makes up for my institution white walls. Devin works for the railroad as a conductor, but paints during what little spare time he has and has always been good at painting and drawing. I’m good at nothing except being crazy.

I’m not tired yet, even though it’s likely that the rest of the early rising normal world is waking up for church or some other such nonsense at this hour. I contemplate breakfast and decide on a bottle of whiskey and roll a joint with a tiny bit of pot I find at the bottom of my dugout. It’s just enough for eight good puffs, I estimate.

I get a glimpse of myself in the full-length mirror. I’m not sure why I need a mirror in every room. Perhaps it makes it easier for me to be alone. I look small and shrunken on my bed. Under my eyes are dark circles, partially from the makeup that’s rubbed off and around my eyes, mostly because the ones under my skin never go away. My hair could use a good brushing, but what’s the point if I’m ready to crash? I’m too skinny, probably because I never eat. I’m too pale because I sleep all day like a vampire. Who knows if I’ll live to see thirty at the rate I’m going? And really, who cares? Besides Devin, I have no family and no real friends to speak of, and with my schedule and anti-social personality, it probably won’t change anytime soon.

I finish my joint and half the bottle and eventually pass out. I have been asleep for an hour and I hear my phone. I’m pretty annoyed, since someone is called during normal waking hours and everyone I know who has my number realizes that I wouldn’t be awake at 7:42 am.

“Jenna,” I hear a husky voice say. It is Devin, my brother. I can hear the loud engine noises in the background. He’s going to be deaf in a year, most likely, with all of the noise he has to put up with at his job on the railroad. Even with earplugs it’s too loud, he tells me.

“Hi,” I reply.

He is silent, but I know we’re still connected from the background. We’re both horrible on the telephone, preferring in person conversations or sometimes text messages. “Jack is dead.”

I press my lips together in a hard line. I’m sure I am as pale as the institution white walls of my apartment. “Okay,” is my reply. The emotion in my voice sums up my feelings for the news. Nothing.

“He drank himself to death, of course. Basically cut off all of the oxygen in his bloodstream.” He is silent, waiting for me to react. I don’t. “The funeral is tomorrow at 2:00. It’s at Darnell Funeral Home in Oakdale. It starts at 2:00 pm.” There is yet more silence. Devin almost sounds out of breath. “Will you go?”