American Blasphemer: A Novel by John Matthew Gillen

Author:John Matthew Gillen [Gillen, John Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Epigraph Publishing
Published: 2020-05-21T04:00:00+00:00

Jack

Florida is full of fuckups and washouts

Weird beasts that don’t belong

Armadillos and peacocks

Driven mad by the billion-year stare of an unblinking sun

Jack was on the backside of thirty years of suicidal drinking

Lost his mind when his wife Debbie died of cancer

He had broken watery eyes and stringy blonde hair

Turning white

His hands were lumpy and mangled like a boxer’s

He worked on cars

Jack needed surgery

Doctor said he had to quit smoking and drinking for thirty days

Thirty days sober, or they couldn’t operate, and he’d die

That was on Jack’s birthday

He thinks he’s somewhere in his late seventies

Says he’s quitting after one last party so he can have the surgery

Two days later I walked down to the ocean in the dead of night

Jupiter Island

The winter retreat of the rich and famous

I swam until I lost the shore

Half an hour after that I turned back

Patrol found me panting on the cold sand

Asked me what I was doing

I told him I was trying to get away

He told me to leave or I’d be arrested

When I got home around sunrise Jack was sitting out back in the dark

He heard me come inside and whipped open the sliding porch door

His yellow eyes were full of brown liquor and hate

Clenched tattoo grease

We stood there in the blue kitchen

Staring at each other

With the colossal weight of angry Death around us

And the frantic orgy of Floridian ambience spilling through the open door

“My Debbie’s been sick”

He snarled

“I’m sorry, Jack”

I whispered back

Bella came up and licked his hand and something slumped out of his eyes

He brushed her coat with a mutilated paw

Then turned away

“Motherfuckers”

Jack said

Then shut the sliding door

And went back to drinking

With his cigarette glowing in night

Swallowed by wet, quiet, black

The next morning, I went back to New York

Jack will be very dead by the time you read this

Then we’ll both be out of Florida

And Jupiter Island will be a more respectable neighborhood

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.