In a Pryor Life by Richard Pryor Jr

Author:Richard Pryor Jr. [Pryor Jr., Richard and Brawer, Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BearManor Media
Published: 2019-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

LA Vida Loca

In the morning I felt horrible about hurting him.

Sure, I could intellectually justify what I’d done, tell myself he deserved a beat-down for being such a shit.

The justification didn’t help. I was waylaid by the Four Horsemen of the Emotional Apocalypse: Guilt, Self-loathing, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts.

I promised Larry I would never ever hit him again.

He promised never to cheat on me again.

We had make-up sex.

It didn’t take long for it to go downhill.

Is there a Dolly Parton song called “Promises Made, Promises Broken”?

Maybe it was Los Angeles: the weather, the palm trees, the SoCal do-your-thing-man vibe.

Larry felt free to do his thing.

And I became an uptight mother-fucker.

Ricky continued to pooh-pooh my jealousy.

Chrissie couldn’t handle the tension and returned to Peoria.

One morning, when Larry came home after being out all night, I exploded again and pounded away at him.

We made up, but seeing his split lip, swollen cheekbone, and black eye, I was again awash in guilt and self-loathing.

I wanted to call Dad, but what could I tell him? “Dad, my boyfriend cheats on me and then I want to kill him.”

He’d understand the I-want-to-kill-him part, definitely, but the my-boyfriend part? Not so much.

And Mom? The last thing in the world she’d want to hear would be any sentence from me that contained “my boyfriend.” Besides, I think she was still irked that I hadn’t said goodbye to her when I left Peoria. She only found out I was gone after Larry and I arrived in Los Angeles and I called her.

No, there was no one I could turn to. For the umpteenth time in my life I felt totally isolated, totally alone.

By high noon three of the Four Horsemen rode up and dismounted: Guilt, Self-loathing, and Depression.

For brunch, the Fourth blew in: Sir Suicide.

I found the pills my shrink had prescribed for me. I had yet to take any. I read the label: Not to exceed two times in one day.

Great, I would swallow the entire bottle. Fuck it.

The thing is, I hated taking pills. They always got stuck under my tongue and I would have to drink, like, a gallon of water to wash a single pill down.

But I was determined.

I sat down in the kitchen with the vial of meds, a glass, and a pitcher of water. By the time I swallowed, one-by-one, a lot of pills, I had to run to the bathroom every two minutes to pee.

The medication kicked in, my depression gave way to elation, then giddiness, then the whirly-twirlies. The path from kitchen to bathroom and back became an exercise in navigation.

But after one such bathroom run, it suddenly struck me how devastating my death would be to the family.

Mom. Dad. Rain, Elizabeth, and Elanda. Aunt Angie.

Fuck, I can’t do this.

I called my shrink.

“Richard, how many pills did you take?”

“Uh, I dunno.”

“Did you start with a new bottle?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, count how many you have left.

I spilled the remaining pills onto the table and silently counted.

One Mississippi…

Two Mississippi…

Three Mississippi…

(I remembered the first time I was drunk, in Peoria when I was three years old, with Mom and her friends.

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.