Solo Pass by Ronald De Feo

Author:Ronald De Feo [De Feo, Ronald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59051-581-5
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2013-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

AS I LAY in bed that night before my solo, I kept reviewing the past, as if it were important to confront it and exorcise the worst of it before going out on my own for the day. I think I was, in a way, attempting to do battle with my ghosts, my obsessions. To destroy or at least weaken them. To dismiss wrong turns and failures, erase them, as much as they could be erased, from my memory. I suppose I wanted to leave for my solo feeling as cleansed and cured as possible. But I knew that confronting Prodski in my head was dangerous because such a focus could set me off again. When I’d recall those pathetic sessions, I’d become tense and find myself gripping my pillow in anger, squeezing it as if it were Prodski’s head. I feared that I’d lose control there in bed, in the early morning darkness, and possibly turn into a candidate for the violent ward. So I now cut short my Prodski memories, because they would only get worse. Far worse. I refused to complete them, refused to remember the story in full.

All of that damn business is over and done with, I reminded myself, trying to be philosophical instead of mental. You’ve survived and you still have a long life ahead of you. A life filled with possibilities. Achievement. Satisfaction. Joy.

I knew deep down that I was thinking in clichés, sounding in my head like some radio or TV therapist or preacher. But how can you avoid such romantic nonsense when you’re determined to comfort yourself?

I even went so far as to imagine how I would turn my life around shortly after my release. I’d find a new, superior job with a salary that would allow me to leave my grim apartment for a truly comfortable, sunlit place, preferably with a terrace. And a park or river view. I’d meet a new woman and we’d have a fine, spell-less relationship. Or better still—and this was really a juvenile notion—I’d convince Elizabeth that I was an entirely new man, solid and personable, noticed and admired by others, so vivid, in fact, that I was impossible to ignore, and she would finally take me back into her life and world.

My heart, which had been all too active throughout the night, was now beating even more rapidly than before. I was so excited about rebuilding my life that I could hardly wait to get started. Raising my wrist, I checked the time on my luminous watch. Nearly six o’clock. Only a matter of a few hours before the entire ward would be awake and I’d begin my solo and perhaps my final days in Essex as well.

I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted by my nightlong mental journeys, and fell into a deep sleep.

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