Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

Author:James Frey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780061573170
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2009-05-01T07:00:00+00:00

249

I’m thirty-nine.

Seventy-five.

Thirty-nine.

Seventy-five.

It doesn’t matter.

You shouldn’t drink so much.

I’m sorry about this morning.

Don’t do it again.

If Roberto catches you he’ll freak out.

Roberto?

The owner.

I thought his name was Tom.

Roberto. Marketing. Same as me.

Okay.

Your head okay?

It hurts.

You want some aspirin?

No. I’m gonna get drunk.

The toilet flushes. The door opens. Before they see the tourist, the smell overwhelms them, it is some combination of death, cheese, and sour milk. The tourist follows the smell he is an obese, sunburned white man wearing a tight Muscle Beach T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and neon sunglasses. He says excuse me, and steps around Larry. As soon as he’s gone, Larry holds his hand over his nose, speaks.

Bet that makes you forget about your headache.

Old Man Joe, who also has his hand over his nose, laughs.

See you later, Ricardo.

See you later.

Larry leaves. Old Man Joe stands and walks into the bathroom. He lifts the lid of the tank there are two bottles there he pulls one of them out and leaves as quickly as he can. He walks back towards the beach. He finds a nice shaded spot on the grass at the edge of the beach, directly beneath a palm tree. His head is fucking pounding. He drinks the bottle and his head starts to feel better. When he finishes his first bottle he goes to the dumpster of his favorite pizza place and finds a couple nice slices 250

of day-old pepperoni, which he eats while sitting on the cement next to the dumpster. He goes back to the bathroom, gets his second bottle, goes back to the tree, slowly drinks the bottle, watches the swarms of tourists, a few of whom drop coins at his feet, watches the police watching the tourists, watches the locals watch the police. When he finishes the second bottle, his head is fine. He lies down and takes a nap. Before he falls asleep he thinks about Beatrice, hopes that she’s okay, even though he knows she’s not, thinks about what he could do to help her, get her away from here, find somewhere safe for her. He was going to do it today, all of it, get her out and be her hero. Today didn’t work. Maybe tomorrow.

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