Watch Me by Jody Gehrman

Author:Jody Gehrman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

SAM

I walk a lot when it’s dark inside me. The feel of my feet hitting the ground reminds me I’m alive. I like to get my heart pumping, break a sweat. This morning, in the brisk November air, my skin tingles with the cold.

I’ve made a fatal mistake.

It was impulsive on my part, that email. I’m not afraid to admit it was out of line. You should be free to choose if and when you fire your agent.

Still, come on, the woman was a cunt. Her rejection email was so boilerplate, so unimaginative. And her “feedback” to you? Please! That was a boob-punch, not a critique. I know the agent’s the business side of the house, we’re the creative, but do you want someone in your corner who sends emails that cold and unhelpful? She takes the English language and turns it into a blunt instrument.

Forget her rejection of me. It’s you I’m worried about. She wasn’t good for you. A decent agent doesn’t tell you to put something away. What the hell’s that? You’re an artist; you need guidance and encouragement, not judgment. I know I’m not seasoned in the business, but basic human decency requires an agent to support what you’re trying to do. You’re the genius. She’s the hired help.

The point being, she can suck my dick.

Not to be crass, I’m just saying.

I walk faster, trying to ignore the numbness in my face. An icy breeze whips through a pile of dead leaves. They float into the air like weightless ballerinas.

Even if I walk to Canada, I won’t be able to distance myself from my mistake.

You have to understand, I did it for you. Except you don’t understand. I know you don’t.

I’m doing everything for you. Raul. Maxine. Everything.

Crossing Blackwell Park, I reach into my coat pocket for my earbuds. Most of the time I like to stay tuned in to my environment, make sure nothing’s creeping up on me, but today I require music. It’s a primal instinct, like the need for food or water.

I put my iPod on shuffle, trusting my fate to random chance. “Sugar Magnolia” starts playing. That song takes me right back to Eva. Back to the aching, shivery fever dream of my first love.

We lived at The Mercury Ranch half a year. It was a long time for Vivienne. We didn’t stay with Phoenix for more than a month, though. After that, they got bored with each other, and we moved into a one-room cabin inhabited by an old, drunk painter named Gottschalk Breiner, a German dude with a thick accent. Motherfucker Number Nineteen. He was grumpy on the rare occasion he was sober. Only happened once or twice. He was harmless when drunk, given to singing German folk songs and painting with his fingers. He smoked endless hand-rolled cigarettes and drank red wine from a brass goblet. I was re-reading Lord of the Rings, and Gottschalk struck me as the perfect hobbit. His cabin even looked hobbity, with its roof covered in green grass and its tiny, crooked chimney.

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