Morning Is Dead Read Online Free Page A

around her shoulders, guiding her back to the chair.
    She sat down and stared at Alvin and his tubes. She didn’t know what to feel. Pity. Anger. Sadness. Love. Hate. Maybe it was all the same in the end.
    “Morning’s dead. Does that make you feel better? Does that make you happy?”
    “Now now.” Mirabel patted her good arm. “That’s not gonna do anybody any good.”
    Now April clutched Mirabel’s hand and gave it a little shake. “I might need a minute to be alone.”
    Mirabel stood up and ran a hand along the top of April’s head. “I should probably be doing my rounds anyway. Give Jackie a chance to go have a cigarette. You gonna be okay?”
    “You’ll come back?”
    “As soon as I can.”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “You need anything, you know how to get me here. You need anything before I go?”
    “I’m okay.”
    Mirabel turned to leave and then stopped. She spoke to April’s back. “This isn’t gonna end here tonight, you know. Regardless of what happens with Alvin, you’re gonna need someone to talk to after you get home and maybe for a long time to come. I’ll always listen. I just want you to know that.”
    April nodded so Mirabel could see she understood because, of all the people who could have said this to April, she knew Mirabel was the only one who meant it.
    Mirabel’s shoes squeaked away and then April was left with the relative silence of the room.
    The beeping from the machines.
    The dry hiss of the breathing apparatus.
    The same sounds from a dozen other rooms.
    The hushed conversations of the night shift.
    The distant sound of a train.
    The clanking from a warehouse next to the hospital.
    The wind howling through the trees.
    The clouds billowing in on themselves.
    The insectoid drone of the moon.
    The clicking of the stars.
    The cold crackle of space.
    Silence wasn’t really silent at all.

Four
     
    Fuckpants ran the car up onto the curb in front of the police station. Alvin’s head smacked into the passenger side window and he barked out in pain. He thought the joint would have mellowed Fuckpants out but it seemed to have sent him into a furor. Or maybe Alvin had sent him into a furor. Fuckpants threw open the driver’s side door, not bothering to turn off the car, went around to the passenger side, and dragged Alvin out. He grabbed him around the right arm and marched him up the steps leading to the station. He threw open the doors, walked Alvin to a chair, and sat him down.
    “I gotta go cool off,” he said to an officer sitting at the desk across from Alvin. Fuckpants stormed into an office off the main area and slammed the door. Reggae music soon wafted out from behind it.
    Looking around the police station made Alvin think of an opium den. The officers were sitting at desks or on brightly colored beanbags. None of them looked older than twenty-five. A cloud of smoke had collected at the ceiling and the whole place was redolent with marijuana, opium, and quite possibly crack. One officer sat at his desk reading a Nietzsche book and taking slugs from a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. A male officer and what may have been a prostitute made out on a desk to Alvin’s left. The officer across the desk from him had his sleeve rolled up and slid a needle out of his arm before unstrapping the tubing and holding the syringe out to Alvin.
    “Want some?”
    “I don’t think so,” Alvin said.
    “Very well.” The officer’s eyes threatened to close, his head bobbing forward. “Then.”
    He put the syringe in a drawer and held out his hand. He spoke very slowly. “I’m sorry to see you... here.”
    Jesus, Alvin thought. This guy’s threatening to nod off.
    “I suppose you’ve come to be... processed?”
    “Let me try and reason with you, Officer... Bitchhole?”
    “That’s right.” He tried to smile but his pale face wasn’t working very well.
    “I don’t know why I’m here. My wife is at home with a strange man in the house. He could be doing God knows what to her and