Paint It Black Read Online Free

shag.
    She drew her knees up inside her coat and lay on the bench, shaking, she couldn’t stop. Her head on her red schoolbag purse, she fought the urge to vomit again. She hid her face in the furry collar of her coat.
Registered as Oscar Wilde.
She wanted to wake up like Dorothy and see Michael’s face peering over the side of the bed, laughing.
Why, you just hit your head.
But it was no dream and there was no Kansas and he was never coming back.

2
    Pool
    S he awoke on the blue couch, in a shadow-filled room lit by a single lamp, wrapped in a granny-square afghan. At the other end of the long couch, Pen lay passed out, snoring drily. Josie blinked, trying to remember, why was she sleeping in the living room? And what was Pen doing here? She sat up on one elbow. The lights from the stereo gleamed, and the lamp reflected harshly in the darkness of the uncurtained windows. Iggy was playing on KROQ. Iggy wanted to be her dog. Bow wow wow. She rubbed her face, rubbery, cold, and reached for a ciggie. As she lit it with her father’s Ronson, it hit her, real as rain. Pen, sleeping on the end of the couch, the dials, the ashtray, the voddy.
    No, that was wrong. He was at his mother’s. A bad dream. He was up at Meredith’s, painting, he was coming home soon, he said he would be. He would walk right through that door. And she’d tell him,
They thought you were dead
. . .
    But he wasn’t coming. He wasn’t up at his mother’s. He’d gone to Twentynine Palms and shot himself in the head.
    She closed her eyes, pressed her forearm across them. In her head, a line repeated.
Never and never
. . . A line from some poem.
Never and never in the
something something . . . What was that? Michael would know. Michael would know, but he was dead.
    Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
    He was just here. He was coming back. But he wasn’t.
You asshole. You asshole! You stupid goddamn fuck!
    The clock on the piano read 3:10. The world had changed but she couldn’t feel it. He was dead but she just couldn’t get it. After a couple of Percocets, she should have been out like roadkill, like Pen, but she was awake in the middle of the night and Michael was never coming through that door again.
    She lay on the couch, smoking her Gauloise, the cigarettes he smoked.
The smell of Paris.
They were going to go to Paris . . . But no, they weren’t.
You goddamn stupid motherfucker.
What did he think he was doing? What was on his fucking mind?
Here, here’s my dark world. You carry it for a change. I’m out.
    She sat up, rubbed her face, gazed out the uncurtained windows, lights glowing in the hills. Cars trickled by on the 5 and the 2. Iggy wanted to be her dog, and Michael was out there lying on a rack cold as meat. She tried not to think about the way his face looked, but her mind kept looping back around to it, like a piece of paper he once showed her that looped around to where you began.
What the hell, Michael? What did you think you were doing?
    Against the wall, his piano waited, keyboard open, for him to come and play it. She could see him sitting right there, playing his Twenties blues, Big Bill Broonzy, Lucille Bogan . . .
Tricks ain’t walkin’, tricks ain’t walkin’ no more.
Showing off that rolling blues style. And the way they danced. Sun filtering through the eucalyptus. Naked except for her orange kimono. His hard-on knocking against her.
And I’ve got to make my livin’, don’t care where I go
. . .
    Her lungs closed around the air hard, like fingers slammed in a car door.
Goddamn you, Michael, goddamn you to hell.
She reached for the Stoli, unscrewed the cap and took a great swallow, set the bottle on the floor so she could reach it easily. Pen was snoring with her mouth open. Josie could see her fillings.
Say, Blaise, are we very far from Montmartre?
    He’d thrown Montmartre away, Blaise and little Jeanne, everything, just like that. As if his life was a drawing that didn’t turn out right.
But you can’t start again, Michael. There