Contemporaneous: Chapters 60 – 61
60. In the movies, whenever couples hook up, the next scene usually cuts directly to wherever one of them live – they’ll be kissing, undressing, so passionate they can’t contain themselves. Everything will be so desperate but synchronized. But movies do that. It’s like seeing a character find parking right outside of their destination. Usually, in real life, we circle around, trying to find anywhere to park. But movies cut to the conclusion because they don’t have time to spend on that meaningless shit. Rachel walks me back to her car – a Yaris – and then drives me back to my own; she grabs my address, but says she’ll…
Contemporaneous: Chapters 53 – 55
53. I wake because of several things: my mouth’s so dry, the bed’s unfamiliar (and so are all the sounds around me), and there’s this dread that pokes in from last night – so many things are a blur, I’m not sure (and can’t be sure) I didn’t fuck up in some way. That’s drinker’s remorse – that panic that arises in the vacuum of the haze that I’ve done something wrong, that I’ve lost my wallet or something else important, or maybe there’s something that I simply can’t remember, and won’t remember, until cops or somebody comes calling. But some things piece together quickly: Stan, drinking, strip club, stripper’s…