Josh Stallings - Beautiful, Naked and Dead

“You didn’t have to play me… I’d have laid down my life for you, all you had to do was ask.” I pulled her to me kissing her forehead. I let her cry against my chest. When she was done we opened the cookie jar and let the ashes drift out over the bay. The sun was dropping down and city lights were winking on giving the skyline that magic wonderland Oz feeling.

Gregor spent three weeks in the hospital, they would have kept him longer but as soon as he could walk he disappeared from the ward. I left a new black great coat with $5,000 in the pocket for battle pay, on his apartment stoop. Ringing the bell, I walked away. I was proud to have gone to war with him and hoped I never had to do it again.

I combined what was left of the porno boy’s money with that from the Cow Palace parking lot and split it with Cass. Paid off my heartless ex-wife and my debt to the Pope, who on the word of a Chicago lieutenant decided to forgive and forget my fronting him. It might not ever be easy with him again but at least I didn’t have to worry about him clipping me. Eddy The Mechanic still had a place on his dance card reserved for me. Maybe old age would take him before he got to me. Stranger things have happened.

Cass and I loaded up Angel and went down to San Blas for a vacation. We lay on the beach and made love in the moonlight and we never talked about the lies she had told me. For the time it lasted she made me feel young and powerful and good. And on the rainy December night when she left, my little house felt empty and sad. You don’t really know what you’re missing until you’ve had it, like kisses and waking up next to a pretty girl who tells you you’re her man.

I’ve stopped putting guns in my mouth and whiskey in my gut. Somewhere on the road, I had traveled from suicidal to homicidal, not much, but it’s growth. All in all, I have a good life, a dog who adores me, a friend to drink coffee with and another day above ground. For children of the battle zone that’s called winning.