I turn around and Jonathan is standing there facing me. He
smiles and I can see his breakfast is still in his teeth. “Do you want to see
more of my albums?” He asks turning on one heel and heading back to the record
player.
The smell that the breeze causes is enough to make me gag. “How the
fuck am I ever going to live here?” I think to myself.
Jonathan reaches over and pulls out a Saturday Night Fever
Album and opens the double cover. I watch as he slides the record out of the
album and then out of the white paper sleeve that houses it. He holds it as if
he is an archeologist holding the first copy of the bible.
“John Travolta starred in this movie with soundtrack mostly
by the Bee Gee’s.” He turns around to look at me to see if I am listening. I am
listening but I am also looking for the escape hatch. He smiles again and a
piece of breakfast from his teeth falls onto his shirt.
Jonathan places the record gingerly on the stereo pulling
the arm across to hold it in place. I can hear the mechanical click of the
stereo and the sound of the record dropping onto the turntable. Staying Alive
immediately blasts from the speakers. Jonathan raises both hands like a gypsy
in a trance and begins snapping his fingers and swaying nowhere in time to the
music.
“Oh you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man
no time to talk,” Jonathan sings out slightly after the Bee Gee’s version. He
is now in full ecstasy and rocking back and forth. I am still scanning the
place for a way out.
“Jonathan,” I say but there is no reaction, he is lost in
his own world. “Jonathan!” I scream and it seems to snap him out of his disco
trance. “Huh?” he says snapping open his eyes. “Would you like to show me
around?” “Huh?’ he says again. “Show me around?” I repeat.
Jonathan looks around the room as if he is seeing it for the
first time and it makes him teeter off his feet. “Huh?” he says and his eyes
change. It is clear that no one has ever asked Jonathan for anything. “Oh, oh,”
he manages to squeak out and then spins on his heel.
The room we are standing
in clearly is the living room, dining room, kitchen and home to Jonathan’s
stereo. Jonathan quickly walks over to the sink and opens the cabinet directly
above it. “This is where we store the dishes.” He is pleased with what he is
showing me and does it with a flourish. He then loses his train of thought and
I can see his eyes searching his head for what he was just talking about.
“Where’s the bathroom?” I quickly ask jolting him back into
the moment. “Bathroom, bathroom,” he repeats until the word triggers the
picture in his mind. “Oh yeah,” he says spinning on his heel and walking
towards the bedroom. “Through there,” he points.
Walking into the bedroom there is a bed immediately to my
right and a dresser directly across from it.
I take three more steps and there is another bed and dresser. This bed
however gives off the familiar smell associated with Jonathan. If that clue wasn’t
enough, the grimy sheets on the unmade bed are a dead giveaway.
Past this is the bathroom. The door creaks open and the
yellow light illuminates a room all decorated in pink tile. Or should I say pink
tile with a film of grunge over the top of it? I lock the door and walk to the
toilet. I open the lid with my foot. “Yup, grunge everywhere,” I say out loud
to myself.
After relieving myself I turn to the medicine cabinet and
yank it open. Pill bottles line every inch of space. I grab the closest bottle
and read what’s in it. It seems that Jonathan is kept in line by taking lithium.
The more bottles I look through the clearer it is that he is doped to the tits.
There is medication in here that I have never heard of.
I close the cabinet after I make sure that it looks like I
have never been in there. Turning around there is a door with three deadbolts
holding it closed.
To be continued…….
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.
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