A gentleman never tells

[jack_babalon]

~Witches made a storm.
Hans Baldung Grun. 1523


Momma's singing Motown tonight. Snapping her fingers and humming real loud to 'I Hear a Symphony."Mmmmm-mmm-mmm..Whenever you’re near... I hear a symphony/A tender melody...mmmm..mmMMmm". Dinners cooking on the stove top, she lifts the lid and you can smell the spices straight down the block, marinating the neighborhood with marjoram, nutmeg, thyme & taragon. The walls of their apartment are paper thin, yellowed with nicotine, steam & age. Occasionally they rumble with the muffled laugh track coming off a neighbors TV set. These are the best times he has decided. The two and a half hours between getting off school and when Dad came home. Momma looks down at her little man, whose holding a plastic ray-gun and has chocolate smudged all over his mouth. She smiles and sings to him
'Now baby, baby\ Those tears that seem my eyes/I cry not for myself/ But for those who never felt the joy we felt.....'
"Don't drift on me mother fucker, we're almost there!" I scream in his ears. He pops to for a second, looks at me confused, glances around as if he was awakening from a dream, trys to shake it off and then suddenly he smiles that rockstar grin of his at me, and then passes back out. I stop and reshuffle his weight. I've carried him three floors so far and I got two more too go. His last instructions to me before drifting off to dreamland was to get him to her. His ex, my ex as well actually. But he doesn't know that. What he don't know won't kill him. Anyway that shit he shot up is doing the job just fine on its own.
"G'me to her man, she'll know wha' t'do. Always doesshhh" he mumbles coming back to. She being Amy. We used to date, and yeah i'll admit she had the books, she had the look but if you're gonna ask me if she was a witch, i'm gonna have to say no. A demon under the sheets sure, a little bit of Tantra and all that Twister-ass yoga shit she probably picked up during a 'new age' phase. Most of the women in the scene go through a 'Tori Amos-Neil Gaiman-I'm a fucking witch now period', Amy just happened to do her homework that's all.
"No worrys bro, we're here..." I tell him like we have all the time in the world "but I need you to walk with me jes a little bit further Alright?"
He nods and together we mount the next flight of stairs as my tar damaged lungs light up in a sharp burning pain.

She finally opens on the fifth knock.
"You!" She says the hate hitting me before the words do.
"Us" I correct nodding at Damon who has come to long enough to look up at Amy and offer a slur of recognition.
"What did you do to him?" She barks at me taking the other side of his shoulder and guiding us in to her studio apartment.
"Me? Why's it always gotta be me with you...?"
"Because you're a walking disaster area... here" We do a three man tango and sway around the coffee table and lay him across the couch.
"Y'know I didn't tell him to shoot that shit up..."
"And you didn't tell him 'not to' either" She says rushing around her apartment, opening up little glass bottles of herbs from the kitchen. I knew this was a mistake from the get go.
"What're ya gonna do Amy, cook him breakfast?"
"This isn't the first time i've dealt with him like this... get his boots off"
I shrug and begin unlacing his Docs. Damon is back in dreamland, smiling and muttering something under his breath I lean down practically pressing my ear to his lips
"A feeling ssso divine...’till I leave the past behind"
"Yeah man, I hear ya" I tell him just as Amy bumps me aside and tells me to hand her some pillows. I do. She's a regular Florence Nightengale. She's got him slurping down some funky smelling tea. Two sips in and he starts coughing. Hard. He's ready to have his lungs make a break for it if his guts don't beat him too it. She's whispering something to him and for a second, with her cascade of red hair and those freckles spelling out some kind of constellation along her shoulders I remember what it was I saw in her.
"Hey fuck head you hear me? How long?"
"How long what?"
She rolls her eyes at me and it hits me
"He was like that when I got there... maybe an hour ago tops"
If she heard me she doesn't show it. She starts up with the talking in tongues and I can make out a little bit of Latin & Hebrew but for most part it's all just gooble-dee-gook to me. I find a loveseat buried under a pile of cushions and take a seat. I fish out my smokes and light a Camel off a white candle. There's nothing I can do now but wait.

Two hours later and Damons shifted from shivering to snoring. Amy collapses down in the seat next to me. She looks at the cigarette butts spilling out of an empty diet coke can disapprovingly.
"Want one?" I offer
"Yeah" She admits more to herself than me. A few drags in and it seems like she's had a few hundred pounds lifted from her shoulder.
"What now?" I ask
"Let him sleep. He's gonna have a bitch of a headache tomorrow"
We sit there both of us looking for something to fill the silence with, something besides what needs to be said of course.
"So this a regular thing for him now" She asks
"Yeah, since you guys..." I stop myself.
"'since' what?"
"You know.."
She just shakes her head furiously and stamps out the cigarette into the candle holder. Smell of burnt wax stings the eyes. We sit there like that for a good while, listening to the flames crackle off the wicks periodically.
"It's not my fault he left you" I finally say when the silent treatment gets to be heavy.
"WHAT?"
"I just mean it's not my fault that you guys split up..."
"Oh my god. How can you sit there and say that? It's completely your fault. He knew we were sleeping together..."
"He found out you were 'sleeping' with someone. Not me. It's not my fault you couldn't cover your tracks..."
The slap comes as no surprise. Just the strength, sting and speed of it.
"What was I supposed to do huh?" I snap "Tell him 'Hey ya know how bummed out ya are about Amy and shit. Well dude sorry to break it to ya but I was the cat she was doing all along- funny world hun?', ya think that would've gone over any better genius?"
"I think Adam, that maybe once, just once you should try being a man about things..."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means get the fuck out of my apartment you piece of shit"
"I ain't goin' nowhere 'til I know my boy is alright"
"Do you really want to push this? Do you really want to see how far i'll go?"
Theres a look in her eye suddenly, a look as old as time itself. It's the evil eye of the storm and it's bearing down straight at me. She breathes in and the candles in the room all flare at once her shadow expands across the ceiling and then rises out of the loveseat and stands up, meanwhile she actually remains seated next to me. I look down and there must be a dozen cats sitting all around
me each one has the same look as Amy in their eyes.
"Have him call me when he comes to" I say getting up out of the loveseat and make my way to the door. I stop halfway between and turn to her.
"Say what you want about me. It's all true and much worse, but I didn't force any one into nothing. Not him... and certainly not you"
I storm out and make my way to the car only to find it missing, gone from where I parked it. Damn it! I turn around and begin walking home when it starts pouring rain down on me. I look up at her apartment.
"Fuckin' witch" I yell up at her.

Somewhere Momma's singing. Damon smiles and reaches for her hand. He finds Amy's instead. She's singing to him now
"Now baby, baby...Don’t let this moment end"
"'Now baby, baby\ Those tears that seem my eyes/I cry not for myself/ But for those who never felt the joy we felt....."
And together they sing and together they watch the candles die out one by one all around them. As the darkness recedes from the gathering dawn.