Tutankhamen - Short Story Excerpt

Tutankhamen sat down on the bus station steps. The wool from his pants leg rubbed against his thigh making it itch. He was too hot to scratch. It was sweltering, there was no moisture. As he waited for his ride, he remembered what his homeboy had said about L.A. being the place where people come from all over the world to be homeless. He was still hung over. All the way from New York , he'd been hung over, but couldn't throw up. It was painful. He'd almost gotten kicked off of the bus, because he slowly sauntered back and forth, up and down the aisle with his head bent over trying to make the remnants of the Bronx in his stomach come up for the entire trip. Stale pizza, ten shots of cheap tequila, and Suzie's smell all mixed up together bubbling, but not coming up. He couldn't rest. Suzie smelled of Stay So Fro Afro sheen for as long as he'd known her. When he was little, he thought she wore it as perfume.

She was his mother's age, but he thought of her as his own personal Willona from Good Times. To him, there was nothing trashy about screwing his mother's good friend. He'd been doing it for years. No strings attached, no falling in love. She was just his life long fantasy. He would occasionally get bored with her, particularly when she claimed to be in love with him. The idea was foreign to him. He figured that she loved her husband who'd died on a motor speed boat after doing a couple of lines and drinking harder liquor than tequila. He also figured she liked the idea of a young boy lusting after her. He didn't mind except when that nastily desperate look crept into her eyes prematurely turning blue with age. He didn't think of her on the bus ride at all, only the stench of sweat, afro sheen and sex.

He wanted to be rid of it. He wanted to puke it all out of him, but he couldn't. She said to wanted to marry him just before he left. The words stung, he knew she was lying. She'd ruined it with just the flip of her tongue, all the good years they'd had as buddies. Since he was sixteen, she had been his one consistent indulgence. Suzie sat across from him at her huge imitation oak dining room table watching him eat the pizza that she'd warmed for him.

She took a long drag of her Newport, her lips blackened with tar. Her voice so heavy from years of smoke, it seemed to crack when she spoke. She exhaled a dusty plume of smoke, dabbed out the cigarette and leaned back in her chair. She stared at him for a long time, before opening her mouth. He was sober and regretting every second of it. He knew the minute he left her way-too-small-for-all-the-big-stuff-in-it apartment, he was heading to the first pub he saw.

She never begged for anything, but her eyes were pleading with him to stay in this place. She didn't care if he was good at anything. She just wanted someone to sit with and laugh with, but she didn't understand that he was too young to sit still. Her jokes he didn't get. Most of the things she said flew over his head. She didn't speak immediately. He leaned back taking a breath after devouring two pieces of pizza.

"I don't understand how you can eat while I'm smoking," she said.

"I was hungry and you wanted a cigarette, you got what you wanted and so did I," pizza crust fell his mouth as he spoke.

"You real funny, you know that?"

He dusted the flour from his chin, before getting up.

"So…where you 'bout to go?"

"I don't know yet, prolly to a bar."

Her index finger followed the lines of the imitation wood table as if it were real. 

 She was good at creating a reality that wasn't there.

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