NYU Black Renaissance Noire Volume 18 Issue 3 - Fall 2018 | Page 8

fiction / excerpt
Iraq Etcetera
By Louise Meriwether
“Maybe it shouldn’t be,” Laurie
suggested.
She passed the weed back to Anne,
who smiled. “I used to love flying in
that vastness above the clouds. It was
so peaceful and elemental. So eternal.
I used to feel that if I stepped out of
the plane I could float on top of the
clouds and be eternal also. Flying was
the love of my life. That’s what David
said, that I loved flying more than him.
I reminded the motherfucker that I
moved to New York to live with him
but that didn’t cut any ice.”
“Do you miss him?”
They were in Laurie’s
room. Neither she nor
Anne could sleep, as usual,
so they were complaining
about their prescription
drugs, while smoking a
joint passed back and forth
between them. A midnight
moon, sneaking past the
Venetian blinds on the
window, lit up the room
with a pale glow and
cast linear shadows on
the floor.
“This pot is cool but some crack cocaine
would be even better,” Anne suggested.
She was sitting in the solitary chair the
room afforded, her long blonde hair
falling forward to cover part of her pale
face. She swept her hair back with a
practiced hand and glanced around,
ignoring the shawl covering the mirror on
the bureau. No need to ask Laurie about
it, they were both on the loony side.
Laurie, sitting tailor fashion on the bed,
holding her prescription bottle, shook
it as though to make the few pills in it
multiply. “Dream on, cokehead,” she
said mildly,” and get our butts thrown
the fuck out of here.”
There was no curfew. They were both
in their late twenties and could come
and go as they pleased, but doing
drugs was against the rules.
Anne complained, “What I need is
some damn sleep tonight.” She took
a drag of the smoke and passed the
butt to Laurie. “They should prescribe
this instead of their stupid pills.”
“Yeah,” Laurie agreed. Stretching her
legs, which were cramping, she stood
up, tall and ebony, a short bushy Afro
framing her head like a halo. Pulling
her tee shirt down over her jeans, she
eyed the reefer critically for a moment,
then took a hit and sat back down.
Anne said, “I heard from Deborah today.
“It’s okay. I can stay with her until I find
a job. She sends you her love.”
Laurie nodded. “I knew there would
be no problem.”
Anne lowered her head to contemplate
the floor. “I miss something illusive
but not David. It was enlisting in the
Air Force that ended our marriage.
I didn’t tell him about it, until it was
a fait accompli. He was furious and
weargued about it. He accused me of
being too controlling. Of manipulating
my parents to enroll me in flight
school as a kid, but he was of sterner
stuff. Actually, he was a fucking control
freak himself. I guess we both were.”
She shrugged and then moaned,
“If I could just get some sleep tonight.
I’ve run out of my damn pills.”
Laurie dumped the prazosin in her
prescription bottle onto her palm.
She stared at the six anti-depressants
for a moment, and for some inane
reason thought of Jesus stumbling up
to Calvary carrying a cross on his
back. She handed three of the pills
to Anne. “Maybe this will help.”
“Thanks.”
The butt was burning Anne’s fingers.
Ignoring the fact that it would also burn
her lips, she took a last drag and then
dropped it in the ashtray beside her.
She looked at Laurie and grinned.
“This is some dumb shit we’re doing,
right?”
Laurie smiled. “It gets shittier every day.”
Anne stood up and headed towards the
door. “Later, kid,” she said and eased
out of the room.
Sighing at the inevitable, Laurie
swallowed one of the pills and
undressed quickly. Throwing her
clothes on the back of the chair, she
donned a short nightgown, similar to
one she wore as a child, knees bent,
saying her prayers as Mamarita had
taught her. “Now I lay me down to
sleep. I pray the lord my soul to keep.”
Laurie was not conversing with the
Lord now, as she climbed into bed
and closed her eyes. It didn’t really
matter, eyes open or shut, because the
shit was in her brain, terror waiting
around the bend.
Sleep finally came after twisting and
turning for hours, but no peace for
the wicked, a brutal nightmare tracked
her down. Laurie jerked awake, gasping
for breath. When her heart finally
stopped pounding, she closed her eyes
again but opened them immediately.
The horror was still there waiting to
claim her. “Get up,” she told herself,
irritated and depressed.
Stumbling out of bed, she opened the
Venetian blinds at the window. Let some
damn sunshine in. The beaming sun
turned everything in the room into
cheery gold, the yellow bedspread, the
matching curtains, the little oak desk,
the wooden floorboards, everything
cheery, except Laurie.
In the bathroom she brushed her teeth,
staring down at the basin instead of
the mirror above it that was covered
with a towel. The full length mirror
on the bathroom door was also draped
over with a sheet. Back in the bedroom,
Laurie dressed quickly in her usual
blue jeans. In the closet she selected
a belt as thin as a rope and draped it
around her waist, which accented her
high breasts. On the floor of the closet
were four volumes of world history
that she had used in junior college.
Next to them in a corner was a
knapsack containing her army uniforms
and pistol. Desperately, she wanted to
dispose of the knapsack, but it refused
to be discarded, clinging to her like a
second skin. Laurie gave it a cursory
frown as she ran her hand through her
hair, patting down her Afro instead of
using the pick, deciding that she was
presentable enough. She made up her
bed, tucking in the sheet army style,
and quit the room, walking briskly past
the shawl draped over the mirror on
the dresser.
In the hallway Laurie glanced at the
bulletin board tacked on the wall with
the Weekly Schedule for Westchester
House. The inn had been renovated by
a veterans association as a temporary
shelter for female veterans with
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The schedule was an oasis, reminding
Laurie that help was imminent.
But damnit, was today Tuesday or
Wednesday? Group therapy was every
day, but the shrink was on Tuesdays
and Thursdays. You have to remember,
fool. You an idiot or something?
Not yet, thank God. Not yet.
“My problem is the only job I can
find is related to flying,” Anne said
morosely, “and that’s definitely out.”
A Novel In Progress