Of Alcohol and Midnight Cigarettes
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"She put him out like the end of as midnight cigarette." ~Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley, Whiskey Lullaby
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Like anybody, he can't remember all of his childhood. He remembers scenes randomly, vivid and often terrifying, and then some seem to be hazy, unclear.
He does remember the smoke, though, the cigarettes Jean-Luc had. His father, or at least who he considered his father, would sit in the old rocking chair and light only one and gently inhale and exhale. He remembers the thin curls trailing from Jean-Luc's lips, reaching skyward and failing each time. Sometimes the smoke was thick and white, but most of the time it had tints of blue. He used to watch it as he sat on the ratted rug.
Then again, sometimes there was no rug. Sometimes there was just wood or cement and pieces of broken glass and no rug. They moved around most of the time. He couldn't remember Jean-Luc standing, though. All he can recall clearly is the smoke and the rocking chair, rocking back and forth, back and forth.
There was that one night, too, but that wasn't childhood, nor was it hazy. He's been trying to forget it for years. That one night damned him, changed him from a good man doing bad things to an incarnate of evil. He did become Le Diable Blanc that night.
That was when he took up smoking again. He'd always smoked lightly; after all, there was a certain pride to not needing a lighter. But it never came to his mouth. It does now, though, and he inhales fervently, desperately. Maybe there's some hope that the cigarette smoke would make everything hazy and help him forget.
He took to drinking, too. It never erases the memories, just glasses them over. The soft, golden beer, the bite of the margarita (for diversity's sake), and the wine. He likes the wine the most. Something about it is intoxicating, noxious feeling of it in his mouth, and the way it turns blood-red beautiful. There has to be some splashes of deep, dark scarlet that aren't the results of murder.
Even now, drunk and incognizant, he still can't make the memory fade. It's a chronic disease.
Now, he sits on his bed alone, massaging his temples with his thumbs. Every once in a while, the thought conceives. There is no way out.
It's been a while since he's been back in New Orleans. It wasn't all warm welcomes, but that was expected. He has a room at a local motel. It's warm enough, and after current ordeals, that's what matters. He just needs a place to stay for a while, until he gets the nerve to return to Westchester. He doesn't know when that might be, nor does he really care. Maybe he'll just stay here.
It's so much easier to stop worrying after a few glasses of blood-red wine.
Addicted, he puts the red-tipped end of the cigarette to his mouth and breathes in deeply. The blue-tinted smoke filters through his lips and rises slowly, making the wall at the other end of the room hazy and dark. He moves over to the rocking chair and rocks, back and forth, back and forth.
...
...
"She put him out like the end of as midnight cigarette." ~Alison Krauss and Brad Paisley, Whiskey Lullaby
...
...
Like anybody, he can't remember all of his childhood. He remembers scenes randomly, vivid and often terrifying, and then some seem to be hazy, unclear.
He does remember the smoke, though, the cigarettes Jean-Luc had. His father, or at least who he considered his father, would sit in the old rocking chair and light only one and gently inhale and exhale. He remembers the thin curls trailing from Jean-Luc's lips, reaching skyward and failing each time. Sometimes the smoke was thick and white, but most of the time it had tints of blue. He used to watch it as he sat on the ratted rug.
Then again, sometimes there was no rug. Sometimes there was just wood or cement and pieces of broken glass and no rug. They moved around most of the time. He couldn't remember Jean-Luc standing, though. All he can recall clearly is the smoke and the rocking chair, rocking back and forth, back and forth.
There was that one night, too, but that wasn't childhood, nor was it hazy. He's been trying to forget it for years. That one night damned him, changed him from a good man doing bad things to an incarnate of evil. He did become Le Diable Blanc that night.
That was when he took up smoking again. He'd always smoked lightly; after all, there was a certain pride to not needing a lighter. But it never came to his mouth. It does now, though, and he inhales fervently, desperately. Maybe there's some hope that the cigarette smoke would make everything hazy and help him forget.
He took to drinking, too. It never erases the memories, just glasses them over. The soft, golden beer, the bite of the margarita (for diversity's sake), and the wine. He likes the wine the most. Something about it is intoxicating, noxious feeling of it in his mouth, and the way it turns blood-red beautiful. There has to be some splashes of deep, dark scarlet that aren't the results of murder.
Even now, drunk and incognizant, he still can't make the memory fade. It's a chronic disease.
Now, he sits on his bed alone, massaging his temples with his thumbs. Every once in a while, the thought conceives. There is no way out.
It's been a while since he's been back in New Orleans. It wasn't all warm welcomes, but that was expected. He has a room at a local motel. It's warm enough, and after current ordeals, that's what matters. He just needs a place to stay for a while, until he gets the nerve to return to Westchester. He doesn't know when that might be, nor does he really care. Maybe he'll just stay here.
It's so much easier to stop worrying after a few glasses of blood-red wine.
Addicted, he puts the red-tipped end of the cigarette to his mouth and breathes in deeply. The blue-tinted smoke filters through his lips and rises slowly, making the wall at the other end of the room hazy and dark. He moves over to the rocking chair and rocks, back and forth, back and forth.