On The Road With Danny Concannon: 04'-05': Wentzville, MO
"In THIS Room"
Companion Piece: In The Room (6.8)
Drink up baby down
Are you in or are you out
Leave your things behind
'Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mess-ups
You bubble-wrap
When you've no idea what you're like
So, let go, let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown.
Let go Frou Frou
In this room he could touch her. He could slowly slip her camisole off her shoulder and kiss the skin wrapped around it. The rain would fall against the window causing the glass to be a haze of white and gray. In this room they wouldn't speak. In this room there would be no sound of words. She could come to this room without fear of repercussion and in this room he could tell her all his dreams and all his fantasies, and he could believe in her, and she would know him. This room didn't exist in a fishbowl. This room didn't exist in a memory or flight of the imagination. It was the real thing on so many levels. He would smell her hair and she would feel what was beyond just his kiss, just underneath his skin and through his eyes. In this room they could be themselves. Free of all the words, labels and man made devices; they would just be Daniel and Claudia. Pent up frustration sent to the wayside after eight years of waiting; after eight years of wanting-- Neither knew how deep it existed; how deep it ran. In this room it would just be the rise and fall of breath together as one, and together as two. He just wanted to bury his head in her neck for days and all she wanted was to feel him close. Closer than she ever thought she would.
Danny ran his fingers along the bedspread on the bed, trying to find an excuse to call her and making up his own excuses why he shouldn't. Trying to accept the room of his mind and the motel room of his reality as he waited. He tried not to think of her, which only made it worse.
CJ drank her cup of coffee and was brought into her present, trying to figure out why she was thinking of Danny again. It had been awhile since he had been in her dreams, a long while; she had pushed it out again. It had been even longer than that since she had thought of him that way. She threw it off as daydreaming, boredom, fatigue, and loneliness. She just had him on her brain, having realized it had been almost six months since he had called her. She had pushed him away and never meant it and now he was finally away and she missed his calls. Again she threw off the idea. When he was in her subconscious dreams again—then she would really need to worry. From outside the Oval Office, she walked into the room.
Danny dosed off again. He had been waiting for hours. Hours for his source to call him only to fill his time with hot coffee and vending machine snacks. The day had turned to night, making his current situation worse. The wind blew outside like it was coming directly from the mighty hand of god.
Danny took a small whiskey bottle out of his bag and took a quick swig. He winced and took another before placing the small bottle back on the side table with a crack. With the same motion, he pulled himself off the bed. Danny turned on the news and tried to concentrate, but he couldn't. He looked at the television screen; one of the deputies was running the press conference. He felt as if he was going through CJ withdrawal. One day he could look at her everyday and then suddenly he couldn't. He'd always had the ability to look each day, to see what she looked like, if her hair color changed, everything.
"And the President leaves tomorrow for China in—" Danny clicked off the TV.
He hadn't been able to concentration all night—nothing seemed to help. Trying to sleep, being awake, it was all the same. He just saw memories of her and sights and sounds of her. He couldn't get her off his mind. He knew it was from lack of sleep, lack of food, going days and nights from one place to another, but he still felt like he was going crazy. Memories and images of her that had once pleased him were now, again, growing dark, cloudy, and more and more painful. He was falling deeper and deeper into his own black hole.
Danny popped a few sleeping pills but found the effort useless. He paced in his bare feet along the carpeted floor. He reached his hand to his brow and found he was sweating profusely. It ran down the side of his head and into his beard.
Danny ran to the bathroom and splashed his face with water, trying to knock some sense into himself, and then he just looked at himself in the mirror—not recognizing who he saw. He took a towel off the towel rack and dried his face.
In this room she would be all his and he would be hers. It was the waiting that was the worst part. If there had been another reason why—if they had been two ships in the night—any other excuse why they never were able to connect, he could have accepted it. But the only obstacle he could ever get her to admit, the only one he could accept, was the "conflict of interest." And as they both got closer to the so-called end of this conflict of interest the curiosity grew stronger inside of Danny and he couldn't shake it. The not knowing, the longing was eating at him. It was the reporter in him that made him want to know. He had to know what her answer would be, he had to wait, but the waiting, in the final mile, was becoming the worst yet.
He had stayed on the road to forget it, he had locked himself up in a cabin in Montana to forget it, but just when he thought he was free—back it came. Would he ever shake it, or would his chronic love, his chronic caring, be the end of him? Something inside of Danny knew it would come to this. Something inside of him knew he was getting himself in too deep. He had started it and now he was paying the price. It was the same thing inside of him that just knew from first sight she was the one. It didn't materialize in words until later, but there was something about her from the moment he met her. Something inside of him that made his heart override his brain. It was also the part of him that knew his feelings could never go away, that knew they would always come back.
Still he waited; still he kept the flame inside of him alive. Even if she said no at the end, even if he tried his best and she pushed him away, he would obey. A part of him would always love her, but it was the waiting and the unknown that kept him going.
It was a double-edged sword. It was the longing that kept him living and it was the longing that just might kill him. Not all the days were like this, but it was his own form of relapsing remitting desire. He could go days without thinking of her. Days without thinking of her in just a way, just a heart-wrenching way, but in the last few years when it came on, it came on hard, and lingered for who knew how long. It seemed to be worse each time and last longer and longer.
The walls in the hotel room felt like they were closing in on Danny as he paced and paced around the room. He felt so small, so suffocated, Danny felt held-up in the room. Climbing the walls was the only expression he could muster. He finally collapsed against the foot of the bed, surprised by his own body's behavior. Breathing heavy, his breath labored until his hands and arms felt like lead bricks and Danny slowly felt himself falling asleep as the sun began to rise outside his window. Finally crashing, Danny slept, wishing this were the last of such nights in his lifetime, not knowing or ever thinking he could be on her mind, too. All he knew was he had to shake it---he had to let go.
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