A.N. I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter. But I needed it to be over and done with.
Before settling down in the spacious living room, he boarded up the broken window with a bunch of chairs. Should a walker against all odds be trying to get in, he'd have to be more or less dead not to hear his impromptu jenga fall down. For good measure he added a fancy glass vase to the furniture puzzle.
He lit some candles in the living room that were already there and corked up the wine bottle. He sniffed the wine and it smelled alright. The label said Elk Cove 2009 Roosevelt Pinot Noir but that didn't mean shit to him. He took a gulp, swirled it around in his mouth a bit and swallowed. Nah, tasted like every other red wine he'd had, not bad though. Good enough for beans and peaches. He took a few gulps more before planting the bottle on the coffee table.
With the open can of beans in one hand and a fork in the other, he sauntered around in living room, scanning the bookshelves for anything interesting while shuffling in the beans. He didn't find anything. There were lots of art books and books on home decoration and sailing and some Floras. Bet Carol would like those, he thought. He opened a cabinet in a corner and bingo! Hello sunshine! Here comes the whiskey. Well, he certainly wasn't gonna go thirsty tonight. There was a lot of fancy Scottish malts but he picked a bottle of Tullamore Dew. He liked that one. It was down to earth and plain, like him. He unscrewed it, nodded to no one and took a drink. Sláinte! He would drink for Merle tonight, for all the family he had lost before and after the end of the world, for new beginnings and for old endings.
After finishing the beans he went to the business of plugging in the stereo system to the power pack. Hopefully it had enough juice to last at least for a while. He fiddled with the contacts, trying to figure out which ones belonged to the stereo and after some swearing and grunting he finally saw some lights flicker on the panels. He blew off the layer of dust that had collected on the vinyl record and pressed play. The pickup hitched and moved over to the edge of the record, slowly went down and met the vinyl with a tiny scratch. The dusty old familiar sound of a record playing streamed out of the speakers. Damn, it works, he marveled. He hadn't been playing any records for at least a decade.
He located himself in the coach again, digging into the peaches this time as the first notes of rock music reached his ears. Nice. He swallowed down the juicy sweet peaches with some more red wine and felt this was good enough evening. He didn't want to think about what he may look like. Red wine, peaches, candles and Billy Idol… Nope. Besides, no one would ever know. He felt alright at the moment. Billy started singing.
My road is long, it lingers on.
You stare at me and I'm holding on.
My eyes are dim, my breath is weak
and tears stain my cheeks.
The lyrics were awfully fitting for his day. He took a drink from the whiskey bottle and chewed the last peach down.
Up there so high where the air is so thin,
you look for signs. Am I giving in?
All for me you bring crashing down,
and still you condemn me.
Oh no no shame. All my life I'll not betray.
I'll not shed one tear for all my life
forever more, for ever more.
He tried not to listen so carefully but the words crept into his mind. He wasn't ashamed of anything he'd done so far and he had never cried for the life he'd left behind. That was done with.
Sound towers will crumble down,
I see everything is broken down.
His heart is breaking and recorded in sound.
We need a miracle joy, we need a miracle boy,
A rock and roll toy, a rock and roll joy,
A rock and roll boy!
The chorus made him chuckle. It was like Billy Idol had written a song about the apocalypse 25 years too early.
Now I know what's up for game.
What's up for grabs, what's down again.
See all for me is crashing down,
the end of everything, every decent human being.
Yep, he definitely did.
The road is long and it lingers on.
But my eyes are dim, my breath is weak
and tears stain my filthy cheeks.
Sound towers will crumble down,
I see everything is broken down.
Well my heart is breaking and recorded in sound.
I need a miracle joy, I need a miracle now,
that rock and roll boy!
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah, I'm hangin' on a miracle tree,
Yeah, hangin' like a noose for you and me.
Yeah! Said yeah! Right now!
Daryl felt his mood change throughout the end of the song. There was too many things in those lyrics that reminded him of his own life at the moment. Yeah, he could really need a miracle. A miracle that would end Negan, end all the fucking pain. He'd had that noose around his neck already, and all that he'd thought of was Carol and Judith. He had been hanging on a thin thread for them, and afterwards she hadn't even cared. He felt the anger and hurt seeping over the rim of his heart again. He had been the miracle boy for over a year, feeding them and keeping them safe and it had all been for nothing. Daryl drank some more whiskey and not even the happy gospel tunes of the next song cheered him up.
Have I told you
Lately that I love you
If I din't, darlin',
You see, I'm so sorry
Didn't I reach out
And hold you
In these lovin' arms
Well, if I didn't, oh baby.
Well, I'm so sorry
Quite the opposite. The lyrics hit him like a stomach punch. God, they made him miss Carol.
When I realized that you need love too,
gonna spend my life makin' love to you.
Got to be a lover.
Have mercy.
Forgot to be a lover. Have mercy!
Forgot to be a lover.
Make it on through to you somehow. Have mercy, baby!
Well, did I ask you?
Yes, would you come and share,
Oh, share,
Oh, the burden and the task
That's at love's command
Didn't I say
All those lovin' special things
That you long to hear
To show how much I care
So he just sat there, with the whiskey bottle in his left hand, resting on his knee, staring in front of him, listening to the song as Billy Idol continued to list all the goddamn things he'd never done and never said to her. Daryl had never been religious but right now he could swear there was a devil in the corner of room laughing at him. 'Yeah, you laugh. I know I'm shit. I know I fucked up.'
Well, well I worked all day
Hard as I can,
Worked all night,
It didn't make me a man, babe.
Fuckin' Billy was right. Hard work didn't matter. He could bring home fifteen deer and he'd still be a boy. Carol had said in Atlanta he was a man now, but nah, he fucking wasn't. If he'd been a man, he would have told her what he really wanted, what he really felt about her but he didn't do anything of that. Just some stupid lines that she misunderstood anyway. Me and my stupid mouth, he thought.
God, he missed Carol. He missed her so fucking much. He missed their first winter together. It had been horrible but at the same time it had been the first time in his life where he could even recall feeling a pinch of happiness. And then the pinch grew into a dollop around the time they found the prison, and after that the feeling just grew bigger and bigger until it was a big sweet lump consuming him night and day and he didn't recognize himself anymore. He was someone new, someone Merle never got to see which sadden him, but Carol saw him, and Rick and all the others and it felt so fucking good. But the best feeling was the feeling that Carol's smiling eyes gave him, and the way everyone just seem to assume it was him and her.
He had taken all that for granted, and if there was a higher power he'd been punished for it. Carol hadn't been looking at him with those smiling eyes in a long time. After Terminus there was something dying in them, a dark void that scared the shit out of him. So he didn't push, he waited, but he waited too long and someone else took over. It all just went to shit and he had never felt so hurt. Maybe he wasn't supposed to be happy. Maybe his fate was to be miserable and hated. Maybe he wouldn't ever be able to love someone because he never saw love when he grew up. All he saw was abuse and loneliness. What the fuck did he know about loving a woman? Nothing. No wonder she had reached out to that doofus Tobin. He could probably say more than two sentences at one time. He could probably comfort her in ways he didn't know how to. But Tobin couldn't either, could he? Because she left him too, and Carol said she didn't love him. Maybe Denise had been right. Was it really too late? Denise had told him it wasn't before she died.
Well, when I realized that you need love too
I'm gonna spend my life,
gotta spend my life makin' love to you.
The chorus was echoing in his mind long after the song had ended and the next began. Baby, I'm so sorry. He was sorry, so very sorry for not knowing how to be a lover. Have mercy.