f (foundling) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-02-07 08:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *narrative, cristián martin-argüelles |
Narrative: Cris M
Who: Cris Martin-Argüelles
What: mal comportamiento
Where: Marvel, NYC
When: late Friday night
Warnings/Rating: some violence
The gym didn't help. Six energy drinks in, two hours of sleep, even a burnt and black cup of coffee with grounds still on his tongue, and nothing seemed to help. His bed only hurt his back, so he'd napped at the precinct, fitfully, with too many nightmares for it to be worth anything and still covering for Louis, after the man had done so for him; he didn't get much work done. His desk felt too small, the computer gave him a headache with its white glare, like two fingers shoved into the temple behind his right eye, and, well, he'd really thought, if nothing else, the gym would help. It didn't. His knuckles were still butchered from the meat of Neil's guard's jaw and they bled through their wraps. And even when he pushed through the haze of sleeplessness and muscles churned in response to electrical impulses sent, the actions were laggy, too loose. He was pale and sweating before he got fifteen minutes in. Lack of sleep or lack of proper nutrition, whatever it was, se sentía cansado y hastiado.—Of course, Cris kept going. Two hours, and he left the gym after the jag of a hot shower; the manager—the guy who'd caught him with Sam—watched him come and leave, no words, only his eyes on the back of the Cubano who wore his cap backwards like it wasn't two degrees outside. Teresita was gone for the weekend with Elena and the apartment was quiet. Not eerie, nothing lurking in branded shadows or the reaching fingers of Cris' mind—just empty, like no one lived there, cold, lights out, and everything put away neatly. The man moved through his own house like a stranger, groping in the depth of his closet for a zip-up sweatshirt, the Dodger blue and Giants orange of the Mets, logo painted in plastic ink on the chest, to pull it over his plaid button-up and athletic gray t-shirt. Layers on layers, gaping open. His hat was unbranded, just a worn blue, bill curled, and he was down to jeans and sneakers. He couldn't sleep here. Not now. The TV, on downstairs, didn't even manage to drown out the ring of silence, and Cris spent a good, worthless twenty minutes, lying on his bed, looking at the silver band of his wedding ring from where it grinned atop the dresser in his bedroom, like some sailor's precious tooth carving out darkness in a glint, mocking him. Él tenía que ir. The bar he found himself at some 20 minutes later was seedy, sticky, and scored, but at least everyone inside looked of age to be there. The walls were '70s wood paneling, the sorts people had used in their living rooms back when Cris was growing up, to look fancier than they were. Neon lights blinkered in glass tubing, wrought in shapes and signs he didn't bother to decipher. The bar itself, wood with initials dug into it with the serrated edges of quarters or cheap manicures, was where he sat. TVs bulbed out of the walls like it was 1999—la imagen de la TV era borrosa, distorted and sound burbled from blown speakers. Six energy drinks in, and he matched that without meaning to. Their cheapest whiskey, rye malt, from a still'd swill made to strip paint, meted out too fast, too-thin napkins soaked through with condensation, buttoned to boiled wood with wetness.—He didn't drink much—too controlling, too attached to clarity of mind to do it—and six was too much, but, for once, Cris didn't stop himself. That was all he felt like he'd been doing recently—cutting himself off, biting his tongue, standing down, putting his head down like a good boy. He didn't have Teresita. He could drink. And there was no one there to tell him no. He'd already taken a cab here, so he was in the clear. It was self-destructive and he knew it. It was like being 20 again, pissed off at the world, hunched over wood on the bones of his elbows, letting it all play out behind him like he didn't care. At least he was self-aware enough to know he did care now. But that just ticked him off more. He always cared. Always. And it always came back to bite him in the ass. He wouldn't change. He was too old for that now. But, he could drown it out for a night. Self-destructive, and he wasn't some guy out of control. He wasn't a fuckup like Neil had said he himself had once been, back with Sam. Because it was one night.—One night, a phrase that might as well have spelled out eternity to him before—take that night in the chair, the ones following, take any night and it meant everything to him—reduced now to six empty glasses and tacky wood under his palms, reduced now to a string of words that ground everything, manic, chaotic, overwhelming, to a complete standstill. The most recently emptied flat-bottomed tumbler, thick-glassed, was cool against his forehead, rolled there with his palm, and Cris sighed, eyes catching the bartender's to get number seven. He blinked slowly, black on black, the usual roil of his anger settled low, low in his bones, not burnt out, never that, but dulled by the successive splash of whiskey down his throat. It was, anyway, until someone bumped him. It caught, blistering bile along the bottom of his belly, like he was dry tinder, and Cris held his bottom lip between his teeth, sucking the oak from it. He didn't move, however much he stiffened. Not until he was jostled again, this time, accompanied by the soft sound of a woman trying to politely tell some creep to leave her alone. He slammed his hands on the bar and kicked his stool over when he stood. He didn't do subtle so good. The guy right behind him, some gringo leaning hard over a black woman, pretty, petite, uncomfortable—he wasn't doing anything explicit. He wasn't even touching the girl yet. But Cris didn't really need a reason. He elbowed the guy in the throat and let his weight take the both of them down to the grubby floor—and that? That helped. Hitting a bag hadn't done a thing, but this? He was probably yelling. Saying something about the woman and her asking this guy to back off and all of that, but he didn't hear himself. He was the impact of bone, tissue, muscle, skin, fascia, fat, and nothing else, and he had no plans to stop.—But he didn't have much of a choice. The world wheeled wild as stars and rough hands found Cris, they dragged him, and he fought back, knuckles bleeding again, but two bouncers versus him, ended the way it always had in the past: him on his ass outside, reeling, hissing, swearing. The fleeting relief of hitting the guy died in Cris' blood and he struggled to his feet in the snow, just another drunk Latino guy in the South Bronx, bent over against frozen brick. His hat was gone. Someone came, they put a hand on his back. ¿Te ayudo, asere? Cris shoved the hands off of him, blood and booze on his tongue, and he pushed away. "No—" He told the good Samaritan. "¡No necesito tu ayuda!" And he believed it. He never doubted it for a minute. |