Excerpts from language of bones

Excerpt 1

I’ve never murdered anyone. Yet when I lie in bed at night with the icy finger of death crawling up and down my spine and those dry bones speaking to me from their dark valley, I can’t help thinking I somehow deserve all the evil that’s been visited upon me. Because, you see Dear Friend, I am an asshole.

I didn’t intend to become an asshole. It was not my life’s ambition. When someone asked Little Me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I predictably offered up astronaut, doctor, even fireman, but never asshole. Yet here I am. A puckered sphincter. An odiferous orifice.

It’s not like I didn’t try, though. I mean, I read the Bible. Not every word of it of course, but certainly the good parts. The parts about smiting and slaying. The jawbone of an ass and the deadly slingshot. The lashes, the nails, and of course, that thorny crown.

There’s a part early on where Cain lures his brother into a field and kills him. Then The Big Guy comes around and he’s like, “Yo, where’s Abel?” And Cain says, “Uh, I didn’t know it was my day to watch him.” So God’s like, “What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”

Yada yada yada.

Well, I never had a brother, but to me that doesn’t sound like a very harsh sentence for killing him and then lying about it to the creator of the universe.

Excerpt 2

The Jameson was enough to occupy our attention for a while, and we poured another, and then another. After a long and stony silence, I spoke. “I’m going out to Carmel day after tomorrow to talk with this sister of his, and to the folks at the orphanage.” I was sliding into drunk now, right where I felt the most at home.

Wolf shook his silver mane and expelled a steaming breath. “Tyson, don’t do that to yourself. Going to California is not going to bring Janice back.”

“It’s not? Then fuck it. I’m not going.” I sneered at him.

Wolf looked at me like I was crazy. “Okay,” he said, with an exhausted chuckle. “Just do me a favor, will you? Be safe out there.”

“Copy that,” I said. “Safety is my middle name.”

“Another thing:” He took a long, last drink and set his glass down on the balcony railing. “If you do find this bastard…” He lowered his head and fixed me with a flat stare, the edges of his eyelids pink and moist. “Kill him.” My mouth opened and closed a couple of times, but words didn’t come. “I’m serious, Tyson. I’ll get you off.”

Excerpt 3

My studio sat fallow, like the trees outside. Nothing stirred in it. A thin layer of dust accumulated each week and was dutifully removed by a quiet, obsequious maid that Popsie had retained. It was a shrine to another time, a time of life and of happiness, a time when possibility poured down like morning rain, and love and laughter coursed through my loft like the blood through my veins.

New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day were little more than a blur. What is it that makes an alcoholic feel like he needs to get extra drunk to celebrate the passing of another year? Was I looking forward to great things, the veil of depression lifting, a prosperous and productive year just about to start? Was I toasting a successful year past, the letting go of excess baggage? Who needs best friends, life partners and all that fucking happiness anyway, right?

Thus January came to visit, and when it departed, it left a stain called February. February made me think of Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day made me think of Janice, and Janice made me think of putting a gun to my head, but the only one I owned was still in the evidence room at the police station, at least as far as I knew. The cold lingered, even on sunny days, and it was all I could do to chase the chills away each day. I rarely ventured to my balcony, and I rarely saw the cormorant. But when I did, he seemed to be eyeballing me with malevolent interest. Sometimes I leaned over my railing and talked to him. I told him I knew what he was up to, and challenged him to finish it. “I’m still alive, you little shitstain. What are you waiting for?”