BB Grey–musings

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Sad music creaks from a speaker with a cracked woofer. The record player spits treble and scratches, fizzing on the low notes. She doesn’t mind. She knows this song by heart—could trace every flat and sharp in her mind. The sadness fills the room, seeps into her red-rimmed eyes. Tears well up and sit at the halfway point, blurring the world below, leaving everything above clear and distorted, as if seen through water.

He’s in the other room, talking to himself. Working out the injustices levied against him, a working stiff. A moment of silence—he’s found something. She hears him turn it over in his hand. Once. Twice. Then, footsteps toward the door, down the hall. She looks down, closes her eyes, and submerges herself entirely in the tears. And waits.

The first thing she feels is a slap across her ear. The music goes silent for a moment, then mixes with the rush of blood racing to the surface of her cheek. The room tilts. She keeps her eyes closed and whispers to the rhythm of her pulse, When I open my eyes I’ll be gone.

“What is this!” he yells.

She doesn’t open her eyes. She knows what this is.

She says nothing, just bobs back upright—a buoy slapped by a wave—and waits for the next. There is always a next.

“Open your God damn eyes! Look at me!” The last shred of common sense leaves the room. The music plays on. She hears a silence where a note should have been. She focuses on the broken subwoofer, on the deepness in his voice that once made her feel safe. Now, it doesn’t even scare her. She won’t give him that. She’s not scared. She’s stuck.

“What? What the fuck are you saying? Listen, I’ve had enough of this bullshit. Look at me when I’m talking to you!” She doesn’t hear the end of the word, just feels the blow to the other side of her head. She bobbles back upright, the rebalancing taking longer this time. Blood rushes to her ear, a hotness spreads down her neck and cheek. She doesn’t flinch. Her eyes remain closed. She listens to the piano, the bass fizzing on every low note, and mouths the words again. When I open my eyes I’ll be gone.

“I won’t have my wife whoring around town while I’m busting my ass.” His voice is controlled, unnervingly so. She knows she is in uncharted territory.

“I’m going to say this one more time. Open your God damn eyes. Look at me and tell me—what is this movie ticket stub? Who are you fucking?” His voice is a murderous calm. She senses his fear, but she is committed to the mantra. She says it in her head this time. When I open my eyes I’ll be gone.

The music stops.

She tries to place him in the room through the veil of her tears. She feels a change in his breathing. The sound of something heavy being lifted.

“You don’t want to open your eyes?” he asks, already knowing the answer. “Fine. I’ll open them for you.”

An explosion of teeth, gums, glass. A sensation of cool and hot. Shards that cut, sting, then vanish. The world swirls. A pouring of red—from her mouth, her ears, her head—she can’t tell. She feels warm.

She thinks of the movie ticket. Citizen Kane. She’d picked it up from the sidewalk on her way home from the market. She’d placed it on the dresser, knowing he would grab for his smokes there after work. She knew what song would be playing. She knew how long the fuse would burn. The yelling, the slapping, the bobbing, the mantra—her anchor, her steadying refrain, until she would open her eyes.

She knew.

A final warmth fills her, heavy and liquid. She tries to mouth her mantra, but the words dissolve before they form. She tries for the music, but it’s fading, fading. She thinks of the ticket, the sled, the word Rosebud—a secret, an ending.

The needle lifts.

She opens her eyes.

And she is gone.