the second line

i spent a week in new orleans, louissiana. i could live off the culture down there. it's a hotbed of inspiration. this story is the second i've written based in the area. this story takes place based on an old legend regarding a ghostly "second line"...if you don't know what a second line is, it's those parades you see all over nawlins either following a wedding party or a funeral. this story is based on legend. it's still a work in progress, so please check back....

The Second Line by Brad Bodeker


1

The hurt is tremendous. It seems he had been crying so long that he doesn’t remember when his eyes weren’t wet. How long had he been sitting here in this hotel room? Staring into some dead dark corner hoping to see….what? Her ghost? She wasn’t dead, just their relationship was.

Here he sat. The Bourbon. On the busiest street in New Orleans and he sat inside his room running through old memories and killing himself with tequila and his 4th pack of cigarettes. His friends had offered him to come along with them as they were headed off to the street below to check out the band playing next door and perhaps score upon some hapless drunken “chicks”.

How long had it been? Why ask? He knew every minute detail of their failed relationship and he just couldn’t hang it up. She had already moved on. Moved on actually before the relationship “officially” ended. Is that where the bitterness is? Maybe? Why not go down with the boys and ravage the streets with drunken heinous carnal acts? This is the city to do it in. Vegas has got nothing on New Orleans. And who did he have to answer to anyways?

He staggered himself up from his overstuffed chair. Wobbled and then took a large gulp from his Jose Cuervo bottle.

“I’m goin’ out wit tha boys!” he said to the empty room.

And with a few steps to gain his balance, he went through his bedroom door, and down the stairs, through the lobby, and out into the wet streets of Rue Bourbon.



2

That was Gerry’s last memory of last night. Stepping out into the ocean of drunken zombies and losing himself to the current of drunken splendor.

Now, here he sat. Back at his hotel with a piece of broken bottle puncturing his wrists. A new batch of tears had flooded his cheeks. He had no recollection of how he ended up here, only the realization that he was here, attempting to cut his own wrists with this shard of green Heineken bottle glass and he was crying again on the balcony overlooking that lonesome street of strangers.

“The fuck you doing?” it was Kevin who walked out onto the balcony finding Gerry in a semi-stupor dripping blood from a rip in his wrists, “the fuck are you doing??? Oh, god oh Jesus!!”

“Let me go, kev.” Was what he whispered, “just let me go…”

In reality, the cuts were not severe enough to “let him go”. They were cut just above the vein, and because Gerry had been drinking so much, the veins were sunk in deeper into his arm and did not cause a threat of Gerry checking out this morning.

“somebody fuckin help me!” Kevin yelled into the hotel room from the balcony, “somebody!!!”

The boys came. There was 3 of them plus Gerry and Kevin. They scooped up their friend and tied off his wounds with a couple of hand towels. They called a cab and rushed him off to the hospital.

3

“you realize I’ll have to report this?” the ER doctor said to Phil whom sat in the ER with Gerry while the rest of them stayed back at the hotel and partied.

“What for?” Phil asked.

“It’s a suicide attempt.” The doctor replied, “I’m bound by the law to report something like this.”

“What would happen?”

“Well…your friend would have to go to at least a week’s evaluation under suicide watch upstairs. Then, depending on what the psych docs figure out…he may have to stay for awhile longer…but”

“Well, I don’t think he was trying to commit suicide.” Phil interrupted.

“Scuse me, son?”

“Naw, we were all just a little drunk and were messing around and…and..uh, Ger just kinda…well, I threw the beer bottle towards him…and…uh….it broke you see…”

“…and I imagine the bottle then made an almost perfect straight line cut up his wrists?”

“um….yep.” Phil looked at Gerry whom was just staring off into some other life. His eyes were stained red with tears.

“your friend looks pretty distraught.” The doctor mentioned.

“yeah, well, his girlfriend just broke up with him a couple weeks ago. Give us a few more days here and we’ll cheer him up.”

“I think your friend needs a little more help than more alcohol and loose women.” The doctor stared gravely at Phil, “he’s in a deep depression right now. I really don’t think I’d feel comfortable discharging him from the ER.”

Phil looked the doctor in his eyes, “He doesn’t have insurance, doc , and knowing my pal here, your hospital ain’t going to see a cent of his when they bill him…he’ll be fine…he just needs his friends.”