icebox night
By Golda Fried
From Vol. 1 No. 1, 1996

Alley was looking at rings and was especially drawn to the one that could hold pills. It clung to her baby finger. I paced the floor of the store some, before she looked up. The mirror was a sliver in the corner.
What are people going to see, I was wondering. The jacket on me was all fluffiness, shaking.
When we walked in, there were red lights everywhere and lots of carpet. A beautiful boy was watching us. We walked straight through to the back. I said to Alley, Listen I’ll buy the beer and let’s hope the cigarettes will come.
I came back with the drinks and a guy who was already rolling cigarettes. You’ll find it’s a bit dry, he said regretfully. It will burn fast. This was Delt. His eyes melted all over my jacket– Alley looked the other way.
She liked attention in doses.
The beautiful boy came up with actual cigarettes. Delt saying, But you’ll come on back to see my show…

The name of the beautiful boy was James. He knew Delt since a picnic in the summer. Delt said, It had been the summer of love truly, while James went to get the chocolate cake from his freezer and four spoons. James’ place was an icebox even after he stuck in the small heater that turned all our faces slightly orange.

It was a small flat on top of a closed bar that you had to walk through to get to the place. James had said looking Alley’s way that he could take a beer if he wanted to and the bar owner wouldn’t say anything, but it made it seem that he had planned the stairs to curve around and up too so we just tumbled into his living room.
Delt saying alright as if all we had to do was fill up a dark place.
There were two couches.
I sat on the floor. Alley and James were already linking fingers, swirling them like birds. I moved Delt closer to block them out when they started kissing but you couldn’t block out that air around them looked like it was vacuuming up their hair.
You want to help me find a CD to put on? And like that
James and Alley left with the door closing. James left his cigarette smoldering in the ashtray.

The cigarette had rings in the paper going all the way up.
I saw this book jutting out from under the couch and
asked Delt to read to me. He kept getting up for various things, sitting back an inch closer.
Yeah I want you to keep reading. I feel about 12, I said as he turned a page.
His voice was drying up, already rough from singing earlier but he kept reading.
It was a picture book about Jimi Hendrix. We got to the part about what Jimi had eaten the night he choked on pills. His girlfriend had made him a fish sandwich.

James came back and took the heater, sort of shrugging to make up for it. His cigarette had a lot of paper rings to go through but then was out.

In the parts that I was screaming I was really screaming, Delt said, his head on the couch he was lying on.
People get that for sure, I said, Maybe you don’t see it that much in bars but thousands of people get it when they’re in their own dark place listening.

James burst in, in his wino overcoat: Do you want anything from the store?
Delt asked what James was getting, pulling a shadow off me.
Cigarettes, James said.
Get me something to eat, Delt said.

Soon James was banging and screaming from outside for Delt to come and open the door. Alley slipped into the living room quick wrapped up only in a blanket and asked if I was going to be okay, because she might not be able to hear me scream. Tomorrow, I’ll make her walk around a lot with me between phonebooths but she still won’t tell me how she knows of such scenes.
James came back forgetting Delt’s food.

Finally the last door closed and everything Delt and I had said to each other was falling down long staircases.

Delt had lugged his amp all the way from the bar and all the way up each stair. He had to get up at six to go clean houses. His open bag on the floor near our shopping bags I know has rubber gloves inside. I whisper, Can I punch you to wake you up ‘cause I’m not sleeping?