Until You Come Around Everything Is Nonsense: An Exerpt: Sordid and Sacred

"You know I hate this." Jude said while looking over at me and then out the small, gray fogged window and back again. "I hate all of this--the feeling, the taste--the air--its like breathing blood, all iron and thick, sharp... Jesus, I hate this." I didnt need to say anything in return. He was speaking with the nervous abandment that comes when you feel like you might choke on all the guilt and shame you've swallowed so many times. When you speak just to prove to yourself that you still can, that you exist, that this is real.
Its a cold day in mid December. Everything outside looks foreign and dull, metallic-the color of the surface of the moon and just as familiar. The city is a storage freezer with a factory inside, menacing, heartless, mechanic. The car seemed to be still, like in those old movies, the scenery passing by. Alleys, windows, scarves, children, cafes, trucks, all flat, two dimensional, a painting rolling past. I hated this too.
We pulled into a cracked concrete parking lot and paid a man with fingerless gloves who directed us into a spot between a rusted red cadillac and a fiesta with spinners. Stepping around sick puddles of oily sludge and ice Jude's fingers were cold and pale but felt like home between mine. It was 2 blocks to the funeral home, and three and half to the rear of the restaurant where the police found Jude's brother, Joshua, three days ago. This was all horribly wrong.


--Nikky!