Ratings Week - Writers Forum

Girl in Story · 07-08-2007, 02:39 AM

Minor Swearing.

Ratings Week

"Bill, you should see some of the stuff in the news this morning. Fuck this is weird," Kayla said from her seat in front of the television. She was wearing a pair of my boxers and a giant white nightshirt, with her back resting against the couch and a coffee mug between her palms. Instead of turning to look at the TV, I watched her. Her profile was facing me with her gray eyes, small upturned nose and the light from the news program flashing across her features. Her short hair was pulled back into an even shorter ponytail and the bleach she'd left in her hair too long made the end of it a pale, jaundiced color though her dark brown roots were several inches thick.

"Oh yeah, like what?" I asked from the doorway.

"These two guys were robbing someone when one changed his mind and arrested the other, and there was this man who sued his doctor because he survived cancer longer then the doctor thought he would," she said, crossing her legs. "That's just the beginning. Some of this stuff is really weird."

"Hmm, must be ratings week," I replied absently.

"What?"

"Ratings week, you know? When TV shows get rated, so they air all of the juiciest stuff that week."

"But," She said, smiling. "That's for fiction shows. Like Friends and Buffy. Not the news."

"Sure, the news too. They try to make things interesting. They make some pretty sick shit up and what they know that they can't get away with, they have to go out and do themselves. Those are the one's they have footage of," I explained. Then I glanced at my watch. "Sorry, Honey I'm late for work. I'll see you tonight." I kissed her on the forehead, and she turned to me with her mouth open, ready to start an argument but before she could get a word out, I had left the house.

_

God, Bill can be such an asshole sometimes. I don't know how he can make this shit up and still sound so serious about it. He's such a good liar that it makes me wonder if he's cheating on me or something. Maybe something worse. He's out of the house at the strangest hours and he doesn't come home smelling like perfume but he does come home with rolls of bills tucked in his pockets and I still don't know what his job is or where he works because whenever I ask he changes the subject so smoothly that I don't even notice until later that night and by then it's too late to say anything.

I don't know why I haven't broken up with him yet, I really should. I'm only 23 so it's not like I have any reason to be desperate but I swear to god there's this weird feeling I get behind my ribs when he lights up a cigarette or kisses me on my neck and I know it isn't love but it means I have to stay with him for just a little longer.

We met at this bar down near Meat Street. I know it's a little strange that I live in the meat packing district when my mom has so much cash. She wrote some thick biography about Patrick Henry who's the guy that said, "Give me liberty or give me death" before he stabbed himself with a letter opener. It made it to the bottom of the New York Times bestsellers list because mom is like Patrick Henry's great-great-great-great-great granddaughter or something.

When she was in college she thought that his martyr genetics had passed on to her so she had about seven therapists who all tried to disprove eugenics so that she wouldn't jump through the plate glass windows of NYU's library. She believed all her therapists and decided to write a book instead. She told me all this when I was ten and the only thing that bothered me was why she would have seven therapists at once but she told me that having a shrink was like having a pair of Jimmy Choos in New York. Everyone either had one or wished they could afford one, and the more the better.

I love my mom like I'm supposed to but I suppose I must not like her very much because she was always trying to be friends instead of a parent since I was ten years old and I started to push away from her just as early on. I graduated high school but instead of going to college I went to Florida because I'd heard that the sun was hot and the drugs were cheap and I'd never been to Disneyworld and of course every American has to go to Disneyworld.

But Disney and meth were sucking my savings account dry and I didn't want to use my mom's money so I left without paying my dealer, Gary. Unfortunately for me, Walt was smarted then Gary so I'd had to pay for my pass into the happiest place on earth before I could go in.

So I finally settled in New York and met Bill at that bar and got a job at a bookstore which I guess is a little ironic because I have to sell copies of my mom's book so in a way I am using her money. I never got a therapist or a pair of Jimmy Choos.

Mom sent me an autographed copy of the book, a bunch of gaudy but expensive antiques that she'd bought with the royalties to impress me, and a letter. I read the book once and then put it and the antiques in the spare bedroom that I never go in, except to vacuum. When I showed them to Bill, he laughed at them. It was weird, because he almost never laughs but the seven hundred dollar kimono and china statues from Shogun's Gallery brought it out in him. Well, they were pretty hideous.

I shook my head and stretched my legs. I had a shift at the bookstore and even though my boss is laid back, I probably shouldn't show up in Bill's boxers. I took quick shower without waiting for the water to warm up and slipped on my jeans and a tee shirt of some Irish band I'd never heard of. I didn't bother with makeup but brushed my hair, swearing one more time to
fix up my roots.

_

"But are you sure it's enough?" He asked me, between gulps of his Sapporo.

"I'm sure," I said.

"I didn't come all the way to Manhattan for nothing, Bill." He looked down at the silver can of beer he was palming. "Shit, this stuff is weak."

"I know," I said.

_

"Thank you, and have a nice day," I said with a painful smile at the last customer of the day. I watched her broad back impatiently as she ambled out of the store and then ran to lock the door behind her so that no one else could come in. I work for eight hour shifts, from ten to six and the counter is so cramped that only one person can work at a time so I don't even have a coworker to talk to. The pay is all right but by the end of the day, I'm about ready to kill myself.

I sorted the till and closed up the store without bothering to clean. It was winter, so even though it was only six o'clock, it was already dark outside and really cold so I regretted not bringing a coat. I covered myself with arms as well as I could and started down the twelve blocks to my apartment. Bill probably wouldn't be home when I got there so I could take a bath and go to bed and not have to worry about him wanting to fuck me and he could just let himself in when he got home, because I gave him a copy of the key last week.

I only had three blocks left to go when I saw someone come out of an alleyway in front of me. In New York, you learn to worry about things like that so I tightened my grip on my purse and got ready to run just in case but instead of going for my purse or even waiting to follow me, the guy grabbed my arm and threw me against the wall and I heard my head crack against the brick. I tried to shout but he covered me mouth and pinned my arms like he'd done it before and I could smell old beer before he even opened his mouth. I looked up over his thick thumb and finally saw his face.

"Gary?" I tried to move my lips.

He leaned over till his mouth was next to my ear and I shivered and he said, "Give me death." Then he pulled back and grinned and stabbed me. I saw his pupils dilate. Then I looked down and saw the entrance wound with a letter opener sticking out of it.

_

As Kayla crumpled I stepped out from the alley and appraised Gary's work. The job wasn't too clean, but that's probably just because he was so shot. He always gets high before we make a collection.

"Man," Gary said, checking Kayla's eyes with shaking hands. "Why a letter opener. Why wait so long, and fuck the girl. All I want is the payoff. You're too fucking dramatic, man."

"Ratings week."

"What?" He asked, looking up."

"Nothing." I pulled out a cigarette and lit it. "I just like to keep it interesting."

_

In Kayla's apartment, the door to the empty spare bedroom stood wide open, showing a bare space, without even dust to interrupt the beige stubbed carpet. Down the hall, in the living room, the television still played for an empty apartment.

"….An death distinctly ironic in it's tragedy; Kayla Roberts was found stabbed to death with a letter opener in the Gansevoort Market District last night. Kayla was an ancestor of Patrick Henry, a prominent figure in the American Revolution who gored himself with a letter opener after his famous oratory..."