Fallen Apple

The church looms over my apartment with only me and the cemetery’s dead bodies for company. I stare out of my bedroom window and watch the rain stain the stone of the building a deeper grey. It is grim and depressing. I need an escape from it and so I watch the rain fall onto my window and imagine it how I did when I was a child, sitting in the backseat of my father’s car. Times were better then. Life was sweet and my stomach was full. I didn’t realise it yet, but I was truly happy as I gazed, care-free, out of the car window as the world flew past.

They formed on the glass like teardrops. I couldn’t take my eyes off them as I watched them, one by one, slide down the window pane and snake their way to the bottom. In my head I pictured them as animals; they were vicious predators that would devour anything in their way. Their favourite prey was the (as I imagined it) dead raindrop. The little motionless specks of water that sat on my window were quickly destroyed by the hungry, carnivorous beasts that hunted and chewed until they got their fill at the bottom of the window. In the process they left a trail of the unwanted remains of their victims behind them. At least, that is how I saw it. Then I’d unwind my window and kill them all. This would always result in my father shouting at me because he hated it when the rain poured into the car. Although the anger in my father’s voice upset me, I also felt overjoyed at the attention he was paying me. At these moments he noticed I existed and I liked that a lot.

Things all started going wrong for me at the same time when things got all too much for my father. I never fully understood why he did himself in, but I was always aware that he had money problems. He worked hard, but that was never enough. I only ever saw him on Sundays and we’d go for our drive together, just the two of us. He spent a lot of time at work and often came home smelling of smoke. My father was never a smoker. When he came home, entered my bedroom and hugged me goodnight with the scent of cigarettes clinging to his clothes, I knew he had been to the pub. Regardless of where he had been before he returned from work, there was no variation in how he passed his evenings at home. Lying in bed, awake, I’d be able to hear him sitting in his arm chair, watching the horses’ race and swearing at the television set while my mother fussed and doted on him. Occasionally he’d scream for joy at the set, and when that happened I knew that the following night he would be coming home from work smelling of smoke. He always celebrated his successes in the same way.

Although my father was far from perfect, I loved him emphatically. There was never any grey area for me. As a child, when I judged a person’s character, I considered them as either a good apple or a bad apple. My innocence and naivety meant that it was as simple and straight forward as that. I know a lot of people won’t agree with me, but I have always considered my father as a ‘good apple’, even if he was a little bit dirty in places.

Then one day it all changed. The scream my mother let out when she found my father’s body hanging from the banisters was the foulest, most horrid sound I have ever heard. It is a sound that I will never be able to let go of. It was the sound of heartbreak and abandonment. It was the sound of failure and cowardice. It was the sound of death and the End. He was gone and my mother was never the same. She needed him more than anything else and accepted the first man she came across – into her bed, into her house and into my life – as a desperate attempt to fill the void. Like my father, he was a drinker and a gambler, but unlike my father he did not work, never stayed faithful to my mother, and he definitely didn’t like me. He was a real bad apple. My memory of the time I spent with him is hazy like that of waking from a dream. At the time I knew what was happening and it all made sense, but now, with clear thoughts, I cannot remember a thing that occurred. All I can remember are the scabs and bruises. I have no recollection of their causes, but I do recall knowingly telling lies to explain how I acquired these injuries. I hated and feared him. I only stuck around for as long as I could suffer for the benefit of my mother, but I knew that I desperately needed to get out, wherever it took me.

So here I am now, staring at my window as if the water on it is alive and trying to ignore the dead bodies that are my only neighbour. I have no prospects, no food in my fridge and very little money since my boss fired me for turning up to work late and in dirty clothes that “stank of cigars and cheap hookers”. My stomach is viciously growling at me, I’m bored, restless and I don’t know what to do with myself. There is very little for me to do on a Sunday these days except to look out of a rain-splattered window, alone.

I reach for my wallet and pull out my casino membership card and the remainder of my cash. It’s not enough for a meal but it’s enough for a stake on roulette. Black or red. Odd or even. A near fifty-fifty chance of doubling my money and getting something to eat. I couldn’t turn down such a chance and if I got lucky, hell, there’s a good little strip-joint next to the casino where I can celebrate my success.