No Strings Attached

Based on true events.

My eyelids feel as full of gravel as my voice. And my body doesn’t feel much better. Have you ever slept on an unfamiliar couch in your jeans? I have done a lot of that lately—especially since my arrest. I’m no saint, but the guy who’s accusing me is a big-shot attorney. Jim Garrison—legal sensation. The only guy to ever try anyone for the JFK assassination.

Author.

Media darling.

All-around asshole.

Seriously.

Before I made a deal with him for the media package Garrison says I never delivered on (and I am not saying if I did or I didn’t. Innocent until proven guilty and all that), I had Garrison on my radio show. I miss radio. I was good at it. Might have even ended up on national radio the way I was headed. Miami ain’t the world. But it ain’t buttfuck nowhere, if you know what I mean. Garrison wasn’t the only big-name hotshot I interviewed. I’d had Lenny Bruce. Jackie Gleason. Bobby Darin. Even Frank Sinatra. That one was a big get.

But that’s all over now. Jim Garrison saw to that—had me arrested. Charged with grand larceny. I don’t know how I’m gonna beat the rap. Hell, I can’t even afford the free public defender they’ve assigned to me. When you can’t even afford your free attorney, because you lost your job for being arrested, life gets pretty grim.

Between losing my job and my pending divorce, my savings are a bittersweet memory. I reach, without opening my eyes, for the pack of Camels I know I stashed on my buddy Paul’s coffee table last night. At forty cents a pack, I don’t know how I can keep up this three-pack-per-day habit.

My practiced fingers find the cigs and the butane lighter rubber-banded to the pack. I fumble for one of the cigarettes and rip off the filter, for the cleanest jolt of nicotine. I perch it between my lips. I light it. I take a deep lungful and try not to let it out too fast as I take stock of what hurts this morning. Apparently it’s everything. Jesus!