Grooving by Danny Johnson...

I laid the dollar bill flat on the table, pressing to get the wrinkles out, trying to fix it so it would roll easier. Rumor is that fifty percent of all dollar bills either have cocaine residue or have recently been in the crack of some stripper’s ass. If the second was true, I was fixing to make the first one true as well.

I laid out the dust on a plate and chopped it. When I got the bill reasonably tight, I took my time snorting it up. Sitting on a bar stool in my kitchen, I watched birds dip and dive in the giant bath my wife had insisted we put in the yard. Crazy little fucks. The only water in the thing recently was whatever rain had fallen into it, then the weather turned dry, and all that was left was slimy green shit on the top.

Jilly told me my drug use was getting out of hand. I told her it sure was, it was going straight from my hand to my nose. I thought it was funny as hell, but she didn’t see the humor. Who was she trying to bullshit? She’s the one that got me into it. Snorting and partying was the mantra in college. Once we got married, she wanted to become Miss Corncob Up My Ass Thang.

She even tried to cut me off from my own money, well, our money. I got embarrassed at the bank one day when I tried to cash a check, and that’s when I found out she had a separate account. Bitch. I told her she better quit fucking around with me, but, no, she wouldn’t listen. The last straw was when I brought home a girl I met in a bar that was willing to do a three way. I was so coked out, I couldn’t get it up, then Jilly punked out on doing the girl. It was a fiasco.

I came home about three this morning, and caught her writing me a note saying she was leaving. “No fucking way!” I screamed long and loud. Somehow, it got physical. I remember beating her face pretty bad. When I stopped and saw how ugly it was, I put her in the bathtub to clean her up, apologizing for all I was worth.

When I woke up this morning, she was still in the water, and she wasn’t breathing. Not knowing how to handle such a situation, I rambled in her pocketbook until I found her hidden cash, and then went to buy an eight ball. I called the police and told them I had come home and found her. They said they would be right over.

I think I’ll blame it on my dealer.

Danny Johnson is a fiction novelist whose short story “Dancing With My Shadow” placed in the top 100 in Writer’s Digest 79th Annual Short Story Competition for 2010, other short stories and flash fiction have been published by The Camel Saloon, Sheepshead Review, Mr. Zouch, MilSpeak Books, Creative Aspirations, and The Legendary.

Danny is a former United States Air Force Viet Nam veteran and a Distinguished Flying Cross recipient.