latino_menace | OOM: After the rise, the fall

Being close to death has an advantage or two, which a lot of people don't realise. But it's an undeniable fact that the day after the experience, everything's amazing. You look around and really feel the sun on your face, you notice the blue of the sea and the tang of ocean salt in your nose. Food tastes great when you almost never got to eat it again and every drink slides down with a proper appreciation of the time it took to make, the years it spent fermenting in barrels or bottles. Ramon drinks champagne for three days because if you want to live life well, you may as well have the best.

He spends the day after with Martin, looking after him properly for perhaps the first time, really engaging with him instead of treating him as some sort of vague annoyance to be barely tolerated. And the difference is obvious to him in this relieved state; he can see the boy respond, becoming more confident, smiling easier and relaxing a little more in his presence. Ramon takes every opportunity to look at the green eyes and silently tell Random that it's going to be OK, he's still here, he'll be around when he gets back. For three days, life is good again.

And then...well, he's been here before. Eventually life inflicts itself again, the bright new edge dims, things start to recede back to the familiar and mundane. He swaps champagne for liquor and it tastes the same as it ever did, he finds food and fresh air as boring as it usually is. Such is life.

With it, of course, returns the now-familiar ache of missing Random. No matter how good life was for a few days there, he's still got no one here to share it with. The other side of the bed is just as empty and Random's still out there somewhere, spending nights in a woman's bed, smiling at her (calling her 'lover'? Holding her just because he wants to be close? Pulling her upstairs with that devilish grin?) and trying to make a baby with her. Nothing has changed, really.

The collapse, when it comes, is bad. Martin's too young to know that this recent upturn of events is a house of cards built on quicksand, so he's unprepared for the moment when he runs in from the garden on his sturdy little legs, laughing and happy, trailing dirt across the kitchen. Ramon took one look at it and snapped, yelling at him to 'shut up and get out!', making the boy whimper in shock and fear and run right back out again, trying not to cry.

He doesn't feel guilty about things, it's not in his nature. He's unremorseful and cold again, because it's suddenly never been more clear that there can be all the good food and wine in the world, but they don't make life interesting. Never have. His idea of a good time is being successful and Random being here to share it with him - not his son, who's a poor substitute. Not the growing business in Texorami, still in its early stages, because it can never compare to his original empire in South America. He's forced to look in the mirror and ask, What have I got? I'm alive, but so what? What's so great about appreciating the fucking sun when I'm just another guy at the moment, living in a house with a kid on his own. What happened to what I was? I had control, power, respect, fear. Hundreds of people that did what I said, scared of the consequences if they didn't. I made more money in a day than some people make in a year - what the hell am I doing here?

He's doing this because it's what Random wants. And he'll keep doing it, because it's what Random wants. Except...Random isn't here.

Martin had come back in when he'd been told to, subdued once more. Fed, bathed and put to bed in silence. And then Ramon goes back to staring out of the window at the trees bending in the garden, bent by a wind coming in off the Atlantic. Is this how's he's supposed to spent this new chance of life he's been given? Stand around like a fucking housewife, waiting for someone to come home. He can't do that.

No, not can't. Won't.

The bottle is hit hard that night, making up for the last three days of sobriety. But it's still not enough because he gets drunk when Random's here all the time, that's allowed. So fuck that.

He sways a little as he walks down to the basement, pulling keys from his pocket. The shit is locked up for the benefit of the health of the Amberites, who can't touch it - which is why he doesn't, when Random's home. Well, he's not restricted by that now. So he feels no guilt when he walks back upstairs with a well wrapped package, cutting into it easily and letting a mound of small white crystals pour out onto the coffee table. Like ice chips, only not. And he's smiling as he starts crushing them with a credit card, then chopping them with a razor; practiced hands working without direction,

(clink clink clink)

cutting the stuff fine and rolling a hundred Euro note because it makes the best straw. No guilt at all. It's not like there's anyone here to stop him.