nervous assface

brandon scott gorrell

Lydia Davis changes positions on her bed. She gets up, puts on a jacket, and goes to the store. She buys a bottle of wine. When she walks back into her flat, her two flatmates are standing in the kitchen, staring at each other. Lydia Davis puts the bottle of wine on the kitchen table. Everyone looks at it. Lydia Davis begins to feel upset. She wants to hide the bottle of wine. She wants to drink the bottle of wine underneath the kitchen table. Lydia Davis takes the wine from the kitchen table and walks up the stairs, toward her room, slowly. She drinks the bottle of wine.

Lydia Davis rides her bike to a pub where there is electronic music. It is crowded with people who she thinks she can be friends with. Lydia Davis feels drunk. She goes to the bar and orders a beer and quickly swallows a lot. Lydia Davis goes to the dance floor. She likes the music. She tries to look at the people around her while trying to maintain the appearance of being focused on the DJ. She moves her body a little. She worries about Bret Easton Ellis. Everybody around her is dancing. Lydia Davis feels a strong pressure to dance. Lydia Davis moves her body to the sound of the music and tries to feel and appear absorbed in the music. Lydia Davis tries to appear like she is not feeling the music as much as is possible to make everyone understand that that's why she is not dancing so hard. Lydia Davis feels drunk. She feels in control. She feels happy. She walks to the bar and orders another beer. Lydia Davis is confused about what she is doing for a second, and feels like she is just standing in an empty building alone, feeling confused about her geographic location. Then Lydia Davis sees Raymond Carver at the bar, talking to a girl. Lydia Davis moves kind of close to Raymond Carver and tries to think of something she can say. The only thing Lydia Davis can think of saying is "What are you doing," or "You're Raymond Carver, right?" Lydia Davis wants something to happen. She imagines an earthquake happening and herself saving Raymond Carver from a falling concrete pillar. Lydia Davis feels ashamed and uncomfortable. She looks at Raymond Carver. He is five feet away from her. Lydia Davis goes back to the dance floor. She moves around a little. She makes eye-contact with some people. Good eye-contact. Lydia Davis pictures herself dancing and thinks "I look good." She smiles. "I'm having the best time of my life!" Lydia Davis thinks. Lydia Davis starts dancing. Lydia Davis starts dancing hard. Lydia Davis is in the corner by herself. A man moves close to Lydia Davis. Lydia Davis moves close to the man. Lydia Davis is in the middle of everyone now. Everyone is dancing. Lydia Davis and the man make eye-contact and smiles. The man brushes against Lydia Davis and Lydia Davis touches his waist with her hand. They make eye-contact again. Lydia Davis wants to kiss him. Their hips brush against each other, then start moving together, rhythmically. "This is good," Lydia Davis thinks. Their hips start bumping together in a rhythm different than the music. The man quickly moves to another place on the dance floor. Lydia Davis walks briskly off the dance floor. She worries that Raymond Carver might have seen what just happened. She goes to the bar and orders a Redbull vodka. Raymond Carver is still at the bar, talking to the same girl that he was talking to earlier. Lydia Davis chugs the Redbull vodka, gets her jacket, walks out the front door, unlocks her bike, and stares at two fluorescent lights. Lydia Davis feels like she has been focusing on the lights for awhile, studying them, sensing their impression on her eyeballs, and it feels like her arms are getting pricked by needles, and like her wrists and ankles are grasped by cool hands. Lydia Davis hears people talking but she doesn't try to understand them. "You guys are fucked this is fucked I don't want to be here please let me leave I need to go now I need to leave now I need to leave right now I don't want to be here!!!" Lydia Davis screams. "Don't move," someone says. "Fuck let me go I don't want to be here I can't pay for this I don't have insurance let me go please let me go!!!" Lydia Davis screams. Lydia Davis says "This is fucked" repeatedly for what feels like ten minutes. Lydia Davis stops when she feels like she doesn't mean it anymore.

Hours later, a man in blue scrubs comes to Lydia Davis' bed and gives her a yellow sheet of paper. "I can't pay for this," Lydia Davis says, "I don't have insurance." She looks at the yellow sheet of paper. The man in blue scrubs has written on it, "Do not ride bike while drunk." "You wrote 'Do not ride bike while drunk,'" Lydia Davis says. She looks at him and grins. He grins. Lydia Davis signs the paper and, after a few more hours, rides her bike home and goes to sleep.