PAUL GOES TO BED

I'll tell you the truth; I've felt since I was a child that my art is half graphic, half narrative. I worked with both independently. Now I am more interested in using the words. I'm getting disenchanted with the process & outcome of the drawing.

From my current novel. Note: Paul is a 48 year old entertainer.

Paul walked into his bedroom. It was his nerves that got him, his goddamn nerves. He sat on the bed. He pulled a bottle of rye from the night stand. Paul was past the point of enjoying liquor. But just the assurance that there was a nip or two at hand gave him something of that warm, quieting sense of stability. Every thought became a profundity. He could get through life. Bittersweet surrender was at hand.

An hour later, Mama found her son stretched across the bed, with one foot on the floor, his mouth hanging wide open, not snoring at all, but drooling noticeably. She took off his shoes, put his leg on the bed and covered him with a blanket. But she drew the line at removing his pants. That he could do himself.

COPYRIGHT 2015 BY MILTON KNIGHT