Nights Like Tonight

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Summary: Jeff contemplates his existence and the cold New York night.

AUTHOR: Catw00man
EMAIL: catw00man@cryptoffic.com
RATING: R
SERIES: Dark Nights Series
CHARACTER: Jeff Gordon POV
CATEGORY: Serious Angst
COMPLETED: July 13, 2004
WORD COUNT: 1,173
DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: OK I’m really sorry, but I needed some serious dark angst. Definitely not an uplifting piece.
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The Night Before the Winston Cup Banquet: New York, 2001

It’s nights like this that really get me, but this night has definitely been the worst. As I sit on this hotel balcony looking out on to the lights of New York city, I take another drag off my cigarette. I can’t help but snort as I think about how many people would die of shock if they saw me smoking. But it’s only been since that day that I smoke, and only on nights like tonight.

For some reason it calms me--or lets me wallow in my depression--I don’t know which. Maybe I do it because I know every drag brings me a little closer to death, and for some reason that feels right…on a night like tonight.

I look towards the sliding glass door behind which my wife sleeps as I light another cigarette. My wife, is she still that anymore? She really hates it when I do this, and maybe that’s another reason I do. I don’t know. All I do know is everything changed that day…there was no going back.

I don’t think she and I have really been right for awhile, and I’m not sure when it all started going wrong. I just know when I knew it was the beginning of the end. We’ve just grown too far apart, and she never really was made to be a NASCAR driver’s wife, much less mine.

How long can you try to change before you realize you’ve lost yourself along the way? Before you begin to resent those who brought about the changes in you? I really don’t know. I just know when it all became clear. When everything finally snapped into focus and the blinders where taken away.

Ah, hell. Now I’m being melodramatic. I reach down and take a drink from the long neck by my side and wonder if the mini bar inside has whiskey or maybe bourbon. The burn really might be nice about now. Heh, I wonder what people would think about the great Jeff Gordon if they could see me now, debating on what would get me drunk faster. If they only knew.

It’s funny how peaceful a city full of thousands of lights and God knows how many people can be. You can really get lost here. Maybe that’s why I like this place so much. Maybe I should get a place here…for nights like tonight.

I really should be inside by now. I have a big day tomorrow full of fake smiles and speeches a four time champion has to endure. But it won’t be the same. It will never be the same. How could it?

I flick my cigarette butt over the railing of the balcony, can’t have the maid finding butts in the champion’s room now can we? I smile as I light another smoke, but I know the smile doesn’t reach my eyes. Brooke said something once about my eyes on one of these nights, I think. Something about how they were cold as ice. I think I laughed. Maybe I just ignored her. It’s not like she understands. How could she, when I’m not really sure I do.

In a world this vast and far reaching with so many people and so many lives, how can one leave such a hole? How can one soul touch so many and take so much when it leaves? How can one person I wasn’t even in love with make me feel so incomplete…and there I go getting deep all over again. I should really go inside before I lose the tentative grip on my sanity.

I can’t help but laugh as I take another drink of my beer. But there’s no happiness in the sound. Just a hollow echo of a sound that should be filled with joy. I really am in rare form tonight. Take another deep burning drag. Whiskey would be really good right now.

It’s really pretty cold out here tonight. Too cold to be sitting here like I am on the top floor, but right now the biting cold fits my mood. I wonder what it would be like to fly? To jump over that railing and fly through the sky down to the hard pavement below. It couldn’t hurt much right? That’s what they said about hitting the wall. It’s instant. You don’t feel a thing. Except the excruciating pain as your spine is snapped and your ribs are crushed. Maybe learning to fly isn’t the best idea after all. I know he’d kick my ass if I did, even if he had to go to hell to do it.

I drain my beer and light my last cigarette off the end of the last. Chain smoking…what a role model I make. I smile my mirthless smile again as I inhale deeply and watch the smoke curl away from my lips as I blow it out. He won’t be there tomorrow, I finally force myself to admit. He won’t be there to grab me by the back of the neck and give me that bear hug of his. And he won’t be here for the next or the next.

It was never supposed to happen this way. He should be there, of all people he should be there. What if perchance I do get lucky and not die and reach that iconic number of seven? He won’t be there. He’ll never again tell me that, “you done good kid,” in that condescending way when you knew he really meant it and you had impressed him. But it was all taken away that one damn day in Daytona. That one damn day that should never have happened. When the world became hard and loud and full of too many colors.

The blinders are off my friend. This is the real world, and it’s hard and cold and cruel. There is no storybook ending and the prince doesn’t get to keep his princess because a part of him has died inside. But he’ll continue. The way he always does, and he won’t disappoint. Until the day finally comes when he doesn’t have to fake it anymore.

“Damn you Dale,” I whisper as I toss my last cigarette and stand up. “Why did it all have to end this way?” My legs are stiff as I’ve sat here too long and my lungs are burning from the cold and the smoke. I weave a bit as I gather my empty bottles to bring inside, and make a mental note to shove them in my suitcase in the morning so no one knows about my binge.

As I open the door to go back inside the suite I decide to check that mini bar after all. I bet there is some whiskey, and I think I have another pack of smokes in one of my jackets. Maybe at some point I’ll have enough to sleep. Maybe I’ll have enough to get though one more night like tonight.  

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Catw00man - catw00man@cryptoffic.com