Joni's blonde hair twists crazily across her head, tangling at the nape of her neck. The soft flesh of her cheeks, ordinarily snowy white, is crimson where she had just been slapped. I see a teardrop in the corner of her clear blue eyes , but no one else can, as she drives her teenaged sister out the door. Her frineds, attending her brithday party, don't know her the way I do. Tthey wouldn't know how easily she might be chipped and broken.
"I'll kill you."
From the tone of her voice, she just might. Another side shared selectively with some people in her life. I've never seen it before. I am curious and, truth be told, a little aroused by this side of her. Hanging back, I am uncertain if she will lunge to attack or slam the door. Both decisive moves and, were I a gambling man, I'd have to study history and combine her record with averages for other girls. Betting the odds. Something safe and cautious, very like me.
I wonder how I wound up with this girl? Not why I am with her. She's everything I desire; cute, clever, petite, and dangerous. Naturally I'm with her. What I really wonder is how she wound up with me?
She slams the door, and turns the lock, but not before punching her sister in the chin. A dynamo, I'm telling you.
"What?", she asks, as she turns to me. "I won't hit you."
"I'm surprised, that's all."
I am pensive, expecting to hear her sister assaulting the door. I don't know why that troubles me. I am passive here, as I have been through most of our relationship, leaving everything up to her. Whether she chooses to ignore or unlock the door, I will be beside her, watching as closely as anybody to see what she decides. I am idly toyng with the necklace I gave her, pinching the charm between my thumb and forefinger and sliding it along the length of the chainj, like a zipper. The skin on her neck is even more milky than I remembered, and my game with the jewelry leaves little red trails across her neck as I play.
"Let's make out," she says, just before putting her arms around my waist and kissing me. I love the feeling of her tongue parting my lips and slipping into my mouth. I like how her lips feel, pressed on my own and leaving small wet spots. I especially love the way she tastes. I am intimate with Joni in ways I've never been, before. I have found myself laying around the house on slow weekends with my eyes closed, able to recall the flavor of her mouth. She has a way of moaning softly while we're joined like this. I don't believe this is passon so much as her being swept away in the moment and agreeing with all that exists. Her sensuality saying, "Yes. This is good."
A voice in the hallway startles me. I seperate, even as she continues holding me tightly, her right leg wrapped around my knee. I am aware, in that moment, of her pressing into my groin. I am awash in the sensation of her body, all the curves and clinging valleys; the smooth lines of her graceful calves. I'm holding my breath as if that will keep any small measure of her from escaping.
"You better open it. Now."
The voice, chiseling away at our embrace like engines beseiging a castle wall, pulls my lips away.
"Joni! Stop being a little bitch," her mother's voice continues, gaining volume and gathering force as we hold out in her bedroom. "Who's in there with you?"
Just that qucikly, I am no longer anonymous or immunce. She might not know who is here behind the door with her daughter, but she'll find out. It just stands to reason. My passivity is slipping away and I feel the tide carrry me out to sea instead of home to the cove I long for, closer to her heart. I want to stand up for her but already know I will flounder if this continues.
"That boy," I hear her sister answer.
"You. Open the door, please," her mother says. "Joni is getting you both in a lot of trouble?"
Which makes self-serving sense to my timid, compliant brain. Whoever speaks last holds the floor and wins the day. That's how it seems to work with me. My hand is already slipping from inside her unbuttoned blouse. My fingers feel her flesh and if I lifted them to my nose, I could surely smell her perfume. All reason enough to stay locked in this room, while her brithday party continues on the landing outside. Why don't I?
She grabs me while I'm moving towards the door. I don't doubt she's strong enough to hold me where I am, if she chooses. The way she grabs my wrist feebly, then releases, pitching it away, convinces me she's wounded. Turning her back to me, she faces the window as I move to the door, I can't see her face to decide what she's feeling, angry or betrayed? I'm invited to leave by her mother, after letting her in. Turning as I exit on the first floor, I look up to the window where I left her standing. I don't know what I expect? That she'll speak to me? Wave as I go? Cry as she watches me walk away?
Maybe.
Instead, she wraps her hand around the chain, yanking it free from her neck. Without taking time to examine, she pitches it at me as hard as she can throw. The edge of the charm stings my face, when it strikes. Inches from where her lips were, moments ago. I can still taste her in my mouth as I walk away.
And I've always been drawn to dangerous women.
2010-07-16
Moving
Her life is packed into boxes from King's Soopers and stowed in the back of a Ford F-150. I know this because the pickup is mine, the grocery store is near my house in Greeley, and I put the cartons where they are, now. No accidents here. finding me here beside her looking over the empty apartment she has lived in for the past eight months, may be a random chance. I like the idea of divine purpose but don't have a great deal of corroborating evidence from my own life to support it. I find myself saying "everything happens for a reason" primarily when something bad takes place and I don't know what the fuck else to say. A lie, I guess, unless there really is a god micromanaging our lives. I'm of two minds, in this respect. As attractive as it would be having a father who art in, more often than not I sense nothing monitoring my life.
At least, I hope there isn't. I'm a drug addict and make a mess of almost everything I touch. Point me to a deity willing to take responsibility and I'm one of the faithful.
Standing beside Anita as she finishes packing the last box, I appreciate how beautiful she is. Stunning, in fact. Alluring in a natural, no cosmetic fashion. Gorgeous in her light silk top, billowing with a breeze through the window. Fantastic in a light skirt reaching below her ankles, the same breeze accenting her slinky hips and hinting at her shapely legs. Other women, might choose blue jeans, especially around here.
Not her. Anita's femininity is palpable, demanding expression regardless of the setting. Relying on the scientific method, observing her the past three years, removes all doubt. She is the most beautiful female I have ever met.
If she isn't, I disregard the evidence. I'm obsessively in love with her, have been for awhile. I can cut corners and make a few errors. Making a mess of life is time-consuming. I find shortcuts wherever possible. I ignore being married. That makes it simpler ignoring that Anita is the lover of my closest friend helps, too. They are going through a difficult time. The difficultly being how much she loves him and how often he is fucking someone else. Nightly, if I am suddenly devoted to the facts. It comes with his band playing at the bar. He could easily double or triple his fucking if he were motivated, a curse of talented, sensitive men and the women who spend a lot of time drinking in the club.
So, I'm a friend, helping her move; which almost holds water if I suddenly need an alibi. A tidy facade, suitable for everyday use around the house. My wife accepted it. Maybe she was too wounded and hurt by my Anita obsession? We avoided it for the past year. Why break protocol while pulling out of the drive? What would it change?
All a good prediction of this factoid's legs. Having cleared the hurdle of Brenda's jealousy without losing speed, nothing to fear when facing Gerry. He didn't care much, if he cared at all. I might mention to him how we spent our day. wearing this same friend mask, bringing him drinks like any buddy would.
Which still didn't answer how it was going to sound to Anita. Did a friend drive fifty miles to load household possessions before hauling her and them to Capitol Hill? It's possible. One hell of a good friend, to be sure, but enough to hide behind if something doesn't go as I hope. I can complete the task, exiting Denver without losing face, my obsession and our supposed friendship unscathed. Her lips, along with her shoulders, nipples, and thighs going un-kissed but leaving my reputation unsullied.
By me, at least. Right now, I'm the only friend I'm worrying about. And her, if being concerned with the un-kissed parts of her anatomy still counts in the pal category. Does it?
The move is going too smoothly, everything working better than planned. Even with the steep climb to the landing and stairs to the second floor, we'll be finished before dark. The agenda I'm not aware of is going astray. Finishing before dusk complicates so many things I depend on being just so if my plan is going to succeed. I count on us being appropriately sweaty and exhausted. Both of us. Accepting how her fine white skin, coated with perspiration, is more lovely than my own. Anticipating the way her hair thickens, wet beneath the showerhead.
She is beautiful. More beautiful in the afternoon sun pouring through her uncovered window than I'd fantasized her looking even in the soft glow of a bare bulb on her bedside table. Her lithe form fitting so tightly against my body we might have been cut from the same cloth and rejoined here. All of my buried desires exposed, as undeniable as my hard cock, slipping between her legs while we rinse in the narrow stall.
My hands are more familiar than any detail of the room we're in. Her body opens like a flower as I kiss the small brown moles running across her breasts. Neither of us speaking of the change taking place, hard as it is to ignore. Whatever we are becoming as we fuck, there are other roles we cease; Gerry's friend, Brenda's faithful husband or a good friend helping a friend. When she cums I kiss her clean, astounded by my luck.
Everything happens for a reason.
At least, I hope there isn't. I'm a drug addict and make a mess of almost everything I touch. Point me to a deity willing to take responsibility and I'm one of the faithful.
Standing beside Anita as she finishes packing the last box, I appreciate how beautiful she is. Stunning, in fact. Alluring in a natural, no cosmetic fashion. Gorgeous in her light silk top, billowing with a breeze through the window. Fantastic in a light skirt reaching below her ankles, the same breeze accenting her slinky hips and hinting at her shapely legs. Other women, might choose blue jeans, especially around here.
Not her. Anita's femininity is palpable, demanding expression regardless of the setting. Relying on the scientific method, observing her the past three years, removes all doubt. She is the most beautiful female I have ever met.
If she isn't, I disregard the evidence. I'm obsessively in love with her, have been for awhile. I can cut corners and make a few errors. Making a mess of life is time-consuming. I find shortcuts wherever possible. I ignore being married. That makes it simpler ignoring that Anita is the lover of my closest friend helps, too. They are going through a difficult time. The difficultly being how much she loves him and how often he is fucking someone else. Nightly, if I am suddenly devoted to the facts. It comes with his band playing at the bar. He could easily double or triple his fucking if he were motivated, a curse of talented, sensitive men and the women who spend a lot of time drinking in the club.
So, I'm a friend, helping her move; which almost holds water if I suddenly need an alibi. A tidy facade, suitable for everyday use around the house. My wife accepted it. Maybe she was too wounded and hurt by my Anita obsession? We avoided it for the past year. Why break protocol while pulling out of the drive? What would it change?
All a good prediction of this factoid's legs. Having cleared the hurdle of Brenda's jealousy without losing speed, nothing to fear when facing Gerry. He didn't care much, if he cared at all. I might mention to him how we spent our day. wearing this same friend mask, bringing him drinks like any buddy would.
Which still didn't answer how it was going to sound to Anita. Did a friend drive fifty miles to load household possessions before hauling her and them to Capitol Hill? It's possible. One hell of a good friend, to be sure, but enough to hide behind if something doesn't go as I hope. I can complete the task, exiting Denver without losing face, my obsession and our supposed friendship unscathed. Her lips, along with her shoulders, nipples, and thighs going un-kissed but leaving my reputation unsullied.
By me, at least. Right now, I'm the only friend I'm worrying about. And her, if being concerned with the un-kissed parts of her anatomy still counts in the pal category. Does it?
The move is going too smoothly, everything working better than planned. Even with the steep climb to the landing and stairs to the second floor, we'll be finished before dark. The agenda I'm not aware of is going astray. Finishing before dusk complicates so many things I depend on being just so if my plan is going to succeed. I count on us being appropriately sweaty and exhausted. Both of us. Accepting how her fine white skin, coated with perspiration, is more lovely than my own. Anticipating the way her hair thickens, wet beneath the showerhead.
She is beautiful. More beautiful in the afternoon sun pouring through her uncovered window than I'd fantasized her looking even in the soft glow of a bare bulb on her bedside table. Her lithe form fitting so tightly against my body we might have been cut from the same cloth and rejoined here. All of my buried desires exposed, as undeniable as my hard cock, slipping between her legs while we rinse in the narrow stall.
My hands are more familiar than any detail of the room we're in. Her body opens like a flower as I kiss the small brown moles running across her breasts. Neither of us speaking of the change taking place, hard as it is to ignore. Whatever we are becoming as we fuck, there are other roles we cease; Gerry's friend, Brenda's faithful husband or a good friend helping a friend. When she cums I kiss her clean, astounded by my luck.
Everything happens for a reason.
2010-07-14
How To
Denny extended his arm, sweeping the accumulated junk before him aside, stopping at the edge of the dining table. Not shoving the pile over was either discipline or depression, he wasn't sure which. He'd opened enough space for two blank sheets of paper but no more, pretty much the way he'd been doing everything, lately. Just enough, with nothing extra. Was that economy or exhaustion? He wasn't sure.
The pages represented his attempt at order. He was creating a list aimed at regaining control of his life. willing to follow established rules, with his personal refinements. The separate pages were emphasized in the Effective Managent seminar he'd attended, but employing different colors for each page was his. He used the red Sharpie to write CON boldly across the top of one page and black to scratch PRO across the other. He drew a long, deep breath before he started writing with the black pen.
PRO
1.) Stop worrying about the transmission.
This was an attractive incentive because of how much a 1991 Celica would cost to repair. It wasn't at the top because it was most important; that isn't how the Pro/Con List works. Initially, nothing carries more weight or offers more benefit. Everything goes on the page.
2.) No hanging around the unemployment office.
It didn't take a genius to figure why that was a good thing.
3.) Don't have to lose weight.
"Or buy more pants in the next size up," he said, but he didn't write it. 4.) An end to weird and lousy dates. (Like last night.)
Which had started off on the wrong foot and quickly went downhill from there. He didn't know why he'd let his brother talk him into it. Maybe just to shut him up?
5.) Avoid these hangovers.
They'd been getting worse. He joked they were lasting longer than the lousy dates.
Picking up the red pen and turning to the other page, he sat poised to write.
"Therr are no wrong answers," he said aloud, mimicking the seminar host but it didn't help.
There had to be one, right? It wouldn't be a decision if everything was good. Something?
CON
1.) I'll be dead.
So, numerically, the PRO column's tally was on top and the decision made. Was it relief or resignation he felt while swallowing the pills? It didn't matter.
The pages represented his attempt at order. He was creating a list aimed at regaining control of his life. willing to follow established rules, with his personal refinements. The separate pages were emphasized in the Effective Managent seminar he'd attended, but employing different colors for each page was his. He used the red Sharpie to write CON boldly across the top of one page and black to scratch PRO across the other. He drew a long, deep breath before he started writing with the black pen.
PRO
1.) Stop worrying about the transmission.
This was an attractive incentive because of how much a 1991 Celica would cost to repair. It wasn't at the top because it was most important; that isn't how the Pro/Con List works. Initially, nothing carries more weight or offers more benefit. Everything goes on the page.
2.) No hanging around the unemployment office.
It didn't take a genius to figure why that was a good thing.
3.) Don't have to lose weight.
"Or buy more pants in the next size up," he said, but he didn't write it. 4.) An end to weird and lousy dates. (Like last night.)
Which had started off on the wrong foot and quickly went downhill from there. He didn't know why he'd let his brother talk him into it. Maybe just to shut him up?
5.) Avoid these hangovers.
They'd been getting worse. He joked they were lasting longer than the lousy dates.
Picking up the red pen and turning to the other page, he sat poised to write.
"Therr are no wrong answers," he said aloud, mimicking the seminar host but it didn't help.
There had to be one, right? It wouldn't be a decision if everything was good. Something?
CON
1.) I'll be dead.
So, numerically, the PRO column's tally was on top and the decision made. Was it relief or resignation he felt while swallowing the pills? It didn't matter.
2010-07-13
Getting It Wrong
She had barely gotten out of the car before the door slammed shut, trapping her purse strap. Smokey wasn't even looking when he stomped the gas pedal on the battered Mercury, yanking her off balance as he pulled away. Ruby was able to take a step or two backwards before being outdistanced by the car and pulled down. She landed on the blacktop surface, her back to the side windows of the Qwik-Mart. Customers inside buying cigarettes or beer probably wouldn't notice her but anybody standing in front of the hot dog cooker would. They'd have seen her landing flat on her butt and dragging along until the leather strap gave way, spilling her onto the lot like a Slurpee being tossed.
Her boyfriend still hadn't looked to the side and wouldn’t have known anything happened but for Ramon, reaching over from the passenger seat and grabbing his arm, right above the elbow.
"Man! You gonna' hurt your lady, Man."
At least Ramon cared. Ruby was certain her guy wouldn't have looked back if he hadn't been called on it.
He checked the side mirror and took his foot off the gas. The car backed up, coming to a stop right beside her. She was sitting with her bare legs pulled up to her chest, her brand new white shorts, black and coated with grease from the driveway. She was bleeding from scrapes on the backs of her legs and two nicks opened in her palms.
"Careful, baby. I don't need to be worrying about your clumsy ass," Smokey said, speaking through the window as he watched her in the mirror.
She wanted to cry. That's what she wanted to do and was just that close to it but stopped herself. He might think she was crying because she was hurt. She was and she wasn't. Hurt, that is. Mostly what she felt right now was mad. He'd put her out here working and wasn't worried enough to get out of the car. She might've been hurt?
"Jesus! Brand new shorts," she said. "They're shot."
Which was no great concern to him and he didn't seem too damned worried about blood running down her legs, a bright red trickle over her pale skin.
This isn't what she had expected to be doing. None of it. Not when she bought the shorts. This was something new and she promised herself that it was going to be a one-time thing. Just until the lawyer was paid, so she could be sure he wouldn't wind up going to jail. That was all. A couple hundred bucks. She could do that, right?
"Alright" he said to nothing in particular, just to have something to say. "Me and my boy are going to boogie. Kay? So's we don't get in your way."
She was too angry to answer but it didn't matter. The car was already out of the lot and on the street so he wouldn’t have heard her. _She was still unsteady but had to get up and out of the way of cars pulling up to gas pumps she'd landed near. Her legs were stinging when she stood up.
She jumped when he touched her.
"Jesus! what the hell?", she asked, surprised at her own reaction.
Spinning around, ready for anything, after all the trouble of the past couple days, she was surprised to see a nice looking old guy, in his thirties, at least. He was dressed in a nice pair of slacks and one of those shirts that made her think of Hawaii Five-O. Not bad looking. A little fat, maybe. And, she thought he'd look better with some facial hair. A moustache? She hadn't noticed the folded paper towels he was offering her. It was kind of sweet.
"I was getting lunch," he said, pointing to the window. "it's not much. Nothing that is going to clean you up but it will stop the bleeding?"
"Are you a doctor", she asked as she accepted the paper in his hands.
"Nope. Just a guy buying a hot dog. I _just didn't want you to get hurt."
Whether he meant it or not didn't matter a hell of a lot and she wasn't going to waste any of her time trying to gauge his sincerity. She knew she wasn't much good at judging men. That was getting obvious. She took the chance daubing her scraped legs with the towels offered to look him over a little closer. He had short cropped hair, not like a Marine but sort of like a guy who used to play football at her high school. He was a nice kid. A little stupid and oafish but nice. Maybe this guy was, too?
"Ouch," he said, walking behind her to look at her abrasions. That, or to get a look at her ass. She didn't know which but barely caught herself before tightening up, getting upset for exactly what she wanted him to do. Well, not wanted. It would be better if he didn't even have to look at her. Blind! That might be nice. Failing that she was going to try relaxing a little and letting him get an eyeful of whatever it was he was filling his eyes with.
"I've got something in my car you might want."
"Yeah?" She was pretty sure of what he was up to but still playing it slow. This was only the second day and she was still almost sick, going through the motions as he moved in closer to her. She'd never been any good at acting and was going to have to learn. Fast.
The man touched her gently on her forearm to get her attention. He was pointing to nice new Chevy pulled just gassed. He was eating the very last of the hot dog as he walked away, then stopped a moment to toss the cardboard tray into the trash before getting in his car. He jumped back out and stood beside the car, raising a hand to stop her from approaching.
"Damn!" She thought she'd already screwed it up.
_ "Why don't you hold off? Let me pull away from the pumps," he said, glancing behind her at the open corner of the lot, to the side of the convenience store. "There. I'll just part over there and we can have a look. Okay?"
A really nice 'okay'. Ruby got the feeling that if she said that wasn't okay, it would make a difference. He'd have to do something else.
"Sure."
He slipped back in, started the car and glided away to allow the car that had been waiting to pull up. Everything was nice about this guy. His clothes, his haircut, his car. Even the gesture of offering her the towels was nice, regardless of why he'd done it.
The guy parked then jumped out of the car, running around to open the door and gestured for Ruby to have a seat. She was checking to see who was watching but didn't spot anybody who seemed to care.
"Okay," she said, both to what he was offering her and to what she figured was going on. The real story. Smooth or not, he was still a guy and this was all going pretty much the way it had, yesterday. Except that guy had his hands all over her before they'd even talked a price and almost wouldn't open the door to let her out when they were done.
He was messing with something in the glove box as he asked her to stretch her legs out.
"Okay."
Whatever he was doing, she was doing it, too. She pushed her legs out the open car door, resting her heels on the pavement as the heat rising from the surface warmed the bloody flesh on back. He was moving down to her knees, where he stopped and went about pulling something from a small plastic box he'd retrieved.
"A first aid kit?"
"Yeah," he said. "What? Why. You think I'm silly?"
He removing the wrapping from an alcohol swab as he was talking and she stiffened again as he kneeled, his left hand cupping her calf and gently lifting it a few inches. "Not so silly if it keeps you from getting infected. This is going to sting."
"Jesus! Ouch."
He wasn't a liar. She knew that much about him, now. It might've been nice to let this whole little program play out but she didn't have the patience or the time. Nice guy or not, she remembered Smokey telling her "Time. That's money, baby." when she told him about the guy, last night. _It was a lesson.
She put her hand on his shoulder the way the Queen might knight a subject. She was gentle but her touch was firm."Look" she said, "You don't have to. It's all very nice and all. Just that you don't have to. We can just..."
She stopped there, not sure how much more she could safely say. She knew he was the one who had to solicit or she could get into a lot of trouble. Not that she was a cop. She didn't think that. She just wanted to get things right, didn't want to make the same mistakes, later. Another lesson, this one she was teaching herself.
He stopped, pulling the bloody swab away, not sure what do to with it, now. The trash? That made sense but it was a little ways away. If he used more than one of these, and looking at her wounds, he was going to, he'd be running back and forth every couple of minutes.
"We don't need to. You don't," she said. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm tough. I thought maybe you were looking for a date?"
She was startled by the way he froze, everything coming to a stop. If she checked, he probably wasn't even breathing. He looked like one of those guys. The type who held their breath, trying to figure out what was going on. What startled her was the look on his face. He was staring at her as his "I'm kind so I'm smiling at you but don't understand" smile melted slowly, replaced by little wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the trash without saying a word. It might have just been her but she felt like he threw the wipe away like it was diseased and he wanted as far away from it as he get it. He turned back, looking in her direction but a little high, to not risk meeting her eyes. He walked slowly. Giving her a chance to disappear before reaching his car and having to deal with her, again? Maybe.
She was standing now, the sting on her legs nothing compared to the sick jumble her guts had become. There was a ringing in her head though not coming from her ears and she was dizzy. There was different spots of her head under pressure and her attention was narrowing down from the external setting to the distance between her eyes and the back of her throat. Was she going to get sick?
He closed the passenger door without slamming it. He was still the same guy he'd been when he was offering her help for her wounds but she wasn't the same girl. She couldn't even look him in the eyes when he told her to take care of those things. So she didn't wind up getting infected. He was hugging the surface of the car, his hips almost sliding along the body as he returned to the driver's side.
"I mean it. You be careful, " he said, sounding older, now, as old as her Dad. That old. She wasn't only able to nod as he drove away, watching his head but never seeing him look in the mirror while pulling out.
Her boyfriend still hadn't looked to the side and wouldn’t have known anything happened but for Ramon, reaching over from the passenger seat and grabbing his arm, right above the elbow.
"Man! You gonna' hurt your lady, Man."
At least Ramon cared. Ruby was certain her guy wouldn't have looked back if he hadn't been called on it.
He checked the side mirror and took his foot off the gas. The car backed up, coming to a stop right beside her. She was sitting with her bare legs pulled up to her chest, her brand new white shorts, black and coated with grease from the driveway. She was bleeding from scrapes on the backs of her legs and two nicks opened in her palms.
"Careful, baby. I don't need to be worrying about your clumsy ass," Smokey said, speaking through the window as he watched her in the mirror.
She wanted to cry. That's what she wanted to do and was just that close to it but stopped herself. He might think she was crying because she was hurt. She was and she wasn't. Hurt, that is. Mostly what she felt right now was mad. He'd put her out here working and wasn't worried enough to get out of the car. She might've been hurt?
"Jesus! Brand new shorts," she said. "They're shot."
Which was no great concern to him and he didn't seem too damned worried about blood running down her legs, a bright red trickle over her pale skin.
This isn't what she had expected to be doing. None of it. Not when she bought the shorts. This was something new and she promised herself that it was going to be a one-time thing. Just until the lawyer was paid, so she could be sure he wouldn't wind up going to jail. That was all. A couple hundred bucks. She could do that, right?
"Alright" he said to nothing in particular, just to have something to say. "Me and my boy are going to boogie. Kay? So's we don't get in your way."
She was too angry to answer but it didn't matter. The car was already out of the lot and on the street so he wouldn’t have heard her. _She was still unsteady but had to get up and out of the way of cars pulling up to gas pumps she'd landed near. Her legs were stinging when she stood up.
She jumped when he touched her.
"Jesus! what the hell?", she asked, surprised at her own reaction.
Spinning around, ready for anything, after all the trouble of the past couple days, she was surprised to see a nice looking old guy, in his thirties, at least. He was dressed in a nice pair of slacks and one of those shirts that made her think of Hawaii Five-O. Not bad looking. A little fat, maybe. And, she thought he'd look better with some facial hair. A moustache? She hadn't noticed the folded paper towels he was offering her. It was kind of sweet.
"I was getting lunch," he said, pointing to the window. "it's not much. Nothing that is going to clean you up but it will stop the bleeding?"
"Are you a doctor", she asked as she accepted the paper in his hands.
"Nope. Just a guy buying a hot dog. I _just didn't want you to get hurt."
Whether he meant it or not didn't matter a hell of a lot and she wasn't going to waste any of her time trying to gauge his sincerity. She knew she wasn't much good at judging men. That was getting obvious. She took the chance daubing her scraped legs with the towels offered to look him over a little closer. He had short cropped hair, not like a Marine but sort of like a guy who used to play football at her high school. He was a nice kid. A little stupid and oafish but nice. Maybe this guy was, too?
"Ouch," he said, walking behind her to look at her abrasions. That, or to get a look at her ass. She didn't know which but barely caught herself before tightening up, getting upset for exactly what she wanted him to do. Well, not wanted. It would be better if he didn't even have to look at her. Blind! That might be nice. Failing that she was going to try relaxing a little and letting him get an eyeful of whatever it was he was filling his eyes with.
"I've got something in my car you might want."
"Yeah?" She was pretty sure of what he was up to but still playing it slow. This was only the second day and she was still almost sick, going through the motions as he moved in closer to her. She'd never been any good at acting and was going to have to learn. Fast.
The man touched her gently on her forearm to get her attention. He was pointing to nice new Chevy pulled just gassed. He was eating the very last of the hot dog as he walked away, then stopped a moment to toss the cardboard tray into the trash before getting in his car. He jumped back out and stood beside the car, raising a hand to stop her from approaching.
"Damn!" She thought she'd already screwed it up.
_ "Why don't you hold off? Let me pull away from the pumps," he said, glancing behind her at the open corner of the lot, to the side of the convenience store. "There. I'll just part over there and we can have a look. Okay?"
A really nice 'okay'. Ruby got the feeling that if she said that wasn't okay, it would make a difference. He'd have to do something else.
"Sure."
He slipped back in, started the car and glided away to allow the car that had been waiting to pull up. Everything was nice about this guy. His clothes, his haircut, his car. Even the gesture of offering her the towels was nice, regardless of why he'd done it.
The guy parked then jumped out of the car, running around to open the door and gestured for Ruby to have a seat. She was checking to see who was watching but didn't spot anybody who seemed to care.
"Okay," she said, both to what he was offering her and to what she figured was going on. The real story. Smooth or not, he was still a guy and this was all going pretty much the way it had, yesterday. Except that guy had his hands all over her before they'd even talked a price and almost wouldn't open the door to let her out when they were done.
He was messing with something in the glove box as he asked her to stretch her legs out.
"Okay."
Whatever he was doing, she was doing it, too. She pushed her legs out the open car door, resting her heels on the pavement as the heat rising from the surface warmed the bloody flesh on back. He was moving down to her knees, where he stopped and went about pulling something from a small plastic box he'd retrieved.
"A first aid kit?"
"Yeah," he said. "What? Why. You think I'm silly?"
He removing the wrapping from an alcohol swab as he was talking and she stiffened again as he kneeled, his left hand cupping her calf and gently lifting it a few inches. "Not so silly if it keeps you from getting infected. This is going to sting."
"Jesus! Ouch."
He wasn't a liar. She knew that much about him, now. It might've been nice to let this whole little program play out but she didn't have the patience or the time. Nice guy or not, she remembered Smokey telling her "Time. That's money, baby." when she told him about the guy, last night. _It was a lesson.
She put her hand on his shoulder the way the Queen might knight a subject. She was gentle but her touch was firm."Look" she said, "You don't have to. It's all very nice and all. Just that you don't have to. We can just..."
She stopped there, not sure how much more she could safely say. She knew he was the one who had to solicit or she could get into a lot of trouble. Not that she was a cop. She didn't think that. She just wanted to get things right, didn't want to make the same mistakes, later. Another lesson, this one she was teaching herself.
He stopped, pulling the bloody swab away, not sure what do to with it, now. The trash? That made sense but it was a little ways away. If he used more than one of these, and looking at her wounds, he was going to, he'd be running back and forth every couple of minutes.
"We don't need to. You don't," she said. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm tough. I thought maybe you were looking for a date?"
She was startled by the way he froze, everything coming to a stop. If she checked, he probably wasn't even breathing. He looked like one of those guys. The type who held their breath, trying to figure out what was going on. What startled her was the look on his face. He was staring at her as his "I'm kind so I'm smiling at you but don't understand" smile melted slowly, replaced by little wrinkles at the corners of his mouth. He stood up and walked over to the trash without saying a word. It might have just been her but she felt like he threw the wipe away like it was diseased and he wanted as far away from it as he get it. He turned back, looking in her direction but a little high, to not risk meeting her eyes. He walked slowly. Giving her a chance to disappear before reaching his car and having to deal with her, again? Maybe.
She was standing now, the sting on her legs nothing compared to the sick jumble her guts had become. There was a ringing in her head though not coming from her ears and she was dizzy. There was different spots of her head under pressure and her attention was narrowing down from the external setting to the distance between her eyes and the back of her throat. Was she going to get sick?
He closed the passenger door without slamming it. He was still the same guy he'd been when he was offering her help for her wounds but she wasn't the same girl. She couldn't even look him in the eyes when he told her to take care of those things. So she didn't wind up getting infected. He was hugging the surface of the car, his hips almost sliding along the body as he returned to the driver's side.
"I mean it. You be careful, " he said, sounding older, now, as old as her Dad. That old. She wasn't only able to nod as he drove away, watching his head but never seeing him look in the mirror while pulling out.
2010-06-14
Building A Body of Work
06-14-2010
06:00
Well, that was fucking aggravating as hell. Just hammered out about six hundred words only to to lose everything when I clicked on the wrong thing and didn't havea it saved. I am trying to work with doing all my composing in the Write Or Die
Deskstop edition just because I like the full interface and the timer, with the warning if I stop typing. I was using it with the backspace key disabled but stopped doing that because of the tedium of having to go back and do all the spellchecking and typo correction after the fact. I also like being able to make a full screen display look a whole lot like the amber monochrome monitor I used to have for my PCjr, back in 1984. There is something very easy and comfrorting for the eyes in this color combination. I played with it for almost two hours last night before settling on an amaber hue that is slightly duller than I thought it should be and a background that isn't nearly as black as I've been making it. still not a hundred percent happy with it but trying to prevent myself from going back and correcting it anymore than I already have. It works and it really is very easy on my eyes. Something I've missed ever since I got rid of my monochrome monitor. That was truly a joy to create on. Maybe I should go find another one and start using it again? Wonder what that would take and if it would be worth the trouble?
One things i'm enjoying about the Write Or Die app is realizing how quickly I can put out words if I don't allow myself to be distracted. It is nothing for me to type five hundred words. I set myself half an hour to complete four-hundred and eighty. Even with taking time to go back and make corrections, I am well above target on that, already, having almost comleted the word count but being less than a fourth of the way through the allotted time. Interesting and something I should have remembered from NaNo. Now, the goal is to get used to just writing like this. Not doing all the crazy damned editing that I've been guilty of trying to do when I should be composing a first draft. I'm always working on a second or third which, oddly enough, is never complete. Bad habits that keep me frommaking progress.
I'm enjoying this Write Or Die app for the reminders it gives me to keep moving. If I stop typing for longer than ten seconds, the background color of the screen changes. If I let myself linger longer than that, it plays an annoying MP3 I created out of Katy Perry's WAKING UP IN VEGAS. Hate to say it, but that is really effective for me. I'm reluctant to stop typing and very quick to resume if I quit long enough to see the changes taking place on the screen. Also, with the word count and timer mmonitors, I'm aware of what I'm getting done. For instance, I have just finished the four hundred ande eighty word goal I set for the past thrity minutes and got to hear a little victory song. Very nice. It helped me.
06:00
Well, that was fucking aggravating as hell. Just hammered out about six hundred words only to to lose everything when I clicked on the wrong thing and didn't havea it saved. I am trying to work with doing all my composing in the Write Or Die
Deskstop edition just because I like the full interface and the timer, with the warning if I stop typing. I was using it with the backspace key disabled but stopped doing that because of the tedium of having to go back and do all the spellchecking and typo correction after the fact. I also like being able to make a full screen display look a whole lot like the amber monochrome monitor I used to have for my PCjr, back in 1984. There is something very easy and comfrorting for the eyes in this color combination. I played with it for almost two hours last night before settling on an amaber hue that is slightly duller than I thought it should be and a background that isn't nearly as black as I've been making it. still not a hundred percent happy with it but trying to prevent myself from going back and correcting it anymore than I already have. It works and it really is very easy on my eyes. Something I've missed ever since I got rid of my monochrome monitor. That was truly a joy to create on. Maybe I should go find another one and start using it again? Wonder what that would take and if it would be worth the trouble?
One things i'm enjoying about the Write Or Die app is realizing how quickly I can put out words if I don't allow myself to be distracted. It is nothing for me to type five hundred words. I set myself half an hour to complete four-hundred and eighty. Even with taking time to go back and make corrections, I am well above target on that, already, having almost comleted the word count but being less than a fourth of the way through the allotted time. Interesting and something I should have remembered from NaNo. Now, the goal is to get used to just writing like this. Not doing all the crazy damned editing that I've been guilty of trying to do when I should be composing a first draft. I'm always working on a second or third which, oddly enough, is never complete. Bad habits that keep me frommaking progress.
I'm enjoying this Write Or Die app for the reminders it gives me to keep moving. If I stop typing for longer than ten seconds, the background color of the screen changes. If I let myself linger longer than that, it plays an annoying MP3 I created out of Katy Perry's WAKING UP IN VEGAS. Hate to say it, but that is really effective for me. I'm reluctant to stop typing and very quick to resume if I quit long enough to see the changes taking place on the screen. Also, with the word count and timer mmonitors, I'm aware of what I'm getting done. For instance, I have just finished the four hundred ande eighty word goal I set for the past thrity minutes and got to hear a little victory song. Very nice. It helped me.
2010-02-22
ALL THAT I DO NOT KNOW
I'm frequently surprised by a kick in the ass, just about the time I believe I know what is going on. Something in my condition, leading me to figure I know what happened in the past, I'm clever enough to collect data on what has happened to other people and somehow, I'll magically pull all of that together and know what is coming up in my life. An 'instant on' pseudo-clairvoyant suitable for children's parties or to amaze friends sitting around waiting for the beer. So frequently though, I'm reminded that I don't know anything about life and surely don't have any idea what is coming next.
I become most aware of that with illness. Illness is the thing that I never find myself planning into a schedule or setting aside a bit of time just in case it happens to appear. Rather than a soft little rap at the door, after pausing on the front porch like a shadow, illness has a way of sweeping me up and tossing me away. There was nothing to be done but all the while I'm feeling like I should be doing something. That I should have been preparing or conscious or more careful. That's a good one. More careful? I have no idea what I might have done to spot this sooner. I traveled through the past couple of months bearing a collection of symptoms, waiting for some unifying theme to put it all together; make sense of it.
And here it is. Everything, after the tests and the probes and the teams of specialists. Here it all is. Now we know. At least they do, and I know that I think they know. There is nothing else for me to do but lay back and become something of a self-monitoring side of beef. They roll me, twist me, pinch me and poke as they feel the need. I report the important things like bowel movements and chest pains and the fact that my hair is falling out.
We wait. Therre is nothing, so far as I'm able to see that either I or the doctors can do to speed this up. I have a habit of picking random dates and setting them as milestones. I think, "okay. so this might take me three weeks before I recover. Three weeks would make that, ummmm Sunday. So I should be back out and normal by Monday. Tuuesday at the latest."
The problem with that is I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I have no idea how I heal or do not. I have no clue about what this is I'm fighting or where I'm likely to be wrestling with it, next. I make these really big assumptions based on a modicum of information, only to be disappointed when it doesn't come through like I "planned:".
I didn't plan anything. I'm going to sit back and watch.
I become most aware of that with illness. Illness is the thing that I never find myself planning into a schedule or setting aside a bit of time just in case it happens to appear. Rather than a soft little rap at the door, after pausing on the front porch like a shadow, illness has a way of sweeping me up and tossing me away. There was nothing to be done but all the while I'm feeling like I should be doing something. That I should have been preparing or conscious or more careful. That's a good one. More careful? I have no idea what I might have done to spot this sooner. I traveled through the past couple of months bearing a collection of symptoms, waiting for some unifying theme to put it all together; make sense of it.
And here it is. Everything, after the tests and the probes and the teams of specialists. Here it all is. Now we know. At least they do, and I know that I think they know. There is nothing else for me to do but lay back and become something of a self-monitoring side of beef. They roll me, twist me, pinch me and poke as they feel the need. I report the important things like bowel movements and chest pains and the fact that my hair is falling out.
We wait. Therre is nothing, so far as I'm able to see that either I or the doctors can do to speed this up. I have a habit of picking random dates and setting them as milestones. I think, "okay. so this might take me three weeks before I recover. Three weeks would make that, ummmm Sunday. So I should be back out and normal by Monday. Tuuesday at the latest."
The problem with that is I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. I have no idea how I heal or do not. I have no clue about what this is I'm fighting or where I'm likely to be wrestling with it, next. I make these really big assumptions based on a modicum of information, only to be disappointed when it doesn't come through like I "planned:".
I didn't plan anything. I'm going to sit back and watch.
"Backward through my own days I see where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders. I have no mockings or arguments. I witness and wait."Walt Whitman, LEAVES OF GRASS
2009-11-23
FALLING, FAILING TO FIND (2009-11-23)
* * *
Doreen left the conversation right there, at the mention of the name. It was enough. Just hearing it was setting off full-length Hollywood movies in her mind. Old movies, where the rooms were about three thousand times nicer than most people would ever see and the characters stood in exactly the right spots for the lighting to find them, casting appropriate shadows and gently filling where there might otherwise be blemishes. That wasn't the real world, which suited Doreen just fine. There wasn't a whole lot of room in her memories for it, anyway.
She was willing to launch into a long narrative, describing that true romance and the intricacies of a love that only knows the shadows. It was a story she was eminently qualified to tell. The years she'd spent living next door to the family of the man she loved, watching him park in their driveway and sneak through her backdoor, had been rich in a curious fashion. They were important but hard to share.
Just so, now. There was something you never knew about people. How they were going to react when hearing an intimate detail like that. Doreen had learned a long while back to be very cautious when she decided who might hear her "other woman" story. The reaction was something she could never really be sure of.
She'd seen the same odd mix of reactions in other things, too. Her husband, for example, loved to tell people he'd declared bankruptcy. It was some sort of vindication, for him. His way of saying, "See? I told you they were out to screw me." He would launch into his bankruptcy saga in the oddest times, like standing in line a the bank. One of his favorites. Or during dinner out with other couples. That might be another reason they didn't eat out a whole hell of a lot. He had this way about him.
Things would be flowing along nicely then, completely out of left field, he'd pull up his tired "me and my bankruptcy" tale, like some sort of buddy story. You'd think he'd traveled across Europe with his close personal friend, the bankruptcy.
The thing was, and something he'd never realized, it seemed, was that it was her bankruptcy, too. If declaring bankruptcy in 1976 was a troublesome thing for a man to do, then it was more than a minefield for a woman to be walking through at the same time. She discovered that when she divorced him in 1980.
* * *
Noah was dozing off. This could have been a result of all the alcohol he'd been drinking that night before this unfortunate event had carried him to the Sacred Heart emergency room. There had been any number of mixed drinks in there besides the new twist he'd been adding by sipping absinthe. Absinthe is a liqueur that combines the body numbing effects of any good booze with the hypnagogic episodes of any above average psychedelic drug. It was, in a sense, the best of both worlds. He'd read it about it years ago, while studying the French revisionist writers and the soirees they were famous for holding. Their own raves, in fact, though they didn't have the benefit of modern electronics to make it all it might been. No strobes, no laser lights, no sound-activated led panels. Poor bastards.
He likened it to LSD, himself. Of course, he would because he'd taken so much of it during his teen-aged years and there was nothing now that prevented daily flashbacks but his own shortened attention span. He just didn't have the energy to stick with a single thought long enough to generate a new acid experience. It might have scared him, if he had.
The last time he'd done acid intentionally, was at a New Year's Party in 1982. He'd been surrounded by a bunch of people all crazy about cocaine. Not just enthusiasts. These people were addicts and the party was an odd little affair with about 30 uptight people sitting around in a living room having short spurts of words exchanged that seemed to be conversations to all of them, while anxiously watching to see if one person slipped of to the bathroom and was gone for longer than was deemed necessary. An arbitrary measure, to be sure, since everybody was jacked up and though they didn't know it and there was no way in hell you were going to convince them of it, one or two more lines of blow were not going to make a whole hell of a lot of difference.
It's the devil, to be sure. Ask anybody who has finally escaped its clutches. Or anybody in that room that night who hadn't gotten invited back to the bedroom to stare into a mirror laying on the desk with white powder in an neat little pile with small rails carved in distinct doses, contributed by how much you liked or were like in the house.
Noah had been invited back. What's more, the lines laid out and offered to him where big fat blobs, more hills than meager doses. This was testimony to his charm and another symbol of the curse that his own charm had become to him. There was a lot of this in his life. A lot of people expecting him to like what they liked and being pressured to join in.
He didn't like coke. He'd taken acid that night and knew that all the cocaine was going to do was irritate his nasal passages. He dreaded spending the rest of the night experiencing the sands of the New Mexican desert sprinkled all around inside his sinuses. It was something of an image he'd gotten in his head and, not being graced or cursed, whichever it was, with the shortened span of attention at the time, he was destined to be plagued with that picture most of the evening. It was troublesome.
What was more troublesome was sensing the distaste being directed at him by the host for his refusal to accept their gift. He had a movie of the week running in his head telling the story of a French trapper offending a Sioux chief by turning down his daughter. In the movie the trapper was tortured for days and finally killed by being skinned alive. That was the sort of thing Noah saw in his head when he did acid. Whether or not it ever happened didn't matter a whole hell of a lot. In the real world, or as real as the world might get in the house of a person selling contraband at the rate of one hundreds dollars for about the weight of paper clip, dealing with a crowd of people likely to leave their hungry naked children starving in a broken down car while they chased their dope.
Maybe it was better to see trappers getting skinned?
At least in that fantasy the surroundings were beautiful; the soft rolling hills of the Great Plains, everything covered in swaying buffalo grass grown so high a man on horseback could disappear in it. There was always the brilliant blue of the western sky. Not because there was that, so much. Just every movie he'd seen accented it. Come to think of it, a whole lot of Noah's world experience seemed influenced by these elements: acid and Hollywood. Was that an accident?
"Cary Grant!"
He jumped when he realized he was sitting amid a bunch of vampires with a blood lust, looking for a line of powder. Then, add the fact he'd spoken those words out loud.
"Damn it!"
Not an empathetic crowd, to be sure. There were four people playing cribbage who all stopped to look when he spoke. None of them moved or seemed willing to, even if they had to. They were transfixed, aligned in an order that would only be apparent to their vampire brothers and sisters. Others, Noah included, would only sense what the pattern was when they went against it. The urge to conform was tangible. A force field, almost. He was raising his hands, in part to separate the force field, allowing himself safe passage, but also in a defensive measure, protecting his face.
The dealer appeared at the door, at that very moment. Partially to see what the hell the racket was. Yes. One person speaking two sentences could indeed be a racket here. Get use to addicts, who aren't willing to expend a single ounce of energy in any direction that wouldn't get or keep them high. Simple mathematics. The law of addiction, only understood in terms of demand. Constant demand. There couldn't be enough dope in the world to ever satisfy it.
Noah figured all of this out in the split second between the cribbage players returning their concentration to the pegs, and the door to the back bedroom opening completely. A pretty long stretch of time, considering.
And he recalled this now, in part as thanks to the wormwood. Funny thing, recalling a trip while tripping. A moment of infinite duplication. He'd seen such a thing before by standing two mirrors at right angles to one another. Staring at that was a little like falling into a mouse hole. Thinking about staring into a mouse hole was a little like peering at two mirrors. He was caught in some kind of vortex now and the only way was...
Well, shit! He didn't know. There wasn't an obvious route so he'd just be picking a course and proceeding as if. Not a bad analogy for his life strategy. Oddly enough, he didn't think of that, at the moment. It was the sort of thing he would've thought, or so he thought Wormwood was a wild little ride, you see. There wasn't going to be another chance.
What the hell was he doing there? Not here. There. In that house that night when the cocaine was skulking around in the corners, just enough to keep the noses of everybody present alert and waiting. They'd each gotten a taste, which was a big mistake. It was something the coke dealer should have and probably did know. Another problem with drugs and addiction. It doesn't necessarily have to make you stupid but it always does. Always.
The proof of that theorem was simple. Right at hand. When members of the state task force on cocaine kicked in the door and raced to round up the occupants of the house. They kicked in the front door and rushed in, flushing them out the back where a larger contingent of agents and officers waited, capturing them like cattle in catch pens. They went in "heavy", parlance for fully armed with automatic weapons and body armor. They might have expected violence.
What they got was Noah, out of his mind, perched in the middle of the living room, watching words come out of people's mouths.
"I see what you're saying," he said.
"Ha Ha."
They thought he was crazy. Another observation both nearer and further away than anything they could have guessed.
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