---------------------------------------------
Strange how
my heart beats
To find myself upon your shore.
Strange how
I still feel
My loss of comfort gone before.
Cool waves wash over
and drift away with dreams of youth
so time is stolen
I cannot hold you long enough.
And so
this is where I should be now
Days and nights falling by
Days and nights falling by me.
I know
of a dream I should be holding
days and nights falling by
Days and nights falling by me.
Soft blue horizons
reach far into my childhood days
as you are rising
to bring me my forgotten ways.
Strange how I falter
to find I'm standing in deep water.
Strange how
my heart beats
to find I'm standing on your shore.
Enya - On Your Shore
-------------------------------------------
The last formation of the day had been dismissed, and I had escaped extra duty and so was in the dayroom of the barracks. My feet were encased in half-untied combat boots, propped up on a wooden end table. I was dozing in front of the communal TV.
The muggy Mississippi evening was, even this early in the year, soporific as warm whiskey. The very act of breathing the cottony moisture wore one down to the point that even the constant hum of insects would result in nothing more than a lazy pro-forma swat. I knew now why everyone in the whole state moved in slow motion.
I had dropped my more-or-less daily letter to Jonnie into the mailbox over by the PX, and was now bored to distraction. I was thinking about starting another letter. I hated writing, usually, but I actually enjoyed writing her. It was like talking to her, but being able to fix all the stupid stuff, and erase the things I wish I hadn't said -- writing allowed perfection unattainable in real life, a good thing, since she kept it all.
In fact she said she kept everything I'd ever sent to her in a special place, and she did, too. She showed it to me once; she carefully took the yellow satin ribbon off the cardboard box, then lifted the lid with both hands, slowly, as if she were a priestess about to reveal the First Covenant.
"See?" she said softly, "Everything's here."
And it was -- all my letters, tickets to a show, a menu I'd long forgotten, the miscellaneous detritus of us, and the faint scent of roses; doubtless from the faded yellow petals pressed in their own paper sleeve.
------------------------
I missed her; two weeks of training here, then a month in the Philippines -- it was going to be a tough haul without her. The TV chattered in the background, the buzzing air was on me like a damp, steaming blanket. I thought about going up to the room and beginning a new letter -- I dozed again, dreaming the last dream I would ever have of her smiling at me, loving me; then she was waving goodbye in a rearview mirror, trying to smile, but crying, sad beyond grief...
He kicked my feet off the table, slamming them to the floor, jolting me awake, and said "Get off your ass, boy. Let's go."
"Jesus, Billy," I said, "I was sleeping here." I was seriously pissed off.
He laughed. "That's SERGEANT Billy to you, low-life." He'd gotten his promotion orders that month, and he was constantly ragging me -- mostly because we knew that I'd have mine before the end of the quarter, and then he'd have no one to aggravate about it.
"Fuck you," I said, with some heat. "Sorry, my mistake...'fuck you, sarge' is what I meant. Dickhead." I stood and stretched the kinks out. The dream had left a bitter taste, and I was badly rattled. I rubbed my face, with both hands, trying to get awake and shake it. "So where are we going?"
"Downtown for a few beers," he answered, "and since nobody's got a car, we just gonna take a short run out of Gate 7."
Gate 7 -- it was the only place close enough to walk, an important consideration for thirsty troops on station for training without personal vehicles. In those days, it was a dangerous four-block stretch of rip offs, biker bars, strip clubs, cons, hookers, thieves, and worse; a machine designed for the sole purpose of vacuuming money out of the troops' wallets.
The base commander had recently had a chat with the local City Council and threatened to shut the gate down completely if they didn't get a handle on it, which would put the entire area out of business.
There had been no apparent result from this ultimatum, so he'd declared practically every business within a half-mile of the gate and nearly every bar and strip club within a mile off limits, on pain of immediate disciplinary action.
We'd done some earlier daylight recon in the area. Billy was from the these parts, having been raised in Mobile, just a skip down the road, and played tour guide -- he knew all the ins and outs of Pass Road. All things considered, odds were about 50/50 whether we were going to get rolled, robbed, beaten, conned or some new combination we hadn't thought of. With a bit of luck, we wouldn't even get caught doing it.
"Sounds like a plan," I said. It was what I was expected to say. But I didn't want to go, really. I wanted to write Jonnie a letter.
Later, I thought, I can write later tonight when I get in.
We changed into civilian clothes, and headed for Gate 7, grabbing my roommate, Rodriguez, on the way out. He was a good guy, but he'd already had a few beers, and was just gonna get himself into trouble if we left him unsupervised. The boy had no sense at all, and I didn't need another night of trying to sort out why the Military Police had tagged him again. "Rodriguez." I don't think I ever knew his first name.
The last formation of the day had been dismissed, and I had escaped extra duty and so was in the dayroom of the barracks. My feet were encased in half-untied combat boots, propped up on a wooden end table. I was dozing in front of the communal TV.
The muggy Mississippi evening was, even this early in the year, soporific as warm whiskey. The very act of breathing the cottony moisture wore one down to the point that even the constant hum of insects would result in nothing more than a lazy pro-forma swat. I knew now why everyone in the whole state moved in slow motion.
I had dropped my more-or-less daily letter to Jonnie into the mailbox over by the PX, and was now bored to distraction. I was thinking about starting another letter. I hated writing, usually, but I actually enjoyed writing her. It was like talking to her, but being able to fix all the stupid stuff, and erase the things I wish I hadn't said -- writing allowed perfection unattainable in real life, a good thing, since she kept it all.
In fact she said she kept everything I'd ever sent to her in a special place, and she did, too. She showed it to me once; she carefully took the yellow satin ribbon off the cardboard box, then lifted the lid with both hands, slowly, as if she were a priestess about to reveal the First Covenant.
"See?" she said softly, "Everything's here."
And it was -- all my letters, tickets to a show, a menu I'd long forgotten, the miscellaneous detritus of us, and the faint scent of roses; doubtless from the faded yellow petals pressed in their own paper sleeve.
------------------------
I missed her; two weeks of training here, then a month in the Philippines -- it was going to be a tough haul without her. The TV chattered in the background, the buzzing air was on me like a damp, steaming blanket. I thought about going up to the room and beginning a new letter -- I dozed again, dreaming the last dream I would ever have of her smiling at me, loving me; then she was waving goodbye in a rearview mirror, trying to smile, but crying, sad beyond grief...
He kicked my feet off the table, slamming them to the floor, jolting me awake, and said "Get off your ass, boy. Let's go."
"Jesus, Billy," I said, "I was sleeping here." I was seriously pissed off.
He laughed. "That's SERGEANT Billy to you, low-life." He'd gotten his promotion orders that month, and he was constantly ragging me -- mostly because we knew that I'd have mine before the end of the quarter, and then he'd have no one to aggravate about it.
"Fuck you," I said, with some heat. "Sorry, my mistake...'fuck you, sarge' is what I meant. Dickhead." I stood and stretched the kinks out. The dream had left a bitter taste, and I was badly rattled. I rubbed my face, with both hands, trying to get awake and shake it. "So where are we going?"
"Downtown for a few beers," he answered, "and since nobody's got a car, we just gonna take a short run out of Gate 7."
Gate 7 -- it was the only place close enough to walk, an important consideration for thirsty troops on station for training without personal vehicles. In those days, it was a dangerous four-block stretch of rip offs, biker bars, strip clubs, cons, hookers, thieves, and worse; a machine designed for the sole purpose of vacuuming money out of the troops' wallets.
The base commander had recently had a chat with the local City Council and threatened to shut the gate down completely if they didn't get a handle on it, which would put the entire area out of business.
There had been no apparent result from this ultimatum, so he'd declared practically every business within a half-mile of the gate and nearly every bar and strip club within a mile off limits, on pain of immediate disciplinary action.
We'd done some earlier daylight recon in the area. Billy was from the these parts, having been raised in Mobile, just a skip down the road, and played tour guide -- he knew all the ins and outs of Pass Road. All things considered, odds were about 50/50 whether we were going to get rolled, robbed, beaten, conned or some new combination we hadn't thought of. With a bit of luck, we wouldn't even get caught doing it.
"Sounds like a plan," I said. It was what I was expected to say. But I didn't want to go, really. I wanted to write Jonnie a letter.
Later, I thought, I can write later tonight when I get in.
We changed into civilian clothes, and headed for Gate 7, grabbing my roommate, Rodriguez, on the way out. He was a good guy, but he'd already had a few beers, and was just gonna get himself into trouble if we left him unsupervised. The boy had no sense at all, and I didn't need another night of trying to sort out why the Military Police had tagged him again. "Rodriguez." I don't think I ever knew his first name.
We cut across the base golf course and, in due course walked out into the world. I'd been a serious pain in the ass ever since Billy had awakened me at the barracks. I was missing Jonnie terribly, and this "Gate 7" idea had not exactly grabbed me. So, all in all, I was pretty prickly as we walked down the street. Billy finally had enough.
"Look, man," he said, "if you're afraid you're going to get in trouble, just go back to the barracks. But I'm telling you that the commander isn't going to catch us out here unless we wind up in jail or something. Just relax and stop being such a whiny little bitch."
"I ain't afraid of nothing," I said, "I'm just in a crappy mood. So sue me. Ya talked me out here, now I'm here, now I want a drink. So are we drinking or are we standing in the street trying to figure out which one of us is on the rag?"
"Well," laughed Billy, "in that case, I'll buy the first round, and I'll bet we get rid of THAT."
The first bar was a plain affair, small, wooden floors and tables, walls badly in need of painting. The bar itself was on the opposite wall from the doorway, and in between was a small bandstand or stage. There was a murmuring, medium-sized crowd of troops and hard-looking locals - not too crowded. We saw a pretty little thing in a (yeah, I mean this literally) yellow, polka-dot bikini, dancing lethargically on the stage, basically ignored by nearly everyone. We managed to get a table right next to the stage, close enough that it looked like she was dancing just for us. After two or three beers, she started looking REALLY good, and as long as you were coughing up $1.00 bills, she'd smile at you and like you a lot...for a minute or two, anyhow.
I wasn't losing any money myself. I appreciated looking at a pretty girl on some abstract level; I just wasn't that interested. If it was a choice of spending money on anything Jonnie wanted in the world rather than trying to get some skinny Biloxi stripper to take something off, it was simply no contest.
Rodriguez, who'd already drunk the better part of a six-pack before we'd left the post was operating under no such restraint, and decided to go for the gold. He asked her how much it would be for the whole thing for the whole night.
He had high hopes, and was already drunk enough that, as usual, he had no sense at all. Bad combination.
"There ain't nothin' here for sale, Goober" she said wearily. "Don't ask again. I don't have to put up with that shit. (Doan astagin, ah doan have ta put up wiath tha sheiat -- you can't write it, but I loved that deep south, white-trash Mississippi accent, thick as delta mud, with a dash of white lightning bite...)
Rodriguez wouldn't be sidetracked. He told her anything was for sale. He waved a stack of tens at her and asked how much it would take, then suddenly reached out and grabbed her leg, rubbing from the top of her calf to her ankle before she lept back out of his reach.
She stopped dancing in the middle of her set and put her hands on her hips, glaring at Rodriguez, almost a caricature of a pouty, very annoyed, pretty girl. She could have been any teenager having a spat with her boyfriend at the prom.
I smiled. She was actually cute as a bug...
"Hey, Jack!" she yelled over to the pile of fur sitting at the bar, "this clown can't keep his hands to himself and wants to know how much it is for the whole thing." The fur stirred, and a gigantic biker stood up.
Rodrigues later said the biker looked to be about 6'14". A small exaggeration, to be sure. But not enough of one to matter.
The other biker he'd been talking to also rose, but the giant waved him back to his barstool.
"It's OK," he said turning toward us, "I've got it. These pissants ain't gonna be no problem."
Billy and I, having better instincts than Rodriguez about this sort of thing, had already begun gathering up our spare change and chugging the last of the beer to get out of there as soon as Rodriguez had touched the girl. One rule about strippers in clubs anywhere in the 50 states -- don't touch unless they touch first.
Too late.
I resigned myself to what was next as the monster lumbered across the room toward us. I was almost philosophical about it. If we really got lucky only Rodriguez would take a bad beating. At worst, we all would. Either way, someone was gonna get hurt, and we were past the place where it could be prevented.
Thanks, Rodriguez, ya moron, I thought, sitting back at the table and picking up my beer to await fate. There are probably 6000 hookers in the four block area around us, and you pick the one girl who (a) isn't and (b) has apparently manufactured her own bodyguard out of spare gorilla parts and leather.
-----------------------------------------
It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The biker only punched Rodriguez once, almost a casual backhanded fist slap, truth be told, and then threw him in the general direction of the front door, ripping his shirt. He then actually stopped and politely asked if we wanted to continue or just leave. Apparently he felt he'd made his point with us and also with any other potential stripper-touchers in the rest of the crowd. Billy and I discovered we were not inclined to argue the matter.
We gathered up Rodriguez and left. Rodriguez' right eye was getting puffy and, it developed as the night wore on, he had three chipped teeth.
He later held ice to his face and told us a story about being at a small pond with his brother, somewhere out west. His family were having a picnic, and he and his brother were throwing rocks into the pond. He'd just skipped a rock across the water, and turned and took a step -- he didn't know that his brother had found a brick in a pile of debris someone had left after constructing a fire-pit. When Rodriguez turned and took the step, it was directly into the line of a brick being thrown -- well, as hard as a 13-year-old can throw a brick. Rodriguez said it had knocked him cold as a wedge for about five minutes, and to this day he can't remember big chunks of the rest of that afternoon.
The biker's punch "...was a little worse than that," he said.
"I need a drink," he said, after spending ten minutes sitting on the sidewalk with his feet in the street spitting blood into the gutter. Billy for some reason thought that was hysterical and began howling with laughter, which got me laughing.
"Fuck you guys," said Rodriguez, which set off another gale of laughter. We grabbed him under the arms and got him back on his feet, then continued down Pass Road looking for another bar.
Midnight
We'd long since switched over from beer to tequila and whiskey. I don't know how many places we'd hit. This club was a lot better than most we'd been in -- there were waitresses, for one thing. It actually was a comparatively classy place, dark and smoky, but with subtle, soft stage lighting and design touches. The women were nice-looking and friendly, and although there were some evil sorts hanging around the fringes, no giant bikers were in evidence.
More whiskey. Long stretches of confused haze occasionally highlighted by electric flashes of memory; an athletic beauty painted in fluorescent tribal designs and lit in ultraviolet doing a slow, smoldering strip to Floyd Cramer's "Last Date" (I'd never seen that before, nor since, now that I think of it)...some kind of poorly defined confrontation with another crew that could have resulted in a huge bar-fight but instead ending with everyone buying everyone drinks...lights and color and music...looking at my watch and telling everyone we had to be back on base in morning formation in less than five hours...the sudden realization I had no idea where we were nor how to get back, and discovering I didn't care...
Three women had materialized at our table and were drinking watered drinks at twice the going price, pretending we were simply the most fascinating people they'd ever met; we were pretending we believed it. Rodriguez' girl was sitting on his lap and sympathizing with him and cooing over his bruised face, which I thought was pretty funny.
The girl who had been sitting next to me had gone to the bar, and was bringing me another whiskey, a double, Jack Daniels on the rocks...I hated mixed drinks.
I watched her with frank enjoyment as she came back across the room, and she smiled at me. Pretty girl, older (mid 20's?) long satiny legs, a midnight blue, one-piece mini-dress, strappy, spike-heeled "fuck me" shoes and a ribbon choker that matched the dress. Dark, almost black hair down over her shoulders framed her face - improbably blue eyes, lips a dusky-dark, vulval near-red. She absolutely radiated sex, really good, oh-so-bad sex, violent-you'll-not-get-over-it sex. Brushing close, she put my drink on the table and suddenly turned, effortlessly sliding onto my lap. My hand fell on her thigh. Silken nylons, warm as fever against my palm...I felt myself flush and sudden heat was on me...no, I'm not going to do this.
"Sorry, hon," I said, "not interested." I started to push her off my lap.
"Oh, please," she laughed, her arm around my neck, "you've told me all about your Jonnie." (God, how much had I drunk? I'd talked about Jonnie? To...HER?) "I think it's sweet that you're staying faithful to her. Get over yourself -- I just wanted to give you a hug because I like you. You're a nice guy, and that's cool 'cause there aren't many of you left." She gave me a kiss on the forehead. Still sitting on my lap, she suddenly put her foot up on her knee and reached down to unstrap the spike-heeled shoe. Shifting weight, the friction of toned buttocks and thighs against me, secret flesh exposed under the blue mini....
"They look great, but I hate these fucking things," she whispered conspiratorially in my ear, and shifted again, reached down and pulled the other one off...
Morning Probably about 9:00
I sat on a kitchen chair, smoking. I was so hung over I could barely breathe - still so drunk I'd likely burn out any breathalyzer. I was already AWOL for hours. I didn't care.
She was still asleep. I could see her through the open door in the bedroom, cruel daylight turning her beauty tawdry. Good body, I thought objectively in some small part of my mind that was not in hungover shock; a toned stripper's body, but she was a flower past prime, an overblown rose, losing her color; still pretty but already used up, old before her time.
I had awakened next to her, suffocating in a sweating fog of stale perfume and old whiskey and hashish and sex. I quietly rose and found the bathroom. I splashed my face with the coldest water I cold coax from the sink and dripping, stared at myself, naked in the mirror, for what seemed hours.
Bite marks and fingertip bruises and long violent scratches on my arms and chest and back and thighs. I absolutely reeked of her, warm and dangerous and musky and secret. Somewhere deep, deep, deep, down in the limbic, animal sub-basement of my brain my nostrils flared, I felt a soft growl forming at the back of my throat, and my body responded to the terrible dark scent. Again.
The image in the mirror stared back at me in horror.
I vomited then, hard, and again, and again; I didn't think it had anything to do with the beer, or the whiskey, or the hash.
When there was nothing left but bile and blood I finally stopped, trembling. I washed my face and went back into the bedroom and pulled on my levis. I stole her pack of cigarettes from the end table (fucking menthols -- I hated menthols) and went barefoot into the kitchen. I had been sitting there since, watching her, and smoking.
My life was over; the future was bitter ash in my mouth.
She stirred and woke. She didn't see me at first, and was surprised when she did. She'd clearly expected that I'd simply left. She got out of bed and stretched expansively, all tumbling hair and long legs, and padded over to me, naked.
"Hi, lover," she said, and leaned down to kiss me. I recoiled and pushed her away, and she stumbled, nearly falling.
"Hey," she said, suddenly angry "what the fuck's your problem?"
"Look, I'm sorry," I said, the words tumbling. "I didn't mean that, I really didn't. It doesn't have anything to do with you. I'm sorry, I can't explain, just please don't touch me." I stubbed the cigarette viciously into the ashtray on the table. "I'll just leave."
"Suit yourself," she said, sharply. "I just thought we'd go get some breakfast or something, but you can just pack your shit and get the fuck out."
"Yeah," I said. "Look, you need to know it's not you. I mean it. I just can't stay with you anymore. I'm sorry."
Suddenly she softened.
"Ah, I see. Girlfriend there -- me here -- you out of town -- remorse." She laughed sharply. "Got it."
She walked back to me and carefully reached down to my face and touched my cheek with just her fingertips. "It's OK. I understand. Ain't the first time it's happened to me. But I thought you were different, that maybe you really liked me." Shutters slammed down over the flicker of pain behind her eyes.
"Look, man," he said, "if you're afraid you're going to get in trouble, just go back to the barracks. But I'm telling you that the commander isn't going to catch us out here unless we wind up in jail or something. Just relax and stop being such a whiny little bitch."
"I ain't afraid of nothing," I said, "I'm just in a crappy mood. So sue me. Ya talked me out here, now I'm here, now I want a drink. So are we drinking or are we standing in the street trying to figure out which one of us is on the rag?"
"Well," laughed Billy, "in that case, I'll buy the first round, and I'll bet we get rid of THAT."
The first bar was a plain affair, small, wooden floors and tables, walls badly in need of painting. The bar itself was on the opposite wall from the doorway, and in between was a small bandstand or stage. There was a murmuring, medium-sized crowd of troops and hard-looking locals - not too crowded. We saw a pretty little thing in a (yeah, I mean this literally) yellow, polka-dot bikini, dancing lethargically on the stage, basically ignored by nearly everyone. We managed to get a table right next to the stage, close enough that it looked like she was dancing just for us. After two or three beers, she started looking REALLY good, and as long as you were coughing up $1.00 bills, she'd smile at you and like you a lot...for a minute or two, anyhow.
I wasn't losing any money myself. I appreciated looking at a pretty girl on some abstract level; I just wasn't that interested. If it was a choice of spending money on anything Jonnie wanted in the world rather than trying to get some skinny Biloxi stripper to take something off, it was simply no contest.
Rodriguez, who'd already drunk the better part of a six-pack before we'd left the post was operating under no such restraint, and decided to go for the gold. He asked her how much it would be for the whole thing for the whole night.
He had high hopes, and was already drunk enough that, as usual, he had no sense at all. Bad combination.
"There ain't nothin' here for sale, Goober" she said wearily. "Don't ask again. I don't have to put up with that shit. (Doan astagin, ah doan have ta put up wiath tha sheiat -- you can't write it, but I loved that deep south, white-trash Mississippi accent, thick as delta mud, with a dash of white lightning bite...)
Rodriguez wouldn't be sidetracked. He told her anything was for sale. He waved a stack of tens at her and asked how much it would take, then suddenly reached out and grabbed her leg, rubbing from the top of her calf to her ankle before she lept back out of his reach.
She stopped dancing in the middle of her set and put her hands on her hips, glaring at Rodriguez, almost a caricature of a pouty, very annoyed, pretty girl. She could have been any teenager having a spat with her boyfriend at the prom.
I smiled. She was actually cute as a bug...
"Hey, Jack!" she yelled over to the pile of fur sitting at the bar, "this clown can't keep his hands to himself and wants to know how much it is for the whole thing." The fur stirred, and a gigantic biker stood up.
Rodrigues later said the biker looked to be about 6'14". A small exaggeration, to be sure. But not enough of one to matter.
The other biker he'd been talking to also rose, but the giant waved him back to his barstool.
"It's OK," he said turning toward us, "I've got it. These pissants ain't gonna be no problem."
Billy and I, having better instincts than Rodriguez about this sort of thing, had already begun gathering up our spare change and chugging the last of the beer to get out of there as soon as Rodriguez had touched the girl. One rule about strippers in clubs anywhere in the 50 states -- don't touch unless they touch first.
Too late.
I resigned myself to what was next as the monster lumbered across the room toward us. I was almost philosophical about it. If we really got lucky only Rodriguez would take a bad beating. At worst, we all would. Either way, someone was gonna get hurt, and we were past the place where it could be prevented.
Thanks, Rodriguez, ya moron, I thought, sitting back at the table and picking up my beer to await fate. There are probably 6000 hookers in the four block area around us, and you pick the one girl who (a) isn't and (b) has apparently manufactured her own bodyguard out of spare gorilla parts and leather.
-----------------------------------------
It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. The biker only punched Rodriguez once, almost a casual backhanded fist slap, truth be told, and then threw him in the general direction of the front door, ripping his shirt. He then actually stopped and politely asked if we wanted to continue or just leave. Apparently he felt he'd made his point with us and also with any other potential stripper-touchers in the rest of the crowd. Billy and I discovered we were not inclined to argue the matter.
We gathered up Rodriguez and left. Rodriguez' right eye was getting puffy and, it developed as the night wore on, he had three chipped teeth.
He later held ice to his face and told us a story about being at a small pond with his brother, somewhere out west. His family were having a picnic, and he and his brother were throwing rocks into the pond. He'd just skipped a rock across the water, and turned and took a step -- he didn't know that his brother had found a brick in a pile of debris someone had left after constructing a fire-pit. When Rodriguez turned and took the step, it was directly into the line of a brick being thrown -- well, as hard as a 13-year-old can throw a brick. Rodriguez said it had knocked him cold as a wedge for about five minutes, and to this day he can't remember big chunks of the rest of that afternoon.
The biker's punch "...was a little worse than that," he said.
"I need a drink," he said, after spending ten minutes sitting on the sidewalk with his feet in the street spitting blood into the gutter. Billy for some reason thought that was hysterical and began howling with laughter, which got me laughing.
"Fuck you guys," said Rodriguez, which set off another gale of laughter. We grabbed him under the arms and got him back on his feet, then continued down Pass Road looking for another bar.
Midnight
We'd long since switched over from beer to tequila and whiskey. I don't know how many places we'd hit. This club was a lot better than most we'd been in -- there were waitresses, for one thing. It actually was a comparatively classy place, dark and smoky, but with subtle, soft stage lighting and design touches. The women were nice-looking and friendly, and although there were some evil sorts hanging around the fringes, no giant bikers were in evidence.
More whiskey. Long stretches of confused haze occasionally highlighted by electric flashes of memory; an athletic beauty painted in fluorescent tribal designs and lit in ultraviolet doing a slow, smoldering strip to Floyd Cramer's "Last Date" (I'd never seen that before, nor since, now that I think of it)...some kind of poorly defined confrontation with another crew that could have resulted in a huge bar-fight but instead ending with everyone buying everyone drinks...lights and color and music...looking at my watch and telling everyone we had to be back on base in morning formation in less than five hours...the sudden realization I had no idea where we were nor how to get back, and discovering I didn't care...
Three women had materialized at our table and were drinking watered drinks at twice the going price, pretending we were simply the most fascinating people they'd ever met; we were pretending we believed it. Rodriguez' girl was sitting on his lap and sympathizing with him and cooing over his bruised face, which I thought was pretty funny.
The girl who had been sitting next to me had gone to the bar, and was bringing me another whiskey, a double, Jack Daniels on the rocks...I hated mixed drinks.
I watched her with frank enjoyment as she came back across the room, and she smiled at me. Pretty girl, older (mid 20's?) long satiny legs, a midnight blue, one-piece mini-dress, strappy, spike-heeled "fuck me" shoes and a ribbon choker that matched the dress. Dark, almost black hair down over her shoulders framed her face - improbably blue eyes, lips a dusky-dark, vulval near-red. She absolutely radiated sex, really good, oh-so-bad sex, violent-you'll-not-get-over-it sex. Brushing close, she put my drink on the table and suddenly turned, effortlessly sliding onto my lap. My hand fell on her thigh. Silken nylons, warm as fever against my palm...I felt myself flush and sudden heat was on me...no, I'm not going to do this."Sorry, hon," I said, "not interested." I started to push her off my lap.
"Oh, please," she laughed, her arm around my neck, "you've told me all about your Jonnie." (God, how much had I drunk? I'd talked about Jonnie? To...HER?) "I think it's sweet that you're staying faithful to her. Get over yourself -- I just wanted to give you a hug because I like you. You're a nice guy, and that's cool 'cause there aren't many of you left." She gave me a kiss on the forehead. Still sitting on my lap, she suddenly put her foot up on her knee and reached down to unstrap the spike-heeled shoe. Shifting weight, the friction of toned buttocks and thighs against me, secret flesh exposed under the blue mini....
"They look great, but I hate these fucking things," she whispered conspiratorially in my ear, and shifted again, reached down and pulled the other one off...
Morning Probably about 9:00
I sat on a kitchen chair, smoking. I was so hung over I could barely breathe - still so drunk I'd likely burn out any breathalyzer. I was already AWOL for hours. I didn't care.
She was still asleep. I could see her through the open door in the bedroom, cruel daylight turning her beauty tawdry. Good body, I thought objectively in some small part of my mind that was not in hungover shock; a toned stripper's body, but she was a flower past prime, an overblown rose, losing her color; still pretty but already used up, old before her time.
I had awakened next to her, suffocating in a sweating fog of stale perfume and old whiskey and hashish and sex. I quietly rose and found the bathroom. I splashed my face with the coldest water I cold coax from the sink and dripping, stared at myself, naked in the mirror, for what seemed hours.
Bite marks and fingertip bruises and long violent scratches on my arms and chest and back and thighs. I absolutely reeked of her, warm and dangerous and musky and secret. Somewhere deep, deep, deep, down in the limbic, animal sub-basement of my brain my nostrils flared, I felt a soft growl forming at the back of my throat, and my body responded to the terrible dark scent. Again.
The image in the mirror stared back at me in horror.
I vomited then, hard, and again, and again; I didn't think it had anything to do with the beer, or the whiskey, or the hash.
When there was nothing left but bile and blood I finally stopped, trembling. I washed my face and went back into the bedroom and pulled on my levis. I stole her pack of cigarettes from the end table (fucking menthols -- I hated menthols) and went barefoot into the kitchen. I had been sitting there since, watching her, and smoking.
My life was over; the future was bitter ash in my mouth.
She stirred and woke. She didn't see me at first, and was surprised when she did. She'd clearly expected that I'd simply left. She got out of bed and stretched expansively, all tumbling hair and long legs, and padded over to me, naked.
"Hi, lover," she said, and leaned down to kiss me. I recoiled and pushed her away, and she stumbled, nearly falling.
"Hey," she said, suddenly angry "what the fuck's your problem?"
"Look, I'm sorry," I said, the words tumbling. "I didn't mean that, I really didn't. It doesn't have anything to do with you. I'm sorry, I can't explain, just please don't touch me." I stubbed the cigarette viciously into the ashtray on the table. "I'll just leave."
"Suit yourself," she said, sharply. "I just thought we'd go get some breakfast or something, but you can just pack your shit and get the fuck out."
"Yeah," I said. "Look, you need to know it's not you. I mean it. I just can't stay with you anymore. I'm sorry."
Suddenly she softened.
"Ah, I see. Girlfriend there -- me here -- you out of town -- remorse." She laughed sharply. "Got it."
She walked back to me and carefully reached down to my face and touched my cheek with just her fingertips. "It's OK. I understand. Ain't the first time it's happened to me. But I thought you were different, that maybe you really liked me." Shutters slammed down over the flicker of pain behind her eyes.
"Oh, well," she said indifferently, turning away, "that's how it goes. Don't keep us from getting breakfast, does it?"
She walked back toward the bedroom, then stopped and turned to me.
"Admit it though," she said with an evil leer, "you never done all THAT with your little Jonnie." Her laughter rolled through the apartment like judgment day.
If I'd had a gun I'd have killed her on the spot.
A Week Later
I still hadn't written her. We'd never gone a week without at least a note. For the hundredth time I pulled out the paper and pen. For the hundredth time, I saw her as I always saw her in my dreams these days in the vanishing few hours when I could sleep at all:
I'm too far away from her; she's all alone on a hill, looking for me, and the wind whips and blows her hair and her dress. I'm coming, baby, don't move. I'm running toward her in honey, too slow, too slow, and the girl in the dark blue dress is suddenly there talking to her. The girl does something and the dress falls to her feet in a shimmering indigo puddle, leaving her naked. She speaks low to Jonnie. I can't hear her, what's she saying? She runs long, dangerous fingernails down, down, down, a sensuous slide of hands past her breasts, her hips, between her thighs, whispering to Jonnie the whole time while Jonnie watches astonished. I run up to the girl and push her away, screaming "NO!" She stumbles, then recovers her feet, and begins walking to the bedroom, smiling at me over her shoulder. Jonnie looks at me, destroyed, face bright with tears. Behind her the woman laughs at me with a sound like judgment day and says "Admit it, now what have you done with your little Jonnie?"
I snapped awake, pen still in hand.
God, what can I possibly write to her?
I dropped the pen to the desk, and knew the answer. I couldn't. What could a dead man possibly have to say to those he's left?
In Our Next Episode: The picture by Fabian Perez, one of my favorite artists. Click on the picture for more. It really does look a lot like her...if she were real. The picture or the girl.
(sincere and true) *applause*
ReplyDeleteLiked this a lot. Enya was a surprise. But it fits.
ReplyDeleteYou could probably be a better writer but I can't figure out how.
ReplyDeleteAt that age we have way too much conscience, some of us, and it destroys us before our time. How many of us have regrets that once upon a time we had too many regrets?
Anyway, your instinct for the technical side -- description, pacing, basic storytelling -- is great, and you've a lot to pour into it.