tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67470300708115753412024-03-24T00:11:39.780-07:00Adam Peacock StoriesEccentric books for the eccentric mind.Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.comBlogger273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-43579939996509889752023-11-25T00:06:00.000-08:002023-11-25T15:06:48.609-08:00V<p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>She was the strangest woman I had ever seen. She wore a bloody pearl choker. Costume jewelry, or was it real? Heavy mascara around her eyes. She looked like a model. Like a mannequin from a thrift store that got bored and walked out. She was short, petite, with large perceptive eyes that seemed to scan everyone and everything, and absorb anything of interest. </span><span>She looked wealthy, but I wasn't sure she was. Her clothes were thrift store vogue, and her knee-high socks mismatched under a vintage dress. She was twenty-something, maybe thirty, or three hundred, and she looked like she hadn't slept in three days, yet it didn't make her less attractive. If anything, it made her more engaging to the eye. She was cat-like. Cathartic to look at. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This, I wrote down in my notepad as I watched her in the delicatessen. She didn't order anything. She just stood there, looking at the menu board making various facial expressions before picking up a bag from the counter where take-out orders are placed as though it were her own. I knew that it wasn't. She had just stolen someone's lunch and the ensuing hullabaloo that culminated after she left when the dreadful person who ordered it came in, confirmed my suspicions to be true. In the usual boring course of my day, on my lunch hour from the bank, I had witnessed a most pretty theft. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She grabbed the bag, twirled around, put on a pair of large black sunglasses and a black floppy sunhat, and then disappeared into the roar of traffic outside. The anonymity in the chaos of a sunny New York City street, Tuesday, July 7, 1998.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was the most attractive person and the most interesting woman I had ever seen. When she left, there was an immediate void, and it felt as though all life was sucked from it so that all that remained were a collection of us dull and empty vessels propped up for decoration doing the same mundane things that we always do. It felt that the room might implode because of the force of her leaving it. I felt a sense of loss when the bell clanged and out she went to that busy street for I was sure that I would never see her again. Such good fortune smiles only so often upon us, after all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Although I thought to chase her, I sat there and watched the beautiful thief leave like I have done with every beautiful woman who has ever come before her, though how less they were in comparison, and how her beauty compelled me to the point I felt sick to my stomach that I didn't go. How inadequately anyone I had ever seen before, compared to her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But what would I have said to her if I followed her out and caught up to her at a crosswalk? I had nothing to offer. Only that I would like to take her to dinner, or some dreadful thing any boring person might say. Things she has heard a million times before. Certainly not that I would like it very much if she sat on my face. Or if we made love in the park under moonlight like hungry wolves. Women appreciate urbanity, not crudeness, I learned reading my mother's Marie Claire's. To be chased like foxes are chased in a fox hunt. Sniffed out by the hounds of persistence and won by bullets of confident flattery. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am no good at hunting foxes and I have neither dogs nor bullets at my disposal. And I knew that sort of thing wouldn't impress her as she was not like other women. No. I knew she wasn't. I was sure of it. I wanted to show her my art in my apartment. My paintings, which are extensions of me. It was as though I painted them for her without knowing she existed. I wanted to swallow her like a pill. Eat her like a last meal. Drink her like a glass of wine. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps she would pose for me, though I had never done that before and don't know how well I would do with a perfectly beautiful naked woman standing in my studio apartment for a purpose other than to make love. It hadn't gone so well with the prostitutes. I simply paid and fell into them. Plugged in. Vibrated for a little while like some doohickey, then erupted, withdrew, and cleaned myself as I made small talk while they cleaned themselves before they got dressed and left. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I hadn't ever made love to anyone who wasn't a prostitute, other than myself. I wouldn't even know how to do so without the foreplay of exchanging money. Such was my strange life. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am an akward man. Thirty four years-old and akward like a humbolt penquin at the zoo is akward on those fake rocks waiting for a fish to be thrown his way, especially with beautiful women. It is to the point that anytime a beautiful woman comes into the bank where I am a teller, the guard who directs them to the windows will avert them from mine. Even if I have no line. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When a new guard is trained, that is part of their training. Only when a beautiful customer insists on coming to me do they come to me, and if they do, there I hopelessly fumble their money and the guard sighs, and I sigh, and the customer sighs and even the painting of the bank's founder, Hubert Hughes, sighs — a dreadful blob of gray painting which I didn't paint. His gigantic, drab, omnipotent, gray face stares at me all day long hoping I don't have to assist a beautiful woman. He thinks I should sell hammers at a hardware store as he loathes my existence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Surely, I'd paint her. I'd paint her from memory and maybe I'd keep her in that way and that would be good enough. Jerk off to her once in a while like I did to that toothpaste girl and have been to the woman from the telephone advertisments. Hang her above my bed, which is the most prominent space in my apartment. She would be my masterpiece. If ever I could capture her as I saw her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sold paintings now and then. Not in galleries, but in street fairs and at flea markets. No one at the bank would guess that I was a painter or an artist of any sort unless they looked at my fingernails. I do not appear creative in the least. I am a person one might assume eats oatmeal daily and reads his Bible and might work in a bank or in insurance if you looked at me long enough to consider such. I was a humble humbolt penguin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then I realized I'd never painted a woman before. Not even a prostitute. Not even from memory. Except for my mother. I did paint my mother. But she wasn't nude. She was wearing a green bathrobe and slippers. Her hair was in curlers. It was for a fourth grade art project. Paint something you love, the teacher said. My God, how I once loved my mother. How scared I was for her to die until she finally went and did it and then I was afraid of her being in Heaven looking down upon me. Watching me fumble with women and lethargically fuck prostitutes and jerk off to the telephone girl. I'm sure she wouldn't agree with my choices in women. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Oh, Daniel, I could hear her say. For Heaven's sake, choose a girl with a little more meat on her bones. Don't mess with those dirty girls. Find yourself someone who can cook and clean. Someone who doesn't do drugs. Someone who appreciates you. Someone with class.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>I don't know how I would paint a beautiful nude woman. Then I thought that I ought to put out an advertisment for a nude model. Of all shapes and sizes. I am very interested in painting an obese woman, probably because I have no love interest in them and I favor the macabre. Besides, I feel there is the opportunity for forgiveness in their corpulence. In all their lumps and protrusions that jutt from their lovely large bodies. You can make mistakes with someone like that and still do well, whereas, with someone skinny, you cannot. They'd look terribly disproportionate. </span><span>She was skinny, though. The girl from the delicatessen who haunts me weeks after seeing her that fateful Tuesday afternoon. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Most of my paintings are of horses. I don't paint their genitals. I don't know what their genitals look like, but I've heard they are large. There was a theatre on 7th Avenue that used to play movies of women making love to horses in stables and on prairies. Sometimes the women wore cowboy booots. It was a big draw but got it shut down by the ASPCA or someone. I suppose there is a book at the library about horse gentalia. There are books about everything. But it is all a mystery to me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've never ridden a horse or known one personally, but "Mr. Ed" was my favorite show growing up. I had a crush on Wilbur's wife, Carol. My mother told me every time we watched it that they put peanut butter on his gums to get him to appear to talk. She liked to spoil everything. She was a wet blanket. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I also sometimes paint New York City as it used to be because it is always many things before it is now. Before it became something else and then something else. I get books on it at the library with old pictures. The dellicatessen was once a haberdashery. Before that it was a drug store. Before that it was an Italian grocery with sausages hanging everywhere on strings. I love studying late 19th century New York City. The Victorian era. East Village, primarily, which is where I live and work and very likely will die. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sometimes walk by the hospital where I will probably die and look up to the windows and wonder which room will I die in. If I'll lie there and look out and see something interesting. Whose face will I see before I go as I lie there dying. A pretty nurse? Or will I be doomed to stare up the hairy nose of a middle-aged Indian doctor whose breath smells of black coffee and pepperjack cheese?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>She was lost. I'd never see her again. Sitting at the bank I often think of that Tuesday. I wondered why she stole the lunch. </span><span>The answer was boredom. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>She stood at my window at the bank two weeks later out of the blue and told me. She confessed to me like I was her priest saying that she stole someone's food because she was bored and hungry and didn't feel like taking the time to order anything, and for the fact that she liked surprises. She seldom gets surprised anymore, she pined. She said she sometime's steals people's laundry, too, when they leave it at the laundromat. Serves them right, she says. She will take it back when she gets bored of it, or donate it to charity. But she said she likes to think that she inspires someone to buy a new wardrobe. To dare to be someone different. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How did you know I saw you?" I squeaked. The folds of my membranous tissue that project inward from the sides of my larynx to form a slit across the glottis in my throat, and whose edges vibrate in the airstream to produce my voice, tightening in my throat. I felt like Mr. Ed and someone had just put peanut butter on my gums. My mouth was dry and my penis was hard. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I saw you, of course. You were sitting in the corner writing in a notepad, pretending not to notice me. But you did notice me. Didn't you, Danny?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How did you find me?" I stammered. "And how do you know my name?" I couldn't have imagined how beautiful she would be at close range. So often people up close have flaws that you can't see in the ambiguity of distance. I had already dropped several things in my nervousness. A box of paperclips. An unlucky tape dispenser. A coffee mug. I felt like I was going to fall down, but I was sitting down. I was sitting on a stool that didn't fidget, swivel, or wobble. It was a very sturdy stool for the purpose of keeping me stable if a beautiful woman was to come to my window. The bank manager thought of that. It felt like an earthquake beneath me. Like San Francisco in all the earthquake movies. Like Godzilla was bowling in my bowels. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I could smell you," she said. "I followed my nose. Where do you live?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I stammered and muttered some inaudible and inadequate response. I coughed and cleared my throat. I blinked rapidly as though I was losing my vision. It must have appeared that I was going to pass out. I couldn't look her in the eyes, but I couldn't help not to try. Then she said, look at me, and I did and I couldn't look away and my nerves subsided. Her eyes possessed me. I knew I was lost in them, and I was hopeless. She didn't need anything from the bank. She wasn't there for a withdrawal or a deposit or for any sort of official bank business. She was there to talk to me. Me. A humble humbolt penquin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At first, I thought I was hallucinating. These kind of things happen, after all. A man thinks of someone or something for so long he starts seeing that thing in his soup. I've read all about it. I had recently heard of a man who thought he was rooming with Adolf Hitler in the Bronx. Turned out it was a rat and the man was arrested for shooting up a synagogue because the rat told him to do it. He was all over the TV. He was bigger than David Berkowitz and charged with 22 felony hate crimes. It all started in a porno theater, he explained. A horse's penis on the silver screen is the size of a grown man.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But there she stood making conversation. Asking me if I wanted to have sex later. I nearly choked on my tongue that swelled up like a fat seal wallowing on the rocks of my teeth. I thought I was going to have a heart attack. I swore I was hallucinating until the guard came along after she left and asked me if I was okay. He was smiling and just wanted to know what she said. When I told him, he didn't believe me. I didn't believe me, either. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I took a drink of cold coffee. Coffee from 8am. It was 3pm. Seven hours of stagnation and inattention. Of cold bank temperatures and invisible things that float in the air and settle in an unsuspecting coffee cup. Fibers from exchanged money. Tiny hairs from scratched heads. Pet dander from ruffled clothes. Lung droplets from coughs. My coffee didn't believe what had happened, either. It didn't believe it at all. Nor did the picture of my mother on my desk. Daniel, she said, stay away from that devil woman. She will give you a venereal disease. She will break your heart into a million little pieces. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't expect to see her again, yet again. She didn't state her purpose other than to ask me if I wanted to have sex, which I didn't know was a serious question or not. How could it be a serious question? When I failed to answer because of my nerves, or my nervous disorder, she smiled and reached through the hole in the window to hold my hand. She took a breath, blew out on me, smiled, and then left. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That was all I ever expected to see of her. A bonus moment because she happened to know where I worked and recognized me. But why me? What was it about me that compelled her to visit. A humble humbolt penguin and a runaway thrift store mannequin — an eccentric beautiful thief in a bloody pearl choker. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Six days past. Six unadventful, inartful days. Six days, however, that I didn't get flustered around beautiful women. That I wasn't at all nervous. Then there was a knock at my apartment door. </span><span>No one besides the building super ever knocks at my apartment door, and that in itself is rare. There would have to be a gas leak or something. A dead tenant next door. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Food delivery people knock at my door sometimes mistakenly because the Chinese kid doesn't know his F from his G. So I answered the door expecting to see the super or some confused kid holding some beef chow mein, and there she was. She darkened the door with all the wanton beauty in the world in a five foot three ninety-nine pound frame.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hello, I am V," she said politley. She extended her hand to shake mine, formally. Smiling queerly. I loved her immediatley. Her eyes were watery as though she had been crying, though she denied she was. Even if I had no penis and she, no vagina, I would love her. Like Ken loves Barbie in playboxes everywhere. Even if it could only be consummated in my inagination. Even if she was, in fact, a thrift store mannequin and I, a dickless penguin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She possessed me and took possession of my soul and it was as though it had always belonged to her and she just came by to finally claim it. What did I need with a soul, anyway? What did it ever do for me, or I for it? I've carried it around all these years for nothing. It was as useless as a shadow. It made sense suddenly that it was hers to have. She was a lascivious Jehovah's Witness selling no God. No promise of anything. A perfect bone collector. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Do you want to have sex," she asked again. There was a more lustful tone to her voice this time.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't just say yes and that be it. I just stood there and bumbled like bumbles bumble. Like a buffoon. She chiseled away at my good judgement and resistance, if I had either. She worked me over like she was the heavyweight champion and I was a beat-up heavy bag dangling from a rattling chain with no arms to defend myself from the brunt of her coital barrage. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But despite my bumbling, I wasn't nervous. She had cured me of that six days before with a simple puff of breath. I smiled at her and invited her inside. She had a look around and pretended my place was charming. It wasn't like her place, I was sure. I could only imagine where she lived and how elegant it was. Then she took off the coat she was wearing, casually revealing nothing underneath besides knee-high stockings, panties, that pearl choker, and a pair of boots. Her breasts were perfect. Her ribs visible. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She made saying no impossible. No, I considered. What a ridiculous sounding word it was all of a sudden to me. How I began to salivate. To drool. To get hard and to turn into some sort of lurid ravenous beast with a fat tongue and no moral fortitude.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was like an animal in heat. I would imagine this is the way coyotes screw in the woods, or cats in alleys, or horses in stables. She made noises as she took me inside of her hallowed flesh walls, ungodly noises, and her fingernails protruded and dug into my skin. She bit my neck and sucked as she grinded harder and deeper down onto me. I had never felt anything like her in my life, and that soul I bore all these years for her she took in one of those slow and deliberate gyrations as she pressed hard against me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was as though she knew my body better than I knew it myself, for she let up just when we were about to reach coitus, until the urge subsided, then she clamped back onto me and sucked my neck again so that I was sure tomorrow I would have to wear a turtleneck or be a ludicrous leopard spectacle, lampooned like a hapless teenage girl new to love bites. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She bore no reflection in the mirror. That is how I knew. The oval mirror across the bed that she didn't notice, which I watched as we made love like wild dogs. It is a strange thing to see yourself making love to no one in the mirror but looking at her and feeling her as you do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I suppose it should have shocked me. I suppose I felt I was the man who was conned by his own fractured mind to believe that a rat was Adolf Hitler. I suppose this might have been a sophisticated jerk off session in which my mind exploded like a Salvador Dalí painting under the stress of my desire for someone so desirous I saw only twice, so briefly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But there she was in my bed after the eruption, my pyroclastic flow oozing from her flooded mewling quim onto the blue ocean of the bedsheets. The lost city of Atlantis found there in the mattress. She moaned deeply and squinted her eyes as she bit her lip, sucked her lip, and then licked her teeth clean. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was writhing like a wounded animal, like she had been hit by a car while giving birth, and then suddenly she stopped, inhaled deeply, thanked me, and got up to loot my dresser drawers for something to wear. She found sweatpants and a sweatshirt and got dressed as I lied in bed in a near-comatose state, an arm dangling from the bed as I watched her dress, witnessing yet another pretty theft. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Would you like to go out for dinner? It's still early," I asked.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No. I must go home. My husband will wonder where I have gone."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Your husband? You didn't say you had a husband." I was shattered. A husband was so incongruous to who she was or seemed to be. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, I didn't not say I had a husband. He simply didn't come up in conversation. But never mind him. He wouldn't begrudge me of the pleasure of a simple tryst."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"A simple tryst?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, dear. Were you expecting more? I haven't more to give, Danny. I am sorry if you were. I suppose I should have had you read the disclaimers at the beginning. The terms and conditions. But how boring. I don't like those who talk too much about sex. It is drivel. It ruins it. Like pornography ruins it. It's a thing to be had not to be discussed or dwelled upon, molested in the mind. That is what our predecessors understood. They were having sex just as often as you or I, they just didn't discuss it as much. It wasn't all over TV and movies. Eluded to, perhaps, but nothing more."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Is your name really V?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"It is part of it. The first letter of my name, but it is what I prefer. Madame V, if you'd rather."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Do you do this often?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Often is a subjective term, isn't it? You're suddenly rather inquisitive, aren't you? What is this? 60 Minutes?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She came over to look at me. Tilted my chin back and inspected my throat with great concern, then seemingly satisfied of its condition, tilted my chin back down and offered my lips a goodbye kiss. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Goodbye for now," she whispered.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't get to say anything else to her. She was gone before I could think of more. I didn't get to ask her about the absence of her reflection in the mirror, but I drew one obvious and absurd conclusion. The V was not for Victoria, or Vera, or Virginia. Rather, the V was for Vampire. And I had just traded blood for sex with a ridiculously beautiful woman. The most beautiful woman, in fact. It seemed like a better deal for me than donating blood to the Red Cross for a cookie and juice. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of course, it is logical to ask obvious questions. Why me? Of the eight million people in New York City, why had she chosen me. And would she return? Was it my bloodtype, or the fact that I had no connections, or that I wasn't a threat of any sort. Or that no one would believe me if I told them. If I wrote a story and sent it to the New Yorker or whoever else, they would label it fiction and send me a letter explaining vampire stories are clichéd and no longer of interest.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I went to the bank as usual the next morning and waited on customer after customer. I told them they needn't keep beautiful women from me as I was no longer afflicted by my nervous disorder. If anything, other people bored me. Beautiful woman, in particular, bored me because they were not V. Because they were fake. Their fake eyelashes and make-up bored me. Their fake boobs and botox. Their dyed hair and nose jobs and threaded eyebrows. They are pop-culture, pop-music-loving zombies. Doofs. Democrats. They bore me because they are not impetuous and they don't dare do or say anything intelligent or that could be construed as offensive. Nothing to inspire or to ponder. Not a word worth saying, really. Just plain words, drivel, nonsense. Same as the next one. Each of them dressed like the last. Wishing to be a celebrity. Same trendy hairstyles. Same nails. Same designer handbags and purses. I cashed their checks. Deposited their money. Whatever they needed. That is what I did until mercifully it was time to go home. Go home and wait for V to come. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You never really notice how similar everyone is until you see someone different. Until you experience them. Then no one and nothing is ever the same again. Or they are all the same. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Hubert Hughes, the giant gray ominous face on the wall of the bank, was scowling at me. He was my fiercest critic and he looked at me like he knew my secret. He liked uniformity and blandness, even if he didn't particularly like today's style of it. He was suspicious of me. Suspicious I was going to embezzle money and take off to Chile where a beautiful woman waits on me without realizing she is waiting at all. He had seen my type before. His ghost was stirring. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I waited for days hoping she would return. I had no stomach for prostitutes and no desire to paint. Everything bored me except the thought of her. Eight million people in New York and I was only interested in one. Desperately interested in one. Despite her being married. Despite the imbalance of our attractiveness. I, the humble humbolt penguin, and she the desirous vampire goddess who shamed any actress or model I had ever seen. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then on the sixth day, a knock. We made love much the same way we had before. It was apparently more voracious and intense because it compelled Mrs. Ludvitz in the apartment below to shout something while beating the ceiling mercilessly with a broom handle. But we did not stop nor pay her any mind. The bed was hopping across the floor like it was doing the worm. Like it was possessed. I hope my mother wasn't watching. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I looked again at the mirror and it was as though I was making love to myself. My arms wrapped around nothing but air. My lips kissing nothing. But she was there when I looked at her. She smiled afterwards, out of breath, and caressed me as I lied next to her. Again she looked at my throat and then ran her fingers over where she had sucked blood from my jugular. I was food to her. I was sustenance. It was obvious to me that I was little more than that, nor would I be. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I wasn't pure and motiveless as much as I might pretend that I was. While she was sex to me, while she was beauty, she was also inspiration and life itself. Meaning. Purpose. Motovation. She gave me confidence and a belief in something more than the mundane. How boring life was before her. How boring it is in between the days that I see her. Between the hours that are counted on the bank clock second by second like the heartbeats of the old and wretched Hubert Hughes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't dread when she leaves because I am still intoxicated on her. And it lasts a day or so, then I miss her again and I long for that knock. She is a drug I've not before known and I am hopelessly addicted. Everything was so dull without her. So drab it was almost colorless, pleasureless, tasteless. Or maybe it was the blood loss. The lack of blood to my brain that intensified my sense of pleasure and euphoria. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She came every six days for three months without fail. At around eight she knocked and she was gone by eleven. I cannot forget the sound of the latch as the door closed behind her. The smell of her vapors in the air as they lingered there. That hollow feeling like an extracted tooth from the mouth of my soul when she was gone. Still I wondered about the mirror, though I knew. Some things need not spoken of, detailed, or explained. I knew she was older than twenty or thirty. Maybe she was older than three hundred and three. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I never spoke of her husband. I never wanted to remind her like my mother reminded me of the peanut butter on Mr. Ed's gums. I never wanted to give her any sort of moral dilemma. But perhaps I was over-stating the potential of my affect and there was nothing to be concerned of in that respect. What was I to her, I wondered. Was I more than blood?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I began to paint again. I was painting the cemetery at St. Patrick's Old Cathedral Churchyard with mourners present. I was studying an old photograph dated 1888 when I saw her. Dressed in a black dress with a hat looking at the photographer as though she were surprised. Or desolate to the point that she could not look away in her melancholy. Her lips parted full and plump. Her eyes vacant. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">By her position among other mourners, I could discern the deceased was someone of great importance to her and that she was dreadfully anguished. I studied her face under a magnifying glass in that old book until I had not the slightest doubt that she was one in the same for no one else in the world has ever looked like her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I did the painting that I called "Mourners at St. Patrick's Churchyard" and hung it in my apartment. I was hoping it would mean something to her and she would tell me who it was she mourned when she came over next. I intended to gift it to her. I stayed up all night for two days to finish it. But on the sixth day, there wasn't a knock. I waited the way a cat waits around a doorstep where he gets milk, but nothing came of it. There was no more milk. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After several months, she lost interest, it seemed. Perhaps her husband found out. Or a guilty conscious overcame her. Or maybe it was only that I bored her and this is how boring things are parted with. Whatever it was, she was gone. And though, I suppose, I knew she would go away someday, it didn't make it any easier that she did. She was something not to be kept or caged. Not to be settled upon or predictable. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What a beautiful curse she turned out to be upon me. For how could I find interest in anyone after being with her? In life itself. She ruined me for my tolerance of boredom and my contentment with prostitutes and my job. I held on to the hope that she might return to me for months. I worked at the bank and hoped she would show up sometime, just as she had before, until months turned into a year and I simply couldn't tolerate life anymore as it was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I walked the streets hoping to bump into her. Went places I've never gone before. Done things I don't normally do. Rode the subway for several years, aimlessly. Joined an eclectic sex club where they say vampires casually feed. Sat at the delicatessen and hoped she'd return on another Tuesday afternoon to steal someone's lunch until the food became too bland and intolerable for me to stomach. Heartbreak is like swallowing a slow poison. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I painted painting after painting. Trying to get her face right. Every detail exact as it was. Canvases after canvases trashed. Year after year passed. Years it took me to complete my masterpiece. The greatest painting I've ever painted or would ever paint. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I told old Hubert Hughes off and quit my job at the bank and became celibate for lack of desire. I dared to live as an artist and sold paintings to make my living. After a while, I became a success, thought it felt hollow without V. The only painting I refused to sell was the one of her in my doorway that first time she came to me. That one I kept for myself. She kept me company, even in her absence. She inspired me to keep painting and to believe in myself as an artist. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Years later, I had a show at art gallery in Soho and someone paid two million dollars for "Mourners at St Patrick's Churchyard" with the condition that they meet the artist. The artist who met hardly anyone. I was a recluse by reputation. There was a room in the back of the gallery and I followed my agent who left me at the door with a delightful grin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I opened the door, there she was — V — without mascara and that bloody pearl choker. She told me her husband was in the gallery waiting for her to return, but she wanted to commend me on my work and to look into my eyes again because she had missed me. She had tears in her eyes I am not soon to forget. We made love in that room on a velvet sofa. When it was over, I no longer wondered if I'd ever see her again — I simply wondered when. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9j1JcAvsouGemEuQzqiwq87dxzrlPg5T-ukKUkNk42tGi96fiNjSfsGVe2woJIAL15S6-LZ3oKcN6tZGlm6mz1qnzwLiHHzqKeYHoPQv1Zo6GcVzMyf94Rtzue6kBw1Wjkau35fLLvqIlKPnbbxSBO9od19Fc7X1SdWz7hL5bfoUu62n_XMpywOYYaYgm/s512/106c049458f731f9a5f1a13b82d4c6ea2504a4da_2000x2000%20(1).webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="512" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9j1JcAvsouGemEuQzqiwq87dxzrlPg5T-ukKUkNk42tGi96fiNjSfsGVe2woJIAL15S6-LZ3oKcN6tZGlm6mz1qnzwLiHHzqKeYHoPQv1Zo6GcVzMyf94Rtzue6kBw1Wjkau35fLLvqIlKPnbbxSBO9od19Fc7X1SdWz7hL5bfoUu62n_XMpywOYYaYgm/s320/106c049458f731f9a5f1a13b82d4c6ea2504a4da_2000x2000%20(1).webp" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-41463446926047079002023-11-05T22:25:00.003-08:002023-11-06T17:27:51.350-08:00Hexes On My Exes<p><span style="font-size: large;">Ellis Cory stood on the corner of Essex and Ginsburg rubbing his sore mandible. He had just been beat to a pulp by a midget tourist named Rupert Rincon who was dressed as a penguin of all things. Ellis once loved penguins, but he doubted he'd ever look at them the same again. When he was a kid he would cry when he saw them being eaten by seals, but anymore, he might laugh if he was to see it. Their mouths are terrifying and through the mouth of the costume he saw Rupert's angry face.</span></p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span>Ellis was drunk as hell. He wasn't dressed as anything, though it was Halloween weekend. He wasn't a tourist. He was born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts so every year he had to put up with this shit. A parade of onomatopeic </span><span>dopes — the influx of tourists dressed as all sorts of trendy and increasingly dorky things. Mostly witches and warlocks and zombie puritans and Draculas. Of course, there was a slew of Harry Potters. Unoriginal bastards, he reviled them stuck in traffic. The least they could do is dress up as sluts. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis was a direct descendent of Giles Cory who was accused of witchcraft and pressed to death on September 19, 1692 by an extremely heavy weight, which is a terrible way to go. He felt it gave him the right to be an asshole. My ancestors suffered and shit, Ellis would often slur drunk like a no account. Salem owes me a good time. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He couldn't remember why the midget penguin had punched him in the bar. But he remembered a pool cue and chalk being involved. Then he remembered the pitter-patter of little webbed penguin feet on the green felt of the pool table and he realized the midget had climbed onto the table to be of suitable height to launch his malefic assault. It was a strategic move. Rupert Rincon was a professional midget boxer from Panama, unbeknownst to Ellis. It might have made him feel better if he knew. But nothing would make him feel better. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The incident all stemmed from Ellis ordering anchovies and playfully trying to feed the penguin midget the tiny fish and then, when the penguin refused, hurling them at him saying they ought to remind him of his wife. Then, when that failed to get a rise out of the pint-sized penguin, saying something about the midget's mother taking it in the backdoor because he had it on good authority that her steak drapes looked like the exit wound of a 44 magnum.</span>
<br /><br /><span>That is how much drunk Ellis hated tourists. And tourists hated Ellis, too. He grew to be a pariah listed on all the tourist sites. "Avoid this fuggin' guy," they said. Somehow "fuggin'" was okay to say, but "fucking" was not. There were various pictures of Ellis in different states of drunkenness. The tourists acted like they owned the place when they came to town. They all did the same stupid things, grinning like goofs all over the place, snapping pictures by the same stupid monuments, going to the same places, congesting traffic. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It wasn't the first time Ellis had been beaten up by a tourist and likely it wouldn't be the last. He couldn't remember all the times, but it usually resulted from him insulting someone's mother. That is what he did when he was drunk. </span>
<br /><br /><span>So there he stood. On Essex and Ginsburg, which used to be Essex and Custer before they renamed everything that offended liberals like masculinity and Indian killers and rebels and cowboys and actors and actresses and Aunt Jemima bottles and butter girls and men and Donald Trump. The list is ever-expanding and will go until it consumes everyone and everything. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It wasn't always this way for Ellis Cory. He was once a happy man. He was once a decent man who was very much in love and not an alcoholic in the least. But when the love affair ended with the love of his life, he went down a path of degeneration and alcoholism consumed by bar fights, and loose women with Rent-A-Center vaginas, and glory holes with suspect mouths, and glitzy hookers. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It is strange what a broken heart does to an animal. At least, he didn't do drugs, as he boasted defiantly to friends who staged an impromptu intervention, at a bar of all places. They all offered him the sage advice of, "Just get over her," and in various degrees of politesse and hostility, referred to her as a worthless psychotic whore not worth a spit because spit was a better word than shit. Shit would have just been too degrading. </span>
<br /><br /><span>You can do better. There are plenty of fish in the sea. She wasn't meant for you. Thank God for unanswered prayers. They said a million terrible things that could be in fortune cookies for the brokeneharted. The same banal and stupidly obvious things people say because they cannot think of anything better, or they cannot empathize as well as they should, but they mean well, all the same. The intervention didn't help. That night Ellis was knocked out by a tourist from Texas dressed up as Davy Crockett whose mother he called an old cum dumpster and who he had it on good authority that she's the biggest whore in all of Texas, which he called the "bone" star state. Then he said those Texans in the Alamo had it coming and there Ellis lay half-conscious on the barroom floor like an expectorated coughdrop, sticky and dirty from tourist feet, smiling as the blood trickled down his nose and cheeks, pooling briefly in his right ear, gurgling, nearly drowning, before spitting it out like a crimson geyser. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis liked to say he "had it on good authority" of something or other. He got it from some old TV show with a butler. It made whatever he said sound smarter, he felt. Of course, he didn't have anything on good authority, it was all made up. And when he was drunk, he didn't sound smart at all, but he said it anyway. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis was lucky his hard living hadn't cost him more than it had. He was lucky he hadn't gotten stabbed or shot and that the bar fights hadn't knocked a tooth out because he was hanging on to good looks by a thread. He was in his mid-forties so age was bad enough. His hair was thinning and his eyes were sandbagged because of a lack of sleep. His complexion was moonglow pale because he didn't get enough sun. He only got what sun he got to and from the office. He slept after work until 7 or 8 and went to the bars and closed them down like it was his job. His liver was like the vagina of an exotic Malaysian porno actress who fucked gorillas for tourists. His eyes appeared to swim in alcohol like two blue silver dollar fish and his circumlocutory way of speaking beguiled those who dared to listen to him. But of all the insults he slung, of all the crude and debauched things he said or did, he never said a bad word about his ex-girlfriend, though he had every right to if only to truthfully recall the coldness of her betrayal. </span>
<br /><br /><span>In his Elysian mind she existed as Eve existed in the Garden of Eden. She is naked and loyal there. Lying on a luxurious bed of absurd palatian comfort, pillows abound, and soft white crumpled blankets cradle her. It was before the apple. She is perfect and beautiful and there he is too, when he gets drunk and swallows himself whole. There they both are lying in that bed that floats down a river of his thoughts until he cannot fool himself any longer with the alcohol as the memory inevitably attacks his delusional reveries. Then he pisses it all out, or ejaculates it through a community glory hole like the one in the adult store on Oyster Avenue, that in the spirit of Salem, looks like a slutty Spirit Halloween. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But then he saw her. With his sore jaw and all. Standing there half-drunk his ass freshly kicked by that angry Panamanian midget penguin who is now just a blur and who is probably licking his wounds in some hotel, still sore about his dear insulted mother. She was coming out of a shop on High Street. A shop Ellis had never seen before. A shop with a neon eyeball sign above it which bled out on the cold black street in a pool of vibrant color. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The neon eyeball reminded Ellis of Salem's infamous glory hole. The one on Oyster Avenue in the back of that adult store where people buy hot oils and dildos and whips and chains and glass pipes to smoke meth. It was said that a witch was behind the wall and she did what she did because she needed sperm to stay young. That was the legend, anyway. Some people say she was Ms. Greene, the former gymnast and linguist, who taught English at the high school. Others say she was a nurse named Haley Nocterra from the local hospital. Both were very attractive women, but both were not the glory hole girl. The identity of that girl was Salem's greatest mystery. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis recalled seeing her eyeball in the hole once, which reminded him of the neon eyeball. He just so happened to look into it and there she was. One large green eye. Ellis said he went for the conversations because the blow job was only so-so. He rated it on Google, accordingly. But in truth, the conversation was mostly garbled.</span>
<br /><br /><span>But there his ex-girlfriend was leaving that shop beneath the all-seeing neon eyeball. She walked the other way and did not see him, which gave him a sense of relief because he looked like shit and wouldn't want to be seen in his present state. He wasn't a ruggedly handsome man. He was a beaten-looking buffoon. Like bruised fruit. A puffy-lipped and crooked-nosed bastard. He had a swollen eye which looked like a babboon's asshole. A worn-out boxing gym speed bag duck-taped with an eggplant nose. A tooth wiggled precariously threatening his good looks. He couldn't pull off the rugged look very well. He was more of a cosmopolitan handsome, and that required some effort. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis, never believing curiosity killed the cat, nor caring if it did, walked into the shop not sure what to expect. There was only the eyeball outside and inside another neon sign flashed like a nudist under a trench coat, "Hexes on my Exes." The words boldly flashed, flashed, flashed. There was a menu below. Potions for sell. And below all that there was a very attractive woman perched at a desk with a black plastic cauldron on top full of candybars and wax teeth for the tourists. </span>
<br /><br /><span>If Ellis was in the market for a single woman, she might be it. But as he was, she was just another fucking machine in a world full of fuck machines. A fuck machine with lips and eyes and a dainty attractive nose. Sure he would have sex with her. Why not? Maybe hers was the magic hole of eternal bliss, after all. But it would be sex that meant nothing as the sex he was having for the past two years meant nothing. He didn't care. If it came down to it, sure, they'd screw. What's one more or less.</span>
<br /><br /><span>The woman said welcome and he said thank you, for lack of anything better. How weirdly conditioned we have all become saying please and thank you over nothing at all when we neither want something or are thankful. Ellis was a smalltalk zombie who didn't seem to exist in matters that he was indifferent. But this peaked his interest. His ex-girlfriend, the ghost of a year past, peaked his interest. The smell of her perfume that lingered in the room. The pink neon sign peaked his interest, and the eyeball, like that of the mysterious eyeball he once saw through the glory hole, peaked his interest.</span>
<br /><br /><span>At first he thought it was just another bougie tattoo shop because the firecrotch at the front desk was heavily tattooed. Two sleeves and a scarf, if that is what they call a neck piece, which was of Micheangelo's The Creation of Adam. Real fine art. Kudos to her for not getting some trashy thing. Some old English writing. Or Chinese. Some Harley Quinn garbage scrawled. Some Marilyn Monroe quote. There was a tiger on her chest which looked Asian and without her saying a word at all, he knew she would say that it "guards her heart" or some dumb shit like that. He hoped she didn't say so. There's nothing worse than when someone talks about themselves and their tattoos. Then he recognized her green eyeball.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Holy shit," he said. She was the girl from the glory hole and he felt better about life for a minute because she was attractive. He wondered if he had occasionally given that tiger on her chest a pearly beard because he came like Mount Vesuvious when he came. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Then he realized he was brokenhearted still and it didn't matter if he did or not. None of it mattered. Nothing matters when you have a broken heart. He recalled his last time at the glory hole a few days before. There was music playing as he bellied up to the black wall and matter-of-factly put his penis into the mysterious hole like someone parks their car in a garage. The music was The Shirelle's singing, "Will you love me tomorrow?" An odd choice of music for the theme or a glory hole, he thought. The glory hole girl behind the wall hummed along. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He wondered if she recognized him, but it was obvious she did not. Maybe if he was uncouth enough to flip out his weiner she might recognize it. Maybe she named them as they pushed through the wall. Through that quarter-inch drywall wall. Maybe they were given life like babies are given life when they pop through the magic beef curtains previously only being a clump of cells. Magically nothing to someone with a breath of air. Or maybe he was wrong and she had an eyeball that looked like someone else's. A doppelgänger eyeball. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The menu offered hexes and the patient and beautiful firecrotch waited for Ellis to peruse it and tell him what he wanted as though he was ordering a coffee and a box of munchkins at Dunkin' Donuts. There was Misery by STD; Prepetual Brokenheartedness Without Me; Taco Bell Ass; Moderate to Severe Psoriasis; Acne; Shingles; Wet Dog Crotch; Ass Warts; Fishy Down There Forever; Onion Breath; Uncontrolled Jealousy; Explosive Diarrhea; General Malaise; Meloncholia; on and on. There were prices next to each. But there was one thing that stuck out to Ellis, that battered and bruised brokenhearted loveable psychotic boob, and that was the last potion listed — Forget You! It was the most expensive of them all. </span>
<br /><br /><span>As the firecrotch hummed a refrain from "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" in her boredom, Ellis asked, skittish as he was, what it entailed. And so she opened a vinyl binder and that rather glorious mouth of hers read word-for-word the product description, that it was a potion to forget your ex, or anyone really. Then he asked her what the lady who just walked out ordered so he knew what he might be afflicted with, if he was the reason for her visit, and she said she was not at liberty to say as though it was a hospital or something. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Then he said he recognized her eyeball and her mouth from somehwere and she capitulated quickly, saying, "The lady ordered 'Forget You!' From Ellis Cory. Wait. Are you — Ellis Cory?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>He sighed. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm sorry," Eve offered. Her name was Eve. At that very moment he saw her name badge pinned to a perky fake boob which was the size of a baseball.</span>
<br /><br /><span>Eve! It screamed triumphantly. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis felt himself get angry. At first, there was a tinge of false satisfaction in that she was struggling to forget him, or thought of him so much so that she was buying a potion to do so, but then the anger took hold and had him its jaws. After all they've been through. After what she did to him, and what he forgave her of. His mind went back to the night it ended. A frequent stop on the train of his mind's routine navel-gazing. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He was going to ask her to marry him that night at the finest restaurant in Salem. He was uncomfortable sitting there in an itchy suit listening to the synchronous clatter of silverware on porcelain plates. He overlooked a straight pin in the collar of his JC Penney dress shirt, which jabbed him in the neck like a voodoo doll. He just took the pain. He hadn't worn the suit since his last job interview 7 years ago. Or to someone's funeral. He couldn't remember which was last. People were poking raw meat and seaweed with forks. Slurping soup and trying desperately to be copious with words and funny. They were stuffing their cocktraps and muff holes with expensive food drizzled with the usual drizzling sauces the bougie chefs cream themselves talking about like its the most original thing in the world. The plate garnished with cock drizzle and a leaf of something they pretend is as sacred as Eve's fig leaf. The ring was burning a hole in his pocket. He was sweating buckets and uncertain about how she'd answer, yet excited nonetheless. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But unbeknownst to him, months earlier his girlfriend, who was wiggling in her whorish discomfort feigning the delight of a vanilla bean panna cotta and contentment to the very end of it's dead end street, heard from a friend that Ellis was cheating on her. The friend swore she saw him out with another woman and took a grainy cellphone picture to prove it. She was a fat white woman and most every negative thing wrong in this world is perpetuated by religious zealots, dickless sport's obsessed men, queers, or fat white women who seem to fiendishly devour drama and shit controversy with bazooka-caliber sphincters of explosive dramatic diarrhea. His affair was probably with a tourist, they concurred.</span>
<br /><br /><span>It wasn't true. The friend was mistaken and Ellis apparently has a dopplegänger — a tax attorney tourist named Nathan Witt from Ohio. And there he sat at the restaurant ready to propose to a woman who had been bent up and dipped and drizzled in baby yogurt for weeks behind his back by an obese man named Joe something who didn't deserve her. She was an insecure woman who had been unfaithful in revenge of nothing. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Then she told him and his life unraveled in the blink of a neon fucking eyeball while everyone around them schmoozed and paid way too much for baby cow meat and fish eggs pretending to be smart and cultured. They would have ate baby had it been on the menu and had it made them look more sophisticated. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He didn't tell her he intended to propose. He just took it like he took that straight pin in the neck. She didn't tell him what she had done until she had finished eating that vanilla bean panna cotta, and when she did it was the way someone usually tells someone that they've been unfaithful, like it is a natural yet disagreeable minor sort of thing that isn't that serious in the scheme of life. It isn't like genocide, or a terrorist attack, or a nuclear holocaust, they reason. She told him like a kid tells a parent they swallowed their bubblegum. Or they were in an auto accident that wasn't entirely their fault. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"It gives me no satisfaction to say this," she began like she was delivering the Gettysburg Address. "But I've been unfaithful. Who he is is not important, so please don't ask." She cried a little. That was the cherry on top of that vanilla been panna cotta. All her tears for herself. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I wasn't cheating," he said. "Whoever she saw wasn't me. It wasn't me."</span>
<br /><br /><span>She didn't believe him. She showed him the picture but he was quick to point out that the man in the picture had earlobes rather than attached ears as he has. And when his girlfriend compared the ear from the photo to Ellis' ear, she knew she was mistaken. Then she cried, saying, "My God, what have I done?" before saying he had no right to blame her. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Of course, he had every right to blame her, but it was done. They were done. It was all over. There is no real forgiving infidelity and these people who claim to be happy "throuples" or polynamorous or polygamists are all full of shit dysfunctional nut-jobs. The relationship has been compromised and it becomes as exclusive as a garden-variety glory hole or a gas station pump. They certainly may continue their relationship, but the infidelity is always there ruining things forever. When fidelity is lost, it cannot be reclaimed. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"It's okay," she said hoping he wouldn't make a scene. His brain schismed. Her brain flooded itself with dopamine that told her everything was alright. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"No, Olivia. It's not. No!" He shook his head, tore off his collar and tie, then got up and left before he cried. And there in the parking lot, he cried like he had when his dog died in the third grade. Then he felt like a bitch for crying so he stopped and went and banged a tourist. Then another and another until it made him feel like shit. He disappeared in the dark as tourists waddled by with their cellphones snapping photos, flashes flashing. Fake witches and their brooms on foot. A bunch of Wednesday Addams' and Harley Quinns and Sanderson sisters of which, at one point or another, he had shamefully banged all three. There Ellis Cory walked into a pit of despair like a loveless insatiable zombie who was after pussy instead of brains. Who was being pressed by the weight of life like his ancestor Giles Cory was with stones.</span>
<br /><br /><span>But now he stood there with this firecrotch who waited for him to order something. To wake up from the memory that held him hostage like Mitch McConnell's stalled dead brain — that human terrapin. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Ellis?" she nudged. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm sorry. Well — if she wants to forget me, I want to forget her. I'll take the same potion."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Eve nodded. "Might I interest you in a quickie in the back as well? Since you know about, well, the 'GH.' I'll do it for 100 — 80 if you pull out."</span>
<br /><br /><span>It was a good offer. A fair offer. She was an attractive woman. He never would have imagined that anyone who operated a $20 glory hole would be so attractive. He figured her face was mangled or something the first time he bellied up to that wall like one of those sticky wall-crawling octopuses. Maybe she was a tranny, or mauled by pitbulls, or burned in a fire, but regardless, she had the mouth of a Hoover. Just put the money in the slot and stick your dick through the hole and wait. Have faith. That's how it goes. Your entire life playing on the backs of your eyelids as it happens.</span>
<br /><br /><span>There is a lot of trust sticking your dick through a hole and waiting. Sometimes she took a minute. Sometimes her hand was cold or her mouth had an ice cube in it. Other times it was warm like pie is warm. Sometimes she was gentle and sometimes she was rough. But behind the thin black wall there was always the sound of moaning from a TV with a defective speaker that had a crackle in it. The soft sounds of pornography on a Radio Shack television. And there was the song. The Shirelles. He could hear the sound of her finger pressing the play button on the cassette player. And her humming along as she played the skin flute like a concert flutist which made him palm the wall as his soul was being sucked from his man straw. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"No," Ellis returned pitifully. "No thank you. Just the potion."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Eve frowned at his rebuke. A semblance of morality awoke in him and he was cleansed of the debauchery that had succeeded his hearthbreak.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You know why they call me the mermaid," she persisted. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I didn't know they did," Ellis admitted.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, they do. Nothing below the waste. I promised my husband that. But he left me, so now I'm expanding my market. But I offered you the full fucking magnolia and you turned me down cold. Fuck."</span>
<br /><br /><span>He didn't reply. He hadn't the energy to apologize or to explain. He wasn't much into phony pity parties, anyway. She wouldn't have any trouble having a weiner roast in her firepit once she advertised it. What did it matter if he fucked her or not? He was done fucking random things. Random holes. He suddenly desired someone and something meaningful. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The potion cost 100 bucks, which he paid on his debit card, inserting the plastic into the slot. A metaphor itself. The machine moaned and the receipt came out the other end and the transaction was complete. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Eve explained that the potion wasn't really a potion. Rather it was hypnosis. But she wasn't a hypnotist. She just worked there. All she had to do was sit him down on a sofa and put a pair of headphones on his head and press play. She'd probably shove her tits in his face as she did. He'd be eye to eye with that tiger protector of her heart, which he surely glazed. </span>
<br /><br /><span>By the end of it, he would forget his ex-girlfriend. Eve only had to know her name and some AI program plugged her name into the auto-generated script. It even read it in a sexy British woman's voice. Alice, they called it. "Alice" was an acronym for something she didn't bother to explain and he didn't care to know. It was Alice's eye on the sign out front. Rain beat against the glass window and it looked as though Alice was crying. </span>
<br /><br /><span>And there Ellis sat on the same green leather sofa he probably would have been fucking Eve had he agreed to a final hoo-rah with the willing mermaid glory hole hypnotist who opened her unholy under region for the first time to him. Her great natural golden leg arch. Her snatch cave now opened to tourists. And there he sat, like a bitch, he felt, with Dre Beatz on his ears wondering if he had just wasted 100 bucks he could have spent on debaucherizing himself further into some deep dark lonely abyss until death felt sorry for him enough to take him. To put him out of his misery.</span>
<br /><br /><span>He didn't realize it worked when it was over because he didn't know what he had forgotten. And since he didn't remember his ex-girlfriend, he didn't have a broken heart. His heart was whole again. And since he didn't have a broken heart, he wasn't interested in depravity as a cure. He was clean again. Whole again. New again. It was like someone prayed over him. Some rabid televangelist with a toothy grin healed him by slapping him on the forehead. He went home and took a bath. He was a bald fucking head. A newborn baby pushing himself through the magic beef curtains to be a legitimate human-being that nobody could deny. He was safe from the abortion. He made it past the angry snapping forceps.</span>
<br /><br /><span>He was perfect in his new form. His new existence. He didn't mind the tourists. They were dandy to him as they were before his ex-girlfriend cheated. They were dandy as candy. He lived a good and wholesome life for a year. A year of no sex or fighting. No glory holes. No glitzy hookers. No jerking off. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He went to the Hawthorne Hotel the next Halloween and danced all night. He was friendly and made good jokes. Earlier in the evening he went to the witches museum where tourists learned the witches weren't burned at the stake, much to their disappointment. They were hung. The gallows weren't there anymore. The ropes weren't saved for posterity sake. Or they were pressed like his great great great grandfather. They became little puritan fritters sent to Heaven or Hell by the do-good pressers. So it goes. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It was at the Hawthorne Hotel that Halloween that Ellis met a beautiful woman he could not have met had he not forgotten his ex. She was dressed up as a plague doctor and he was dressed up as a plague doctor. Both with the ominous bird masks. Both at the Hawthorne and both staring at each other from across the room when they took off their masks to have a better look and to breathe. He had never seen anyone more beautiful in his life. </span>
<br /><br /><span>That night she was running through the halls of the hotel ringing her bell calling out, "Bring out your dead," much to everyone's annoyance or amusement. It was about an even split. Then Ellis opened his door as she was about to pass and he saw her. And she saw him. They were beak to beak. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm sorry," she said, startled, removing her mask. A little embarrassed, but drunk enough not to be humiliated. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Don't be," he said. "I just came back to my room to change to go to the hotel bar. Would you like to come in?" </span>
<br /><br /><span>She agreed. Her bell clamored upon her thigh as she put it aside to enter. Ellis had booked a room though he lived only a few miles away. He booked a room like a tourist would book a room. And there they sat in that white room dressed in all black after the dance. He didn't bother to change and they didn't bother to go down to the bar for the after-party. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Love had finally found Ellis Cory. And Ms. Olivia Lang was his willful recipient. She was also a resident of Salem, he learned, but, like him, she partook in the festivities of Halloween as though she weren't. There they sat in the room akwardly as though they didn't know what to do next. A dark and akward room until he turned on the TV with the excuse to watch something to alleviate some of the pressure of being alone with her. The smell of fresh linens and toilet cleaner lingered in the air. A hint of pine. A touch of bleach and lemon. It was a cleansing smell. It was the smell of opportunity and a new beginning. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Ellis didn't ask Olivia about the ghost of boyfriend's past. Nor did she ask him about his last girlfriend or if he was ever married. He didn't care who came before, nor did she. They talked about work. About the absence of kids. About parents and family. About their favorite movies and their hopes and dreams. And then they made love in that room as the walls watched them in the swell of a great white quilt that was like a cloud or a dry wave. As the self-absorbed actors and actresses on TV pretended not to look. As Rupert Rincon was somehwere in Panama telling someone about the dirty gringo who he knocked out while in Salem for insulting his dearly-beloved mother. As Eve's mouth got stuffed behind that anonymous black wall like Joey Chestnut's while The Shirelle's asked that ever-important question — Will you still love me tomorrow? </span>
<br /><br /><span>Olivia stopped Ellis before he officially entered the sovereignty of her vagina like a customs agent checking for papers or narcotics. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I feel like I've met you before," she said. "I am getting a sense of déjà vu."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"If I had met you before," he answered, "I never would have forgotten you." That was all it took. A satisfactory response and she opened the baby gate wide and in he came. To a land of new opportunity, hope and promise. A sanctuary. There was instant almagamation. Good sex and companionship. A new world.</span>
<br /><br /><span>He, of course, didn't know, and she, of course, didn't know as their costumes lay crumpled on the floor like peeled shadows that they had spent years together and it ended horribly, mistakenly, but it ended nonetheless. But they were destined and destiny cannot be foiled by the folly of our ways as big of doofs as we can be and sometimes are, and as fucked up as we fuck up our lives. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Good night, my love," he said to her when he turned off the narcissistic voyeurs in the TV. He had never met an actor who wasn't a narcissist, after all. A tattoo of the all-seeing neon eyeball on his hand reached over and lied gently between her naked tits which were atop her heart like pillowy fortresses. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Goodnight, my darling," she replied, none-the-wiser. Not knowing her life had been altered by a visit to that shop on High Street. Repaired by forgetting. And somewhere that all-seeing neon eyeball of Alice blinked once for another satisfied customer. Twice for two satisfied customers, two turtledoves, who were given another chance at love by hope, fate and hypnosis. And who had the opportunity to fall in love with each other all over again.</span></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><span></span>"More weight," he mumbled in his sleep.<br /><br /><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUR-XwmVdPW7i_GFcO0GofntZQRISnb6sm0CKT_cq8pKo2XBAMhw6hoaVn2QZxuwnULfF9aYS4Kn_QmfyYhdMNw2-aHL3rt50kilc5bbx6GATFywp3z7d4rarOfVeqx7vqUEF0o6kiNCDpcryngn940gZ9ooUaGl-ZBkwkSsiu3FBADPsX2tGKmlauDC6u/s570/FB_IMG_1698884299887.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="570" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUR-XwmVdPW7i_GFcO0GofntZQRISnb6sm0CKT_cq8pKo2XBAMhw6hoaVn2QZxuwnULfF9aYS4Kn_QmfyYhdMNw2-aHL3rt50kilc5bbx6GATFywp3z7d4rarOfVeqx7vqUEF0o6kiNCDpcryngn940gZ9ooUaGl-ZBkwkSsiu3FBADPsX2tGKmlauDC6u/s320/FB_IMG_1698884299887.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_231106_011229_841.sdocx--></div>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-71106598656263408072023-10-05T09:04:00.006-07:002023-10-05T12:18:07.155-07:00We Are All Going To Die<p><span style="font-size: large;">There is a restaurant on the ocean in Ft. Lauderdale called "The Casablanca." The Moroccan motif, the piano, the craps tables and roulette wheels where no one gambles gives the impression that Sam, Rick, Ilsa, and Captain Renault have died and only their ghosts remain. In their place, however, tourists flourish like fungi, some dressed in fancy clothes while others look as though they were washed in with the tide, sprinkling sand wherever they go from the backs of cheap sandals.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is a busy place. There is fresh seafood, good wine and live entertainment — tonight in the statuesque form of Lillian Kush and her piano player Morty Fingers. He doesn't play the white piano where Rick hid the letters of transit, or where Sam played "As Time Goes By" for Ilsa. That sits alone by itself. There is hardly a sadder site than an abandoned piano, if you ask me. It isn't the actual piano from the movie, but it is an exact replica, a sign boasts.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Lillian Kush sounds like Celine Dion and sings many of her songs. She just finished a rendition of "My Heart Will Go On," which never fails to nauseate me. But halfway into the song I caught a glimpse of a waitress with stunning hazel eyes and long brown long hair. She was wearing a white sundress and she grinned at me as she passed by. It was a simple courtesy, I was sure, but I was enthralled nonetheless and the fact that I felt anything at all in my slough of despond was remarkable. I've lived in a state of dysthymia for quite a while and it had taken its toll. I used to be a social worker, which desensitized me to nearly everything. How long it had been since I was able to feel anything meaningful.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't know what I would say to her, or if I ever would say anything at all. In a crowded restaurant of hundreds of people, it wasn't likely I'd ever get the chance to speak to her, and if I did, it would be one of those akward moments with seven people standing around assessing your words for relevance to them, or interest. Waiting for a joke so they can laugh, or some scrap of tantalizing gossip. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She wasn't my waitress. I had a tall, young gay waiter named Alex, who was mishapened and out of shape. He was not obese, but he was lumpy. Like dumplings are lumpy. He was dressed cheaply like a gangster in a rather poor and misunderstood effort to go along with the restaurant's theme. Pinstripes and suspenders and a black derby that was only a tick above the cheap plastic ones they sell in every Halloween shop. I don't care that he is gay. It was only an observation because he was so flamboyant the observation couldn't be helped. Like that of the heterosexual lecherous man in the corner ogling the pretty waitresses and bareskinned wide-eyed tourists as they passed him, as a tiger would a passing heard of unsuspecting deer. He ogled the lounge singer, as well, despite her age, the beauty of her dwindling youth still well upon her. She posed in Playboy in 1988, she said between songs with a wry grin as though inviting everyone to scrutinize her with their curious eyes. Morty Fingers was her husband and tickled the piano keys like a baseball organist to accentuate everything she said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But this woman, this waitress, who floated flawlessly across the place as though she were a ghost upon a sea breeze from the obscenely large open oceanfront windows, captivated me. There is hardly a better glue at all for a broken man than the face of a pretty woman. I had never seen anyone quite like her and I was sure before the night was through that I would speak to her. I would find a way. I simply had to if only to alleviate myself of the wonder as to what her voice sounded like. Or to make myself known to her because I couldn't live in a world that she doesn't at least know that I exist. If even just to say hello that would come as quick as the goodbye that would follow. I would probably say some dumb thing that would flutter from my mouth to her ears and die there like a fly on a window sill. But something no less, I needed to say. I would propose to her the possibility of she and I as impossible as it was being that I was a tourist from Ohio and she was a local Floridian not likely to ever trade sunshine and beaches for cold and snow. I couldn't imagine myself living here. But I had no doubt looking at her that I was destined to meet her. That she was why I came, after all. How absurdly sure I was. Confident for no apparent reason. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The circumstance around me being in Ft. Lauderdale was simply that I booked a vacation with my ex-girlfriend who left me two weeks before, and I forgot to cancel the reservations in time to get a refund. So in an effort not to waste money, or with the thought of finally drowning myself in the ocean in my shame, I came. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Man eaten by sharks — the headline occured to me. And as I was sitting in the hotel room with the large white bed that was begging to be stained and wrinkled by two filthy tourist lovemakers, of which I was only one half, I got tired of sitting around and took a late evening stroll on the beach, passing lovers and kids chasing each other wildy. And as I was walking, probably a mile or so from the hotel, I saw the shining lights of an oceanfront restaurant from the beach and followed it. "The Casablanca," the bright lights bled out into the night and over me. It was my favorite movie. Perhaps, I thought I'd drink myself to death at the bar, or at least get drunk enough to walk into the ocean and never come back because that is what I felt like doing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My ex-girlfriend, Summer, told me she was in love with an obese man — which is simply an observation. It is his most notable feature and the only one worth mentioning at all because everything else about him was dull and grossly mundane. She said she felt he loved her and he was there for her when I was not. The entire thing became my fault in a matter of two sentences. The world sometimes depressed me, but overwhelmingly, I am an absurd optimist. She was natually depressed and smoked marijuana like a fiend so much so that she permanently smelled like a skunk and she dulled her senses to the level of an absolute nitwit. She had always been a notorious chubby chaser, I was simply an exception to her apparently enduring appetite for fat men. I was slim and in shape and had a significant lack of meat on my bones for that voracious man-eater. Besides, she never dated anyone past four years. It was an unofficial expiry and we had just hit the mark.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Never date anyone named after a season. That's what I learned. But this man whose name needs no mention was an inveigler of the worst sort. A sleezy slimball who despite her being in a relationship for years, weaseled his way into her life like a fat fox into the henhouse. His face burnt in effigy in my frontal cortex from when I met him at a work Christmas party the year before when I thought he was perhaps gay, or simply no threat to our relationship. And in my mind he has been drawn and quartered, hung, burned at the stake, beheaded, electrocuted, shot, tarred and feathered, but he never goes away. His fat face and goatee, which makes his mouth look like a hairy little asshole, linger there. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The trip to Ft. Lauderdale was my way of trying to spend time with her. Salvage the irreparable relationship. Breathe life into death. How foolish we are to think we can save things when they're gone, I realize now. We had great sex, but little else, according to her. But it still, at the time, seemed salvageable and I wanted to show her I cared more for her than my business, and that despite my occasional melancholy over the state of the world, I loved her. But now that I know who she really was, the love left me, and there is a hole where it once was that I cannot possibly fill with alcohol, though I try. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had made a concerted effort. That much cannot be denied. But she simply did not want to admit that it was her and not me. And so it was me. Although I had not slept with anyone else as she had, over and over, it was my fault for "letting her go." There was no trial. It was determined without judge or jury or deliberations, and whether there was a verdict or not, it was rendered not in my favor. Because I didn't show her enough affection. Not enough dates. I didn't give her enough of my time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sat at the bar after my dinner thinking of all these things. Imagining his sweaty ugly rumpus bobbing up and down between her mishapened hips and candlestick legs, dipping his little wick where I once pleasured. Riding her like a miniature pony. Like a doof of a walrus all over some fake zoo rock he humps and humps until he ejacualtes with a bellowing exhausted groan in front of an audience of amused children who catch whiffs of his fish breath. I harpooned him to no avail. He dove back under my subconscious to resurface later. He was still there and I was still here. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Alex, the gay waiter, was happy I ate and paid so quickly because turnover is everything to waiters and waitresses. That's all he cared about. That and gratuity. I didn't linger and stew. One more drink and I might have told him the whole damn thing, but he didn't want to hear it and I didnt want to tell him. If they don't turn tables, they don't make money. I tipped him too well and found a spot at the bar which was adorned with ornate tiles that went well with the camel-colored stucco walls. The pretty bartender, Christine, greeted me with a smile and quickly poured my drink saying it was on the house. It was then that I caught another glimpse of the beautiful floating waitress that had caught my eye earlier. I was happy I hadn't simply imagined her. I was happy she existed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What a terrible name for the place, I considered. It should be called Rick's American Café, as it was in the movie. Lillian Kush sung a rendition of "Time is On My Side" by the Rolling Stones after doing "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon. Then she did "Always on My Mind" and I wanted to throw a brick at her face. She was getting kind of sloppy and appeared drunk. She nearly fell, and Morty kept playing rather than trying to catch her. He didn't seem surprised or concerned. I assume he's seen it all. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Time, I considered. How everyone bemoans time. Cries about it like spoiled children when it's time to go home from the playground. But time is beautiful as it is. Aging is beautiful. If we didn't age, there would be nothing to appreciate. If time stood still, nothing would ever happen and life would be a vast state of nothingness. If it went slower, we wouldn't value it because we do not value anything we have in abundance or anything we have for too long. Everyone complains when things seem slow or are boring. I think of the time I had with Summer. Then Lillian Kush sang "Summer Wind" as if she knew, and I wanted to throw her into a wood chipper.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What a dope I was to believe Summer could ever be better than she was when I met her. That she would improve with age and not disintegrate further. That the thousand men she talked to on Facebook were all figments of my imagination, or would simply become ghosts. That the sugar baby website she was on was simply a mistake. The hundreds of dollars sent to her were innocent tips for nothing. That she wasn't as crazy as I thought. That all the nude photos she sent to random people meant nothing at all. But somehow it was all my fault.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How fragile and ephermal relationships are, I considered. Gone in the blink of an eye. People leave. They move on. Forget so-and-so ever existed. They leave when they get bored. Only to get bored of the next person just the same because nothing ever sticks. Then they get older and settle because the game of musical chairs catches up to them or the music stops playing as their looks fade and their options dwindle. I suppose I share some guilt. There was something I did or didn't do that I forget now which adversely affected our relationship. I never held her accountable for her indiscretions because it was foreign to me. I was forgiving her more and more with every drink. I was letting her go. It is quite remarkable how wonderful I am at letting go. Saying goodbye. I resisted the urge to text her. I deleted our conversations after I changed her contact information from Summer to Slutzilla to Skankopotamus.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I bellied up to the bar to order another drink when the TV above the bar began to squall like a boiled goose, or as though it had a mind of its own, or was hijacked by rather erudite anonymous terrorists. Then every cellphone began to cry in coordination with the TV. There was a news man on the screen, someone I've never seen before, saying that there was an emergency of the highest priority. Then he promptly introduced the President of the United States, who announced that there was an asteroid on its way to Earth at a rapid rate of speed that would make impact within two hours. He looked like hell. He encouraged everyone to keep calm and to drive inland as far as they can go because they expected there would be cataclysmic tsunamis all along the western and eastern seaboards as a result of the asteroid's impact with Earth. It was projected to hit somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, but that was simply a projection. It could land on someone's lap for all they knew.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't flinch. The screams were instantaneous as people thought of loved ones at home, but mostly of themselves. I guess you never really know how you're going to act until the time comes. I've always felt like a pig going to slaughter in a world full of fat gluttonous assholes. It is all silly, really. Silly to be preoccupied with death. We are all going to die. We were born to die. It was bound to come sooner or later, I thought. I no longer felt suicidal. I was alright with how things shook out with Summer. I wasn't even drunk. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Christine, whose beauty was worth mentioning had I ample time, jokingly called "Last call!" She rang the bell on the bar and then disappeared, not waiting for anyone to actually order anything. No one did anyway. I think she was on some sort of drugs, but she grabbed the tip jar and vanished. Everyone scrambled to get out of the restaurant leaving checks unpaid and jackets slung over the backs of chairs, that sort of thing. Alex akwardly stumbled for the door and was pushed over and trampled a bit before he finally got to his feet and slithered out, bruised and battered. Morty calmly stopped playing the piano. Lillian dropped the microphone which rolled around and was trampled and kicked so the soundtrack of people's panicked feet was amplified on the speakers until the microphone disappeared under a table, spinning like a bottle. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There was a terrible rush to get to the door as though through that door there was hope. And so like rats through a crack in the wall of a burning building they ran, pushing and trampling one another. The president continued on TV, but no one was listening to him anymore besides me. He was telling everyone what to do. Saying they were going to attempt a one-in-a-million missile strike. Saying it has been an honor to serve. Talking about God. The usual things one might speak of when faced with unparalleled cataclysmic doom. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sat at the bar that was absent patrons, absent a bartender, who wouldn't go down with her bar, with the bottles of every persuasion of drink standing like beefeaters steadfast in the face of the apocolypse and listened to the president talk until people ushered him out in a chaotic scene. The camera cut its feed and the newsman came back on the screen defiantly saying he wasn't leaving. He was staying on because he wanted to be there to comfort anyone who should need it. He, in the moment, became the TV. He eclipsed every other newscaster that had ever been with this heroic gesture. He had nice teeth. He had a kind face. Not particularly handsome or special in sort of way. But pleasant. Soothing. He looked fatherly and sincere. He looked like a tray of freshly baked brownies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Suddenly time was up. Maybe it was pissed off the way people whine about it. The way they complain that there isn't enough of it, and so it packed its fucking bags and got out. It divorced reality. It didn't seem logical to me that an asteroid as big as they said it was, the size of the state of Texas, would hit Earth and everything would be okay as long as you made it inland a few hundred miles. I believe, having heard the president nearly sobbing, that it was far worse than he claimed and that they didn't expect anyone to actually survive. He was screaming something as they dragged him away. He yelled "goddammit" followed by various first names of Secret Service agents more than once. And this brave newscaster, Paul I. Waters, if his name is worth mentioning, seemed rather grim, and the fact that he didn't flee the coastal New York studio was portentous to me, as well. He seemed like a man that was brave in the face of death. The camera man, of course, gets no credit. So it goes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I reached across the bar and poured myself another beer from the draft and then thought to drink something other than beer, circumstances being as they are. Something fancier. Champagne, perhaps. Why not champagne? What a grand occasion! This was the greatest thing that has ever happened to me for at least I stopped thinking about my ex-girlfriend and her whale of a boyfriend for a while. It was as though he swallowed her and I was Captain Ahab. He was probably somewhere hitting her the way the asteroid would soon hit earth. Then my phone buzzed as though I had evoked her. Skankopotamus, it read. I didn't read the mesage for while. I let it linger. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I love you," it read ten seconds later. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't reply. I left her on read as though that would fix her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then Paul I. Waters announced NASA had named the asteroid JERR-E. It was an acronym for something. But they called it Jerry of all things. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Sonofabitch," I groused to myself. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Jerry was his name. My ex-girlfriend's corpulent lover. Jerry Smallwood. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I could finally sleep if there was time to sleep since I felt a sense of closure. It is why people kill their exes and go to prison. So they can sleep. It would all be over soon. The anchorman wished everyone the best of luck and said something about "Godspeed" or "may God protect us all" as he cut to commercial. Just in case the asteroid hit during the commercial break. Suddenly, he and billions of other people were religious. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was baffled by the need for a commercial break in the moment. It is so ingrained into our vacuous brains to consume, even as the world is about to end they are still running commercials for happy pills and diapers and Wal-Mart with biracial couples and models with plotchy skin and an abundnace of adipose tissue to normalize fat and consumption and depravity. There are probably still McDonalds that are open, employers who are making people work overtime, people ordering things off Amazon, BOGO deals, and surely there is some car dealership offering discounts for their first annual "asteroid sales event."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I am not sure how the God thing works, either. But add that to my list of confusions. Why in times of calamity do people flock to a God they've ignored or ridiculed in better times? How or why people would be praying to God was beyond me. I certainly wasn't. If God was hurling a rock the size of Texas towards Earth, it is unlikely he seeks to protect us. It seems likely he himself had thrown the rock. Probably sick of our cultural degeneration, or due to people who say "men can have babies." Maybe it is our obtuse feigned sympathy for drug addicts who overdose, or our insistence to kill babies until birth as a matter of convenience. Maybe he just doesn't like gay sex, or endless wars, or orgies, or bad pop music. I don't know. Whatever it is, he either hurled the rock or isn't doing anything to stop it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Scientists conclude that impact is inevitable, and in less than two hours humanity as we knew it would no longer be the same. It's hard to say if we can survive as a species, they concur. But what we can do is do what we can do to make survival possible. Survival. It is a strange word. One that humans so rarely have had to consider. The dinosaurs were in this same predicament. I am sure they handled it with more class and without commericals for things they don't need or can't afford. Oh, well, belched an indifferent T-Rex. So it goes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I heard it all before. Just a few years ago, which still hangs over me like a pernicious and noxious cloud. Wear a mask. Get a shot. Save a life. Survival. It turned out the virus was created in a lab by the same people who later told everyone to get the shot. Companies made billions of dollars. Tax payers lost billions of dollars. There was an aging problem in the world. An overpopulation problem. Well, not anymore. The asteroid will take care of all that for us. But unfortunatley for capitalism and the billionaire class, there isn't time to market it. No time to print off t-shirts or to sell asteroid survival kits. I wondered what new species would emerge from the ruin being that we were much different than our dinosaur predecessors. I wondered if they would use our decayed corpses as fuel. Erect our bones in museums for class field trips. Have their own Jesus. Lizards, I bet. I bet they will be lizards. There will be a Jesus lizard. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I decided to drink a martini instead of champagne because champagne gives me a headache and I realized I never had a martini, so I looked up the ingredients on my phone. Then there was a voice from the end of the bar. In the shadows. Meekly she said, "One part dry vermouth, six parts gin."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't realize at first that her voice wasn't meek at all. It was distracted. It was demure. It was reluctant, perturbed, betrayed, angry, yet resigned. I didn't know that until I saw her face. The gloom cast over it. The sadness of her pallor. The forsaken sunken yet beautiful eyes. The depression that seemed to radiate from her pores and make me want to passionately kiss the life back into her face. Under no normal circumstance would I think that I had a chance to be with her in any way. But these weren't normal circumstances we found ourselves in. Her bottom lip protruded and her cheeks sagged hopelessly like a child's with the vestiges of babyfat still evident.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was the girl. The waitress I had seen before but in passing. And at a closer range, she was even more beautiful than she was walking by at a distance. We were the only two people left in the restaurant. And it was as though we were the only two people left in the world. We both sat at the bar and looked out the large open windows to the black night. The ocean lied to us with its mellifluous chorus of deceiving waves. The soft lapping followed by the placid swish of its gradual receding. In a matter of hours, when Jerry hit, when his flabby yet rocky buttocks slapped between the shores of a whore Earth, the ocean would swell and wipe everything out, possibly creating a Waterworld situation Paul I. Waters, the fearless anchorman hypothesized solemnly on the TV. He was back. The commercials were over. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"My name is Victor. Victor Lazlo," I lied.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She looked at me and smiled. Of course it wasn't my real name. It was Ilsa's inconvenient husband's name from Casablanca, the brave resistance fighter whose time in a concentration camp allowed for Rick and Ilsa to have their ill-fated affair. She thought he was dead. She longed for love. But the girl didn't know that because she had never seen the movie. It was the end of the world. Too late to watch it now. Too late to explain it. And what did it matter if she knew my real name or not or the plot of an 80 year-old movie?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I am Kat Monroe. But you can call me Kitty." I realized then that maybe she had seen the movie after all, and maybe she made up a name for herself, too, all in good fun. No one's name is Kitty Monroe. Not even a stripper would name her child that. But what did it matter? In a few hours we would drown and be fish food. When the ocean finally waged a successful overthrow of land, all these years futiley lapping, sparring, defeated again and again. It's time had finally come. Neptune raised his mighty trident to rally the sea.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We certainly had a right to be different people, under the circumstance. To have a little fun. I poured her a Vodka as though I was her bartender and she invited me to come sit beside her so not to be alone, though she said she didn't want to talk about it. The "it" I understood to be the asteroid. But she talked about it anyway. I didn't ask her why she stayed rather than fleeing with everyone else in the world. She told me without asking. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"My boyfriend was supposed to come pick me up. But I guess he left without me. I guess you never know who people are until the time comes. Before then they are just a pile of words and empty promises. But when the shit hits the fan, that's when you know. We were together for a year, but I was just wasting time with him. I guess I knew. He bought me things, but there wasn't anything really ever there. I tried to text him, but he didn't reply. I didn't drive to work so I had no car. He borrowed mine. Anyway, I figured what the hell. What's the point of running from something that is destined to happen?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I cheered to that. Our glasses clanged. I couldn't have said it better myself. I never expected her to be so profound. In my experience, most beautiful women are not. They are like trained seals. Either purposely or naturally dimwitted. As though they feel being intelligent would somehow dull the luster of their beauty. We drank and talked. Neither of us were nervous in meeting someone new, which I suppose was due to the remarkable circumstance in which we met. A gentle breeze blew in as though to assure us of our place in the universe. Like a doctor appeasing us, telling us the shot isn't going to hurt, though it will. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Isn't it great," I marveled. "Just think of all the drug addicts that will be instantly cured of their addiction. All the criminals that will no longer commit crimes. All the cheaters that will no longer cheat. All the kids that won't grow up to become terrible people. The pain and suffering that will end or never happen. People with terminal illnesses who no longer will suffer them. Surely, someone out there has to take an exam tomorrow that they haven't studied for. Not anymore. People who got life in prison for crimes they did or did not commit suddenly will not have to serve another night in prison. Think of all the garbage makers that will no longer make garbage. No more animals will be slaughtered and suffer for gluttonous devils. No more death or destruction. No more terrorism or rape or incest or manipulation. And all the broken-hearted people will no longer suffer a broken heart. It is quite magnificent! There has never been a time when we were all so equal."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Victor, you might be the most optimistic person I've ever met," she remarked. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Maybe so. I don't know. I always liked it when it rained, if that says anything. By the way, my name isn't Victor. It is Pete. Peter Holland.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Pete. Peter Holland," she repeated as though contemplating it on a wedding invitation. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"My name is actually Calla. Calla Holland sounds nice. Do you suppose we have time to marry?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Anything is possible. Though finding a reverend under the circumstance might prove difficult," I answered.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I don't understand why the religious people ran. Isn't this the moment they've been waiting for?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You might think. But I suppose they've suddenly developed some doubt. Survival is inate and greater than their faith."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hmm," she pondered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She asked me to turn off the TV so we could enjoy the moment and so I did. Goodbye, Paul I. Waters. You are a brave soul. Surely, the lizard people if they know of your bravery ought to give you a posthumous honor. Like a reptilian Pulitzer. May your face live on in effigy. A bronze bust on the grand lizard king's desk, perhaps. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Skankopotamus texted me again. This time saying, "Nothing???" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No. Nothing, my dear. I didn't reply. I, of course, still loved her. It isn't a switch for me that can be turned on and off as it is for other people. Rather, they never really love at all and just say that they do because it is what people say because they want to feel it, or they're supposed to feel it, or because they greedily want it returned without themselves being so emotionally invested to give it. I sold my soul for her and I hadn't a spare. No time to shop or salvage one. I felt raw and ruined. Vulnerable and lost. But all things heal in time. And in time I will be grateful that we are not together because she was, after all, a mortifying slut. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But there was no time. I turned my phone off and something changed in me. Maybe it was acceptance. Maybe I realized I didn't love her anymore. There wasn't anyone in the world that had anything I wanted to hear and there was nothing I wanted to say. My brother messaged before I shut it down and told me to ask Jesus for forgiveness. I suppose he thought Jesus was riding Jerry the asteroid bareback, smoking a cigarette and wildly waving a cowboy hat in the air. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"YOU GOT TO BE SAVED!" my brother plead. He watched too many religious movies. He tried his best to look like Kevin Sorbo. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't reply. The screen went black. I would think Jesus would think it a bit facetious of me to beg now for forgiveness, under the circumstances. I have a hard time believing that suddenly, in the face of death, just to be sure, just in case, that Jesus would be forgiving of my sins, however paltry. I would think that to be so insincere and fake would do the opposite in his eyes. That perhaps he loathed hypocrites, which might be why he was hurling this rock at us. And if there is a kingdom of Heaven made up of such people who only begged for forgiveness when the time came to beg, I don't want to be there because it sounds too much like Earth, or catholic church, or Applebee's. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Calla and I talked. I couldn't bring myself to call her Kat or Kitty. I asked if she would like to walk the beach with me. She agreed with a smile that pleasantly surprised me. A smile that for an instant made me forget about our impending doom and my broken heart, which we were both handling with grace and unparralled calm. I told her how I would change the name of the restaurant to Rick's American Café if I could because The Casablanca was awful. But I found it to be silly to complain of anything with so little time left, so I spent the next hour complimenting her on her exquisite beauty which took no effort because she was truly and naturally stunning. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We took our shoes off and threw them as far as we could into the ocean, laughing as we did. What did it matter how much they cost or how we would walk back. We wouldn't. Soon we would be part of the sea. We all would. An entire civilization of dunces under water. Then as we stepped onto the sand, she reached over and grabbed my hand, unexpectedly. I could feel the tenderness of her soul surrender in my palm. The way she gave herself in that moment to me, relinquished herself without hesitation, was something I'd never experienced before. People don't give themselves to other people wholly, I realized suddenly. We borrow and are borrowed. We are lenders and renters. It is all with the disclaimer of "for now." Happily ever after*. Through sickness and in health*. Until death do we part*. I love you forever*. For now. For now. For now. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But with Calla, there was no asterisk and it was more than for now. Not because it was all about to end and we were all going to die. But because she was my person, and I was hers, and this cataclysmic event brought us together. It was appropriate in how extraordinary our burgeoning love was that we would meet under the most dire of circumstances and burn like the asteroid that will end us will burn upon entering Earth's atmosphere until it crashes into the ocean at an imperceptible rate of speed with a force equal to a 10,000 nuclear bombs. I told her and she smiled and burrowed into me as we sat on the sand, the waves licking our barefeet, tasting us before to swallow us. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I knew I loved you whenever I saw you," she admitted to me as I held her. "I can afford to be so bold now. There is no consequence or risk of embarrassment. I've been waiting my whole life for someone to look at me the way you did. Not in a lurid way. Not like I was some sort of toy or product to be used. But in a way that made me feel like I was the most beautiful woman in the room and that you'd rather look at me than anyone else. Is that a bit presumptious or misguided of me to think so?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No. That is how I feel. And not just in the room. In the world."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"And to feel that look in return," she went on. "To look at you as I did. Did you notice? I told Christine I was in love and pointed you out. She didn't understand, but she knew. I wish she was here to confirm it so you know I'm telling you the truth."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I needn't any proof. The proof is in your eyes. Your words find a home in me."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"So when my boyfriend didn't come to get me, which I knew he wouldn't, I was relieved. I was worried of the paradox of choice. Survival or love? The choice was made for me. Christine offered to give me a ride as well. But when I saw you sitting there, alone, I knew my place was with you. I'm tired of running, Pete. Of masking. Of getting shots and hiding and being with fake people and saying the right things or worrying who I might offend. Fuck them. Fuck them all. Look at them now. Running like rats. Maybe I am just tired of living a boring life with boring love and boring music in this trash heap we call society that progressively gets worse because everyone is afraid to actually make it better."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I knew in that instant that she was my soulmate. She was intelligent and beautiful and thoughtful. She was more than a pretty face and I couldn't imagine her cheapening herself, or desperately begging for attention from random men because she was insecure and puerile. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wasn't going to waste what time we had wishing for more. I kissed her there on the beach, which would be extraordinarily romantic under any circumsutance, but given the moment it was augmented tenfold. And then we were consumed in a conflagration of passion that was enriched by our desperation to live and to endure, but also by our acceptance of our fate. To be human and to make mistakes. To worship false religions in a desperate search of purpose. To not live up to some infallible ideal. To question science and God, and to have doubt. To not believe anything blindly, but to have faith. To have emotions, and to sometimes be wrong and be able to admit it, or sad for no reason, or happy for no reason. To laugh and to cry in equal measure. To love and hate as well. To loathe and to sin. To admire and repent. Because there is value in everything and every emotion. And there is value in everyone, even the terrible ones you meet along the way who steal your time and cheat you. They make the good ones all that much better. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was my last meal. I've not experienced anything as intense in my life. The pleasure was so great it spilled over into another time and our love-making mimicked the ebb and flow of the ocean. We scooted back a few times. I picked her up and carried her to dry sand and plopped down on top of her. We made love like crabs. I threw her down and she rolled over and buried her hands and knees into the sand an dipped her back and pushed her ass up, using my jacket as a pillow for her beautiful face that turned to look back at me as I grabbed her hips and thrust again inside of her, trying desperately to beat Jerry before he hit Earth. Maybe, this is how we'd go out. With me balls deep inside her. So be it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All bad thoughts left me there as though this were some sort of ritualistic exorcism. I owed it to Summer, the Skankopotamus. I owed it to Jerry, the blimp. Because without them and their seedy affair, I wouldn't be here in this perfect moment with the love of my life. I told her it was all worth it just to meet her. The end of the world was worth it. She cooed and awed before I put my hand on her throat and choked her, doubling-down, slamming her home like a hurricane. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was sore and she was sore, but it was even better sore and we were both insatiable, invigorated by the end of the world enthusiasm that coursed through our veins. I couldn't stop making love to her and she refused to relent, as well. We were both out of breath and beat up when she insisted to get on top, confessing that she was not on birth control but that it hardly mattered. And then she grabbed my penis like a handlegrip and slipped on top, slid across my glazed lap, soaked through, disemboguing, gushing like a geyser, pushing down on it like God was somewhere pushing down on the doomsday button with a long finger, releasing the rock to destroy his failed creation. He promised not to flood it, but he never promised not to stone it. And in that instant, as she milked my nearly dehydrated middle leg for another squirt, riding me like a department store horse with a fistful of quarters, I saw it. My God, I saw it!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A beautiful stain of light in the dark of night that slowly got larger and larger. It was gold and then white. Pure white like I had never before seen. She came again and I pulled her down next to me so she could see, this beautiful yet disastrous divine coup de grâce. This is what it means to live and love without an asterisk.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh my God!" she whimpered. "Here it comes, Pete!" She must have seen me smiling. I caught her stunned face out of the corner of my eye and she must have thought I was a lunatic. Maybe I was. There we lied naked like two fucked-out beached dolphins, our skin aglow in the moonlight, a moon that looked on with indifference like the cold monocled eye of an old aloof billionaire. I suppose all those rich folks found a ride to space or were up in their linear jets doing coke and underage kids looking down upon as all, postponing their fate. I suppose they got a real view of the big show. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Isn't it beautiful," I admired as the golden flower of its flames bled like the burgeoning crimson of a gunshot wound through a clean white shirt. I held her hand as we lied there waiting, completely naked and relaxed. I looked over at her as the asteroid grew larger. There was nothing we could do but watch. No where to go, even if we wanted to. But then, as I oozed out of her into the sand and my membrum virile did its Jeckyl and Hyde act back to Dr. Jeckyl, as she squeezed my arm, held on to me in a final embrace, it came like a knuckleball. And then an armada of missiles torched through the black of night and missed it by what appeared to be a fraction of an inch, though more likely it was miles. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then out of nowhere a lone missile slammed the asteroid and it disintegrated above us in the loudest and most impressive fireworks show I've ever seen in my life. The threat was neutralized by a one-in-a-million shot and mineral-rich fragments of rock showered the Earth and it was gone. Waves crashed over us but receeded. Neptune was turned back once more. The threat was over. If there had been people around, there would have been a large racous uproar of cheering. Like New Year's Eve every year when the ball drops. But I was happy there was not. I was happy we were alone. I was stunned without words. Unable to say a word. Unsure of how I felt because I was so deep in acceptance. Calla turned her head and smiled at me, biting her bottom lip. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"If it is a boy, we will name him Victor Lazlo," she said rubbing her stomach. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I smiled back. It turned out that every missile fired at the asteroid missed. Every US, British, German, Chinese, Russian and Indian missile were off course. All but the one fired by the madman affectionately known as "Rocket Man." Kim Jong Un, dictator of North Korea, had saved the world. And "Rocket Man" t-shirts with his face on them became the hottest selling t-shirts in internet history. He won the Nobel Peace Prize and married Britney Spears — a match made in heaven. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Calla and I married on that same Ft. Lauderdale beach exactly one year later, with the lights of The Casbalanca glowing behind us like an oasis, and baby Victor Lazlo cooing at the stars. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixPJUlvmja1Zx8S6ByQe64xrJUK7oiojJdV9n-WdoSjkmo1wXwUBTgJzDAxHss1qDydNItBzDuBefwowFcY1RX6ZOLQWTba6g9XIfp1INJvr8UF2JIBCbl1ivoA_v4OJh8PnWPYS-nGuVCgoSNSFJo35IDXTg3pWP1RPRLr2KnYxR0rl2MWBfR-DFEidHf/s766/fill-766-766-samin-berenjabadi-night-lovers-bluethumb-3-a7f7.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="766" data-original-width="766" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixPJUlvmja1Zx8S6ByQe64xrJUK7oiojJdV9n-WdoSjkmo1wXwUBTgJzDAxHss1qDydNItBzDuBefwowFcY1RX6ZOLQWTba6g9XIfp1INJvr8UF2JIBCbl1ivoA_v4OJh8PnWPYS-nGuVCgoSNSFJo35IDXTg3pWP1RPRLr2KnYxR0rl2MWBfR-DFEidHf/s320/fill-766-766-samin-berenjabadi-night-lovers-bluethumb-3-a7f7.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-58449812829551066332023-09-27T10:13:00.001-07:002023-09-27T10:13:31.192-07:00Evil Knievel in Love<p>There is nothing I wouldn't do for you.</p><p>Nothing I wouldn't want to do. </p><p>I'd walk barefoot on miles of glass to get to you.</p><p>Eat fire for you.</p><p>Chase it with gasoline because fire isn't enough.</p><p>Fire is sissy stuff. </p><p><br /></p><p>Break every bone like Evil Knievel.</p><p>Bust my spleen.</p><p>Jump the Grand Canyon </p><p>and five double-decker burning busses </p><p>that spell your name,</p><p>wearing a flaming suit that burns wild for you. </p><p><br /></p><p>I'd eat radiation for breakfast with you.</p><p>Learn guitar to play you </p><p>every love song ever sung until my fingers bleed for you. </p><p>Then finger paint a portrait of me and you </p><p>as I give bone marrow to you.</p><p><br /></p><p>I'd surf on an shark to impress you. </p><p>Break a bull bareback for you. </p><p>Bare-naked wrestle a bear to honor you.</p><p>Lick a penguin.</p><p>Eat gas station sushi for you. </p><p>Get Covid-19, the flu, and the bubonic plague for you.</p><p>Box a mouthy kangaroo. </p><p><br /></p><p>I'd skinny dip in lava for you. </p><p>Swim the Bermuda Triangle twice.</p><p>Climb Everest. </p><p>Fist fight a yeti.</p><p>Take a bone from a pit-bull to please you. </p><p>Shave a lion's mane.</p><p>Brush a tiger's teeth with my testicles, if you asked me to. </p><p><br /></p><p>Steal the Mona Lisa, if you wanted it. </p><p>Swallow rusty nails for you. </p><p>Grapple with a gorilla over you.</p><p>Wallow with a walrus. </p><p>Self-immolate as a testament of my affection for you.</p><p><br /></p><p>Give you my ears, my eyes. </p><p>Give you a kidney I'd carve out with a pen knife </p><p>and wrap in Christmas paper for you. </p><p>Or a leg or two.</p><p>A hand. An arm I'd hack off with a hacksaw. </p><p>And at least 8 of my fingers.</p><p>Give you a bone, any bone,</p><p>until there's nothing left of me</p><p>because it's all been given to you.</p><p><br /></p><p>I'd build a time machine, </p><p>if you wanted me to.</p><p>Travel to 1945 Hiroshima to sit through a nuclear bomb in a lawnchair just for you. </p><p>Melting with arms outstretched,</p><p>smiling because,</p><p>like everything, it is for you. </p><p><br /></p><p>If I were a tree </p><p>I'd be a stump for you. </p><p>Having given my fruit to feed you. </p><p>My limbs to warm you.</p><p>And the rest of myself to shelter you,</p><p>pining that such modest things might bore you. </p><p><br /></p><p>There's nothing I wouldn't give to you. </p><p>And nothing I will ask of you. </p><p>Nothing I wouldnt do for you.</p><p>And nothing I will expect of you. </p><p>I am not a daredevil, true.</p><p>But no dare is too great. </p><p>Too great for you. </p><p><br /></p><p>I bought you gifts before I knew you,</p><p>gifts that fit and suit you. </p><p>That sit here, as I do.</p><p>I sit here dreaming of jumping alligators and double-decker busses. </p><p>Dreaming and waiting to burn wild for you. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE06p_ZlzlcgNm9NWVcA_TO3ww0YbcCt9TCGcPq_hDLSnl_-v7SgdIFOFBQEIayX0BEzWRr45cm65Wxk7dMY8X8GGcJ89IaNDtnhkvfIrKCtyiElq1SgpH-xsPLPONi_UIdxLUmLBnRbt9tooMbwuOqYLn_pnWcFJgXKpCTzo6ZW6SAAo4KRIRWnoK57mQ/s640/61c8039d65c341c206eebe478851949b%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="411" data-original-width="640" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE06p_ZlzlcgNm9NWVcA_TO3ww0YbcCt9TCGcPq_hDLSnl_-v7SgdIFOFBQEIayX0BEzWRr45cm65Wxk7dMY8X8GGcJ89IaNDtnhkvfIrKCtyiElq1SgpH-xsPLPONi_UIdxLUmLBnRbt9tooMbwuOqYLn_pnWcFJgXKpCTzo6ZW6SAAo4KRIRWnoK57mQ/s320/61c8039d65c341c206eebe478851949b%20(1).jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-19549439129034483552023-09-10T20:30:00.000-07:002023-09-10T20:30:00.433-07:00Cinque Terre, Italy<p><span style="font-size: x-large;">Maybe you will be there, waiting for me,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">expecting me, or rather, unexpectantly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In one of those painted houses, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">hanging from a window, reading poetry,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">putting clothes on a clothes line. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or on a rooftop, sipping wine, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">painting a portrait of a prostitute,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or a still life of fruit and bee.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe you're a tourist</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">dancing by yourself in a hotel room </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">where the curtains sway in the breeze. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is as though the houses breathe, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as though they're among the living</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as close as they dwell to the sea. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They make love to the coast</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as old lovers make love.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The sunset became an orange ghost</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">haunting a faint blue distant sea</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">it once flaunted. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe you are reading at a café </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and I am just minutes from you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">puttering along on my motorbike,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">a tourist like you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You don't look up when someone passes </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">because you are thoughtfully engaged</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">in the profundity of the book,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and not impressed by temporary shadows.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I've yet to pass, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and you're yet to pass me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In this life, anyway, we've had no intersection.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is too soon to speak of an autopsy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Still life left before dissection. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Still life of an autopsy.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All that would be revealed by the dissection</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">are two half hearts, chipped away by unworthy lovers that never should have been. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Those grifters from the gutters —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">a murder of women, a conspiracy of men. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Let's not ever speak of them, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or the silly songs that they sung and sing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Those fleeting moonrakers, those daft rubes,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that feed on insignificant things. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Estella, the cat, purrs in the saddlebag </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">of my motorbike as I putter, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">hoping for a rat, or a mouse,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as I hope for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I take pictures of her in place of you,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">until I meet you in this place, or another. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps in that café, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or on that rooftop with a bucket of beer,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or in that breezy room with a view of the sea</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">where we will meet and make love,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as the houses breathe, and Estella sleeps,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and prostitutes pollinate lonely weeds. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As the houses and the abrasion coast </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">of Cinque Terre make love eternal,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and the ghosts over the blackened sea</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">slumber as the moonrakers rake the beach</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">drunk on their diurnal dream.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe you are there, waiting for me,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">expecting me, or rather, unexpectantly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But wherever you are, darling, please scream. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Abandon decorum, and scream for me. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGo7C4suLykEKfi4Ya9S5EgytVVzycFCopA3PvyhpWNs_b4ArT8y25t7w-cI8sAs1iJmYu1oXeqwft9C2jxb9AYGX-sqG7Dk03Vwb-2TmlNR6NTPaZAIa_ZsMzf-k2bVnXxDI0QzRympT_p-QVXaZrxK-05be82y8jGhbrOu5m81lBkZhIdv2oBdEsLa6e/s891/FB_IMG_1694115869663.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="891" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGo7C4suLykEKfi4Ya9S5EgytVVzycFCopA3PvyhpWNs_b4ArT8y25t7w-cI8sAs1iJmYu1oXeqwft9C2jxb9AYGX-sqG7Dk03Vwb-2TmlNR6NTPaZAIa_ZsMzf-k2bVnXxDI0QzRympT_p-QVXaZrxK-05be82y8jGhbrOu5m81lBkZhIdv2oBdEsLa6e/s320/FB_IMG_1694115869663.jpg" width="259" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-27624726568597571222023-08-30T17:10:00.003-07:002023-08-31T06:36:12.008-07:00I Wish I Knew You Before I Knew You<p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish I knew you before I knew you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Long before I knew you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Before anything or anyone hurt you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish I could go back and save you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Hold you before anything hurt,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">before they cracked and broke you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When you were a kid catching fireflies, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">still hopeful, before anyone touched you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Before they made you cry and feel small.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Before you lost your milk tooth. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish I could have taken you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'd trade being whatever I am to you </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">to save you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To rescue you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I would go back and kidnap you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That is how much I love you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They would chase us as I drive</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">somewhere far away to raise you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe to Nebraska. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Stopping for gas in a beat-up car </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as you sleep in the backseat curled in a ball</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">under a blanket of stars</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">with a bear named Ziggy Stardust,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">who I bought for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We would drive all night, far away,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">with new names to a new place</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">where no one's storm could get you wet. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'd get a job at a mill or a plant. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Teach you baseball and how to fish. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An old lady from church would learn you piano </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and how to be a lady. Things I can't.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We'd buy a farmhouse with a million fireflies </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">down a dirt lane of wildflowers</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">where you could grow up with love, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and friends, and never be hurt.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You wouldn't know the pain you know</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">because nothing bad would happen to you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was killed by me, preemptively, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">because I stole you before they hurt you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That is how much I love you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't want anyone else but you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't think I ever have —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">even before I knew you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though we hadn't met,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and I didn't even know of you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was looking for you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My ghost loved your ghost some time before</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and followed you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That is why no one else ever stuck. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or I found something in them intolerable, or boring, or annoying enough to leave —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">when all it ever was is that they weren't you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No fault of their own, of course. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It wouldn't have ever worked out with them, you know?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was just wasting my time until I met you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish I could take away every terrible word ever said to you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Every bad thing ever done to you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All the neglect and abuse you suffered.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When we made love, how I tried to. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Those things you confessed to me </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">when you felt you had to explain why you couldn't love like I do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Everything that has ever made you feel small or unloved,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I would take them for you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Suffer them. Bury them. Absorb them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Eat them like poison for you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Every bad thing you've ever seen. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Every time someone let you down, or beat you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish it was me that was bereaved and not you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish I could bleed for you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I realize then, of course, if I would alter you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">your life would have been happier </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and you wouldn't have been in that lonely place when and where we met. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Likely, we wouldn't have met at all. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You would be erased from my life, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and all the fun that we had would be gone, too. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You would have fallen in love with someone else before I had a chance to find you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There wouldn't have been alcoholism </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or suicidal thoughts that washed you </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">further out to sea. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Further to, then further away from me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Like that island we rowed to. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though I once was a refuge, it was short-lived.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And you fell from me, fell into another </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">who will not be any different</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">for he hasn't the glue to fix what is broken—</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">what is broken in you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As much as I love you, I think </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I would rather have not been at all. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Not ever to have met you, in this life at least, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or to kiss you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or to have fallen in love with you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Never to have made love with you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Never to have created a child with you </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">who looks like you, in a certain mood.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In a certain light, or when she laughs, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or when she cries.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'd trade it all to go back and fix you </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">so you could be you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though I'd miss you, you'd be a better you —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">whole and loved. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Able to see the beauty in yourself, to love yourself and someone else as I loved you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Happy, not angry. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Cheerful, not depressed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You would look at the world </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">with a different view. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I realize, however impalpable you now are, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I do have you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Still I have you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I have half of you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Our daughter, who looks like you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Who I protect from the things that hurt you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An umbrella I've become. A shield. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An airbag for a collision that hasn't yet occured.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Because I love her as I loved you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We have Nebraska and these fireflies,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">which are like the confetti of a disintegrated sun</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">she catches in a bell jar.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She picks wildflowers</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">with Ziggy Stardust the bear. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish you could see the sunset here,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">the enormous golden ball that the sun balls into. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Swing on the porch swing with us as the bugs sing. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yesterday she lost her milk tooth.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I keep it in my pocket </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">because I don't want to lose her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I raise her just as I would have raised you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">if I could have gone back and stole you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I would have kept your milk tooth, too. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But though you are her, and she is you,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">you have gone to wherever you've gone</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and I go my own way, too. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Still I wish you could see her from wherever it is that you blew. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Wherever the wind carried you.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wish I knew you before I knew you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Long before I knew you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Before anything or anyone hurt you. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I tell my ghost not to look for you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">but I'm afraid, my love, he will do what he will do.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1KQnhqpAG1MLM8WmL5R3d0vjd_ylNF29JnYx3HcYXF99oywbnGBASPnP0WLB3tN9ICjT85PID5a_0DeTg55zJ8T-SCBUtpla5nw9LQMxL5THKGVjpLTX0NfeLfD_9dd8Vkemp-bz6vnUg-bP8JWgDMw5RVRW8BD3BEyPWjNA1v_i9m4PxixCAew-PFUL/s881/FB_IMG_1693073651049.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="881" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-1KQnhqpAG1MLM8WmL5R3d0vjd_ylNF29JnYx3HcYXF99oywbnGBASPnP0WLB3tN9ICjT85PID5a_0DeTg55zJ8T-SCBUtpla5nw9LQMxL5THKGVjpLTX0NfeLfD_9dd8Vkemp-bz6vnUg-bP8JWgDMw5RVRW8BD3BEyPWjNA1v_i9m4PxixCAew-PFUL/s320/FB_IMG_1693073651049.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-69857435485606227792023-08-16T16:18:00.000-07:002023-08-16T16:18:01.354-07:00The Cabin<p><span style="font-size: large;">There will always be people who want to live in a high-rise apartment in the city. Or in a new house in a smalltown. Or maybe in a hotel on room service. Or traveling abroad because one place is never enough. But this is what I would like. A small cabin, good books, a warm fire, and a wonderful view. I want the floor to creak when I walk upon it. To be cold at times, giving slippers a sense of purpose. I want to see the beams of the roof that keeps me dry from the rain and the snow. I want to smell the pine when I open the window. I want to hear a woodpecker and birds rather than traffic and sirens. See raccoons and deer rather than aimless people. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I want to integrate myself into nature as much as possible while still keeping the one part of being human that I love. The ability to have and to appreciate art, and to dream. Somewhere inside there will be a simple writing desk. Solid wood. It might be two hundred years old. Or maybe I built it myself from fallen trees. And there I will be, on rainy afternoons, or snowy nights, writing all my dreams. Writing of a woman I have never met. A job I never worked. A place I've never been but through the passages of books. Doorways of pages and windows of words. Writing of dreams. Those that came to be, and those that have eluded me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And though I imagine I will be there alone, how human of me it is to dream that I will share it with you. Both of us reading on opposite ends of the sofa. You wearing your warm and fuzzy socks, still burying your feet under me. Drinking coffee or wine. Sitting Indian-style, playing board games on the table. Lying in bed, recalling things past and things yet to be, watching old black-and-white movies on a seldom used television because you don't remember if you've ever seen Key Largo or not. Decorating a Christmas tree. Making love in the early hours of the morning because once is never enough. Taking the truck to town on occasion for groceries and to have drinks at a small bar that also sells bait and tackle. Everyone is always happy to see you because you are that beautiful. You are that kind. They look at me as though I am the luckiest man in the world because I am. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You should have been an actress," the old bartender predictably says. He is a shameless flatterer, you whisper to me. You smile and insist that you are. You've won an Academy Award in my dreams, after all. But you win an award in everyone's dreams, don't you?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I can see you as much as I hope for you. Dream of you as much as I write of you. The dream of you has always been greater than the reality of anyone else. I've said that of you many times before. But if we don't happen to meet, at least I was true to the thought of you. Maybe when I am gone you'll read something I wrote and wonder if I was writing about you. Of course I was, my love. I am terribly sorry that I missed you. I hope you find comfort in my words and feel loved by them the way I loved you, without even knowing you. You are loved the way you always deserved to be loved, if only in words. It is a perfect dream, but only if I never wake from it. </span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHokrmiftsTXxi-s-15-f4awcIqHcnYirR78ErY00Mo_Lo1xtjE0pQ8oRnSZiHLh51k73cfYn7rNgHgB2Ce_QEPG7KYyuCoKGnn3K07c8icLY1CKVrfLmVT5ZNlsKi-hmNZvzWEjBnwda3de7UgaEKvWQzzJqvtFNs4ZCwBUhO5QleRsUNeNRmr-XI8HGU/s900/FB_IMG_1691501482133.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHokrmiftsTXxi-s-15-f4awcIqHcnYirR78ErY00Mo_Lo1xtjE0pQ8oRnSZiHLh51k73cfYn7rNgHgB2Ce_QEPG7KYyuCoKGnn3K07c8icLY1CKVrfLmVT5ZNlsKi-hmNZvzWEjBnwda3de7UgaEKvWQzzJqvtFNs4ZCwBUhO5QleRsUNeNRmr-XI8HGU/s320/FB_IMG_1691501482133.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-51918105217197966962023-08-14T18:24:00.004-07:002023-08-16T16:19:00.751-07:00Camille — Part III<p><span style="font-size: large;">Pidge smiled as he talked in the back of the cab, which I knew meant bad news. It was that sort of apologetic smile. The "forgive me for what I am about to say to you" thing. He cleared his throat and looked out the window as he leveled his words with assiduous consideration. "We have reason to believe that she is a — well, how do I put this — a doppelgänger. I can't say for certain that she is the actual lady in the picture. But it appears she might be this Camille Monfort. It is no exact science. So whatever you intend to do, and whoever for, you must know its not enough to act upon."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I traveled to Belém to find her. Before I came here. They said she died of cholera in 1896. Only her grave is empty. I saw it. You can call her what you want, but this is her."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"1896? Wait. You believe — she is a vampire?" Pidge chuckled scratching his beard. I wanted to punch him in the throat, but he was the closest thing to a friend I had.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She's been following me! You said it yourself. Your paper says it. Now why do you think that is? Your facial recognition software practically puts her on top of me the entire time I've been in Paris."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Christ, Jude," he groused. "Jude George, the vampire hunter. What's that pay?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Pull over! Driver! Pull over! I cannot talk to you when you're not willing to listen to logic."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Logic?" Pidge shot back. "Listen to yourself!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The cabbie flung the wheel and skipped a curb. I reached over and opened his door. "Go fuck yourself, Paul."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Come on, Jude. You can't just kill people in a civilized world because you have some fantasy they are a vampire and you're some kind of vampire hunter. You're living in a different fucking reality! Hell, I thought you were a respectable hitman. That's bad enough."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Civilized world? Are you serious, Pidge?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He slid out, but he stood there looking like an objecting cigarette rolled out of the pack. Again in that white suit, but this one wrinkled. Or maybe it was the same one from yesterday and he was just lazy. He smelled stale. Like day-old sweat and some sort of cheap vinaigrette. Maybe it was the olives. That jar of olives he eats at his desk. I don't know how I know he does, but I do. I've never seen his desk. He stood there on the curb bitching protestations that were muffled by the closed window. I flipped him off for good measure as the cab squalled away. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It took a while to get there. It was no surprise to me that she lived in the Quartier de l'Opéra, given her background. It was the site of the most famous opera house in the world — the Opéra Garnier — and saturated with the finest French restaurants satisfying tourists with great efficacy via the proximity of both entertainment and cuisine. The cabbie seemed familiar with the direction and within ten minutes, despite the congestion of cars, we arrived at the address on Rue Lulli which was between Avenue de l'Opéra and Rue de Richilieu, both of which I had spent time on in years past, though I couldn't recall why. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I thought her apartment would be some grand spectacle, but it was a rather austere first floor studio apartment in a 19th century building in the 2nd arrondissement. It was the sort of place tourists rent when they intend not to be home often. Not that it was shabby in anyway, but vampires are opulent creatures, even when deficient of the means to be so. Perhaps Camille was simply hoping to live a more clandestine lifestyle — hoping not to be found. Beside her building was a wonderful park, and the national library was nearby, as well as a dozen or more tourist attractions of considerable significance. The sorts of places tourists circle on their paper maps. Maybe she fed well there on cheap rent. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The street was filled with beautiful and enchanting restaurants and heavy pedestrian traffic. People walking about looking up. Mouths watering at the aromic flavor of the air. I stood outside her building beneath the cool shade of the horse chestnut trees in a small but immaculate garden area with a modest fountain — a rather impotent sort of fountain that spurted water reluctantly as though suffering some sort of temperamental malady or from exhaustion. The garden was bordered by a beautiful black wrought-iron fence and there was an abundance of shade and a large area for dogs that was presently unoccupied other than an orange trespassing stray cat, hoping to catch a bird. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The building was by no means sterile. Nothing in France seems ever to be. Not the way things are in Germany and other places. There is a great pride in and of everything, architecture included. It was cut with large thin windows that were dressed in dark blue velvet drapes. The building itself was white brick, but the window and the accents were gold and black and looked modestly royal. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was silly, really. She knew I was here. She knew I was coming, and I presumed my arrival would be most unwelcomed and combative. I dare guess she knew for what purpose I came if she knew that much already. She was surely a hedonist like all vampires, consumed by greed and an inexorable taste for death. So I bit my lip and fixed my suit and headed inside her building to her door. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There was a concierge leaving as I approached. He gave me a strange smile and walked on without stopping to ask me if I needed anything, which is rather odd being they almost always ask you, if only for a tip. But it was of no real consequence. I wasn't going to shoot him unless I reasoned that he was a vampire and she had colonized the building which would be wise for protection sake, but unwise for the fact that it would draw attention and possibly a rivalry. Vampires are territorial, and the less there are, the more powerful those who remain are because of it. It wouldn't surprise me, however, if she had a lesbian lover. Lesbianism being common amongst the female of the breed. But who am I to judge or to say anything of anyone's bed habits when mine were exclusively that of whores and dirty women that I couldn't possibly get attached to. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I decided to knock on the door rather than kicking it in. My Sicario Ruger in the holster at the ready. Then I noticed the doormat. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Fuck," I groaned. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It read "Not all who wander are lost." Another euphemism. A credo. In English. She was taunting me. She was in my thoughts. I took a deep breath. This one was different. She wasn't like the others. She was the queen bee and she knew I was coming. She was the oldest one I was to retire, if it is honest to even call it that. I wasn't sure that she was related to any of the rest of them, but she might have been. I had killed families before, I knew. But it wasn't the killing part that was difficult. It was the cleaning up afterwards. The old Boy Scout motto served me well in that regard — Leave no trace. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I knocked. I knocked again. The door opened with an ominous creak as though it hadn't been properly latched. The room was dark at first but there was light streaming in through a back window and a lamp that was on casting everything in a swirl of panoramic shadows. I reached into my suitcoat and put my hand on the grip of my gun and crept inside. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You needn't — that," a frail voice called from the shadows almost as soon as I entered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And there she was. Only she wasn't the beautiful woman from the picture. She looked like she was 90 years-old if she was a day and she sat in a rocker, gently rocking. It creaked as though to speak for her old bones. I entered the room cautious as to what trap might have been laid for me, but as I approached I could see there was no trap. No gambit or obvious ruse to foil. There was only Camille, terribly aged. I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how I could have been so deceived. She was old but still there was the semblance of beauty in her that could never be extinguished, apart from post mortem. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You came just in time, Jude. Or should I say George. George Jeudy. It is what you went by long ago. But your birth name suits you better. Jude George of Manhattan, Kansas. Please. Sit." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And so I sat. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hmm. Jude was a good boy. He played on the Kansas prarie so long ago. Moved to Philadelphia to become a doctor. Hmm. Traveled to London in 1888. Fell in love briefly with a young woman singer. Met a madman. Left unexpectedly. The woman singer left too, much for the same reason as Jude and moved to Belém. Jude went home to Philadelphia, then on to Chicago. Fell in love and married. Had a child. Spent the time watching her grow until she was 18 and it could not be hidden any longer as to why he didn't age. So Jude — Dr. Jude — left his wife and child for the War. Letter home says he was killed in duty. They mourned for a while, grieved, but it gave them something he could not — closure. But Jude was feeding on dead soldiers. All that blooooood. An embarassment of riches war is, isn't it? I was a nurse in the same war. A volunteer. Hmm."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Her voice was melodic but a scant over a whisper. I sat enthralled and listened. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You went home years later. Your wife remarried and died. Your daughter grew and married and had children and died. Everyone you loved died. You watched them age, from afar, but you didn't age. All because you kept drinking the blood. You couldn't stop. You are insatiable. A bohemian like me. But you wanted to stop because then you'd age with them. Then you would die, too. You didn't know, but you did know all at the same time. You don't recall any of it now because you have sharpened your mind well enough to dull it. You lobotomized yourself, for lack of a better term. There are no medical terms that pertain to us and what we do, are there doctor vampire? And now you're a vampire killing vampires because you can't kill yourself. You can't stop drinking. But I've stopped drinking and this is what becomes of us, Jude. We age. Then we die and all that sorrow dies with us. You needn't kill me, Jude. I am fading fast with every word."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I drew closer to her to get a better look, to make sure I wasn't being deceived by make-up or some elaborate costume. But I hesitated and stopped short. She sat there. Still. She did not flinch. The rocker stopped moving. Her eyes were fixed upon me in an unconsciously familiar way. How incredibly sad it was to see what I saw in the shadows of her eyes that I seemed able to travel through. To see as a soothsayer sees in tea leaves or in a bright crystal ball. How I missed her in such a way. To have lost her all those years ago in an event that was too painful for me to recall and that left me loveless, scarred, and forlorn. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I remembered as I sat there. I remembered London. In the spring of 1888. I went to study at Oxford and some absurd man burst into a seminar I attended in London, wildly claiming that he had discovered the fountain of youth. A few colleagues of mine ridiculed him for his unsightly appearance apart from his uncouth manner, and he was brutishly dragged out by police. He swore to prove it, and do so with ardent vengeance. I wasn't among those who laughed, but was among those whom he struck days later. And so was Camille, apparently, though I didn't know it. I wondered if we were the last two living vampires in the world there between our faint breaths. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I fell in love with Camille Monfort when I heard her voice at the Aldwych Theatre a few nights before the madman entered without welcome into my life, irrevocably altering my existence. Surely I was not alone in respect to my admiration of Camille. Surely that crowded hall full of men and women suffered the same affliction as I. For who could feel otherwise looking at her — hearing her? But I was much more dedicated than they and I waited to meet her the night before I was bitten by the madman, who I mistakenly dismissed as a simple lunatic. It was when my life was mine and not a living death as it would soon become. It is strange, though, I consider now, that vampires refer to their life as death when they live as other people die. But it is simply that life is stolen from us, given in such abundance, cheapened by time, for no one truly lives who doesn't die. And now, sitting there, still lost in that distant memory, I knew what Camille meant in the note she had left in her grave. It is the same. In life as in death. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Camille smiled at me in the memory. I had bought her a boquet of flowers and apologized for my unworthy appearance as I nervously combed my hair with my fingers, assuring her that I wasn't lacking sincere interest and unmatched devotion, which made her giggle. Perhaps those things hadn't been so humbly offered to her before. I told her she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen and I would do anything to hear her sing for the rest of my life — forever. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Forever is a long time," she replied. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Not long enough," I countered. I wasn't the impetuous type, but suddenly I was. I wasn't brave in respects to women, but I found fortitude and courage in her beauty and my overwhelming desire to love her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of course we didn't know then what would occur two days later. She allowed me to take her for a drink that night and an early dinner the next night before her performance in the same theatre. She gave me a ticket in a balcony box and on several occasions she looked up at me and smiled as she sung. I was in Heaven. Fast in love. I was the luckiest man in the world for such a love was unreservedly requited. But how dreadfully short-lived it would all be. I kissed her that night and asked her to join me for drinks, but she declined for she was having an early breakfast the next day with her mother. She said she couldn't wait to tell her mother about me. She agreed to meet me the next afternoon for tea. But as I walked to the hotel from the theatre that night, it was then that I was attacked by that inhuman beast. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wouldn't wake for tea. I was dreadfully ill. I slept for three days and when I woke up I was in a hospital. One of my colleagues discovered me in my grave state and said he felt as though a bat had bitten me and I fell rabid. My short-term memory was stolen from me by the illness and I forgot Camille. It was recommended I go home to America and rest. I was out of the woods, the doctors assured me, but Oxford and London had nothing more to offer me. And though they said I recovered, I hadn't. On the journey home, I fed upon two people. Both of the ship's crew. An unlucky porter and a boatswain who had the misfortune of asking me to share a smoke. I tossed them overboard afterwards. My God. How I had forgotten it all until now. But here again it was, presented to me by my host. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Camille smiled at me in a sincere way. Her face kind with wrinkles and age. I pulled the gun from my shoulder holster and rested my elbows upon my knees, leaning forward in a state of utter abjection. The gun wasn't for her, but for myself. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You left me. I sought you that evening and when I couldn't find you, I was attacked in an alley and bitten as well. I too suffered the same sort of malady and when I was well enough again, I moved to Belém, not understanding what I was to become. What I had already become. A woman of strange appetites, you could say. I didn't learn of your fate until you sought me. I thought you had left me for some reason I could never understand all these years. 135 years of wondering what I had said wrong. What a surprise to learn that you are as you were so long ago when I knew you when. Unmolested by time. Still that charming young man who gave me the boquet of flowers."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How is that you learned of me?" I asked. She seemed to be growing weak and it wouldn't surprise me if she died amid conversation. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I am all things. The jaguar in the tree that looks over my grave. The barking dog. I see all and I know all. I know of your daughter, who you named after me. The wife you never really loved, but loved well enough to marry. I researched you, Jude, and I have watched you since you were in Belém, and after you came to Paris. I've been close to you. And now here we are. There has always been something missing, hasn't there?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't answer. I didn't need to. Everything she said was the truth. No embellishments. No lies. I sat there with her, content to breathe the same air. To spend the last bit of time we had together. Then she fell into a deep sleep there in the rocker and I carried her to bed. She wasn't dead, but she was certainly waning. She was in her last few hours of life and her breaths were shallow and her heartbeat faint. For a while I crawled up and lied next to her. I suppose I had lost my ability to cry long ago, and my lack of tears and the emotionless expression I must have bore while holding her was expressive of a deeper state of sorrow than any outward expression that grief could convey. Tears beg of something I was no longer begging for. All my life ago, what a sorry fool I had been to forget my love and to live instead in an aimless sort of desolation.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">May life forgive us for the times we didn't live it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I suppose I am too selfish a man to lie down and die. Or to let the love of my life slip through my fingers twice. I left her sleeping in bed for only a while as I roamed the particular haunts I knew would provide my nefarious sustenance. I contracted a hooker, a beautiful Belgian girl with fantasies of the Moulin Rouge, and I brought her back to Camille's apartment. She looked rather dejected and displeased by the humble abode, having thought I was going to bring her to some posh hotel with room service. But I fed on her and skimmed enough to give Camille a taste. Then I bandaged the woozy girl and hailed her a taxi. She wouldn't remember anything by morning. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I gave Camille a drink in hopes that it would revive her. But it appeared that I was too late. Although she drank from the cup, there was no noticeable change in her appearance and she was too weak to open her eyes or voice any audible supplication or objection to my effort. Her breaths grew more shallow and all there was left for me to do was to hold her until she died. I owed her that. I owed myself that. So I crawled into bed and held her, knowing I would never drink again, but knowing I would suffer without her until death offered me reprieve from my heartache. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next morning I woke up to sunlight streaming through the pale pink filter of a muslin curtain that swayed in a merciful cool September breeze. I turned over to see Camille, but when I did she was not as I last saw her. She was as she was long ago, in the photograph. The most beautiful woman in all the world. It was as though she hadn't aged at all and the day before was all a terrible dream. She was wearing a white t-shirt and underwear and she was looking at me with her bright blue eyes as though she had been watching me sleep. We made love like animals and then we had our breakfast. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"My mother said she thought you sounded wonderful," she smiled over tea at a nearby café that afternoon. A date postponed some 135 years by fate and misfortune. But a date that finally came. </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsIt2Z98bKo3NUfgDiG-zG1YBxRdCn5lP_evMJhMYoEsbAmANfexvRTsXMLKNFLLKeFPdB347f6NVBi0Zt_RRcFZ2JlOsvXx2Ous0ly8FQ70tSfc4Jl3czALO-BdZGrKgV4cEMh5wW_Escuaz7UztXsHeLguweucRwx_zZ0K05g1bcGM-9ihuV5D5CABvn/s995/aYDDLP7d_700w_0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="588" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsIt2Z98bKo3NUfgDiG-zG1YBxRdCn5lP_evMJhMYoEsbAmANfexvRTsXMLKNFLLKeFPdB347f6NVBi0Zt_RRcFZ2JlOsvXx2Ous0ly8FQ70tSfc4Jl3czALO-BdZGrKgV4cEMh5wW_Escuaz7UztXsHeLguweucRwx_zZ0K05g1bcGM-9ihuV5D5CABvn/s320/aYDDLP7d_700w_0.jpg" width="189" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-66993190268582969192023-08-02T17:57:00.003-07:002023-08-16T16:19:23.552-07:00Camille — Part II<p><span style="font-size: large;">I was hungover in the airport and sore from the night before with the girl with the gold eyes, and badly discouraged of my own value as I normally was after my jaunts with trollops. I was drinking coffee, watching planes coming and going. It is amazing to me how well airports do such a thing with such uniformity and efficiency no matter where you go. It's all pretty much the same routine wherever you are. Only the skin of the people doing it is a little lighter, or darker, and the language is faster or slower. They have the same looks upon their faces. I was praying that I didn't have a venereal disease and thus have to suffer the indignity of going to the pharmacy for a prescription, but I doubt Jesus takes those prayers. Or if he does, he takes them most begrudgingly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I kept reading Camille's note trying to make sense of it. It is the same. In death as in life. What does she mean? There was a deslotion about it. Weltschmerz feel to it, which in turn affected my impression of her to be that of a beautiful woman drowning in melancholia. There was a certain misery that I could feel and empathize with. I wondered of her origin. And if, in fact, she brought the curse to Belém unwittingly, or so to curtail the suspicion of an inquiry in Paris, where she lived before and where I was headed now, presuming she ended up back home. It was the only place I had to look and more often than not, it is how it goes. People go home, given enough time. Vampires no less are true to their human instincts, so I've learned. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A teenage girl next to me on the plane was reading one of those cheap glittery vampire novels you can buy in the supermarket and I wanted to tell her the truth about vampires. About real vampires. But the truth is not as interesting, and she'd probably tell me to fuck off, old man. I know a thing or two about teenagers as well. The first being that anyone over 30 is considered old. And I am considerably well past that. My knowledge of true vampires would bore her — all but the killing part. Killing never bores anyone and when teenage girls metamorphize into middle-aged women, they park themselves on a couch and watch true crime shows and serial killer documentaries for pleasure. I could practically tell her her entire future from experience. But I know how tired I get of everyone giving everyone advice on social media and on cheap wall decor at Pottery Barn and Target and such places, so I didn't say anything at all. Hell, even doormats these days give advice or express some useless sentiment like "It's five o'clock somewhere," or "When life gives you lemons..." Fuck. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I could smell her youth. I closed my eyes and inhaled missing my own youth. People smell a certain way at different times in life. She looked rather young and she reminded me of my daughter when I saw her last. My daughter that I don't see anymore, and who I haven't seen in a very long time, but who I cannot forget despite my wish to, and despite a long lapse of years that are almost too many to recall. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I ordered a drink and peanuts. I ate and breathed deeply and thought of how long it had been since I was in Paris and if I had anyone there to call when I got there to have a drink because I wasn't going to go straight after Camille. I'd need to brush up on my French and get acclimated to the city or else I would fuck it all up. So I plugged in my earbuds and listened to my French tutorials, but I went to sleep dreaming of abstract things in French like mon joli poisson.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I woke up as the plane landed. I was tired and groggy and my head pounded from last night's Bacardi and wine and the hooker's perfume. She left sometime in the early morning while I slept. The teenage girl next to me was looking at me and giggled when I jumped, startled by the landing. She probably could smell the booze oozing from my pores. But then she pointed over to my lap and said, "Elle est jolie."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Merci," I replied. I didn't realize the photograph of Camille sat on my lap, which is what this curious girl noticed. I don't think she was much past 14, if at all, which is how old my daughter was when I saw her last. I saw her in a park playing with her dog — a small mixed breed with wiry brown hair. Her mother set on a bench nearby beneath an open umbrella, though it wasn't raining and though the sun was nearly entirely blocked by the canopy of several large sycamores, all but for a few gentle rays that snuck through those giant leaves. She was wearing a black dress. Behind them there was a pond and geese gliding upon the green-rippled water. I hadn't seen her before then in over eight years, and I only recognized her by the resemblance she bore to me and by the sorrow of her beautiful mother's face who watched her with a certain gloom.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She is pretty, the girl had said in French of Camille. She must have sensed I was American because she asked, in English, "Is she your wife?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No," I smiled. "She's 154 years-old. How old do you think I am?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She doesn't look like she is 154 years-old."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, she isn't in this picture, but she certainly is. Look at her dress. Look at the photo. It was taken in 1896."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"So, she was 27 when it was taken? It could be a fake, monsieur. She's clearly holding a cellphone," she added. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"That's a notebook."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No," the girl shook her head. "That's a cellphone. An IPhone 10, I believe."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"It is not." I argued. I already regretted talking to her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The girl looked again. Her eyes reconsidered. "Maybe you are right. She is beautiful. I hope you find her."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How do you know I am looking?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The plane taxied down the runway before porting. The usual droning of the exhausted engines that you can feel in your stomach. The lull of the emormous tires on the smooth runway. The captain in four or five languages, announcing you've arrived. Giving you the weather. Wishing you well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Every man is looking for a such a woman. And you wear no wedding ring," she noted, rather astutely. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I shook my head to agree with a chuckle. Then I looked down to my finger as though to confirm, though I needn't. I knew I was alone and that I wore no ring of matrimony.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How old are you?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Thirteen."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Ahh! Thirteen. The optimal age of reason and bliss. It is all downhill from there," I smiled, before I cringed, realizing I was expressing an unsolicited euphemism. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"How old are you?" she shot back. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"So old that I forget, my dear." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She giggled and waited for an answer until she realized I wasn't giving it. But I suppose she was right. She was intelligent for her age — witty. I bid her adieu as we funnelled out through the tunnel into the airport much the way fortunate salmon who made it through the jaws of hungry bears in a predatory stream must feel when they emerge into the lake or ocean of their primordial intent. And from there to follow signs to whatever destination has been preselected or ordained for us. Everyone doing their part to guide everyone in a safe and efficient manner whether they are coming or going. "Life's too short," an embroidered patch on someone's backpack ahead of me whined. Speak for your fucking self, I muttered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Bonne chance!" the girl called from a distance, grinning, her teeth shining with silver brackets and crisscrossed with wires. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Merci, mademoiselle!" As she faded away, I realized I would never see her again. Just like my daughter. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I took a cab to the hotel and had drinks at the hotel bar while someone carried my bags to the room. I sat at the bar and stared at the picture and read the letter. But my focus on killing Camille was suddenly deluded with thoughts of my long-lost daughter. Then the alcohol killed my motivation for the confrontation and resolution of my thoughts and I itched to find a woman of some terrible sort to be promiscuous once more, as though in her I might escape life itself. Shrink to the size of a pinky finger and disappear into one of her orifices that would consume me. But I resisted the urge and I thought again of Camille as I stared longingly at her picture. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I watched absurd people seemingly so happy doing terribly mundane things. There was a pool visible from the bar through a large glass wall and they were in there swimming around like fish in an aquarium, or floating about like buoys whose purpose I never really understood. The planet could be on fire and there they'd be, doing just fine in their bathing suits, eating chocolates on their holiday. There could be World War III going on, but so long as they have TV, air conditioning and someone to pick up the garbage, everything is okay. There were several people watching TV at the bar trading stories in the fast French the intermediate tutorials don't quite prepare you for. It is the hardest part of any language. The pace of the spoken word in real-time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Three women were talking and laughing loudly. None of them were very attractive at all, two of them were fat, but any one of them could fill a void. Perhaps they were the magic hole, an inate part of me considered while the rational minority of me scoffed. My mind is a parliament, raging in constant debate. It became that way quite a while ago. These ladies chainsmoked cigarettes and flirted with the much younger bartender who was Portuguese and who looked like he could be a moviestar or a professional soccer player. Instead, he was a bartender. He flipped drink glasses and lit things on fire and amused them like a trained monkey. I was sure she would be in Paris. They always come home. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I called a friend who worked for Interpool and he agreed to meet me for breakfast the next morning. I had a clear head because I went to bed early the night before and didn't call a hooker or stick around the bar to try to pick up a woman. Men cast nets with looks and eye contact, but I hadn't cast a net at all. It was a business class hotel so there were plenty of women on business trips looking to scratch itches, but I didn't care about them. I ate a corned beef sandwich and a candybar and retired to my room with a bottle of orange juice. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Pigeon was a former CIA man and was stationed in the Paris Interpool office. He smoked cigarettes constantly and his skin was the color of ash and so was his curly bush of hair and complimentary beard. Each were various states of ash and the white suit he wore made him look like he was rolled in cigarette paper. Pigeon was his last name. I am not sure what his first name was because everyone just called him Pigeon, or Pidge. I think it might be Paul. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He smiled constantly and blinked rapidly by some defect or nervous condition as though there was something in his eye that he could not get out. It was so bad and rapid it almost appeared as though it were on purpose. He said it was some type of Parkinsons, and he was going to have a pallidotomy soon, but I didn't ask or care for him to explain it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Pidge knew everything. And I figured, for a few bills, he could locate Camille using the agency's facial recognition software that they don't admit to using. I made a copy of the picture and slid it across the café table to him and his pudgy gray fingers readily retrieved it, nearly spilling his espresso in the process. He smiled at the picture with his cigarette between the grisle of his lips and gave it that concerted look everyone who works in counter-intelligence gives any picture of interest. Then he said he'd see what he could do and I slid him 500 Euros which made his lips curl upright like the fried fat of a cheap steak. He quickly finished his drink and disappeared, placing the photo in the crease of a newspaper. And as he left, he farted loudly and didn't apologize. I suppose it was a European custom. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I spent the next day walking the streets of Paris enchanted by the aromic smells of the street cafés and fresh bread purveyors and the wonderful allure of all the various music and delightful laughter. Everything is different in Paris. Even the sound of the cars, the motorbikes, the scuffle of shoes, the women. It's all different. It is all charming. Even the impoverished have style and the rats have class. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The last time I was in Paris I had retrieved a lock of Marie Antoinette's hair for a collector in London, Ontario, which came much cheaper than I had expected, making me wonder if it was actually her hair. It was impossible to know for sure. On the same trip I bought a Picasso for an eccentric client, a retired oil broker in Kansas, who lived in a farmhouse in the middle of a wheat field that seemed endless when you stood on his porch and looked out onto the prairie. The sky was a shade of blue I had never seen before that was like Heaven, and the gold wheat danced like the ghosts of running buffalo as the wind played upon it. He wore a gun belt and carried two gold-plated six shooters he said belonged to Wild Bill Hickok like he was waiting for someone to draw on him or for dead Indians to descend upon the prairie. Perhaps they were to him what vampires are to me. He had a ornate cigar store Indian in his parlor he called Cochise. The Picasso was of a child holding a fish and he immediately hung it above a defunct fireplace on a red wallpapered wall. He paid me three million dollars for it. I got it for one and a half. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I ate dinner and watched a play that was about vampires, of all things. It was in a small but ornate theatre on the banks of the Siene. It was a comedy and the vampires looked ridiculous. Afterwards everyone spilled into a nearby bar that was larger than the theatre. It was a bar with two floors and a mezzanine. A pretty woman, who was an actress in the play, with too much makeup on her face that she hadn't bothered to clean off, blew a kiss at me afterwards and I smiled, but took it no further. She had bright orange hair and those fake vampire teeth goth teen girls buy at campus head shops. I seemed not to have interest in anyone besides Camille, and if it was possible to fall in love with a picture, I suppose that I did. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I stared at her picture. And I stared some more as I drank at a tourist bar down the street thinking I'd feel more at home amongst strangers and not quite as vulnerable. Then I was lost in the picture like someone else gets lost in the woods. I was enamoured. Maybe that was part of her powers. Then I tried to imagine all those guys who must have fucked her over the years. There had to be thousands in 154 years when you're that beautiful and that wicked. I imagine she has been done every way possible. Screwed loose. Bent over everything and anything. Armchairs, sofas, beds across an entire century. Bent up into every possible position. The act, once the human fountainhead of pleasure, becoming casually and abysmally reflexive.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The more I thought of it, the less I felt. It's an old recipe. An ancient formula as old as the Aztecs. And I thought if I met her and even, as preposterous as it sounds, the most beautiful woman in the world fell in love with me and we had some sort of relationship, I would be one of a million. But if I killed her, I'd be the only one who ever did and that is truly something special. It is well known that vampires wish to die and that vampirism is a terrible curse one must bear until fate delivers unto thee the sympathy of death. But how I feared she was fictitious. That there was no body in the grave because she didn't exist and the grave was merely to attract credulous tourists. Or that she did exist, but she was buried somewhere else and the grave was simply to honor her memory, or to appease the locals.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then she won and it didn't matter. None of it mattered. And I was back in love with her. Sure as ever. I knew I couldn't kill her, so why was I even bothering trying to find her. Could I kill her if she said no? Or if she was rude? Or if I gathered some evidence of her crimes which I didn't even bother to investigate, as I normally do. Maybe when the time came, though, I told myself, I would. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I got drunk and met a woman at a small crowded bar down the street from the last one I was at and who only spoke French. She too had bright orange hair and I thought it must be a French thing. We made love in the hotel with the windows open, soaked in moonlight and sweat, as a cool breeze blew mercifully over the room and a ceiling fan wobbled above us. I could see her reflection in the black of the TV. I didn't realize she was the actress from the play with her wig and makeup removed until she told me that she was. She pulled her vampire fangs from her pocket out and snapped them in place as she rode me, wildly laughing, assuming that it would turn me on in some way that it did not. So I rolled her over and attacked her from behind, assuming she liked it hard and rough. I buried her head in the pillow so hard that the veins in my arm bulged, and when I relented, she gasped for air in gratitude. My hand grabbing a wad of her hair, controlling her in my fist. No woman who is an actress and who follows you to another bar and wears vampire teeth wants it like a girl scout. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Dans le cul!" she begged. "Dans le cul!" I ignored her, but satisfied her with my thumb and she let loose a demonic caterwaul of instant and hellish gratification. She was bald as a baby. I thought of murdering her. Leaving her head too long in the pillow. She pretended to be a vampire after all. Maybe she was. But the thought was displaced as I wonderered how werewolves make love — with all that hair. Do they exclusively screw other werewolves? Or do they screw people or dogs? I don't know any to ask. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Predictably, I did not find a magic doorway in her, and when it was over nothing lingered, other than the smell of liquor and sweat, and the milt and truffle butter on the bedsheets, and nothing carried on after the cold familiar close of the hotel room door. And by an unspoken agreement made somehwere and sometime during the indignity of the act itself, like the girl in the airport, I would never see her again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Pigeon, who was the very definition of an urbane gentleman, called me the next day. We met at the café where we met before and he told me he found her. He gave me an address that was written plainly on a piece of paper. Then he gave me a list of addresses of where she has been the past week. I looked down at the paper and didn't say a word. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Monsieur George? All you all right?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She knows," I said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She knows? She knows what?" he chuckled, a bit miffed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She's been everywhere that I've been. She's — followed me. She's even been to the same hotel. She was here at the café yesterday when we met." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I stood up and looked around. The people around us looked at me to consider whether I was a choking or going to shoot them. I scoured their faces for any semblance of her. I reached inside of my vest and put my hand on the supressed Sicario Mark IV Ruger that I carried in a shoulder holster. It was full of silver hollow-point bullets, for vampires and werewolves. I suppose the instinctive itch was to kill. And my natural inclination was to scratch. But she was nowhere to be seen, at least that I could see. I put the address in my pocket, thanked Pidge with a hundred Euro note, buttoned my suitcoat, and hailed a cab. He put out his cigarette om the street and got in with me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I have to tell you something," he said as the Arab driver asked us for an address in a thick Lebanese-molested French. "But I don't think you're going to like it." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The cabbie had an air-freshner that dangled from the rearview where I caught his eyes looking back, impatiently waiting for the address. It was of two hands folded in prayer and it read, "Eat. Pray. Love." Fuck. My eye twitched and I felt nauseas. Then I gave him the address and we were on our way.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYnioq3r654jO0yG37dqrsaKfXmMEizFP2TzVWUp7a7ER3S9J0UbsLNV4pSc9CtDz_fEp9DCSz-Eydzv6S4WJhtmHqOW6ehFjitRFNf6rhMwCu4kAJJjwiM_BnAYFnCR5vExaixlqr7SKwLEo7oA4SkS4CyZ4WBJS0XUnTBM7nGJnCgyoKvWaygj3fcv5i/s712/Screenshot_20230728_110540_Facebook.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="712" data-original-width="708" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYnioq3r654jO0yG37dqrsaKfXmMEizFP2TzVWUp7a7ER3S9J0UbsLNV4pSc9CtDz_fEp9DCSz-Eydzv6S4WJhtmHqOW6ehFjitRFNf6rhMwCu4kAJJjwiM_BnAYFnCR5vExaixlqr7SKwLEo7oA4SkS4CyZ4WBJS0XUnTBM7nGJnCgyoKvWaygj3fcv5i/s320/Screenshot_20230728_110540_Facebook.jpg" width="318" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-38744434376856681342023-07-27T22:23:00.010-07:002023-08-16T16:19:54.337-07:00Camille — Part I<p><span style="font-size: large;">In 1892, Belém a town in Brazil became rich selling Amazonian rubber to the world, enriching the peasants overnight, who built mansions with materials from Europe, while their wives and daughters sent their clothes to the old continent to be washed, and imported mineral water from London for their luxurious baths. Champagne and liquor flowed generously and the lives of the impoverished were forever and irrevocably altered. Fortune, it seemed, favored Belém. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Theatro da Paz was the center of cultural life in Brazil, and hosted frequent concerts by many European artists. Among them, one especially drew the attention of the public, the beautiful French opera singer, Camille Monfort, who provoked unspeakable desires in the rich lords of the region, and atrocious jealousy amongst their wives due to her unparalleled beauty and sophistication. At first, she only visited Belém, but soon she relocated, immediatley becoming the most beautiful resident. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Camille also caused outrage for her behavior that was free from the social conventions of the time. Legend has it that she was often seen half-naked, dancing through the streets while she cooled off in the afternoon rain. Curiosity was also aroused by her solitary night walks, when locals saw her in her long black flowing dresses, under the full moon, on the banks of the Guajará River, walking towards the Igarapé das Almas.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Soon, around her, rumors arose and malicious comments were brought to life. Such was inevitable, by human nature, but no one can say for certain which of the rumors were true and which were not. It was said that she was the lover of Francisco Bolonha, the wealthiest man in Belém, and it was he who had brought her from Europe. They said that he bathed her with expensive champagne in the gold bathtub of her mansion that he gifted her, a magnificent three-story home with marble floors and granite pillars. There was a pool inside of that mansion that a few witnesses to the extravagance of her lifestyle claimed was painted red, or that it was filled with red wine, or blood. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was claimed that she had been attacked by vampirism in London, on a European tour, due to her pallor and sickly appearance, and that she had brought this great evil to Belém with her, having the mysterious urge to drink human blood. She was also accused of hypnotizing young women with her voice at her concerts, causing them to fall into a sleeplike trance and follow her to her mansion afterwards as though they were sleepwalking. The accounts of the sleepwalkers of Belém were many, and many young women and men disappeared into the night never to be seen again. This, curiously, coincided with reports of hysteria and fainting in the theater during her concerts, which were explained simply as an effect of the strong emotion that her music evoked in the ears and hearts of the public, and the sight of her overwhelming beauty, which was too much for anyone's eyes to consume.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was also said that she had the power to communicate with the dead, and to materialize her spirits in dense ethereal mists of ectoplasmic materials expelled from her own body, in mediumistic seances. Without a doubt, they were the first manifestations in Brazil of what would later be called "spiritualism," practiced in mysterious cults in palaces in Belém, such as the Palacete Pinho. Her alleged affair with Francisco Bolonha came to an abrupt end when he was found lifeless in the Guajará River, murdered, all the blood drained from his decomposed corpse from a wound the newspapers would not disclose for the sake of decency. A prostitute was blamed and jailed for the crime, but while awaiting trial she somehow escaped and was never seen again. It appeared that Belém had inadvertently traded poverty and anonymity for wealth and wickedness, and although luxurious, the swelling underbelly of unsavory characters and criminals of certain means could not be ignored or repelled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That was until the end of 1896, when a terrible outbreak of cholera devastated the city of Belém, allegedly making Camille Monfort one of its unfortunate victims. She was buried in the Soledade Cemetery. Her grave is still there, covered with slime, moss and dry leaves, under a huge mango tree that makes it plunge into the darkness of the canopy of its shadow, only illuminated by a few rays of sun that are projected through the green leaves. It is a neoclassical mausoleum with a door closed by an old rusty padlock, from which a female bust in white marble can be seen on the wide lid of the abandoned tomb, and attached to the wall, a small framed image of a woman dressed in black.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">On her tombstone there is the following inscription:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Here lies</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Camille Marie Monfort (1869 – 1896)</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The voice that charmed the world."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It ought to read "the most beautiful woman in the world," for by all accounts, that is how she was commonly known by those that had seen her. Perhaps, it was only jealousy that gave life to such vile and viscous rumors. But, regardless, her headstone offers only a modest inscription, perhaps keeping with her love of privacy. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are those who say that her grave is empty, that her death and burial were nothing more than an act of subterfuge to cover up the guilt of vampirism, and that Camille Monfort still lives, in Europe today, at the age of 154, still the same beautiful woman, unphased by time. A woman that could charm any man with a look, and who could seduce anyone with her voice. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I traveled to Belém because I had lived in Miami the past few years, mostly drunk and bored, and I couldn't imagine that someone so beautiful existed, yet, so terrible. Someone who murdered and plagued society for so long and who possibly still does somehwhere, if the fantastic accounts of her life are to be believed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I journaled my efforts in retiring vampires over the years, stamping the disease of vampirism out of the world entirely being my soul purpose to carry on at all in a world so miserable and dull, otherwise. So predictable, hypocritical, and abysmally mundane. I am a bounty hunter, but I am paid no bounty other than the self-satisfaction that comes from killing them. I have retired 26 vampires in all, most of no real account — scragglers, as I call them. Many of them were on meth. Nightcrawlers. Some might not have been vampires at all, but some were. But none were certainly of the caliber of Camille Monfort, and none that were ever described as being so beautiful or so treacherous as the fiction so often falsely lauds them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No one paid me to do so. It was merely an unacknowledged public service I was performing for the good of mankind. As a deer hunter hunts deer. There was no acclaim for doing what I did. And no one was grateful for no one could possibly know that I saved their life someday for they would not have had the misfortune to meet the vampire I already slayed. Their life was never in peril because I kept them from peril. Preventative action is difficult to appreciate. How many condoms go unthanked? How many x-ray machines or seatbelts? I needed no praise, however, and if I had it, I'd probably do something else. I was a solitary man, for the most part. I loved beautiful women and they were a definite weakness in my character. Beautiful women and booze. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I made my money as an antiquities dealer. Good money. I owned a shop in Sleepy Hollow, New York, an apartment above it, and high-end clientele from all over the world came to me for various items of their fancy. Something to complete their collection of this or that. I would find it, buy it for one price and sell it to them for a standard markup of 50 percent or more depending upon worth, value and their expendable wealth in relation to their desire to own whatever it was. Often I dealt in unusual items, not always antiques, so travel was a large part of my business and a natural cover to my murderous hobby. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I traveled to Belém to dig up Camille's grave while I was in Brazil to buy a tecpatl, which was a knife used by Aztec priests to open the chest of human sacrifice victims to extract the heart that was offered to the gods, in the hope that their bloody offerings would bring blessings — usually rain or sun. A heart doctor in Iowa collected such and was ready to pay handsomely for the brutal tool. I often wondered if he ever held the heart of a patient like those priests before God came to them with an offering of his own called western civilization. Murder is simply a part of the history of the world and man spends a great deal of time attempting to justify his own murderous deeds, while villifying those of others. And though thou shall not kill, thou do. We all kill, we are just blinded by cognitive dissonance and phony reasoning to negate the evilness of our act or the act committed on our behalf by a butcher or a president. History is full of murder and murderers, labeled as heroes and villains, their acts sepulchered in the dust of libraries. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Belém is where I knew I must begin searching for Camille. My mind raced as the silver blade of my shovel descended further into the soft brown Earth that almost parted in agreement with my peregrination. Then, at last, as I hit her coffin, a thick-laquered walnut sarcophagus which seemed ashamed of the dirt it bore, and relieved that I cleared it, there was a solemn and empty thud. I stood there for a moment and gathered myself, breathed deeply, wiped the sweat from my face from the damn terrible humidity, cracked open the lid with a crowbar, and inside there was nothing but an empty cocoon appropriatley lined with blood-red satin, absent one body, as I expected. I felt an insatiable sense of satisfaction overcome me as I stood there in her empty grave. The realization of purpose for at least one more crusade. The only thing in the coffin besides that red satin inlay was a note, presumably from Camille herself which read, in beautiful French caligraphy, "C'est le même. Dans la mort comme dans la vie," which translates to English as: It is the same. In death as in life. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I put the note in my pocket and sealed the coffin. A dog barked nearby and stirred some sort of jaguar out of a tree which jumped closeby and snarled at me. I fell back into the hole on top of the closed coffin and my only choice was to wait until the jaguar was gone, but the dog persisted and its barking and howling grew louder and nearer so I hurriedly clawed my way out of the hole, despite the possible proximity of the jaguar, and ran the distance of the black iron fence to the brick pillar that I had scaled to get in, which I hurriedly scaled to get out. I had no time to replace the dirt so my trespass would be known, which would mean that Camille would know, wherever she was, and which would mean she would likely take precautions she might not normally take so far removed from her lavish life in the Amazon 154 years ago. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Fuck that jaguar," I cursed. "And fuck that fucking dog!" I decided to hide out in the weeds despite the danger, until the dog passed, to return to refill the hole of her grave. There was a chance the dog was leashed and was a caretaker's mutt, so I knew I was in danger of being discovered and possibly arrested. Grave robbery was not among my many past arrests, but trespassing certainly was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't afford for her to know. I would need all the advantage I could have over her if I was going to find and kill her. After an hour of dealing with spiders and snakes and various insects that would gladly give me malaria, I was able to complete the task and her secret remained, only myself the richer. And the only thing that I stole from her empty lie of a barren casket was that worthless letter. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Once back at the hotel, I had a bath and then went for a drink and thought of Old Belém and what it must have been like under the shadows of night and the flickering gaslight of the street lamps. W</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wondered what her voice must have sounded like in the Theatro De Paz, where she performed. It was empty that night, but I was able to go inside and tour it and I sat for a while admiring the beautiful muraled ceiling and the ornate craftsmanship of the balconies and walls. The sconces and the pillars. The rich red tapestry and gold-laced curtains. I could practically hear her sing. I could almost see her ghost on stage. I was only 154 years or so too late. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I took a walk to the places where she might have walked after a performance. There were several old bars that dated back to her time when the town became rich on the exportation of rubber. When bars and restaurants arose from the swampy stumps of dead trees and the importation of liquor and rich tourists bred a sudden and unconsumable wealth.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Old men were anxious to tell me the stories, some of Camille, but there wasn't a picture to be had of her because she insisted on no photographs, they claimed. Then they tried to sell me things when they learned I was an antiquity dealer, and even more when they learned I was an American, presuming I was the insatiable consumer so many American tourists before me were. Their English was horribly hindered by a lack of practice and drowned in the wine and liquor they so generously shared with me. I would ask them if they knew of the legend of vampirism in Belém, but I needed no further confirmation than what I got from Camille's empty grave, and it was more than likely that they'd tell me wild stories embellished by time and molested by liquor-induced imagination. I've heard it all before. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The first thing I learned about vampires was that, for the most part, everything I've ever been told before was false. After a few kills, I began to separate fact from fiction. I would interview some of the ones I killed before they died. Those previously accepted notions of what vampires are are almost entirely fiction, created to stir emotion and to sell penny dreadfuls. The myths of vampirism are as old as the legends, so I will quickly dispell them, with the caveat that I am not omnipotent, and this is from my experience only. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Vampires do not have an aversion to garlic. They don't shy away at the flash of a cross, or with the sprinkle of Holy Water. They don't burn in the sun, but they typically favor the night for it offers them more privacy and a safer place to hunt with plenty of undesirables about. So, generally, they are nocturnal by opportunistic necessity. They see their reflection in the mirror, like anyone. They breathe and have a heartbeat. Blood circulates through their veins, but not as it does in a normal human-being. Their blood pressure is considerably low, though I have never taken vitals on one to know for sure. And contrary to belief, they age. Slowly. But they do age. Perhaps the ratio is one year to a hundred years. I believe that I once calculated it, but lost my notes to a fire. 1.7 years to a hundred normal human years sounds right. No, they don't turn into bats, and their teeth are not pointy unless they file them (which some do). They drink the blood of humans. Not animals. They can live off "skimming," which most do, but which usually requires them to hold someone captive as no one would normally volunteer. They can and have been known to rob blood banks, though, in vampire culture that is lowbrow. They don't have to kill their victims, but they often do because of their voracious appetites. And they don't fucking sparkle. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One day I will write a comprehensive book because I could go on and on. But I got distracted by an attractive prostitute who was sitting on a wine cask in one of the bars I wandered into. Her dark olive skin glistened with sweat and was vibrant against the contrast of her pillowy white blouse and perfect teeth. Her skirt and legs kept parting for me as though to entice me. But her eyes are what lured me in. Her magnificent beautiful large almond-like eyes that seemed flecked with gold dust in the nebulous glow of the faint light of a sole chandelier. And when she smiled, her eyes looked as though they were on fire and I knew that I was her prey. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I ended up back at the hotel with her. We made love several times and I thought of the one picture of Camille that remains. The one I have that no one else in the world has, not even the town in which she helped make famous, where her name lives in great infamy or reverence, depending upon who you ask. Surely, there would have been other pictures taken that she would have destroyed. It was likely she refused pictures, as one of the drunk old men had said, but why not this one? Why did she agree to have her photo taken in this instance, but not in any other? And what was that in her hand? It appears to be a notebook of sorts. Like a paperback Moleskine. Perhaps she was also a poet or maybe it was a book of lyrics. Did she write her own songs? Were the rumors true of her power to influence and seduce? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The prostitute, whose name I never got, distracted me from my personal inquiry rather directly and gathered my wandering mind and fed it back to me in long passionate kisses, and the alcohol, another indelible weakness of mine, diluted my passion for my hobby, at least for a while. I obsessed no more of Camille Monfort that night, though she was sure to return by morning.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgAZ_rtTOEPWc0cOmRU8URV4rnf51CTGoTZ4VpZaQrdXUD4cA2wRKMpFeDeCt1M_Vj_1ouGXLymdQeANYcorxDNn8_-HgyZoMw_UiPPFI6JZKcbQdtsXrTDlaOGDC-9IzdTIq5mxV2IXXJz_-VrM0aXT4Z-Ku0hJ8ThGiYpkroaLRsf0rvWF1awx5Y0Ho/s1145/FB_IMG_1690225554497.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1145" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUgAZ_rtTOEPWc0cOmRU8URV4rnf51CTGoTZ4VpZaQrdXUD4cA2wRKMpFeDeCt1M_Vj_1ouGXLymdQeANYcorxDNn8_-HgyZoMw_UiPPFI6JZKcbQdtsXrTDlaOGDC-9IzdTIq5mxV2IXXJz_-VrM0aXT4Z-Ku0hJ8ThGiYpkroaLRsf0rvWF1awx5Y0Ho/s320/FB_IMG_1690225554497.jpg" width="201" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-19924080880045516382023-07-23T09:28:00.003-07:002023-08-16T16:20:17.389-07:00All You Can Eat<p><span style="font-size: large;">The palm reader, Madame Lena, wasn't much to look at. I felt sick when we met face to face for the first time because over the phone she sounded attractive and I got a little chub. I thought I'd let just about anyone give me a handy, but not her. Her hand was a wart-riddled claw of sorts that shot from her shirt sleeve ominously like a mangey dog out of its grimey dog box, a bracelet dangling there for a chain. She would make any witch proud and she would most assuredly have been burned at the stake in another time and place on appearance alone. I assure you she was an ugly woman, but I was careful and kind just in case she revealed herself to be a beautiful enchantress because I had seen Beauty and the Beast enough to know better, and to know I could never make it as a wildebeest.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Madame Lena had a 1-800 number that was shut down by the FCC because she was telling too much truth. She'd tell you that your mother was a whore, if it were true. If you wanted to know who killed JFK, she would tell you. If you wanted to know about the aliens in Roswell, and everywhere else, she'd tell you that, too. If you wanted to know who was going to win the World Series this year, or the Super Bowl, or what horse to pick at the Kentucky Derby, she'd let you know. If you wanted to know if your spouse was cheating on you, or when you would die, she would tell you all of that for just $1.99 a minute. Not a penny more. The only thing she could not answer, she said, were questions about God. She described herself as a religious woman.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You could call Madame Lena and get truth for the same price you could jerk yourself off to with the voice of some beige-colored manatee on a sweaty brown suede couch in Arkansas who pretends to be a debutante, or a southern belle, or a bored and horny housewife. The pictures they use on their website aren't the actual operators, though they're never sued for a bait-and-switch deception. They are models and porn actresses who sell photos of themselves for such nefarious things as duping sleezy men out of their money for some weirdo fetish. Guys call those numbers all the time because they have a particular pent-up fantasy no one has ever filled. Because otherwise they are boring people and they have no other outlet for excitement and fun. So it goes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I knew a girl who did that sort of work and she made more money than most. She was ugly as sin, though. Fat as a hippo. She said her best customer was a necrophiliac who dreamed of having sex with corpses and who had lost a job as a bodywasher in a funeral home in Peoria, Illinois for doing just that. Well, how the hell did you get him off, I quizzed her, suddenly interested in something she had to say. She claimed she did so by not saying a word. She just sat there on her fat ass and listened to him jerk his junk. Then he said, thank you, meekly, and hung up until next time. She said another guy was the same way, but he wanted her to say that she was dead over and over. So she did. "I'm dead. I'm so dead. I'm dead. Oh, babe. Oh. Oh. Ooh, baby. Dead, baby, dead. Still so fucking dead..." until he ejaculated and there was a dial-tone kiss goodbye.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The FDC shut Madame Lena down because they don't want people knowing too much. A lot can go wrong with too much knowledge floating around, so your probably better off just calling phone sex girls who will bray like donkeys, if barn animals are your thing. Or oink like greasy pigs or take a shit on you, figuratively, of course. The galoop of their deposited excrement right at your eureka moment. They'll bah like a sheep or pretend they've puked on your hairy chest. They'll describe it all in full detail down to the very last chunk. They'll piss all over you and there you'll be, dumb as hell, but in the thralls of ecstatic degenerate bliss.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">God knows this because God made those girls who answer and those guys who call. He's taps those lines like J. Edgar Hoover in his haughty omnipotence because he keeps tabs on everyone. God knows this about knowledge, too. That is why he warned Adam and Eve not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. Yet, like the dumb bitch she was, Eve ate from it anyway and doomed mankind to a life of pain and suffering, though, women's groups will call that misogyny.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The FCC isn't concerned about the pain and suffering of people. They are concerned with civil unrest and national security. If you knew who killed JFK, you might revolt against your government. If you knew about the aliens, you might stockpile weapons and live in a bunker and not pay taxes. If you knew who was going to win every sporting event, the world would be full of Biff Tannons and crooked junkie gamblers, and the mafia would go broke. But if some slob of a woman with a pretty voice just told you a German Shepherd licked cheese whiz off her pink canoe so you explode like a bottle of champagne, so be it. You're being conned and pacified and it is unlikely you care about a government stealing you blind when you are jerking off.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My divorce shocked my wife. I told her one night over a pot roast. I planned the meal that I thought conducive to giving bad news. Comfort food would dull the emotions of such a sudden domestic upheaval, I figured. I thought of telling her that I was cheating on her, but that wouldn't have much mattered. She would have forgiven me as she had a thousand times before because she didn't care who I was with as long as I didn't love them or sleep with them or bring home a venereal disease. So I told her over mashed potatoes and gravy. There was a thick gravy all over the roast and caramelized onions and carrots and beans, plenty of green beans, which offered a pleasing aroma that went well with heartbreak. I made her a big plate, which she said she couldn't possibly eat.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Neither of us cooked, so it was all catered by someone who did. Some functional human-being who served a wonderful purpose in life. Someone who did that sort of thing for a living and who was paid, probably rather poorly, to do so. Who depended upon the generosity of tips. Gratuity, they call it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She said she didn't see it coming with a spoon full of peas down her pretty trap. The clang of crestfallen silverware falling upon the plate. She said she never thought it could happen to her. She nearly choked. She agreed to the divorce, but we settled for a disolution because a lot more paperwork and money go into a divorce, and to her core she was frugal and prudent, and she always heeded good advice. If my wife was Eve, she never would have eaten that apple. Not in a million fucking years. It is a funny thing about Eve. It wasn't a next door neighbor that told her not to eat it. It wasn't even her husband, Adam. It was God, for chrissake. I've ranted about this at dinner parties and to friends but none of them seem to care as much as I do. They think I'm a mysoginst. It doesn't help to mention all the different women I've slept with when someone accuses me of being a mysoginist.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is a silly thing, really. Some judge sits on a bench and he will tell you that your marriage is over and you are free to go be with someone else. He will even sign a paper and they'll give you a copy. Or you can just be alone and fuck yourself all your life. Doesn't matter to him what you do. Or you can go gay and have a month dedicated to your courage and love of driving up old Hershey Highway, or scissoring and carpet munching, whichever applies. Or for being mentally ill and pretending you're a man or woman when you were born the opposite. When you have an inconvenient dick. Dressing up in women's clothes and tying scarves around that Adam's apple which is like lipstick on a pig. It's called a madame's apple, bigot. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">You might march in a parade with a giant brown papier-mâcheté anus on a pink float that men dressed as bedazzled spandexed penises jump through like 3rd grade acrobats in rainbow leotards ejaculating emulsified milky-water from their helmets all over an awestruck crowd of sanctimonious queefs. I wasn't going gay like Buck Rogers. No, sir. There is nothing about a dirty asshole that appeals to me no matter how cool they say it is. Same thing when I refused to wear acid-washed jeans in 7th grade, or to sport a mullet, or to chew tobacco, or to smoke pot. It is queer pressure.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Nor am I the prideful sort. But everyone has to be so friendly and pretend that a man on a menstrual cycle is not as abnormal as a walrus on a pogo stick because the devil is a charmer and he charms us all with our greatest weaknesses. For society, as a whole, that is sanctimony. He is a crafty motherfucker, to say the least. Men can get pregnant, they half-heartedly argue, hoping to admonish any dissent from that absurd proposition by calling someone a bigot. The coup de grâce. Their mouth is a steel trap as the devil chuckles in gross delight.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Everyone who went to your wedding, who remembers going to your wedding, anyway, will either say one of two things about you after your divorce: I can't believe they didn't work out. Or: I told you they wouldn't last. We shouldn't have bought them that expensive juicer. Everyone knows everything all of a sudden. All along, though, only Madame Lena could have told you that you're marriage would fail.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Jen and I didn't work out because I went to that palm reader on a trip with some friends to West Palm Beach that spring, and Madame Lena, who proudly called herself a gypsy, told me that the love of my life was a waitress, of all things, and I would meet her in the bar where she worked. We were on vacation absent our wives and instead of getting hookers or going to the strip clubs as we normally did, we went to the palm reader who was world renowned, according to some newspaper. And I thought it would be fun, being that we were in West PALM Beach, of all places, and that business they told me about the FCC shutting down her 1-800 operation. I was bored of strip clubs and midget bowling and dirty women pussy of every nationality, even women with multiple pussies or trick pussies or two esophaguses, or the double-jointed ballerina who did a porno version of "Black Swan" for me once in The Plaza Hotel in New York for a thousand bucks as large snowflakes fell mesmerically out the window. She danced as she had in the production right there in the room and she never took her ballet shoes off. It went on for hours. She was really good, and more than sex, it was immersive theatre. A once in a lifetime experience.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The devil got me with my lust of women, but he wasn't going to get me anymore. I was wise to him. It all gets old after a while. Midget pussy is just pussy, really. I don't believe in black girl magic, and it isn't true at all that once you go black you never go back. Sure, they're just fine. Like Chinese women are fine. Like Brazillians and Mexicans are fine. But there's no pot of gold pussy out there at the crux of a two-legged rainbow as I always imagined there would be. The grass isn't greener. The older I get, the more important the person attached to it becomes and the more obvious the devil's game has become to me. And so, I was determined to find true love once and for all and to give up sex until I did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Of all things to know," my friend, Pete, mocked me, "you asked who your true love is?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What better question?" I shot back. He laughed and took a shot of something because liquor kills everything, even a hangover. We were in the airport bar waiting to go home getting our last drinks in. Trying to decide what happened. They dreaded it more than I and I looked at the three of them and realized how miserable they were and how happiness was only temporary for them. They lived almost entirely in the moment. I was them for many years, but I didn't want to be them anymore. So I sat there and drank a beer and wondered who she was and what she looked like. I wondered if she looked like a wildebeest or a manatee. What the hell would I do then? Was it looks I was after as I had been all my life, or was it love? What if she had Down Syndrome or tourettes? What if she was elderly or married to a jealous man? What if she was underage or just too young? What if she never came at all?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They say Madame Lena told President Trump that he would be president back in 2014, which is why he ran in 2016 and won, defeating some curly-toed evil warmonger bitch who ate children — a modest footnote in history. Who else saw that one coming? In her small shop, which disappointedly was not a wagon but rather a shop in a strip-mall that could have been a tanning salon or a smoke shop, there was a picture of her with President Trump. He was smiling, sitting in the same chair I sat in, his tie practically dragging on the floor like a dead dog's tongue. She was holding his hand with that wicked green claw of hers as though his hand was something sacred. Like Charlie once held that golden ticket. His ego was as big as the universe and he looked like a rich tangerine with a wisp of lemon meringue hair.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I asked her if she was sure about her prediction of my life, she smiled to reassure me with three teeth in her head, and for some reason, I found comfort in the trinity of her dentition. Those three teeth were Shakespearean to me like the three witches in Macbeth. Then she pointed at that picture of her and President Trump, with his orangey-Florida sunkissed sheen and ultra-radiant smile, and I didn't know what else to do but to believe her. My friends ridiculed me with laughter as they went to the strip club and then to fish for tourists at a beach bar (our game had been to see which of us could do the most women from different states and nationalities), but I was convinced and went back to the hotel, anxious to get back home and end it with my wife in pursuit of the holy grail — true and everlasting love. I had treated the world as an all you can eat buffet long enough.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My wife, Jen, was an investment banker and made a lot of money. She was hot. She hadn't lost it over the dozen years we were married where I had lost it and looked something like a doughy graying wombat, or a washed-up child actor who played in some show hardly no one remembers, but who still wears his hair the same way. I was in relatively decent shape still, but I felt dull, whereas, Jen was vibrant and radiant. Maybe it was good genes or the products she used. She was also very good with money, and she was good with my money, which I was not. Everyone told me that I "married up," which sometimes felt like a compliment to her or an insult to me, depending upon who and how they said it. I am a well paid soul-sucking civil attorney, but I spend money loosely. Mostly on hookers or massages or golf clubs or take-out Chinese or my Mercedes or my precious Black Vincent motorcycle. I loved my wife, as things go, but the way Madame Lena said that my true love was a waitress in a bar, I believed her. And for whatever reason, at 36, I was obsessed with finding her like the conquistadors were obsessed with finding gold. So Jen became an Aztec and I was going to genocide her. I did so over a perfectly good pot roast. Maybe I should have chosen meatloaf.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I divorced my wife and became an accidental drunk. Not a drunk that drinks so much so that his liver shutters up, but a drunk of good caliber. A drunk whose finances suffer because he drinks. Whose belly bulges a little like he might be two or three months pregnant if he was secretly packing a uterus in there, because guys can get pregnant, too, we all know in this society of nitwits and degenerates and incorrigible buffoons, and who has embarrassed himself on a few occasions by saying or doing outrageous things that are funny in retrospect, but not really funny at all. Nothing too outrageous and certainly nothing I remember exactly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I gallivanted all over town and in several bars and restaurants, and made a concerted effort to get to know my waitresses because any one of them could be the one. One of those grimy bitches, even, who licks her fingers when she counts her tip money at the end of the night, like I don't see her do it. I'm sitting right there. Although it sounds terrible, I didn't realize before then that they existed in a way. If they weren't attractive, especially not. They were sort of an invisible brand of people who came and went and I hardly noticed them at all. There were much like useful ornaments. They got hired and fired all the time, but it was like gaining or losing a sock in a drawer that was full of all the same kind. How quickly you forget them. Poof, they're gone. I was as sentimental about them as I was of farts. The death of a waitress was as casual to me as passing gas.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've not seen a waitress get fired, but I've heard of it happening. Just as I hadn't seen a bird die or sleep. But I've seen evidence that it was going to happen before it actually did. You can see it on their dejected faces. Both the boss and the waitress. The boss says something like, I got a business to run. And the contemptuous waitress counters with, I got a family to feed. The great precursor being the waitress gets yelled at about something or other. Fucking up an order. Spilling a tray of drinks. Being rude to an asshole bougie customer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It isn't easy work, with all the indignity one endures, I took note. The swollen feet they must suffer. The bunyans and varicose veins. The back aches. The dreadful hours where they miss their kids' events. Then they get hours or tables cut. No one jokes with them anymore like they used to. No one but the regulars, who don't know anything, and who half think they have a fair chance of getting laid when the dust settles, but all that the waitress is doing is playing them for a better tip. Flirting, a little, making them believe that there is something there that isn't. An impetuous romance to be had that the patron has never known because they've been married for twenty three years out of high school and have kids and go to church and watch golf on Sundays after they mow the lawn. They don't play anything, but they dabble in cornhole and barbecues and fantasy football and they could be a commercial for any product you can think of if called upon because they are just like everyone else. Little different. They don't drink anything, but they sip. They don't love too much or too little. They're okay with anything society says they ought to be okay with and they are outraged by anything society says they ought to be outraged by. They don't rock the boat or challenge authority. They go along to get along. They watch football. Eat pizza. Drink beer. Go on all the typical vacations. Then they die.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But there in that last original frontier of their over-condtioned brain, untouched by the dirty fingers of civilization and commercialization, they long for a seedy affair, just one, with this sweaty waitress before she dies her inevitable waitress death or they die of that heart attack or cancer that's waiting for them one day which stalks them currently like a snake in the grass.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There is a chance in the patron's head that when the waitress's shift ends, if he tips well enough, or says the right thing, that she will go home with him. Well, not home. Maybe in the new hotel across town with fresh sheets, or he'll ask her to meet him somewhere. Perhaps just outside in the car on a rainy Saturday night to meet and greet President Johnson. That'd be fine. A hot dog in the rain. The sausage in the wet bun. Just see if it fits. There's something mesmeric about the rain cascading on the windshield while one is in the thralls of passionate snake charming. It is some kind of new-age love, like turtle-doving once was a coon's age ago when bushes were hairy like empty bird's nests. Now they're bald as babies because they say it's more hygenic. Though she is a little sweaty and smells like pizza and grease, bobbing there, up and down like a greasy pumpjack, praying to St. Peter. Sure. Maybe if he is really lucky, he might get to clean the fishtank, too. The backseat is big enough. The windows are tinted. It's dark. There's a place behind the dumpster if there aren't two raccoons back there beating them to it. Two horny raccoons. Or just one raccoon beating off being that raccoons are scurrilous masturbators.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are 2,517,793 servers in the United States. This is an exact number, though it fluctuates with every minute because a server will quit or be fired every 2.5 minutes in the US, on average. Don't ask me how I know this, I just do. 62% of those are waitresses, or 1,561,032. So what are the odds that of all those waitresses I would find the one that Madame Lena promised me was my true love? I wouldn't gamble on my odds of finding her, so perhaps it was dumb to divorce my wife when I had nothing else. But I'm not the type to let anything linger. Because even worse than people sneering at you through crooked smiles saying you "traded up" as though they invented the euphemism and they are so fucking clever, is someone asking you what the hell you were thinking when you divorced her. Are you gay? Have you gone Greek? Are you making babies with the moon? Packing fudge on the night shift? No. I don't like assholes, I say bluntly. Hairy brown eyes. It is only by coincidence that my name is Harry and I have brown eyes. Harry Browneyes.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That gyspy prognosticator wasn't the sole reason I divorced Jen. I told myself that she was probably having an affair, but that didn't matter to me because I had treated the world as an all you can eat buffet most of my life. I had banged a thousand hookers and random women from time to time, depending upon my mood. Strippers on days I had the time, hookers when I was in a rush, bar flies when I was feeling social, divorcees and amputees when I was feeling empathetic, single moms when I wanted yoga pants and the smell of peanut butter and jelly, grandmas when I wanted nurturing, co-eds, well, whenever it could be arranged because they fuck like wet rabbits. I was a lascivious little leprechaun and it was a lustful list of women.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But Jen was fucking the devil, or so I told myself, for as debauched as I was, she could not possibly be chaste, as beautiful as she was. We became one after all. Like Adam and Eve were one and the sin of one is the sin of both. She said it was okay that I had affairs because she didn't mind what I do. Men are different animals, she went on, incapable of fidelity. She wasn't the jealous type, she assured me. That sort of thing. She never flatly admitted it, but I knew it was happening out there in the darkness. I knew she must have been cheating on me as well on business trips or girl's nights out. But I found out later that she was cheating on me with with the ultimate man, Jesus Christ. She became a devout Christian and I would burn in hell for my sin unless it was to be believed — that business about forgiveness. I was done with all those plastic women. That parade of pussies. Women who jumped through a papier-mâcheté pink pussy in bedazzled spandex unitards in my over-active imagination.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sometimes get drunk in a bar and look around at the waitresses and wonder what my ex-wife was doing as I did. Remembering some good time we had somewhere. On some beach. Wading in the ocean which always felt like the ends of the world to me. In a cabin in the woods where it felt we were the only two people alive. But what unlawful, godawful thing was she doing now? Perhaps she fell out of love with Jesus and was now running with the devil as I was for all those years, wasting away a perfectly good marriage. Then I let it go. It was the difference in one drink. I was on a crusade, for chrissake. I was on a goddamn crussade for real love and nothing could get in my way of that. I wasn't having sex with another woman, other than my real love, for I didn't want to cheapen it anymore than I already have.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The caveat of my true love, Madame Lena told me, was that she would be "in a bar marked by a pig, and she will wear all white when almost everyone else wears black." She sounded like a fabled prognosticator from a mystical movie. Her eyes rolled in the back of her head as she offered it. Her throat leveraged a meaty growl in the current of her tone. She said fate draws people together that way sometimes and then leaves the rest up to us. She also said I would know her when I saw her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There were limited places she could be and I went to everyone of them and talked to every waitress I could talk to. There were a lot of quick hellos and fast goodbyes. Then a new bar opened up down the street. It was an upscale place called Porkopolis, and I knew that must be the place. It was a barbecue place. A hoity gastropub.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I went. Religiously, I went. So faithful I was, I could have been a monk if it were a monestary. I had a tab, which only one other person was afforded. I knew almost everything about everyone there was to know. I learned how to make drinks by watching. Who drank what. Who ate what. Who was cheating on who around town. And I fell in love with a waitress named Sam, who was nothing like me in any way. Nothing like me at all. Worst thing was she never wore white. She wore black almost every day like a moody goth teenager. I became that man dreaming of having her in the parking lot for tea and crumpets. Biscuits and gravy over my sausage link. And she smiled and grinned and sat next to me when her shift was over, drinking a tequila double, on me. I have no taste for tequila. It tastes like goat piss to me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had flirted with her so ceaselessly, everytime she passed behind the bar in front of me I had a one liner ready for her. I fired every flirty torpedo at her with hopes to sink her resistance, though I was twice her age. I wasn't as attractive as her. But I've always believed in magic words that could unlock anyone or anything if spoken properly. They've worked before and they'll work again, for chrissake.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What color are your panties?" I finally asked.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She laughed, nearly choking on the craft beer she chased her tequila with. It came in a can. The can was colored like cotton candy is colored. It looked like a beer made for a child. Made for Spongebob Squarepants. I wanted to give her a belly full of bone marrow about as much as I wanted to do anything else in this world. So did everyone else around me, but they all acted like they didn't. Like they were decent men. On the inside we are all the same two-eyed horny beasts, though, ready to beat her guts. We were all thinking the same thing. How to fidget the midget into her golden gidget.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"And what does the color of my underwear matter?" she asked. Her eyes full of playful curiosity, floating in tequila. I was sure I wasn't the first person to buy her a drink. She was the fun waitress. The one who did shots with her tables. She was half-sauced after working a double, which just might work to my advantage, I felt.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Just curious. No matter."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then she arched her back and reached around to pull out her stretchy black pants to show me she was wearing a black thong. Her arched back looked like a sand dune from Lawrence of Arabia. I thought maybe if her underwear was white, I'd have a claim for her being the love of my life. I secretly checked out her socks while she wasn't looking and they were also black. So were her shoes. Black as a Peruvian hooker's heart who'll cut your throat if you try to cheat her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What are you doing Saturday night?" I asked her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Commiting suicide," she replied, lethargically downing another shot of tequila — this one courtesy of the old man at the end of the bar who could be her grandfather, for chrissake. She'd seen the same Woody Allen film as me. She wasn't really suicidal, she made known with a giggle.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What about Friday? I'd love to take you out for drinks."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Friday?" she considered. "Friday's good. I work until 10. If you want to meet me here, we can go out afterwards."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"That's fine." I was getting ready to tell her something more about me, but she didn't seem interested. She downed her third tequila double and said she had to go home to her kids, so I walked her to her car. It was a gold minivan and it glowed in the moonlight. She told me she had another life before she was a waitress and she wasn't very good at waitressing, but she was pretty good at the other thing until something bad happened and the other thing fired her. I said she was wonderful at anything she did and she laughed, waved playfully, and said, "Fare thee well."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Fare thee well!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All week I was preparing for that Friday night. I went to the pool and worked on my tan. Laying out in the sun like a chicken tender in a toaster oven anxious to be eaten. Reclined on those uncomfortable wooden slat chairs that a thousand fat women have secreted their fat juices and oils all over. The liquified souls of every skinny man they have ever eaten. That stunk faintly of a crude concoction of baby oil, sweat and Skittles. Little fat kids kerplunking in the water like fleshy turds in an oversized toilet, making that fateful "galoop" sound as they sink, teasing death with drowning, accidentally swallowing the soup of chlorine, feces, urine and pubic hair, but inevitably bobbing up like buoys, defying natural selection. The sweat and body oil of a thousand other kids and old men with hairy backs and women with open leg sores laying on top like a decadent human oil-spill.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I worked out every night. Did about a thousand bench presses on my seldom used weightbench until my arms felt like steel pipe cleaners rather than wet noodles. My chest reshaped as though I had inflated it with an air pump. Two burgeoning boulders instead of the speedbump of preteen girl tits. I flexed in the mirror. I was lucky to have such nice nipples. I've seen and noted scores of ugly nipples in my time. Both those I've seen in person and those I've seen on TV. Giant pancake-like nipples. Sausage nipples. Nipples that look like sombreros or manhole covers. If the attractiveness of a person was based upon nipples, I'd be Brad Nipple Pitt. I'd enter a pageant, if there was one. I would win first prize. A blue fucking ribbon. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was ready for Friday night. I was sure that Sam would wear white and fulfill the prophecy of Madame Lena. Maybe it would be a hair tie, but something of her would be white. It had to be. But I sat there and waited for her to appear through that busy revolving kitchen door, smiling as she did all those times she emerged as Punxutawney Phil emerged on his big day. But that door birthed everyone besides her. Then a new girl, a dopey-faced new girl, shaped like a denim church bell, appeared and my heart sunk and imploded beneath the weight of its despair like that billionaire submarine everyone was talking about. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What happened to Sam?" I finally asked, dejected as I was. Nothing to lose. Hoping she had the flu, or that her car broke down. Anything but what I feared most. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One girl shrugged her shoulders. Another shuttered her windows and gave me the look that I knew all too well. I don't want to get in trouble for saying. Don't ask me. I only work here.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, someone said that she walked out Wednesday night. My heart blew up like the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and all those little yellow people that made up my existence, my hopes and my dreams, my desires and the euphoria of my optimism, vaporized in the blink of an eye. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She died the way waitresses die. Like butterflies die. Like houseflies die. Like birds and saquatches die. Invisible. Poof, they are gone. I never got her number and had no way of contacting her. She told me she was on no social media. She was gone gone. So I sat there and drank. Heartbroken and miserable. Trying to console myself with the usual things. It wouldn't have worked out anyway. This is saving time in the long run. She never wore white. It's not meant to be. God intervened on my behalf because the next woman will be really something. Because God has nothing better to do than to line up my women like bowling pins. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What happened to so and so? I don't know. I was so fucking depressed. Too depressed to call anyone for a consolation fuck. I was tired of meaningless sex with meaningless people. Sitting in a bar or restaurant as bait until someone bites or my phone chimes. I was tired of boring one liners and relationships I knew wouldn't last. And then, as I wallowed in my self-pity, she walked in. The new, new waitress. Not the new one who was shaped like a denim Liberty Bell. It was another lady. In a sea of black, she was like a swan. A perfect white swan. The antithesis of that out-of-work ballerina I knew once at The Plaza Hotel. And she was being trained by another of those dying waitresses, who I had heard from someone was not long for this world. She was attentively listening. Then as she wiped the copper bartop down in front of me and made someone a drink, she looked at me and said, "Hello, handsome, my name is Jen."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, hello Jen," I smiled back. "My name is Harry Ruby. No relation to Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Oswald, forever concealing the conspiracy to kill the 35th president of the United States of America for not pushing the CIA's war agenda, and for the Bay of Pigs fiasco, may he rest in peace." Harry Browneye, I wanted to say.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She chuckled a near indiscernible chuckle in her soul. Just as she once did when I said it 12 years ago, word for word. Then she said her bit. As though it was a memorized line in a script.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Jen and Harry. I believe it has a certain ring to it. Wouldn't you say?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I looked over and smiled at her. I wouldn't really say that it had a ring to it, but when I wasn't sure about something, I usually agree. My beautiful ex-wife struck again. There she was in white. Reinventing herself. I didn't ask what happened. I didn't need to. She had quit her job as an investment banker to be a waitress because in divorcing her, I had inadvertently inspired her to do something she always wanted to do — waitress. It was a job her father forbade her to do when she was in high school and college. He was afraid she would get stuck and do it all her life. Or he watched too many "Unsolved Mystery" TV shows and it seemed always to be a waitress getting raped and stabbed to death in a K-Mart parking lot in El Paso, Texas or Spokane, Washington. No daughter of mine will sling hash, he used to proclaim.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was here because the divorce didn't set easy. She was in love with me and I was in love with her and that was all that really mattered. Or so it seemed that night as I watched her, this beautiful white swan, work amongst a gaggle of geese. She seemed like the only one in the room who wanted to be there. It was perfect for a moment in my head that was like a Garden of Eden. Madame Lena was somehwere having a chuckle at my expense. She had told me how it would happen and where and with who and I knew suddenly that my ex-wife was the love of my life, and the reality of it settled over me as I sat there and smiled at myself in a mirror through bottles across the bar.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But as I drank, my mind kept going back to Sam, wondering where she was now. And though Madame Lena had predicted Trump becoming president, and the World Trade Center collapsing, and the death of this person and that person, and the war in this place and that place, all with startling accuracy, it wasn't that way with me. No one was to tell me who my true love was and I wasn't about to follow because that sounded like the most boring thing in the world to me to do. So I finished my drink, paid my tab, and decided to hop around to every bar in town until I found her, hopefully before she committed suicide or got married or fell in love with someone that wasn't me. It was a race against time. A space race and she was the moon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I caught myself just as I was about to leave. As I was about to do what I've always done once more. The devil was having his way with me, alright. He was seducing me with that which effectively tempts me. The fallacy of someone being something to me that all others were not. The seduction of a stranger, which usually wears off once I get to know enough about them where there doesn't appear to be anything interesting left. She was yet another of those people. Someone beautiful who would never last.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The devil had seduced me just as he had seduced Eve to eat the fruit of that tree, just as he seduces people to do evil things every day — to kill, to do drugs, to rage, to cheat, to steal, to hurt, to hate, to do all the ungodly things that they do. To be stupid and lack common sense and decency. To neglect children. To disappoint loved ones. To give up.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I've never been, but I am pretty sure that above the gates of Hell there is a neon sign that says "All You Can Eat" and inside there is a buffet of sin. Anything and everything you can think of is there. All to be coveted and consumed and replenished by even greater sin as it is on Earth inside the kingdom of man. The only repercussion is that Hell gets worse and worse just as life worsens for a living sinner. I hope not to ever know that reality, but in truth, I already do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Upon the realization of this I settled in my seat until Jen got off her shift and we had drinks in Porkopolis and we talked as we hadn't talked in a long time. As two normal people. Things got in the way of our marriage. Of our love. Sin got in the way. I don't know exactly how the God thing works. No one really does. We all have opinions as to how it goes and some of us are more sanctamonious in our profundity. But God is love and love is neither proud nor sinful. We complicate too much. Pollute our brains and souls with too much. God, that is love, is all that is pure.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We went home and made love like we hadn't made love in a long time. Afterwards, we resumed are new lives and wrote a new ending that we wish to postpone in our happiness, indefinitely. Jen didn't last long as a waitress. But she lasted long enough.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPT3wa7gl2ORr0oxkWR5UluECysxxtRVvsandvxYYKTXQE7_430bPL12XlTXrIzshHyQD2q9AQ_hUMmxA20OtVBxFaZEZ5T-WRTVBODN7xsfr3xT64828udTpIMZv5TcfPimFT2cDJQXFOVnMLMUQqOvCD48u_aZDTdWXA8oAOGz8jij2tWP8cqshgepbf/s900/FB_IMG_1689550052370.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPT3wa7gl2ORr0oxkWR5UluECysxxtRVvsandvxYYKTXQE7_430bPL12XlTXrIzshHyQD2q9AQ_hUMmxA20OtVBxFaZEZ5T-WRTVBODN7xsfr3xT64828udTpIMZv5TcfPimFT2cDJQXFOVnMLMUQqOvCD48u_aZDTdWXA8oAOGz8jij2tWP8cqshgepbf/s320/FB_IMG_1689550052370.jpg" width="256" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-2273825637933653002023-07-07T16:36:00.003-07:002023-08-16T16:20:47.331-07:00The Flames of Hell Are A Pale Shade of Pink<span style="font-size: large;"><span>The bell clanged on the shop door as Thomas Riddle, traveling salesman extraordinaire of ladies stockings and men's razors (this week), finagled his large portmanteau inside hoping to make a last sale before heading back home to Cincinnati. Sales in Chillicothe that week had been a bust due to a rival salesman with cheaper merchandise beating him to the punch. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He was greeted there by a clever-looking young woman of about his age, a few years more or less, who smiled courteously, though she knew well his type and was leary of him the way one is leary of a copperhead snake. She dealt with salesmen on a regular basis and usually had a quick way of dismissing them, but she didn't employ such means with Mr. Riddle, because he had a pleasing smile and she liked him something about him instantly. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It was an odd thing. The smile never seemed to leave his face, seemed genuine to it, even though his suitcase opened and was disembowled there on the shop floor due to "faulty hinges," he excused, and though he was drenched from the downpour, water cascading down the shop's picture window to tell his tale. Despite those things, he smiled and took off his hat and greeted her respectfully and pleasantly. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Hello. I am Thomas Riddle, ma'am. You are miss..."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Delores Cory. Misses — Delores Cory. Have you come to sell us a dozen doohickeys that the shop doesn't need?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"No, ma'am. I only sell the things people do need. Those are those other guys that sell those. No accounts." </span>
<br /><br /><span>She grinned at his joke. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"In honesty, I've crossed the threshold and transformed myself from seller to buyer. I am looking for a dress for my wife. I like to bring her gifts home from the road."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"In that case, you are in luck, sir."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Sir? Hmm. I'm rarely afforded such dignity."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores smiled and showed Thomas the latest fashions and said she could alter anything to fit his wife's size and stature. Thomas smiled, saying his wife was just her size and weight, so whatever it was, if it fit her, it would certainly fit his wife. Delores looked down at his wedding ring for reassurance that he was in truth married, and there she found it. A modest silver band. She was a bit relieved, yet disappointed all the same, though that was a secret she would keep to herself, married as she was. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Her perceptions of him flared wildly. He was a handsome man. But not as handsome as he was kind. He possessed a gentle quality of one who could do no harm to someone else, not even to an animal. He probably shooed flies out the window. A Christian man who probably had a church where he was of regular attendance. Who probably played some sort of instrument, or read, or wrote. One who probably told his wife funny jokes just to hear her laughter, or to see her smile because such a thing would please him so. One who would do dishes and cook and clean with his wife or for her when she was ill or fatigued. One who might favor gardening. And certainly wildflowers to roses. Trees to city lights. The </span><span>perspicacious</span><span> dressmaker saw into him as though his skin were made of glass. His heart was two sizes too large and goodness abounded him as though he wore a halo and was incapable of any other manner. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Thomas stared at her and smiled, not as deeply. She didn't hear what he asked her for she was profoundly beguiled there gazing at him. She was lost in the woods of his soul and she felt ashamed and discourteous for it. She apologized profusely, to which Thomas smiled and told her not to worry upon it. He often daydreams as well and get similarly lost in his thoughts. Then he repeated his question, kindly. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Will you show me the dress you would wear if you were to wear one from your shop?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, honestly, it isn't my shop. I'm not the owner by no means. I only — work here."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Oh, but you don't 'only' do anything."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"What do you mean?" she asked. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"If you pardon me, a beautiful woman such as yourself, 'only' is no way to describe you or anything that you do. You do it well. Everything — you do well. I can tell. After the war, I used to read palms in the traveling circus. Black my face and called myself 'Sasmo the Serious.' From the jungles of Africa, I was. I wore no shirt or shoes. Just these Arabian-style gaudy purple pants and a heavy gold turban. I never smiled, either. I would read palms in a little tent for ten cents a palm and tell people things so seriously that they would believe me. And all these things were true because I was imbued with a great gift while I was in the war and that was to see the future. I've seen it all. I can see it all. I can see it in your eyes like your eyes are two crystal balls."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Nonsense!" Delores scoffed with a chuckle. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"You are going to force me to have to prove myself to you, aren't you?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Oh, I don't have time for games, Mister."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Please, call me Thomas."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, Thomas, I have a thousand alterations to do. And other things to finish before I close shop and go home to my — husband."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You don't want to go home to your husband. Do you?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Excuse me?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>Thomas stared at her for a long moment, his face expressionless and empty like a gorilla's. Yet his eyes were intense and focused upon her so much so that she began to feel uncomfortable and looked away. Her body, it seemed, began to tremor as though she were cold. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Then Thomas, as though in a trance, spoke to her in a steady monotone voice, not once breaking or showing any semblance of emotion. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"You don't want to go home to your husband because he is a cruel man. He hurts you. He doesn't love you and you do not love him, but you are married, and he is someone who will not ever let you go. You fear he might murder you someday, but you can't do anything about it because you don't have family here to help you. Or they wouldn't listen. He is a — judge. Or a lawyer. Or a jailer. No. No. He is a police officer. A very tall and strong police officer with heavy hands. He wasn't in the war because of something to do with his ears, or so he says. You will not leave him, but you've tried once. You ran away, but he caught you. You worried that God would judge you because of that which is written in — Leviticus. You're worried you'll go to hell."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores became visibly upset and upon seeing this through his trance, Thomas relented with apologies, wearily rubbing his face. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm sorry. Ever since the war I —"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"It's of no matter," Delores excused brusquely. "No matter at all." She took a deep breath and gathered herself. "Would you like to see the dress, or will you be leaving now? It appears the rain has let up and you will not get as wet leaving."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"But I am already wet. And once one is wet, how can one get wetter?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"There are varying degrees of wetness," she returned happily, relieved to be off the subject of his prior prognostication. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Perhaps," he smiled. "About that dress."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores showed Thomas her favorite dress in the shop. She would never own it or wear it because it was too much for her, she felt. Her husband would hate it and accuse her of being a temptress. It was a Sunday social dress. There was a hat that went along with it, but Thomas insisted he wouldn't be needing the hat. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"You're wife would appreciate it, I assure you. Take it from a lady. It is a style that has not gone out of fashion — despite what they are doing to women in New York."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"No. She wouldn't appreciate it at all. I am afraid she doesn't have a head."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores laughed, assuming Thomas was joking, but he remained stoic in his position until finally relenting, about to burst. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Sasmo the Serious!" he joked with a dramtically stern face, void of the hint of any emotion until he cracked into a boyish grin. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He insisted on the dress without the hat and Delores boxed it up as ordered. She wrapped it free of charge and as she did he stood there in the shop drumming his fingers over the giant suitcase he had laboriously lugged in with him. He could fit a body in that suitcase, the grim side of her thought. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"So what do you sell?" she asked if only to interrupt the silence. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, I thought you'd never ask!" he exclaimed, snapping open the case. "The finest silk stockings, directly from Paris. And men's shavers, too — from Kenosha, Wisconsin." </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, I suppose, Mr. Dickenson might be interested in the stockings, if you wanted to come back tomorrow."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm afraid I live too far away for that. Perhaps, I might stay in a hotel for the night. Is there one you might recommend?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, there is only one motel and I wouldn't recommend it. People of ill-repute gather there. Transients. That sort."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm a sort of transient, I do suppose." </span>
<br /><br /><span>"No, you have a purpose. They, frankly, do not. They are the riff-raff sort. The fellas who hop railcars and eat beans from cans. Who holler and hoot at women and do other lurid things if only in their mind."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Then I plead the fifth!"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You're incorrigible!"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"War does strange things to a man. I imagine many of those men were probably chewed up by that same beast. Same as I was."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You don't appear to be so affected."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Appearances don't always paint the truest of pictures."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, there is a boarding house. Just up the street from me. I would recommend you stay there. Mabel is a nice elderly lady. A friend of mine. She has four vacant rooms and she is the best cook in town."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, I am sold," Thomas replied with a grin. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'll write the address on a slip of paper. But it's not hard to find. Two blocks past the courthouse and a right on Magnolia. Beautiful brick Victorian with yellow daylilies. There's a sign. The Comer House. Mabel Comer is her name. Tell her that Delores sent you."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I could wait until you close and drive you home on my way."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I'm afraid —"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I know. I know. But I will not accept no for an answer. It is only a ride. I have a brand-new 1922 Buick Roadster. Fire engine red."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You drive a red automobile?</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Yes. Red. It's not an unusual color, is it?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I don't suppose. A little flamboyant, though, for an automobile, isn't it?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Flamboyance is my specialty. I had it custom-painted in fact. Life's too short to long for what you want, and to settle for that you don't want. The war taught me that much." </span>
<br /><br /><span>"That is trifle hedonisitic, isn't it? You're a right strange individual, Mr. Riddle. Are you a Christian God-fearing man?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Of course. But I'm not sure my God is the same as other people's who've never been to war. I'd like to talk it over with you. Let me give you a ride."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Sir, your kindness is appreciated, but I'm going to walk home. Thank you for the order, and the offer. We close in an hour. You're welcome to peddle your —doohickeys to whomever may come in until then. I can turn on the radio."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Much to Delores' surprise and disappointment, the salesman didn't accept the offer, rather, he kindly smiled and said that he appreciated her kindness and time before snapping shut his case and abruptly leaving with a curt goodbye. But he didn't go far once he left. He labored the unwieldly green suitcase back out the door and to his car which waited where he parked. A few curious onlookers were standing around it like mollusks on a docked boat. They scattered when they realized the ostentatious car was his, but the gossiping that it birthed continued to grow and the handsomeness of the stranger only augmented it. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores ran out for he had forgotten the dress he bought. "Mr. Riddle! Mr. Riddle! Your package! For your wife."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Thomas smiled and thanked her and the loitering gossiping mollusks seemed to lose interest when Delores gave them an indignant glower for she knew what sorts of things they were likely saying. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Chatterboxes," she groused under her breath as she stomped back into the dress shop. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Thomas gave her a look as he pulled away that she understood quite well. It was a look that said he would see her again and that what was between them wasn't finished. It wasn't exactly possible that a look could say as much as it did, but surely that look did. And he shifted the car into gear with that serious look upon his face that left a burning impression deep within her. One that she would think of as she ate dinner, and brushed her hair, and lied in bed next to her snoring husband. Sasmo the Serious. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores didn't hear anything from the stranger for a few days. But she heard he had checked in at Mabel Comers' Boarding House. He never came back the following morning to speak to Mr. Dickenson as she had advised him. But the stories that swirled through that little dress shop about the strange new border at Mabel's ranged from that he was a federal agent incognito in town to bust up a notorious still, to he was an alien from Mars, to he was an employee of an automobile manufacturer canvassing the area for a potential new automobile plant that would produce all red cars. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Bunkum!" Delores dismissed. She was the only person who had spoken to him, other than Mabel, so she felt a personal connection, as though he was hers in a way. Some very personal way that cannot be explained, nor would she explain it as she was a married woman and speaking of another man was not proper. It was a marriage she never spoke of, unless it could not be otherwise avoided. There was a dead child to be considered, if the marriage was spoken of because such things are misfortunatley entwined. But maybe, she considered, she had misunderstood the stranger's intentions and he was simply advantageously flirtatious as salesmen often are to make a buck. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The stranger, as he came to be known, shut himself in his room at Mabel Comers' Boarding House and hadn't been seen in four days and with every day came new and more extravagant rumors, wilder as the days passed. Even children got in on the act and stories that he was a bodysnatcher floated about. Or that he ate dogs. Mabel said that she sent food to his room and though he didn't open the door to ever accept it, it was eaten and returned to the hallway in the privacy of night with letters of gratitude. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But then on a Sunday, about a week later, he emerged. He came to church and sat in the back of the sanctuary as though to go unnoticed, but it was such a small church, and congregation, any change was immediatley obvious. Any wrinkle in the norm. Delores turned and saw him and smiled at him before realizing she was smiling. Sunlight from a large stained glass window streamed between them and they saw each other through a prism of brilliant harlequin light. She then quickly turned around and kept her attention upon the dour-faced preacher, who courteously welcomed the stranger, and fanned herself with her fan as all the other ladies did properly around her. Thomas left before the parishioners convened in the parlor afterwards, but his generous donation did not go unnoticed by the elderly usher who passed around and collected the offering plates, and who made conversation of it in the parlor. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The next night while Delores was on a walk, Thomas found her in the night a block from her home where her drunk husband was in his own misery, capsized like a sunken ship. Thomas startled her as he approached, but when she realized he was who he was, so it settled in her and so she smiled and let go of herself in the fleeting moment before she was again arrested by properness and etiquette. Shaken back to form. But for a brief moment, she was not a married woman. She was not a dressmaker. She was simply her most natural self free of any sort of defect or ailment or duty and obligation. It was as though life had rolled itself back and she was who she was before life had encumbered her from being who she was intended to be. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Consider me a firefly," he whispered to her. "What to do in Washington Court House on a Tuesday night?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"There's nothing," she whispered as though someone might hear her, an abysmal sort of longing in her voice scratching at her throat. As though the crickets have ears. "This is — highly improper."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I must inform you that I've never been proper. And I have been too close to death to be concerned of such." </span>
<br /><br /><span>"My husband —"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I don't know him. And I don't care to know him. Nor do I care to speak of him. He is irrelevant," Thomas spoke in a near whisper as he walked behind Delores, who pretended as though he weren't there at all. She did not acknowledge his presence physically in the least, only with begrudging words meant to shoo him away as though he were an unwelcomed stray animal. But it was as if he were her shadow, in his persistence. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"And your wife?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Nor should we speak of her. She, too, is irrelevant."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores shuddered, still looking forward. Walking though the dark by the houses whose windows were lit appropriately. Little yellow boxes of light. Gold flickering candles. It was early summer and the lawns were speckled with fireflies as the skies were with stars. She didn't want him there, but she didn't want him to leave. She wanted to ask him why he stayed in town for so long and why he didn't come back to see Mr. Dickenson, but she didn't want to encourage him. The sound of his footsteps behind her soothed her yet made her anxious. She was coming apart at the seams, an appropriate metaphor for a seamstress. She prayed then to herself as she often did, and above her, amidst the stillness of a universe that seemed perpetually in brutal order, a shooting star passed overhead and she made a wish. A wish of which she was most ashamed, yet that she longed for so intensely she could not simply pocket it. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I find comfort and peace in my nightly constitution. A peace you're distubring with your unwelcomed intrusion," she complained to Thomas, who the rest of the town referred to as "The Stranger." Maybe he was a space alien, she considered. Maybe he was a bodysnatcher or ate dogs, as the children alleged. An out-of-this-world celestial monstrous being. </span>
<br /><br /><span>She could tell that he smiled, though she didn't see his face. She wondered if his eyes were as blue as they were in the dress shop. She wondered what would happen if she turned around. Then she recalled she had made a previous wish, some time ago, and it was delivered to her in the form of this handsome stranger, she knew. She didn't believe in coincidence. She had wished for true love to find her, and maybe so it did, but now there was the problem of her husband who was drunk at home and who would kill her if he knew this man walked so near to her person, and even nearer to her heart that he was picking as though it were a pregnable lock. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"If one person happens to peer out their window and see you and I in such a state, I will be disgraced. Ruined. I cannot —"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I am wearing black, dear lady. I am invisible to their sad but prying eyes. And no gossiper can ruin anyone who doesn't allow it."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You're not familiar with the witch trials of Salem? Or Hawthorne's 'Scarlett Letter'?" </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I am quite. Of both. I am well a literate man."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Shhh! Don't speak speak so loudly."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Would you like for me to leave?" </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Yes," she lied. "At once. This is entirely improper." </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Forgive me then, Delores." </span>
<br /><br /><span>He turned and walked the other way and she heard his footsteps trail off into the distance and her heart sank with every receding step. She wanted to turn to stop him, but she bit her lip and carried on. How absurd, she felt of herself, to wish for something, and when it arrives to reject it so ungratefully. Or to be someone who pretends to not want what they want. To worry so adamantly about etiquette and morality and what others might think if they knew. Of Leviticus that was written before Jesus died and absolved the world of their sins. To conceal the fact that he was right about the abuse. The beatings she concealed with makeup and powder. But even when someone noticed and it was clear that she had been beaten, that look upon their face when they pretended not to see the scar or bruise. Was it for her sake they pretended, to save her the embarassment, or for their own, so not to have to confront Officer Joseph Cory? Peanut Joe, they called him affectionately, for his grandfather had called him that because of his love of peanuts as a child. Or did they ignore it so not to have to do something they ought to do if they cared anything about her at all? Was it so obvious that everyone knew? And she was so meaningless that everyone pretended they didn't? That they were gossiping in their little houses and in bed about it, yet did nothing because they liked Peanut Joe more than they liked her. Because maybe she had brought it upon herself. Maybe Delores, the dressmaker, meek as she was, fair and modest, and as active as she was in church, had a sinister side that a man's fist sought to remedy. Perhaps they think, the beatings were a necessary discipline and would subside once the beaten woman submitted as a wife ought to submit. The ugly way people think was not lost upon Delores Cory — rather, Mrs. Joseph Cory. Mrs. Peanut. </span>
<br /><br /><span>What would her death be ruled? Some justifiable homicide due to a pretend or supposed unfaithfulness that Officer Joe conjures up every time he is wickedly sauced. The unspoken defect of the town's most decorated officer. How she loathed him. After only 8 years of marriage, how she loathed him and thought of how she might kill him, later asking the Lord for forgiveness for her thoughts. How she fantasized about poisoning his food or stabbing him as he slept, so not to suffer at his hands again. There was a torrent of evil that ran through the blackest part of her heart that she knew not to possess and that she desperately wished to cleanse herself of, but that she couldn't when she lied in bed wailing into a pillow so the neighbors couldn't hear her. The pain arrested her. But after a while, it was all done in a thrifty and cold calculated silence. She was accustomed to it, almost. Took it like medicine. And instead of wailing into a pillow she walked the neighborhood as she was tonight, hoping that when she got home, he might be unconscious. And then she would level his revolver to his head or a butcher knife to his throat that would never realize the purpose of its intent. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Divorce was out of the question because of God and Leviticus. It was to be the child's name. Leviticus. The stillborn child who was born to silence without breath. The shame of divorce was a burden she'd never purposefully bear. The shameful life of a divorced wife, having still to carry his name. There was no escape unless he chose it. Unless he drank himself to death or was killed in duty, or unless God had mercy upon her and shuddered up his cold black heart, seized it, or choked him to death with his invisible hand. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores hoped that Thomas wouldn't leave, now that she had brushed him aside so rudely. The next morning at work, Mabel Comer came in for some alterations and Delores couldn't be happier to see her. She prodded her for information as furtively as possible, but Mabel was unforthcoming as though she had some instinctive duty to protect her borders' privacy, which was contrary to any other way she had ever been about her guests. But then she relented and spoke of Thomas like he was her son and said she hoped he would stay longer than he intends. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"How long is that?" Delores shot quickly. "That he intends?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Oh, he said he might finish the week here and head home to Cincinnati. A pleasant young man. Was in the same regiment as my son, Harry, in The Great War. God rest his soul. Having Thomas here is like having Harry back. Like he came home to me as he promised he would. I told him as much as we had tea yesterday. I half think he stayed the week just to bring me such comfort. I think he comes from his room now just to delight me so."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Townsfolk are sure taken by him. Heard some strange stories," Delores mentioned as bait. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Oh," Mabel scoffed. "People just ain't got nothing better to do than to gossip. Now do they?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores chuckled because Mabel was usually the source of all the latest salacious bavardage. But in this one instance, she was playing mother hen to the stranger, so she was exempt from the latest that was probably contrived by Vernon Rife, town barber. The barber chair was a hot seat of bitterness and disdain, mostly, but men don't call the words they sling scuttlebutt, though it is all the same. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores took her nightly constitution that night and each and every subsequent night whether she had been hit or she hadn't. And though her husband objected, she went anyway, saying it was doctor's orders and exercise she was entitled to by virtue of women's suffrage, which made her husband laugh at her sudden audacity in utter half-drunk disbelief. She needed the air. It was a particularly hot that week, she went on. But she left and every night, Thomas found her and walked behind her like he was her shadow. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Would you like to see a movie picture with me? Mrs. Comer was telling me the town theater is nice and there is a picture playing I'd like to see. A Rudolph Valentino film."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I couldn't possibly! Lester Holcomb owns the theater and his obnoxious son, Wallace, is the ticket taker. I went to school with Wallace, and surely he would tell everyone he saw the very married Mrs. Peanut Joe Cory and the very dashing stranger going to a movie together. I would be tarred and feathered, if only, in caustic words. But no less damning."</span><br />
<span>.</span><br />
<span>"You can buy a ticket, and I will buy a ticket later. Better yet, I will sneak into the theater and no one will even know. It is dark. I'll sit directly behind you, just as we walk."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You're incorrigible. I couldn't."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Please. I am leaving soon. I have to. There is so much I want to say to you and I'd love to see your face aglow with the lights of a motion picture. There is a feature here — in an hour. They say Rudolph Valentino is the most dashing man in the world. "</span>
<br /><br /><span>"I doubt that. And what does that matter to me? Besides, what will I tell my husband?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You're going to a movie. Ask him to come. If he goes, then I will sit away from you. He'll never know I'm there."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores reluctantly agreed and went home and asked her husband, who predictably said no, but who had no problem with her going, which Delores knew was due to the fact that he was having an affair with a widow named Helen Mounts who worked at the post office. Her husband was killed in The War, most courageously, in the same regiment as Mabel's son, Harry, and Thomas, and after her mandatory time of mourning, Helen became the very first flapper in the area and was known to drink bootleg hooch and dance on tables at the local stag bar for dollar bills, among other things. There was nothing too attractive about Helen, other than her rampant promiscuity, her willingness to debase herself, but Delores understood that her husband, for better or worse, was fond of the harlots and miscreant women whose personals were as accommodating as busy banquet halls, and equally as indifferent to their guests. She had found a risque photograph of Helen in her husband's sock drawer some months ago, but she simply regarded it with an air of disgust and interred it back to where it was crudely hidden. There was something corpse-like about Helen. Delores only wished she could give the widow that malignant part of her she so apparently desired, but such a thing couldn't be so easily gifted. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The theater was nearly empty. As predicted, Wallace Holcomb, ticket taker and theater janitor, who had the biggest ears of anyone Delores had ever seen, took note that she came alone and asked her, a little dumbly, where Peanut Joe was. And the audacity fired in her when she angrily replied, "Why don't you go ask Helen Mounts." </span>
<br /><br /><span>Wallace's jaw dropped and he apologized, bungling his words as he did, his tongue sort of flopping there. He was inartful and in no way or sort a gifted conversationalist. He gave Delores a complimentary popcorn and said something about motion pictures staving off loneliness. He said he has seen them all and sometimes watches them with no one else in the theater. </span>
<br /><br /><span>There were only a half dozen people in the audience that evening and Delores didn't recognize any of them from what she could tell. She scrutinized their faces as best she could, but there wasn't a familiar one among them. They were mostly older folks because it was a Wednesday night. The theater was sufficiently dark and it felt as though it was the mouth of some giant whale to Delores, and that she was on the cusp of being swallowed. She had only been to the theater once before around the time it opened in early 1920 and she never appreciated the enormity of it. Nor had she known that feeling. Perhaps that is because it was crowded then and now it was nearly empty. </span>
<br /><br /><span>She looked around nervously for Thomas, who promised to come in after the show started and sit behind her. How silly it felt to her to have to hide in such a childlike way. Because little towns have more eyes and mouths than they have people. But big cities are blind as bats. She remembered from when she went to Chicago and felt invisible the one time she ran from her husband, all those years ago. But then he found her and beat her on the train ride home in such a way that it seemed he didn't hit her body as much as he hit her soul. Physically hurting wasn't his motive. Breaking her spirit was, the way men break animals for obeyance and docility. </span>
<br /><br /><span>She kept looking, wondering if he would come, wondering if she was sitting in the best place to see him and to not be seen by others. There was no one behind her. Everyone else was closer to the front. She nervously ate some of the popcorn in the paper sack that Wallace had given her. She tried not to think, but her mind was in fits. It was consuming itself. Her thoughts were wild and a conflagration of desire consumed her soul. The same soul that was in tatters not long ago, was now completely and perfectly restored, albeit in flames. Try not to think what will come of it, she coached herself. God will see you through. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The movie started and he wasn't anywhere to be found. Maybe he changed his mind, her mind raced. What was the name of the movie? Blood and Sand. She'd have to remember in case anyone asked her. Her husband surely was with that harlot right now. Over there in her apartment above the hardware. Or maybe he brought her home. She didn't care. The theater grew darker as the screen lit up brighter and she was a little deeper in that whale's mouth, but she felt safe and anonymous and if there was a way to stay here, surely she would. There is a sort of neutrality in a movie theater, a peace, not known in many other places. Maybe in a museum. In a library. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Then she heard the seat behind her groan gently as someone sat in it. She could smell his cologne and she felt his presence that inate way one does when two people are connected in such a profound and unspoken way. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Hello, darling," he whispered, the piano music of the movie drowning him out. </span>
<br /><br /><span>She said hello, faintly. Again feigning a lack of interest, but then chastising herself for doing so as she knew he was the answered wish and for that she ought to be grateful. Never before had a wish been granted to her, yet here he was. She knew it, she could say, the moment she saw him. The moment just after that bell clamored on the shop door as it had a thousand times before, to see him lug that green cumbersome case. He spilled into her life the way one tragically and emphatically does. Be careful for those who creep into your life like tourists, for those that are meant for you will pour deeply into you so that they cannot be mistaken as accidental, she recalled reading somewhere. Some romance novel she hid from her husband. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Delores relaxed in her seat and decided to give way to her emotion. To allow herself to be swept up and washed out in the way she had always dreamed. To be swallowed by that whale of the theater to the paradise of its stomach. She invited him to move up and he hopped over the seat, a bit surprised by the impetuousness of her invitation. The beautiful imagery that played all over the silver screen reflected in the deep green pools of her eyes, and her lips slightly parted as she exhaled her old life then inhaled a newer and more hopeful one. She didn't feel tired and worn suddenly, rather an infatigable feeling shot through her with the chill of the air conditioning in the theater that gave her gooseflesh. Or was it the excitement of being so near to her dream in full realization of it. Not that her dream was solely a man, but he was the deliverer of the thaumaturgy. </span><span>The cupid. That of real love, at last. Death comes for others wearing a black cloak and bearing a sickle with which to reap, but love came to her as a traveling salesman with blue-eyes and slicked-over hair. </span>
<br /><br /><span>He took her hand daringly and she didn't resist. It was the tender way he held it that excited her. It was dainty and gloved, but he removed the glove so that it was naked and drew his fingers slowly over her palm. Then he held it delicately in his own. Not desperately or possessively. In a way that it could withdraw at any moment, though it did not want to withdraw. They were just two hands in a darkened theater, but they were conduits of something greater than themselves. Of an energy and passion that was of love, and of love uncommon. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The movie was a suitable backdrop for their date, but nothing of it was more exciting than that seat in the theater and she could hardly keep up with the reading for her attention was held captive by him. The feel of him near her and the smell of his cologne possessed her thoughts. Thomas watched intently, patiently, but Delores peaked over through sideways glances to be sure he was real and this was happening because it seemed as if it were all a dream. Maybe she was hallucinating and she would wake up to realize it was some sort of defect from brain damage caused by her husband's recurrent and relentless blows. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The bullfight on the screen didn't interest her. The blood and sand. Rudolph Valentino didn't interest her. The minstrel music, the cool theater, the popcorn and the darkness of that mouth which held them in abeyance, none of it interested her as he did. It was all just a scene and a setting. Just a place made special because it was shared with him. And she wondered if it were the same for him, or if she was delusional in the thought that this was so great a moment that it would never be forgotten. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But reality returned to her, and before the movie ended she asked how they planned to part. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Never," he whispered into her ear defiantly as though she had asked him to surrender.</span>
<br /><br /><span>She shivered. He gave her his suitcoat and invited her to follow him before the movie ended, which daringly she did without hesitation. They left through a side door and out to his automobile that was parked beneath an elm tree in the shadows of a neighboring street. No one, so far as she could tell, saw them drive off. </span>
<br /><br /><span>There was a lake nearby and Thomas drove to it. He knew the lake because Mabel Comer had told him about the lake and how she used to take her Harry there when he was a boy for picnics, and how he used to swim before the world changed forever, and not in their favor. Before the world tried to consume itself — one of the despairing ways she referred to The War. Thomas parked by a large boulder nearby which was flanked by cattails. It was a common spot for the "neckers," wild teenagers who would hike out and picnic or borrow their parents' automobiles and park. Delores' husband knew it well and many of the cigarette butts scattered on the ground surely belonged to Joe Cory.</span>
<br /><br /><span>There were no other cars in sight. There was no sound, other than the crickets and frogs and an occasional breeze that howled through the gangling pines whose needles looked like long thin fingers. It was cool and the redolent pines blessed the spot with a sweet sappy aroma which reminded her of campfires and a youth she spent with her father who died years too soon because the black lung. He was a miner and he called Delores his little golden canary. She could still feel him pattting her on the head at times and smell the coal dust on his rough denim jacket. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Thomas made no advances. He looked up at the openair and was thankful he owned a convertible to be able to see the moon swathed in wispy purplish clouds that were like the rivulets of the sum of all his desirous dreams. He could have sat there and looked at them all night if Delores wasn't there with him, thankful peace had usurped war in the monarchy of his life. But there she was and he reached over and took her hand again the gentle way he had in the theater so that it would not leave. There was a sense of reassurance in his touch that she hadn't known since her father patted her head all those years ago, years that were lost to winds and moons and the sun and all the seasons that came and went, that had either been surrendered or fled. It was all buried deeply in her mind, but it was otherwise gone.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Before The War I used to watch the sunset nearly every night over a pond in a park in my hometown. In the pond there was a fountain and there were always swans and ducks that glided through the water so effortlessly. Graceful, I suppose, is the better word for it. No one bothered them. Children fed them. Even the most ardent of hunters would let those swans and ducks alone because it could be agreed upon that they were beautiful and the park was prettier because of them. The sunset was magnificent over that pond and where it touched the green of the water through a part in these ancient white sycamores that must have been there for all of time, it seemed, the sunset was painted varying shades of red and orange, and every so often, a brilliant pale shade of pink. I can never forget that color. Just to see it brought me peace and made me love life for all that it was, all that it isn't, and that it can be.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"During The War, I didn't see that color. All I saw were a thousand shades of gray. Flesh that was turned to gristle. It was as though color didn't exist until someone was shot and for a moment that red rose of life would bloom on their skin or their uniform, but after it burst for a moment, the red would fade from it and it went black as death. While I was at war, I longed for those sunsets in that park again. It was like they were a promise. But none would come. When I returned home, I didn't go back to the park again. I don't know why. I just didn't go back. I didn't see that color until I saw you. It is the color of your lips. Forgive me, for I must have stared."</span>
<br /><br /><span>There was a long moment of silence. Just breath, but hardly even that. "You needn't ask for my forgiveness, Thomas. Not from me. But from your wife, I —" </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I am not married. I've never had a wife. I've dreamed of having a wife. I pretended while I was at war that I did have someone to come home to. Someone to live for. I wrote letters to some imaginary woman who I could never really see in my mind, but who I was sure existed somewhere. And when I came home, though she wasn't there at the train station to greet me, I imagined she was. And when I travel, I buy her dresses and gifts, flowers I put in a vase on the table. The gifts are all in a room at my house. The wildflowers I've planted in my yard for her, bloom every year, even without her. This wedding ring I acquired at a pawn and wear — in expectation of her.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"But you are a married woman and I'm passing through this town like I am passing through your life. But I didn't have the courage to leave it. Or the will. Or to come back and see Mr. Dickenson as you offered for that seemed so very final to me. I knew from the moment that I saw you that you are the woman I have inagined all these years. Regardless of your unfortunate marriage. At home there is a room full of things that have never been opened, all for you. This ring, I wear for you."</span>
<br /><br />Delores took a deep breath and leaned back in her seat to open herself up to him as Thomas inhaled deeply and exhaled a world of anguish he had previously thought to have passed. She was a salve that he had never before felt. A comfort he hadn't known. And he breathed her in and all that was broken mended itself in such an uncomplicated way that he knew she was more than just that person. If he could be honest with himself, he loved her more than he had loved anyone for she was the one he had always known to exist somewhere in this world. <!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_230707_192328_128.sdocx--></span><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">They might have made love there in the automobile as others have done. On the groaning leather seat cushions, springs working in unison. It was an inviting prospect for both, and Delores was ready as something had snapped inside of her. What dam there was of moral resistance had collapsed now that she knew he wasn't married, and all her doubt washed away. But Thomas, as much as he longed for her, and as much as he avowed that patience was not a worthy virtue, never made a move, instead he talked to her and made her laugh which no one had done for a very long time. They sat there in his car, looking at the stars, making love with words, with breath, and even in the silence between. Then she confessed to him that she longed to be a writer, but didn't know the first place to start. He suggested that she ought to start here. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It could have lasted all night, but it was late and Delores knew her husband waited at home for her. Surely, he had finished with that bawd by now. There was likely a line if married men out her door holding tickets. He likely waited and now he had something to accuse her of, that which he hadn't before, never a thought, even. How would it be then? Would he kill her, she asked herself. Was this the last night of her life? The very perfect last night that she would't trade for anything in the world, even for her life. She wouldn't be able to lie. If he asked her, she would admit the truth and out it would come, falling all over itself the way truth often does. But she could say he never kissed her. He barely even touched her, but what was felt in that slightest of caresses of his hand was more than she ever felt in any way. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores and Thomas were both much different people now than they were when they had sat down to the movie. They were connected now. Their souls entwined. One would never fully be apart from the other, they both knew, from this night forward. Thomas drove her to town and dropped her off on a corner near her house. Then he parked his car at the boarding house and reluctantly went inside, wondering when he would see her again and how it would be when he did. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">To Delores' relief, her husband was passed out in bed. There was an empy bottle of whisky on the end table and he was still wearing his clothes. His tie hung like a severed noose around his neck. He was harmless in that state, and by the time he woke up he would be too hung over and tired to do anything. He never beat her sober or hungover. He hardly spoke to her then, as though he were ashamed of himself for however he was the night before. Especially when Delores had a black eye or a busted lip and sat across the breakfast table, confronting him with it by merely her presence. He never apologized in words, rather, he did so with a lack of words. By saying nothing at all. By being still or mawkish. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">As Delores lied in bed the thought that she could have stolen the night with Thomas consumed her. Or at least they could have spent several more hours together. She could hardly sleep at first, but when she did she was carried away to a perfect chorus of illusory dreams. Those of her father and of Kentucky where she was born. Of fireflies in the yard that she caught in pickle jars and of Thomas making love to her in a hayfield back home. The thought and feeling was so entirely real and intense that she orgasmed in her sleep as her debauched husband snored next to her. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The next day came and went. And the next. She didn't hear from Thomas until three days later when he came into the shop and requested another dress. Mr. Dickenson was in the shop and asked him about his stockings. He sold the lot to him, but none of the men's razors. Harry the barber might be interested in those, Mr. Dickenson suggested with a slight gobble in his voice. He was an older and frail-looking man who resembled a turkey more so than any other person Thomas had ever seen before. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"A suitable wedding dress," Thomas instructed Delores. "Something casual, but not too casual. Something lovely," he added staring at her as Mr. Dickenson counted money from a black lock box. His ear was enormous and he listened very carefully to what the stranger was asking for, hoping it would sound more expensive with every word.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores looked confused, but she listened, cautious of Mr. Dickenson hovering around the register as she wrote down Thomas' instructions. She had told Mr. Dickenson and everyone she knew for that matter that Thomas was a happily married man, if only just to cover herself. She even said she saw a picture of his wife and she was a lovely woman that she hoped to meet someday. So she couldn't understand why he was ordering a wedding dress, nor how she would explain it to anyone until he let her off easy. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"It's for my sister, Irene. She is getting married in a week near Cincinnati and I am afraid she hasn't the money to afford her something nice. It's more of a casual wedding. There's a small country chapel there abound with wildflowers. Not a lot of people there. Just those who matter."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"What size would you say your sister is?" Delores asked. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"She is — about your size. If the dress fits you, surely it shall fit her."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores grinned standing there in her threadbare dress. In all the time Thomas had seen her, she never wore anything besides for modest colorless dresses which certainly didn't suit her at all. Though she needn't wear anything to excite the senses, nor did anything take away from her beauty, how he dreamed of seeing her in color. In yellow. Or blue. Or pink. And certainly, someday, in ivory white, and hopefully never in black. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores went to the backroom and retrieved the dress she had in mind. Mr. Dickenson smiled and nodded in approval as she came back out with it slacked over her arms like a boneless body. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Can you try it on for me?" Thomas asked boldly. It was certainly not an unusual request to ask for a dress to be modeled, but under the circumstances, it was. When Delores hesitated, Mr. Dickenson cleared his throat and waved her on to comply with the customer's request and she disappeared again to the back where she got undressed and put on the dress. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Mr. Dickenson apologized to Thomas softly and said the girl was modest to a fault. Thomas smiled as though he were disinterested when all the while he was enamored and his heart was in his throat. It was an act he had to play until he got her out of town, which he knew was what he must do. His face grew serious and he stared at the calendar on the wall — June 1922. Someone had crossed the days off as the month progressed so that on the calendar there was a happy image of some wildflowers on top and a bunch of X's below. Time was running out. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Mr. Dickenson caught a glimpse of Thomas staring so sternly off into the distance and he wondered if something displeased him, so he tried to make a joke about something, but Thomas didn't hear him and so the joke faltered. He heard nothing at all. For a moment he was back in The War and there was a horse screaming as she was caught in barbedwire, the flesh being tore from her bones as she tried to break free. On the other side of the field, enveloped in smoke and a haze of death that stunk of burning flesh and powder, a Hun waited to shoot the man who tried to help free the horse so the merciful thing to do was to shoot the horse, but Thomas could not. He shot more men then he could remember, but he couldn't shoot the horse as much as it suffered. But someone else did. Then there was the ringing of an ear-piercing silence. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Mr. Riddle? Mr. Riddle?" Mr. Dickenson gobbled. It was his bald head and the loose fat on his throat just beneath the chin which made him resemble a turkey, Thomas considered. Then there was the intrusion of the front door bell which clanged and in walked Delores' husband, Officer Cory. And the turkey man made a fuss over him and the officer guffawed like a schoolboy would when an old man tells him a joke and gives him candy. Officer Cory was carrying a boquet of flowers for his wife. Dreadful red carnations. A surprise. He had not given her flowers in a long time, but there he stood like an ox, awkwardly holding the boquet that was wrapped in wax paper and crinkled as he held it. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores walked out, wearing the wedding dress, and her husband smiled, but Thomas was dismayed by his presence and the gift he bore as though her husband was intentionally intruding on a dream he was dreaming. As though he was trying to steal something from him when the opposite was truth, in reality. It just didn't feel that way. And for a moment, standing there, Thomas regretted not making love to Delores the night of the movie when he had the opportunity because something had changed. A window had closed, he felt. A door had shut. And the husband was there to lock it until the next time he got drunk and beat her half to death. It was an apology boquet. Maybe he found Jesus somewhere. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores was startled by her husband who looked handsome in his uniform and with a new haircut. He said Vern did him up right. He was always handsome when he was being kind and when he smiled rather than when he grimaced. He remarked how beautiful she appeared and made mention of their wedding some 8 years ago and how she was even lovelier now than she was then, especially in that dress. Thomas just stood there and took it. Delores quickly explained that she was modeling the dress for Mr. Riddle's sister in Cincinnati, who was to be married soon. Officer Cory gave Thomas a grin of approval and offered his congratulations then gave his wife the boquet and a pleasant kiss. He shook Thomas' hand and said good to meet you and to place a face to a name before saying his goodbyes. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The moment was devastating for Thomas, who stood there as though all life had drained from him as it had when he watched that horse die an excruciating death in the barbedwire. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thomas couldn't imagine that the same man who brought his wife flowers, mercifully beat her as she had confessed, but he had seen the bruises veiled in makeup when he first arrived. But the fact that she kissed him, accepted the flowers there in front of him, was the matter most he abhorred. She didn't seem to express any hesitancy or doubt, and she smiled at her husband as though she were happily married and pleased that he thought of her in such a way. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">But Delores was simply hoping to conceal her affair with Thomas that, though not physical, was a reality she couldn't otherwise deny besides in such a charade. And though she knew not to what end it would lead, she knew she was to follow for the path ran through her heart from which she was the most vulnerable.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Are you pleased with the dress?" Mr. Dickenson asked Thomas, who gave it only a glance. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I am. But I'm not quite ready to make such a purchase at this time. I am leaving town soon, so I will think it over and stop in before I depart."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I can give you a good deal —"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"It isn't the price," Thomas said leaving. "I need to phone my sister and find out if the wedding is going to happen or not. Marriage isn't the institution it once was, it seems. I am baffled at times by the propensity of cupid to shoot so inaccurately with his bow." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Truer words have never been spoken!" Mr. Dickenson affirmed. Delores silently demurred. She raged inside and had much to say to Thomas, but wasn't sure she would have the chance. There was a bitterness in his tone and she knew he must have been dismayed by the presence of her husband, who had been making a stange effort to make up to her over the past few days. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thomas left without saying goodbye and Delores knew he would be gone if she didn't do something. So after Mr. Dickenson went home at 3, she closed up the shop two hours early and went to the boarding house, though she knew it would give her away and raise a suspicion she wouldn't be able to deny. Mabel greeted her at the door, a chubby-old hen in a proper blue dress. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Delores! Well, what do I owe the pleasure?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm here to see Mr. Riddle. It's about a dress her ordered for his sister," she lied. Lies were part of her armory, suddenly. She carried the box as an accomplice. It was all she could think up to excuse her presence and her business with the stranger, Mr. Riddle. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, well, I can go get him. I believe he is packing his things to leave us. The dear boy. I begged him to stay a while or so longer as he does remind me of my dearest departed Harry, but —"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"What room?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"My dear?" </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"What room is he in? I will go. It is a surprise, but it will only take a minute."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Mabel looked at Delores and perhaps she recognized something desperate in her eyes, something she sympathized with, but whatever it was she told her, quietly, which room it was and Delores properly but quickly made her way up the stairs to the gentleman's room, something she could say she had never done before, nor ever could have imagined herself doing. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">She knocked once, but then entered without waiting. Thomas was on the bed looking at a postcard he bought and never sent. His bags were packed and waited patiently on the carpet of the floor near the door. The room was green in color. The softer shade of green that isn't so bright, yet not so dark that it looks like a forest at twilight. Rather, it looked like the pools of Delores' sad eyes. Surely, somehwere there is a name for it. In a paint store or on the lips of an artist that does landscapes. In a dictionary that is closed upon a shelf somewhere. But the things one cannot rightly label and define are those that are the most interesting and romantic. The walls were one such thing. As was the painting above the brass bed which was of a field of flowers that Delores had never seen the likes of before, nor likely ever would. Purple flowers, a million of them, growing wild and free, unencumbered, uninhibited and blessed with the right amount of rainfall and sun, perpetually in their youth. Living, yet lifeless. Dying, yet alive. And in the distance, behind that field of flowers was a canoe on a lake with a daub of color for a man that sat in it. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Words get in the way often. So they didn't speak. Harry's gramophone was on, as it was once Harry's room, and the record that played promised things that the singer could never, or did not intend to, deliver. Eternal love and happiness. Money and bliss. All just for a kiss. And Delores shut the door and kissed Thomas there in front of the bed and dropped the box. There was a painting of Christ's face on an opposing wall who looked up to Heaven in agony. Blood fell down his cheeks in soft crimson streams like tears. But she had no time to consider Him. Nor anything else. For she was consumed fully, and they made love on the bed, the telltale springs of which wailed with every thrust and motion, but not to their consideration, for their ears were deaf in passion. The brass rails rocked and beat against the thin wallpapered wall and the legs of the bed stomped in protest, or was it in celebration for this long-overdue and most natural saturnalia? Sex is the only time the human mind thinks nothing, nothing of consequences, good or otherwise, or of entanglements. Nothing of perceptions or the aftermath of what is emotionally due to the other. Thus, why babies find it easy to be made and born. A child is not born to this world unless two people pretend at least to love one another, and engage in the official ceremony of the ritual, for better or worse. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">A breeze blew through the white lace curtains of the open window. The curtain danced there where it hung, the window like a mouth inhaling and exhaling. Wind the cooled </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">their sweaty bodies. There was no other way now. There was no going back and after it ended, Delores lied there in bed with him, exhausted and gratefully sore, content and blissfully lethargic. The euphoria of the act still holding her in its grasp as he caressed her head. The golden canary she was once more. A perfect being loved by someone. Thomas immediately plead with her to come with him, but she was unable to think properly in the moment. And slowly, Leviticus and all other things like eternal damnation, crept into her mind. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"You can go with me to Cincinnati. Start a new life. Take a new name. Or you can stay here. He will abuse you again when he gets drunk and I will kill him and get the electric chair. Or he will kill us both. This story is written one of those three ways to end. There's no other way, Delores."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Will God forgive me?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Ask Him."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Have you seen it?" she asked naked. Her leg caressing his body as she curled up next to him. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Have I seen what?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Sasmo the Serious. Have you seen our fate?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Do you have ten cents?" Thomas laughed taking her into his arms. She burrowed her head softly into his armpit as though to hide. As though to stay hidden. She was safe there. Her</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"> hand explored his body as she kissed him again. Jesus wailed on the wall, in prepetual Catholic agony. His face looked like that horse's, Thomas considered for a second before extinguishing the thought by burying his face in Delores' hair. Delores thought of the old ladies at church who told her to bear it. Some of them had been cheated and beaten, too. Men don't beat their wives forever, they promised her. The cheating doesn't last. They sow their wild oats and become men. But divorce is the Devil's hand. Then she wrapped her arm around Thomas as though to hold on to him forever. As though he could keep her from going to hell, or from dying first. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"How far is it to Cincinnati?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">They got up and got dressed as the record player played a slow repetitive static, the record expiring long before their lovemaking did. Delores now considered how loud she must have been. It was as though she were speaking in tongues and if there were any borders in their rooms, they must have heard. Mabel certainly would have heard unless she was outside tending her garden, which is what Delores hoped. Yet, she knew Mabel knew, regardless of what she heard or didn't hear of the bouncing bed frame, or the floor, or Delores' wailing. Maybe she so eagerly agreed to go to Cincinnati so not to face Mabel again. So not to be at Mabel's mercy, hoping every minute of every day that she could keep this secret. And she knew she couldn't see him just this once. She had never made love like this and she would not be able to make love any other way with anyone else. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thomas grabbed his bags and Delores followed him out the door. Suddenly, she was his shadow, contrary to how they were before. He had left a kind note for Mabel, he said. Delores hoped to be invisible behind him, but they didn't see anyone as they left. Mabel must have indeed been out in her garden pruning her rosebushes for the enormous house was quiet as a nunnery. And for that, Delores was grateful to God. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">As they puttered away in the flashy red Buick, Delores insisted she had to go home to get some personal things that belonged to her father. That he left her and she couldn't possibly leave without. She never knew her mother, she admitted. Her mother died when Delores was only 2 of cholera. Thomas tried to talk her out of going, or to let him go instead, and she finally agreed that he could go and she would wait at the diner that sat on the highway. He would pick her up there and they'd leave together as soon as he returned. There was a book of photos in her dresser. Photos of her mother and of her father. Their wedding. It was in the first drawer. And her father's Civil War medals. He won the Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. There was a revolver in there he carried with him in battle. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I was born in 1892. My daddy was 46 when he had me. My mother was only 19. He hadn't been with anyone other than her, nor she of him. He said that he was waiting for the right person to come along and he would know her when he saw her, and, well, finally she came along." Delores grinned recalling her daddy's stories. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I know the feeling. I, too, have waited. Everyone else had the same problem."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"What is that?" she asked. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"They weren't you."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores smiled. "I am happy that you did. My momma died in 1894 so their romance was short lived in person, but the way he spoke of her, it was quite evident to me that it carried on much after she was gone. To the end of his time."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thomas grinned over at her as they drove to the diner. "Of all the stories to write, perhaps you should write theirs so that they live on forever." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, they do in my heart," she smiled. Thunder cracked and the gray sky opened up to an ominous downpour. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I will meet you here," Thomas promised her in the parking lot of the diner. They both glanced up at the highway out of town that was rippled with rain drops and for a moment they had the same thought. That was the road to their happily ever after and it was just right there in front of them. How long exciting it was for them both to dream that dream. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"What if Joe is there? I know he ought to be working, but he comes home sometimes. Randomly he goes home to eat or to have a drink." Delores panicked. "What if he is home?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I'll be quick. If he is parked outside, I'll know. He drives a marked car, right?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Yes," she frantically replied. "A squad car. Like any other."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thomas nodded and smiled hoping to assuage her fear. He gave her a newspaper to hold over her head for the rain which she did as she scurried into the diner. She waved goodbye as he puttered away, sloshing through sudden puddles that seemed to swallow the pavement. His wipers dilligently wiping. The rain cascading down the windshield like a foreboding warning if ever one was to be had. No one saw her get out of the car, she was sure. No one could know, she resolved. But then she considered, what does it matter now what they think of me when soon I'll be gone?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Nervously, she waited at the diner at a table by the window. She looked out onto the parking lot that was full of black Fords, not much else. All black automobiles. There wasn't one colored car in the lot since Thomas had left. She never realized before how lifeless and dull people are. Even herself. They almost pride themselves in it as though austerity and plainness are some sort of grace. She caught glimpses of herself in the large window and she looked drab. She was wearing the same gray dress she wore three times a week. Another was a lifeless blue one and another one that she hardly wore because it was also her funeral dress, was black. She didn't want it to fade and have to dye it because the other two times she did, it left her hands black for a month. If she prided herself on anything, she prided herself on her cleanliness and her hands. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">She knew everyone at the diner. Almost everyone knew everyone in Washington Court House, a town of only a few thousand people. The waitress was picking her ear about a dress she needed mended and Delores told her to bring it in, though she knew she wouldn't be there whenever she did. She would be gone. She would be in Cincinnati with Thomas, and she began to fantasize about what that would be like. She had only been there once and she wondered if it was anything like Chicago. She wondered if they could get on one of those boats and paddle down the Ohio River and have dinner in a fancy restaurant and go to the theater. If they could go to a baseball game. It was only a few years since the Reds won the penant. She wondered and saw things in her coffee cup, in that omnipotent black steaming orb. That magic 8 ball porcelain gypsy eye. There she could see everything, even a child. But then, perhaps portentously so, just like that it was all gone. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Suddenly, and much to her relief, that red Buick Roadmaster reappeared in the distance and it splashed into the parking lot. Thomas pulled up and lapped the building without honking or making a scene and Delores left a quarter on the table for the coffee and premonition she drank and hurried out the door trying not to be so obvious. He parked a ways away from the building and where they wouldn't be seen. He smiled at her as she got into the car, but his eye was swollen and blood trickled down the side of his face from a cut on his head. Delores covered her mouth and shrieked. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"You can't go with me. I'm sorry, Delores."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"What?! What happened?!"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Joe came in, as you warned me he might. It was just horrible timing. He drew his gun and I got to him before he could pull the trigger. We fought. Broke up the place real good. He got some good licks in and I got some good licks in. He wouldn't leave it at that, though. He went for the gun again and I stabbed him with a kitchen knife. It couldn't have been avoided. I swear to you. He lies dead on your living room rug as I speak. It is only a matter of time before they all know it. You got to go home and call the police and tell them you found him there in that state! They will investigate and, eventually, I'll be arrested. There is no doubt in my mind. There is some clue I left behind. Fingerprints on the knife that is still in his chest. A footprint. Something. A man don't get away with killing a police man. Not around here. Never."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Thomas, wait! Wait! Let me go with you. We can live on the run. Live in a boxcar for all I care. I haven't known — this — before I knew you. Not this kind of love, anyway. We can get on a train for California and do anything we want to do. Maybe Mexico. I got twenty dollars saved up in a shoebox in top of the closet. Canada, if you'd prefer. Some out of the way town. A cabin in the deep woods somewhere. Live off the land. Nothing but nature and the birds and those sunsets you told me about. The ones with that pale shade of pink."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Delores," Thomas returned calmly. "If you run with me then you're guilty, too. We both will die in the electric chair. I can't have you ruin your life. Not for me. Not for anything."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"But you ruined your life for me! It was self defense. I believe you. You just said so. You can explain it to the judge."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Delores. I killed a police man, honey. It ain't like killing a Hun, or a dog, or some hobo on the street. No one is going to believe anything other than I was caught in the act of burglarizing your house and killed the man in cold blood. If I claim self defense, then you will have to tell them about us. You'll have to tell everyone about our affair and I can't let you do that. They will consider us to be accomplices and I can't let you do it, honey." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores slumped in her seat, crestfallen for a moment. "I wished for it. I did. There was a star. I wished for him to die and to know real love. I just couldn't take the beatings anymore. I couldn't take the fear of syphilis or disease he would one day give me. He raped me, but they say a man can't rape his wife so there is no justice to be had for it. It was as though he liked it that way. He wanted me to be afraid of him. He wanted me to resist him. He was a monster. Joe Cory was the devil incarnated and I had the misfortune to play the role of his wife for 8 horrible years."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">The rain picked up again and thunder cracked. It was a reprieve from the oppressive summer heat. Blood trickled into Thomas' eye and it stung. He winced in pain. Delores took out a handkerchief and tried to mend his wounds, but he gently pushed her arms aside and looked at her with love in his eyes. He was trying to get a look to remember her by. The downpour gave them some shortlived privacy in the car, but Thomas started it up and drove back to where he parked before so to let her out. So to let her go home and find her dead husband on the living room rug. He would never hit her again. He would never rape her. He was powerless as he was. At least, her war was over and she could live in peace.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Delores wasn't fearful to see him dead as she walked in. Ashamedly, she had fantasized about it. About life without him. But now, she knew, she must be an actress. She must scream and call the police. The coroner would come out. The neighbors would all line the sidewalk with hopes to get a glimpse of the stretcher with the body of Officer Peanut Joe Cory on it. Under a sheet. There would be a funeral to attend and his family to talk to. Condolences to gather and stow away and a month of wearing black for a man who didn't deserve to be mourned. She looked at her hands and knew they'd be stained soon with black dye, or maybe she'd just buy another dress. Maybe she would allow herself that. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">She stood there and looked at him lying there, that knife like a broken gear shift in his chest. She looked at him for a long time without saying a word. Without moving. Without hardly breathing. Then she screamed. And then she called the police. She wanted to give Thomas time to get away. Time to get to Cincinnati and hide wherever he intended to hide. She cried, but not for her dead husband. But because she wasn't going to see Thomas again unless they captured him and sent him to the electric chair. Then she collapsed in the living room next to her dead husband as sirens wailed in the distance. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">A month later, Thomas had yet to be arrested. He expected that it would come at anytime. That he would hear news of it. He avoided the papers and the radio for just that reason. He didn't want to know when it would come, or when it was about to come. Just as he didn't want to know in The War that he swore he would die in when death would come for him. He just wanted it to be swift. It might be too much to ask for it to be painless, so he didn't ask that. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">He went back to Cincinnati and lived a normal life. Sold French hosiery and men's razors from Kenosha one week, then pocket watches and hair brushes the next. He sold encyclopedias for a while, but no one was as interested in books as they were in radios or magazines. Magazines were the easiest sell. Everyone wanted to look at pictures. Everyone wants to hear about crime and to watch pornography, subtle or explicit. They want to be entertained. Then he gave up his traveling sales job and became the manager of a busy hardware store. He was good at his job, but every time the bell rang when someone came in, he looked up to see if it was a law man. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">A few years later he went back to watch those swans and ducks in the park where he used to go to look at those sunsets. There he dreamed of Delores and wondered if ever he could go back. Wondering if ever she moved on. But any day, still he figured, they'd come. He wouldn't be hard to find. He was, after all, listed in the public telephone directory. His house wasn't the least bit inauspicious since he painted it a pale shade of pink. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">He was just about finished with it when a car hurriedly pulled up to the curb. He was on the ladder and heard the brakes squeal in protest. He didn't look back, he just stared at the color and was lost somewhere inside of it the way a man must be lost when he drowns. When panic gives way to the calmness of acceptance. The door shut forcefully, and then another door shut. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">It was the footsteps on the sidewalk that first betrayed his assumptions as to the identity of his visitor. Instead of the angry boot steps he expected, he heard the clip-clop of heels. The distinct sound of women's shoes. He turned to look to see Delores standing there in a dress that was the very color of the house. The color of her lips.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Color looks good on you," he smiled as though he was not in panic. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I wanted to match the house."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"You knew it was pink?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I assumed it was pink."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">He could have fallen off the ladder and into the rosebushes for his surprise. Or died of a heart attack right there as shocked as he was to see her. It had been two long years and there she stood on the sidewalk on the other side of the white picket fence smiling at him. The taxi driver scurried to drop her bags and hurriedly got back into the cab and puttered away.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I hope it is not too presumptious of me to be dropped here? I'm not familiar with the city and am in desperate need of an honest guide."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"No," Thomas smiled. "Not presumptuous at all. And you are not in the least bit desperate. Actually, it is quite perfect. I need someone to help me plant wildflowers for the season."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Where do I apply?" she grinned. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"I think you already did. And you're hired." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, before you hire me you must know that I am a felon. I plead guilty to killing my husband. I served two years in the state reformatory for women. I claimed self-defense, but the prosecutor was relentless. I was given a ten year sentence, despite the abuse and thought I would have to serve it. But then I wrote a letter to the governor's wife who proved to be as sympathetic as she was influential. I wrote her a story, really. In the story, as you might imagine, I killed him. I never mentioned you, at all, for fear they'd arrest you. That was the reason I confessed. I heard rumors that you were a person of interest. The governor's wife and I become penpals and she convinced her husband to commute my sentence."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Delores — I didn't know." </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"And I am thankful you didn't. I know you would have confessed, if you had. I worried that you would, but I was prepared for that. I wiped your prints off the knife and I pressed mine to it. I wiped up a bloody footprint you left by the back door. I had you a sworn alibi."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Mabel Comer?"</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Yes. Mabel Comer," she smiled. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Two years!" Thomas exclaimed. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Two years," she repeated. "It is very little time to do for love. It wasn't all that terrible. I actually felt good saying that I did it. It was as though I got my dignity back. I wanted to do it. And two years in prison gave me time to write and to become someone I never was."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Who is that?" he asked. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">"Myself."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">Thomas smiled at her. He loved her even more now than he had ever before. He grabbed her bags and carried them inside. Delores was home, she knew, the moment she stepped inside that picket fence and the redolence of the flowers greeted her soft delicate nose. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;">He bought her an Underwood typewriter and several reams of paper the next day as a surprise gift. He joked with her about knowing how it all would work out, being that he was "Sasmo the Serious." They made love with the window open and a view of the garden below. Some days later, Delores wrote the governorness once again, one last time, expressing her dearest gratitude and inviting her to Cincinnati for tea, telling her that she had found true love and that the flames of Hell, she learned, are a pale shade of pink. Signed — Delores, the Murderess — as all the paper's conspired to describe her. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcM4VsGt89hpwNKOS0bcALEjTl2S557_nmWBkCpOWIo32FU-5yvWEEZUh-SEnqq6butfTvGs2LU7QWrx9t0X1LyMHipv_nOPkj88vdh9cqSvAjeS6DRtywiKsE3GuU6pM_0i3wv6LFdLHF-fzMB6v2krRLf68mjoSkC_WjiChWzmwPGs_81BiEufmc-Nw9/s720/FB_IMG_1676840300791.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcM4VsGt89hpwNKOS0bcALEjTl2S557_nmWBkCpOWIo32FU-5yvWEEZUh-SEnqq6butfTvGs2LU7QWrx9t0X1LyMHipv_nOPkj88vdh9cqSvAjeS6DRtywiKsE3GuU6pM_0i3wv6LFdLHF-fzMB6v2krRLf68mjoSkC_WjiChWzmwPGs_81BiEufmc-Nw9/s320/FB_IMG_1676840300791.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></div>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-23044400717849252102023-06-11T14:22:00.004-07:002023-08-16T16:21:11.180-07:00Marie Antoinette's Head<p><span style="font-size: 17px;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>It is a strange thing, that animal. That animal that gets such preference to others, but is little different. Take, for instance, a pig — s</span><span>us scrofa domesticus. </span><span>A pig is much brighter than a dog. A pig doesn't </span><span>sti</span><span>nk like a dog. Doesn't shed like a dog. You might think there would be slaughterhouses full of dogs and backyards full of pigs, but to the contrary. Even "pig park" sounds better than "dog park." Instead of pork, you could eat dork. Dog sausage. Hot dogs, for Chrissake, are called hot dogs! It all makes sense. But that isn't the way it goes. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Some time ago, someone decided that dogs would be given pet status and pigs would go to market. People even mock it with some embarrassing nursery rhyme mothers recite while tickling their squealing infant's toes, who is amused by the fate of a misfortuned pig and the fantatical recalling of it by their deranged mother. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It isn't to say that dogs are not worthy praise or admiration of the pet status they have been afforded. Dogs do wonderful things all the time. They save people from burning houses. Kids from nefarious strangers. They ward off burglars. Sniff out drugs, bombs and even dead people. Cadaver dogs, they call those. I suppose pigs couldn't do that and those things are worthy admiration. Then again 4.5 million people are bitten by dogs each year and 30-50 are mauled to death, mostly small children. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I never thought about getting a dog. I had a dog as a kid. It was a good dog. A chow-mix. Lots of hair. He was a horny dog — that much would be on his headstone if he had a headstone. He humped all my friends anytime they fell down in my backyard. Dad said he "went to town," which confused me as a child because he didn't go anywhere. Or dad said he "buried the bone" in whoever he humped. He especially liked fat kids, and if one of my fat friends fell, he didn't stand a damn chance. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But when he died, I swore I'd never have a dog again. There is only so much heartache a person can endure, and dogs live on average only 12 years. That isn't nearly enough time. Harvey, my childhood homosexual opportunist mutt, lived 10 years and keeled over in the backyard one sunny afternoon unexpectedly. My friends spread the vicious rumor that he died of AIDS and panicked because they figured they had it, too, since he had humped them. He'd never experienced dog-on-dog, perhaps he might lament, if he could. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It is by coincidence that when I married Amelia Anne Bradbury, that we would be married 12 years before she died of kidney cancer. She was the kindest woman I've ever known and they say you ought to be fortunate for the time you had, but it is possible to feel fortunate and overwhelming and unbearable sorrow all at once. It is possible to feel cheated by life while being thankful, I can assure you. Such ambivalence is normal. </span>
<br /><br /><span>We were married nine years when she was diagnosed. And in those last three years we spent every dime we had going on vacations to everywhere she ever wanted to go, besides Europe and Egypt. I mortgaged the house, unbeknownst to her, and we went to every Atlantic Coast beach we could go to, including Bermuda, the Bahamas, Tortuga Beach, Key Largo and Cancún — twice.</span>
<br /><br /><span>Amelia loved pigs. She had a magnificent love for them. And throughout our house I have hundreds of orphaned pigs of all sorts. From salt and pepper shakers to yard ornaments to lamps to doorknobs on our kitchen cabinets. There are pastoral pig prints hanging on the walls. Pigs playing poker in the den. Pig figurines. Pigs on the bathroom wallpaper. It was Amelia who told me all that stuff about pigs, made the argument that they were, at least, equal to dogs. There was many other things as well and sometimes when I sit and think about her alone in the house, they occur to me. Pigs feel pain and pleasure. Pigs have the cognitive abilities of a three year-old child. Pigs don't sweat, which is why the wallow in mud. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Her love of pigs was legendary and began where I suspsect many people's love of pigs began — in the pages of the fine book — Charlotte's Web. There is an original first print on our bookshelf, and when it came time to selling some things to pay back creditors for all the debt I incurred to travel with her, that was not among the items I chose to sell. My motorcycle and baseball card collection weren't so fortunate. So long, Mickey Mantle. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But from time to time I get great satisfaction sitting on our porch swing reading that book. I like to imagine she is here with me. Her ghost is here with me. I like to read it aloud, as though she can hear me. Not loud enough so that someone walking by could hear, but loud enough so that I can hear myself. I can hear those beautiful prosaic words which begin at my eyes, then go to my heart, then through my mouth, off my lips, to my ears, and back to my heart again. I like feeling the breeze of a cool evening upon my face and pleasuring in the sight of her wildflowers, which have come back four times without her, and which seem to dance for me when the wind blows through the space between the fence pickets.</span>
<br /><br /><span>Though I reveled in the vacations and the fun we had trying to forget the invetiable deadline that had been imposed upon us — or hoping against hope that Stage 4 didn't mean Stage 4, hoping that enough wine and booze would make it go away, hoping that it was some mistake, or that the prayer group would work and a miracle would occur, or that there would be a breakthrough in research — sometimes when I sat on that porch swing that croaked so differently without her, I wish we would have stayed home. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I wish I had more nights with her on this simple swing looking out over the tranquility of our yard. Over those purple coneflowers and black-eyed-susans. The poppies and the irises. The sage and the milkweed. The snow-in-summer. The hollyhock and delphinium. And the bees that bustle about them by day and the fireflies by night. The hummingbird that darts in and out to have a sip at the red glass balloon feeder she religiously filled with some special mix that kept them coming back. I wish we had spent more nights home, enjoying time because things went so fast while traveling. You never really get a chance to stop and we were sharing time with hundreds of other people on beaches and in airports and hotels. I wish I had a way to have slowed it down to a crawl. To not have worked those last three years. To not have hosted guests, who all meant well, but who ended up crying and making things worse. To not have wasted time doing the dishes. Or filing taxes. Or doing laundry. I wish for so much. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It has been five years now. Slowly the debts are being paid back. Creditors, you will find difficult to believe, are not sympathetic to your wife dying of cancer. The interest that accrued alone was a staggering amount. But without Amelia, I have nothing and there is nothing for me to do besides to work and to pay debt. I even took on an evening job washing dishes at a friend's restaurant because I didn't want to sit at home alone or get drunk somewhere in a bar forever and stick hopelessly to the floor or became a hapless regular with a bad liver. I couldn't drink her away or drink myself to some sort of acceptance. I only became a blathering imbecile, a sad sappy periodic bawler who ended up at home drunk on the couch flipping through pictures on my phone of us before death so rudely interrupted. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The more I kept myself occupied, the better I was. But nothing could erase her from my memory and nothing could ever assuage the heartache. Sometimes I'd be at the office during the day and see someone who reminded me in some way of her. Or they might say something she once said. Other times I'd see her in the dishwater, or the bubbles would remind me of the white foam caps of ocean waves in which we swam. A fork would shimmer the way some fish shimmered in the water that fascinated her, swimming by her leg which made her giggle in a childlike way, and which now makes me bend over the sink and cry. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Maybe the young kids around me think I'm drunk, or on drugs, but they are sympathetic and every now and then when one of those moments erupt, one of those hard memories strike the way lightening does an old tree, I'll feel a hand on my back and someone will say something very kind. I find it very reassuring of this younger generation how capable and willing they are of empathizing, even with the likes of an old forty-something dishtanker like me. </span><br />
<span><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span>At the bank, they ignore me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it is not a ding on my next performance review — doesn't control emotions well — though the only day I take off every year is the day she passed away. And that day, alone at home, I am a terrible drunken mess, a man who has swallowed himself whole and choked on the body of his own despair. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It fast approached this year — the fifth year. My years are lived between that day every year, and it has become what December 31st is to most — the last of something. It is the 9th of June. And every year on the 9th of June I hear the respirators in the room where she lied. I smell the hospital in my nose. I hear the beeping of machines. The rise and fall of mechanical lungs. The opening and shutting of that heavy tomb-like door of her room. Distant indistinct pages on the hospital PA. The shuffle of feet in the hallway. The ruffling of paperwork on her chart. I can feel the sun from the window on my skin through that incredibly thick pane of glass, which at times make me feel like an ant under the focus of a cruel child's magnifying glass. Yet, I don't move because she holds my hand with a slight grip, and by moving I might unmend that gentle bond and lose it forever. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I can hear her breathing, and every so often when the morphine fails, she whimpers in pain, though she doesn't want to whimper in pain because she doesn't want me to cry anymore than I already have. She is selfless to the end. She is doing all she can to take it, but it hurts so damn much her grunts and groans tell me. And when the pain is at its worst, she softly pleads to me, "Kiss me, love." And I kiss her while pushing the button that begs for more morphine. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The drug takes effect again and she slowly fades away, but she is looking at me as she does, tears in her eyes like dewdrops on the spiderweb on the porch between the outside light and the mailbox she bought at the antique store I haven't been to since she died. Where Charlotte waits for her pig. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I read her that book, twice, when it was time to go. I hoped that she would go peacefully the way Charlotte went. I hoped God would have mercy. But He musn't have had any that day. He must have been all out because she suffered dreadfully to the point that I considered helping her go in some way that surely would be criminal, though arguably compassionate. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The flatline is what you'll not forget if ever you have the misfortune to be there when your wife passes away, or the look in her still and glassy eyes as the machine caterwauls. That is the terrible moment when you've been cheated out of everything you love by life and God, and its all over. Yet, people on the floor below you are praising God for helping them through a routine gallbladder surgery or hip replacement. "Prayers going up," and all those annoying banal things prayer whores disperse all over social media for anyone with a colonoscopy or a cold sore will infuriate you. I never considered any of that before it happened. I was not as bitter or jaded as I am now. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I have to admit that I was prejudiced against religion far before I met Amelia, so despite the inspiration of her love to believe in more than a pragmatic world that is based entirely in wants, needs and either lustful or malevolent emotions, her death left me all the more incredulous. Amelia was a devout Catholic and believed that God moved in all things no matter how big or small. God exists in a snail. In a maggot. In a single drop of rain. In a bead of sweat. She often scooped worms up off the sidewalk when it rained and returned them to the grass where they could burrow back into the dirt. She planted plants for bees and butterflies and she looked at me with a level of disenchantment when I raked the leaves because some small thing would find a home beneath them, but would be displaced if I raked them up. It was as though I were a tornado ripping up homes with my rake. So I always agreed to leave some somehwere. She was a steward of all good things and she was not proud or arrogant or self-righteous in the least. She was humble and simple, yet she was elegant and enchanting, perhaps, all the more so because of it. Because she tried not to be at all. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Even stricken with cancer she never lost hope or admitted any sense of doubt. The cancer, she said, was not God's doing. He got no blame for anything because He was blameless. It was one of those things that happens because of genetics. Because of chance. Because God doesn't control everything or make things happen or not happen. Because Eve ate the apple. Or the devil dips his fingers in life and stirs. Because man is flawed as much as God is not. It is not the worst thing to die, she opined once holding my hand after we had drank too much wine somewhere. The worst thing, she said, is losing you. But, undoubtedly, we will be together again, she promised. Not in the form of that which we possess now, of course. But as two bees. Two flowers no one remembers ever planting. Two trees with trunks twisted into one. Or maybe we will simply exist together in the wind. In the invisible things that one cannot see. Buried beneath leaves that someone doesn't rake. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Five years later, I was sitting on my porch to gather myself to make dinner. Everything was a labor without her. People walk past and say nice things of the yard because it is in full bloom and I had trimmed the edges and mowed. But all I did was maintain what she had planted, in honor of her. As though she were on vacation somehwere and would come back at any time. They were often the same people, but even if they were different, they had the same sort of grin. A grin that says hello and nice to see you and goodbye all at once, without saying anything at all. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Then suddenly she came walking up the sidewalk — and up the walkway to the porch — a hairy little dog that was in desperate need of a hair cut. It flopped down on the porch beside my feet as though to rest and it looked out onto the yard and the walkers who passed on their evening stroll. She did so with great contentment, the way a man climbs some mountain and sits atop it in splendiferous triumph.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, make yourself at home," I joked. The dog already had. It made itself at home there at my feet and it let me pet it, whereupon I discovered it was a girl dog that bore no collar or tag to identify where it had come from. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"A vagabond, aye?" </span>
<br /><br /><span>I couldn't discern what breed she was. She looked something like a toy poodle or a bichon. Something like a cloud with legs. Like a clump of cotton balls, or a mass of dandelion spores that you could break apart and make wishes upon. I got her water and some vegetarian meatloaf and she seemed to enjoy it. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I apologize, pup. I'm a vegetarian. So you might want to reconsider your choice of houses. The guy next door grills out nearly every night." </span>
<br /><br /><span>But she ignored me and didn't budge, licking the bowl clean. I waited on the porch for her owner to come running along asking if I'd seen a dog that looked like a puff of white smoke. Probably called Snowflake, or Cupcake, or something odd like that. I didn't know what to call her, but she had a fluff of unkempt hair that sat atop her which made her look like she was wearing a powdered wig, so she was Marie Antoinette to me. And so when no owner came along, and the mosquitoes started biting, we went inside. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Marie Antoinette," I laughed. </span>
<br /><br /><span>On one of our adventures, Amelia decided to rent a porno on the hotel TV which was French and set during the French Revolution. She did so because we were playing the "Never Have I" game, and never had either of us watched a pornographic film. I believe it was called "Comme-ci Comme-ça," but I couldn't say for certain. I think that is what she jokingly called it, afterwards. </span>
<br /><br /><span>She thought I would enjoy it, but it was bizarre and I didn't care anything for pornography. "All men like porn," she bit back facetiously. So we watched it and laughed and after Marie Antoinette had sex with all of the King's court, including the jester, and all of her court, she was condemned to be beheaded. But instead, being "beheaded" had a much different meaning in the movie and it was a fabulous grand finalé finish for every angry Frenchman who finished on her face on the gallows, including the brutish and obese executioner, who for some reason ate an apple the entire time, while grunting and groaning assuredly lurid things in French that neither of us understood.</span>
<br /><br /><span>When the film was fini, I gave it a standing ovation, much to Amelia's amusement who laughed hysterically. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Never again will I think of Marie Antoinette the same way," she said. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I laughed thinking about it, looking at that dog. Wondering what happened to the actual Marie Antoinette's head. It was one of those memories that I had nearly lost, but reclaimed thanks to my new pet. My new friend. </span>
<br /><br /><span>It was like Marie Antoinette owned the place. There wasn't any sniffing around or the usual curious dog inspection of the premises. She jumped right up on the couch and rested her fluffy head on the pillow and took a nap. When she needed to go out, she scratched at the door. When she wanted to come back in, she barked. When she wanted more water, she pushed her bowl with her nose to the middle of the kitchen floor. She rarely seemed peckish. She simply ate when she was fed. She ate what I ate, minus grapes, onions and chocolate. She fit right in and I began to notice that suddenly I was a little less lonely than before. My heart didn't feel as broken. And I realized a purpose in life outside of the mundanity of my 9-5 bank job. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I bought Marie Antoinette a collar and a leash and we walked nearly every night. We walked as Amelia and I had walked. The same route. I let her lead and she turned at all the right corners, inevitably finding home. She was a smart dog, that much could be said. She was well-behaved. And she made me realize what kind of a mischievous pervert Harvey, who humped most of the kids in the neighborhood, was. </span>
<br /><br /><span>But as I grew attached to her, I began to worry that someone might see Marie Antoinette and claim her, as it was likely she was from the neighborhood. So I bought her a pink bandana and personalized her as best I could. But if that day came, I guess, so it came. There wasn't anything I could do about it. I could not pretend she was not theirs, nor could I hide her in my house because I was fond of her. I let her outside without a leash, knowing she didn't need one. She came back everytime. She was a trustworthy dog. But eventually, she would pass. Or I would pass. And again, there would be one of us less the other. Sometimes, though, you're too busy loving someone to think about anything else.</span>
<br /><br /><span>It was quite obvious she needed groomed from the beginning and I knew nothing of clipping dog claws, nor of cutting dog hair. And you can watch all the online tutorials you want about shaving a hygiene strip on a dog's asshole, but it's never going to give you the confidence to ever do so, especially when you see the pink eye of their rectum winking at you as you hoist the trimmers in position with one hand, while lifting their shivering tail with the other. So I made her an appointment at a local groomer called The Doggy Parlor. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Marie Antoinette, which was shortened to just Marie as I grew to love her, didn't need a leash. It was all really a formality. We went inside for our appointment and she sat by my leg and I scratched her ears. Other dogs acted wild and tried to get out of their carriers or off their leashes, but Marie sat there beside me as calmly as can be imagined. A lady who appeared flummoxed commented that she was the most obedient dog she had seen and asked me my secret. I told her there was no secret, and that she was a stray. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"A stray?" she exclaimed aghast. "Well, if that doesn't beat all!"</span>
<br /><br /><span>It did, in fact, beat all. I walked Marie back to the groomer, holding the unnecesary leash, after the assistant called us up. There the groomer stood by what looked like an operating table and I suppose I must have stared. She was a beautiful woman and I realized standing there looking at her that she was the first woman I considered in that regard since Amelia died. It was a strange feeling — I was overcome by a confluence of conflict and guilt. All the while, I couldn't help but to look at her. She introduced herself as Allison Bright, and nervously I introduced Marie, but not myself. I had forgotten my own name in her presence. She smiled and held Marie like she was her own before asking what I wanted her to do. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Um. What? To do?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>She smiled, which assuaged my nervousness at once. "I mean, what kind of haircut do you want for Ms. Marie?" </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Whatever — you think best." </span>
<br /><br /><span>She smiled and gave Marie a look of pleasant consternation, the way a child looks at a cloud to decide what it resembles. Allison was childlike in a way. Though she was somehwere in her thirties, I'd guess, she hadn't lost that good part of youth that one ought to keep, but that which most people lose before they're 21 in their blind rush to adulthood. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I looked at Marie and it was as though she smiled. Then Allison proclaimed, "I got it," and I sat in a chair nearby and told her the story of how the dog just showed up a month or so ago, out of the blue. How she got her name, though I didn't talk about the porn.</span><br /><br /><span>She told me it sounded like divine intervention and that we never meet anyone by accident. It is all by design, she claimed. The universe dictates it. Orders it. But it is up to us as to what becomes of those meetings. I didn't, however, tell her about Amelia. I wanted to tell her, because Amelia is always on my mind, but I didn't. I didn't tell anyone about Amelia because I wanted to keep her for myself and I wasn't panhandling for sympathy. </span>
<br /><br /><span>We had a wonderful conversation as she cut Marie's hair and made her look more presentable and less like a cloud. In honor of Marie Antoinette, she kept the tuft of hair on her head that looked like a powdered wig. And when Allison mentioned Marie Antoinette, I sheepishly chuckled. She was a fine-looking dog. She could be a show dog. Allison shampooed and dried her. Clipped her claws. Painted her nails pink. Then she put a lacey ribbon in her hair and off we went. I thanked Allison, who smiled at me in such a genuine way that I could not easily dismiss it. It was an involuntary feeling. She seemed as though she expected me to say something more. But I didn't say anything else. I coughed, nervously, then tripped over an old Labrador retriever who lied on his side outside the door. I think he was on his way to dying. I saw it in his eyes. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I took Marie home and there we sat on the porch watching cars pass, going places or coming home from places they had already been. People walking. Riding bicycles. All with some intent to do something. Either something grand or something modest. But, something, nonetheless. All with a determined purpose. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I meant to say something meaningful to Marie. To express to her how grateful I was she came along when she did. To explain to her why it is that I chuckled when I saw her, because of that ridiculous movie, the name of which I cannot now recall, only that it was not, "Comme Ci Comme Ça," or "Cum See Cum Saw." The memory of it was buried. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I wanted to tell her how happy I am that she got me out of the house and gave me a purpose again. My life had been drowned in sorrow. I didn't ever expect to ever get it back. It is something you sometimes don't realize you've had until you don't have it anymore. But it seemed strange to say such sentimental things to a dog — as though she could understand me. It is a shame we cannot talk to dogs, I thought. Or to pigs. I thought, for some reason, about a pig I saw on the way to the slaugterhouse a while back. I felt so damn sorry for it, watching it naively smile with its nose poked out of the hole of the trailer and that pale blue eye peering out to see what it could see in its last few hours of life. What it must have thought, I wonder. It smiled at me. I am happy Amelia never saw it. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I felt guilty for being attracted to the pet groomer, but it was good to feel that way again. </span><span>To feel that semblance of love that I had thought not possible to again feel. That attraction made me feel alive. I thought of going back and talking to her. Asking her if she'd like to sit on the porch with me or to have dinner. Just to talk to her. Just to see her smile and to imbue in me something that had been lost. But I buried the thought and </span><span>decided not to refer to her by name and to do my best to forget her altogether because it was a betrayal of my wife. I have never described myself as a widower, and I haven't taken off my ring, and no one or nothing will make me move on or to be unfaithful. No Dear Abby, or all the bad advice from all the counselors in the world will ever convince me that I must move on.</span>
<br /><br /><span>A few days later, I let Marie out and when I went to let her in she was gone. I frantically searched the yard and the neighborhood to no avail. It was so unusual that I thought she must have been taken, so I called the police who said there was nothing they could do besides to take a report. I began to indict the usual suspects. The druggies who walk by. The scrappers who troll the neighborhood trash for aluminum and copper every Thursday. The thieves with itchy skin who look for catalytic converters. The strange neighbor lady who I caught bathing herself in her lustral birdbath. It could be any number of them, but she certainly didn't leave on her own. As she had come. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I was prepared to call a local pet service which hunts for missing pets. The Pet FBI, or something like that. But, instead, I sat on the porch and waited. Then something came over me. Some uncommon feeling I had not known for a long time. At least not since I was a kid and waited for Santa Claus. Or for the Easter Bunny. Or the Tooth Fairy. Or for fireworks to erupt in the night sky on the Fourth of July when it seemed like they never would, though it was well past dark. It was something I had with Amelia and that Amelia had with God — Faith. So I sat there on the porch and waited for her, thinking of Amelia, recalling more memories, and classifying them where I thought they belong according to levels of sentimentality and fondness. Memories are all I have left and I hope not ever to lose them. </span>
<br /><br /><span>The conversation came up when we were in Salem, Massachusetts — about her dying. When we were strolling around looking at witches and for witches and witch things. It wasn't something we talked much about because it was important not to dwell upon death so much so that you lose life in the process, we knew. But once in a while when she had too much to drink, it would come up. We had just got back up to our room at the Hawthorne from the Halloween Ball in the hotel's ballroom. And before we made love, she made me promise that I would move on after and not live my life alone. Then she asked me to take her "doggy," but I didn't want to because it made me think of Harvey humping my friends. I could do it any other way. But since she was dying, I did it anyway, and in my mind Harvey butt-humped another chubby kid. One last time. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"There is so much wonder and love in this beautiful world of ours," she said peacefully afterwards, naked in a shroud of crisp white sheets. "For every slaughterhouse there are ten schools where children are learning something new. For every prison there are ten churches where people are finding love and hope. There are far more good people than bad. So many adventures to have. Doors to open. Windows to look out of. Beaches to walk upon. Museums to visit. Dreams to dream. Wonders to wonder about. Don't live alone, Nathaniel. Live like you're living now with me — with someone else. I want that for you. She will be lucky to have you."</span>
<br /><br /><span>I nodded, but it was the furthest thing from my mind. Plus, we were in costume as a Marie Antoinette and one of her many, many, many, many lovers — a joke between ourselves — so it seemed only like a role we were playing. There was no way that I would move on. There isn't even a term for it that wasn't sleazy to me. That desirous part of me would die with her, my grief would kill it, but I told the only lie I would ever tell her when I promised to move on, someday. </span>
<br /><br /><span>This absurd world of ours could be filled with desperate horny beautiful woman whose desirous appetites could only be satiated by me and me alone and I would have only one message for them — Let them eat bukkake. I laughed, sitting alone on that porch swing as it croaked, for that was the name of </span></span><span>that absurd porno movie we watched all those years ago. I finally remembered it — Let Them Eat Bukkake — derived from Marie Antoinette's most indignant comment to the people of France.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span>Five hours later, Marie came back. But unlike how she came the first time, this time she came in a car that pulled up to the curb. The brakes squealed as it parked and I smiled at her happy face in the passenger window as she grinned and barked at me. She had got me, I knew by that rouguish grin on her furry face. Then the driver's door opened and out came the purpose of the dog — the dog groomer — Allison.</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Hello, Nathaniel," she called. "Are you missing someone?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>Sure enough, Marie ran to me and did circles around my legs as if to wrangle me with an imaginary rope. As though to celebrate in that she outwitted me as she had. She was carrying in her mouth a squeaky toy. It was a pig and she happily dropped it at my feet as though to rub it in. </span>
<br /><br /><span>I knew then who she was. I suppose, I knew all along, or rather, I felt it all along. She was Amelia and the pig toy confirmed it. As crazy as it sounds, my wife returned as a stray dog. She came back. And I remembered when she said as she lied there dying that she would do everything she could do to come back. But I figured it would be in a cool breeze that I wouldn't recognize. Or in the moonglow. Or maybe as a clichéd cardinal. That pig was her sign. Her happy and intentional declaration to me. She told me she wanted to save a pig from slaughter someday. If it was a boy she wanted to call it Deuce Pigalow, and if it was a girl her name would be Amy Swinehouse. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"She picked that out of a box of toys," Allison said. "She was quite insistent — as I was to bring her home to you."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"You could have called. I would have come over and —"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"It was on the way. Really. I was going home and I just live up around the corner there, so I thought I'd return her to you. I love happy reunions."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Yes. I do, too," I replied, looking at my clever wife, that playful ball of slightly less white fluff. She looked up at me and I knew what she was doing. She loved me so much that she was playing matchmaker. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"I got to say, it's kind of strange that of all places she runs to, she comes to the groomers. I've had dogs that have enjoyed it. But — not that much."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Well, Marie Antoinette is quite the strange one." </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Ain't she sweet?" </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Sweet as sugar," I replied. "Sweet as sugar."</span>
<br /><br /><span>Marie gave Allison an approving bark. I would imagine she said many things in that bark that I don't understand, but that I could guess. Like those Frenchmen in that movie. I knew why she ran away and went to the groomers. She knew I'd never go back. What an actress she was this time around. My God, how much I miss her. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"You're going to think I am crazy, Ms. Bright," I reluctantly began just as Marie rolled on the ground and whimpered, happy as a pig in mud, "but there is more than meets the eye about Marie."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"That so?"</span>
<br /><br /><span>"Yeah. That dog is my wife who passed away five years ago. She has come back to life, as a dog, to play matchmaker. And I think she thinks she has succeeded, but in telling you this, I've turned the tables on her, and you will leave here thinking I am absolutely crazy. You cannot possibly think anything else of me. Thus, her diabolical plan has failed. She might love me so much that she came back as a dog to play matchmaker, but I love her so much that I thwarted her best effort to match me. So I win. Sorry, Ms. Bright. And sorry, Ms. Marie," I boasted triumphantly. </span>
<br /><br /><span>Allison was befuddled, it was clear. But she stood there quietly and then she suddenly smiled at Marie. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>"Well, I'm sorry to say, Nathaniel, that your wife once more got the better of you. And please, call me Allison. She told me the entire story on the way over. She said you would probably do just what you did and make your best effort to chase me away. But she also told me what kind of man you are, and that is a beautiful and wonderful thing. I don't ever want to replace her, or for you to take off your ring, or to take her pictures down from the shelf. I don't want you to forget her at all. But I am interested in seeing you. In that way. To live, laugh, and love with you. If all that is not too premature, that is? Wait — I'm sorry — I sound like a throw pillow at a Target."</span>
<br /><br /><span>"She talked to you?!"</span>
<br /><br /><span>Allison nodded. </span>
<br /><br /><span>"Amelia?!"</span>
<br /><br /><span>But just as I turned to look at my wife, she floated up off the ground like a dandelion spore just out of my reach. Like a little canine hot-air balloon departing. I suppose I was too profoundly mesmerized to say anything. Or there was too much I wanted to say to get any of it out. But Allison reached down and grabbed my hand as Amelia ascended very peacefully until she was indiscernible amongst a sky full of perfect white clouds. She disappeared like Marie Antoinette's head. </span><br /><br /><span>"Let them eat bukkake," I whispered, feebly to myself, and to Amelia. "Goodbye, love."</span><br /><br /><br /><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_230611_170609_722.sdocx--></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQOB7VJPj2vZ18iPdrnxPndDUhB4ippU0wWKFszs1TJ90kfUVReQ_cpQD12YMlxG1enQI95t6UYBxHfQM4Wa-o3kl_2GYDgt60NB5rKNpvHz_1H9PmWtGMjLZ1-T-JA1N1vZzhGUSl0aqTsXtvYLDGJs8yVr6QU1Pue4o2MKUp8NxxwX0dHrAH9Hn2kQ/s1500/f_catherine-rebeyre-marie-antoinette-3-front-0.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQOB7VJPj2vZ18iPdrnxPndDUhB4ippU0wWKFszs1TJ90kfUVReQ_cpQD12YMlxG1enQI95t6UYBxHfQM4Wa-o3kl_2GYDgt60NB5rKNpvHz_1H9PmWtGMjLZ1-T-JA1N1vZzhGUSl0aqTsXtvYLDGJs8yVr6QU1Pue4o2MKUp8NxxwX0dHrAH9Hn2kQ/s320/f_catherine-rebeyre-marie-antoinette-3-front-0.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><br /><!--/data/user/0/com.samsung.android.app.notes/files/clipdata/clipdata_bodytext_230611_170609_722.sdocx-->Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-87621916602502542832023-05-27T10:56:00.003-07:002023-08-16T16:21:25.666-07:00Objects in Mirror<p><span style="font-size: large;">I often wonder about people I don't see anymore — as to what happened to them. What became of their life. That sort of thing. Especially those I have been intimate with. Plugged into. Made the beast with two backs with. Known in the biblical sense. Assaulted with a friendly weapon. Did the bam bam in the ham. Passed the gravy. However kindly you want to put it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I mostly think that they no longer exist because that is much easier to imagine than them doing other things with other people, being that the world is all about our own perception. It is stupidity to expect two people to perceive anything the same. So it is as though when I last saw them, shortly thereafter, they combusted and dissipated like a puff of smoke. The way Roman candles do. That is the fate of most people I've known. They just — poof — and go away. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But others I see randomly — more like comets that reoccur — in traffic at a red light, or behind me in the rearview mirror. Or maybe at the grocery store at a distance mulling over which cereal to buy, which meat, which tomatoes. I think to say hello in some amiable way. To honk my horn and wave at them. To smile. To push my cart over to them and to remind them of the time we did something utterly fantastic as though to get reassurance that it actually happened because I am not sure that it really ever did. That we shared some significant moment together and I wasn't simply delusional. But I never do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I avoid them unless it cannnot be helped. Unless, we make eye contact at a range that I cannot feign nearsightedness. Or if I cannot blame a faulty memory for a lack of recognition. And then it is an awkward hello, how are you, how are the kids, all the while I just want to ask, in some cases, why did we ever fall out of love? Or sometimes, why were we in love at all? Why did you end it? Why did I? Why haven't you called or written me? I suppose people just don't write to inquire about an ex, of all people. That could be perceived as interest and that is the last thing they would want anyone to think — that they're hung up on an ex. So they live in a state of infinte avoidance and make mistake after mistake to bury someone ten people ago. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sometimes wonder was I not even worth a Christmas card, a birthday wish, a happy father's day text, or a thank you to a kind, albeit drunk, message I once sent all those years ago? Was I so easily disposed of that they would be across a rack of cantaloupes, looking away, or faking poor vision. I wonder if I ever really knew them at all, or if it was just a sophisticated delusion. I can still smell, taste and feel some of them. I dream of some, but not of the others. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps they only look like someone I used to know. The woman in my rearview and I were never intimate at all. She never stuck her sunburnt knee in my crotch on our first date as she drank a pickle martini in that posh bar. No. That was someone else. Even if it was her, though, it was someone else. We are not who we were years ago, after all. We are entirely different people now, you see. No one stays the same. Not even if they want to. Everyday we become someone new, it's only that we have to lug the baggage of our old selves around — that's what confuses things — that and the expectation of, and the conformity to us being assigned to who we've always been, which is why no one ever believes that people really do change. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But maybe I have dementia and my quixotic mind is failing me, sparking like a cheap gas station lighter that's had it. Maybe I never polished her porpoise, or shucked her oyster. Maybe we never drank or had dinners, or laughed at each other's bad jokes, or went on any trips to a beach somewhere. Never were engaged. Never married. Maybe that theatre was all in my mind where I proposed and I conjured up actors who each had a role. I saw it in a movie, perhaps. Dreamt it all. The mural on the ceiling is but a figment of my grandiose imagination that runs wild at times. Or, more simply, it is what is painted on the inside of my skull. Maybe it was all just a dream — the ring, the debt, the heartache. Maybe I never parted that pink sea. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What do they wonder, those both I fail to see and those who fail to see me? What do they think as I avoid them or they avoid me? As they see my eyes in the rearview mirror or as they see me fondling those green bananas, or in line at the pharmacy for some pills to make me happy because life isn't cutting it and it hasn't been for quite a while since I took off the glasses of conformity. Meaningless sex and alcohol and a purposeless job serve as a terrible life jacket. What does it matter what anyone thinks of me or what I think of them? Must I keep my own secrets? The past is gone and it ain't ever coming back. It's not even in the rearview anymore. Those were two different people, years ago. They're dust. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is this thing that I was contemplating when I saw her. It was at the grocery. We had been together for only a year four years before and it had ended abruptly and sourly. She was never to send me a Christmas card and I was to never send her one, either. My friends said she was a terrible person and I wanted to believe so for that makes it easy. It is not your fault when there is blame to be cast upon someone or something evil. I'm sure her friends said the same things of me, if they said anything at all, but I don't care about that.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had heard she called me a monster. I would argue that I was not worthy of that moniker in that I am far too meek to be considered monstrous, just as she might argue that she was not guilty of being as ghastly as I remember her last, the effect of a bipolar mood disorder, or whatever it was the holisitic doctor she went to refused to diagnose and what he blamed on "environmental factors" and chiropractic issues. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But we were far passed that. I wondered as I saw her looking at cans of soup which it was, and if time hadn't erased the sourness of our parting as often it does. Wounds that become scars that become silver streaks of absolute nothingness. Residual things one can look at as either wasted time or a learned experience. How aptly we become numb to such terrible wounds inflicted by lovers lost, but how badly they sting for that little while, worse than anything. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wasn't drunk at all in the traditional sense, but I was intoxicated on what I saw in her first, and it was as though she were suddenly new to me again. I suppose it had been long enough for me to see her that way and time had dulled whatever tragedy that once made me revile her. The beautiful Audrey Hepburn-type look and grace she possessed so naturally. Her doe-like features, which falsely gave her the look of innocence. The soft sophisticated allure of her slender body and the compelling impishness of her large thoughtful amber-brown eyes which seemed to constantly ponder something profound and shimmer as they did. I was transfixed there in front of the oatmeal pretending to deliberate upon a particular flavor when all I deliberated upon was her. She was born again to me and I was the pastor who brought her up out of the water of some green lake — new. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Our carts were heading towards each other so we were bound to cross unless one of us pretended to need something behind us and turned the cart to avoid the other. I wondered if she might, considering how it ended, change course to avoid me. I was certainly the villain in her story and she might assume that she was as much in mine if she was at all capable of accepting responsibility or caring that much about anything beyond herself. That would be a new development, if so. A new wonderful attribute she previously had not among her many others. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But she selected her soup and carried on — cream of chicken. And there we crossed paths in front of the rice and sugar and she looked at me, directly, and I looked at her as though I could read something in her eyes that I could not read at all. She grinned, but went on as though I were foreign to her and she owed me nothing but the courtesy of an empty gesture she'd fickly dole out to any stranger. The rickety front-left wheel of her cart squawling a sad sort of goodbye, the lament of a missed opportunity to rekindle or resolve something that died far too soon. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't know what to think of the grin or the simple pass. I couldn't recall if I had grinned or if I was too stunned to make an expression at all. But confused by the nature of that simple smile she offered me, I stopped my cart and turned to ask for clarification, prefaced by a simple greeting. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hello, Elle." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Elle was short for Eleanor. Her mother named her after Eleanor Roosevelt, but fortunately she bore no resemblance to her namesake. In fact, she might be the only person I've ever met who bore no particular resemblance to anyone else, rather, others seemed to bear a likeness to her. The aforemetioned Audrey Hepburn lacked other features that Elle possesed most abundantly. She had an embarassment of beauty, but in such a modest way that made the commonest of men, particularly old men, feel as though she were somehow attainable. Maybe she was, I abhored, still thinking of the incident years removed. She stopped her cart and turned to acknowledge me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hello," she offered plainly as I hopelessly scanned the contents of her cart. She gave me a look, and for a moment I thought she was feigning nearsightedness on me. Or maybe the advanced avoidance tactic of cataracts or total blindness. But she bit her lip and gave me a generic, how have you been, and I answered, accordingly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"That is good," she replied. Then the last vestige of that first grin vanished from her face, and she dismissed me with the ever popular coup de grâce of — "Well, it was good seeing you." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was a simple and tragic goodbye that meant, "I'm not interested." I had given it many times before to others so I recognized it in a jiff. There I stood confused as to how I didn't elicit some sort of a more dramatic reaction, good or otherwise. I simply got played off with the most generic and thoughtless of responses there was to offer. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Bunkum!" I raged to myself. She was faking it. She was being deliberately indignant by pretending I was a stranger. So I decided to pursue her for an answer being that I was never one for things unresolved or any sort of ambiguity. I turned my cart and told her that she looked beautiful. Better than ever. She said thank you, without turning — while selecting ketchup and dijon mustard and that expensive organic mayonnaise I always wondered who bought. Every compliment I gave her, she simply thanked me and carried on. Then, at last, I said that I would have expected a different sort of reaction, which got her to stop and engage. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What sort of reaction would that have been?" she asked bluntly.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm not sure. Something." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I recalled when we first met that I had flattered her senseless because I was so taken by her. A barage of very extravagant yet sincere obsequious adulation worthy of Shakespeare himself flowed from my tongue. And she smiled and said to me, "Flattery will get you everywhere, love."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She stood in front of me and looked me in the eyes. It reminded me of the time we were engaged. When under the Heavens of that opulent theatre ceiling, the light blue sky and puffy-white clouds, perfect lighting, music, and oil-painted cherubs playing gold harps and flying about as though amused by us, that I asked her to marry me, and she replied with an emphatic yes. Maybe it was all in good humor as I was some sort of prey of hers. One she played with. One that she slowly devoured night after night. Eventually, I would be useless, consumed entirely. All that would be left would be my bones. She had been swept up in emotion, the way people drown, as she'd later describe our engagement. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was when money and differences of opinion didn't matter and there wasn't anyone besides us to consider. No trespassers or unwarranted guests of the worst sort. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Look," she leveled. "This is — awkward for me. So, about a year ago I was in a terrible car accident. I don't know how I survived. The highway patrolman said that to me. The doctors said it. But I recovered. Only thing is, I lost my memory. I can remember certain things from being a kid. Dogs I had. Things about school. Friends. That sort of thing. But everything in the past four or five years is gone. Completely erased. So, I will assume that I knew you sometime during that time? Maybe? I'm sorry — but I don't recall you."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What was there to say? But I managed a clumsy inarticulate response. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh. I'm sorry, Elle. Um. Wow. Wow! But thank God you are still with us. Um. Well, I'm — I'm — Pete. Pete Best. We — um — this is — uh — well. This is awkward for me. We met at a Christmas party a few years back and — uh — I — um — I never got to talk to you again. I never even got your number. But I never forgot you."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Awe! Well, hello, Pete. Does my traumatic brain injury scare you off? You can call it TBD, if you'd rather. It's friendlier that way. Not quite as — imposing." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No. Um. No. Not in the least. We're all sort of injured or damaged in some way, aren't we? You date long enough and, well, that sort of thing is bound to happen."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, I suppose that depends upon who you date," she contested, chuckling, holding a bag of hazelnut coffee, then tossing it into the cart. "One ought to be — discerning in such matters."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"True," I concurred. "But people can be deceiving." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was all a complete fucking lie. My name wasn't Pete Best. Pete Best was the drummer of the Beatles before Ringo. The guy who got kicked out before they got famous. I don't know why I chose his name. He just came to mind. She looked at me and smiled as she had when we were new. When I told good jokes or when I listened to her boring stories of the insurance industry as though they were fascinating. When I rubbed sunscreen on her back on some faraway beach. When she was perfect before she was broken. Inevitably broken like glass is broken and either swept up and thrown away or glued back together depending on the severity of the shatter and the value of the object broken. Or was it I that was broken and it is only my own narrow-minded persepctive that lead me to the former. Perhaps, affairs are as trivial as cheating on a diet, or a biology test, and I am simply just too damn old-fashioned. I'm an outmoded relic of a bygone era.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well," she said, "if you'd like my number now, still, I'll give it to you — Pete was it?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Yes. Yes." I smiled. Was it possible? This rebirth? A redo? One in which my pride was not fouled, but restored. It was something out of a terrible soap opera. I took her number and thanked her and we parted ways. We ran into each other twice more at the grocery before leaving and we smiled at each other a little more emphatically than before. Fate, it seemed, had intervened on our behalf. It was perhaps unsatisfied with our previous tragic ending, so it found a way to give us a new life. Or so I told myself. It didn't blame either of us. It wasn't me that lied. It was fate that lied for me. It had control of my brain and my tongue. I am, after all, but an empty vessel, a slave to fate.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I texted her a few days later — the customary waiting period duly observed. Like the waiting period for buying a handgun. I asked her to go to the winery where we had our first official date because it had gone so well and I selfishly wanted to relieve it. I wanted to cancel any memory I had of anyone other. She was even lovelier this time around. It appeared the accident had done wonders for her. She claimed it cured her bipolarism, but said she doesn't like to talk about it. She also said she found God, as though he were in her sock drawer. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She grinned and looked out onto the lake the way she had all those years before. It was as though there were all the same boats out there, the same clouds. It was as though they had recovened for us. It was like time had just rewound itself to the day of our first date. It hadn't, of course, but it was as though it had. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">After the winery, we ate pizza in the same small dock joint. Something involving a plank. A pirate. A parrot. I wasn't quite sure of the name. She told me many of the same stories. I wanted to tell her that we had done this all before, and the more I thought of it, the more like an imposter I felt. Like I was deceiving her. Or that I was some sort of virtue thief, though my pockets were empty, and truly there was nothing virtuous of her to pilfer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But every time I seemed ready to confess and to tell her that we had dated before, and it ended disastrously because she had been unfaithful, she said something that made me hold back. She said that she had never had a better first date in her life with an accompanying grin that I adored so well and to which she drew her wine glass for a sip that became a sup — the wine stem she held somehow luridly in her supple fingers. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And so inside of me, my belief in the absolution of truth perished and the thought died and the obituary of it was eloquently written without any words. I kept the empty bottle of wine we drank, which rolled around in the floorboard of my car the way the one years ago did as well. I hadn't the heart to tell her. Or rather, I was selfish and didn't want to tell her because I didn't want it to end again. I loved her and I suppose that it hadn't ever left me, despite the bitterness of our separation and that cancerous betrayal. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All things end. It is inevitable. Either they end in death or they end in boredom or incompatiblity or hurt and betrayal. Is one way less hurtful than the others? But how often do we get a chance to redo that which we once so loved and to possibly rewrite it. It was a delusion to believe that I could right a terrible wrong I never wrote, but delusional I was no less. And now that she didn't suffer any sort of mental disorder, so she said, perhaps there was a chance and forgiveness was more a reasonable accomodation — or maybe revenge was in order and I could extract it if I could simply learn to unlove her while loving her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">For the next two months we dated as we had before. I had the engagement ring I had given her before in my pocket ready to give again in the right moment. My only fear was meeting family or friends who I had met before, who might expose me for the charlatan I was and remind her that she had been unfaithful drunk, as she was when she met me, unfaithful to someone else. Those who might tell her that my name wasn't, in fact, Pete Best, that it was Jacob Frank. Yes, Jacob Frank, descendant of Anne Frank — the girl who wrote the diary. Only I hadn't inherited Anne's sense of tragic optimism. I was no sort of Pollyanna as much as I pretended myself to be. I often feel the world is a terrible place, not the bright, beautiful bubbly place that Anne saw it to be while she was hidden away in the squaller of a Dutch attic, hiding from the scourge of humanity. How sweltering it must have been in the summertime in that garret, I considered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I wasn't related to Anne Frank, anymore. I couldn't be. Now I was Pete Best. All I had to do was to avoid her family for the rest of my life. Or perhaps, dye my hair. Or perhaps, have a dramtic nose job or facelift or rely upon their poor memory of me. It had been four years, after all. But then she told me it was time to meet the family and I panicked. I put it off as long as I could put it off. I postponed it. I cancelled. I rescheduled and cancelled again. But it was unavoidable and the ring burned a hole in my pocket. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We had drinks at the bar where we met. The pickle vodka bar. But all I could see in that jar of pickles was a jar of dicks. Dicks, galore. The jar was screaming her infidelity and my mood continued to worsen with that belittling pickle parade in my mind. Maybe I would end it there and then. I could turn the tables and tell her that I was sorry, but I wasn't ready for a committed relationship. She wasn't the one for me. I was burying the bone with an ex, but it didn't really mean anything. I was drunk. Words that still live in infamy in my soul. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't want to meet her parents again. Her kooky narcissistic mom and her dad who was like an oak tree and had the personality of sawdust. I thought about all those dicks she admitted to taking once when drunk. Her entire dicktory, as we joked of it. From high school to college to just before she met me. There they all were, floating right before my eyes as she made small talk with the pretty bartender about insurance rates and deductibles. All those pickles in a jar of vodka were ghosts of dicks past. And the vodka was ambiotic fluid for bastard babies that never got to be born. Just floating there for me to see. Only me. Screaming — Hello, you asshole. Hello!</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Oh, fuck. I had to tell her. I couldn't just break it off and get revenge. I was no good at revenge. I couldn't. I didn't want it. I'd leave it to her. I was tragically in love with her and didn't know what else to say or do. I went to the bathroom and splashed water on my hopeless face that stared back at me like I was a dope and it was ashamed of me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Some old man was in a stall taking a shit. It was the only problem in his life — that shit. He was married and overweight and didn't have another care in the world. He was straining like Elvis once was straining on an absurd gold toilet in Graceland. He groaned, "Lord, ah-mighty" and then his sphincter opened and the Kraken was released with a loud and mighty roar. He might have been praying. But once that shit was over, he'd wash his hands and go back to his table and eat, and all his problems would be over. He couldn't understand problems like mine. I was a damn wreck. I was a walking six foot constipation. He emerged from the toilet and washed his hands, as expected. Then he looked me over in the mirror. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well," he sighed, "time to go home and disappoint the wife."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That was his one-liner in my life. I'd probably never see him again. I went back to the bar and Elle asked if I was okay. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Yeah. I'm fine, love. Fine."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I thought you were in there beating someone's guts."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No one suitable, love."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The old man passed and winked at me and Elle laughed. "Do a little gland to gland combat in the shitter? Grease the old loaf pan? Glaze the hairy donut?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm going to jam your clam and smash your pisser," I warned her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Ooh," she grinned. "Butter my biscuit?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We played a crude game that started long ago where when one of us would sense the other was upset, we would recite crude euphemisms for sex, usually with an invitation, to make the other laugh. I began it again when we got back together as I had introduced it to her before, and she took right up despite her newfound religion. The more absurd the expression, the funnier it was. Also, the more clandestinely we did so amongst mixed company without them knowing what we were talking about, the more waggish it was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I wasn't fine, of course. I was terrible. I felt I was about to be exposed because I would blurt something out. Or we would see someone I knew and they'd say hello to me — Hello, Jacob — not hello, Pete. Or she'd see the credit card receipt with my real name on it. And then I'd have to tell her. I'd have to explain how our relationship ended and there was no pretty way to put it. It was ugly. It ended in chaos and disorder and it remained in my mind like an unmade bed. Like a dirty dog or sink full of dishes. Like the Hindenburg — burning, burning, burning. I'd have to remind her of what she did. Then there'd be a complete autopsy. It was why we broke up. Neither of us could forgive her, but now it only required me to forgive. And I was as forgiving as Jesus on the cross now that my pride pardoned. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then she smiled at me and sipped on her pickle martini. "I have something to tell you, please don't be mad," she begged. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Anytime someone says they have something to tell you, and please don't be mad, it is something you don't ever want to hear. It is never good news. I knew it. I knew what would come out of her mouth would be terrible. I took a drink and prepared myself. It was all I could do. She was probably going to tell me she mashed the fat with my father who was in a nursing home in Pittsbugh. Then she stopped a waiter and requested a table. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Mom and dad are coming. They're up the street and they'll be here in five minutes. I hope you don't mind them joining us. But I really want you to meet them, Pete. It is important to me."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I spilled my drink and nearly choked on a piece of pretzel I nervously chewed. It was over. The SS was coming in and I was going to be sent to the camp. I had zero chance at survival considering I was the most Jewy Jew that's ever been a Jew. Fuck. Oh, fuck. Sometimes there just isn't a better word for it. Sometimes it is the only word there is. I wondered for a moment what Anne might have uttered when those men stormed up the steps and burst into her secret room. I bet it was, "Oh, gumballs."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had to confess. There was no other way. She had forced my hand. After the waitress cleaned up the drink and got me another, I told her there was something I wanted to tell her. She was quick to interrupt me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You're not breaking up with me, are you?" she asked with a coy grin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, good. I just don't think I could take that kind of heartbreak right now."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't know which of her parents I liked least. Her dad wasn't impressed when he learned I was related to Anne Frank. He looked at me like I was a sissy. Her mom was indifferent all the time to anyone other than herself. Elle told them. She told everyone as though it made me some sort of celebrity. She asked if I had any claim on royalties to her diary. Fuck, I said. I couldn't think of a worse way to make money. I didn't, of course. Nor would I want them. But it was over for me. It was all over. Again. But I couldn't admit it. I couldn't tell her my name wasn't Pete and I was a liar. I couldn't tell her that I secretly wanted to break her heart, as she broke mine, but I ended up falling in love with her again like a damn dope. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What is it, baby?" she coaxed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Nothing," I said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, let me bun that dog." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then she started to laugh. Not chuckle, or chortle, or giggle. But to laugh an uncontrollable eye-watering sort of guffaw that made people turn to look at what was so funny. Like they wanted in on the joke. She put her hand over her mouth and controlled herself long enough to speak. I had never heard her laugh that way before. It was absurd. It was obnoxious. It was like a tranny Hitler in drag speaking to burning torches and piles of burning books for Pride month. Dare you not to dissent! </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, darling! You know when you approached me in the grocery store, I wasn't sure what to think. Much less, what to say. So, on the fly I concocted that wonderful little fib about being in an accident and," she laughed some more, exorcising the last demons of her humor, "about having memory loss. There was no accident. There is no memory loss. I remember everything. The good — and the bad. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me — Pete."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I shook my head in disbelief. What could I say? I had been fooled and her lie was superior to mine. I stared at that jar of pickles. I raged at that pickle jar that maliciously taunted me. It is a wicked game. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Relax. The good news is — my parents aren't coming. That was a lie, too. I just wanted to see how you'd react."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Was I satisfactory?" I scoffed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She chuckled. "Oh, don't be mad, Jake. It was — as expected. I wanted a redo. As much as you, obviously. You can't just get a redo, though. When people try again they spend so much time talking about the past they never live in the present. They just dwell on it and it all goes to hell. It ended wrong, Jake. I did an awful thing. Does time absolve me of my sins? Will you forgive me? If God can forgive the entire world, can you forgive me?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't reply. I remembered suddenly how there was a pickle festival in Pittsburgh that I went to with someone else. There was a marathon. A giant pickle was the mascot and gave everyone hi-fives as they crossed the finish line. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, please, Jake! Everyone has been so passionless and freaking boring. No one spelunks the slime cave like you. I wanted to try us again. It was fate that brought us together in that grocery store. Take me home and make mad love to me. Let's pressure wash that quiver bone in this bitch wrinkle."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I laughed against my will. She always could make me laugh. I paid the check. But all I could think about were those pickles mocking me. I had to stare into her eyes long enough to be dissuaded from leaving and to forget about them. From dissipating into a puff of smoke and vanishing altogether forever. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You owe me like — 300 blow jobs. For lost time," I joked. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She smiled. "Wait. Was that an indirect proposal?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"An indecent proposal," I replied. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, we'll start on the ride to my place. And theres nothing indecent about slobbin' your nob." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We made love that night half-drunk. She tore off the condom and flung it across the room and it stuck to the wall like one of those wacky-wall-crawling octopuses you once could get in a cereal box or a quarter machine. I remember them being purple, but the condom was more like an aborted baby jellyfish. Then she squeezed me and pulled me back inside of her and told me to put more ranch in her Hidden Valley, to punch-fuck her rosebud, to give her the baby battter, absolutely filthy, like in those movies we weren't supposed to watch as kids but we sought like they were the Holy fucking Grail. I pushed into her and shampooed the wookie and she convulsed in satisfaction at the same time she took the baby gravy. Her legs quivering. Her slender body rigid as one having a seizure before relaxing as I slowly softened and withdrew my jimmy javelin from that spasming delightful and lushest of warm wet waterholes of the Serengeti. Where animals delighted in each other and refreshed themselves, observing some strange unnatural truth they didn't otherwise observe before Eve — the whore — ate that apple, or fig, or dick. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I regretted only that I didn't eat that edible flesh flower like an hors d'oeuvre before I launched my meat rocket into her sausage pocket, but like Little Orphan Annie says, there's always tomorrow. And, per usual, my mind became a zoo afterwards when I'd think of such things as the rudimentary behaviors that are at the core of all things, insects and animals, most obviously. People simply care to conceal it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Zebras are mean biting sonsofbitches, I've heard. I went to grade school with a girl who had part of her arm bit off by a zebra at one of those nefarious petting farms. Giraffes can kill a lion with a kick of a leg. Leopards can't change their spots. Elephants trample and kill whoever gets in there way when determined. And there I lied in bed as she slept in the paradox of the redo next to me, trying not to think of what she did or who she was before. Trying to absolve my mind of all those pickles. What does it matter, I thought — only that past behavior is the surest predictor of future acts. Not that we can't change. But who ever really lets us? </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was trying to remember that bullshit about people being different people everyday, which I stole from someone else. Then I thought of a lion mauling a baby water buffalo that cried for its mother in this terrible world we all pretend is so wonderfully hospitable. It was all like a bad dream and I was trapped in an attic of my own making, waiting for the squealing of brakes and bootsteps of goons in the stairwell. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The TV played on after she fell asleep. The remote fell on the floor between the wall and the bed, and I didn't bother to get it. It went to some religious program and some preacher was talking about Jesus as though they were best friends. He smiled like a horse. He said something about objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Something about one ways. Then I thought about the Christians I know who tell me the world is a wonderful place because God makes it wonderful. Everything is beautiful. Everything is happy. This despite the fact that their God came to Earth and was killed for simply being good. He was marked for death at birth. Maybe when he died he said what I said as I lied there in bed and tried to sleep as she dreamt of her insurance business and who knows what else. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There I lied, knowing I was doomed to be fucked over again. When her ebb and flow ebbed and flowed and washed ashore the rotten algae and jellyfish of her insanity. But until then, I'd park my meat bus in Tuna Town or launch my bone drone all I could launch it. I'd live as paleo as possible — eat, sex, sleep. Maybe I'd market that mantra on coffee mugs and throw pillows and copyright it. I'd try to get my money's worth before someone else split her hamster. And maybe by then I could be good and noble enough to say what those two wonderful Jews, Anne and Jesus, both said when their time came instead of crying like a little bitch. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, gumballs."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1QOVs8zJ554KmzPh1MvuKyu9gONZENQY98MuhMYQ2CeAAAT-3XwKGJlHy4d3_SRDrwtFS5DtVLtkqOV3NHezE4ZXqX6-NkLGu_LT5AsenG1RSqMAGVrAXAB3gr4JqTH9CkOBBZYKVczvY7UJkr0t-TEy0AB9jUjtAJjM5domFusw929XgZR55dyUUjw/s811/FB_IMG_1683239285130.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="811" data-original-width="652" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1QOVs8zJ554KmzPh1MvuKyu9gONZENQY98MuhMYQ2CeAAAT-3XwKGJlHy4d3_SRDrwtFS5DtVLtkqOV3NHezE4ZXqX6-NkLGu_LT5AsenG1RSqMAGVrAXAB3gr4JqTH9CkOBBZYKVczvY7UJkr0t-TEy0AB9jUjtAJjM5domFusw929XgZR55dyUUjw/s320/FB_IMG_1683239285130.jpg" width="257" /></span></a></div><span><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-52862285960395818142023-05-09T07:14:00.006-07:002023-08-16T16:23:18.916-07:00Dinner For One<p><span style="font-size: large;">She is out there somewhere. This I am sure. This I know. I thought once, around Christmas, I knew her. I talked to her briefly, but that person, she unfortunately turned out not to be. But how high I was at that time on the delusion of it. I pretended many times that other people were her. This I could do now, even, as many other people do as a way of life, or to stave off loneliness. To have dinner for two. To not have these moments when they realize they are alone in bed still awake well past one and there is a chance that they may be alone for years to come. Possibly until the end of all things. When death is at the door like a Jehovah's Witness, who doesn't just knock twice and leave his literature in the crease of the door. There are many terrible things that can happen, unexpectedly. The least of which is not cancer. There are car accidents. Unexpected falls. Aneurysms. Strokes. Quicksand, I'm sure. They are all out there. Somewhere. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It isn't easy to do on your own. You know this by now. To raise a son or a daughter with minimal help. To be solely responsible for their physical and mental health. Their well-being. You captain their ship. You prepare what they eat and where they go and how they get there. What they see and what they do and what goes into them. It isn't easy to filter the world as you must filter it. To give freedoms and to take other freedoms away. To either give them religion or not, and if so, to choose which denomination. To model an appropriate level of cynicism that does not negate all the optimism you hope to imbue. To teach them to be kind to strangers, yet wary. To adequately explain things that you hope will satisfy their ever-raging curiosity and not dull it. To give them life and never to stifle it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And you, of course, are responsible for who you introduce them to. If you date someone, love someone, they must be good for your child. It is an unspoken edict. They must further what you've already established, or augment it, rather than to contradict it. There will be those you eliminate right off the rip for their lack of interest in parenting. To hell with them. They needn't be a mirror image of you, in fact, perhaps they might model things you do not model adequately. Creativity. Compassion. Masculinity. Femininity. Bravery. Resistance. Restraint. Morality. Spirituality. Mysticism. Discipline. Any number of things. They are, like you, an ingredient that goes into making your child who they shall become. They will be step-dad or step-mom and their role is an amazing one to fill. One you cannot put in a classified or describe in a help wanted ad that isn't as long as your arm. You're not hiring someone, for Godsakes, but all the same, you are. You're hiring the most important person you will ever hire.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But you, like I, already know all of this. You have had your fill of dinner for ones, you've grown accustomed to them and in some sad way, you prefer them because you are in a shell of your old self. Your curious child self that was full of love, both eager to receive and to give. It is no great secret. There are a number of people who might satisfy being appropriate for your child, but who fail to stir in you what needs stirred. Your curiosity. Your desire. They get stale, don't they? Almost as though on the bottom of their foot there is a date stamped to discard them by. They get tired of being funny. Tired of flirting and making an effort. Of amusing you. Writing you love letters or messages on the steam of a bathroom mirror after a shower. And there they lie on the couch. Like a decorative throw pillow that is of no particular use and which clashes with the curtains. Whatever happened, you ask yourself. You only hope that you were never that way. That you aren't but two mirrors. A beast with two backs, seldomly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There is a whole world full of people and to look for one amongst billions is indeed quite a daunting task. One — a rather ambigous and lonely word. But who are we to turn down such a grand adventure? We that are bred of sailors and mountain climbers and explorers and adventurists of all sorts. Or simply not to, in those moments when our child sleeps, to daydream of having you. You — this enormous word that is so unsuitable for the person that it vaguely and inadequately describes. Life is about sacrifices and triumphs. It is about winning and losing some. It is stuffed full of truths and lies. Our mistakes and best efforts. It is about being pleasantly surprised and terribly let down. And surely, it is about falling in love and suffering heartbreak. It is how you know you are human, after all. Being wrong and getting right. Getting knocked down, yet getting back up. This life is about you and your pursuit of happiness, from which no one in the world has any right to hinder nor stall or impede you. No job is so important that it cannot be lost for love, other than that of being a parent.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are a menagerie of reasons I am single — the greatest of which is my persistence not to settle and my fear of being wrong. To couple with someone and miss the person I could have met if I held out a day or two longer. A chance encounter at a park I won't go to because I am somewhere with someone else faking it. I find myself in bed awake at this hour reflecting, as I often do, on both circumstances within and outside of the realm of my control. Making an inventory. Giving to God that which is His, and making an account of that which is mine, both my debts and profits. But everything is meant to be just as it is in the pursuit of the person I have been pursuing since I had a romantic inclination. Since reading Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade and seeing the movie on a classroom TV that was strapped to a cart, enthralled at the very thought that two people could be so in love that nothing else mattered. I was both created and destroyed in that instant. No other sort of love will ever do. No artificial, high-fructose corn syrup, saccharine, splenda sort of love will do. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is clear that the fire dies with time for some and they just put up with whoever their game of fatal attraction or musical chairs fated them. But it has never died in me. If it mineralized inside of me, I could be mined for romance for centuries to come. However, I cannot fake it. It isn't in me to fake. I cannot pair with someone on a dating site derived from some sophisticated algorithm or mutual interests. I am a meet-you-on-a-park-bench sort of fellow; or a bar stool; or at a grocery store. But there are only so many ducks you can feed; so many beers you can drink; and so many groceries to buy, before to wonder — what will come of it. The result is this at 1:44 a.m. and wide awake still, wondering what color her eyes are. Always wondering things I might never know. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'd rather be genuinely lonely, looking for the person I love, than fake happy with someone I don't. Even if it means a lifetime reservation for dinner for one, the candle burns, nonetheless. Having you, someday, or that dream therof, is worth being lonely for years, even when I don't yet know you, or know for certain that you are out there. That you might feel me as I feel you. Your presence. Maybe you think these same thoughts in your own way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is worth drinking alone. Dining alone. Raising my daughter to believe in true love. Hoping she learns to be a lady still, even without you. The thought that you exist, somewhere and in some way, anonymously or notoriously, publicly or privately, matter-of-factly or explicitly, reluctantly or zealously, happily or sadly, is what inspires me to still breathe and to get excited about every stranger I meet — one just might be you.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBe06zexipavEpdj4srL86ELlXFc3cIhkUdCwqtiMacOW00dCCsj5S9rO7V3SfXzWoQkuvVahCBaNOud50XNT5DF8bja9v5QJOcKka-sEl3_NMNZKvs1TvPEXIzWvwwHYqZGnfJe1oRRoikQZxK_8AJf-BB0Nra81G-giQlSzCUOSRS-Rg3IKlSsMf0Q/s765/FB_IMG_1683435185387.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="765" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBe06zexipavEpdj4srL86ELlXFc3cIhkUdCwqtiMacOW00dCCsj5S9rO7V3SfXzWoQkuvVahCBaNOud50XNT5DF8bja9v5QJOcKka-sEl3_NMNZKvs1TvPEXIzWvwwHYqZGnfJe1oRRoikQZxK_8AJf-BB0Nra81G-giQlSzCUOSRS-Rg3IKlSsMf0Q/s320/FB_IMG_1683435185387.jpg" width="301" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-32703545089863141582023-05-04T11:45:00.002-07:002023-08-16T16:23:39.225-07:00The Exterminator<p><span style="font-size: large;">The exterminator was a little man. The sort of man who wouldn't mind his own business. Who busted in and ruined everyone's good time because it paid a few bucks and it was easy. He probably wasn't having sex with anyone. He probably had a Bible he read as he drank his milk, but The Ten Commandments were negotiable, and he'd put it down and jerk off to Vanna White on The Wheel of Fortune as she touched those consonants and vowels so luridly. But midstroke, there was Pat Sajak's leathery mit of a face, blabbering, and he'd lose it. At least, he wasn't looking at pornography magazines. This was wholesome. This was practically Lassie running through a prarie, getting help for little Timmy who'd fallen in a well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He was shaving years off his life with all those chemicals he was breathing in, despite the costume. He could have done a thousand other things. No one becomes an exterminator because they have no other options. It isn't like people who retread tires or wash dishes at some restaurant up the street because they want to work but aren't skilled enough to do anything else. No. It ain't like that at all. He could sell insurance or work at an airport or in a prison or teach history or math or work at the autoparts store selling carburetors to grease monkeys who all tell the same bad jokes. He could mow grass or plant trees. He could work at the motel and check happy people in and out. Make sure their stay was wonderful and their pillows were fluffed and their HBO worked. Make sure their Gideon's was neatly tucked in the bedside end table drawer, just in case they got the hankering. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No. This motherfucker bursts in like he is Jules from Pulp Fiction, spraying the place, quoting Ezekiel. "The path of the righteous man," he proclaims. I know what he does when he goes home because I somehow survived one of his many massacres. I saw the grin on his face under the fogged-up mask. I heard his words through raspy muffled breaths. I caught a ride on his pant leg and when he took off that banana-yellow suit, I jumped to his jeans, the unoriginal bastard, and hid in the cuff of his pants. I wanted to see what his home life was like because I had an amateur interest in homo sapiens. I think too much for a bug, other bugs say. I am not simply the self-gratifying sort, eating food droppings and humping loose bugs on unwashed motel quilts. I want to know why we are being exterminated and I figured the cradle of that knowledge begins with a simple who. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Who? This brainless instrument of death is but one of many. There are entire companies of him. Hives. Colonies. This purveyor of poison. This little man and his rubber boots who breathes in a tenth of what he sprays, despite the ventilator and suit and who will undoubtedly die ten, fifteen years before his usual expiry, all to kill bugs that other people dislike for whatever reason they do. To be an Adolph Hitler, a Josef Stalin, a Pol Pot of bugdom. But who aspires to kill? To slowly kill themselves in the act? I contend that one does not ever contribute to death without killing themselves in the process. To kill is to be killed. But to give life is to live.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I watched him for a week or so from the safety of a waxy leaf of a thirsty houseplant in a terrible brown plastic pot. One of those leafy green pothos plants that some call the devil's ivy that even the most inept of homo sapiens can't kill. Same usual routine. TV dinners, milk, and Vanna White. He never climaxes. His self-pleasuring fizzles and his erection goes limp and he sighs a discontented sigh and then falls asleep in his recliner with his pants undone and the TV dinner tray laying there like a discarded hubcap and he snores. Loudly he snores. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I could have stayed there in that houseplant. There were other bugs there who seemed like good folks and who found it curious that I had hitched a ride on the pant leg of the white devil, as they called him. There was a very flirtatious ladybug and apparently no cannibals around. No killers. No spiders or ants or praying mantises. Fuck them. Just a quiet community of good bugs living in harmony. I asked them if they knew what his name was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Who?" a flea inquired. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"The white devil down there. In the recliner."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No," a perturbed housefly scoffed. "Why would we want to know his name?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well," I considered. "It is precisely that we do not know his name, and he doesn't know ours, so that our sentience is thus diminished, utterly negated, and his humanity is consequently and adequately numbed. There is no moral quandry to kill someone who is anonymous. There is no communication between us and them, therefore, there is a basic lack of understanding. Animals have it no better. Though they moo, though they oink, though they cluck, they don't get through. They are subjected to far worse than are we. This species is a peculiarly self-centered one. I know of their fondness for the honeybee, though even that is not universal, and that is only because they serve an interest. Without the honeybee, they all die. Our very right to live is negated by our perceived nuisance to them and their right to enjoy the pleasure of living without us. To be left alone. Arms, legs, antennas up for all the times you've been called 'a fucking bug.'"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You're weird, young fella," an elderly cricket with only one leg replied. "You think too much. It's common knowledge they don't have intelligible thought or any sense of decency. Though they are human, they have no humanity."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Despite me seeing evidence to the contrary, I didn't argue with my elder. I once witnessed a child open a window for a dying fly at the motel. I witnessed a lady tell a man not to crush a beetle that was on the bedspread, and instead trapped him in a cup and relocated him to the patio. I've witnessed humanity, which, I suppose, is what is so befuddling to me that there exists the exterminator. Where is it lost? Where is it found?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, maybe so, old timer," I said. "But someday bugs will be as big as dogs and cats. Fucking on motel beds in the middle of the day and watching free HBO of other bugs fucking other bugs. Ordering room service. And this exterminator will burst in like John Wayne, spraying for dear life. Rather, for dear death!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Here! Here!" they all cheered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Everyone laughed, satisfied by my playful prognostication, and I said goodbye and flew away. I don't suppose I'll go back to the motel. But, still, I can't help but to wonder where we're bound.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrsOICRQ5d68xeDVemuXHS2PJWUprFW810DsMjS9nI4fnL5bUTLOiNoRpk8dB0EliPp6SuPviGUhcSMpFQ7HhA5sb_FxKEdyfPcAQPaMHj2WnlRvKZJT9FaNNye_qhF262tqg7ZliGgg6nSk6KcwolNhp2vGdZtaZlNoW-y__grtg0PtHe4LRJhohv6g/s808/FB_IMG_1682917676149.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="808" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrsOICRQ5d68xeDVemuXHS2PJWUprFW810DsMjS9nI4fnL5bUTLOiNoRpk8dB0EliPp6SuPviGUhcSMpFQ7HhA5sb_FxKEdyfPcAQPaMHj2WnlRvKZJT9FaNNye_qhF262tqg7ZliGgg6nSk6KcwolNhp2vGdZtaZlNoW-y__grtg0PtHe4LRJhohv6g/s320/FB_IMG_1682917676149.jpg" width="285" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-33085269573325971872023-04-29T10:31:00.003-07:002023-08-16T16:24:12.142-07:00Glass Slippers<p><span style="font-size: large;">She was the girl with the 64 crayons in the Crayola crayon box with the sharpener who sat directly beside me in first grade because fate once favored me. Her hair was blonde and wavy and I am sure her eyes were green, some sort of olive-colored green, but I can't say for certain. I lose them sometimes when I think of her. Maybe they were hazel. I never looked into them long enough to tell because it was as though they could burn holes in me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was kind to me when others were not. I had hardly anything as a kid. I wore the same two or three shirts and two pairs of corduroy pants — one gray, one tan — and my shoes were a dirty cracked pair of plastic penny loafers my mom bought at a yard sale for 25 cents. I tried to hide the fact that I was on reduced lunches by hiding my yellow lunch card, but she didn't mind. I tried my best to stay clean and to be as attractive as possible. I combed my hair and cut it myself when mom said we didn't have the money for a barber. I stayed away from mom's smoking so I didn't smell like cigarettes. I brushed my teeth with baking soda and my finger when I didn't have a toothbrush or toothpaste. I bathed every day religiously. And I always smiled at Amy Thorn because it was quite evident to me at the susceptible age of six or seven, that I was in love with her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was the most beautiful girl in my class. And the best part was that she was fond of me as well. At least, when she noticed I had 8 broken crayons, she shared her 64 with me so that we both had 32 — split them evenly. She didn't just give me the browns and oranges, either. It was whatever colors her hands randomly chose. Maybe she was just a little communist, but she was lovely at it. It was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Everyone else teased me, but Amy would defend me and gave me the comfort of a smile or kind words like salve on my wounds, which she seemed to know that I needed. She played board games with me on inside recess and ate lunch with me. Our favorite game was the water one with the rings. We timed each other to see who got them all on the hooks the fastest. We sat with each other on the bus and I often walked her home. We shared our fears with each other and our hopes and dreams. Everything, I confided in her. She seemed to love me, too, just as I loved her, and I was under the impression that it was the sort of thing that would last forever.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We stayed close until junior high. Fate seemed no longer to favor me for I no longer had a seat next to her or any classes with her. And halfway through the semester of our 7th grade year, she moved to Chicago with her mother, who had married a doctor of some sort. She found me to say goodbye and I was stunned and seemed not able to process it, nor to have any words to offer her that would adequately express my heartache or dismay, so I simply stood there and listened. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She promised to write, but I never got a letter. I was vigilant about checking that mailbox for a year or more, forcing my arm all the way inside just in case the mailman pushed it back by accident. But it never came. I didn't have an address to write to her and I thought it was the end of it. What else could I do? Fate favored me that one time, but now my turn was over and it was somewhere favoring someone else — whoever it was that had the affection of Amy Thorn.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I went to college and got a degree in sociology and became a professor at the local university. I wasn't married and didn't have any prospects outside of the flirtatious student now and then who had a daddy issue, or some demented sort of professor-thing that I couldn't understand. I went on dates here and there, but nothing stuck. I seemed incapable of having feelings for anybody. I was 33 and it seemed that I was at a dead end in life and I found myself wandering home from class and watching Jeopardy, eating TV dinners, and making absurd observations of ordinary things or coming up with better terms for them. For instance, I called TV dinners "alien food" because they were wrapped in tinfoil. I called my TV the "boob tube," and I referred to Jeopardy as "The What Game" because every answer was prefaced with "what." I made up a story about an neighbor who incessantly walked his dog, Gloria, even when it rained (they had matching raincoats). I imagined him making love to that dog and I was afraid that in a matter of years, if I wasn't careful, I would become him. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was frankly bored of life and I wanted out, but I'd never commit suicide. I would classify myself as, if the term wasn't already taken, "living dead." I wanted to sit in a lawn chair on the front lawn until aliens zapped me up. My only prospect for fun was sending in an entry form to be on Jeopardy, or a trip to Las Vegas that I had considered buying and for which I had saved a considerable amount of money towards in a savings account I never bothered. A travel agent told me I wouldn't regret it — Sin City, she hissed in such a way that made me question her morality. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">No more than a month later I was invited to Chicago, of all places, to be tested with a bunch of brainiacs. While I was there, all I could think of was my long-lost friend, Amy. I had no idea where in Chicago she moved to, or if she even lived there still, but knowing I was in the city where she was made me happy and hopeful again. I thought I might run into her by chance in a restaurant or in a café. Or maybe on one of those busy streets. Like it happens in the movies all the time. But all those faces passed and my weekend concluded without me seeing her, and before I knew it, I was driving home, having done nothing besides taking the test, and seeing a few tourist sites, which weren't that impressive at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was on Jeopardy a few months later and was introduced in the usual way that people are. Please welcome Ken Rose, a sociology professor from Kenosha, Wisconsin. During my introductory I said I wasn't married and had no kids and that I love Revolutionary War history and baseball. The funny story I shared had nothing to do with Amy, which I immediately regretted. It was my one chance with a national audience to profess my love for my long-lost friend, but instead I told a story about how I fell asleep in class once and the students just let me sleep until the class was over. The audience laughed. I suppose a sign flashed to tell them to do so. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had amassed a huge lead on the show and going into final Jeopardy I was up $12,400 with a total of $23,600, nearly double the second place guy, a computer programmer from Hackensack named Ned Kowalski. Then Alex posed the Final Jeopardy topic — which was Civil War History — and all I had to do was get it right and bet a few thousand dollars and Ned couldn't touch me. I bet it all because I was that confident that there wasn't a Civil War question I wouldn't know. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And sure enough, when the question was posed, I knew it right away. "Who is General Winfield Scott?" Also known as Old Fuss and Feathers. But instead of writing the answer, it suddenly occured to me that I had the golden opportunity to proclaim my love for Amy Thorn to the world, and that there was a good chance that it would get back to her if I did.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Ned got the question right, drawing himself to within a thousand bucks. But he looked like a walrus that the zookeeper had forgotten to feed in an argyle sweater because he was sure I had got it right as well. Then they came to me and Alex read my answer with a slight chuckle, just as I had written it. "What is ... I love you, Amy Thorn. Please call or text me 740-974-0173. I miss you." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Ned was suddenly fat with fish. A pig in mud. And some people in the audience awed and others laughed and some applauded and some gasped and others did nothing at all besides say, maybe, "What an idiot." And so the voice of Alex Trebek permeated the airwaves all across the world, professing my love for my long-lost classmate. I should have gone on Sally Jesse Raphael or Oprah.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I don't think you should have given your phone number out," Alex said to me after the show ended. "There are a lot of weirdos out there." I smiled and he shook my hand with a chuckle and that was that. That was the first swing I took in finding her. I had given up forty some thousand dollars. But taxes, you know. There is no tax on love. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Months passed and I hadn't received a call, so it seemed my effort was in vain. In all that time, every time the phone rang or buzzed, I felt a rush of excitement. I felt a thrill of joy and a shot of hopeful adrenaline that maybe, this one was her. Maybe she watched Jeopardy or knew someone who had and the message got back to her finally, after some understandable delay. But after nearly a year, I had given up on that phone as I had the mailbox, and so I went on. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was the spring of a few years later when I was reading a newspaper and got the news that Amy Thorn had been arrested in a prostitution sting. It couldn't be her, I assured myself. It couldn't be her only because it tarnished my image of her. She had moved back home? I had imagined her becoming something great. A lawyer, a teacher, a social worker, or a model, maybe. I couldn't imagine her becoming a hooker. But there her name was in black-and-white newsprint suddenly and boldly right in front of me. Plain as the nose on my face, as my mom often would say. I couldn't believe there were possibly two people with that same name, but it was possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I called the jail about bailing her out, but they said she had already been sprung. I asked if I could her mugshot, but they said they don't release those. I don't know if I would have even recognized her or not after all these years. Time can be kind or it can be very unkind. And if she had gone down the path of prostitution and all that, it was more than likely that she had gone down a path of drugs and other vices, which might have led to her being haggard and older than her natural years would normally portray. I wasn't sure that I wanted to see her that way. Maybe it was better to remember her as she was, but I could hardly say I loved her if her misfortune affected my fondness of her so dreadfully. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Perhaps the memory I had of her from elementary school ought to suffice. That ought to be the one I hold on to because it was beautiful for what it was and what it still is. Maybe love is meant to be had in small portions. In little things and just isn't everlasting. I keep it in that little face no bigger than a thumbprint in the photograph from our first grade class picture that I have framed and placed on my office desk. Those Valentine's Day cards she gave to me, all of which I kept and framed. That memory of the girl burned in my mind who split her 64 crayon box with me — even offering me the sharpener, which I politely declined. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Every holiday I went all out giving her the very best card, and when our financial situation changed, when mom married a man who had his own construction business and provided for me that which I previously had not, I was given a decent allowance, most of which I saved and gave to her in some form or another. Mostly, anonymously. I would buy her flowers and drop them off at her house with a note to her. A terrible poem now and then comparing her hair to flax and her skin to wax and her eyes to glowing embers. I would give her pencils and erasers shaped like animals like penguins or ducks. I would buy her the deluxe book of stickers at the Scholastic book fair, or a book she favored, and leave them in her desk when she was outside for recess. I always wondered if she knew it was me, and if she thanked me with the smiles I always seemed to get whenever she saw me, which I eagerly collected, and which were the perfect repayment of a debt never owed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Years more passed. Neither hide nor hair, as they say. But in those years I trolled the local hooker websites relentlessly, like a mother of a runaway girl, hoping I would see her again. Maybe she would advertise when things cooled down. When she needed the money. A friend told me he heard she became a model, but then got hooked on drugs shortly thereafter. He even showed me an advertisment for some perfume, but it was only a black-and-white picture of her from behind on a beach. You couldn't see her face at all. He said he knew it was her because he dated her cousin who told him it was. He gave me the picture which was plucked from some magazine and still smelled faintly of perfume. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I learned that she hadn't showed up for her court hearing and was in the wind. But then, nearly when I had given up hope, an ad on one of those hooker sites showed a woman who looked something like I would imagine her to look. There was a small scar on her left cheek and her face was the same, but twenty-five years progressed. She called herself "Scarlett." No prostitute goes by their actual name, I read in a book about hooker etiquette, figuring it was wise to familiarize myself with that taboo and seditious culture before delving into it. I was sure it was her. Then I managed to get a copy of the mugshot and confirmed it. I bribed someone in the court whose daughter was a struggling student of mine. It was definitely her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My heart sunk. She was in a high-end hotel in Milwaukee and I made the trip, nervous as hell. I got my haircut and bought a good cologne. I bought a boquet of flowers and tried to write a poem, but wasn't sure it was any good. Probably no better than those I had written when I was nine. It was terrible, actually. I called her and she confirmed our appointment for 7pm that Friday evening and I puked in the parking lot then had to go buy some mouthwash to get rid of the taste. I tried to breathe in a paperbag, but it smelled like my tuna fish lunch days ago and I took one deep last breath and headed into the hotel, oblivious to all my good sense.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The lady at the front desk smiled at me, obviously unaware that I was there to see a hooker. Or maybe she was very aware. Maybe this sort of thing happened all the time and she played a game of trying to decide who was there to see a hooker and who wasn't. I white knuckled that boquet of flowers crinkling the plastic wrap, smiled back, and wondered if I should have went with the roses rather than the spring blend — reassuring myself that the spring blend was the wise choice for the variety of color and for the fact that I remember purple was her favorite color. Grape, she once called it because the crayon said so. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I thought of her in Cinderella when we were in 4th grade. I didn't get to play the prince as I wanted to. I was one of the mice who turned into a horse that pulled her carriage that became out of a pumpkin. I remember her telling me after it was over that she thought I was a handsome mouse and how she wished I had played the prince. Then she rubbed noses with me as we had the year before after "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" and she giggled when my mouse whiskers tickled her. I keep that giggle somewhere deep in my heart and the purity of it. The memory comforted me. I wondered if she remembered, too, or if those memories had been washed from her by time and drugs. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I exhaled before I stepped into the gilded elevator. It chimed with a bizarre resonance, almost ominously, like I was in the belly of a grousing grandfather clock. But I was determined and could not be deterred. She was an elevator trip and about a few dozen steps away and I wasn't going back now. I had tucked a Gideon's Bible in my back pocket to give to her if the moment arose. So many scenarios played out in my mind about what might happen. She might break down and bawl in my arms when I reminded her about how in third grade I was Rudolph and she was Clarice in the school play and she didn't think my nose was bad at all. She thought it was "distinguished." I wanted to rub noses with her again as we had when that play ended like when Cinderella ended. When the teachers released the confetti snow over us which we had been cutting up since Columbus Day. And though they were not our noses, they may as well have been our noses. They were costume noses and that bulb of mine burned as bright as my heart did for her. A bleeding red desperate signal that ached for her and that has never ceased, despite all the time it has burned and that blizzard of other memories and moments that have filled our separate lives since being misfortunately displaced. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I once begged to grow up and to be with her. I prayed to God for her. To marry her and to live a good life wherever the road might lead us together. She is the only thing I ever really wanted and if that is not love, I simply don't know what love is. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was so close. The hotel hallway smelled of new carpet and paraffin for some reason. Freshly painted walls and the vapors of whatever couple had passed before me and wherever they came from trailing after them. A slight hint of steak sauce and the vanilla of a vape and the cherry bubblegum of a reluctant teenage girl who was tagging along with her dad on another boring business trip. Hotels are universes of possibilities and ant farms of people. Those little eyeballs in the corner of the hallways are always looking. My God, I realized, I was committing a crime. My toes were on the precipice of a solicitation charge. Though I was coming to see an old friend, how likely would that hold up if the police busted in. And if not the police, would there be some pimp to rob me at gunpoint? It was worth the risk, though. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I looked down for reassurance in the zigzag carpet that reminded me of an alien design from a museum in Roswell I went to as a kid with the step-dad who saved my life and funded my existence from age eight onward. Who got me interested in little green men and Area 51 and all that sort of thing. I could see his face in the carpet design for he is still part of me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The room number she gave me through text message was "404." And there I stood in front of it trying not to hyperventilate. What an embarassment it would have been had I passed out. I was both smiling and grimacing all at once. Like I was at the dentist. In complete happiness and dread, looking over those brass numbers with my palm gently on the door. I wondered if her eyeball was in the peephole. Floating there. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wondered if she was just behind that door and ready to open it as she probably had ten thousand times before. To get it over with. To pay some bill. To buy a drug that keeps her alive and feeling relatively human capable of some artificial emotion somewhat like happiness but not quite happiness. And that much she knows, but she can't help herself because it is at least something. Something rather than nothing. Or maybe it is all to buy some material thing that kept her in an imaginary class and ascribed her some illusory status. Cartier. Michael Kors. Whatever the hell it is. Or maybe it wasn't like that at all. Maybe I didn't know what I assumed I knew as people often don't. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I knocked. Wondering if I should have knocked louder. Exhaling again. My body began to tremble and the unnerving feeling that I was about to meet a fate I was prepared not to meet swallowed and regurgitated me. Then the door opened and it wasn't her. Very undramatically what was birthed in that open doorway wasn't even worthy to be called a likeness of her. The rush of disappointment overcame me so overwhelmingly that I was incapable of moving or doing anything at all on my own. She was someone who might look like her if you were horribly nearsighted, but she was definitely not her. There was no slight scar on her cheek and her eyes were some miserbale shade of cornflower blue, betraying my memory that they were of an olive green or hazel hue. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She invited me inside and I went because I was under the influence of disillusionment. Maybe, it was because of the light, I thought suddenly mad with desperation, and if I had another look at her, she would suddenly appear. It was all, perhaps, an ill-cast shadow. Maybe life hadn't been so kind as to leave any resemblance of my former love, but this stern-face barracuda of a woman was somehow my Amy, beaten up by life. You're not the girl in the pictures, I wanted to say, but saying nothing at all. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There were bags of clothes on the ground. Heels spilling out of a gym bag. Various adult toys and lotions. Bottles of random liquors on the dresser and several packs of cigarettes like unburied coffins. There were perfume bottles that reminded me of a Lazarus counter when I was a kid, when my mom used to walk through and spray herself everytime we went to the mall as though it were a mandatory ritual. The lady at the counter would scowl at her because she never stopped long enough to hear her sales pitch. Mom would make me smell her and give her my honest opinion. I learned quickly the best thing to say is that "it smells nice," even if I didn't think so. Perhaps it was my mom who ruined me for women, rather than my desperate love for Amy Thorn. Everyone else was just so damn boring. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But this fraudulent Amy pretended to be inviting and asked me how much time I wanted. I thought too deeply upon the question. Time was a commodity that was bought and sold by hookers and johns since the beginning when men and women realized they had tradeable goods and needs and desires that were negotiable — quid pro quo. I didn't know how to answer. I was still in a haze of disillusionment that held me tightly in its grasp, but something on the TV that droned on like a mindless nuisance caught my attention and woke me up from that disenchantment. It was an advertisment for Jeopardy, or "The What Game."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"None. I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But the hooker was determined and like she was some used car salesman working me for a commission, she gave her best sales pitch — offering free package deals, bogo specials, warranties, and a test drive in the sheets, conditioned only upon me saying that I was a serious buyer. But once more, I declined. I was looking for a very specific car, after all. One that was not on the lot of this particular dealership. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I got to the parking lot, I felt a sense of relief, though I was sorely disappointed it hadn't worked out and it wasn't her. Maybe Amy got out of the business but someone was using her pictures. But as I put the car in reverse, a swarm of cops surrounded me and their lights flashed painting the scene red and blue. They drew their guns and told me to get out of the (expletive) car. You would have thought I had kidnapped the Lindbergh baby. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I spent the night in jail for soliciting. Things weren't going so well for me, I realized that night at dinner in the pod full of malodorous men with bad dental hygiene and even worse tattoos. Some told sad stories, but most were frequent fliers who felt quite at home in the austere loveless setting of jail. In fact, they needed it. They enjoyed the game of cat and mouse and I felt, after brief observation, that they psychologically depended upon it. They were in-and-outers. They would piss dirty and get locked up. Or they didn't pay child support or they violated some protection order to see some woman who was never worth seeing to begin with. Some dumb thing because, for the most part, they were dumb people and they didn't really know how to act appropriately or how to become smarter. They had no interest in it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was told that I would be given bail in the morning, but no one could promise me what kind of mood the judge would be in, and if he wanted to, he could deny bail because, as they said, "they are taking that stuff seriously these days." That night I lied in my steel bunk on a plastic mat and thought of Amy. I couldn't sleep. People were up late telling stories of bad decisions. Trading crude jokes. Looking out the barred windows longinly at a rain-soaked highway. Coveting things that people who were not in jail would throw in the trash. Talking about women they were with and women they wished they were with. Feeding other people lies they rolled up into truth like bad sushi. It was all a price to pay to be with her and despite how it was going, despite my lowly predicament, I was undeterred and still hopeful. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next morning I was awoken by people walking around in circles. The cattle-like clip-clop of their feet. Tweekers, someone called them. They were waiting for breakfast and had been up all night. There was nearly a fight because the shower shoes they give out at intake are hard plastic and make a loud sound when someone walks in them. Glass slippers, they angrily call them, usually accompanied by an expletive. I wrote that down. It occured to me that I was trying to fit an imaginary glass slipper on the foot of a woman I hadn't seen since we were children. She was my Cinderella, but we were hardly a Disney movie. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They called it Operation Badfoot — the sting I was busted in. I have no idea what that means, but the operation was orchestrated by "a joint task force" and they said it was designed "to end human trafficking." I didn't regret it. I did what I thought I could do to see Amy. I regretted how they characterized. How it was advertised and all over the morning news and my name was among a dozen others strewn along with our occupations as though we were child molesters. As though we ought to bear some scarlet letter. I hadn't even paid, and the woman advertised said she was 33. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There was no asterisk to my arrest. It was intentionally left ambiguous so to make people wonder. So to create the illusion that it was far more nefarious than it was and that there are law enforcement officials doing something to combat a problem that does exist, but not to the extreme that they want you to believe that it does. Not as it does in the movies or Eastern Europe. Fear has long been a great instrument in altering the perception of someone's or something's worth. And since law enforcement was struggling in other areas of public relations recently, this illusionary softball of combating the scourge of "human trafficking," otherwise known as two consenting adults, was, therefore, mendacious propaganda designed to restore their tarnished image.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was released on bail and all I took from my time in jail was the sound of those glass slippers and an effusive showering of expletives that can be applied to any emotion or situation, as it turns out. I plead not guilty and the charge was dismissed, yet I had to pay a fine. I asked the prosecutor about Amy's picture and he laughed then reluctantly told me they pulled it from a previous arrest. I asked him if he knew what happened to her because we were friends from elementary school and he told me that she was in treatment in Cincinnati for drug abuse and gave me the name of the place, which I thought was a joke. He remembered because he had been the prosecutor on the case and he felt sorry for her. She was a mule in a drug trafficking case and turned on a dealer who got 37 years.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I thanked him for the information. I wasn't sure why he gave it to me, but he did. It was almost as though he were brainwashed and involuntarily speaking. Perhaps it was simply his stoic demeanor, but it was nonetheless curious. His lips were moving and the words came out, but he couldn't hear himself, nor stop himself from saying them, nor did he express any visible emotion as he did. He was young. He looked like someone fresh out of law school. Someone who had recently done a few keg stands and joined a frat. The stink of stale beer hadn't yet worn off him. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I lost my job at the university because of the controversy of my arrest and the nature of my charge. I didn't bother to argue or explain, though I had a good argument and the charge was dismissed. I packed my things in my car and headed to Cincinnati and found the rehab center, which was a nice facility in a posh suburb called Blue Ash. It was, in fact, called what the prosecutor told me it was called — Hotel California by the Sea. It made no sense to me, but I liked things that made no sense. I am a weirdo. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I went inside, but the overly-friendly receptionist, a tall dark-skinned lady with a shaved yellow head who looked as much like a giraffe as any human could, told me that they don't allow visitors, nor outside letters or communication of any kind. She said so in such a way that made me feel good about it, even though it was detrimental to my quest of reuniting with Amy. They wouldn't give me any information about her. So, I did all I could think of doing. I called and tried to enroll myself in treatment, but they said I'd needed a dirty urine screen to be admitted. So I bought some dope off a dealer named Vincent in a seedy campus bar in Cincinnati and injected a small amount of heroin in the bathroom. Not an amount that would kill me. It was black tar, Vincent boasted. He showed me how to do it for an extra fifty bucks and we sat in the barhroom on the sink and got high. He didn't ask why I wanted to do it, but I dont think I would have told him. Not sober, anyway. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The light in the bathroom was flickering and the mirror was broken. The sink was leaking. The tiles were cracked. The toilet hissed and the walls were cold wet cement covered with decades of witty and not-so-witty grafitti. There were things written on the wall about people's mothers and girlfriends. Haikus. Pertient sexual reviews. Riddles about wives. Phone numbers. It was a filthy place. Vincent said he dropped out of college and got into pharmacology. I wasn't sure if he was serious, but he seemed to know what he was doing and was absurdly confident about it like David Koresh probably was at taking wives. His leather jacket groaned as he moved and when we were high, it was as though it was talking to me. He was a geek about drugs and philosophy. He insisted that he exists on a different plateau than everyone else and soon I would, too. He said that dope is the yellow brick road and he talked a great deal about The Wizard of Oz, I realized. But I wasn't interested in Oz. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">As the dope made its way through our veins, he finally asked what I was doing and why I was doing it. And so when I told him, he laughed. He laughed hard. He thought I was putting him on. Then he thought I was making it all up because of the dope. But then he stopped me and said and he chortled, "Hey, ain't you that dude from Jeopardy, man? That dude that said he loved that chick?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Yes," I admitted with the rubber strap still wrapped around my arm wagging like a dog's tail and my head spinning like carousel. "I am."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"And this that same chick?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She is, Vincent."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hell, nah! Man, you got it bad for this momma! She must be one hell of a sexy woman."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"She was a model once. Did an underwear ad. It was on a beach. You couldn't see her face, just her body. It was blurry in a bikini. One of those artistic sort of things." I didn't have it on me to show him, but thought I described it fairly well. That ad didn't matter at all to me, but I thought it might to him. I couldn't care less if she had been a model or if she gained 200 pounds or how she had changed. Then I told him how I hadn't seen her since elementary school, other than in a mugshot and that ad, and he laughed even harder before he started to cry because he thought it was "romantic shit, man! Oh, damn! That hits deep, bro. I hope you find her!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I exhaled and handed him back the needle, thanked him, and then left. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I passed out in my car with a parade of wild thoughts waltzing through my mind. A circus of wild bizarre animals. All my other senses were bemused townsfolk with bags of popcorn and cotton candy on sticks in their hands sitting on hay bales. It was like I died and was reborn and the world was completely different. I felt no fear or panic. No worry or shame. No guilt or anger. Every good feeling was augmented tenfold and I was suddenly the most capable and hopeful person in the universe. I was perfectly amused and nothing at all mattered.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I called the number back and said I'd like to enter the program and they told me there was a wait list. They were a month out. They recommended me to another facility, but I quickly said I'd wait. They said they'd call me if anything came open sooner. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I slept in my car and bought dope from Vincent at least twice a week or so. I shot up every few days. Each time was a different experience. Each time was something new. Something euphoric and painless. The only consistent thing was Amy and she was different each time. She was like Waldo in those books. I was dancing with angels. I felt immortal and above everything. I thought for a while I was a vampire and I didn't shower for a few weeks. I lost twenty pounds I didn't have to lose. I left my car somehwere and forgot where I parked it and I was running low on cash on hand. I had money in my savings account, but I didn't have access to it unless I went back to Kenosha to the credit union to withdraw it. I became a junkie. I sung karaoke in a campus bar and made terrible friends. I somehow ended up with a guitar which I hadn't played in years, but I picked right up. After 22 days, they finally called me. It was like being beamed up in an alien spaceship.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My mind was a soup of many different things at the time. There seemed to exist no chronological barriers and logic and reason were foreign concepts to me, as foreign as some advanced mathematical field I'd not studied. Yet the one consistency that remained, was my desire to see her. Even when I thought I was going to die. It was so intense and real that I believe had I overdosed and died, the desire would remain in my corpse absent everything else as my meat rotted and insects feasted upon me, and perhaps my desire for her would be passed on to them, and they would carry it on like love pollinators. Maybe that is how it works.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You've done the right thing," they all told me the first few days. The counselors and doctors. It was verbal reassurance. It was in their training and positive support was an element of that. Most of the social workers were obese, I noticed, just as a matter-of-fact. It was an obvious side-effect of their line of work. They eat to comfort themselves from the daily trauma. I quickly learned that Hotel California by the Sea, was not segregated — male and female residents intermingled as they would in everyday life — though the dorms were separate and residential advisors monitored everyone's comings and goings. They didn't allow sleepovers and sex was prohibited. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I watched for her like a hawk. Like a hawk on a electric wire over a culvert along the road I remember once swooping down and taking a young rabbit whose life was thus misfortunately shortlived. And in my malaise, the scene played over and over, though it was a distant memory from my childhood when my mother stopped along the way to some lake to let our car cool down because it was overheating. My mother tried to make the most of everything and was rarely visibly discouraged. She rolled the windows down and we ate egg salad sandwiches and she listened to the radio when I spotted that hawk. I was that rabbit. Life had me in its talons. There was nothing I could do to save that rabbit.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was good to shave, shower and to eat again. The withdraws were excruciating for a while. It felt as though a World War raged inside me with no hope for peace. My brain was gassed and strewn with barbedwire which was slowly being pulled away by the fat fingers of time, every tick and tock that beat like a machete on a brass gong. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then I saw her. She was in the library reading a book. She was beautiful and I was nervous. I fixed my hair. I swallowed a few times as though my nervousness was in my throat like a bug and I could rid myself of it, cast it to the acidic hell of my stomach like a sodomite. I knew I might never have this chance again. Maybe tomorrow she would check out. But there she was after all this time. Right in front of me. And like Gatsby I felt I was looking at that distant green light of East Egg, only it was not so distant. Her face was that light. And there was an aura about her as there was before, long ago, when I knew her as a kid. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I took a book from a shelf, a random book, and walked in front of her as nonchalantly as possible. As though it were a part of my path. She didn't realize that it wasn't. But the long road to her winded down to a single aisle in a co-ed drug rehabilitation center library. A place I could have never expected to be. I didn't have a plan, I just went for it. I just dove into her space the way Clark Griswald dove into that motel pool with Christie Brinkley waiting for him, only to scream and give himself away. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was no actor. I couldn't pretend not to know her. I couldn't pretend to suddenly recognize her, or pretend that I didn't at all. So I stopped in front of her and smiled, much the way I smiled as a kid. She looked up at me by way of the track marks on my arms and smiled sympathetically and said hello. And in her hazel eyes, that I realized at last were hazel, the faint spark of recognition burned there until it became a conflagration of memory. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Kenny Penny?!" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It is what she always called me. No one else called me that. I was Kenneth or Ken Rose to everyone else. Or Rosey. Rosey Palm in my teenage years, unfortunately. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She sprung up from her seat and hugged me, accidentally knocking the seat over and making a ruckus that fortunately no one was there to hear or witness. But who cares if they had been? I hoped that I was, appearance-wise, not a terrible disappointment. I guess I hadn't considered it before now. I stayed relatively fit and other than my excursion into the world of heroin, I led a healthy lifestyle. She was absolutely gorgeous. She was healthy and flawless. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Kenny! I never thought I'd see you again! And if I did, well, definitely not in a place like this. Wow! What — what happened?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I knew enough about life to try to avoid being a tourist, even when you are a tourist. And often, the less you say, the better. In fact, the less you say, the more you say. The more you invite someone else to use their imagination about you, which is most often favorable to you. So I smiled and said the only thing I could think of.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Life."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She chuckled with sympathy. "I know all about that. It's so good to see you! Sit! Sit down! Talk to me for a bit. How long have you been here? What have you done in life?!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I sat down next to her and we talked. It was like it was all those years ago when it rained and we had inside recess and we were thumbing those buttons to ring those water rings. I suppose it was raining again, on both of us, and this was the reprieve. This, Hotel California by the Sea, was the reprieve. The X on a map we couldn't see. She admitted to me everything that had happened since she moved to Chicago. Some of which, I will take to my grave. She told me about the crowd she fell into in high school and the first drugs she ever used. About the first concert she saw — which was The Grateful Dead at Soldier's Field. The first boyfriend who broke her heart. How she got into prostution and her life as a homeless drug addict after once being a promising model. She said there was more than just the perfume ad of her on the beach when I mentioned seeing it. "The blurry butt ad," she playfully called it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She told me about the world of pain she lived in that began with that terrible betrayal she had already confessed. The world is a cruel and ugly place, she finished off. The drugs made me believe that it wasn't so bad. On heroin, it was all sunshine and roses. Then I became addicted and then I had to pay for that addiction. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Don't we all." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What about you? Why did you first use?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I struggled to answer. Love wouldn't be suitable. Or believable. "Boredom, I suppose. My life was pretty boring, you can say. I guess, I was chasing something I couldn't catch."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She nodded her head. "Hmmm. We are all chasing something."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Or someone," I interjected. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"True. I've got two weeks left. I'm not sure I can make it outside of here, though. It's fine in here. It's controlled. It's safe. The bad thoughts come, but there is a therapist and therapy dogs and a pool and a library and people. And now there's you. But out there, there's none of that. There's nothing. Is there?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I gave her a hug and her head nestled into my shoulder. Nothing had ever felt more natural. And suddenly, everything was worth it. It could have ended there. In that moment. She could have got up and left and been released and I would have been grateful for that happy ending. But fate favored me once more. Maybe it was my patience or persistence, it admired. Or maybe fate is just random. Like a roulette wheel. The more she leaned into me, the more I wanted her to. The more she spoke to me, the more I wanted to listen. I became hungry for her words. She exhaled and I breathed. If she had bathed, I would have bathed after her. I would have drank the water. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We decided to meet that night after curfew which was 9pm. Marcus, the therapy cat, patrolled the halls. The therapy dogs were much lazier and slept in their beds by the RA desk. As the RA, Natasha, slept at her desk, Amy took off her slippers and scurried down the hall and into my room. We made love that night in my bed and I had never felt a greater sense of euphoria. Not from a drug or from a dream or from a perfect Christmas or birthday gift. She was everything in one person and to be with her, in that natural way, was my most beautiful experience as a living thing. I never realized I was alive before then, or how colorful living truly is.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next day I met her again in the library. "People will talk," she warned. "People will say things."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Let them," I countered. "You can come back to Kenosha. I have a nice house on a lake and savings. I can get my job back, or another job like it. We can live together. Be together. We can go to Vegas."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I don't think I can ever be that normal again," she admitted. Her voice suddenly sunk and it was as though she were someone else entirely. I had inadvertently snapped her out of the pleasure of our affiar by mentioning domestication. "I don't think I can ever stop using if using is an option. But I can't live my life in rehabs, Kenny. I don't know what I'll do. I don't know what's left for me."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wanted to tell her about me. Why I was there. What happened on Jeopardy. Why I went to jail. Why I first used dope. How I got into Hotel California by the Sea. I wanted to tell her everything as though it would make her feel better. Like it would make a difference. Maybe it would have. But I thought in the moment that it would turn her off and if I expressed such a desire to be with her, that I went through all those obstacles, she would be desireless because of it. The more you care for someone, or the more you show it, the less they care for you. I learned that, rather, that was an innate lesson branded upon my psyche from my childhood. No one loved my father more than my mother, but no one was less loved by one loved so much. So I said nothing at all. I just simply took what she was willing to give me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We made love so often over the next week that I was sore and could hardly bear it, though I was insatiable and could not resist. Marcus was the sole witness of our transgression, but he was agreeably tight-lipped as cats customarily are. My God, how I loved her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I played a song for her one night. It wasn't my song. It was Tom Petty's song. But I pretended it was my song. It is called "Walls." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I Googled the lyrics and sang it as though it were my own, as though I had wrote them myself. I was sure Tom Petty wouldn't mind much. She loved it and we sat in the library and I strummed the guitar and sang it for her over and over. I sang it for her like it had never had been sung before. I didn't realize that I had a fairly decent voice and felt I could be a singer songwriter. One of those hipster guys who play the bars in nearly every city everywhere. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She melted in my arms. And then she faded. As much as I wished she wouldn't have faded, that is the best way of describing it. I thought to invite her. I thought to ask her to come home with me, but this was home now. This was our new home as we knew it. Life on another planet, but it was life, nonetheless. I worried that nothing else would ever be home. Nothing else would be normal unless we could go back to elementary school and live that life as we once lived that life all those years ago. When we were kids. But that wasn't to be.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A few days later, I went to her door and knocked, but she didn't answer. There was no reply at all and, strangely, the knock felt hollow. I decided to try the door, fearing the worst. It was unlocked. When I opened it, I knew immediately what had happened. She was gone. Rather, she fled. It was not a locked-down facility. People could leave as they please, but once they leave they couldn't ever come back. Not without permission. Her personal things were gone. Drawers were left open and empty. That was the end of it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I thought about leaving and chasing after her. I thought about going home and getting my job back. Or a different job like it somewhere else. In some other boring university with the same faces looking at me as I lectured on post modernism for the thousandth time, rattling off names of dead sociologists and philosphers who mean nothing to no one anymore but who once meant everything to a great deal of people. Such is the way that it goes. Flames go out. Things end. People die and become forgotten, which is terribly sad. But I stayed. I decided to finish treatment. Get clean again. Lick my wounds and go home and hope not to become my neighbor who is love with his dog, Gloria, for lack or anything else. I made a good effort, after all. I had reached the summit, and it appeared that I was a peakbagger of sorts. I never knew how I'd really be until I met her. At least, I could say, I got to see her again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She left behind a few things. I don't know if intentionally or if by mistake. But she left behind two crayons which lied contendly upon the dresser next to a blank piece of notebook paper that looked as though it's whole purpose was to take a note that it never took. There are no words sometimes. What it said though, without saying anything at all, was voluminous as it was left to my imagination.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">In all the sadness and disappointment that swirled through my soul at that very moment, I had nearly forgotten that I signed up for the Hotel California by the Sea talent show which was later that evening. It sounded like more fun than anything else I was doing, or could do, and I wanted to put an end to this, once and for all. I had signed up expecting to sing her song to her, but now I would sing it without her. To the memory of her. I have loved her for 27 years, and at 33, I could say my life was hardly over. I would never forget her, but I didn't have to carry on this way. Chasing her around and hoping she would feel the same as I felt someday. Hoping she would see me as I saw her. It suddenly didn't matter if she did or didn't. It doesn't affect how I love her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was a good show. People laughed and had fun. One girl was a comedian and a few played music and there was a guy who could juggle almost anything. Then I had my chance and I sang her song. My eyes were closed for most of it. I found it easier to play and sing with my eyes closed so I didn't see everyone looking at me. But when I was nearly through with the song and opened them, there she was. She was standing in front of the stage and staring at me. I took a deep breath and finished the song. Then everyone applauded and it all stopped as she kissed me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I got to a bar and met Vincent, who I was going to buy some dope off of. But as I did, when I told him where I came from, he told me a story. He told me everything you did to find me. To get to me. About Jeopardy. All that you did for me. So I apologized and told him I couldn't buy any and he said he wouldn't sell me any even if i wanted him to and he drove me back here. You did all that for me?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I said nothing, but smiled. She cried. "Sue let me in when I told her the story. Thank you, Sue." Sue was one of the counselors. She was standing off to the side crying, as well. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Kenny, I got so lost. How did I get so lost? But you — you found me. And if you found me, maybe, well, I think maybe I can find myself. I just don't know how to be loved."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You've always been loved. You just have to be."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Is it really that simple?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Yes. Come home with me, Amy. Love can replace anything. But nothing can replace love." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A few days later we checked out and took a bus back to Kenosha, whole again. Her foot slid gently into that glass slipper. I don't know that she loves me as I love her, but she needn't. I need only to give to her that which I have always had to give to her. She sighed contented, nestled into my side, Cinderella in my arms, half-asleep on the porch swing with her legs tucked under her on a warm summer night where I feel, rather than to think, that I am once more favored by fate. We rub noses and she chuckles with her eyes closed, remembering.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7WUyX8RrJfbDCwAX7_XJtkYOqGHnWmZPwUJaTRR36e0zBYwKGTgh-ESR37lN2SwRRRa76YvpdLJELBF08CxNKyzJr-V-E1XpgUNgLbLAtEkGRVI6Pxd3siRwh1d0ib_BYmLMvWEkGjxer0t8keIIgslP8jHyFK_M7E5lg71z_4Su2WMjLx9K-Q3Tgqw/s896/FB_IMG_1682461385614.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="896" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7WUyX8RrJfbDCwAX7_XJtkYOqGHnWmZPwUJaTRR36e0zBYwKGTgh-ESR37lN2SwRRRa76YvpdLJELBF08CxNKyzJr-V-E1XpgUNgLbLAtEkGRVI6Pxd3siRwh1d0ib_BYmLMvWEkGjxer0t8keIIgslP8jHyFK_M7E5lg71z_4Su2WMjLx9K-Q3Tgqw/s320/FB_IMG_1682461385614.jpg" width="257" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-10978519672287726252023-03-31T23:13:00.002-07:002023-08-16T16:24:32.558-07:00When It Rains, My Darling, It Pours<p><span style="font-size: large;">Inartful, the note she left for me, tired, wounded last, fatefully by her own doing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Expired — the kind word for it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Leaving me tremulous, ruinous in my abysmal ruing.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I breathed life into her laconic letter, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and then she came to me, in elegy,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">once at last she came to be, though dead and soon buried,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">before her soul to the netherworld was fatefully ferried.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She died somewhere, someone said. She had been lost, in her father's house. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Like a house fly in the window sill, unnoticed, like a quiet poisoned mouse. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A life lived obscure and hidden, so rarely ever full, lived in various phases of the moon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She denied her own beauty, yet used it for attention, and lost her soul in pieces, far too steeply paid, and far too soon.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And these jackals who have scraps of her still in their teeth, who gave her their petty worthless affections,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">scurry now to another the way they were once to her — ghastly parasitic infections.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We spoke in the shadows of a very cold and lonely delirious dream</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">in which I saw her with bleary eyes, my mouth agape, this frightful rape of my senses of which there is no escape.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Though despite the horror, I couldn't scream out to fracture the dream. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The shock, too overwhelming, for in my sorrow I was drowning,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">which could explain the phantasm that was my love, by the purpling window of her head, moonlight crowning. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">the only scribbled words of her note</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that she recited again as there in that room near the drawn drapes I watched her float. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And miffed because I swore my senses had been so wickedly defiled,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">by the sick wanton grief and misery of her death, my naivety, I reviled —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and subsequently the delusion of her specter that didn't flinch, ne'er an inch,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as I trembled there in my robe, so pitifully and dubiously beguiled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How she came, I was befuddled —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">through which sealed window or through which of the two locked doors.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But she simply repeated that terse and languid verse that I had read so ruefully before —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And mad, long past mad, as a late hour on the grandfather clock so mockingly tolled,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that once so favored me, and of all my reveries and my love laying naked beside me, enviously extolled,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I began to cry and argue with her apparition, to expel her from my house forevermore —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">to leave me be, let me go, take pity upon me the bawling, weeping, sad man cast like a dejected shadow upon his own bedroom floor,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">where once we knew all the pleasures of love, as intimate as we had been.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Thieves of such pleasure no more, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and she, that I now so dejectedly abhor, lost yet again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But now how I considered it, her ruin, because of it, her damnation if it is so to be,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as I sit and write of her last unholy trespass and a befitting, yet befuddling, eulogy, only to realize,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">there is but no one else for me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I half-expected her to apologize, as I sat to eulogize her, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">but it wasn't like her in the least,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">to be either courteous or mindful, or more than anything but a beautiful, boorish beast. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She remained there at that window fixed, and I stumbling as though drunk, a borish buffoon, a thin-legged lummox, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">at last rose to my encumbered feet.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And I accepted that she was indeed she, as those horrible words she recited, so delicate yet uninvitedly, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">once again she did so dreadfully repeat —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And though she must be a figment of my imagination, a hallucination brought about by this frought and dehabilitating condition</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">of my overhwlming grief, I could deny her no more. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I welcomed her into my room as I had so many times before when she breathed and when her heart beat, if ever it did at all, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">when she was not so dour, and I not so appalled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But all those times, which now I could see were but a price paid to a final hour</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that had been counted and so sadly taxed and tolled,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as her life had passed, and into the darkness of that we know of not, she was pushed or pulled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And I argued with her as one might to encourage a child to keep faith.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">What a comedy it must have been to see a man urging and pleading with a loveless wraith —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that of my beloved lost love, my unfaithful darling lover,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">who had never been in love with me at all, for she could never love another. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yet, I loved her still, despite a myriad of betrayals, and her countless unwarranted treasons. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And it went on, and it went on, and I loved her unrequited, mindless of reasons.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An unfaithful lover, and the lover who loved her most,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">but now one delirious, yet living, and the other, a lingering, yet listless ghost. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was neither loyal nor honest by any stretch of measure,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">but I knew with her what I knew not with any other, the greatest of all the rarest of pleasures. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That relief which no other so generously afforded me, nor so tenderly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How will I do without you in that way, I thought to ask her, shamefully.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I loved her for the intimacy, as I plead senslessly to her, "My love thou art,"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">knowing all the while, as I did when she lived, that I loved her, but at the expense of my heart. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours, she so sadly repeated.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I recall her now telling me this sometime before as my sanity fastly depleted. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When she were naked and living and I was getting dressed,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and she were at the window as she is now, as she then candidly confessed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And how I didn't listen to her at all, how I made a joke or ignored the sadness in her tone, that ominous pall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">That veil she wore so often as though it were skin, and tried to mend through sex and sin.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How I just let her drift away, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">quite sure she would come back happier, tomorrow, if not another day. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But that one time, I argued, when we had a time at the bar, and you were witty.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When everything was beautiful and rhymed, and you were so glamorous in the dress I bought you, so gloriously pretty. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The night that we hoped would never end.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When all the doors opened and the glasses stayed full</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and warmth rode like a chariot upon a charitable wind. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I keep a memory of it for there is a scrapbook of you in my head,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">full of not only pictures, stills of your smiling perfect face, but of words spoken, all the pretty things we said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So many pretty things that can never be undone —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">words that were uninterrupted, that were spoken on a night in which no webs the spiders spun.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">she ignores. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I regretted all the times we argued, most. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Of all the men and the litany of whores </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">of which one can or cannot in certain company boast. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How you cried for attention and how you spoke of your depression once so perfectly —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Melancholy hits with fists. It is a bare knuckle barage until I'm bloody and morose, defeated and swollen </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and from any previous inclination of happiness, marauded and stolen.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Murdered of all apetites, belittled, bed-ridden and savagely bitten.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My eulogy, will leave its audience depressed as me, if adequately ever written. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours, she pounds. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Her funeral was in an hour. So I left the words alone. Left them as plainly as they were read</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and looked out at her other lovers, and read what she wrote, what last words she must have, without me, said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wondered if she had ever said those words to any of them —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">various forms of the lowliest of men. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Desperate scoundrels and unscrupulous thieves of souls —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">fat, goofy, licentious, odd in some unenchanting way, buffoons, obtuse, odious fools.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But they weren't there at all, those villains and rogues who had their way,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or who sought to inveigle from her that which they could never repay.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I simply saw them from memories of seeing them in passing, or in images on her phone.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't know if it would have been sadder if they had come, or that they didn't and left her, at last, alone. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Where are all your lovers now, that you would expect to pay respect to you that they didn't ever have or keep?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">To mourn you in a casket for that eternity they swore they would adore you, yet where they now let you, at last, sleep.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And here before me you lie in full and complete dress </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">not sending nudes, no longer precarious and naked in inebriated states of mental duress —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Where have they all gone, my darling?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">All those fine and loyal men, such that they were in all of their lubricious invasions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There ought to be a line out the door for you, of all your men and their ridiculous persuasions. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But not a peep from one, there is no one but me to weep.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I would be civil but civility would be libelous and these empty seats are but that which you, my darling, reaped.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I didn't say that which I ought, that which was so richly deserved after I spent five years so reserved.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I spoke of only this and that, those times when you were sane, and happy, as though I sought to perserve </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">something that was bound to fall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Some grand delusion, that which you cast upon me, that which wasn't ever at all. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yet, how sickly I became without you, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">the thought of you ferried to hell.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The thought of myself lonely, living alone with only the scent of you left for me to tell that you ever were here at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">How quickly "what is" becomes "what was,"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">is what disturbs me most. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And that night I returned to my house cast with such a pallor that one might have mistaken me for the ghost. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And I lied in bed, neither alive nor dead,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">my eyes fluttering as the evening died outside of that window where you were before,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and as I smell your hair on my pillow and your skin on the sheets, you come no more. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And a tear rolls down the curve of my sallow cheek, to a pillow sodden by the heaviness of my looming death.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I died of a brokenheart, and like a house fly on a window sill or a poisoned mouse, I breathed my last breath. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A reprieve from life, so to see you once more </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and perhaps to better love you than I ever loved you before.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When it rains, my darling, it pours —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">no more. No more.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPk0WtTEkddhFpxqDzVT17uO9YfO_Gyy16-R9btyBvp8XSPG58iKSBbBPbq_bWVrLKFfQPMP4YVlcs4CJHprAxdR1GNDXs5-86Qheatxdk7x1pAIfD6vtkF_WblNKB9MZqmQvFTCuBdKg5vPl5OLO7tdmyjqavbQBFwzHXE0Yoz-HGDyC8eGN3AM9MIg/s894/FB_IMG_1677374567015.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="894" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPk0WtTEkddhFpxqDzVT17uO9YfO_Gyy16-R9btyBvp8XSPG58iKSBbBPbq_bWVrLKFfQPMP4YVlcs4CJHprAxdR1GNDXs5-86Qheatxdk7x1pAIfD6vtkF_WblNKB9MZqmQvFTCuBdKg5vPl5OLO7tdmyjqavbQBFwzHXE0Yoz-HGDyC8eGN3AM9MIg/s320/FB_IMG_1677374567015.jpg" width="258" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-13907556577031224392023-03-27T21:54:00.001-07:002023-08-16T16:24:53.129-07:00Hay Fever<p><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes when I am working, as I drive from one sales appointment to another between Salem and Canterbury, I find a place to pull over and jerk off. With the sun hiding behind a big fluffy cloud that reminds me of some obscenely pretty girl's hair from high school. An azure sky, which was the color of the dress she wore to prom, and though we didn't dance, I dreamt of it, and here I am enraptured with the thought of removing it, gently, though it doesn't go anywhere. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Sometimes it is in the parking lot of an obscure building that was once something that it no longer is. There are no cars around and the doors are shut. There is only darkness in the windows, some of which are shattered or cracked. I think of the people who used to come here when it was a church, or a department store, or whatever it once was. I think of a young woman in a Sunday dress with garter belts that are too tight and that leave a rosy impression upon her pale thighs once removed. I think of a girl who smells of coconut oil and who wears short shorts with no panties. With large black sunglasses chomping bubblegum, fingering herself in the parking lot to some Buddy Holly song with her barefeet on the dashboard of her mother's Chevrolet. Unambiguous, as memory is.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe it is a field of wildflowers where I park to avoid going back to the office to do paperwork because they laid the girl off who used to do the books. And in my thoughts there is some beautiful woman who seems to form instantly from a potpourri of clouds, flowers, sunlight and the bees that linger there, undisturbed until I pull in and stare at them so long that she comes to be. It is always more than what it is. And there I am, alone, yet straddling this beautiful woman in a field of wildflowers, on the clock, hoping she doesn't go away before I finish. Hoping another car doesn't pull up and take her from me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then, once relieved, I go back to the office and complain about my busy day like everyone else complains of theirs in various states of melancholic dissatisfaction, that fuck rag that I used to wipe away all those fulfilled and unfulfilled dreams buried deep in my pocket along with my secret affair with myself. I used to wonder why men carried handkerchiefs around in the older days. No one needs to blow their nose that damn much. Hay Fever, they once called it. But I know now what Hay Fever is. It is especially bad this time of year in the fertile spring. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They say my job will be obsolete in a few decades. There will not be salesmen driving here to there and there to here and stopping along the way for sandwiches, or for a fling with a girl they know in some small town. Or for a beer in some lousy bar. Or to pleasure themselves along the thorny road so not to forget they aren't just whatever doohickey they are selling, neatly packaged and stuffed in the trunk of life. Some disposable part, no different from a million others. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They say all of it will be handled by mail order catalogs and telephone operators who are currently babies and who don't know they will grow up to become telephone operators and order takers who will displace men like me. They say all of this on the radio. It doesn't bother me to be disused.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I started going to the same spot off my usual route more frequently, though well it has been said that variety is the spice of life and well I believe it to be true. It is full of wildflowers and gentle rolling grassy hills that remind me of a buxom lady who is bent over, perpetually taking laundry from a clothes line and placing it gently in a wicker basket like a lady who knows she is being watched. She was the lady across the street when I was a boy, but now she is this field.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then there was a pretty woman who pulled up beside me suddenly in a dark blue Plymouth. She said she was an artist at the university who liked sketching landscpapes and she offered a sketch pad and a set of pencils on the front seat as proof, though I didn't ask. She acted as though this were my field and she trespassed upon me. Because my pants were down around my ankles and I was exposed and butterflies and bees seemingly embraced me by flying near to my genitals. I couldn't have possibly expected her to suddenly be there, but, nonetheless, there she was.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was the start of an affair. An every Tuesday thing at noon before I went home to my meatloaf. If one of us couldn't make it, the other would wait for a while then leave, neither dissatisfied nor worried for it was nothing but sexual. I was sure it would make the papers somehow and result in some jealous murder when it was discovered. I never knew her name and she didn't know mine, but I called her Coquette, and she didn't protest. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The affair lasted well into summer. Everytime afterwards, I gave her that fuckrag to wipe up before she returned to school or wherever it was she returned to and then I interred it, once more, in my pocket. Then, as we parted, she smiled and said "Til Tuesday." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The entire summer it never rained on Tuesday, which I didn't think as being remarkable at the time because I didn't realize it. Then in August she said she was moving to Michigan. Her uncle died and had a rabbit farm which she was taking over. There wasn't a long farewell. No presents exchanged or a dinner invitation for either of us to akwardly decline. There was simply one final goodbye, which was, by coincedence, the way we said hello. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I went home to my meatloaf and my wife who was on the couch watching television which glowed with a pompous perfidy, all bloated and fat like an unwelcome relative who thinks too highly of his personality. The green wallpapered walls reminded me of nothing. The glass fruit in the fruit dish mocked me. My wife had some sort of pulse, still, yet I wasn't sure. I barely garnered a hello and it had long since passed that she asked how was your day, sweetheart. Endearing terms, long since extinct. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There she was smoking, rifling through the pages of an absurd magazine. It wasn't that she was callous at all, or intentional in her boring behavior. It is only that it became a part of her, and at some point she amalgamated all too well with the polyester drapes and the wallpaper and the shag carpet of domestication. She became the glass fruit bowl and the meatloaf and decorative candlestick holders. And maybe I was overreacting but I was desperate to not be so churlish about it for perhaps I was too that way to her. I had become my job. My pipe. My slippers, and my lawnmower. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I lied in bed and read a book, far from her blaring TV. When she came to bed, a drink jingling in her hand, per usual, she said she had noticed my handkerchief was particularly saturated when she emptied my pockets to do the laundry. For a moment, I panicked, fearing I had been figured out, my affair exposed. I was usually much more careful with my fuckrag than to leave it in my pocket. There was typically a ceremony of me washing it out and hanging it to dry. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You want me to call the doctor and get you in about your Hay Fever, Jim?" she asked sympathetically. "Honey?" A rare term of endearment wasted, as I played opossum, pretending I was asleep. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She finished her drink, had another cigarette, grumbled about something or other, put the empty glass on the night stand, and went to sleep. Then, as the ice collapsed and dissolved in her glass, I dreamt of a rabbit farm in Michigan.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLmtvpG4IkfzemvhfmBZxHjCHmXOJma1N-_8TBqEGZ3DwZHzmOa6AaH-QcCF731-UInSLWkB2CvRoPYZVsDfWmAzgd4IBAEADglg97LAErYKn6Zb-aORVCt34xlUEvr9TZjphfQQgmLCYmVCjnTkju7hzJO3LhwLE7sYbLQLkCgkwabrCgskjnZpcyw/s960/FB_IMG_1673124775541.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLmtvpG4IkfzemvhfmBZxHjCHmXOJma1N-_8TBqEGZ3DwZHzmOa6AaH-QcCF731-UInSLWkB2CvRoPYZVsDfWmAzgd4IBAEADglg97LAErYKn6Zb-aORVCt34xlUEvr9TZjphfQQgmLCYmVCjnTkju7hzJO3LhwLE7sYbLQLkCgkwabrCgskjnZpcyw/s320/FB_IMG_1673124775541.jpg" width="240" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-21197156173681673642023-03-21T22:40:00.005-07:002023-08-16T16:25:17.956-07:00The Irish Penny<p><span style="font-size: large;">There it was where we met, on two ancient rickety stools on aged walnut slats,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that had been stained with blood and beer across years, and the tears of old St. Pat's.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A lovely pidgeon she was, roosting upon that stool in an emerald-green dress, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and I adored her from the moment I saw her, and the clover pin she bore upon her breast.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was the first thing I said, to compliment it, and she boasted it was her grandmother's from Kilkenny.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had nothing quite to match it, but I dug deep into to my pocket and showed her my lucky Irish penny. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Does it work?" she asked eagerly. "Does it bring you good luck and wealth?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"It must," I requitted, staring at her. "Though I favor love and good health."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Aye, the beam in her eye when she held it in her palm, starin' down at that simple copper pingin,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as though it were made of gold, but then suddenly a barefoot lady started to singin'.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I straightend my tie and fixed my hair, unsure that I was suitable</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">for such a beautiful woman that she was, aye, and clearly so immutable. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They were the only two stools open, and mine nearly collapsed and fell.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Hers, it squealed when she moved and beside it on the bar tolled an obnoxious bell</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">when a drink was poured and ready to be served. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This, my love, this was the perfect place that was just for us, reserved. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then the fellow beside me spilled his beer, and the woman next to her drunkenly recited Poe.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And someone came in with a crying baby in her arms, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">looking for a man she had lost long ago.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And a man down the row threw up in his tophat, and someone on the bar claimed she was Peter Pan, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and more people poured in, donning their green, and we were like two happy sardines in a can.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We fell in love as the barefoot woman sang those tunes, and a portly gent played the Hospe,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and I drank her Jameson, rather than Bushmills, so not to lose her favor, and though I was a wasp. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Love trumps faith, it's true, and amid all this Irish anarchy, and drunken hullabaloo,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that night, the two strangers that we were vanished, and we became one who began as two. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She would joke later that we had no choice </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">but to fall in love in a pub that was so overpeopled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And shortly, thereafter, we sought the priest that would marry us, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">in the Holy Catholic church with the grey-slated steeple. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Years went on, fast as they do, as though old age is a rabbit and they are racing dogs.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And every year we sat on those same two stools, through fife, bagpipes, and a thousand dancing Irish clogs. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I, with my Irish penny in my pocket, and she wearing that Kilkenny clover pin,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I, in the same lucky suit I wore when I met her,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and she in the same emerald-green dress that she wore, where it began and where it begins every year again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They once talked of plowing that old pub in 72, until we petitioned the historical society,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and thus saved it, and the town from the misfortune of sobriety. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Father forgive them," we toasted in jest, "for they know not what they do."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But we knew. We knew and every year, without missing one, we sat there and drank and ate our Irish stew. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We had children, and then our children grew, and then we had grandchilden who grew, too, as they inevitably do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Who all knew that we favored that holiday, and why,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and who sometimes came along with us to that old pub, and drank, without a thought of the by-and-by. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">This year, I made it in at the ripe-old age of eighty nine. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My grandson bought the pub and fixed it up, naming it after something of mine.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It had all new spouts, a new floor, a beautiful copper bar and amber light,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">but I still saw it as it was, long ago, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">when it was not so fancy, yet wonderful despite. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And our two stools waited for us, restored, with a sign that said "Forever reserved,"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and there I hobbled in and sat where I was, sixty-four years a tradition, one more year preserved.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And the party went on, as it has over those blessed and wonderful years, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">with friends and family laughin,' eatin,' and drinkin' their whisky and beers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And music playin' all the old tradtional Irish songs,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">while I sat there and waited for my darling, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">who can no longer come along.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But I, with that emerald clover pin pinned to my heart, and my lucky penny in my palm, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">neither of each, I vowed, ever to part.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I don't see an empty stool. I don't see that at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I see only in memories, her smiles and kisses — </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I see everything I ever saw. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then our great grandaughter, respectfully asked to fill that seat, who is just twenty two,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and she smiled and kissed me on the cheek, and we both had a drink and a bowl of stew. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What do you think, pap?" she asked eagerly, of the pub and the picture near us on the wall.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And I looked up, there to see that beautiful lady that I see still beside me, for I see only what I saw. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Irish Penny, he named that pub, though he could have named it The Clover Pin,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">which I took off my breast and pinned to my great granddaughter's dress </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">for love doesn't end, it only begins. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And as I got up to leave, I handed her boyfriend that old penny, which is not mine anymore to keep,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">to let another love story write itself </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">for love lives, and neither dies nor weeps.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ifvDmBQHVaTrdAGAzXYCv8RjXyFC-LHM_9-DnwWdsrY1Aw4k-S-m-dlYDGwRSIxXfC5OLokNJnms3p4UzLhMesUFj1LaqUIGAW2gjsvlxtZn9hpnwYFrXePKrrDjNWB-CcTz1EdlTUxzv8Sg4uv2BACOcJNgm1A3JCYxgk4fuPSBmjkgnjnJ4LbDww/s800/lg_5666_Welcome_Advance.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="800" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3ifvDmBQHVaTrdAGAzXYCv8RjXyFC-LHM_9-DnwWdsrY1Aw4k-S-m-dlYDGwRSIxXfC5OLokNJnms3p4UzLhMesUFj1LaqUIGAW2gjsvlxtZn9hpnwYFrXePKrrDjNWB-CcTz1EdlTUxzv8Sg4uv2BACOcJNgm1A3JCYxgk4fuPSBmjkgnjnJ4LbDww/s320/lg_5666_Welcome_Advance.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-35738305431829498172023-03-07T07:48:00.003-08:002023-08-16T16:25:35.695-07:00A Gentleman Shark<p><span style="font-size: large;">Whatever we had, it was gone. I couldn't deny that. Maybe I imagined more than there was, or longed for it so greatly that I, for a time, loved enough for two — surely an unsustainable model for an affair of any sort. But we had exchanged such beautiful and personal letters the likes I had never had with anyone before that I had great difficulty while conducting the necessary autopsy of our brief association to believe it was fictitious or contrived. I still have those letters as evidence.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She works at the post office — Ms. Emma Vail. I had been going there for several months before I courageously handed her a daring letter. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Would you like a stamp for this?" she smiled as prettily as ever, looking up at me through her thick eyelashes. It was our usual exchange. It had gone on for months. I'd hand her a letter and the three cents, she would pull a stamp off the roller and affix it appropriately. Three Abraham Lincolns and the portrait of George Washington that hung above her head, witnessed our affair. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"That will not be necessary," I replied nervously. Suddenly I felt ill, as though it were a bad decision, but it was too late now. "This one is for you."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I flipped it over and it had her name on it — with no address. Just her beautiful name in my very best cursive written ten times over on ten different envelopes until I settled on one. She smiled, awkwardly at first, but then she eased into the satisfaction of it. I had been to the post office at least twice a week for the past two months to buy individual stamps to mail letters to people who probably didn't care much to receive a letter from me. But who were anyway my reluctant penpals because I had to have a reason to come to the post office to see her. Quite simply, I could have bought a book of stamps, surely she must have known this, but it would mean I wouldn't see her as often. The entire reason I wrote letters at all was to buy stamps from her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The post office was an enormous old building. The kind of building they don't construct anymore. High ceilings and enormous grand pillars. Marble floors and ornate sconces. There was a large painting of a chestnut-brown horse on the wall, unsaddled and unbridled, who was standing in the middle of a lush kerry-green pasture. That horse and I were aquainted. As I stood there in line, in formation dictated by the snake of a red-velvet rope and the brass poles it crawled through, I hoped that it would be her window that would be open when it was my turn. If not, as it happened sometimes, I would allow the person behind me to go on, feigning some sort of confusion with either my mail or a misplaced wallet, which wasn't misplaced at all, of course, but which was an act so that I could be called to her window. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hello, Emma," I'd say each time. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hello, Mr. Maddox," she replied in turn with her usual smile. I pretended it was a smile reserved for only me. That there was a degree of radiance in that smile she offered me that she didn't offer anyone else. That the corners of her mouth curled a little higher and the sparkle in her eye was a little deeper like that in a well full of coins when a light hits it just so. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You can call me John, if you wish."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Mr. Maddox," she replied. "I don't think I could ever refer to you as anything other for I do like the sound of it so well. Rarely, in the course of a day do I get to use the 'x' sound which is my favorite of them all. This job can be rather dreary," she whispered looking over at the grim unnaturally gray lady next to her that resembled a walrus in a blue dress. "So I take my pleasures as they come."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I chuckled. And so this went on for several months. My strict formation in that line. My posturing to make sure that I got Emma, which I did each time without fail. My admiration of that post office and the horse painting. The three Abe Lincolns and George Washington above us. It went on and on until I boldly gave her that letter in which I confessed my desire for her. The next week I came back to buy a stamp for a letter to my mother who lived in Nantucket, and before I left Emma gave me a letter of her own, which she furtively pulled from under the counter. It was as though we were passing top secret documents, and if discovered, we might have both been sacked. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"A letter — that needs not a stamp," she grinned at me, proudly poetic. I was sure in that instance that this particular smile was in fact exclusive and reserved for me. Beneath two fingers, the nails of which were daringly painted pink, she slid the letter across the marble counter and through the little slot. For some reason, like it was a bank, each window was barred. I took the letter with great enthusiasm and quickly buried it in the inner-breast pocket of my coat where I was sure not to lose it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then at home, I tried to not open it, to keep it sealed for as long as I could, and thus to prolong the suspense of it, to possibly imagine more than there could be inside of it. I layed it on the table. I looked at it. Smiled at it. Smirked at it. Had dinner with it. Surely, I wanted it to say more than it likely would, I reasoned. But when I finally opened it, it didn't fail to impress me in such a way that left me hungering for more. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We exchanged only a few letters, but each of them had great meaning and I asked her if she would like to go out and have coffee, or a drink, or dinner. Anything at all so that I might see her from something other than across a counter or behind those bars. She agreed, and I thought all was well. I thought I had at last found that woman I had long been seeking. The one the others turned out not to be. I am, indeed, a rather ordinary man, but my dreams were wild and my romantic aspirations had welled up inside of me for so long I simply don't know how I had managed not to bust at the seams. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Our plans never came to fruition. The next time I went to the post office with a letter for her, she accepted it, but not in the eager way she had done so before. She hardly looked at me at all. She sold me two stamps for letters I was sending to my brother in the Army and my mother in Nantucket. The contents of that letter to my mother was simply, "Hello Mother, I am simply writing you this letter so I had an excuse to buy a stamp from the girl I told you about. Hope you understand. Love, Johnny."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But Emma didn't show any particular interest in me that day. Nor did she have a letter for me. I was just any other ordinary man to her, it seemed. I asked her if she would like to go have dinner Monday, but she declined, offering a simple, "I don't think so." The mind searches for reason even when there is no reason to be had, just as we sometimes speak even though no one listens. We all crave love, even when we have been heartbroken. We all want ears to hear us and kindness to soothe us and grace to abound us. We all want love to affirm us, if only so that we do not feel so alone. She was cold and indifferent to me as I stood there. She took my letter, but it wasn't as it was before. She didn't immediately place it in her bag and smile. She took it and tossed it somewhere beneath her counter as though it were a scrap of paper that I had asked her to dispose of for me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Two stamps, please," I requested in a state of sudden melancholy that I had never known before in her presence. She handed me the stamps and said six cents. I gave her a nickel and a penny and she scooped them off the counter and deposited them in the register and shut the drawer. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't know what to say. I was speechless. "Would you like to see Peter Pan with me? It's Disney's latest —"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm much too busy for that sort of thing. Will there be anything else?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No. Thank you, Emma."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I walked home dejected. It was as though she were another person entirely. What had happened to the beautiful one who stole my heart? Who had expressed at least a moderate interest to meet outside of the post office? Perhaps there was someone else. Or maybe she didn't favor something about me that she hadn't noticed before. Maybe my clothes were too casual or I was too poor. So I sought to remedy both things immediatley. I cashed in a bond that had been willed to me and I took a better paying job as a professor at the university, which paid twice as much my beloved job teaching high school English. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I bought nicer clothes. I bought a good cologne because I read that much of our implicit response to someone else is in the nose. Phermones and such. I went back, hoping her mood had changed. Hoping she would seem happy to see me, but she was not. She hadn't budged. I was to her something less than I had been before. I was just another customer buying stamps making her day a little busier than it was. Despite my clothes and the fragrance of my expensive cologne. Despite the large bills I whipped out of my wallet for three cent stamps. Despite whatever elaborate story I tried to tell her that day, nothing at all seemed to impress her. She was as unimpressed by me as that horse on the wall in that kerry-green pasture was of the post office it hung in. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then I had a sudden inclination that it might be my hair. I had recently cut my hair short and after I attempted to style it as normal with the cream I've alwasy used, it appeared to be thinner than I ever recall it being. One of casualties of age, I suppose. In retrospect, I thought I did notice her looking at it that last time when she seemed happy. I quickly became convinced it was my hair. I watched movie upon movie in the local theater and all the leading men had luxurious and styled haircuts full of thick hair. But what could I do? A wig would be too obvious. A hat would be improper. A gentleman doesn't wear a hat inside a building of any sort, let alone, a federal post office. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The answer came at the local drugstore. There was a bottle of pills they sold, Neptunic, a brand-new product that promised results in 30 days. Thicker, fuller hair, or your money back. So I bought it, though ten dollars seemed an exorbitant price to pay. I convinced myself it was a down payment on a happily-ever-after and that it was probably that expensive because it actually worked. They said it was made in Japan and perhaps, my mind wondered, it was one of the inadvertent side-effects of the atomic bomb that was dropped just eight years earlier. It didn't seem that far-fetched. Maybe there were a bunch of hairy people running around Japan these days. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I kept going to the post office to see her. Although she wasn't apparently moved by me, or interested in the least, I was moved by her and interested, nonetheless, perhaps the way an undertaker is interested in the beautiful young corpse of a love he never had the pleasure to meet while living. But I kept the dream alive inside myself that maybe she would change her mind and revive like Frankenstein's monster on the slab of her indifference. One day she might smile at me the way she used to. Maybe she would smell my cologne and wake up from her slumber. Or notice my new clothes and be impressed. Or perhaps the stubbles of new hair that grew through the thinning forest of my once proud mane, might help her reconsider. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The Neptunic appeared to work. I gave my scalp serious inspection nightly and new follicles of growth appeared. I decided to double up on the dosage, so to hasten the results. After several weeks there was quite a noticeable improvement and I was impressed by the way that it only grew hair on my scalp and not on my back or in my nose and ears and other undesirable regions. It was almost too good be true. What started as peach fuzz quickly turned into a thick head of actual hair. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I hadn't given the ingredients any consideration until a good friend and fellow professor at the university named Dick asked me, "Say, Johnny, what's in that stuff?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I don't know."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Why you taking it for?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"To grow hair."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You don't look bald to me," Dick countered. He was bald though. Balder than a bowling ball bald. To a bowling ball, I wasn't going bald. It's relative. But to a young attractive woman who works at the post office, surely I was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I read the bottle and realized that it had some usual ingredients, to say the least. It had something labeled as MarineEMG — which was the key ingredient. It took me some time and research to find out that MarineEMG is an ingredient that is made entirely of shark testicles and concentrated shark muscle protein. This made no sense to me, considering I've never seen a hairy shark and could find no record of one, not even from the prehistoric-era. The second key ingredient that it had was horsetail extract, which made more sense. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I didn't think much of it. Dick asked me again what was in it and I said it was "all natural stuff." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then the night sweats came. I was okay with it for a while. I simply threw the covers off me and opened a window. I bought a fan. But then a painful and sudden deformity swelled on the back of my neck. The tumor-like mass grew so large I had to wear a scarf to conceal it. I thought it was a side-effect from the pills. Or maybe it was a cancerous tumor, but it didn't stop me from taking them. I needed hair to attract Emma, I was sure, and I would do whatever I had to do to get it. Whatever type of ailment that it was, surely it would subside. It was probably just some kind of seasonal allergy affecting my lymph nodes, I convinced myself. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then, while eating lunch, I accidentally bit myself and drew blood. I nearly took off my right index finger. So I went to the doctor and they stitched me up, saying they'd never seen anything like it before. After closer examination it appeared that my teeth had grown sharper, and an extra row began to emerge from behind the first. Feeling like a freak, I concelaed it from the doctor. They were sharp, pointy, triangular teeth. He asked to see my teeth, but I shook my head no. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was about this time that I noticed a dramtically enhanced sense of smell and found that I had an uncontrollable hankering for fish so much so that if I didn't pack tuna in my lunch, I would drive over to Thimmes' Fish and eat everyday. I was eating there so often the owner felt obligated to warn me about the dangers of mercury poisoning from eating too much seafood so that I couldn't sue him if I went nutty, as he said. I had to sign a waiver. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Around the next day, that tumor on the back of my neck revealed it's true identity. Much to my relief it wasn't a tumor at all. It turned out to be a dorsal fin. My God, I realized smoking my pipe that evening, regarding my changed self in the mirror — I was turning into a shark. I could smell fish from a mile away. I had an irrepressible urge to bite things. I impulsively bit two students but spit them out and the university, without acknowledging that I was turning into a shark, convinced me to take a leave of absence until I felt like myself again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I ordered groceries from the market because I couldn't go out in public as my condition worsened. What hair I had fell out, but a very elegant horsetail sprouted out from right around my tailbone. Then my skin turned silver and my eyes turned black. My freezer couldn't hold enough fish, so I dug a large pond in my backyard and had it stocked with various catfish, bass and trout. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wrote my mother a letter telling her not to worry about me, but trying delicately to explain my condition, yet finding it impossible to do. "I've seemed to developed sharper teeth," I wrote candidly. "Something triangular has grown on the back of my neck and I find it very difficult to breathe air. I've taken up swimming and sometimes swim twenty hours a day. My eyes are darker than the last time you saw me. And I am on a new diet of fish, which they say is healthy. Brain food. But all else is satisfactory and normal," or so the letter went. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I couldn't go to the post office and let Emma see me this way, so I wouldn't be able to buy a stamp. I'd have to have someone go for me so I called up Dick, and like a good friend, he came over straight away. I opened the door just enough to hand out the letter and the change for the stamp. But I nearly bit his arm off when he stuck it inside to try to get in, saying he heard all about me and just wanted to help. He said he saw me through the window and that it was a miraculous metamorphosis.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"There's no helping me, Dick!" I gurgled. 'I'm doomed! My condition has worsened and continues to decline so much so that all I do is swim in my pond and eat whatever unfortunate fish that swims near my mouth. Oh, Dick! Don't tell anyone! Whatever you do, tell no one I am so unfortunately afflicted!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I wasn't swimming in my pond I was milling around in my bathrobe, smoking my pipe. Fortunately, it was summer and hot because I wasn't sure I could take the cold. Nothing further changed. I still had all my extremities from neck down. I still had the horsetail that whipped around when I was excited. I decided to take up painting pictures and I did a self-portait. I decided to write a last note to Emma and to ask Dick to deliver it. But I couldn't find the words to say, so I didn't. I wasn't interested in her anymore. All I wanted to do was to watch television like a normal person and eat things. I felt so cold-bloooded. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next morning, a large van pulled up in front of my suburban home. A camera crew and someone I vaguely recognized spilled out of it nearly all at once. Then another car pulled up with men with cameras and a few women for sidekicks who looked confused and willfully dense —like the cameramen promised to show them something worth seeing and give them exposure in exchange for the obvious thing men desire from beautiful women — a quick dip in the pool, eh, guv'nuh. Then there was Dick traipsing across my lawn with a smile on his face and his hairless cranium glowing like a hundred-watt lightbulb under the morning sun. He seemed to be the organizer of the event and huddled everyone together in my driveway with his hands in the air as though he controlled them all like a fiendish puppet-master with a thousand strings tied to his prodigious fingers. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My nose was in the front window and I caught a glimpse of my great white head staring back at myself while looking out upon them. Dick collected something from each of them until a large black limousine pulled up and he seemed to forget the other guys in favor of this new visitor. It was none other than Ed Sullivan. How Dick arranged Ed Sullivan coming to my house, I didn't know. Then I realized, they were all here to see me. Not me. But the deformed version of my former self. My stomach complained it's usual early morning borborygmus and so I hurried and grabbed a dethawed halibut out of the fridge and stuffed it down my throat before the fateful knock which would come any second now. My mother would die if she knew Ed Sullivan was on my lawn. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I fixed my sweater and adjusted my tie. Checked my teeth for fish and wiped my chin of blood and thought to put on my hat, but decided against it. Then there was that expected knock. A very excited and cheery sort of rapping. I could hear Dick's nasally-voice pule from outside the door. I opened it and there he was, standing next to Ed Sullivan who gasped and took a step back as I stood there welcoming them inside. Immediately, the flashes of the camera bulbs and the shrieks of the women took over the tranquility of my quaint bungalow. Ed Sullivan's eyes were as wide as golfballs, and he still hadn't said anything. Dick proudly smiled and shook my hand and patted me on the back, talking me up like a car salesman would a used Chevy. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Isn't he fantastic, Mr. Sullivan? Didn't I tell you I had the goods? You can't get any better than this! Huh? Will you just look at him, for crying out loud! This is as good as it gets right here, and I am sure we can work out a fantastic deal for him to appear on your show!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Dick handed me a stack of checks, which is what the reporters had paid him to take my picture, unbeknownst to me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Johnny boy, I'll explain it all later. I know you would have said no, but you are a goldmine! It's all yours. I'll just take a modest 10 percent and we both can retire to Bermuda. You in the ocean and me in one of those all-inclusive resorts. Women in bikinis! All you can eat! What do you say, old man?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">At first I was overwhelmed. What could I say? Money and fame in an instant. It would be very anti-capitalistic of me to say no. To decline. In fact, they might consider me a communist and haul me away. Ed Sullivan cautiously approached me and poked my face with a timid finger while the cameramen all snapped away. Then he pinched my cheek to be sure it wasn't some sort of costume gag. Some kind of latex rubber suit. He is a man not to be duped. Satisfied by his inspection, he smiled and then he had his people come in and clear the herd of cameramen out of the house. They scattered like gazelles amongst a lion. He wanted the exclusive. He offered us top dollar. $10,000 for three appearances. It was an unheard of sum. Of course, we agreed. I signed papers before I knew it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You can do tricks, right?" Mr. Sullivan asked as he gently touched the points of my teeth. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I can eat fish."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He didn't seem impressed by my answer.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"He can eat living fish whole. By the bucket! While standing on two legs!" Dick added. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Alright, gentleman. I'll see you in New York. My people will handle all the arrangements and such."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had a desire to bite Ed Sullivan, but I suppressed it. A month later, we appeared on the show and it was a great success. So much so that he wanted to book us again. Magazines right and left put me on the cover. Time and Life both did a story. Scientists offered me hundreds of thousands of dollars to take my blood and to do research and studies. Movie studios wanted to put me in pictures with glamarous Hollywood starlets. Advertising agencies wanted me to do commercials, particularly, ones for toothpaste companies. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I became very wealthy very fast. I was rarely home, but when I was I liked to relax. A fence had to be built around my bungalow to keep people away. Not everyone was a fan, though. People who lost loved ones to sharks seemed to bear an incredible grudge against me, as though I had eaten their loved one. I tried to defend myself, but there was just nothing I could say that could make it right. They looked at me with horror. The gentleman shark, most people called me. Ed Sullivan bragged that he had coined it, but it was Dick who had first said it. On the way to New York. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then on a lazy Sunday when there weren't very many people crowded around my gates hoping to catch a glimpse of me and snapping pictures, I had a visitor. A lovely visitor. It was Ms. Emma Vail from the post office. She came to my house and stood at the gate and waited for me to arrive. I pulled up in a new black Lincoln convertible and she waved like a school girl might wave. I smiled back, giddy as a schoolboy, but realized my teeth might frighten her so I grinned and kept my teeth concealed beneath what I had left of lips. My stomach was a lepidopterarium of butterflies and I felt the way I always did when I went into the post office and bought those three cent stamps. Just to see her smile. I never really wanted or needed anything more than that. I suppose, one day, I just got greedy. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She was more beautiful than ever. I invited her inside and she acquiesced. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I saw you on Ed Sullivan!" she cried. She stared at me intensely. Even more intensely than she had ever before when she seemed interested. "I've always adored you, Mr. Maddox — I mean — John. I just — couldn't find the words to adequately express my — interest."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I didn't think you were interested at all. At first, I did. But then you changed."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Excuse me for being finicky," she explained as she stared at my enormous head. "I didn't lose interest, I — I just didn't know what I wanted. I'm young. I had to think things through. You know, I meet flirtatious men every day and — well. Well, I saw you on Ed Sullivan and I realized you were the one for me! You are going to be in movies they say! You might meet President Eisenhower! Or the Queen of England! Johnny, you're going places!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"So you want me?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She bit her lip and nodded her head as she grinned. It was a new face I hadn't ever seen before. Then she unbuttoned her dress and pushed it off her shoulders and it fell perfectly to the floor in a cotton puddle at her feet. And there she stood in front of me naked as the day she was born with all the progressions of womanhood, right on my living room rug. I wasn't ever sure how I would act if and when I saw her again. I had been so in love that I took pills I shouldn't have taken and became someone I really wasn't at all in hopes to impress her somehow. She was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined naked. Perfect as anything I had ever in this life seen, and probably ever will see. But it was all so overwhelming and sudden. It was the first time I'd ever seen her outside the post office. Without copper bars striping her. And naked, of course. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe I had become more cool than I really was because I was half shark. Or maybe the money and fame inspired some sort of confidence I never before had. Whatever it was, I shook my shark head no and told her that I appreciated her coming, and it was nice to see her again, but I believed her motives to be disingenuous. And although I dreamed of her coming back to me in such a dramatic way, or in any way, if I wasn't good enough for her as myself, as the good, yet, ordinary man I was, who adored her as I did, she wasn't for me at all. So I picked up her dress and handed it to her. Then she left, rebuked and undeniably dismayed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The effects of those pills wore off in a few weeks and I returned to normal. Scientists were baffled by my transformation, and my transformation back to my normal self. Some hoped they could understand it because surely they could have sold it to the military as a fantastic weapon that might have changed the geography of the world. Some amphibious soldier sort of deal that isn't permanent. My mother phoned me and told me she had prayed for me so she was giving God credit for my recovery, and herself for the assist. I never ate fish again. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I found love soon after. She was a check-out girl named Rose at the local market. I go there all the time buying small parcels of groceries so to see her more often. Sometimes, I forget the eggs. Or the bread. Quite on purpose. I took her to see "Peter Pan" and I fell in love with her in that theater, looking over at the glow of her smiling face lit up by the wonder of that colorful screen. And though I was again but an ordinary man, my affections were thankfully and adequately requited.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIecuinnlP1MQrsF6SwesXFRO3kQZH40MNm8XnWoqlSGUWBx-A0sIFr8KoLKbHkUTDUvueznVsMYRNDoByZqX_lgP4RsxqLN6DnG-5rC_ZiuZ3hKDOv_P2j3NJ3jnQIaKVYbUAvcMzhQVBZMCyUHYhvk8RrfgNYRGOxtA9OVHFoBt4GRHBOlziqcQLwQ/s720/images.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="534" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIecuinnlP1MQrsF6SwesXFRO3kQZH40MNm8XnWoqlSGUWBx-A0sIFr8KoLKbHkUTDUvueznVsMYRNDoByZqX_lgP4RsxqLN6DnG-5rC_ZiuZ3hKDOv_P2j3NJ3jnQIaKVYbUAvcMzhQVBZMCyUHYhvk8RrfgNYRGOxtA9OVHFoBt4GRHBOlziqcQLwQ/s320/images.jpeg" width="237" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-41560907347689892172023-03-05T15:32:00.003-08:002023-08-16T16:25:57.182-07:00Black Pussy<p><span style="font-size: large;">A while ago, I was showing a veteran his new apartment across from Bay's Food Market. There was a sign on the building I never noticed before that read "You can't beat our meat," which I thought was clever. I like things that rhyme. Somewhere inside me there lives a Robert Frost making rhymes about my bowels and my esophagus and possibly my urethra. But as I was distracted by the sign and the sudden noise of large military helicopters flying in formation overhead, a black pussy darted across my path. She did so flagrantly, if you ask me. I couldn't have avoided her, but she certainly could have avoided me. She took a deliberate route right in front of me. There was no doubt about it. A few minutes later, the cup holder in my car fell off its mount and a half-full cup of coffee spilled all over my center console and splashed all over the knee of my new pants. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Chinooks, I learned later, was the name of those helicopters. They haul troops and are prone to crash. If one was a defense attorney for that particular feline noir, they'd argue that the helicopters startled the pussy who, thus, ran unintentionally across my path.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Sonofabitch," I groaned.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I took the baffled client back to the shelter and went back to my office, shut the door, and canceled my other appointment in Logan. I had plans that evening, but canceled them, too. I took the most direct route home from work, put on my pajamas and went to bed to avoid any catastrophes. Then I thought of it as I was lying there with the blankets over my head. I wondered if the black pussy has a social worker superstition. I wondered if she went home and canceled her appointments, as well. I hope she avoided catastrophe just as I did. I hope she wasn't struck by a car or eaten by a dog. I bear no grudge in particular against black pussies. I'm just superstitious, is all. My superstition even precludes me from referring to them as their more common name, as well, a word that I haven't said in years. Just saying it gives me the willies.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My phone buzzed later on. It was the lady, Charlie, who I had plans with that evening. She sent me a sad face emoji followed by two broken hearts. Her real name was Charlene, but when we met in line at a Home Depot in Canal Winchester, she explained that she preferred Charlie. Charlene was an aunt whom she was named after. Charlie was a beautiful woman. She was thin and short and had an electric smile. She texted and said she was upset that I canceled on her so suddenly and didn't think she would be able to be free again for a while because of her kids and the situation with their father, which was vaguely explained to me when we first started talking. And again when we met in the backseat of my car outside of her townhouse because her kids were inside sleeping and she is loud, so she said, so I found out.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She asked if we could talk on the phone and against my better judgment, still under the hex of that black pussy, I said yes. Nothing good would come of that conversation, I knew, but what is the worst that could happen, I thought. So she called and said me cancelling had given her more time to think about things. She said she had fun the few times I had come up to see her, but she wanted more than just that. She said she was going to try to work things out with her ex for the benefit of their two kids. She didn't want to reschedule the date. She said her leg could have fallen off and she would have kept the date with me — that's how excited she was about it. But I cancelled — for a headache — which ruined everything. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Its just not in the cards," she pronounced gravely. "We weren't meant to be together, I guess." She went on about making time for those who make time for you and priorities and such — things I read women posting about on Facebook nearly every day because whatever dirtbag they were dating proved to be a dirtbag, through and through. There literally is nothing worse than women whining on Facebook about some guy, probably on drugs and who doesn't work, who was never worth a damn to begin with. What it amounts to, in all actuality, is an unintentional critique of their own bad judgment. Men do it, as well. They go on and on about "lessons learned." I could have told you that she was whore to begin with, I always want to say. If ever I write a book, that will be the title — I Could Have Told You She Was A Whore To Begin With.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I shouldn't have agreed to the call. I should have told a better lie than claiming I had a "terrible headache." I thought Charlie was the one. The sex was great. She was beautiful. Smart. Witty. She had a good job and we had many common interests. It was too late to tell her about the black pussy. Maybe she would have understood, though, being that she said she had Creole in her blood. Maybe I would have succeeded in making an argument of logic and reason based upon my superstition. But it would be admitting I lied, thus, any credibility I had would be ruined. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So I stuck to my cards and simply apologized again and said that I understood, but wish she would change her mind. I hung up dejected and in a state of despair. I really wanted more than just sex with her. I'd never get another chance with anyone like her again. It was the end of the world scenario that frequently comes when things just don't work out. I was immensely attracted to her. It was an instant attraction from the moment I met her. And although we never had a single official date, I was in mourning. In my attempt to avoid it, the curse of the black pussy struck again.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Almost to mock me, the local high school was doing a production of "Puss in Boots" and there were signs all over town about it. The universe had aligned itself against me and was rearing its ugly head, mercilessly beating me to a pulp. 24 hours later, the curse wore off and I messaged her a few times, begging her to reconsider, but no reply. So I hired a girl who sort of looked like Charlie. I told her to call herself Charlie, but her hooker name was Aaliyah, and she seemed kind of miffed and looked like a perturbed peacock when I asked her to trade her proud name for something as pedestrian as "Charlie." But then she said to hell with it and we carried on in the backseat of my Mini Cooper the way Charlie and I had those few times, but it wasn't the same at all. I hired her one more time and tried it again just to be sure I hadn't done something wrong the first time or caught her on a bad day, but that time was even more disappointing than the first, so I gave up on her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then I went to a strip club and sought out a girl who looked somewhat like Charlie and tried to get to know her as much as possible. But I didn't have enough ones, and I wasn't particularly impressed with the "talent" she boasted of which was ass-clapping, nor of the butterfly she had tattooed in such a way that when she performed her talent, it was as though it's meaty wings flapped futiley. It didn't fly away. The body of that butterfly was lost in the abyss of her crack. The sound of her ass cheeks reminded me of the thunderous propellers of those Chinook helicopters and there was a sign in the bathroom that said, "Don't beat your meat," which reminded me of the day I was cursed near Bay's Food Market. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">When I told her that I was upset over a woman, she offered to do something more for fifty, her "real talent," as she billed it, which she said would permanently erase all other women from my mind. Enticed like a kid at a carnival for a moment, I pulled out a fifty and looked at President Grant and President Grant scowled back at me the way a father might and so I declined. I said goodbye to her and she said, "Goodbye, sugar," stuffing the thirty seven dollars I'd given her like my broken dreams into her frilly garter belts. She was completely oblivious to my dissatisfaction and quickly moved on to a skinny Asian man who looked like a wealthy pencil and who had a stack of ones in front of him, indifferent to George Washington's scorn.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I had one last trick up my sleeve. I decided to invite Charlie to the place I intended to take her. A fancy restaurant in town. Fancy by local standards, but moderatley so if it were in Columbus or Cleveland or somehwere like that. She was excited about going after she looked it up online, and maybe, if I just said I would be there waiting for her, she would show. How desperate, I felt. How terribly desperate. Yet, the Robert Frost inside me was writing in wonderful rhyme about all my hopes and dreams, firmly camped somewhere in my cerebellum. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She replied back and said she would think about it, but she wouldn't promise me anything. "Gerald and I have been talking..." she texted. Gerald was her estranged husband. What a stupid name. I couldn't believe I was being beat out by a man named Gerald. His last name was Ford, like the president. They had been married five years when he cheated on her with a friend of hers. Then the babysitter. Then a cousin of hers he met at a family reunion. Then some underage girl at Church's Chicken. All that didn't matter, though. She was apparently ready to give him a fifth chance. Wild oats, she called it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She would think about it was better than a flat "no," I figured, so I went and got a table for two and there I sat with a goofy grin on my face and wearing a bowtie that made me uncomfortable. I had a boquet of beautiful flowers, which the pretty waitress volunteered to put in water for me, surely vying for an increased tip in the end. I agreed and she asked if I was ready to order and I said no, I was waiting for someone so I just had a drink — a very stiff drink. But it soon became obvious she wasn't coming. I lost the election of her heart to Gerald Ford.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The waitress came back around a while later and didn't ask if I was ready to order. Rather, she sat down on the seat across from me and smiled sympathetically. She introduced herself as Katie. She was even more beautiful on a second look, I realized as she sat there, not in the capacity of my waitress anymore, but as a new beginning. A new door that opened just as the last had apparently shut. She said her feet hurt because she wore the wrong shoes. Then she stuck out her foot to reveal she wore black Chuck Taylor's. She had tattoos on her arms. Different things that caught my attention like angel wings, cherubs, and "777" on the back of her right bicep. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"What does that mean?" I asked, pointing at it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"The threefold perfection of the Trinity. 777 is a lucky number because it brings good luck and change into your life. Seeing it means that good fortune is coming to you because angels are reassuring you that changes devised by the Universe are going according to plan. So when people see my arm, it is a good omen for them. That makes me happy."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I smiled. The Robert Frost in my nostrils smiled, too. He wrote something immediately for her. He rhymed arms with charms. And eyes with highs. And lips with hips. She didn't say anything for a moment and neither did I. We were comfortable in the silence. But though we didn't say a word, we said many things. You can learn more about someone in silence than you can in speaking. Then she asked how I was doing in such a way that I knew she cared to know the answer. I exhaled sadly. That is all I said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm off work, obviously. Would you like to go have a drink? I'm usually not forward like this, but I believe you were meant to come in here. You were meant to be stood up. Forgive me," she smiled, "of my silly superstitions."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I was flabbergasted. I smiled at her and gave her the bouquet of flowers. We went to a quiet bar on the corner with old wood booths that croaked when you sat on them and nestled in. And as we talked and drank, I realized I agreed with her. It was meant to be. This was the way it was supposed to go. The TV over the bar showed pictures of those Chinooks, but there was no sound except for that of the music that played overhead on the jukebox — some Neil Young song of which I don't know the title, but that wonderfully fit the mood of the evening. I suppose one of those helicopters crashed somewhere, but I didn't want to think of that. I didn't want to think of anything else in the world other than Katie who sat across from me, most fortuitously. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We went to her apartment and she held the boquet like a baby and smiled. She apologized in advance for the state of her apartment, but when she opened the door and it was revealed, it smelled wonderfully and was clean. Then, out of nowhere, darted two black pussies who rubbed themselves on my leg and circled me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I didn't know you had —"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Cats?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Yeah. Them."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh, no! Are you allergic?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I looked at her in a moment of panic and something in her eyes quelled the fear and anxiety that nearly overcame me. Then it all washed away, as though it had never been at all. My infatuation with black pussy ended at that moment. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No. Not at all," I replied liberally petting both of them. "I happen to love — pussies."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I still couldn't say the word that begins in "c," but my adoration for her was greater than my superstition. She smiled and that night she purred as we made love and we have been inseparable ever since, all because of one black pussy.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWgsFySl3f2dNMGEOi89vX-GklJSxnrwp6S3Fg9CHzwWPxi3Ot4HvFZyJBz91OCWh79GmgRkIwcEoQHqSoB-Ym5vXOD82lRBeijigWLyEhMPz1bU92Tw3iPMhFWkCLdZQ45xFnSML7BpTNeyP2SaxFaC4CD-UrZWW09i1Yueb70uXr0ncydtCze5DaCQ/s692/0c1a1d8354c01a3d1c38a06329677504.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWgsFySl3f2dNMGEOi89vX-GklJSxnrwp6S3Fg9CHzwWPxi3Ot4HvFZyJBz91OCWh79GmgRkIwcEoQHqSoB-Ym5vXOD82lRBeijigWLyEhMPz1bU92Tw3iPMhFWkCLdZQ45xFnSML7BpTNeyP2SaxFaC4CD-UrZWW09i1Yueb70uXr0ncydtCze5DaCQ/s320/0c1a1d8354c01a3d1c38a06329677504.jpg" width="231" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-48765449129253059372023-02-26T09:13:00.007-08:002023-08-16T16:26:17.110-07:00He Was A Bold Man That First Ate An Oyster<p><span style="font-size: large;">I am an eternal optimist. It will never change no matter how long I am single or how long that I dream improbable dreams. Forever I will be this way. I am Jay Gatsby, without wealth, standing on a dock in West Egg staring across the harbor at the green light of an East Egg peer. I'm even more optimistic when I drink. "The world is your oyster," would be the vodka and oyster bar I'd open if I had the money to do so. I don't know where, but somewhere. I've been told by people that I didn't ask that it wouldn't do well in my hometown. Some people say I'd have to sell clams, too, or fish — if not chicken or pizza — in order to stay in business. And I'd also have to have beer and other liquors besides vodka. You can't exclusively sell vodka and oysters, they invariably scoff at the idea. But I've never been one to listen to naysayers.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The more I drink, the more attainable everything in the world is, including love and happiness, and that oyster bar, which I think of often when I drink. It is like the crown jewel of my thoughts. Damn tomorrow. Damn the money that I spend. It is well worth it for the few hours of euphoric bliss where I get to believe in the impossible. The world is too depressing to be sober all the time. People who don't drink are boring. They don't have any interesting stories to tell, and even if they are good company, they go home early and drink their milk and go to bed and watch TV. They don't ever confess anything outrageous, or show their human side. I like to hear people's secrets. Their dirty laundry. Who they hate. Who they love. I like to hear people laugh like they haven't laughed since they were a kid. Being drunk is like regressing to childhood. It is time in a bottle. A little drunk you are 13. A little more you become 9. Then so on and so forth until you get so drunk you are a baby again. I never go that far, though. I usually settle at 12. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's hard to love an oyster. They're damn ugly things, if you've never seen one. They have lots of eyes, but it's best not to think of their eyes when eating them. You can't look at them and have any feelings for them, I'm convinced, and it is said they don't feel anything at all. They're alive when you eat them in the halfshell, or you can eat them poached, boiled, smoked, fried, steamed, broiled or stewed, or served in some fancy way like Oysters Rockefeller — which would be my house specialty. Above the bar, I would have a menu with all the different ways they can be served. I thought to give the place a nautical theme, but then decided against it as being too clichéd, and thought better of a twenties theme. A speakeasy sort of oyster bar. Perhaps, I would serve other liquors and beer. But I'd be particular about it and there'd be no other food than oysters. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I dream this with the grin that is on my face right now as I sit in a midget strip club on campus that I didn't know to exist before tonight. I wandered into it somehow. It is a nice place. There is a lot of red velvet and higher-class clientele. Men who look like doctors and lawyers. But I sit alone at a table in front of a red hurricane lamp and marvel that it exists. And for a moment, I wondered how I got here because the last thing I knew I had a date that was going pretty well from what I remember. She was a beautiful lady and we were going from one posh bar to bar with a group of her friends when I got separated. My phone was dead and of no use. But then I recalled. I was bored by one of her friend's incessant dramatic ramblings and I saw a midget in white leather walking and so I pealed off the group and followed her into here like Alice followed the White Rabbit. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It has been years since I've been to a strip club. They are silly places. They're like diners with plastic food where you can sit and stare at cooks pretending to flip what is a rubber burger or silicone fries. Glass fruits in a fruit bowl. And despite not consuming a thing, you are expected to pay for it. Of course, you don't have to pay. You can just sit there and have an overpriced drink, but it is considered uncouth and whatever waitress approaches you to sell you that artificial bill of fare, will surely glower at you for offering nothing but a goofy grin when she offers you a lap dance or a trip to the champagne room. But these were midgets, human chihuahuas, and I was intoxicated enough (around age 14), to be interested. Nothing was half-price, as I heard someone ask. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Half the size, twice the pleasure, sugar," one of the strippers joked. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They didn't speak differently. I expected they'd have higher-pitched voices, but their voices were the same as anyone else's. Then a girl named Anastasia, or so she said, sat next to me and we talked for an hour. Our conversation was only interrupted by her periodically excusing herself to solicit other men for a dance, but she came back each time. She was Russian. She told me her real name, but I forgot it and didn't ask again. She was a real wet blanket. She kept going on and on about Ukraine and Russia. I told her the US was money laundering and wasn't interested in peace because there is no profit in peace, and she offered me a free lap dance for speaking the truth. I accepted because it would have been insulting not to. Then, annoyingly, she had me tell one of the bouncers what I told her and she stood behind me and parroted everything I said. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"See! He knows! Money laundering! Corruption! They're goddamn Nazis!"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But the bearded mountainous bouncer who had gray slicked-back hair, lip rings, and tattoos on his face, shook his head and scoffed, saying I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about and my buzz quickly dried up and it was too much to drink there so I left and ended up finding my date and her friends in a bar down the street and we made out in the back of the bar while some live band played typical passive-aggressive alternative/emo cover music. I was doing pretty well when the band began playing "I Will Possess Your Heart," by Deathcab for Cutie with the long bass intro and as my hand turned into Lewis and Clark in a rendezvous with her Sacagewea and our tongues wallowed around in each other's mouths like two tireless sumo wrestlers, all I could think of was how bizarre it felt when Anastasia gave me that lap dance. The rest of the night went as expected and I woke up home in bed on Friday morning with a sore tongue realizing I had to work but how I'd make some excuse to go home early to sleep — but how I never would sleep because something else would present itself — vodka, likely. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">My date left me a note on the table which read in beautiful and careful caligraphy, "I will possess your heart." I stared at it as I ate my Cap'n Crunch wondering if it was a warning or meant to be romantic in some way. I was completely sober when I turned on the TV and listened to the news and there was more bullshit about Ukraine and George Floyd and Chinese spy balloons and some wildfire in California and some books being banned and others being edited because they were offensive in some way and some drag queens reading books in public libraries to little kids. And two people were arguing on some other channel about sports and who was better than who and a bunch of women were bickering on another and on and on until I turned it off, regretting having turned it on at all. People everywhere have their noses shoved up everyone else's asshole as much as humanly possible in search of drama. Drama is the world's obsession. It permeates the news, sports, relationships, social media, and the workplace. It is nearly impossible to avoid, even if you just want to drink, make love, and dream about owning an oyster bar. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">About an hour into work I got bored and called the Russian consulate in Washington DC and said I would like to defect. I heard Putin's last speech and I was impressed. I thought his insight into the direction America is going was unfortunately and painfully accurate. I was surprised when they answered. I was even more surprised when the Russian US Ambassador got on the phone himself, cleared his throat, and spoke to me directly. He had a deep voice, as I expected. He left out certain uneccesary words. I could hear him jingle a glass, which I imagined was Stoli. He asked me all sorts of questions. Some were easy to understand, others were more difficult because of the thick accent coupled with my terrible phone service. How I long for a corded phone. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He said it was strange that I called when I did because they were all just sitting around talking about a good PR move and how a flock of American defectors might be just that. It would signify the end of western civilization, he intemperately proclaimed in such a grandoise way that I practically believed him. He demanded I take a picture and send it to him. I had one from the night before just before I went into that midget strip club and my phone died. I was smiling like a goofball. He asked if I had a beard and told me to shave it if so. "Beards are scrubby pretend manliness," he stated. He asked me if I drank Bud Light, craft beer, or White Claw. Hell no, I said. He asked me what I did for a living. "I'm a social worker," I admitted. He groaned. "I'm an unhappy social worker," I quickly added. "But I am a writer as well."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Oh? Yes? What have you written, comrade?" </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I told him. He didn't seem too impressed that I wrote love stories, but he said he could work with it, which I assumed meant he would lie and say I was an esteemed American writer who has seen the error of the American way of life. The handwriting on the wall. That sort of thing. He said someone would check out my credentials and call me back directly. Then he asked why I wanted to defect. I wanted to tell him about the strip club the night before and all that. The TV this morning. But I didn't want to go on and on. I didn't want to drag Anastasia into it, especially since I couldn't remember her real name. But then I wondered if she might have got some sort of referral bonus. Then that thought was beaten by the thought as to why the hell she was even here if she loved her country so damn much. So I gave a routine answer, as though I was reading it from a card. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"We are a sham of our former self. We died in the eighties. I'm not sure when. But I'm pretty sure it was when that pencil dick, George H.W. Bush, took office. He was a CIA man, you know."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He chuckled. "Yes. I know this — pencil dick."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I went on and on. I elaborated of my abhorrence of the CIA and the politicization of the FBI. The murder of Michael Hastings. Chiquita Banana. The Bay of Pigs. Operation Northwoods. MKUltra. We spoke about Oswald and the Kennedy assasination, of corrupt and stolen elections, both 2000 and 2020, to January 6 being pathetic orchestrated political theater, and of Ukraine being a front for arms deals and a Black Rock contract the way Iraq was for Haliburton. All the things Anastasia and I had discussed, and later the meathead bouncer. Then we shared Brittney Griner/WNBA jokes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He was impressed and surprised with my knowledge and open-mindedness. He said he thought all Americans were "androgynous dimwits who watch America's Got Talent or football in a catatonic-like stupor, drooling, in fast food comas, wearing pajamas to Walmart, soft as Pilsbury Doughboy." It was the sort of conversation that could have lasted all night. Over some Stoli. He asked if I was married or if I had a significant other. No, I admitted. I have no one — signifanct anyway. I thought of that note my date had left me. I could hear the bass intro to that song pounding in my ear drum. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"They're plenty beautiful women for you in Russia, comrade. Russia has more beautiful women per capita than any place in world." He went on and on like he was a car salesman trying to sell me a used Buick with low miles. He said he would have an associate send me a visa application and he would call me back tomorrow. Before he hung up, he asked me "Who is greatest writer of all time?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Nabokov, of course."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Good, comrade! I phone you tomorrow."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I realized I was walking in the footsteps of Lee Harvey Oswald. But Lee already had his beautiful Russian bride when he was framed for the assassination of JFK. Maybe I was being groomed for something similar. Maybe he wasn't really the Russian American Ambassador at all, rather, he was the CIA pulling the wool over my eyes. I wonder if Oswald thought the same thoughts. If he had an "Oh, shit" moment when it was too late to turn back — enter Jack Ruby. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next day I was working when he called. I was just thinking about Anastasia. How she had a tattoo, a tramp stamp, that read, "May life forgive us for..." something. I coudn't remember the rest of what it said, but it was written in the same sort of fancy caligraphy my date had written that note. I was drudging away in my sad social service office with bleak oatmeal-colored walls and flourescent lights like those in a pet shop. I was a middle man doling out government money for people having hard times or who were incapable of, or not interested in, self-sufficiency. I was laundering tax dollars. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wasn't a paid writer because I made no effort to be. Maybe I could be, maybe I couldn't — probably the latter. After all, I wasn't writing about the pretend social justice issue de jour, or my gay uncle Marv, or some "courageous" person having a sex change, or of the plight of anyone or anything. I was writing love stories. Heterosexual love stories that are sometimes bizarre and sometimes filthy and often offensive. That would not make good Hallmark movies at all. No publisher would touch me with a thirty-foot pole.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Come to DC," the Ambassador insisted. It was 12 noon, but I heard the same sound of the glass jingling as I heard the night before. "We put you on plane to Mother Russia."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then I suddenly realized that it wasn't so easy. I hadn't even told him about my dream of owning an oysyer bar. Could that even happen in Russia? As much as I might want to get on that plane and leave America to see what the East has to offer a fellow like me — perhaps a cabin in tranquil woods free of idiocy and bureaucracy; free of having to tell the IRS how much they took from me all year so they can decide if they want to take more; as much as I admire the culture and detest the cultural degeneration of my own where people walk around like sloths and pretend to be women who are men and men who are women and advocate to allow children to mutilate their bodies through irreversible hormonal therapy and sex change surgeries; where people find it necessary to define their pronouns, irritatingly; and where people listen to the annoying autotune of I Heart Radio just because it is new; where they blare music from their shitty rattling cars with purposefully loud mufflers killing my ears and fucking my peace; where they vote for corrupt politicians who blatantly enrich themselves while in office because all good Swifties vote left — what kind of person would I be if I went? If I left my family on this sinking ship simply because I didn't favor the current tide and couldn't see beyond it? I'd be one of those nefarious men who snuck aboard a Titanic lifeboat in drag — which was shameful back then when morality was such a thing. All these thoughts warmed themselves like gas station hotdogs in the rotisserie of my American head.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I heard his glass jingle again as he said, "Hello? Hello? Comrade?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I'm sorry, Mr. Ambassador. I can't leave. A man must go down with his ship."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He leaned back in his leather chair that groaned and he exhaled and cleared his rusky throat. The ice jingled again, which I considered could be some sort of mind control mechanism that just didn't take. "I understand. Americans are wishy-washy. But, I understand no less. A man must go down with ship. Those are true words you speak. For us all." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"And there could be another revolution. Of which, I'd love to be a part. Like Thomas Paine."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Thomas Paine. An inevitability," he agreed. "Good luck to you, patriot Peacock! Hopefully, CIA don't kill you."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He hung up the phone and that was that. Then I thought of two things, perhaps prophetically. Jonathan Swift's quote about oysters, which I planned to engrave on the mirror of the oyster bar someday that is already in full service in my mind — "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then, the other thing, which tumbled in directly after it. It was the face of that bouncer and the rest of Anastasia's tramp stamp. In beautiful caligraphy. It came to mind as she straddled my lap like a lithesome gymanst with her two little hands on the parrallel bars of my legs. It appeared for only a second, but I suppose I was meant to read it. I was meant to be reminded, one way or another — "May life forgive us for the times we didn't live it." </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So may it.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB1JkP1cvLLqChK-FHso2ypxiEaWlvBn_DuN9wXAaomzGoj-VfaMf_v9-2XBx4uuFgL6THQxD3ZGadkY138Ok_NsZfK9ufkFzjj5HQ90vqDY4K_0bEJAhumDtXdHPTo0kD1DmxQzhnOm3hfqy6R3vtq7qv0bHH_Q5BRT4MldFAD0Bv7LIYfsos8uUVlg/s705/tumblr_mxltucQ88a1smyu18o1_r4_1280.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="705" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB1JkP1cvLLqChK-FHso2ypxiEaWlvBn_DuN9wXAaomzGoj-VfaMf_v9-2XBx4uuFgL6THQxD3ZGadkY138Ok_NsZfK9ufkFzjj5HQ90vqDY4K_0bEJAhumDtXdHPTo0kD1DmxQzhnOm3hfqy6R3vtq7qv0bHH_Q5BRT4MldFAD0Bv7LIYfsos8uUVlg/s320/tumblr_mxltucQ88a1smyu18o1_r4_1280.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><br />Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-52259422027557536652023-02-22T10:54:00.004-08:002023-08-16T16:26:34.835-07:00Please Send Her My Way<p><span style="font-size: large;">She's out there — somewhere, surely. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Probably took the day off work today because it rained</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and is sprawled out in a chair, upside down like the Apostle Paul.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Putting off doing the laundry,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">thinking of writing something or having a drink.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably talks to her cat as though he understands her about conventional wisdom. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He is a devout Catholic, after all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It's Ash Wednesday, he reminds her.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She sat the fish out to dethaw. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably converted her living room </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">to a makeshift library of books </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">she buys at yard sales and antique stores.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She likes the smell of the old ones —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">the vintage paperbacks and leatherbounds. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The other half of the room are albums, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">mostly 20s to 50s singers, crooners, big bands. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She loves Ella Fitzgerald best.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She loves Ted Lewis from Circleville</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and most anything vaudeville.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Yet, no matter how much she reads, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or to what song she listens, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">there is something missing inside her</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">as there is something missing in me. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We have both sought to fill that void</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">in various ways — most unsuccessfully. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She likely hasn't any money because she </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">spends more than she makes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She doesn't care, nor does she horde it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Social status doesn't mean a thing</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and she more than likely shops at thrifts. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There's probably junk mail in her mailbox</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">that she wishes were love letters, instead.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There are people dead she wishes were alive </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and people alive she wishes were dead. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She is probably generous to a fault</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and can't pass a Salvation Army kettle </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">without emptying her pockets —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">though she pretends to be cold and heartless</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">with an affinity for villainous bitches.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She is undoubtedly Christian, though she curses and has a soft spot for witchery and witches. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She is probably thinking about getting chickens —though she doesnt know what she'd name them if she did. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She might work in a bank or a gas station.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe she's a waitress, or a mortician and </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">we will meet when she embalms me.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Hello, mister. Finally," she might mutter with an exasperated sigh over my dead body. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe she is an exotic dancer or a palm reader, reading faces or hands. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe she sells cars, or apples.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It doesn't matter what she does, what she's done, or what she doesn't do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She is probably a writer, too, though she may not write anything down.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Probably an avid reader. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A lover of obscure music, dresses, the twenties and antiques.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She certainly prefers mom-and-pop diners over mawkish chains. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She likely doesn't trust the government, and knows nothing of capital gains.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She certainly abhors TV and commercials</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and artificial corn syrup and attention-seeking whores.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably has tattoos, though a few she regrets.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably has a line of former lovers, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">though one or two she forgets. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably doesn't have fake nails or fake anything at all.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably knows every scene of Casablanca and all the words to The Wall. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She's probably emphatically bored by boring people who —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">bore and bore and bore and do only what they're told to do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I bet she isn't easily impressed and doesn't care to text.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And she doesn't ever let a black cat cross her path, lest not be hexed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She likely doesn't pass a dandelion spore without trying to catch it to make a wish. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably scoops worms off the sidewalk after a heavy rain left them bereft.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She's probably conservative, but in some things leans left. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She surely likes drive-in movies and starry skies and favors the brutality of truth to the tenderness of lies. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She probably waves to kids on passing school busses, and admires old cemeteries and wrought iron. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She likely loves old people and old movies </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and loves to plant flowers and trees. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And surely she loves the ocean, but I bet she calls it the sea. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She loves to sled and ice skate, though she might be terrible at it, too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">And though she loves animals, I'd bet she doesn't like the zoo. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She loves all the seasons, but prefers the summer and the laziness of rain. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She loves to fly, but if she could, I'm sure she'd rather take a train. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I'm certain that sometimes she doesn't tie her shoes </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">and she doesn't do drugs, but she isn't likely to pass on good booze. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">We are not whole, as we are. We are two halves. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Two halves that have not if we have not each other. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Two useless things that dwell or linger, that do not properly function without the other. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Two doohickeys in a junk drawer waiting to be paired. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So we stay up late writing poetry or take the day off work and sit upside down in chairs,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">wondering things that we do not know. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Wondering, if and when our other half will ever show.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wonder if she stays awake and writes poetry, too.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or if she reads the loves stories I've written and posted for her before.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or if she lies awake simply wondering, with her hair sweeping the floor. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Or maybe we are not unknown and she is biding her time to make herself known. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe she knows well of me and is waiting to see something I do not know. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wonder if she is an insomniac and takes pills, </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or drinks tea to sleep,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">or if she slept all day and figures it is her penance to lie awake and to keep wondering. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">I wonder if we have met, but we just didn't know what to say —</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">if, for a moment, we faltered. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">If you know her, please send her my way.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiakHiWsig3zRdbvjU6g5Ago9tx0SN54epOo2WAfHNXp6YgPztYTfLaOC1KhdJwsfwRGxoO0PDH0bj3LUs1dlsAM8jLtodbKpDv5hmx-VAqNQoUmh8MSz9X5w1l5jQV1oHnJFORNg4QhHut4Dxnas5D8zoWM1qfRrGHFR0DXF9Bb626m2WkHBMwhSSg/s500/FB_IMG_1676733869562.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiakHiWsig3zRdbvjU6g5Ago9tx0SN54epOo2WAfHNXp6YgPztYTfLaOC1KhdJwsfwRGxoO0PDH0bj3LUs1dlsAM8jLtodbKpDv5hmx-VAqNQoUmh8MSz9X5w1l5jQV1oHnJFORNg4QhHut4Dxnas5D8zoWM1qfRrGHFR0DXF9Bb626m2WkHBMwhSSg/s320/FB_IMG_1676733869562.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><p></p><p></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6747030070811575341.post-55910295315544068862023-02-19T09:58:00.002-08:002023-08-16T16:26:57.514-07:00The Leaning Tower of Pisa<p><span style="font-size: large;">The Beaver Street Café is where Tom Lemon ate his lunch nearly every afternoon, Monday through Friday, for the past 12 years — since 1974. It was the highlight of his otherwise dreary day. Not that all days were bad, but some were worse than others, and lately, well, it all seemed to be going to hell because buying and selling fortunes, dealing in the misery of money and greed, was wearing him thin. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tom was a money man, but he couldn't care less for money. He was a stockbroker on Wall Street and it was fair to say he picked the wrong career. The Beaver Street Café was his hiatus and was just two blocks away and far less busy than the places nearby. There was something he liked about it. The ambience, perhaps, he might say. The humbleness of the building. The smiling neon beaver on the sign. The giant glass picture window that was always decorated for the nearest holiday. Or the more casual crowd that it drew. People that reminded him of back home. Or maybe it was the white and gold uniforms of the waitresses that made them look like hash-slinging angels. Waitresses that were actually friendly which — in New York — was quite the anomaly. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tom was a good man. He was also a very depressed man. He was depressed about homelessness and acid rain and space shuttles exploding, on and on. Good people are often depressed because the world is full of pain and filth through which it is very difficult to live, or even to see good, unless one has managed the art of dulling their perceptions or by focusing only on particular things like horses with blinders on. Happiness is the artificial sweetener they put in soda. It will rot your teeth.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Chasing happiness is like looking for gold at the end of a rainbow. It is why alcohol and drugs are prevalent. It is why prostitution is the oldest profession, and thriving still. It is why there are chainsmoking neurotics on antidepressants on practically ever street corner and pharmacies full of new pills that makes billions of dollars. It is why people visit porno theaters and jerk off, or engage in casual sex in sleazy motels, or see shrinks in Greenwhich Village. It is why TV sucks the life out of people who worship at its alter. People will do just about anything to feel good, even for just a little while. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tom didn't engage in any of that. But he didn't want to be a stockbroker anymore, for certain. He didn't know what he wanted to do or be, though he was 37 years into life. Maybe he wanted to die. Most nights of the week he thought of hanging himself in his apartment, but the thought of him hanging there for days until someone finally noticed, made him sick. He could practically smell himself rotting. It would probably be the smell that gave him away. There'd likely be rats piggybacking on top of each other until one reached his dangling foot and crawled up his body to eat whatever parts of a person a rat would favor. Perhaps, it was this thought more than any other that saved him. Altough he had never seen a rat in his apartment, he knew they weren't far and they would be attracted by the smell. He didn't want to be eaten by rats. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">One night he tied a noose and it still hangs between his kitchen and his dining room. He never bothered to take it down. He often hangs his next day's suits from it. On the nights he didn't think of hanging himself, he found something decent on TV to watch. An old movie that made him believe in love for a little while. On some Sundays he went to church and began to believe in something more until they passed the collection plate around, and then he believed, once more, that the world was all about money and that everyone was all about how to get it or take it from someone else and horde it for themselves. Everyday there was a collection for something. There was some athlete signing a contract for 100 million dollars. There were taxes on everything. Expected tips for everyone. Money. Money. Money. Money. On a daily basis he watched rich men get richer and poor men lose what little they had. If a man is not getting panhandled, he is surely getting taxed or nickle-and-dimed to death. It is the way of the world. C'est la vie.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Valentine's Day was never anything special to Tom. He was married once, but he would hardly call it a marriage. They went to college together and when she became pregnant, they got married as they were supposed to do. It was a script written by millions of miserable people before them. The child, the sole fruit of their union, however, died before birth and so for a couple years they carried on in their grief until they had it with each other and each other's misery. His ex-wife lives in Connecticut somehwere and is married to a podiatrist, he heard from someone once. She is an architect designing sterile buildings that are cost-efficient because there is no artistry in architecture anymore. They only build lifeless things. Anything worth looking at, worth taking a picture of, hadn't been built for at least forty or fifty years.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But it was Valentine's Day of all days and as he was having lunch as normal, he saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen sitting just twenty feet from him, or four tables over. She wore Chuck Taylor sneakers. She had a ankle bracelet on her left ankle and wore faded jeans and an oversized striped sweater. She had black hair that was pulled in a pony tail and she sat at the booth by the window and ate an omlette and sipped on a cup of coffee. Occasionally, she drew sketches in a sketch book. Sketches he could not see, but that he imagined.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tom was by himself, as always, in that nearby table. It was his usual table. His tie hung lose around his neck. He could use a haircut and shave, he thought, catching a glimpse of himself in the silver side of a napkin holder. What a terrible day to meet someone, in the way that he looked, he considered. He couldn't help but to look at her, in fact, he could hardly look away at all. He might use the excuse that he was looking out the window that she happened to be sitting in front of, if questioned by someone, but not one would question it. He had no interest in anything out that window. He had no interest in anything at all except her in that moment. She consumed his attention so entirely there was nothing left for anything or anyone else in the world. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He wanted to say something to her, despite his disheveled appearance. Something simple and ordinary, yet meaningful and witty. Give her some compliment that didn't sound terribly clichéd or come on too strong. But though he sat only twenty feet from her, he may as well have been twenty miles. He froze and couldn't say a word. He ordered his usual tuna fish on toast with a cup of French onion soup and ginger ale — a pickle on the side, of course. He had never been more captivated by a woman in all his life. Yet, there he sat waiting for his food as she finished her meal, paid her tab, and then abruptly left. It was as though she got up and walked straight out of his heart, leaving a gaping and incurable wound.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She had made eye contact with him once and it came with a complimentary smile. But it was the ordinary sort of smile she might offer anyone. The doorman at her apartment. The cabbie. The waitress when she brought her food and took the empty plate. The man in the street who begged her pardon for nearly running into her. Tom followed her out, telling himself that he would catch up and say something to her, but when he got outside she was gone — lost in a bustling sea of 12 million people or however many it is that walk these streets. How quickly it all had happened is what astounded him the most. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He didn't stop thinking of the woman. He hadn't seen a more beautiful person in all his life. He heard her speak to the waitress and the sound of her voice, her laugh, her cough, her mannerisms, everything about her matched some ideal he had in his mind that no other woman he had known before her seemed to meet. She was the kind of person one could feel being near, even if you could not see her. One you could smell, even if she wore no perfume. One you could taste, even if your lips never came near her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">A month or so passed and he religiously came for both breakfast and lunch just in case she was here for either (they weren't open for dinner.) He was always well-groomed and nicely dressed. Never unshaved. He made a special effort to be prepared. He became the most regular of all regulars. He learned the names of all the waitresses, the names of their kids, and even the cooks. Ernie was the owner. He lived in Queens. He was Catholic. Had four kids and a wife named Susan. Her maiden named was DiMaggio, though no relation. Sometimes Tom would miss an afternoon of work just to wait for her. Or he'd call in sick and sit at the café reading a newspaper. Waiting. He reluctantly asked the waitress who had waited on her if she knew her name, or if she had ever seen her before, but the waitress couldn't recall her — even with Tom's detailed description of her down to that anklet He was amazed that someone could ever see her yet forget her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It could have gone on that she never came back and eventually the hope that she would would fizzle and leave Tom even more despondent than ever before and to the fate of that noose — despite those lurking rats. It would be easy to imagine that she was a tourist from Oklahoma, or England. Maybe she was 10,000 miles away and never to return. Maybe she was happily married and had six kids and lived in The Hamptons. New York City is full of such interesting people. Or maybe this was just a one off. An excursion out of her ordinary routine. It could have been any of those things, but as much as fate didn't favor Tom Lemon in so many other things before, those ominous clouds parted for just a moment and fate favored him suddenly like it was an old friend. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">It was a rainy September afternoon when he saw her again. There she suddenly appeared as though she rose up from a puddle in a sidewalk. Not in the Beaver Street Café, but walking a block or so away. He saw her from a cab and yelled for the cabbie to stop. He threw him a crumpled twenty bucks and jumped out before the cab stopped and tried to catch up to her. She just crossed the street and he got caught at a red light so he practiced what he would say as he impatiently waited. The old lady next to him must have thought he was crazy. He knew it might be now or never so he had to say something even if he had to yell it across the street. His hands were clammy and his stomach hurt waiting at that long light to turn. Watching her fade away. She was a fast walker and walked with a sense of purpose. As quickly as she strode into his life, she was walking out of it even faster. Erasing herself from him. It cannot be this way, he told himself. All his life he waited for her and here she was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Then that "walk" sign mercifully appeared like a gift from God and he darted across that busy street like a race horse out of the gate. A taxi running the red light nearly clipped him, but he avoided it like OJ Simpson in that Hertz commercial, hopping over luggage racks, sliding up and over its fender. He followed her bobbing black ponytail and saw her disappear into a building. It was a brick four-story building that looked like an old firehouse converted to offices. He ran to catch up and saw her walking up a flight of narrow stairs. He thought to call out for her to wait, but that seemed too terribly desperate. He had the perfect words, he felt, prepared to say to her and he repeated them to himself as he once had repeated the Gettysburg Address to hismelf as a nervous fourth grader once upon a time. But they were falling out of his mouth. He was swallowing them. He was choking on them, letter by letter. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe she was late for an appointment and him interrupting her would be an annoyance. That wasn't the way to start things out. So he just followed her. She went into a room on the fourth floor. Perhaps it was a doctor's office. A million thoughts ran through his mind. Maybe he could pretend he had a doctor's appointment as well. But what if it was a gynecologist? Or an abortionist? He would pretend he was waiting for his sister. To give her a ride home. Her name was Lydia. He would have to think of something.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then he got to the door she had entered and there was a heart on it. A simple red paper heart. It was like a sign from God — a promising omen. He cleared his throat as he walked in, nervous as he was. Like he was on the first day of kindergarten all them years ago. The room looked somewhat like an elementary school classroom from his youth with things hanging on the walls and the lights the way they were, absent desks, with folding chairs in a crude sort of circle. There was a table where a coffee pot steamed, populated by a platter of cookies and little sandwiches and red paper napkins folded into triangles. Several people mingled there and casually grabbed something to eat, giving Tom a sympathetic look as he came into the room. There were more women than men. In fact, there were only two men to fourteen, no, fifteen women. There were crate paper streamers hanging in the rafters. Hearts dangling from the flourecent lights from twirly sort of strings. It looked like Valentine's Day, but it was September and the rain began to pour and thunder crashed. Tom looked out the window and down below in the street there was a swarm of colorful umbrellas that looked like walking mushrooms. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There she was sitting and talking to a woman who held her purse on her lap and who wore big eyeglasses. He didn't know what it was. He assumed it was AA or NA, or something like that. Maybe Love Addicts Anonymous. He had heard that was a thing. There were no signs to indicate, but it looked like some sort of support group so he took his seat across from her in the circle that wasn't much of a circle at all. He quickly realized it was shaped like a heart. Several people said hello to him and shook his hand. A lady gave him a name tag sticker and a marker to write his name. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Hello, my name is — Tom.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He could have been anyone, but he knew he had to be himself. If ever there was going to be anything between him and her, there couldn't be the slightest hint of dishonesty unless it was absolutely necessary. He looked across the heart to see if he could read her name tag, but it was not clear, or his eyesight from reading numbers all day long at work made it blurry. He didn't want to squint and stare for fear she would think he was looking at her boobs, though he didn't care about boobs. He was no Benny Hill. He'd have to be patient a little while longer. He developed a long game. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">An older lady took charge of the group and smiled obsessively, which was rather grim because it is unnatural to smile so much unless you're trying to bury some harsh emotions. Maybe it was some sort of group for people with bad hearts. Like congestive heart failure anonymous, if there is such a thing, thus, all the hearts in the room. The heart-shaped iced sugar cookies. The red crate paper streamers. The gloomy yet trying to be optimistic looks upon everyone's otherwise dour faces. Or maybe it was some sort of broken heart's club. He zealously thought if so, how perfect it would be. What a perfect setting to meet someone. He could cure her of a broken heart. He could fix her. Whoever it was that broke her heart never deserved her. He could love him out of her. Woo her to the point that whoever he was, he would become a bad memory until he was hardly a memory at all. He smiled, sitting there, thinking it was so. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">But then it was announced by the older woman with the mousey hair and pointy nose who sort of looked like an oversexed librarian, who wore a pink sweater, or was it a shaw? But she opened her mouth as though to nibble on the air and offered the group a big yet emphatic sad smile and said, "Welcome to the HIV/AIDS support group. I am — happy — to see we have a new member." Happy wasn't the word she wanted to use, but it was the one that came to mind. It was all there was. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She looked at Tom and grinned. Her face was hollow and frozen. Her eyes looked transparent. Then everyone else in the group looked at Tom and in varying degrees of happiness and sadness, smiled and some applauded as though he had walked on the moon. Some left their seats to go shake his hand and to give him a pat on the back for having the courage to come, but Tom sunk in his chair as he had in kindergarten that time he shit his pants and had to tell the teacher to call his mom. Then he looked at his beautiful lady and his heart broke. My God. She has AIDS. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He didn't have to say anything at the first meeting. He sat and listened. He didn't know anything about AIDS other than what he read in Newsweek, once, or what he heard on 60 Minutes before he turned it over to football. A Denver Broncos game, he recalled. He heard crude jokes in bars. He heard many things. He heard they created AIDS to get rid of the rats. To get rid of fags. That it came from African monkeys and experiments. No one ever talked about the blood transfusions. Those kids that got it. Or the old people. It was always some gay celebrity or someone in a bathhouse somehwere. None of that matters when you know someone who has it. None of that salacious gossip of how, imagining the worst story possible. Occasionally, they talked about people who were not there. There were empty seats where people sat last week or the week before. Some people sighed. Tom sunk further in his chair. He felt like a trespasser. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">There were no signs on the door so to protect the anonymity of the members, he found out. There were groups of people who might accost them. Some rock star on MTV wore a vulgar shirt dehumanizing those who had it. Some religious fanatics say it was God getting rid of gays for living in sin. But despite Tom feeling like a trespasser, he sat there. He drank coffee and ate those little heart cookies. And he listened. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Eat your heart out," one of those cookies read.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"We are glad you found us, Tom!" Gloria proclaimed, sort of desperately because of the empty chairs where once sat people. Gloria was a nurse who got AIDS in the line of work. A simple needle stick. She stopped short of asking Tom how he got it because self-disclosure was voluntary. No one had to talk about it if they didn't want to. You could disclose or not disclose anything you wanted, or nothing at all. Not everyone was infected because of some sort of hedonistic behavior. Life happens. Shit happens — just as the bumper stickers say. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Her name was Mary. A very simple and yet beautiful Mary. "Mother Mary," an older gentleman playfully called her. Tom sat there and admired her. He was no less infatuated because this was her life. In fact, the sadness of her obvious condition only endeared her more to him. It didn't matter to him what she had. She could have the bubonic plague and still he would pursue her. He would lick the fleas off her neck. Kiss the rosie. He would nurse her to health, or comfort her in death. He would follow her. Never revealing that he never had it. He could make up a story of how he got it. She would neber know. She could be dying tomorrow and still he would chase her down to tell her that he loves her — as he knows that he does. Without having a single conversation. Without there being one intentional word spoken from her lips to his ear, or his to hers. Sometimes, it is that way. When you abandon all cynicism in being human and allow yourself to simply feel — it is that way. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He knew then sitting in that plastic seat in the crude heart of red plastic chairs that he was in love and there was no reprieve from it. Mary didn't share her story, either. But she wept. She sobbed very hard and her face was lost in her white tender hands for a while as others shared their stories. She cried for everyone, maybe a little for herself. And so there he sat, watching her crumble. Watching her be completely human. He realized then that he had never seen anyone be so completely human before. People were always human in part. But never so wholly. Not even his ex-wife when the baby died. When he went into the hospital room and saw her lying there by herself in a stream of cold sunlight. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He got to speak to her during a break. He managed, after all the pretty things he had rehearsed to say, "Hello." Nothing more. She casually smiled again at him as she had before and said, "Hello," in return. There was something in that hello, though, simplistic as it was, that promised him more. And when the break was over and they resumed the group, she realized that he was looking at her in a way she has always longed to be looked at, but never had been. There is so much in a look. And often there is more in silence than there is in spoken words. Words sometimes get in the way of feelings. There is a universe of possibility in the lulls of conversation that beg to continue. Things to be learned and discovered. Things yet to be that will be and things not to be that will not. There are a million potential outcomes but one inevitability that Tom could not escape, that was the fact that if he pursued her, and she accepted, he would contract the virus that would kill them both. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">So be it, he resolved. He was in love. More than in love — he was madly in love. As they were leaving that evening he asked her to have coffee with him and she said yes. To be more precise, she said, "Yes, sure." So they walked to a place nearby that promised the world's greatest cup of coffee and had a cup. He had a piece of pecan pie and she ate apple a la mode. They sat there in that diner for hours talkng about life. Omitting only the worst of things, the most obvious of which was the virus that brought them together. Tom hoped she wouldn't ask him about it. When he got it. How he got it. He hoped she would just assume he had it so they could be together and he didn't have to lie. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He never asked her about that day at the Beaver Street Café when he saw her for the first time. He never asked her how she got AIDS. Nor did she ask him. They simply were content in each other and every evening after group they'd go have that coffee and pie. And then it became more. They started seeing each other on weekends and Mary grew to love Tom for the person he was, for the heart he had, and the soul he possessed. What sadness there was in him dissipated and left no trace that it had ever been at all. It is a strange thing, but there was no doubt, without question, it was love. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They had dinner at an Italian restaurant that neither had been to before the night they made love. The table was covered in a red-checkered cloth and the old wood of the restaurant was lacquered green. On the wall at the table where they sat was a picture in a silver frame of the leaning tower of Pisa. Mary smiled at it heartfully. Her face aglow with the light of a flickering table candle that was nearly burned out. Tom regarded the candle and thought of the metaphor of it. If he was to physically make love to her, his life would be the way of that candle. That candle would be replaced by another. As their chairs would be replaced by others just as they had replaced others who came before them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Do you suppose it will ever fall?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tom smiled, startled awake from his trance, staring at that ever-dwindling candle. If there was any doubt in him at that moment it was quickly obliterated by the look in her eyes as she gazed at that photograph. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I don't suppose it ever will," he smiled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They made love that night with the passion that they were the last two people on Earth, or that they were starved of love for many years. It had, in fact, been that way for them both. Tom because of a lack of interest. Mary because of her overwhelming grief and distrust of others. Neither had been with anyone for years and that dearth of passion was obvious. He couldn't get enough of her, nor she of him and they repeated several times until the orange of morning shone through the blinds that were closed the night before without the forethought of the agape. They lied there naked, twisted up in the sheets that were like shrouds, and he held her in his arms as though that he might fix her if he held her long enough. Or fix himself. He didn't give thought to HIV or AIDS or whatever they wanted to call it. They were just letters to him. They were just a payment he had to make to be with her. It was a payment happily made. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">The next several months passed, each day was a gift. It is a splendid sort of way to live your life, looking forward to seeing someone each day. Being thankful for every day. His job was less dreary as it afforded him the opportunities to take her places. On camping trips. To Vermont at Christmas to see her family. Back to Ohio to see his. They flew to Las Vegas and New Orleans. Whatever it is that she mentioned she wanted to do, they did. He somehow made it happen. After all, her days were waning. There would be a day, who knows when, that she would fall ill and he would have to comfort her. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Tom himself didn't feel any different. In fact, he was more invigorated than ever. He felt as healthy as he had ever, which he attested to the purity of his love for Mary. He hadn't a sideways thought. No scurrilous desire for anyone but her. There wasn't a temptation in this world that would alter in the least his love and loyalty to her. He asked her to marry him in that Italian restaurant where they had their first date. A man played the violin. The waiter was a happy co-conspirator, planting the ring carefully in the wine glass. She gave him an emphatic yes. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They honeymooned in Italy. Tom took Mary to Pisa where at night she got to see the famous Leaning Tower firsthand, which was stunning in the lights — 183 feet tall. They were given a pamphlet of the history. How it was built in 1148. That Pisa meant "marshy land" in Italian and how the original architects failed to consider it. How Benito Mussolini was ashamed of it and tried to level it, unsuccessfully. They sat there on a bench and looked at it, hand in hand. It had been five months since they sat in that Italian restaurant and she asked him if he ever thought it would fall. She put her head on his shoulder content and a man on a bicycle passed, his chain humming along, then other tourists walked by, hand in hand. A boy on a puttering Vespa. Then again, as when they met, the silence was brilliant and offered more than words ever could. She turned to him and thanked him. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"You needn't thank me," he sighed. "You've given me life. It is me who should thank you, darling."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She turned and smiled and then kissed him. "I wanted to be with you from the moment I saw you. I was meant to meet you. I feel that very strongly."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I feel the same. From when I saw you in the café."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"The café?" she questioned. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">He realized his blunder immediately and that his secret was up. He had never told her he saw her before the time in the support group. He didn't want to tell her. He didn't want her to know that he wasn't infected before they met. He worried she would not forgive him, though he knew he ought to be honest. It was too late for secrets. So he confessed as though the bench was a confessional and she would be as non-judgmental as a priest. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I — uh. Well, I saw you in the Beaver Street Café on Valentine's Day last year. I went back to it every day for breakfast and lunch hoping to run into you again. But I didn't see you. I was taking a cab uptown for a job interview when I saw you walking not far from the café, so I hopped out and I followed you. You went into that building and there was a heart on the door. There were hearts everywhere. It was like a sign, you know. A remarkable and beautiful sign — that, at last, I'd found you. And then I found out what the group was for, and, well, I couldn't just leave. It didn't matter. I didn't want to leave. I was already in love with you. You have to understand..."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Mary began to cry. She cried as he had seen her cry in the group. He offered her a handkerchief and she accepted, bawling into it fiercely. She stopped to speak. He took her in his arms to console her and was happy she let him. That she didn't push away. He was happy she wasn't seemingly angry with him as he feared she might be. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"So you — you aren't HIV positive?" she cried. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Well, I woukd assume I am now. As you are. As it ought to be."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">She shook her head. "But you weren't HIV positive when you came to the group that day? That rainy September day, as I recall it."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No, but I —"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"But Tom — I am not HIV positive, either. I thought that you were! But it didn't matter to me, either! I went there because my sister died of AIDS the Christmas before and I went to that group with her before she did. It helped me get through and I felt that I helped other people, too, by being there. When I met you, I fell in love and I didn't care that I would get it."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"We fell in love," Tom smiled. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Mary began to sob again. Tom leaned back on the bench and took a deep breath. There were no words to say at the moment. They both understood that they had each given their life to be with each other — or so they had thought. But neither was sick and before them they had a full and uncharted life to live together so long as fate favored them as it so obviously had. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">Mary cried on his shoulder. "You think it will ever fall?"</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"No. It will never fall. But if you don't stop crying and making the ground more marshy than it already is, surely, it might."</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">They sat there for a while without saying a word. Watching that tower lean just as it was in that picture. It was beautiful and imperfect. Someone laughed in Italian behind them. And they embraced, in the dark that was suddenly more comforting than it had ever been anything else. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"I am so happy," she confessed. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;">"Anche io, mia bella," he replied.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinXrnLUcqD1JOnnivBl24vUWqT-67GRijVRw3YQ-8v2pOnoqB6LdcqOyxX9FZBAmiUUCWXmdyOzGFsVVyDA2jY3tTh9q6HaUDmeiMRPKKs1mfiDoijd0bK6j_o22Dk_mdRjCmI9fGshUANhx7sdcKG2CjUoQfiNLUKCuruQvJM5Og95-0tbg7eyyqPVA/s720/FB_IMG_1676829187480.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinXrnLUcqD1JOnnivBl24vUWqT-67GRijVRw3YQ-8v2pOnoqB6LdcqOyxX9FZBAmiUUCWXmdyOzGFsVVyDA2jY3tTh9q6HaUDmeiMRPKKs1mfiDoijd0bK6j_o22Dk_mdRjCmI9fGshUANhx7sdcKG2CjUoQfiNLUKCuruQvJM5Og95-0tbg7eyyqPVA/s320/FB_IMG_1676829187480.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span><p><br /></p>Adam Peacockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00307682522025215939noreply@blogger.com0