shallowdeep

reflections

high cheekbones. they're like wedgewood china and faberge eggs. everybody wants them, but few are lucky enough to have them. she is one of the lucky ones. born at just the right time, with the moon in place, just so. yes, that night was a good night. she came out crying, screaming. demonstrating the true strength of her lungs gasping at those first few breaths of air. the air was cool, september.

her mother was happy, sad and relieved all at once. her father nearly passed out. he went to get flowers and a little bottle to fill the flask that fit neatly in the inside pocket of his blazer. he loved his bride and now the mother of his child. tonight he felt the urge for a drink. just a few sips to calm his nerves, saturated with the adrenalin that had risen and fallen during the night.

little did they know what baby emily would be like in their lives. a baby never quite at ease with her surroundings. as a child emily was a loner, preferring the comfort of books to dodgeball or swings or the madonna video. at 14, it began. the disdain for the comforts of the big house with its soft colors and matching furniture and expensive emasculated artwork that came from the mall. she would wander. break curfew, smoke cigarettes. skip school and hit the museum. or the library.

she grew and grew. she went from under five feet to nearly six in under a year. she was thin then. she detested her thinness. she wanted to look like a bombshell in the old movies. curves in all the right places. blonde hair, with waves. she had none. none of the above. a big fat zero, she would say to herself looking in the mirror, trying one thing after another to make her feel sexy. vulnerable, but animal was the look she felt she should go for. a session ended with a smile slowly dropping, sometimes one side at a time, other times together. red hair, semi-pale skin, thin.

at twenty. college now. her body became proportionate, filling in in the back and up top. she would have loved it at 14. now she had little time to think about it. class, work, study. the occasional night of rowdy alcoholic debauchery or a quiet night of bob marley in a circle of pass it to the left.

men came and went. boys, really. they were always a little strange and alien like. but she enjoys them. she also enjoys being away from them. quiet time to study. to write in her journal. to look at stars and feel the smallness.

the first time emily stands next to him she instantly knows he's bad, but somehow she's drawn to him like a reforming smoker to a cigarette.

'i'm jay, jason.' older. confident.

'i'm emily.' silence. 'my friends call me em.'

'm? i like it. j and m. the letter people. like the electric company.'

she contemplates this bold, random childhish reference.

'so what's your story m? how'd you end up here in this place, tonight? what's a girl like you doing in this little juke joint?'

like me? she thinks. what the hell does that mean? 'i'm here to get a drink,' she says.  'with friends.' em looks around. no friends to be found. anywhere. they've stranded me with this lunatic. she caught herself and remembered to smile. when in doubt, smile. she couldn't remember who taught her that, but in her experience it seemed to work.

'so have you seen y tu mama tambien?' he asked.

she was impressed that he knew this movie. he didn't look like the cinema type. more of a rockabilly cocaine junkie needing a shave. but something about him within his tempest was calm. she pondered a flight into the eye of the storm. a better view.

friends are gone or missing or hiding or in the bathroom doing lines. she doesn't really know the people she's here with all that well. the second cape cod drops her leg over the fence she's been straddling.

a conversation she doesn't really remember. it isn't important. what is important is that she's a block away from her place in the morning. the sun had come up an hour ago. she's sore, yet tension weeks old in her legs is gone and replaced by pillowy rubber. she remembered him saying that he hadn't been with anyone in a while. she asked how long. he said a year, maybe more. she doubted him, but as he layed tranquil with his hands on her legs something in her faltered. the notions of good and common sense dissipated by something more powerful that could not be explained. these are the things she thinks about as she walks up her street. it was good to almost be home.

posted by: shallowdeep at 04/21/04 03:34 | link | comments (7) |

frustration. frustration leaves work uber caffeinated, behind the wheel. windows down, ministry turned up loud to pump adrenalin into a shell-shocked heart. behind a car and a truck on a 2 lane highway driving parallel at identical speeds. one takes the inside turn and eases forward ever so slightly, but the road with its sense of fair play, curves back around and the other one then assumes the pole position. by a neck. stigmata courses through my veins. chants.

'my favorite weapon is the look in your eyes'

my road rage is but a small problem in the grand scheme. the trick is that it's the little ones that i feel most intensely. if my apartment burns down and my car gets stolen, i'll probably just ask for a cigarette. on a particularly bad day, if i'm cut off in traffic i want their head on a stick. disproportionalism.

a friend of mine has a real problem. granted, he still has a job. and he's an artist, a talent. a nice guy, the best. he's helping another friend while he's fallen on hard times. like i said, my friend is the best. maybe i should start at the beginning.

i lived in a house a while back. ok a long while back, but there will never be enough distance between me and that house. dirt will never come clean, a stain forever impaled. there are things that i will never do again, people that i will never see. walking around closer to a coma than not. hard times cut deep. there were 6 of us living there. one couple and the rest of us guys. the girl, a walking cadaver. skinny as the day is long, some dirty yellow blonde hair, a vague sexual innuendo and an unwieldy appetite for drugs. she hit on me. it failed, so onto another roommate. all of this goes on while her boyfriend is at work to pay the rent. her rent.

she paid him back. she paid him with interest. she fucked our roommate and he got her pregnant. personally i would have thrown her off the roof forty two seconds behind him had she been my girlfriend, but that's me. this kid was small, thin. he didn't take it like that. he just took it. that was what bothered me most about the whole thing. he took it lying down. he even tried to convince himself it was his. she played the game, working both sides to her advantage. i don't feel strong negative emotions toward very many people. it's not healthy. this bitch. this bitch, i fucking hate.

the present. my friend broke up with his girl a couple of months ago. she is also a conniver, a manipulator. she has called my friend several times and told him she's pregnant. my friend, being a street smart guy, took the necessary precautions, so he was nearly certain that it was not his. if she was even telling the truth about the pregnancy.

over the weekend. a discovery. she's telling the truth. she's pregnant. but not by him. no, this girl went off and fucked his transient roommate while he was at work to pay the rent. when she was not doing coke or drinking cheap wine, she was doing a little here and a little there, but she was not working anywhere.

hardly a major loss, but it stung my friend. i wonder what brings out such animosity in me toward these 2 women. deceit. cunning. manipulation. all of these things and more, but that's not the reason. they rock my belief in the benevolence of humanity. that's my scar, the entry wound for the blackest black that pierces my chest.

posted by: shallowdeep at 04/20/04 04:02 | link | comments |

a native son leaves and never returns. parents have come to expect them, the disappearances. a postcard from a new state. a phone call when a girl settles. alternately placing faith in humanity and revoking it, never a healthy balance.

early

across the street, the rope swing twists gently in the sunday breeze. kids sell lemonade on the corner but there is no time. no time for the kids on the corner. no time for drives that don't lead anywhere.

later

a sunny barbecue with friends in front of their apartment building. old brick. the kind they don't make any more. temporary quarters for the rich after a fire at the turn of the century. chicken sears and beer quenches.

a frisbee flies, a girl strangely familiar. from where? slender, a brown tank top reveals shoulders already naturally bronzed. blonde hair, almost white glides across the grass. she throws the frisbee. awkward. graceful. her eyes deep and vacant. a look, a quick contact. unassured. she cracks a smile and grass bends in the breeze.

another beer. a lab chases the frisbee. my friends laugh as it dives and rolls. smoke from the grill chases them as the wind shifts. trees are beginning to leaf. some white, some green, and purple. people agree. purple is best. nashville is listless and dreamy in the early warm months. before the humidity, when sweat drops roll at midnight. work is a world away. problems drip from the bottle, one bead at a time. she pulls her hair back into a clip, a style now out of fashion. i like it, the way her hair hangs. blonde, tan, slender. against the grain, small measures in all these things and more.

posted by: shallowdeep at 04/06/04 19:56 | link | comments (3) |

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