blairlocke

[blairlocke]

Anywhere-But-Here:  Amahlia & Johnny, Chapter Three

The woods here must be haunted.  That was the only explanation for the darkness that seemed to descend upon her, paired perfectly with a gloomy and overcast midday.  The wind scaled its bony fingers up her ribcage as she practiced her Adho Mukha Svanasana pose, inspiring an awkward shudder.  This time she didn’t break from her yoga session, and if she had her way, she would simply press through the sudden onslaught of melancholy, almost a foreign entity barraging her.

She soaked in the sounds around her, closing her eyes, letting her audial and olfactory senses take over.  She heard birdsongs, belting a sharp soprano, and then down a notch for a few notes in mezzo-soprano.  She wondered if it was the same bird, or perhaps two females gossiping about the previous night’s storm, and the new tenant, her.  She heard rustling, something she was becoming used to in this particular campsite.  Something must reside in those bushes, the brush always seemed to be alive with movement, likely from the wind that swallowed up her calm along with it.

She rotated herself into a position so that she would nonchalantly be able to peer in the direction of the area in question.  Nothing stood out, and certainly nothing introduced itself to her.  Leave it alone, and it will leave you alone.  Likely the sentiments of her Pawpaw would apply here, though he might have said it about bees.  Her maternal grandfather had been an avid birdwatcher, often having her along for quiet company, and that last part was paramount.  He said that if you were to gain any real observation of birds, one must be “mouselike, but without its squeak.”  And that phrase had always made her giggle.  She had inherited some books on the subject of birds when he had passed, and something had made her lug them along.  She decided to abandon her exercise early after all, figuring the hike that she planned to take as soon as the ground had dried up some would be plenty taxing enough.

She found her binoculars quickly, and grabbed her sketchbook and charcoal pencil almost as easily.  The birds were silent when she returned to her outdoor blanket, but she was patient with them, deciding to let them settle again after the beastly new girl (her) had ceased all motion again.  They seemed to know that she watched them though, adjusting her focus, she found them in the tree with the most scarred trunk.  They did not call out again, the scratch of her pencil across the page the only sound besides the wind itself howling through the wild, whistling in her ear, and it was the leaves turn to shudder.  The birds did not move, except for an occasional flick of their neck, they seemed to be caught between peering at the same bushes as she was only minutes before, and at her.  A weary and uncomfortable tension in their little bodies, as if waiting for the direction danger would show itself.  

A chill shivered down her spine, and she suddenly tensed too.  She very carefully swiveled the binoculars to the spot that one of the birds had pointed to with her open little beak.  Right there. 

And that’s when she made out the eyes.  She gasped, a ragged inhalation of air.  Her body felt like it was plunged into icy water.  She blinked hard, hoping that she had been mistaken.  And so, they were gone when she looked back through the lenses.  She sat for a minute, motionless again, staring.  It was a shuddering breath that she took when she could  stand, finally tearing her eyes away from the corner of her campsite.  She walked the ten paces to the water spigot, splashing frigid handfuls on her face.

Ghost? Ghoul?  Creature?  Worse?  What could be worse?  Well, you could be cracking up…

Worse?  Well she could think of only one thing worse than some spook or critter, or an overactive imagination run away from her, because if she had indeed concocted the image she had seen, it was the perfect one, not for an animal, but for something far more eerie.  

A...watcher.  A watcher in the woods.

[blairlocke]

Anywhere-But-Here:  Amahlia & Johnny, Chapter Two

Camping alone was a bad idea.  She held onto her Kapotasana pose, the backbend giving her a wide, but traumatizing view of the road that led to her driveway.  Even at one o’clock in the afternoon, everything definitely looked more menacing when it was flipped upside down.  And though she had seen no source of movement, she continued to scan her field of vision from her current position, as a pretzel.  And there it was again.  This time, she was able to discern the general direction of the indistinctive noise she had heard before, and more demonstrative.  A slight scuffling? In the brush to the left?

It was hard to be sure.  One thing was for certain.  Camping alone had been a very bad idea.  There was a healthy loneliness to camping that had appealed to her.  She had camped every summer with her family, practically from birth until graduation, and had gone on camping sabbaticals with friends in college, and then with Matthew a half a dozen times, though he preferred staying in a cabin, which. to her mind, didn’t really count.  So, when she had been pondering her upcoming weekend with her officemates, whom all seemed to be going to one affair or another, the thought had just popped into her head.  Camping?  And that’s when she realized to her astonishment that she had never gone camping by herself.  Hiking, yes.  But camping?  The thought had seemed to nag at her, filling her with the first sense of urgent excitement she had felt in what could have been months, maybe even years.  Being the true crime buff that she was, the idea of going by herself gave her the sort of momentary pause one gets before climbing into a roller coaster car.  Sure, a fair amount of girls whom had gone off to run or shop or bike or walk or gone off to bed, on their own, had by some terrible stroke of bad luck, never come back, or come back in very separate pieces, and her luck was proving to be questionable right now...wait, how had she thought this would be a good idea?  Oh, that’s right.  She had then gone on to convince herself that she could take care of herself.  Wow...the relief...the logic...the foolishness.

Her stomach had gone sour.

Well, this is the wilderness.  Perhaps it’s just wildlife.  It sounded too small to be a bear...or a mountain lion.  But maybe squirrels?  Raccoons?  Birds??  A girl could hope.

She unwound herself, immediately bounding to her feet and across the small space to her little two-man dome tent.  Just inside the zipper door, without looking she reached in to grasp for the bat, which she had tucked there for peace of mind on her first solo excursion.  She felt its rubber grip, feeling up its neck to the warm aluminum, and pulled it free.  She really hoped that it was a squirrel.  A really big, fat adorable squirrel.

*****

The day was a gorgeous one.  It was the kind of day that The Temptations had sung about.  The kind of pretty that if it were a girl, her measurements would be 36-24-36 and she would be dressed in nothing but a bikini, cherry red lipstick, and a luscious-lipped smile.  

Still, his face remained firmly as placid as an iced over lake.  The glance he gave the bushes, which seemed to be moving, was an innocuous one.  Not curious, merely accessing.

“What the fuck?”  he said it to himself, but the words garnered him some attention from the man that squatted behind some bushes at a campsite that Johnny was passing.  His blond hair glinted in the sunlight, as he paused in mid step and pivoted, all of a sudden every bit interested--a snake sensing a lizard.  But, in the space of a millisecond, there was no man, only brush playing in the wind.  The campsites afforded a modicum of privacy with rough foliage allowed to creep in from every side, but the one meeting the road, and especially this one by the look of it.  He heard rather than saw that someone had picked up on its peeping Tom because they called out, “Hello?”  A woman’s voice.  Johnny continued his path towards the showers.  He reeked of fish bait and sweat.  The day was cooler than the day before, but only barely.  Why had he decided on a fishing weekend in August?

Excellent and reasonable question, but he was not feeling very reasonable just now.  He had bigger fish to fry than sparring it out with logic.  Oh, yeah.  No fish for his trouble did not help sweeten his disposition.  And after ten minutes in a frigid and highly pressurized shower, his mood had gone from icy to thunderous, though he did smell better.  

“Oomph!”

“Fuck!”  He had suddenly collided with someone coming into the doorway of the men’s room in a rush, and just as he was heading out.

“Oh, sorry.”  It was a woman.  That much he knew before they had shoved away from each other, and before her voice gave her away.  “Oh good, I won’t have to sneak in. I was wondering if you could grab a roll of toilet paper for the ladies room.  It’s completely empty.”  And then, there was a beat as they took each other in.

“Oh.”  She sounded startled, even though her response to him was barely above a whisper.  “Hi.”  It was her.  The woman whom had used his phone to call a tow truck.  It had been a few weeks, and she looked somehow more glowing, which suddenly had him thinking that she had likely been ill before, because while she had been pretty to him, now, she looked like Helen of Troy come to slay him.

He so did not need this.  Let it be some other siren, and the man some other numbnuts.  He was all out of fucks to give when the only price left to pay was his sanity, and sometimes that didn’t seem so far off.  So he fixed her with a noncommittal, and unyielding stare, and then brushed past her.

“It’s all yours,” he threw back coldly.

He wished that the wind would pull itself together, for not even a huff stirred to dry off the dampness of his skin, a combination of cool sweat and a flush that seemed to make his cheeks hum like a furnace.

If only her lips weren’t burning holes in his brain with their rosey advertisement of a bedroom’s true purpose, like a gavel banging a verdict of guilt and lasciviousness.

If only her voice were higher pitched, like some Minnie Mouse, instead of the trill of some film noir detective’s old flame, her pitch that of midnight, both dark and chocolatey.  Where she might be sweet, but likely tasted of rich molten lava.  

If only only her form hadn’t now been briefly memorized by his hands, accidentally in their crashing into one another, but it was enough to make out her curviness, however slight that she might appear.

He was so hard that he could beat the birds away.

“Fuck.”  For the fourth time in some 20 minutes, he cursed to himself.  “Fuck this.”

*****

The moonlight seemed only a small orb like a distant lamplight glowing through fog.  The clouds parted, unmasking the stars which glared fiercely down at her, glinting like tiger’s eyes.  The air could scarcely spare a chill, the steamy smell of coming rain mixed with too much warmth, and it seemed an effort to breathe in the thick and dogged swelter.

She threw her ancient mystery novel towards her equally worn backpack, which was also servicing as a nightstand of sorts.  She had taken the rain fly off of the tent in order to get more airflow, and to admire the stars, but, she thought that she had better put it back on before the sky let itself go.  A flash of lightning hurried her action.

It was just beginning to sprinkle when she was climbing back inside her small shelter.  She had a small inflatable mattress that would keep her up off the tent floor, which was bound to be a good thing if this was the size of summer’s end storm that sometimes crept up in the night.

It was strange that she had seen the bartender.  Especially so soon after she had heard those noises from the bushes, but could it just be a coincidence?  She supposed so.  And certainly, it was not the last person that she had wanted to see.  As a matter of fact, if she was being completely honest with herself, she had not minded seeing him again.  She found their interactions odd, but charged somehow.  

Yes, that was the right word.  Her head tilted itself contemplatively.  Her lips pursed.  Awareness.  That’s what there was between them.  A natural awareness...of what, she was not so sure.  No, he wasn’t responsible for the noises from earlier.  Somehow she just knew that he was not a threat.  To her peace of mind, and sense of comfort, maybe.  But he wasn’t creepy.  He was, however, annoyed.  She wasn’t even sure if that had as much to do with her, or just that he was a morose person.  He begged all sorts of questions to her mind, and she was hard pressed further to figure out why he should seem so interesting to her.  But he was.  It did not hurt that, even though he was clearly older than her by maybe 10 years, maybe even more, he had beautiful and chiseled features.  He had obviously been a pretty boy in his youth, made more interesting by a long aquiline nose, and as a man now likely in his forties, the small lines on his face around his eyes gave away that, at one time, he must have laughed.  Maybe a lot.  The sweep of his cheekbones and curve of his jaw was like a sculptor would trace for an immortal, portraying the kind of beauty that usually did not come to life.

Okay, so he was very attractive.  That was not her question.  Her question was, what the hell was wrong with him that he stared her down as if she were a pesky stray dog, and yet, the air around them seemed to melt her flesh off and her very blood was suddenly made of acid.  She wondered if he was a good kisser.  He certainly had the lips for it.  His lower lip was so full that he looked perpetually pouty.

The question that kept running circles in her mind was, what had made him have that forlorn look in his eyes, as if the world had finally done his spirit in, and he was barely able to keep in motion.  All pretense was dropped where he was concerned.  As the saying went, he had no fucks left to give.  She read a coldness in his eyes, but it had the look of being put there by some unspeakable amount of pain, rather than it being innate.  She wondered what gave her that idea.  She was no psychic, and he certainly hadn’t divulged one detail about himself, not even his name, come to think of it.  But she just felt it.  She knew that the feeling could be no more backed up by evidence than one given a poison apple.  How to prove it without taking a bite?  And, in return, risk having the bite taken out of you.

She drifted off to sleep with the foggy thought of perhaps becoming a more frequent patron of his bar.  It was no surprise when that night she dreamed of snakes, the bar’s neon sign pledging the words The Pit and featuring a Cobra curling around the P, its mascot slithering through her uneasy brain.

[blairlocke]

Anywhere-But-Here:  Amahlia & Johnny, Chapter One

Eyes forward, Amahlia peered through the windshield, raindrops now peppering and traversing the glass.

The deluge was sudden, as if a huge tub of water had just been poured on the KIA Soul, and the car almost seemed to shudder right along with her.  

“Shit...that’s just fucking great.”

She was not going to make it in time.  She needed that damn medicine.  As it was, she could barely think straight to drive, her equilibrium barely hanging on, head spinning as if she’d drank a quart of vodka.  She shouldn’t be operating a motorized vehicle, even on a perfectly sunny day, what with the cold from hell that had nearly annihilated any chance of looking like a team player at her new job.  She could still hear the palpable skepticism in the voice of her new boss.

“Yes, I guess just come in whenever you’re feeling better...perhaps after a nice bubble bath and play date?”

Gawd, Mariah was such a bitch.

And that sounded about par for the course that was her life since meeting Matthew.  She rolled her eyes at even the thought of his name, her mouth forming a sour and unbecoming rainbow.

With sullen resolve, she pushed the car on, the darkness and curtain of rain so thick that she could feel it bearing down.  “Please, please, please.”

The sign was already dark when she crested the final valley and pursuant hill.  “No!  Dammit!”

She was a solitary swearer, the words daggers to be pointed only towards outer space, and mirrors.

An all night pharmacy would have been nice right about now, but it was not meant to be.  That’s what happens when you move away from most signs of life.  No longer was it quite so convenient to get what you might be in need of quickly.  She did not miss much about her big city roots, except that.  And now, back to the woods we go.  Try again tomorrow.  Or perhaps, Margie would be in there and have a heart...well, maybe not a heart, but some sympathy...or at least a fondness for accruing a few more dollars in the cash register.

*****

The time had gotten away from him again.  The bar was due to close an hour ago.  No one had noticed.

“Closing time.”

“You didn’t even call for a last call.”  He blinked, frost settling on the Caribbean blue pools of his eyes, peering at the objector without life.

“Yeah, I did,” he lied pleasantly, slamming down the tip jar in melodious demand, change grinding across the bottom of the galvanized tin.

The patrons groaned, grimaced, and shuffled themselves off of rickety bar-stools and across a grimy floor, once a soft ivory, and now a cleachy peach.

“It’s been a real pleasure.  Take care, old timer.  Never change,” he trailed off as the door croaked to almost closed.

“Fuck--off,” he muttered to the empty room.

He wiped down the counter with a brisk lack of care, then, traipsed towards the door, reaching for the handle to pull it shut, no easy task for the hinges had obviously given up long ago.  Someone pushed on the door in just that moment, and life suddenly flared in his eyes in the guise of anger, and he instantly made the decision to yank it back open in a feral gesture of annoyance.

A gasp from the startled person on the other side, now tumbling forward towards him.  Unsympathetic, he quickly stood back, knob still in hand.  

“We’re closed.”

He would sorely regret not taking the opportunity to cop a cheap feel in the name of preventing her fall, for when the person, evidently a woman, managed to catch herself swiftly, and with expert grace, she rose to her full height, barely over five feet, and fixed him with the most politely cold stare that he had ever been subjected to.

“Thanks,” she said with smoldering and succinct precision, as if she had stabbed a knife into his gut.  “I just needed to use a phone, if that would be at all possible.”

Her eyes were a steely grey, and almost lavender as a flash of lightning lit up the doorway, the lashes framing them plentiful and charcoal black.  “What for?”  His words were out of his mouth before he could think to call them back, and then, he remembered himself, and was glad that they had.  Let her be on the defense.  He wasn’t interested.  She looked far too young for him anyway, by at least a good decade.  Besides, what good was a woman. He took in her shapely legs, clad in black leggings, underneath a fitted tunic.  Well, maybe they had a few uses.  He quickly averted his eyes, grumbling under his breath.  Not for the hottest bang in the universe was he even remotely tempted.

He didn’t wait for her response, just with reserved fury, he made one brisk wave towards the direction of the antique landline telephone at the end of the bar.  It might have been white at some point, its curly cord tangled and gray in spots.  And with that, after a swift glance past her into the parking lot, witnessing no headlights, and not even a car, he shot her only the smallest glance as he locked the door to any other customers that might be out at this ungodly hour in a rainstorm, and then turned his back on her.  He didn’t even wait to hear her approach, he ducked into the back room, mouth tight, his high cheekbones standing out more prominently than usual as his lack of appetite had cost him a few pounds, he disappeared through the grizzled black curtain, that seperated the sparse makeshift office and studio space from the front room.  His bed was half made, black on black on gray, and everything else in the room was relatively neat.  There were only a few dishes, stacked on the floating shelf by the single window in the room.  There was a coffee mug in the sink, a braided rug centering the space, a worn recliner facing a flatscreen TV, the single piece of eye candy in the room.  Free weights hovered by the sliding closet door.  He grabbed for the heaviest one and began his nightly ritual.  

“Thanks for the phone.”  He heard the low pitched, though very feminine voice call through the closed duck-cloth drapery.  There was a hesitation from the voice’s owner.

He paused, casting his eyes at the curtain.

He viewed the partition with a serious and hard look as he stood and pushed it aside.  To her credit, she neither looked perturbed, nor interested in his appearance.  She did look a little relieved, finding her tongue once more.

“I don’t suppose I could talk you into selling me a drink while I wait for the tow truck.”  At the wry set to his mouth, his eerily blond hair longer than usual, a lock slipped forward to cover his raised brow.  “Yeah, I know--closed.” She seemed to catch herself from a sigh, or perhaps an eye-roll.  “It’s just been a really--err, crazy, night.”

He stared dispassionately down at her, her hair so dark and wet that it almost looked seal black.  There were bags under her big lovely unearthly glowing grey eyes, but he decided in that moment that her mouth, pinched with something like pain, or possibly exhaustion, was the most becoming feature about her.  Her lips were full and in the shape of a heart and of a perfect rosy hue.

“What’ll you have?” he requested, after the span of many moments.  The sneer that masked the direction of his thoughts seemed to finally affect her coolness.  She studied him for a moment before glancing back at the bar’s entrance.

“I’m sorry, it’s okay.  No need to impose any more than I already have.  Thanks for the phone.  My cell died.  Like I said, crazy night.”  She said all of this while backing away and quickly picking her way to the door.  “Have a good night,” she called over her shoulder, peeling the door back from its frame.

And with that, the bar was empty again.  The energy that had seemed to charge the air, unbeknownst to him until that moment, lingered for a second, and then dissipated.  A buzz of awareness--of what he was not certain--hung onto him, as if he was braced for something.  He popped the top off of a beer, took a long swig, then a last scathing look at the door, and for the second time that night made his way back over to its flimsy perch to lock up.  Lights out.

[blairlocke]

Flesh and Bone

I did not bother to sleep.  I did not try for rest.

There remained in me something sad, something defenseless.  Something morbid.  I had not fallen for every tangled web strung by spiders, but for one pitiless one nonetheless.  It controlled me.  It ran through my sails, claiming every bit of the wind that should be mine.  I saw this snake with the granite hewn eyes waiting for me every day.  I could forget it until dawn and after bleakness descended to unconsciousness, some might say my favorite hours.  I used to see how long I could hold out sleep, and now I looked forward to this brief reprieve from the clutches of pain, anger, hurt, unabashashed hatred of oneself and all others that dared to look upon my hideous winged mask.  Do not be fooled by the wickedness of a drug more potent than any powder.  I was not clueless as to why I needed the burn of alcohol in my belly.  It kept away the longing for another drug I knew, its heddiness eluding the thin goddess beside me, but following my every muscle ripple, everytime I did not stumble, but I should have.  For the hundred and ten pounds that absorbed the weight of a full belly of sparkling wine or rum or cider, in place of the healthy and unhealthy sustenance that longed to be in its place.

The dragging of time made me feel weak, old, young...too young to do anything of use, the lies whispered.  I do not know when they ever tell the truth.  They fill the air with such noise, bellowing of my genius and laughing at even the glimpse of hope that melts in my eyes...foolish dawn.  Don’t wake me now!  I haven’t slept, and it’s been days!  Nay, months!  I don’t sleep.  I lay down.  My thoughts have long ago decided to murder my ideas, and my cells have joined in the fight against my bowels.  It’s time to awaken.  Put the coffee in a blender, and find my hat and coat!  There is no time to waste!  It is all done now.  And who are you?  Who ever were you anyway?  A girl?  Certainly not a woman.  

I long to touch his face as he slumbers...run my fingers through his hair.  He is the most beautiful creature that I’ve ever seen.

[blairlocke]

One Glance

My breath left me quietly, carefully, as I measured the sound escaping with it.  No one must know that it was held on a gasp, that the sudden appearance of a man had inflated my lungs, and the tremble that would be natural should be denied.  I would breathe calmly, even if that was the only thing that I could control at this point.  My eyes were traitorous, locked on the movement of your shoulders as you crossed your arms when a lithe figure approached you at your entrance.  This assault was from someone who knew you, apparently, and I strained to listen, wondering...who are you?

It was back to business as the classroom was called to attention by my favorite professor, the moment of your apparition put into the background of my thoughts, and then later abandoned altogether as the months pulled me along through jungles of papers, exams, jogs, and new fitness regimes to avoid studying my least favorite classes.  And then, with a flourish and the shedding of a pesky ten pounds, I was enjoying the last week before the semester was officially over, and very much basking in the snuggling feeling of winter ensconced as I was in my black peacoat, and thought of how, as I had caught a glimpse of myself hurrying out the door, I was startled to realize that I actually looked petite and even a little delicate now, the way that my pale neck arose out of the collar, the coat a thick, sturdy wool, but slimming in its length and staunch cut.  My hair was severely pulled up into a messy chignon, its color a glossy auburn, more red than it was brown.  I liked that image of myself.  It added a natural blush to my cheeks as I paraded out the door and into the world, feeling every inch the secret agent vixen superspy that I had wished to embody, or at least the iota of a chance to be.

[blairlocke]

Elisha

Secrets became an addiction of sorts.  Ironically, I was honest about everything else...there seemed to be something overwhelmingly important feeling about being privy to someone’s secrets.  The things that we hide layered like a cake.  There is the frosting, blanketing the cake with all of the fascinating details that you give people in conversation.  The top layer of the cake was filled with the goodness that your close friends and family know about you.  Then below that layer is all of the more tawdry and gruesome bits of knowledge reserved only for your best friends.  This would be the most interesting layer for those whom don’t have much to hide.  However, I suspect two thirds of the population have a layer underneath that one, and it is riddled with gore and sometimes just random and meaningless overgrown brambles ...the stuff that we don’t tell anyone.  The pieces of our lives that we might not even recognize as what they are...secrets.  Hidden marred cancers on unblemished skin, the craggy pockmarked interior, likely our wrongdoings, and those against us too.  Hers was one for the books.  Indiscretion after unfathomable mistake grinding deep into her bones.  I think that she had more than a three layer cake, because I knew most of her secret life, and her dreamy promises, so perfectly perched on her lush lips, but I much suspected that there was much more that I didn’t know.  Likely, that nobody knew except her.  Her life was as simple as it was complicated.  She wanted whatever made her feel better...expensive clothes and makeup, her own free time to do whatever she wanted, someone to fill up the bereft feeling of not being seen, and at the same time, to be seen would never be acceptable.  Then someone might peek behind the curtain of smooth inky black hair, and peer through the artwork that traced every curve of her body.  An early rejection and immature parenting had bred a lifetime of bitterness that tingled forever on the verge of narcissism, romance thought of as something that did not exist, and who was I to correct her?  She had such an undeniable point...so make believe and folly was her world.  I did not envy her life, though I think that is what she thought kept me around.  But she was wrong.  I just wanted someone around that understood the darkness of the thought that real love did not exist.  She believed it more than I did.  And yet, even with that morose mantra forever etched into every crevice of her soul, and unlike me, she truly lived--robust cheeks often breaking into the most breathtaking smile, a siren for all of the world!  I wanted a companion to show me that wiles did not have to be dangerous or lecherous, or beyond me, for all of eternity.  I abandoned the stunted girl, in favor of a woman whom would make many mistakes, but with the carelessness of youth.  I had never been young before.  And she was the air in my balloon, both to the top of the mountains, and back to the base of the valley.  And the same impermanence of her life, was the very thing that convinced me to simply let go.  Later, she would drift in and out of my life, but that year was one of the best years, sidekick to a siren, and no plans for a shore.

[blairlocke]

Night Walk

     I remember that Mary was speaking, that moment when I entered your view.  She fell deep into the despair of the recounting of her latest date turned one night stand turned weekend sleepover turned no-call.  I grimaced because I knew that she wanted fun and passion, and that means sex, but she also wanted someone to share a life with.  Someone to console her by retorting with corny, sardonic one liners from her favorite show, just because that’s the kind of love that a girl really needs.  Shoulders to cry on, foot rubs, french kisses just inside the door, lounging in bed on Saturdays, late Sunday brunch followed by walks in the park with her favorite guy and her other favorite guy, her adorable dog...that’s just to start.  She was a year younger than me, and had a little of an all-grown-up goth girl vibe, complete with dark hair, streaked with a different color every month, wide and dark owlish eyes, dark circles hanging underneath, high cheekbones, and chalky skin.  She was uniquely pretty, and always hovering on the precipice of falling in love with her destined dark horse.  I envied her brash tongue, and that sex often meant little to her.  She rejected men afterwards as often as they did her, and therefore, a balance was struck--the blind leading the blind astray.  

     I remember talking to your friend.  We strode into the saloon, as it was called--shoddy dance floor, packed that night with music lovers, pushed together in front of a stage in one corner, no dancing, just swaying.  The pool table was occupied by a couple of guys who looked just about our age, my gaze gliding from them, then, spotting no girls in the vicinity.  I scanned the room as I followed Mary absently.  It was unlike me to not just keep my gaze in front of me, focused on my destination, trying to ignore the crawling feeling that I always got that I was being scrutinized, and judged, as I walked along any route, always wondering what the onlooker might be seeing.  What the impression was that I made on the room at large.  But tonight, it was busier than the time I had visited the saloon previously, and that made me feel more comfortable to look around.  Loud noise and overall bustling always made me feel less on display.  There were too many people for anyone to zero in on this one redheaded girl of little means, but whose blue-grey eyes, I had been told, were wide and soft, and often intense, which made sense--I had also been told that I worried entirely too much, and that means a heightened self awareness, and THAT means an intense gaze and querying brow.  “Who ARE you?” they ask…”What are you thinking?”  I don’t look too closely at anyone for that reason, unless I am actually speaking with them.

     I remember that your friend looked dark and dangerous.  His long impossibly curly hair was pulled back loosely to the nape of his neck, a bandanna acted as a headband, keeping curling dark strands from touching his face.  He had a patchy beard, earrings in both ears, and dressed all in black, and could have come off the cover of some 80s hair rock band.  He was quiet, and I wonder if that made him menacing, for I would in the years to come discover that he was the softhearted one of your group.  Whilst you looked like a hipsteresque teddy bear, sitting on a barstool, it was he that was the sweet one.  I think that he was the only one who knew of your transgressions with me.  I have no proof, but it is my guess.  Something in his eyes...a pity, and uneasiness.  And it was his soft heart that you counted on for forgiveness.  I am not sure anyone else would have been so kind to you.  But what do I know?  Perhaps, they all knew, or perhaps, none of them did.  Maybe you lied to them, or maybe you just lied to yourself, glossed over your follies, and talked up my shortcomings, and pulled an Ariel Castro?  You believed that you did nothing.  I got roughed up because I had it coming.  I think of this because I remember one of our bigger incidents, in which I begged you to work it out with me, as by that point, I had so much to lose (you made sure of that), you tried to show me the bruises I left on your chest.  I was shocked.  Not about the bruises as much as your blaming me for giving them to you, as don’t you remember, dear Bear...you got those bruises because that’s how hard you were coming at me.  You pinned me against the wall, shoving me again and again, and my hands came out to keep you back.  You dragged me out eventually.  My shirt rode up, the carpet taking off flesh as I was pulled by my arms, my legs trying to grab ahold of anything all the way.

     Your smile that first time was almost pensive.  I don’t remember the conversation.  Mary was happy to see you, her old friend through some other friend.  She liked hanging out with you because you smoked her out.  She always liked getting something for nothing, and she was the kind of business woman whom seeked out those whom she could give little and receive much.  I did not know why there had never been anything between the two of you, but I would learn later that she simply was not interested, but you were interested in sleeping with her.  She claimed that that was before I started dating you, but just that she wanted me to know.  I do not know if she told the truth about this.  It became increasingly clear to me once I left the confines of our love, that likely you had been doing things behind my back with women.  You likely did not like having only one girl.  You just did not want to lose me by being honest about your promiscuous nature.  Taureans are possessive, jealous creatures.  That would have rocked the boat, and waves were already sieging us as it was.