Sitting Still
Scott W. Hazzard

 

     When Amanda moved to Chicago, on what was then called a business trip, I did not immediately start to sleep with hookers. It was something that came long after I already got the vibe that she was never coming back. And even then, at the beginning, I wasn’t exactly having sex with anybody, not real sex, anyway. But, if you ask me the question do I consider myself attached, I’d have to crack a wide smile, but not a smile with the teeth showing ‘cause I hate that, and say, “naw, no, not really,” followed by, “can I buy you a drink?”
     Who am I kidding, though? I can’t imagine why anyone would ask me that, anyway. I’m a drunk, a scumbag, an independently wealthy, bald, obese scumbag. Oh yeah, there is the wealth thing, isn’t there? Awh, but to fuck with that. Can any woman look at my hairy, exposed chest sagging out of a half-buttoned Cabana shirt and say, “yeah, he’s worth it?” No way. I’m nothing to them, anyway. And what kind of women do you find at the places I hang out? They’re all cracked out whores and people on their way down. And I want hot chicks, too. Is it too much to ask, for a woman to keep herself clean and nice? Well, probably, since I don’t keep myself clean anymore. That’s why I’m not a relationship sort of guy anymore. I’m just a regular Joe, who found his pot of gold, and the only problem was I had to sell the whole fucking rainbow to get it.
     That whole bitching sentiment did a slingshot over to Chicago. I said, “let’s buy a nice house?” and “let’s get started down here?” and “I’ll get you anything you want,” but that wasn’t good enough. And I don’t even want to talk about it. The only reason I still think about it is because she was so damned good in bed. She had chunky legs, and she wore these ugly long skirts with ruffles on the bottom, but she was pretty nice to look at. She moved like a pro. Of course, you know that means she’s been around the block. By now she’s probably circled Chicago a few times over. Pretty soon, she’ll be crossing off Illinois, altogether.
     I still think about her, when I shouldn’t, when I should have my mind of other things going on around me.
     “Mr. Davis,” Jenny was saying. “Are you in there?”
     She giggled, too, because she does that just to make sure you know she’s happy. She’s not really, though. I don’t know. I never thought about it. She just became a kind of habit.
     “Yeahup,” I said, and she just kept on going. I could hear that faint music that was playing for the other girls out on the main stages at the Bell. I’d been going there for almost a year. The music never changed that much. They play that damn Vida Loca song, too much.
     Anyway, where was I?
     Oh yeah, Amanda going off to Chicago. Well, that was something, wasn’t it? I wasn’t feeling too bad about it at first. I still had a lot of cash from the settlement and the book. It was all going pretty well. I was just bumming around the Charleston area looking for a few good story ideas. I went to the beaches. I hung out downtown. I tried to ignore the fact that my hair was falling out all over. I figured that at a certain age, you have to change your goals, stop trying to stay in shape, stop trying to stay on top of things, and just let everything go the way it wants to. Amanda, she wanted to go to Chicago. I felt like going to dinner a couple times a day. I could afford it, too. I can always afford it if I don’t go too crazy.
     “How are you doing there, Mr. Davis?” she asked. “Are you feeling good?” Jenny always asked these things. I used to just nod a bit.
     “Fine,” I said. “I’m fine.”
     And she went on. It was really good, though. It’s always been good. She’s a professional.
     Anyway, I asked myself, why not let it all go? Why not be crazy? Why not buy a yacht and ram it into an aircraft career? I thought about giving the money to charity once, but I never know who needs what or how. Who’s to say which group is legit and which is a scam? I don’t know. I figured that my effort paid for a lifetime of slacking. The first couple weeks we moved to Charleston when I was all sorts of tense about trying to write a new book to get on the best-seller list like the old one….
      “You’re tense, today,” Jenny said. “A rough day at work?”
     “Yeah,” I said. I wore a suit sometimes when I come in, so Jenny would think I have a real job where they work me like a dog. She treats me like they do, anyway.
     Oh yeah, I was saying that I was going about things the wrong way. I wanted Amanda to hold my hand, to constantly reassure me that I had another book in me. Then, when the car accident happened, I needed her to assure me that it wouldn’t stop my motors. I wanted her to tell me that I had an excuse not to write. What I really needed was to excuse myself, to realize that the best excuse was the fact that I don’t want to write. I haven’t got a story in me, anymore. I used to be ashamed of it. Not anymore. I’m not ashamed of anything.
     “You’re so quiet today,” Jenny said. She was doing the thing where she’d stand off from me a bit and pose while she bends over and grabs herself from both ends. Why do they do that? I don’t know. That doesn’t bother me much, but the face she makes… it’s like she’s absent. I try to look at her eyes when she does that. They’re greenish.
     To finish the thought, Amanda must have left because she knew that I was tapped out. She liked the celebrity more than the money. While I still had the money, I would never do the whole limelight thing again. She was more than willing to pose for photographs as the loving wife after I had the accident. She was in all the papers back home, smiling and waving, next to my bed where my legs were jacked up in the air. When she got the job offer for the TV studio, I said I was happy. I said I didn’t want to keep her watching over me anymore while I was still on crutches. I told her she should have her own life. She went to “check things out” and then she never called home. I never called her or her folks. I never packed her things up for her. I didn’t even wait. Every day felt like I’d lived it a million times before. All of it was routine. Indulgence of any kind, became routine. I’d dive all over a new restaurant opening. I’d eat their chilly fries and every beer on the menu. Soon, I’d run through it all. I’d just get bored, and end up sitting around.
     “All right,” she said, and she picked her dress up from the floor. It was one of those nice silver things that wasn’t too tight, but just hung onto her breasts and swung around. It shined real nice. She has good taste, I guess. I’d ask a total stranger what he had for dinner; just hoping it’d be something different. I never thought to ask her anything about the clothes. I don’t know why. I always wanted to know things, but I never really thought I paid for the right to ask her. They don’t want conversation, really. They just want you to sit there, still.
     “Thank you,” she said, and she always says that, even though I already gave her the money. She had tiny legs and a small nose with slight hook to it. I had every girl in that place. She was the dancer who became routine. There was something convenient about her. I never really thought about it.
     Somewhere along the line, I started eating at the same places, buying the same booze, never really venturing out. I started staying at home a lot more, and then I just made the two stops, the Bell and the liquor store. It was an easy life without a telephone and without the TV. I just sat at home, drinking, playing cards with myself, and trying not to think even a little, knowing I didn’t have the patience to think a lot. The money crawled downward, nothing noticeable. It didn’t cost too much for my daily private dance from Jenny or a bottle of cheap rum. I wish it had cost more, though. I wish it had cost everything, so I could feel the limit on it.
     “Jesus, Mr. Davis,” Jenny said. “I might think about college with the money you toss my way.”
     “Just as long as you don’t quit your job,” I said.
     “Oh,” she said. “I won’t.” And she gave that weird smile she always does. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to smile. I’ve always tried to make that smile believable. I’ve tried it by staying still, making it painless for her, making her feel professional. I figured it’d just be good enough to give her the money without asking her to dance, but I didn’t want her to ask me why. And sometimes, they get offended if you don’t want a dance. They act like they’re worried they’re not beautiful anymore. And I really think they’d feel that, sometimes. I don’t like that. It gets to me.
     “Why?” she asked. “Why me? Not that I’m complaining, but you come in here on the weekdays with a suit on or the weekends looking like you just rolled out of bed, but every time, you drop hundreds of dollars, most of it on me. Why?” She had terrible hair, all sprayed up, looking like a schizophrenic palmetto tree spray-painted yellow. She ran her fingers through it, giving one of those giggles. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t come up with anything. The creative juices weren’t flowing. I was moderately disappointed when she just shrugged it off.
     “I know,” she said. “You just like me. That’s all right. I won’t quit my job, as long as you don’t quit yours. Whatever it is.”
     It would have been great to tell her something, anything at all, but that would just commit me to being something, commit me to getting up and trying in the morning. I wanted to tell her some kind of lie to make her feel like she was important, because I chose her. It was the reason I started wearing a suit. It was the reason I settled for just one girl at random, I think. No. That’s not it.
     “Goodbye,” she said waving those glossy nails with the glitter on them.
     No. There was something special about her. She was tired at the end of the night, hot from being so close to someone. I could never imagine her just walking on the street. I could never imagine her clean and clothed, deciding on dinner, deciding on a life’s ambition. Yet, she was special. Maybe, it was something about her body, or maybe it was that toothy grin she gave me on the second night I saw her when she crawled up to me and said, “Don’t you want me again? Come on, give me a second chance.”
     There wasn’t a job in the world that I could say I did that would make her feel special, that would show her whatever it was that made me come back to her all the time. And there was nothing I could conceivably be that would show her for sure what I mean. This voice inside was wrecking away at me, saying, go ahead and tell her you’re a writer. Tell her you’re the greatest writer on earth. And I wanted to laugh. I got in the car and decided never to see Jenny again, but I knew a night of drinking to no end would just find me back there with my hands in the straps, sitting in the chair, while she straddles my hairy gut. I know I’d be there hearing Vida Loca pulsing through the wall while the other girls dance for dollars in the main room. I knew she’d be giggling when I looked past where she was touching herself to see those greenish eyes. I knew I’d be back there, doing nothing in particular, just sitting… bored.

 

 

Copyright © 2001 Scott W. Hazzard
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"