Without Condition (2) Our attraction to each other, if it was mutual, was not driven by sex. I was getting my fill and she seemed to be living without a sex drive. With sex out of the picture we were able to speak to one another without fear. We talked and laughed and held hands, but sex was not the next step. It was in the future though; I could feel it on her lips with our last goodnight kiss. But I wouldn’t rush it and that was new for me and okay, too. After dinner we drove to the beach and drank more wine and listened to the waves crash the shore. I let down the tailgate of my truck and we sat close, holding hands and kissing and smiling face to face. The wind blew wildly and her hair splashed in all directions but she was certain of herself and it didn't bother her. I respected that about her. It was nice to be with someone who was stable and simple and caring in a traditional way. She came right off the beaten path, that is to say she came straight from mid-stream America, from a sound family and was content with who she was and what life would bring her. In an odd way this made me want to be with her and listen to the strange things she said. They were so different than anything I had ever heard. They were simple and common, boring to the point of fascination. She was my window to all the things common, things that had been occurring around me during the reckless succession of mishaps and chaos that had become my life. Everything about her was laced with a straight line of normalcy, competency and faith that I never wanted to grasp for doing so was conforming and conformity, to me, was for the masses and the herds and the inmates. She was content with a good job; I always believed there was nothing good about any job. What good comes from ass kissing and being friendly to other greed mongers you’d just as soon shit on? Holidays and so called ‘family time’ were something she held sacred and spoke of very kindly. To me this was time away from reality and I’d rather spend my Christmas alone on a sendero in south Texas watching deer cross and spotted shoats playing chase. This was much better than pretending we were all just one big happy fucked-up family. Why spend one second of my life in the presence of even the tinniest trace of dishonesty? My time with Suzanne was almost confession-like, only one is trusted to tell the truth in a confessional, but I regarded truth as something fragile that required impenetrable protection. I preferred to keep quiet, for one cannot lie without first breaking the silence. “I like it here, Joe.” She said. “The salt air is so nice. Nothing else smells quite like it.” It was nice and the summer wind was warm and soothing. “You like the salt water, don’t you, Joe?” “Yeah, I guess I do.” I said. “I like it very much. I lived not too far from here when I was a child.” I did like the salt water. In fact I loved it because it had always been a part of my life and I knew that living by it and being in it throughout my childhood somehow made different from other people who never had the opportunity to experience life on the bay. I wanted to tell her all about life on the water’s edge and give her insight into its mystery and beauty and danger. I wanted her to know how I used to fish in the mornings with my grandmother and how she taught me to spit on the bait if the fish weren’t biting. And how my mother grew aloe plants in the yard so the healing fluids inside would always be nearby when I came home red and hurting from jellyfish stings. But I hoped Suzanne would not want to swim in it for it was only a few days ago since I last swam at this beach. It was with a girl I’d met at a blues bar on the Strand and she was fat and unattractive and loud, but I was drunk and we swam naked in the dark surf and had sex on the shore among the seaweed and dying cabbage heads left over from that evening’s high tide. When we finished I just wanted to get away from her. It was as though I was suffocating in foolishness and had cheapened myself beyond recovery. As a topper to a wonderful evening she asked if I would drive her through Jack-in-the-Box on the way home. I did it without a word, but with complete admiration for her having the balls or stupidity or ignorance for even asking. Ice water for me, the rest of the menu and the rest of my money for her. At her apartment complex we exchanged numbers, she gave me hers and I gave her the number to Pizza Hut. I was pissed at myself and figured she might as well call someone who’ll answer. I tried to forget about it and swimming here with Suzanne wouldn’t allow me to so I spoke of other things and we admired the great sky one last time then started home. “I’ve enjoyed our time together.” I said. “I was beginning to think that women like you didn’t exist anymore.” I was sobering up a bit, but I still felt I could speak about the future without being nervous or scared. I was used to speaking this way. It was the way Lauren and I spoke to one another. It was honest and made me feel close and not alone. Suzanne rubbed my shoulder and smiled at me. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot from the wine, but still the blue, the incredible icy cold blue center shined with the brilliance of the moon over the bay. Her eyes were big and draped with lazy, sexy eyelids that spread a royal overtone about her gaze. She was divine and enlightening and I was anxious for her to speak to me about the future. Our future. “I want you to know that I had all but given up hope of ever finding a woman like you, Suzanne. For so long I’ve looked for someone to talk with, but had to keep quiet. There was just no one out there who cared. You care don’t you?” “Care about what, Joe?” “Well, I’m not sure really. Just about things that deserve care and don’t always get it. Things like thoughts and dreams. My thoughts. My dreams.” “I do care about your thoughts and dreams, Joe. They make me think and I hope mine do the same for you.” “They do, honey. They do.” She took her hand away from me and I looked at her. She wasn’t smiling anymore and her big blue eyes seemed troubled. She sat on her hands as if to warm them, and then spoke to me in a tone I had never before heard from her. Something was wrong. I could sense that she was scared or nervous. “Joe, I don’t want you to think that I lied to you and I’m sorry but this scares me.” “What do you mean? What scares you?” “You scare me.” “How’s that? What have I done to scare you?” “It’s your thoughts and dreams, Joe. They scare the hell out of me. I don’t want to hurt you but they’re unrealistic and childish and some are so dangerous. The way you live, Joe. The way you roam around without any particular destination. I feel like there’s no settlement in you. That no one will ever make you happy. You just want to fish and drink all the time and you don’t care what lies ahead. It’s a cop-out, Joe. I’m so sorry to say this to you but it’s the way I feel.” Tears began to well in her lovely eyes. “Is it responsibility that scares you, Joe? Do you not want responsibility?” “What responsibility?” I asked surprised by her words. “That’s exactly what I mean. You have none. You say you’re a writer but I’ve never seen anything that you’ve written. All I’ve ever seen you do is write on napkins with a pencil and fish and drink. At night you disappear, then call and wake me as if I want to hear you slur and snore. It frightens me because I don’t know you well enough, but you don’t seem to care. It’s as though we’ve been dating for years, Joe. It’s just too strange for me.” “I have pushed you, I know. It’s just that I think so much of you.” She caught me by surprise and I was confused and short for recourse. “I’m sorry for being so presumptuous but I just don’t want to lose what’s so irreplaceable.” “Irreplaceable? Joe you’re talking as if you own me or something. Your tone is so possessive.” “Suzanne…” “There’s no possession here, Joe.” She said sternly. “There won’t be any. This is our third date but you’re treating me as if we’ve been together for years. I’m not your girl, Joe. I’m sorry. I don’t want to be your girl, anybody’s girl. Not now.” There was fear in her voice. Not fear of physical harm but the fear one feels when they tell another the truth, knowing how painful the truth would be. It was painful. I hated to hear it but it kept coming. “I don’t want to see you anymore, Joe. I need some stability in my life and you have none. None for yourself much less any for me. I’m sorry, Joe, and I know this sounds hateful but we’ve been very honest with one another so far and I think that’s the best way. Everything seems to be happening too fast. I’m just not there right now and I want to be me, not someone you want me to be.” I suddenly had the urge to grab her by the face and squeeze her mouth shut, but I was a drunk and a drug addict, not a woman beater. I’ve never had a cell of sympathy for those chickenshits. Life is unfair, but to punish a woman because of it is downright cowardice. I wanted to scream at Suzanne and tell her how wrong she was and what a mistake she was making. But I couldn’t lie anymore. I was tired of it. It had done me no good anyway. She was right. She did deserve someone better than me and I knew that particular someone would not be difficult to find. A banker, an insurance salesman, a real estate broker or maybe a drug store manager. Someone with a job and short sleeve shirt and bad tie. Someone with some self-respect, blind to the ills of my side of life. As we rolled down the Sea Wall the silence was horrible and I began to feel sorry for myself and even more so for Suzanne and her cold blue eyes and warm, loving heart. She was crying now as she looked down into her lap and sniffled. She didn’t want to hurt me but she thought she did and it made her sad because being sweet was her nature. But she didn’t hurt me. You can’t kill a dead man. I wanted to tell her this but I couldn’t. It was just too satisfying to see those tears being shed for me. But that was selfish too and then I wished she really had hurt me so her tears would not fall without purpose. I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t in me and even if it were I don’t think there would have been room for anymore pain. I realized how useless it was to wish for death last night on my bathroom floor. It was already there. I was just too drunk to feel it. “Take me home please, Joe.” She said, and I did so without speaking another word to her. Even when she said goodbye and walked away I said nothing. She had already said enough for both of us. As I drove away I thought of how lovely she was at the beach with her hair splashing in the wind. I stopped and wrote the words Splashing Hair on the top of my hand, then continued on. I would never see nor speak with Suzanne again. * * * It was nearing 4:00 AM when I finally arrived home from a five hundred dollar night at Pop’s. I had taken the liberty of drowning-out a bad evening with a bottle of Glenlivet and two dancers in the dressing room behind the stage. One of them was missing her two front teeth and I mentioned that she might “…want to quite gnawing so hard on the headboard back at the trailer.” That bought me a slap in the face and new pair of aching blue balls for the ride home. I think the other one had most of her teeth, but when she sided with her friend and decided she didn’t need my shit either, I lied to her and told her she had “…a case of halitosis that’d make your socks roll up and down”. They called me a brat and an asshole and a drunk, but somehow Pop let it pass, maybe because I was once his best customer, and after convincing him I could make it home, he poured me into my truck and sent me on my way. Thunder rumbled behind a flashy sky of lightening. My bare feet sank into the dew-soaked grass as I stumbled to the porch to take refuge on the old wooden steps. Azle, my German Shepherd and best friend, came to me and licked the sweat from my face with all her love then laid down next to me as the storm hurried in off the Gulf. I swallowed greedily from my scotch bottle as though it were warm honey. The whiskey no longer stung my throat and I wanted more. I wanted to be more drunk, but I couldn’t do it. Pushing the sweat on my forehead back into my hair I spat strongly into the grass and watched to see where it landed. The night was dismal and the sky was crowded with angry thunderheads and I was in it full of booze and empty of heart. As the storm moved closer inland the wind began to whip and spin as if flustered about its direction. This helped cool the summer air and signaled the oncoming of heavy rains. I stood and stepped into the grass and urinated in the yard, swaying in the wind but not because of it. Azle watched anxiously from the porch waiting for me to finish so that she could investigate. She did so as I tediously sat back down and drank some more. The great live oaks swayed in the wind and the rain finally began to fall. Not moving, I let the rain fall on me until I was completely soaked. I took off my shirt and dropped it next to me. Azle sniffed at it curiously then moved closer to the front door to avoid the rain. Like a statue in a park I let the rain drench me with its nourishment and soon it was okay for me to give in. I didn’t know if the neighbors were watching. I didn’t care, they hated me anyway and no one could distinguish the rain from the tears. Nothing mattered anymore and I bathed in the cold rain shower. The sky flashed and the thunderheads rolled in and howled and screamed in a restless rage. I drank hard from the bottle again and in a bright flash I saw the words ‘Splashing Hair’ draining down my hand. I finished undressing until I was completely naked. It felt good being naked. I was vulnerable and unprotected and it was nice to be fearless and completely exposed. Once more I pissed in the yard, this time from the top step, swaying back and forth as if blindfolded on the cliff’s edge. Looking back at Azle I could see that she was scared of the storm but she wasn’t going to leave me. She waited for me with sad, suspect eyes and she loved me always and without condition. I wondered why humans couldn’t find unconditional love between themselves. Not mother/child love, but man/woman love, the toughest of them all, for there is no blood to enforce the bond. And if they could, how much better life might be. Why must we go to animals for this love? It’s strange how human beings are able to change the world, even destroy it as if we own it, yet we’re unable to truly love one another. Conditions. Always conditions. Stepping toward the front door I knocked over the whiskey bottle. It clunked boringly and bled into the soupy soil, but I paid it no mind. I was there, drunk enough and just fine without it. Falling into my bed it was still messy and dirty from the night before. My quilt was soft beneath me and I rolled on it trying to dry myself. As I reached for my pillow I felt the crumple of paper against my hand. The quick fill of light from my bedside lamp stung a bit as I read the simple handwritten note…‘Lauren called at 4:00 AM. She didn’t seem very happy.’ It was signed, Auburn. “Bitch!” I said nervously. Grabbing the phone I dialed Lauren’s number. There was no answer so I dialed again. I tried to sober up but was too dizzy and my throat was lumped with guilt. I was apprehensive about being naked now and suddenly concerned about other people looking at me. I was nervous and scared as Lauren’s phone rang. What a great name, I thought, what a great goddamn name? My heart raced and thoughts of shining auburn hair slipped through my mind. For several minutes I sat listening to Lauren’s phone ring then quickly hung-up before she had the chance to answer. But that was bullshit; it was just fear and hot, sickening humility. Even in the finality of it all I wondered if she was alone or if she was with someone who didn’t love her as much as I did. There was no one like that, she had to know this. In the silence I could only think of the time we sat together in front of our small fireplace, the season’s first snowstorm blew in off Lake Michigan and blanketed the city. We were wrapped together in an old quilt my grandmother had made. We had just finished making love on the floor and were sitting in silence drinking wine. With the firelight shining in our faces, we looked into each other’s eyes and without a word melted into one another and became each other’s soul. That moment changed me forever. It was the first time, the only time, I had ever felt true, unconditional love. It was there waiting for me and I devoured it all. It was raining harder now. The air in my room was dead and moist but I was cold with guilt and covered myself as if to hide from the world. A flash and the lamp dies and there was just heavy rain pouring down. My head spun and I thought of the pain and the salt water, the sour smell and being in the arms of my mother on that cold tile floor, but most of all I thought of that moment when Lauren and I accepted each other like animals, beasts untroubled by mankind’s world, knowing the other as their one and only necessity. Then there were so many thoughts, none of them good or decent or selfless. I thought of the daughter we’d have, her name would be Auburn. I’ve always loved that name. It’s pretty like her. It’s comfortable. It’s a lovingly predictable change that brings me life. Life I look forward to. Azle’s chasing rabbits through a dream. Her paws flap as her mind races through the tall broom grass. She wines trying to bark. “It’s okay, baby. You got her. You got her baby. Go night-night pretty girl. Your daddy loves you. You know… don’t you gal? In the smother of darkness Azle slept beside me.
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Copyright © 2001 Branson Storm |