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Samba

I've been going through some old stuff that I wrote back when Bruno was away in Italy and I found this piece. I had forgotten about it, yet I love it so much. Maybe one day I'll expand upon it and see where it goes, but for now it is simply a vignette. I call it "Samba".

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She watched the candle flicker, the light dancing off of the cracked crimson glass that housed its flame. She found its jumping erratic movements intoxicating and stared at it until her vision became white and she was forced to look away. It took her eyes a moment to adjust and she found her every view obstructed by the image of the flame, it’s spirit lingering on and refusing to let go. The backs of her retinas ached from the brazen intrusion of the candle. She wondered why she had stared at it when she knew that it turned out the same every time- blinding and painful. Yet she knew that she would do it again. She would do it thinking that maybe this time things would be different. Maybe this time…

The thought haunted her so she picked up the closest thing to her, a sugar packet, and busied herself reading the label. When she caught a flash of the waiter in the corner of her eye she dropped the sugar and attempted to make eye contact with him. Feeling her eyes upon him, he turned and recognized her signal for another round: a finger pointed to her empty martini glass. He mouthed the question, “One more?” and she nodded her consent.

The waiter disappeared, the entire exchange taking less than 10 seconds. It was the most contact that she’d had with another human being since, well, since her last drink had been ordered. But before that, it had been days.

She hated her isolation and she hated herself because she was her own captor, her isolation self-imposed. Some prisoners had lived their entire lives behind bars, dreaming of a life on the outside, yet here she was, on the outside, and jailed by her emotional walls, her self-loathing the key to her lock.

She caught her reflection in the mirror behind the bar and stared. “How could that be me?” she thought. Only her eyes belied the truth within her soul. They stared back at her, dark yet hollow, devoid of warmth or emotion or the sparkle that had occupied them once upon a time. The rest of her face was pretty enough. If she wore sunglasses, she could even be considered beautiful. But her eyes stole her beauty. There was no light in her prison and no room for beauty to grow, to flourish. Nothing was nurtured where she was. She was where people came to die, as she herself had been slowly dying, each day bringing her one step closer to her final freedom. She smiled, the thought of the end bringing her a sense of melancholy happiness.

The waiter placed her drink in front of her and, thinking that she was smiling at him, smiled back.

“Thanks,” she offered, unsure if it was for the drink or the attention.

“Your welcome,” he gave back and smiled one more time. He looked into her eyes and paused, a look, of sadness clouding his face.

A silent question lingered in the air between them. He wondered what had caused her obvious heartache. She thought he must be wondering what was wrong with her.

She looked away, but he did not. Uncomfortable, she stirred the olive in her martini glass, fascinated by the waves that it left in its circular wake. Her eyes clung to the bottom of her glass, as if all of life’s questions hid in its depths.

He knew that she was aware of him. He didn’t want to walk away, but he didn’t know how to stay.

“It’s on me,” he said, an olive branch extended.

She looked up, and for a moment, her eyes softened.

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes never leaving his as she gently took hold of the branch.

Simultaneously, their hearts leapt, neither of them aware of the other’s imperceptible shift.

He walked away, back to his job, and she sipped on her drink. Thoughts rapidly invaded her head and bounced around before shooting back out as she absently stared at the flame flickering brightly before her, awed by its movements, its magical free flowing samba.

Yet Another Rerun

Another Rerun- originally posted... I don't know. A couple of years ago...

Well, my loyal readers (are you out there???), I've made it 100 some odd days without a gunshot or knife wound. Unfortunately however, I did not make it completely unscathed. Last week, my cute little convertible (who is dumb enough to own a convertible, red no less, in the hood?) was stolen only footsteps from my front door. The list of suspects is long and grows with each new hoodlum that I spy in my daily travels. The odds of catching said thief? Dwindling by the millisecond...

My week began like any other in the D. I awoke Monday morning to the smell of coffee (compliments of Bruno) and the sound of undecipherable screaming emanating from my bedroom window. Just your standard a.m. affair. While sipping espresso and smoking my first cigarette of the day I slumped onto the couch and tried to get my eyes to focus through the crust left over from a night drowned out by my OTC sleeping pill of choice, benedryl. As the screaming escalated somewhere outside my humble abode, I remembered that I could no longer put off the dreaded talk that I had to have with my landlord. Today was to be the day. The "I want the fuck out of Detroit, and my lease, please" day.

Bruno and I made awkward movements throughout the house for much of the morning, neither of us comfortable with breaking bad news to others. We ran over our list of "why's", such as: we hate it here, there's a crack house across the street, it's not safe, some crazy homeless guy tried to break our front door down, etc. etc. By the afternoon we had worked ourselves into such a state of fear that we almost opted to delay The Talk and go grab cocktails instead. Almost. Then the crack heads started yelling again and we pushed through our fear.

Our landlord was actually quite nice about the whole thing. He understood. He's from the D so it doesn't scare him like it does us white folks from So Cal. He even had another place in the suburbs that we could move to without having to start up a new lease. The landlord was so nice; he wasn't even going to hold our deposit hostage for breaking out year lease (only 4 months into it...). Things were looking good in the lives of Gigi and Bruno.

The next morning began in much the same manner as the previous morning. Smells of coffee, sounds of crack heads, me on the couch picking crust out of my eyes. Bruno had to head into school so I kissed him good-bye and picked up I-Book to catch up on the latest Hollywood gossip (it's a guilty pleasure- back off!). No longer than 30 seconds had passed before the front door opened and Bruno came walking back in, stunned.

"What's wrong?" I inquired, barely taking my eyes off of the latest "Lohan Gets Fucked Up and then Fuck's Someone Her Dad's Age" story.

"The cars gone."

"What?"

"The cars gone. It's fucking gone."

"No fucking way!" I-Book was thrown aside at this point because frankly, I had my own real life drama going on and Lohan was no longer interesting. I ran out to the porch and found myself agreeing with Bruno. Yup, the car was fucking gone.

Something rather unfortunate happened at that moment. I finally snapped. Everything that Detroit had thrown at me over the past 4 months amounted to this. In this town, you cannot win. And like any madman (or madwoman) I threw my head back and tossed out an eerie peal of laughter. Laughter escalated over the rooftops of the dilapidated burned out homes all around me. I laughed so hard that tears ran down my face and I nearly choked on my own delirium.

I continued laughing when I called the insurance company. I laughed harder when I called the police station. I laughed the entire cab ride from my house to the rental car agency and I laughed when I signed away my life on the dotted line of the rental policy. I laughed while I sat in the police station waiting to fill out a report. I even laughed when giving the cop the details of the theft. The laughter didn't stop until these fated words were spoken by the attending officer:

"You had full coverage insurance so it shouldn't be a problem."

Full coverage insurance? You mean I need full coverage in order to be reimbursed for my dearly departed car? That isn't standard with my policy?

"I don't have full coverage insurance. Just the minimum that's required by the state." I had stopped laughing.

"You should probably speak with your insurance company then..." He looked apologetic, and I actually believe that he felt sorry for me. Shit, I felt sorry for me.

I can't really recall much of the hours or days that followed that. A blur of crack heads screaming and me staring off into space. That must be the second stage of grief. It is now a week later and I have a new car. I'm only in my apartment for 10 more days and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this car won't be stolen. But hell, this is the D. It will probably be gone by tomorrow morning.

Rerun #3

Crack Business Rule #1: The Customer Is ALWAYS Right!

100 days without a gunshot or knife wound!!!!!

This morning there has been a steady stream of crackheads outside of my flat, screaming, pissing and making a general nuisance of themselves. If anyone is actually out there reading this (and I suspect that no one is, so this is probably pointless to say) I would like to set the record straight and say that, when I use the term "crackhead", I am not making a broad or general statement about a certain group of people. In fact, the term crackhead is being used in the most specific sense of the word. There really is a crackhouse across the street. They really do sell crack. There really are crackheads milling around my neighborhood at all hours of the day and night.

Now, I don't buy or do crack, but I'm a pretty smart gal and I've figured out the way the business works. When crack is for sale and the crackhouse is open for business, there is a light on in the front window. It only took me a couple of days to figure that out. But their customers are not so smart.

This is the way that things should operate at the crackhouse:

Customer drives up to house in rusted out shitmobile, the sweet lament of Miles Davis' horn wailing softly from the interior. Seeing that the light indicating "open for business" is blazing in the crackhouse's window, customer softly taps the cars horn ONCE, to alert the dealer of a potential sale. Dealer promptly comes out and the two people conduct their business in hushed undertones, shielding their illegal activity from the neighborhood around them. Transaction complete, the dealer and customer do some complicated handshake that is only understood in the world of hoodlums and boybands, and quietly go their separate ways.

Alas, this is how it usually happens:

Customer drives up to house in rusted out shitmobile, pumping undecipherable rap music that suspiciously sounds like the inside of my head after a three day bender (I guess). Customer sees light on in window and proceeds to lie on horn for ten minutes while shouting from the car window, "HEY! HEY! YOU HOME?" Finally, dealer comes out of house and yells at customer. Customer yells back. I don't know what they are saying, or whether or not they are, in fact, angry, but this is usually when I head to the bathroom to lay down in the bathtub, safe from any unexpected exchange of bullets that might take place. More yelling ensues that I now can definitely not understand, as I am curled up in the fetal position in the bathtub. After about 15 minutes the yelling dies down and I am free to return to my living room and resume work.

There are the occasional deviations to this scenario, such as when the light is not on but the customer thinks that the crackhouse dealer just forgot to turn it on. This is usually followed by an escalating round of racial slurs shouted up at the broken windows on the second floor. If the crackhouse is occupied, which I suspect that it usually has a few cracked out ho's lying around at any given time, then they can surely hear the rantings of the lunatic needing a fix. Their entire top floor has only boards across the windows, so sound probably travels easily through the openings. In spite of lunatic rantings, no one comes out to deliver said "package", further inflaming the perilous crackhead. In one final fit of rage, the crackehead unfastens the button on his pants, pulls down zipper and takes a whiz on the crackhouse's trashcans, forever teaching them the first lesson of running your own business: The customer is always right!

Note: In the time that I spent writing this post, the crackhouse made 5 transactions. I'm thinking that today might be the day when my illustrious streak of 100 simultaneous days without a gunshot or knife wound comes to a precarious end. Let's hope not, because I don't have medical insurance. And I'm working on a deadline. And I haven't been paid in weeks. And I suspect gunshot wounds are costly...