I got the idea from a movie called Heavy Petting, when Alan Ginsberg asks Williams S. Burroughs if all he really wants is to be loved, to which WSB replies, "That depends, by who, or by what."
It was a cute house, Steve thought looking at
the tiny home. The first floor was one big room, divided equally
into kitchen dining area and living room with sofa and fireplace. He
guessed the television was upstairs, in the master bedroom. There
would also a smaller bedroom office and the only bathroom in the small
structure up there as well. The smell of cooking dinner permeated
the first floor.
“Thanks,” Sheila said. “It is
one of the oldest homes in Shoreham.”
“Really? Mine too.”
“Yeah, I know, it looks like mine”
she added some vegetables to the wok, sending plumes of steam into
the air. There was ginger and garlic in the air. “They were
probably built at the same time.”
“I don't know when mine was built;
when they started keeping track of structures, in 1829, my house was
already standing. That smells really good!”
“Wow, 1829?” she said, moving the
vegetables around in the hot oil, “I guess mine was built a lot
later then.”
Meanwhile, Bessie had finished her
circuit of the house and picked a corner where she could watch both
exits and the two humans. She put her chin on her paw and watched
the dialogue like it was a tennis match, her eyes bouncing from one
speaker to the other as they volleyed their comments.
He set the coffee pot and ground beans
on the counter near the sink, as far away from her at the stove as he
could be. “I brought wine, want some?”
“Oh, thank you, Jesus, yes I will take
some. Glasses are over there,” she gestured vaguely towards the
sink with her spatula. "Do you want to make the salad? All you have
to do is cut up the veggies in the colander.”
Steve was grateful to have something to
do. He felt like he was there for selfish reasons. He was less
interested in getting to know her and more excited about an evening
out of his house. More than once he had caught himself standing in
the middle of a room, perplexed as to why he was there. It is like I
am looking for something, but forgot what I am looking for, he had
thought. These moments were so full of longing that he sometimes
fell on his knees, weeping.
During the very quiet meal, neither
spoke after the salad was served, he decided to tell a joke. “So
one day, this old farmer and his wife are sitting at the breakfast
table, when the wife reaches over and hits her husband in the
shoulder. 'Why did you do that?”' he said, mimicking an old
Vermont farmer's voice, “ And she says,” now using a slightly
higher pitched, Old Vermont Farmer's voice, “'That's for 50 years
of bad sex.' After thinking a moment, the old farmer hit her back.
'What's that for?' 'That's for knowing the difference.'”
She covered her mouth to prevent food
from flying out, “Oh God! Really?” she said before throwing
back her head and laughing. She was very proud of her long, curly
hair. She thought the streaks of grey added contrast and
distinction. She wanted him to know she was not intimidated by time.
“Is that what Elmer was telling you?”
“Elmer?”
“My neighbor. I saw you talking to
him on your way through his field.” She shifted in her seat, She appreciated the joke and wanted to pay him back by letting him know she was paying her full attention to him.
“That old fart?” Steve couldn't
believe he had not mentioned the incident earlier. He was getting
angry just thinking about it, “You want to know what he said? He
said if he ever saw my dog off a leash again, he'll shoot her.”
fucking prick, he wanted to add but was unsure how she would react to
the profanity.
“Really?” she was wide eyed in
disbelief. “That is not okay. That land isn't posted, so he
shouldn't be upset about people using his pasture for a short cut.”
“Yeah, showed me his gun and
everything.”
“Oh he's harmless, still better let
me drive you two home.”
“Nah, It's after 9, he's been in
bed for a couple of hours by now. Although I think I am going to
need a flashlight.”
She was disappointed that he was
talking about leaving so soon, “You brought your coffee maker,
shall we have a couple of cups?”
"You know, we could drink them on the
porch, Listening to the critters and watching the moon come up.”
That sounds fantastic. Best to
distract him. Outwardly, she was warm and welcoming of his company.
When she started her day, she had no expectation of ending it by
sharing her private spaces with someone else.
When he had arrived, walking onto her
porch with his dog, coffee maker and specially ground coffee, she was
grateful that dinner wasn't ready yet. She had kissed him quickly in
greeting, then put him to work, setting the table and cutting
vegetables for the salad.
Standing over her stove, she chided
herself for feeling nervous, feeling a little like she had boldly
grabbed the tigers tail, and now what?
He had seemed just as surprised that a
conversation started by a chance encounter in the coffee/tea aisle at
the supermarket between two neighbors had turned into a discussion on
the importance of his daily coffee ritual and then a dinner
invitation, with the promise of a lesson on how to make the best cup
of coffee he knew how.
They had cleared the table together,
she washed the wok and the rice pot while he dried them. Then he
took over, showing her how to add the correct amount of water to the
stove top espresso maker, carefully tamping the fine ground beans
into the basket, “the idea isn't to pack them tightly, that would
make the it harder for the steam to get through and could give the
coffee a burned taste.” Moments later, when the brewed coffee
began to stream out of the spout thing in the middle, a perfectly
opaque stream of darkest brown with a golden foam, he opened the lid
of the pot and waved his hand in the air over it, inhaling deeply.
She followed, opening her eyes and seeing his blissful expression,
“ahh, I love that smell. But it only lasts for a second, then
whatever it is that makes it, burns away.
Now, with their two tiny cups of
perfectly brewed coffee, he is talking about leaving before they even
finish drinking them. She decided that she didn't want the night
to end yet, “This coffee reminds me of what I used to like to do in
school. Drink really strong coffee and get high.”
He was genuinely surprised to hear her
say that, “Really? I thought high school guidance councilors
eschewed any and all forms of recreational drug use.”
She gave him a mock stare of
astonishment, “Eschewed? How often does that word pop up at the
furniture factory?
“A lot less than you would think.”
“So, are we going to get our smoke on
or not?”
“I wouldn't want ruin perfectly good
coffee by NOT getting stoned”
Going outside forgotten as they passed
her pipe back and forth, they both exhaled, comfortable and content.
Aware of and enjoying the warmth of physical contact between their
bodies, their eyes locked and they both smiled.
Should I tell her how much I love sex
while stoned, or is that too personal? Not content to just drift,
Steve's mind, enlivened by the marijuanna, shifted into overdrive.
This has been nice, but I shouldn't push it. After all, we are just
neighbors and not even friends. She is definitely a friends only
kind of woman.
Left to their own thoughts, their eyes
locked and they giggled at their inner dialogues.
This is nice, HE is nice she was
thinking. He is kind, and gentle and funny. The kind of sensitive,
new age guy that would care about my orgasms, Sheila thought. And
empathetic, he understood that she did not want to be smothered or
have the emotional acumen navigate the minefield of a new
relationship. It was too exhausting to not damage fragile male egos.
They giggled again, this time at each
other. And because they were nervous. She took the initiative and
brought her face close to his, but he took the lead, reaching behind
her head with his hand, cradling her skull, fingers buried in her
hair, and pulled her lips onto his mouth.
Just like the coffee and the dope had
their unique effects, coffee being stimulating, the dope adding a
hazy, dream quality, kissing seemed to release white parks of
electricity in the room and a distant roar like when you stick your
head completely out the window of a moving car,filled the room.
“Oh my God,” she said, “Did you
ever do that thing when you were a kid where you went outside and
spun around in circles, looking up at the sky, until you fell over,
but the sky continued to spin?”
“Oh yeah, all the time, until I
discovered dope.”
They kissed again, laughing now as they
tugged at their clothes, first their own, then at each other's, a
game for adults, until, naked, he chased her up the stairs. She made
a note to ask him about the unusual tattoos on his back and chest
After their lovemaking, spooned
together on her futon, she spoke to the ceiling, “I never knew how
lonely I felt until I saw you at the co-op this morning. I was
trying so hard to get you to notice me so I could ask you over for
dinner.” She paused, her brow wrinkled, her face a frown, “Does
that make me a slut or desperate?”
Does she want me to leave? I am not
ready to let this feeling go, he thought after their love making.
The anxiety returning. A familiar voice that he could not place
spoke, let tomorrow worry about itself. If she wants you to go, she
will ask you. Until then, go to sleep.”
Like a tired, sated child, he closed
his eyes. The dream started at once, a girl, a familiar girl,
with the familiar voice, was excitedly urging him, “...spending the
rest of eternity fucking up the life of every waitress that doesn't
bring her diet coke refills fast enough. I am counting on you to
save me from that.”
Suddenly the picture snapped into
place, it was a memory! He was in a car, in the rain, outside the
bus terminal. He couldn't remember why he was there or who he was
talking to, but he knew he had been there. Something very important
was going to happen and he was a part of it.
“Promise me I can count on you. I am
not about to become the greatest genii in the world just so I can
turn Justin Timberlake into her personal live slave. Don't let me
become the an object of great power, only to wielded by a feeble
mind.”
I wish you wouldn't go away,” she
shushed him, placing her fingers on his lips
“Easy with the “W” word.”
“I don't want you to leave.”
“I will come back whenever you want
me to. You just have to ask. She held him close and sang in his
ear, “close your eyes, make a wish, and count to ten, and I'll be
there.”
“Now, for your own safety, you have
to forget what I just told you.”
I don't want to forget you.
I know. But you have to or she will be
able to find you. Forget about everything me her everything. You
have to do this or we will come back to you and you don't want her
using me for revenge. It won't be pretty.
What? You are scaring me.
Hush, she said, kissing him (in his
sleep he moaned and smiled. HE could feel her lips on his and an
erection began to grow in his crotch.)
Please come back, he said in his mind.
But she couldn't come back, she was gone. HE had cried when state
trooper told him her body had been found, murdered in Oregon.
She was gone and he was alone. The
girl she had gone out west with had disappeared also. Had he heard
from her?
He didn't know which hurt worse, that
she was gone or he was totally alone, except for his dog. In the
friendly neighbor/guidance councilor's bed, the wind was sucked out
of him.
Please come back, he said through
tears, Mary, please come back.
He was openly sobbing now and Sheila
woke up. She saw he was crying in his sleep and she looked at him
with concern. She hadn't expected this. The alarm bells began to
ring, too needy she thought. Disgusted at her own selfishness, she
gently laid her hand on his heaving chest, her brow wrinkled with
worry.
Eventually he stopped begging her to
come back and fell into a deep sleep. In the morning, he quickly got
dressed. They didn't speak much, tacitly agreeing that there would
be no talk of a repeat of last night's festivities.
He and his dog walked out the front
door after the awkward hugs and kisses. It was funny how, after
being so intimate just hours ago, they were as awkward and self
conscious as acne ridden teen agers at their first dance. Well, once
again, Shelia resignedly thought, she had gone to bed with one man
and woke up with a someone completely different.
She saw the bag with the coffee
acoutremnts. He was so distracted in such a hurry to leave that he
must have either forgotten them. Or he left them on purpose as an
excuse to come back later. There was no way she wanted him to see
him for a long time. She grabbed the bag and rushed out the door
after him.
Elmer, the farmer next door had come
out of his barn, yelling at Steve and holding his shotgun. He
resented repeated trespass of man and beast on his independently
owned dairy farm. It was time to put the fear of Elmer into both of
them. First he had spent the night in immoral congress with the
whorish, Jewish intellectual that lived next to his farm and now he
had the temerity to trespass again with that unleashed and probably
unlicensed dog. If the tree hugging, liberal asshole didn't like,
he could go cryinng back to his fellow public radio listening tramp.
As he approached them, yelling invectives over his shot gun barrel,
Steve grabbed the gun from the farmer and hit him in the face with
its butt in one swift move.
Elmer's indignation quickly gave way to
pain and fear as he found himself on his back. He knew his glasses
had been knocked off and the blurry vision added to the fear. He was
trying to simultaneously sit up, spit the broken teeth out of his
mouth and reorient himself when Steve walked up and kicked the farmer
in the ribs.
Steve surveyed the quiet, early
morning. He picked up the shotgun and racked the pump, watching the
shells fly out. He kicked the farmer with every shell that was
ejected. Each kick brought the audible snap of a rib and painful
grunt from the injured farmer. When it was empty he threw the shot
gun into the cow pasture.
Then he knelt next to the farmer and
grabbed his face by the chin. Blood flowed freely from Elmer's mouth
and nostrils, one eye was already swelling shut and the other had a
river of red running through the white part. Elmer's bowels and
bladder voided at the sight of Steve's face. “If you ever
threaten my dog again, I'll burn your fucking house down with you in
it.”
He whistled for the dog and continued
walking home through the pasture.
Speechless at the violence Shelia had
just witnessed, she stood half in her house and half on her porch,
the screen door halfway opened holding the coffee pot. Her other
hand held the carefully ground, dark roasted beans. At school, her
role would have been to stop the fight, administer first aid and help
the participants examine what had brought them to that place, then to
over see the serving of logical consequences of their behavior.
When she heard Elmer's “Oh Oh Oh” as Steve kicked him, she feared that if she intervened, she would be killed. She carefully stepped
back into the house, silently bringing the screen door back to its
resting position. Quietly, she closed the door and leaned her back
against it until her knees gave way and she slid to the floor.
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