![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Summer of '96
Jul. 22nd, 2010 01:44 am'96 and the Summer Olympics are in Terminus.
Circus and Jive.
This is a week before the bomb's gone off in Centennial Park. Before the riot rumors fizzled into wishful hyperbole and faux revolutionary agitprop. Before the soldiers marched down Peachtree and the whole world tuned in to catch a state of Martial Law slapped across the 'City Too Busy To Hate'.
This is Seaborn Avenue in Engine Town, whose length runs parallel and to the left of the tracks before truncating suddenly by the flow of US 23.
I'm sitting on the couch at Maryanne's apartment and the place is a bunker compact one bedroom baking steady with the lone AC broke. Across from me is a real piece of shit whose name I had forgot the moment we met. A young rumble punk who had hitched himself south from some trouble in the midwest - 'that you don't know nothin' 'bout' - as he would say. Met Maryanne at the Star Bar. Worked his punch chiseled and luck hammered good looks to get her into the sack. Worked harder to earn a repeat performance. By night two they were a couple. By three he had moved into her place. Not even a month passed beofre she began noticing the tip money missing from the purse and the bill stash that was inexplicably a hundred dollars short.
Poor Maryanne - she always did like them young, pretty and mean.
She was one of the old school punks. Class of '77! Elder stateswomen whose inks had logged more scene time than you and your crew had combined. That rare soul whose idle conversation was without the least tint of gossip or polluted with even a drop of bad drama. She'd smoke her last joint with you if you were out and she'd serve the last beer out of her fridge with a smile even if it was Sunday and she'd have to wait eight more hours before the next went on sale. Unfortunately, the years had declined to return the kindness. The Scene Life had ravaged her looks into a rugged charm. Leather tanned and teetering on zombie chic. A car crash had left her with a permanent limp. Chain smoke had scratched up her throat into a husky rasp. Without a doubt she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever had the privilege of knowing.
Sometimes it seems there's an invisible law out there running through the universe and it's one that applied itself to Maryanne with a blind vengeance. I'm not sure of the math but the equation is obvious: The Cooler the Lady = The Shittier the Guy.
And this Cat was the worst.
In the brief time I will be Maryanne's neighbor she will go through three men - each worse than the next. The first guy vanished with her car after a week. The last guy got hunted down through Voodoo Town after taking off with her rent. This prick before me was the meat between her broken-heart sandwich.
She showed up at the door sobbing. Delivered the story fresh from the tragedy. How she confronted him about the cash. How he reacted with a raised hand and the threat of a slap. How he told her not to worry 'bout it and how he'd pay her back when he could. Most of all how he was down there now watching her basic cable and drinking her beer.
Which is how I end up on the couch sitting across from him. Somebody has to say something and it's been said that I have a way with words. I give it to him straight. He's out and he's out now and she's willing to forget the money if he just walks out that back door now. It's as simple as that and a thousand times better than the alternative.
But here's the thing. I'm a big guy with a shaved head and dark eyes that's seen more than his fair share in the scene. But that's not what he sees. He see's me for who I am. The quiet-type. The nascent writer. Big words soft spoken into vague suggestions and muttered remarks. Gentle soul, me. Lover-not-a-Fighter, me.
So he narrows wide eyes into an unspoken threat and drills his attention on me.
Which is what they all do at first.
"I know what you're thinking" I cough the meekness out of my voice, "and yeah you probably could but it'd take a lot more work than you think. But the problem is Maryanne here has herself a lot of friends. Friends, who as it turns out, that in turn have quite a lot of friends themselves. I would be one of them."
"That right?" Prick-O snarls neither impressed or knowing where this is all going.
"Yep..." and I glance at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. Less than a minute to go.
"Well, here's the deal... Jack, is it?" with that he crouches off the opossing couch and hovers inches from my face while puncturing the scant distance between our two profiles with jabs off a thick finger, "I ain't goin' anywhere. And if you have a problem with that. If you have an 'alternative'. Then step up. If you or any of Maryanne's other 'friends' have themselves a problem with that... well, shit... bring 'em on by and I'll tell 'em the same thing I'm tellin' you. Got that?"
I nod absently, my eyes unable to stand up to the heat of his glare. I gulp back dry fear. I swallow back the weakness. Panic frozen and unable to rise up and smash his smug face in. Instead I mutter - 'Don't have to'.
"What's that? I don't think I heard you?"
"I said 'I don't have to'."
"Pfff... 'Have to' what?"
"'Bring them by'... they're already here." I glance up at the clock again and on cue Bill Lawless and Tom walk through the front door. Behind them Ronnie, Germ, Spew and Ian. Each one filing into the Maryanne's without word one. Bill Lawless still in his blue Wackenhut uniform with the pistol strapped across his hip. Tom wears his piece on the down low - tucked in his waist band under a yellow Corrison of Conformity T-shirt. The others aren't packing; ostensibly there for back-up but more than likely just there for the 'show'. Maryanne says nothing and gently closes the door behind them. One by one the Gang circle around us, cutting off any chance of escape.
Prick-O's still crouched over me only his eyes are wide with shock now. They jump from Bill to Tom to Ronnie and then skim over the other three before settling on me.
"Well?" Tom's bark cracks through the waft of dense silence that they dragged in behind them.
"I told him."
"And?"
I shake my head 'no' slowly, sadly. Knowing what's coming next. They never listen. Even when it's too late.
Some writer.
Prick-O's glare goes from fear to hatred in the space of a blink.
"What you lookin' at him for?" Tom barks.
Bill, who had only been in the neighborhood because he was picking up an after work sack from Tom, lays a cool hand across my shoulder.
"We got this, man... why don't you escort the lady to the Point."
I nod reluctant and rise up. Prick-O rises up as well and steps back.
"So this how you gonna do me, Maryanne?"
I walk past Prick-O, our shoulders jostling for a moment. For a second I think it's gonna be the excuse he needs to swing but instead he backs off and sits back down on the couch.
"I see how you mother-fuckers are?" he mutters and he turns up the volume on some sitcom rerun; erupting the room with a tinny laughtrack as he sips that last beer of Maryanne's defiantly.
"Maryanne..." I say cordially, draping her leather jacket over her shoulders and opening the door for her with a curt sweep of my arm. She thanks me and steps outside the door. I follow and shut it tight. Catch a last glance of Prick-O forcing himself to focus on the screen while the Gang closes in slow.
We never leave the parking lot of the apartment complex. Instead we collapse into a frantic kiss across the front seats and fondle each other clumsily, desperately trying to fill in the hollow spots that have opened up within us. Brittle seconds crash into the next, before a train roars behind us as spider fingers dance free an anguished orgasm that she screeches into my ear.
An hour has passed and zipping and buttoning up we decide to head back to her place, neither us having the courage to speak.
Outside her three cats there's no one there but us. A fresh six pack anchors down a crisp hundred dollar bill on the coffee table. Nothing remains of Prick-O. Not even the beer bottle he sipped 'til the end.
I go to make my way 'home'. Next door. Tom and Winter's place where I've been couch surfing the last month.
"Don't go." Maryanne asks sigh softly and I look back at her. I know I'm not who she really wants, who she really needs. I'm just there and willing. Sometimes that's all we can do. Sometimes it's even enough.
I nod without word, afriad to break the illusory peace of the moment, and follow her into the bedroom that I will not cross again for a night we'll pretend never happened.
Circus and Jive.
This is a week before the bomb's gone off in Centennial Park. Before the riot rumors fizzled into wishful hyperbole and faux revolutionary agitprop. Before the soldiers marched down Peachtree and the whole world tuned in to catch a state of Martial Law slapped across the 'City Too Busy To Hate'.
This is Seaborn Avenue in Engine Town, whose length runs parallel and to the left of the tracks before truncating suddenly by the flow of US 23.
I'm sitting on the couch at Maryanne's apartment and the place is a bunker compact one bedroom baking steady with the lone AC broke. Across from me is a real piece of shit whose name I had forgot the moment we met. A young rumble punk who had hitched himself south from some trouble in the midwest - 'that you don't know nothin' 'bout' - as he would say. Met Maryanne at the Star Bar. Worked his punch chiseled and luck hammered good looks to get her into the sack. Worked harder to earn a repeat performance. By night two they were a couple. By three he had moved into her place. Not even a month passed beofre she began noticing the tip money missing from the purse and the bill stash that was inexplicably a hundred dollars short.
Poor Maryanne - she always did like them young, pretty and mean.
She was one of the old school punks. Class of '77! Elder stateswomen whose inks had logged more scene time than you and your crew had combined. That rare soul whose idle conversation was without the least tint of gossip or polluted with even a drop of bad drama. She'd smoke her last joint with you if you were out and she'd serve the last beer out of her fridge with a smile even if it was Sunday and she'd have to wait eight more hours before the next went on sale. Unfortunately, the years had declined to return the kindness. The Scene Life had ravaged her looks into a rugged charm. Leather tanned and teetering on zombie chic. A car crash had left her with a permanent limp. Chain smoke had scratched up her throat into a husky rasp. Without a doubt she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever had the privilege of knowing.
Sometimes it seems there's an invisible law out there running through the universe and it's one that applied itself to Maryanne with a blind vengeance. I'm not sure of the math but the equation is obvious: The Cooler the Lady = The Shittier the Guy.
And this Cat was the worst.
In the brief time I will be Maryanne's neighbor she will go through three men - each worse than the next. The first guy vanished with her car after a week. The last guy got hunted down through Voodoo Town after taking off with her rent. This prick before me was the meat between her broken-heart sandwich.
She showed up at the door sobbing. Delivered the story fresh from the tragedy. How she confronted him about the cash. How he reacted with a raised hand and the threat of a slap. How he told her not to worry 'bout it and how he'd pay her back when he could. Most of all how he was down there now watching her basic cable and drinking her beer.
Which is how I end up on the couch sitting across from him. Somebody has to say something and it's been said that I have a way with words. I give it to him straight. He's out and he's out now and she's willing to forget the money if he just walks out that back door now. It's as simple as that and a thousand times better than the alternative.
But here's the thing. I'm a big guy with a shaved head and dark eyes that's seen more than his fair share in the scene. But that's not what he sees. He see's me for who I am. The quiet-type. The nascent writer. Big words soft spoken into vague suggestions and muttered remarks. Gentle soul, me. Lover-not-a-Fighter, me.
So he narrows wide eyes into an unspoken threat and drills his attention on me.
Which is what they all do at first.
"I know what you're thinking" I cough the meekness out of my voice, "and yeah you probably could but it'd take a lot more work than you think. But the problem is Maryanne here has herself a lot of friends. Friends, who as it turns out, that in turn have quite a lot of friends themselves. I would be one of them."
"That right?" Prick-O snarls neither impressed or knowing where this is all going.
"Yep..." and I glance at the clock on the wall in the kitchen. Less than a minute to go.
"Well, here's the deal... Jack, is it?" with that he crouches off the opossing couch and hovers inches from my face while puncturing the scant distance between our two profiles with jabs off a thick finger, "I ain't goin' anywhere. And if you have a problem with that. If you have an 'alternative'. Then step up. If you or any of Maryanne's other 'friends' have themselves a problem with that... well, shit... bring 'em on by and I'll tell 'em the same thing I'm tellin' you. Got that?"
I nod absently, my eyes unable to stand up to the heat of his glare. I gulp back dry fear. I swallow back the weakness. Panic frozen and unable to rise up and smash his smug face in. Instead I mutter - 'Don't have to'.
"What's that? I don't think I heard you?"
"I said 'I don't have to'."
"Pfff... 'Have to' what?"
"'Bring them by'... they're already here." I glance up at the clock again and on cue Bill Lawless and Tom walk through the front door. Behind them Ronnie, Germ, Spew and Ian. Each one filing into the Maryanne's without word one. Bill Lawless still in his blue Wackenhut uniform with the pistol strapped across his hip. Tom wears his piece on the down low - tucked in his waist band under a yellow Corrison of Conformity T-shirt. The others aren't packing; ostensibly there for back-up but more than likely just there for the 'show'. Maryanne says nothing and gently closes the door behind them. One by one the Gang circle around us, cutting off any chance of escape.
Prick-O's still crouched over me only his eyes are wide with shock now. They jump from Bill to Tom to Ronnie and then skim over the other three before settling on me.
"Well?" Tom's bark cracks through the waft of dense silence that they dragged in behind them.
"I told him."
"And?"
I shake my head 'no' slowly, sadly. Knowing what's coming next. They never listen. Even when it's too late.
Some writer.
Prick-O's glare goes from fear to hatred in the space of a blink.
"What you lookin' at him for?" Tom barks.
Bill, who had only been in the neighborhood because he was picking up an after work sack from Tom, lays a cool hand across my shoulder.
"We got this, man... why don't you escort the lady to the Point."
I nod reluctant and rise up. Prick-O rises up as well and steps back.
"So this how you gonna do me, Maryanne?"
I walk past Prick-O, our shoulders jostling for a moment. For a second I think it's gonna be the excuse he needs to swing but instead he backs off and sits back down on the couch.
"I see how you mother-fuckers are?" he mutters and he turns up the volume on some sitcom rerun; erupting the room with a tinny laughtrack as he sips that last beer of Maryanne's defiantly.
"Maryanne..." I say cordially, draping her leather jacket over her shoulders and opening the door for her with a curt sweep of my arm. She thanks me and steps outside the door. I follow and shut it tight. Catch a last glance of Prick-O forcing himself to focus on the screen while the Gang closes in slow.
We never leave the parking lot of the apartment complex. Instead we collapse into a frantic kiss across the front seats and fondle each other clumsily, desperately trying to fill in the hollow spots that have opened up within us. Brittle seconds crash into the next, before a train roars behind us as spider fingers dance free an anguished orgasm that she screeches into my ear.
An hour has passed and zipping and buttoning up we decide to head back to her place, neither us having the courage to speak.
Outside her three cats there's no one there but us. A fresh six pack anchors down a crisp hundred dollar bill on the coffee table. Nothing remains of Prick-O. Not even the beer bottle he sipped 'til the end.
I go to make my way 'home'. Next door. Tom and Winter's place where I've been couch surfing the last month.
"Don't go." Maryanne asks sigh softly and I look back at her. I know I'm not who she really wants, who she really needs. I'm just there and willing. Sometimes that's all we can do. Sometimes it's even enough.
I nod without word, afriad to break the illusory peace of the moment, and follow her into the bedroom that I will not cross again for a night we'll pretend never happened.
