Snapshots of Modern Love

by Jose Rodriguez

  Car Wash Orgy

  The vacuum' s hose inhales dirt after digesting Mr. Twonbly' s two quarters; down the silver slot they went, one after the other. It' s Sunday morning; bright and deeply clear with an intense blue sky that stretches from horizon to horizon. Mr. Twonbly climbs on his minivan armed with the hose, and he twists his middle aged body between the seats and the console while wrestling with the vacuum, mechanical serpent of electrical sibilance, and he, Laocoö n of modern age.

  He doesn' t like going to church in a dirty vehicle. Rise and shine, clean your soul of mortal sin, wear a good suit, eat a hearty breakfast, clean the van, because it is Sunday, the day to be good. These thoughts flash in his mind like the Fasten Seat Belts signs in an airliner.

  A clump of candy wrappers ("Good for your breath," says Mrs. Twonbly), a few crumpled balls of tissue paper ("The seal lergies are killing me," says Mrs. Twonbly), and a sheet with directions to go to somebody' s home ("You' ll love meeting them, they are such a nice people," says Mrs. Twonbly), this harmless hodgepodge of trash collects in Mr. Twonbly' s small hands which carry the neat pile to the big fat barrel sitting beside the Vacuum' s steel armor. His hands part and turn face down, and the barrel swallows the paper jumble.

  What' s that?

  Mr. Twonbly sees a flash of color coming thorough his own trash. He parts the trash and exposes the color. Oh mighty. His eyes bounce inside his eye sockets, right and left and back. Nobody is looking. His hands roll the colorful magazine into a tight paper cylinder, and he pulls it out of the barrel in a swift motion:from barrel to under his arm to the van.

  Mr. Twonbly' s van idles under the shade of an oak tree, by the Dumpster behind the car wash. His eyes dance once more in his face, and he unfolds the magazine, or what' s left of it.

  A naked blond with two faces tattooed on her right shoulder, one sad and one happy, is on her fours with her genitalia staring at Mr. Twonbly' s taut face. The same blond is now on her back, her shaved slit exposed with a caption under the picture that reads "Diana likes it hot in Atlanta." If Mr. Twonbly could take his eyes off her crotch, and stop fantasizing about Mrs. Lubkemann own' s (the choir lady), he, perhaps, would notice the blonde' s cute dimples above her smile of thin lips.

  Daytona Beach Night

  Ken circles around the block in Tony' s car, his fingers sticky around the steering wheel. A cold sweat slithers between his back and the worn out vinyl seat cover. He is not used to this kind of sweat. He goes around once, twice, three times, every time in a different direction, never approaching through the same street. The house sits at the corner, light green, cinder block with an open carport sheltering a black Trans Am. Lights are on. Is that good or bad? Damn, where are they?

  On the fifth pass, Ken sees Tony and Mike walking on the side of the street like two guys going out for a night stroll. He stops the car, doors open and they hop in. Before the doors close Ken hits the gas. Easy . . . take it easy. They drive by the green house where normality doesn' t seem bothered. Nobody speaks.

  "How did it go?" Ken asks, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

  "Fine," says Tony. His burly figure shifts on the passenger seat as he opens his coat. A small package comes out in his big hand. "About half a kilo."

  "Let me see," says Mike from the back seat. Mike leans forward to grab the package. Ken can see the glitter of Mike' s glasses inside the frame of the rear view mirror. Tony opens his coat again and pulls a black revolver that looks huge in his big hand. He opens the glove compartment and throws the revolver in.

  "I tell you what," Tony says. "The bigger the piece, the less shit those mother fuckers give you." Tony laughs in short snorts, and Ken feels Tony' s weight pushing on the bench seat as his chest heaves.

  From the back seat Mike speaks," That bitch got hysterical when you put that thing in her face. I was ready to whack her on the head. Jesus, screaming like that."

  "I bet you she doesn' t think that her boyfriend' s coke business is so cool anymore," Tony says. "She fucking shut up when I stuck that barrel down her mouth." Tony' s and Mike' s laughs reverberate inside the metallic darkness of the car.

  "Tony," Ken almost whispers," what' s gonna happen the day some dealer or his bitch pulls a gun on you?" Ken' s voice chills the air and the laughs drop frozen and shatter into silence. "Are you gonna shoot them dead?"

  Mike sinks back into the shadows deep inside the view mirror, and Tony' s countenance becomes as rigid as pavement.

  "You know, shit happens," says Tony in an unconvincing voice, like if he had never thought of that possibility.

  "Yeah, shit happens," says Ken in a whisper.

  Sparrows and Bones

  Sparrows, dozens of them, a whole flight; yes, a flight. Debbie remembered that much from school. Fishes swim in schools; animals run in herds; wolves hunt in packs; sea gulls fly in flocks; helicopters fly in gaggles (where did she learn that one? She couldn' t remember). Airplanes fly in flights, and she remembered that one from watching CNN. Now she was confused. Is it a flight of sparrows, or a gaggle, or a flock? Whatever it is, the sparrows stood outside her window jumping over the serrated fence top and bouncing like Mexican jumping beams among bare, spidery branches, so happy and so carefree.

  Her face hurt. Bruce' s hand had left her skin blue and bruised. No good for business. Her head hurt with a deep and pounding headache, like a pulsating beach ball trying to pop out of her head. She had tried not to mix drinking and drugs, but she could never resist.

  She closed her eyes and tried to remember last night. Dance, dance, lights and heat, dance, dance, money and touching hands. Coke in the bathroom, coke in the dressing room, uppers at the bar, nicotine in the vending machine, alcohol in customer' s glasses. The rat standing in the hallway.

  Of course she remembered the rat just outside her door, waiting for her arrival, dirty, filthy thing. And Bruce too, drunk and all fucked up.

  "Hon, I' m dead tired. Can we do it in the morning?" she asked. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her on the bed. His hand felt hot on her face, more times than she cared to remember. "Don' t you tell me what to do!" he yelled. His breath slathered over her sweaty skin, a breath like the smell of stale beer in a hot can abandoned on a parking lot, and she felt his penis proving, bending itself into inconceivable shapes, penetrating.

  Debbie opened her eyes and tears fell, one by one, warm and humid they rode down her swollen cheek. The sparrows danced outside her window in a bliss of cold morning sunshine. Her sphincter flared in burning pain. The bastard had done it again. Her body shriveled in to a tawny parchment and her skin dried up into cracked tissue, and then shed into pieces that landed on the sheets to turn into dust. Her bones turned black and her whole skeleton dropped flat like the armature of an old cage. Her spirit hissed out intact through the window mesh and joined the sparrows on the branches, so warm under their coat of fluffy feathers.

  The sparrows took her high above the roofs, high above Atlanta and its trees, and a new country showed itself to her, so big and so free.

  Debbie jumped out of bed in an outburst of pain and anger and tears.

  "I don' t have to put up with this crap!"

  New cities awaited, new pains too. She filled her one bag in a hurry. Put the clothes in, leave the memories out.

  Her body tilted to the side holding the luggage as she walked towards the bus station. Under yellowing maples, her feet kicked brown dead leaves like parting waves in front of a steamer carrying a miserable cargo in its hold.

  Easy Money

  The topless girl lay by the pool, and her taut breasts stood straight as if attracted by Coral Gables' sun. This represented a conspicuous example of the gravitational pull between bodies, thought Ken; but again, it also remained Ken of other things.

  "I bet you, you can tell time by looking at her nipple' s shade, just like a sun clock," said Ken with a Jack Daniel' s on the rocks turning into water in his hand. Clink-clink went the ice cubes around and around.

  "To he
ll with time," said Tony. "I bet you she knows better tricks than that."

  Foreign voices came from behind, and to Ken they sounded like"Vengaporaqicompadreyakitiyakyakitiyak." A handful of rough looking characters sporting jewelry that beamed glints of opulence tailed a dark, bold and mustached man in a white suit. Ken and Tony put their drinks down and stood facing the arriving party.

  The rough characters surrounded them at a distance with hands crossed on their laps. The bold man advanced, smiled and stretched his hand to Ken," You must be the fly boy that Tony told me about."

  "Ken, my name is Ken, sir." They shook hands. A strong handshake.

  "Raú l Ortega," the bold man said with a polite smile. "You can call me Mister Ortega." Ortega pointed to the chairs and with a grand sweep of his hand said "please." They all sat down and Mister Ortega said something to one of his minions. Ken heard him saying yakitiyakwishkeyatikiyak, so he figured Mister Ortega had ordered some whiskey, or maybe he had said "stupid Americans." Ken couldn' t tell, not that it really mattered either.

  Ortega' s lackey returned with a golden drink full of ice cubes. No napkin, no coaster and no little umbrella, but of course, Ken figured, what' s to be expected from a guy hired to bust heads?

  "Your friend Tony says you want to fly for me," said Ortega, all business now. The waiter-bodyguard stood two steps behind Ortega with hands crossed on front and a bulge under his Hawaiian shirt. The rest of the lot was checking out the sun clock. Yakitiyak sounds came from that direction carried by the breeze that whirled around Ken' s face.

  "Yes sir, Mister Ortega," Ken said, and then he paused to check his words before they came out of his mouth. "I just want to hear from you what' s the scoop. I know there are risks, and I can take risks, but I' m not suicidal."

  "The scoop," said Ortega pronouncing it tet escop," is straight. We give you a plane, you fly south, we load it, you fly north, we unload it, and you go home with your pockets full of cash."

  Ken looked Ortega right in the eye. "Mister Ortega, let me ask you this," said Ken and then he paused again to carefully pick the right words. "How many pilots and planes have you lost?"

  Ortega smiled and took a long sip from his drink, gold and diamonds sparkling from his thin, brown, manicured fingers. "I don' t care about the planes. They are paid for, or we just borrow them." He laughed and his bodyguard echoed him.

  "The only pilots I have lost are the ones that tried to screw me," said Ortega, a cynical smile spreading under his lust mustache. "They all went for a swim in the gulf, and now are heading for Canada." His bodyguard laughed like if it were meant to be a joke.

  Ken put on his poker face, unreadable, even though his stomach got squeamish. He missed stealing pot from the rednecks in the swamps, being up to his chin in brackish water among snakes, predictable snakes.

  "Of course," added Ortega. "One of my pilots got caught. What a dumb ass he was. If you' re smart, the Feds will never lay a hand on you." Ortega didn' t mention that the dumb ass pilot had also jumped in the gulf while on bail.

  Ken lay back on his chair to think about his future, or lack of. The villa' s stucco walls radiated pure whiteness under red tile roofs and the sea breeze tousled the umbrella' s overhang. Comfort everywhere.

  He was falling behind on his student loan after he had quit driving Tony and Mike around on their excursions. He had decided armed confrontations were not his calling after Tony couldn' t sit for a week because his ass was full of bird shot; he had to pull it all out with tweezers and then had to patch the mess with Band-Aids and a bottle of peroxide while having to look at Tony’ s hairy ass crack..

  Flying bank checks for a living was a losing struggle: long hours, bad pay, shitty airplanes. His last 206 had landed on a cow pasture with oil smeared over the windshield and the propeller standing frozen in front of him like useless metal. He knew the worn out engine was going to give up, and so did his boss, but the bastard was too cheap to overhaul it. Then he wanted Ken to fly the 182 that had a gas leak so bad the smell was enough to make anybody sick; a flying firecracker is what it was. He had enough of that crap. Now Ortega sat across him with the promise of money and sunshine by the handful.

  Easy money. It' s not a job, it' s an adventure. Be all you can be. A few good men. Aim high. But the money was the real lure, lots ofit, enough to pay his student loan and give some to the old man who needed a new truck.

  The sun clock lady stood and her tanned skin stretched like a horse' s hide, smooth and shiny. She knew Ortega' s men were watching her breasts, and her balloon shaped ass cheeks squeezing out from the sides of the narrow stripe of her g-string bikini. She let her jet black hair unroll down to her shoulders as she watched Ortega hugging and patting a cute Gringo on the back. The other Gringo looked clumsy and was too big for her. But the cute one, he had nice buns.

  Westward Bus

  West ward rides the bus

  Full of people and their things,

  It glides along I-10

  Rushing to meet New Orleans.

  From its smoked glass window

  Debbie' sown reflection looks back at her

  With cute dimples over thin lips,

  The bruises from the last beating

  Don' t show on the translucent screen.

  Humming of tires on the road below

  Comfortable grunt of a Diesel behind

  The cold blue sky comes through her own image,

  uninvited, and Debbie' s eyes open wide,

  Look at the bayou!

  Look at the sweet gums in circles stand,

  Look at your face, you whore!

  Where is your life going to end up?

  She doesn' t know.

  Going away somewhere, anywhere,

  Is her best and only plan.

  Pack your meager things

  And leave the memories behind.

  Westward rides the bus

  with her things inside

  And so does Debbie

  With demons in her mind.

  Voodoo Candle

  "What' s your name, honey?" says Debbie into the receiver' s speaker from behind the unapproachability of her glass cage.

  "Aleksei," says the young man on his end of the receiver, his sea blue eyes staring at Debbie topless behind the glass. "I am Aleksei. What is your name?"

  "My name is Deede." Debbie' s free hand reaches under her panties and her fingers dance under the fabric. "If you put more money into the slot, I' ll take this thing off, honey."

  She smiles and her cute dimples make Aleksei' s own shine on his pink face. He takes a couple of dollars out of his jacket, rolls them in to green, thin cylinders, and pushes them through the slot beside the glass pane. Debbie' s eager fingers pick the money on the other side. Controlled, deep breaths come through the receiver, both ways.

  Her panties come off and her bold slit greets Aleksei under the red light. Debbie sits back on the stool and spreads her legs to expose her merchandise. Aleksei smiles.

  "What you call that?" asks Aleksei in his strong accent, pointing at her crotch.

  "Pussy, dear."

  "Pussy-dear?"

  "No, no," laughs Debbie. "Pussy. Just Pussy. Say it."

  "Pussy."

  "Good boy," says Debbie, and Aleksei smiles as his cheeks turn beet red making his blonde hair brighter under the dark light.

  Silence flows through the glass and through the receiver' s line. Smiles flash across the void like light signals between ships at sea, and Aleksei' s face blushes so red that Debbie thinks he' s going to get dizzy and pass out.

  "You want to see more?" asks Debbie; her own free hand caresses her bony body and her small breasts in sensual strokes, small and circular like a magical rubbing to force pleasure to surface on her skin. Aleksei is too fixated on her breasts and long neck to answer.

  "If you want, you can wait for me after work," she says. He now looks at her, eye to eye. His lips don' t move but Debbie knows what he desires.

  "I' m out of here at midnight
. Wait for me at the corner of Bourbon and Toulouse."

  "Yes," he says nodding. "Midnight."

  "And honey," Debbie says and pauses. "This is gonna cost you, you know that, don' t you?"

  Aleksei looks down as if ashamed and murmurs into the speaker," How much?"

  Past midnight a chilly air blows through the old balconies. Decrepit buildings lean against each other as if trying to warm each other up. Like dominoes, if one falls, the others will follow. Debbie wonders what' s inside her that is holding her whole life together. Is her own strength laced with steel cables like these old buildings? Debbie sees over stressed rusted and frayed cables holding her insides from disintegrating into a miserable jumble.

  Music booms at a distance from lighted bars and open balconies. Bar patrons stumble by. No Aleksei in sight. Damn. She is ready to go to her room when Aleksei comes running across the opposite corner, his jacket opened to the cold wind.

  "Sorry, I late," he apologizes.

  "You' re gonna catch a cold," says Debbie as she closes his jacket over his breast.

  "Cold?" he laughs. "Siberia cold. This nothing."

  They go to her tiny room. Cash up front because this is business after all. Debbie lights a black voodoo candle and turns the light off. She disrobes in a second but Aleksei' s shyness slows him down. His white body shines like snow under moonlight. And they make love, gentle and slow.

  Debbie closes her eyes under the cover of his warm and strong body, and she caresses him as if he belonged to her.