Seeing her took me back in time over twenty years, and there I stood at that party, skinny, long haired, wearing a dirty apron and a paper hat, flat broke but still hopeful for a good future. The last twenty years of my life disappeared like a bad dream and I was sure if I had walked to the parking lot, it would have been a hot and muggy Florida night and my old clunker would be parked under lights surrounded by a cloud of crazed bugs.
Such a brief span of time, a blink of an eye, and like stepping out of a time machine, you are who you used to be. The consequences of such a short moment still linger in me like the aftershocks from an earthquake. I got jolted into remembering things that I had given for long dead and forgotten but which now are here, thrown into my lifelike unearthed corpses, and those corpses are disturbingly alive and fresh as if they had been kept fresh in another dimension and not buried under layers of time and forced forgetfulness.
I looked at her from different angles, from varying distances. Sometimes I stared at her and other times I looked at her askance. No matter how I did it, she was Debbie all right. Despite all my observations and the constant self assurances that she was Debbie, I didn’ t have the guts to approach her.
Why not? It beats me. I can’ t figure it out. Perhaps I was afraid of finding out that she was not Debbie. Perhaps I was afraid of confirming that she was indeed Debbie. Perhaps I was afraid of making a fool out of myself regardless of she being or not being Debbie. Had she been her, what could I have told her? Would she even remember me? Perhaps she remembers the john and the drug dealer who almost got whacked, who gave her money and then left her standing on a Dallas sidewalk, but she wouldn’ t remember me as Ken.
I toss alone at night. I find myself daydreaming during the day, always mulling in my head if she was or was not Debbie, thinking about what if’ s and what could have been and then I hate myself for being such a fool, a coward, a loser. I try to forget but her image, both her images, the old and the new, come to my mind and dislodge any common sense I had succeeded into getting crammed in there.
Sweet Home
Debbie comes from work and parks her Geo under the light next to the laundry room. It is a longer walk to her apartment but at least her car is not in the dark, and she can see what is around her. Before she leaves her car she takes the thirty-eight Special revolver out of her purse and puts it in the right pocket of her jacket.
A few days back Glyn and her had stepped out the back of the Night Owl where a rusted Dumpster stunk to high heavens. He stood in front of her, put one hand into each pocket of his over sized jacket and pulled them out at the same time. In one hand he had a small silver semiautomatic with wooden grips and in the other he had the blue snub nose with rubber grips.
“ Which one do you like better?” he asked.
Without much hesitation Debbie chose the revolver. Simplicity and reliability before anything else, she thought.
“ The lady knows her hardware, ” said Glyn with a smile.
“ Thank you. How much do I owe you, ” said Debbie.
“ Nothing. It’ s on me.”
“ Come on, this thing is not cheap.”
Glyn had refused to take any money from her, and had given her a half full box of shells.
Debbie walks through the parking lot with her hand in her pocket and her eyes scanning her surroundings. It’ s hard to live like this, she thinks, but it’ s better than being caught unaware and defenseless. She climbs the stairs and peeks around each corner before moving forward. When she reaches her apartment, she realizes something is not right.
Her door is half open, and the lock is broken amid splinters.
She freezes in place and her hand closes its grip around the revolver. She wants to run downstairs but then what? Call the cops and wait. She is not running, she reminds herself. Right before she turns back down the stairs she remembers her cats. Ernie and Munch!She cannot leave them in there. Her hand comes out of her pocket with the revolver. She approaches the ajar door and pushes it open with her prosthesis, both hands now holding onto the raised revolver.
Once inside, she cannot recognize her own place because it has been vandalized with the single-mindedness of the obsessed . Not a single piece of furniture has escaped unscathed. Her clothes are ripped and scattered everywhere. Her TV has a hole in the screen. The couch is ripped open and its stuffing lies everywhere.
She moves with slow but sure steps, revolver at the ready. There is no noise inside the apartment. Now and then she stops and spins around to check her back, then listens for any clues of an intruder or her pets. Nothing. Her cooking pots are on the floor. She smells piss! They are full of urine.
In her mind there is no doubt, Billy had been here. He had found out where she lived and had come to leave his calling card. Her stomach gets sick at the sight of what once had been sweet home, not much of a place but her place, now soiled beyond repair.
Even the toilet and the sink in the bathroom are broken. By now Debbie is sure that Billy is gone. Where are Munch and Ernie? She calls them but nothing breaks the eerie silence. She steps out of the apartment and puts the revolver back in her pocket. Using her cellphone she calls 911 and awaits for the cops while calling for Munch and Ernie aloud from the balcony, her voice falling on the parking lot. She’ s ready to burst out crying for her pets. Where are they?
Searching for Something
Ken drives northbound on I-25 towards Denver. The raising sun appears over the horizon to illuminate grassy plains that flare in gold and roll away from both sides of the highway. A freight train like a rosary of coal beads moves south along shiny tracks. The hum of the engine and the tires on the pavement sooth Ken and he thinks of nothing; he just admires the open landscape and he enjoys the blank space in his mind.
Having decided to be on the highway had not been an easy decision. It had been an unavoidable decision but one that he had finally acquiesced with after spinning it in his head for days, always knowing he would do it but trying to fool himself into believing he wouldn’ t do it.
He had left the party at DTC without talking to Debbie, or the stranger that looked like Debbie. In his gut he knows she is Debbie but in his head he tries to maintain the logic that a stranger is such until proven otherwise. In leaving the building that night he had noticed the catering van and the name of the catering company written on it. Phone book in hand, he had searched for the name and had found out their closest location to DTC. His hunch was that the caterers had come from this location.
This was the logical part of his search. The crazy part would come next with him sitting in his truck by this location to watch workers come and go, hoping to catch Debbie. The next part of his plan did not exist. Ken had no clue what to do if he ever saw the woman again. He had made it this far and knowing what to do next would have to come to him like a bolt of lightning from nowhere because he doesn’ t have the will to think about it.
He would pull the next move out of his ass, he had thought and that had been enough for him to start his journey in search of something, a something he was not sure what it was or what it would turn out to be.
Pain, fear and hate
Debbie sits in a cheap motel room with Ernie in her lap. The vet said he will be OK and that the limp in his front right leg will be temporary; there are no broken bones or torn tendons. After the cops came the next door neighbor, a sour lady whom Debbie didn' t use to care much for, stopped by to say that she had seen one of her cats by the trash bin. She recognized the cat as one of the two that was always catching the sun on Debbie' s window ledge. Debbie thinks that you cannot judge people until things turn bad, then their true selfs will reveal themselves. The sour lady, Bernice is her name, went to the trash bin with her and helped her get Ernie back. He was shocked and hiding and it took a great deal of cajoling and patience to get him to come out of the hole he had escaped to. And the vet too; he didn' t want to charge her for taking care of Ernie. "You already had a shitty enough day," he had said. Debbie also thinks that for ever
y few nice people on Earth there always is an asshole ready to make life unpleasant for others.
Her tears fall on Ernie' s fur. He purrs but Debbie can feel the nervousness still scurrying under his skin. The noise from a loud TV next door comes through the thin walls. Traffic noise filters through the windows. The lady cop had come out of the apartment and had said to her," sorry ma' am, your cat is dead." Debbie felt her hearth break and fall to the ground in pieces. "We found its body under what was left of the couch. It was stabbed." The vet hadn’ t charged her for disposing of Munch’ s body either.
Her place had been throughly destroyed together with all her belongings. She drove to the motel in her Geo with the clothes in her back, the cash she had recovered from its hidden place under the bathroom sink' s counter, Ernie, her cell phone and her revolver. The cops had shaken their head in disbelief at the destruction and the meanness behind it, and Debbie thinks that they believed every word she told them, and they should because she spoke the truth, and Debbie also believes that the cops were mighty pissed off at whoever had destroyed her place. She told them about Billy, about him coming to the bar and attacking her, and about his threats, and she also gave the cops his date of birth. She can’ t figure out why she still remembers his birthday. He never remembered hers, and nobody before Billy did either.
The cops called the dispatcher with Billy’ s name and D.O.B. And true enough, Billy was a parolee just released from jail. Now the cops and his parole officer are looking for him, and he has bolted out of the halfway house in violation of the terms of his parole. One way or another he is going back to Canon City.
That' s what worries Debbie, one way or another; the bastard know she' s a wanted man and who knows what his sick mind will be capable of doing. Debbie thinks of Billy as a cornered madman with a sharp butcher knife in his shaky hand and a heart full of hate towards her. The motel room is both a hiding place and the only roof over her head she can afford; she cannot stomach to see the shambles of what once had been her place, a peaceful oasis for her and the cats, now in ruins and profaned by Billy' s madness. The landlord said he can have the bathroom and the kitchen fixed by the end of the week but Debbie is not willing to go back to what once had been her place. Munch’ s blood on the carpet and Billy’ s piss on the kitchen is too much to take.
Tears and sobs are subdued but each one causes her great pain. She rocks back and forth on her chair, hugging Ernie with his bandaged leg. Her revolver is by her side. Dark thoughts of revenge lurk inside her head.
Waiting for Debbie
I wonder how long it will be before the cops show up and cite me for loitering in this parking lot. This is the third day in a row that I spend in my truck watching caterers and drivers getting in and out of the business across the parking lot. I’ m now running my affairs from the cab of my truck using my cell phone but I wonder how long I will be able to keep it up. Now and then I take a drive to the Taco Bell in the gas station on the other side of the street and walk around for a while, but then I have this urge to come back to my observation post, an urge that fools me into thinking that Debbie is going to show up just when I turn my back or I’ m having a burrito.
Sitting on my butt is new to me and the free time is rather handy at filling my head with doubts, admonitions, wild dreams and all kind of garbage that does nothing to let me think straight. For starters, what the hell I’ m doing? Even if I were to see Debbie, or the woman I think is Debbie, walking across the parking lot, what am I supposed to do?
She didn’ t recognize me at the party, or if she did she paid no attention. Maybe she didn’ t recognize me because she wasn’ t Debbie. Maybe she doesn’ t work here but somewhere else, or she quit and is now hooking on Colfax, doing what she does best.
I chastise myself for having such thoughts. I, better than anybody, should know what it is like to have made mistakes in younger years and then having to live with them everyday, and no matter how straight and trouble free your life had been since then, they still haunt you and people expect you to fuck up again because that is you, the loser that will always be a loser. But if I got my shit together, so could have Debbie. I know that my marriage is not worth the paper the marriage license is written on but I’ m not living under abridge and I haven’ t seen the inside a jail since the Feds let me out over twenty years ago. There is no such thing as a perfect life, and when I think somebody has a perfect life, that somebody ends up in rehab or committing suicide.
Day and night I ask myself why I want to see Debbie, why I’ m pursuing a woman who may not be who I think she is, and if she is, she may not be the person I used to know over twenty years ago. Perhaps I’ m not chasing after a woman but after a past that is gone, after my wasted youth, acting under the pretense that if I somehow connect with this person, I will have my wasted years back.
What a crock of shit, like if by meeting this woman, this obsession of mine, life would become what it should have been but it is not. I get exasperated with these thoughts. Bad karma I call them. I try to think positive, but what can be positive about sitting in a truck slurping oversized drinks and eating Slim Jims while waiting for ...waiting for Godoth.
Living by the Gun
Her life is upside down. The way she sees it, she has two choices. Run with her cat and the few clothes she has bought in the last few days, or stay and live her life where and how she wants to. The first option is the less stressful in the short run. Debbie finds the idea of starting anew again not very palatable and as a matter of principle, unacceptable. But staying put, God, that is not easy either.
She has to toughen up, she sees no other choice. Enough of running, of cowering and crawling for the next exit. Debbie lives like a gunslinger, with her revolver by her side day and night, loaded and at the ready. She takes her showers with it inside a sandwich bag so it is next to her. She sits on the toilet with it in her lap and goes to bed with it under her pillow, her hand next to it. She bought anew box of shells with more powerful hollow point bullets; the new ammo is now loaded, and she cleans her revolver every day with an Teflon coated rag. She now has a clip holster for it and she wears it at her waist. Her life depends on her preparedness. Funny, she thinks, after all that time she had spent with drug dealers and other assorted scum, she had come to learn by osmosis how to live under the gun, a skill she once thought she would never have a use for.
There is price to pay though. The stress of sleeping with one eye closed and one open, of driving while checking every car behind to make sure Billy is not following her, of walking with her back towards the wall and her eyes scanning every shadow, her ears listening for the slightest of sounds that may warn her of approaching danger, of living like a paid assassin with a contract on her head, that stress tires her and robs her of any peace.
A detective called her, asked her a few questions about Billy, told her they are looking for him. If caught he’ s going back for parole violation plus a few new charges such as assaulting her at the bar. If they can prove he trashed her place, they will nail him for that too. Be careful and watch your back, had said the detective before he hung up. A very pleasant voice, Debbie had thought, but the message had been clear, she needed to watch her back.
She parks her car between Maria and Ana’ s. She takes a good look around before getting out and stars walking towards the catering business employee door. The revolver weighs on her waist, clipped to the inside of her pants. She wears a too long and loose shirt to hide the revolver’ s bulge and its grip. She hopes that nobody at work will notice it. If they do, tough tities. She doesn’ t want to get fired, but she doesn’ t want to be without her gun. Many times a day she wonders if it is worth staying, if it is worth living like this. Next thing she will be wearing body armor, and a back up piece wrapped around her ankle, and she is a convicted felon without a carry permit.
“ Debbie!” a voice calls from behind, an unknown voice. She turns around fast and her hand is behind her back and under her shirt, touching the revolver’ s grip. A
middle age man is approaching. She doesn’ t recognize him but he’ s smiling; still, she doesn’ t let her guard down and her hand is on her piece.
“ Debbie?” the man says, asks, and he looks at her with what she thinks are weird eyes.
“ Yes?” says Debbie, squinting to see if there is a ruse behind this encounter. Her eyes dart to the side, she looks over her shoulder. Anybody ready to jump her from the sides, from behind?
The man is now standing in front of her with a stupid look on his face but still smiling. Debbie’ s hand has pulled the revolver half way out of its holster.
“ Debbie, it’ s me, Ken.”
Debbie doesn’ t recognize him, doesn’ t remember the name, not under the stressful circumstances she is living. In a better day, perhaps she would have made the connection.
“ Ken, from Daytona Beach ... and Atlanta... and Dallas ... the fly boy.” He smiles like a dupe, a hopeful one, as if he were looking at what cannot be real. In Debbie’ s head memories flood and whirl inside; she feels dizzy but then gains her composure although her legs feel like rubber. Her revolver goes back into the holster.
The Plan
The way Billy sees it, he can get away with it not because the cops don' t know who did it, but because they can' t prove a thing. He has been through the system enough times to understand how it clicks, or it doesn' t. He doesn’ t doubt that everybody knows he trashed Debbie' s place but he is also sure he left no clues behind to tie him to the deed. Fucking cops can' t touch him. He jumped parole, that' s true, but once he' s out of the state, even if caught, Colorado doesn' t have the money to pay for his extradition so they will let him walk. A small fish like him is not worth the time and the money involved. Nothing is ever set in stone, as the cliche says, but Billy is convinced the odds are that he will never set foot in Colorado again, at least not in handcuffs.
Snapshots of Modern Love Page 13