Snapshots of Modern Love (3 page)

Debbie, the Beach, and the Plane

Our feet sink into the wet sand and foam bubbles between our toes. The surf is brownish and frothy. An aircraft' s laboring engine comes overhead. It' s Seven Two Papa, and Ron is probably flying it. The old Champ flies in a crab, fighting the stiff wind trying to push it inland. The banner behind it,
Reggae at the Beach Pub
, makes a sound of its own, like a plastic bag tied to a car' s door handle while speeding down the highway.

"You working tomorrow?" Debbie asks me.

"Yeah. Another long fucking day," my eyes are still fixed on Seven Two Papa. "I hope the wind is not so strong. Bucking the wind all day long is n' t fun."

"It must be pretty neat to fly up and down the beach, ."Debbie says. Her eyes follows the little airplane that continues to fly north defying the wind and earning a living.

"At the beginning it is; later on, you get sick of it."

She walks into the surf, knee high, and the waves' crests kiss her dress' s hem. "This is fucking great, isn' t it?" Facing the ocean, she brings her arms high over her head and spreads her fingers as if trying to catch breeze and sunshine. I stand beside her. The rolling waves slap our legs; yes, it is great. The past and the future don' t matter; but right now it' s fucking great.

Self-Service

With the cops cracking down on prostitution - no good for family vacationers and business, preach the city leaders - things become difficult on the beach side. Now Debbie works Ridge wood Avenue. Glaring sunlight adds brightness to the scandalous and shabby storefronts of biker and tittie bars, and to the huge yellow, dirty movie theater. It is a subtropical colorfulness that masks the harshness of a life lived from day to day, from minute to minute, devoid of any plausible future, or expectant with such a sordid one that there is no point to think about it. She doesn' t think about hers.

Her eyes are half closed, in part due to the glare, in part to the downers she has taken. A sedated drowsiness has a hold on her body. Her gait is slow and at times staggering but she doesn' t know that. She stands by the corner, wrapped inside the Mandrax bubble she has created for herself. Outside the bubble things move at the speed of light, in a blur of intense light and motion; sounds are far distant and muffled, but she is happy inside her bubble where life exists at a more peaceful pace.

A beat up station wagon pulls in front of her and stops. Automatically, as if reacting to a surviving instinct, she approaches the passenger door window and leans her body through it. A small and dark young man smiles at her, his sharp teeth shining like ivory daggers.

"Hello. How arre you doing?" He drags his r' s with a powerful accent. He' s got to be one of them foreigners who goes to the school by the airport, she thinks, then she forgets she thought of that.

"Hi babe," she manages to open the door and get in. The wagon rolls over the hot asphalt, flanked by traffic on all sides.

"What' s your name, hon?" she asks from inside her bubble, her voice reverberating from invisible walls. He says a name but she doesn' t get it. Hon will do. She props her legs over the dashboard, lifts her dress and pulls her pink panties down, exposing her crotch to Hon whose jaws drop almost to his chest.

"This goddamned thing is giving me a fit," she tugs at her panties and pulls them off. Her legs stay over the dashboard; the mat of hair on her groin exposed to the world with a delightful indifference. A truck driver on her side, enticed by the erotic view, almost rams an old lady in front of him.

"Pleaase, coverr up. No good to show thing like that," says Hon with one eye on the road, the other on the thing. She giggles in pleasure and runs her fingers through her mat, rubbing hard the bulges around the slit.

"What' s the matter, Hon. Don’ t you like it?" Her body becomes heavy and sluggish. The bubble starts to close on her.

Somehow she succeeds at showing Hon the right motel. They enter her room. She takes his money, heads for the bed and lies on her back with the money clenched in one hand. Her dress rests high up her waist and her legs are spread. Then the bubble crashes on her, heavy and solid. Her senses sink into the crevasses of her tired body, weighing it down with such a burden that she sinks into the mattress like a heavy marble statue. Reality bursts like a bubble to be replaced by nothingness.

She wakes up with the money still in her hand. A flaky and sticky film of dried semen is stuck to her belly. Her judgment is still muddled, but she thinks of a new meaning for self-service. "Help your self, Hon," she says aloud to herself. The ceiling fan above spins with a blurred motion, and she gets dizzy.

Special Treatment

Tonight I' m getting the special treatment. I don' t know why, but Debbie is trying to be sexy and romantic, or romantic and sexy. Whatever. The many candle lights create soft dancing shades on the walls. A tawny light floods her room and keeps the outside world at bay.

"What' s going on?" I ask. "Is this going to cost me more?"

"No. It' s not going to cost you more," she says, and I can sense a very brief animosity in her voice, but it vanishes in a moment. "You' re a special customer."

"Me? I' m a cheap skate. What' s so special about me?

"You' re nice."

"So, what' s the big deal? Everybody is nice when they get what they want."

Her smile and her small dimples look beautiful by candlelight. The needle marks on her arms are not so noticeable under the soft light. "You' re nice and you know it." We embrace and her warm body makes me stronger and protective. I can feel her heartbeat on my chest; I feel femininity and flesh and desire under her dress. Her nimble waist nicely fits the crook of my arms. We make love, touching, sensing, pressing, baiting, smelling, tasting. We fill our senses and block life. Sensuality, as solid and real as the air we breathe, grows between us like the lights precariously dancing wrapped around the wick of the fast burning candles, destined to die and melt into a puddle of wax, ready to disappear at the slightest of breezes. But that will be the future. Now is ours, sensual and soft.

Rip Off

An unctuous sea spray film covers the windshields of the cars parked along the street. The moisture laden air irradiates heat, and Debbie walks through it, her skinny body displacing that humid air, absorbing its heat, sweat wrapping her as a pasty shroud. The humidity shows itself under the streetlights as a diaphanous and diffused glow where bugs leave traces of their dashing paths. A cigarette pack is in her hand, and she walks with a trained disdain that proclaims her free and guiltless spirit, and she unashamedly stares into passing cars with a direct and defiant gaze. She can see through those faces above the steering wheels: the lust, the desire, it' s all there; if they only had the guts to stop and pick her up.

A dark and rusted utility van cruises the street. It' s the third time it goes by, and the driver has been checking her out. Maybe it will stop the next time around. She lights a cigarette and waits. There it comes. Both the driver and Debbie look at each other, and then she moves between parked cars and waits at the edge of the open street. The van stops and the driver leans over to unlock the door with his tattooed arm, strong and vascular. In a dash she climbs into the van which speeds away.

"Hi hon. What’ s up?" Her greeting is casual as if she were in a familiar van with an old friend.

"Lookin' for some fun, if you know what I mean." His voice is also very casual.

"Fifty bucks, half-and-half, my place," a long plume of smoke comes out of her mouth and nostrils as she speaks, and she smiles, small, cute dimples forming over the corner of her lips.

"Fifty dollars!" exclaims the driver. "You ain' t the last fuck on Earth, you know."

"How much you got on you?" Another dirtbag she thinks, wants to get laid for nothing, like pussy grew on trees.

"Thirty bucks." His unsmiling face needs a shave, long and dirty hair cascades from underneath a Harley Davison cap.

"A blow job is all you gonna get for that much."

The man drives in silence, pondering the offer, or looking like he' s pondering over something," Alright, but we don' t go to your place." He arches his thumb over his shoulder. "Back there will be fine." There is a bench seat at the very back, and no windows. Rusted tool boxes, empty fast food bags and Styrofoam containers litter the floor. The van takes one of the ramps and lands on the beach. The rising tide and its effervescent surf lick the van' s bold tires. They park on an unlit and lonely spot facing the murky ocean where traces of white foam ride, barely discernible, atop the darkness of the waves. Both move to the bench seat and sit.

"I want my money first," Debbie requests with firmness, and throws her cigarette to the floor and steps on it, rubbing her sole over the squashed butt.

"How I know you' re any good?" he asks in a gruff voice.

He is starting to get on her nerves, the jerk," I' m good, probably the best you' ll ever have."

Solid and unexpected, his fist squarely lands under her left eye and knocks her from the bench seat. The metallic edge of a toolbox gives her another bruise on her left hip when she hits the floor. Before she has time to gather her senses, he jumps on her, tugging at her clothes, his dirty hands searching her dress, her panties, her body.

"Where is the money! The money, you fucking bitch!" His hands grope for the crispiness of paper, searching for a flash of green.

"Get off me!" She screams. His open hand lands on her face with a clapping, numbing sound. Her head twists and hits the side of the van.

"Fucking shut up!" He turns his attention to her cigarette pack. Tearing it apart he finds a small square of neatly folded bills. His smile flowers through his crooked teeth. He leans over her and reaches for the door handle above her head, opens the van' s sliding door and shoves her out with a kick.

"Mother fucker! Mother fucker!" Her cussing has not diminished since she hit the sand. The door slides shut. The van starts and disappears into darkness, two small red dots gliding over the sand and escaping from her. Her face burns in pain and her eye is swelling shut and feels like it' s ready to explode, and her hip pains her. Lying supine, she vainly screams against the breeze and cries to the night and the surf. The waves continue to break against the sand, unabated.

Two for One

"You get two for the price of one," Debbie says to me. She is leaning over my new old car' s window with a cigarette nervously burning between her fingers.

"What' s the catch?" I ask. Debbie doesn' t give it away for nothing, and I understand; hell, I don' t fly for free either.

"Well, I need to see this guy tonight, you know, we have some business," she puffs on her cigarette. "It' s not far, by Volusia Avenue." Her smile is working at its best. "I just need a ride."

I have nothing better to do tonight, so I agree. Two for one. I don' t know if I' m going to be able to deliver. Shit, I' m the one who should get paid; after all, I' m doing all the work.

We drive inland, on Volusia Avenue. Traffic is light tonight, probably too hot and muggy for the old farts to leave their condos. Lowlifes without air conditioning like Debbie and I go out anyway; it doesn' t make a difference to us.

"What' s that bruise under your eye?" I had noticed it while talking to her through my window.

"Some mother fucker hit me on the face and ripped off my money," she answers in a calm voice, almost a whisper although her body language is one of jitters.

"You called the cops?"

She takes the last draw from her cigarette and throws the butt out of the window. "Sure I did; basically, they told me to fuck off." She pauses to light another cigarette. "They said it was my own damned fault for working the streets."

"That wasn' t nice."

"Fuck' em all."

Her mind is tuned to a different frequency tonight. It' s going to be a wham-bang-thank-you-ma' am night, two in a row - maybe. I give her the money in advance after she pleaded for it," Man, I need that money to pay that guy, or he' s going to get mean." Her pretty smile brings her dimples back. "You don' t want anything bad to happen to me, do you?" It' s amazing how she can switch moods to fit her needs, like flipping frequencies in an airplane radio, back and forth.

She takes me right into Nigger town. I park between two junked cars(a perfect disguise for my old clunker). She sneaks into a house using the backyard gate. I slide downwards in my seat and lay low, waiting for her, keeping an eye on my mirrors, just in case.

Time passes by and I start to get uncomfortable. Buying drugs should not take this long. I' m pretty sure they don' t give free samples. Something is wrong. I wait for a while and nothing, no Debbie. Damned, I got ripped off tonight; she pulled a fast one on me. Noway in hell I' m going into that house looking for her. After a long wait I conclude that I have been taken. "Two for one," I say to myself. "Sure, there is one born every minute."

Tony Comes South

The Trailways station on Volusia Avenue is next to Nigger town. I took Debbie here once so she could get her fix and for that I got a free blow job and she let me play with her tits. I wish dating respectable women were that easy. The station is dusty and the parking lot reeks of diesel and rubber, not different than any other bus station anywhere else. I have no idea why my mind links what I see to Debbie; it' s getting kind of annoying. My annoyance gets pushed aside when the bus arrives. The door opens with a clang and passengers start to descent the steps: matrons holding small children in their arms or dragging them out by their hands, Metallic a types with cheap sung glasses and just an overnight bag for luggage, soldiers eager to go home, and the last to come down is Tony, big Tony, dressed in a brown suit with padded shoulders, a skinny dark blue tie and steel toe working shoes on his feet. In his hand there is a gym bag with our high school colors. I' m sure he has at least one gun in there. He' s wearing a pair of sunglasses that make him look like John Belushi in the Blues Brothers; the only thing missing is the hat. The man likes to be stylish but doesn' t know how and can' t afford to. Style is not something you pick up in the rough Youngstown neighborhoods. What he had picked off the street is a tough guy look, and it is not just the look but it is the real toughness in him that shows up on his face. His nose is crooked to his left. Tony doesn' t remember which fist fight gave him that crooked nose, and he doesn' t remember the details of his broken ribs and fractured jaw and other scars. To him, all those scars are what happens when he tries to live his life, something as elementary as breathing to stay alive.

But I love the big fella. He' s a stand up guy and will never go back on his promises. He spent time in the slammer after that Christmas tree fiasco and told the D.A. to stick it up his ass when he came around with promises of leniency if he would testify against his partners in crime. Fred took the deal and Tony got the book thrown at him. I' m sure Fred didn' t give me up because he didn' t want to face a really pissed off Tony after he got out of jail. Just the same, Fred left for California right before Tony was due for release from the county jail. Distances keep your bones unbroken.

"Ken!" Tony drops the gym bag on the ground and hugs me. He bangs his fists on my shoulders. I can feel his strength through his cheap suit and on his affectionate beating of my back.

"How you doin' " I say.

"Glad to be here, out of that shithole."

We wait for his bag to come out of bus' bowels. When his worn out duffel bag is out, he picks it up with one hand and we walk to my car parked outside next to the sidewalk.

"How' s my old man doing" I ask.

"As always, working his ass off and keeping to himself, but he seems fine."

"And your parents?"

"Well," he seems to be looking for the right words before he continues. "Their livers are holding up amazingly well."

I say nothing. Some things don' t change.