Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Flight

I hate the word 'dappled', but that's what the fucking sun is doing. I slump on the couch and stare at the wall, painting it different colors in my mind. My lower back hurts. This is a constant. I want to run, but I can't. I want to fly, but I could never do that.

I find my mind wandering back through the cob-webbed corridors...there was a girl. How many stories start like that? I guess every story starts like that. There was a girl.

She was like a poorly trained puppy. Always lashing out. She was flailing, out of control. She was beautiful. So beautiful I can't even describe it. For once I just want the word to mean what it really means. She really was beautiful. 

She came to my shows. I knew some of her friends. She liked my white Chucks. She told me one time, and I couldn't think of a response, and she laughed and pinballed down the hallway of our flat singing about boys who wear Dickies and white Chucks.

She moved in with a friend of mine. A wonderful girl...she always made me sad. She always fucked my friends and they never seemed to care that she actually thought it meant something. But what can you do? She was smart. She didn't need a thing from me. She had a big soft bed. I slept in it, but never with her.

She invited us over for Thanksgiving. Tofurkey. Santa Cruz. We made the drive down from the City with some laced weed and warm beer. We were on vacation from the vacation that was our daily lives. Fuck the tofurkey and pass the booze. She could get fucked up, that girl. With the best of us. She had a thing for acid and whip-its that I never quite understood. I liked her.

Her friend liked to fuck with people. She looked riot grrl soft, but she was made of safety glass. I didn't know it at the time. She was mean, and I liked that. I liked it when people treated me like shit. I liked bitchy, privileged girls who liked me because I was poor and on the death march. Eventually, I would let the little, small human part of me show and they would leave because I was just like every other schmuck. I cared too much. But before the facade shattered I was some kind of 'bad girl' trophy. I didn't realize this at the time.

We spent days drinking and smoking that dust weed and churning through packs of cigarettes. I remember that I spent a lot of the weekend playing guitar by myself on the porch. Hoping she would find it interesting. Hoping I could get away without talking to anyone. Jim was busy fucking Lilith, and so the beauty and I circled. She was fucking with me. So, I played guitar and got as fucked up as I possibly could.

I guess I passed out on the couch, but I woke up with her on top of me. Her eyes were those magic eyes. The kind that change color. Her skin was dark and soft. She was voracious. Neither of us had our shirts on. I was confused and trying to keep up. She bit me. I was still wearing the pegged, size 28 Dickies she had given me, laughing that her pants fit a boy. I put a lot more in my nose than my stomach back then.

I wanted her. No doubt. But she kept fucking biting me. Not coyly. Not sexy bites. She bit me until I shoved her onto the floor. She ran out of the room crying. Lilith came in and saw the blood...I told her what had happened. She told me that her friend had been a virgin until the rape I didn't know about. The one that had happened on Halloween.

We didn't talk the rest of the trip. I didn't talk to Jim or Lilith either. I drank wine from a jug and played their shitty acoustic guitar until my fingers bled. Some of the bite marks were visible. Big, purple bruises on my arms and neck. No one said anything.  

We left, and I forgot about it. Months later, my friend Kevin came to visit and fucked her. Then he stole my weed and my wallet and went back to San Diego.

8 comments:

  1. It's kind of scary how your brain works.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The days of wine and roses are more caustic than the lyrics would have us believe. I think it's kind of amazing how your brain works - the photos you use the flashcube on are uniquely JD moments - and that is why your rock and roll, powerful writing always resonates with me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. P.S. "...the beauty and I circled." oh yes ;))

    ReplyDelete
  4. Powerful piece of writing. Waving via Indie fest. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, early sexual trauma can mess us up for life - we either become promiscuous, like your girl here, or withdraw from it altogether. It's one of the hardest things to heal from.A sad commentary on our society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, unfortunately you are right...I've seen the fallout too many times.

      Delete

Please leave comments. Good, bad or ugly. Especially ugly.