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Two
"Bug, everytime you tell that story you change something," said Pinky.
We were in my house, near the edge of the woods, just past the hill, and a few hundred feet from the river. I was just squatting, house sitting for my mother, who was in England for a year. She had a two-bedroom condo, overlooking the greenbelt, with skylights in the bathroom and in the kitchen. We were sitting on the floor, the front door open, moonlit breezes rocking in an out across our skin, alternately raising goosebumps and warming us.
Mike was there. And so was, Max who was now nearly comatose from the Glenlevit. He had sat through the story and nodded and smiled in the right parts, but, now, he was nearly passed out.
"What do you mean?" I said.
Pinky sighed. "I didn't steal a twelve-pack. It was a six-pack. And, what was the deal about the confederate sticker on the trash can? I never saw that. It was like you were trying to be all symbolic and shit."
I swallowed. "I saw that flag. It was there." From what I could remember, it was there. Redneck, white, and blue as it could be.
"But," said Pinky, "like I said. You never mentioned it before, and even if it was there, it didn't have a damn thing to do with the story. And, by the way, I'm sick of that story."
"It's a good story," I said. "You've never done anything like lock a redneck in a gas station bathroom since then. And robbery. That was like the baddest you ever got. That's a good story, and it is symbolic."
"Symbolic of what?"
"I don't know. Turning point. You locked up a redneck, you stole beer from his station, and, I don't know, you grew up a little bit. Changed. If this was 'Biography', that would have been a plot point. You know?"
She smiled a little and lit a cigarette. I heard Max snoring. It was 1 am, according to the digital clock glowing on the coffee table. I rubbed my chin and took another drink of the Glenlevit that I just discovered I was still holding in my hand, now slightly diluted itself by the melted ice.
"Well Bug," said Mike, getting up and stretching, "I'm going to bed. You put Max to sleep. And, me too."
"Don't drive. Just crash here," I said.
"I was going to. I can use your other bedroom, right?" he said. He was already headed that way, stepping over some t-shirts that hadn't quite made it to the washing machine.
"Don't drool on the pillow," I said.
He flipped me off and disappeared into the hallway.
"So, anyway," I said to Pinky. "I think we should go find Louie. Do a trip like that again."
"I gotta work," she said. She squinted at me through her cigarette smoke.
"Take time off. You get vacation. Just two weeks. Anyway, it's just a dress shop. Just quit. You can get that kind of job in your sleep."
She laughed. "Mr. Umemployed telling me how easy it is to get a job? The Sultan of Slack? Ha! You get funnier by the sip. Have some more."
I grinned. "I am a top notch graphic designer and will take no other than a top notch job. I've got principles, integrity."
"And, food stamps," she said. She laughed again, cigarette smoke careening from her red lips.
"Yeah, well..."
"Yeah, well nothing," she said.
I ignored her. "Look," I said, "Mike's getting married. You're going back to school. I'm going to go live with my mother in England for a while. We'll all be scattered next year this time. Remember the last time you saw Louie?"
She frowned as she put out her cigarette, stuffing it into a beer bottle. "Don't drink out of this," she said. She grinned and lit another cigarette. "Yeah. Of course I remember."
"When was it?" I said.
"Four years ago. That time in the airport."
"Really? That's when..."
"You know that story, Bug" she said. "And you know what I think about it."
It was quite a story. She'd run into Louie at the Cincinnati airport, of all places. He was heading back to Texas from a trip to see his sister, who had moved to the outskirts of Ohio to live out her dream of living in the country, having a dozen children, and only working with the land to survive. She made it to three kids, last I heard, then she got a divorce and moved to Cleveland to be a hair stylist. When dreams die, they sometimes die ugly, or they sprout you some flowers. I was never sure which one Louie's sister would say happened in her life.
But, there was Louie, all of a sudden, walking around outside the airport, looking like he always did--just a little dazed and just a little happy. His baggy pants, those brown corduroys that he always wore, his perpetual corduroys, as Mike called them, hanging off his square hips like a paper bag. He was just walking around, a beat up green shoulder bag over his back. That's the way we always ran into Louie. It was always sudden, and it was always in the darndest places, and he was always looking up, looking away, as if something from a far ceiling had just whispered his name to him.
Pinky had just walked out of the big sliding glass doors and was waiting to catch a cab when she saw Louie. She was standing in front of a newspaper machine, she remembered, because the headline read "Shock And Awe Campaign Begins." She was contemplating buying a paper when she just looked up and saw him. She instantly knew it was him and, as she told me later, her first reaction wasn't actually joy, but it was something closer to fear. She had said "What the hell?" and it was like, she said, a what the hell that you say when you see something strange.
Not that Louie was so strange, but seeing him there, seeing him drifting toward her, her visiting from Tennessee, he visiting from Texas, old friends, suddenly crossing paths in a Cincinnati airport. It was like, she said, walking off a bus on a normal work day and seeing, right in front of
you, the dog who had run away from home 10 years ago.
She got over it quickly, though, and ran to him. He had looked at her like had been looking for her all day and finally found her. They embraced.
She said he felt emaciated, fragile.
"Louie!" she said. His angular, pale face hadn't been shaven for days and he smelled a little like dirt and roses. "Luis Ramos! What the hell?"
Just then, there was a screech. Pinky told me that it sounded like a scream at first, then it stretched into the harsh cry of rubber gripping road.
She looked behind her. A pickup truck, green, Cheverolet, the driver with gritted teeth and a long, shadowy head, was accelerating straight for the sidewalk. In the next second, the driver threw the wheel to the left, just as the truck reached the sidewalk. The truck jackknifed, its rear
swinging like a pendulum. The bed of the truck lept the curb, and, with a lethal whip, smashed the newspaper machine, sending glass showering and throwing the machine ten feet away where it hit the ground and tumbled into the sliding glass doors, smashing one side of the door into spider web cracks. The whole thing took two seconds.
Just a moment before, Pinky was right in front of that machine. Right there. If she hadn't seen Louie, she would have still been there, pulling a paper from the machine, standing there reading the head story, seething at war, seething at the stupidity of it all. And, then one thought, one breath, one cacophonous instant later, she would have been crushed by the wayward truck.
That is, if she hadn't seen Louie. Louie who'd showed up all of a sudden, out of time and out of place. Louie.
As her story played in my head, I looked over at her smoking and I could see her face. I was sure that her mind was replaying the story also. I could see her eyes glaze, her lips quiver.
"We've all got that kind of story about Louie," I said.
She lowered her head. "I know," she said, her voice wet and small now.
"I want to go see him," I said.
She was quiet for a second. Then, she took a deep breath.
"Not me," she said. "He scares the hell out of me."
"He saved your life," I said.
She got up then and stretched. I could tell it was a fake stretch, one that you do when you just want someone to think you're tired. "I don't ever want to be in a situation, Bug, where anybody saves my life by just showing up. That's cutting it pretty close, don't you think?"
"That's how anyone's life is saved," I said.
She leaned over to give me one of her shut-up kisses.
"Goodnight," she said.
I sighed and looked at the clock. "Good morning," I said.
I watched her walk away, into the hallway. I resisted saying that she should be happy to see this morning. She should be happy to see another morning. She should be happy to see every morning since she last saw Louie. These were all borrowed days. All of them. I just needed someone to thank for them. Someone.
I finished my drink, poured another, threw it down my throat, and, somewhere in that morning, I fell asleep on the floor, curled up like I was praying.
© 2006 by Elliot
2 Comments:
wonderful!! been waiting... :)))
3:03 AM
I would love to make this into a movie. As long as you write a part for me.
Love this, man!
10:24 AM
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About the Author
Name: Elliot
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Our Dream of Louie
Our Dream of Louie is a Blovel, or Blog Novel, that I'm going to update every now and then as I’m inspired. It's the story of three people who journey to visit an old college friend who they all considered an angel--a real angel. I'll try to make each entry read like a short story so you can at least get something out of it even if you haven't been following the big story. The entries will be prose, poetry, audio, video, or photo, whatever fancies me. Thanks for your time.
Cover
Chapter One
Chapter Two
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