FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #7

     She's a local.  That means she’s out of my league.  She might as well be wearing a ‘don’t even think about it, buddy’ sign, which means I’m doing nothing but.  I haven’t seen her before but I should have guessed she’s a hometown girl.  It’s not so much a look as it is a sensibility.  She moves like she belongs here, as if each and every step is hers by birth and right.  Only a local could manage that kind of embodied sense of entitlement.  I can’t even tell you how much I want her.

      “Dude.  Really?”  Jerry looks at me, shakes his head, and takes a long drink of his beer.  He sighs; he’s been here before.  “Can’t you just let it be?” 

      Jerry knows me too well.  Friends since the fifth grade, he’s seen the best and worst of me.  He can read me like cheap formula fiction, different characters, different location, same damn plot.  I’m going to make an ass out of myself; it’s a given.  I’m going to do something incredibly stupid and more than just a little self-destructive.  I’m going to make a play for a local girl and I’m going to pay, big time.  I don’t know how it will all come down.  A fist in the face is most likely, but there are myriad variations on the theme of me getting the crap beat out of me.  A severe tongue-lashing would be a nice change of pace but in this neck of the woods, they don’t tend to solve disagreements with words.  They prefer body blows and sucker punches.  Yep, it’s going to get nasty and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it because I’m sure as hell not going to walk away. 

      Jerry sighs again, a deep sorrowful sound.  He’s a good friend, my best.  He’s not going to try to talk me out of it because he knows he can’t.  He knows I won’t listen.  He knows that the best thing he can do is pick up my pieces after, get me to the hospital if that’s what called for, take me home if not, and see me through this debacle to the next one and the next, and the one after that.  You could say I was born under an unlucky star.  An astrologer I dated once told me my Venus was afflicted.  I couldn’t love the girls that loved me.  I couldn’t pick a nice, safe woman to settle down with.  No, I had go for wild girls with dangerous tastes.  Every time I pick the one girl I shouldn’t even look at, and I get myself in trouble – deep and fast.  Only I would end up in a strange bar in a small town and fall head over heels for a woman I have no business falling for.  And I can’t let it go; can’t let her be.  I’m just not wired that way.  Falling in the wrong kind-of love is just part of my DNA.  It always has been.

      Poor Jerry.  He picks up his beer, heads to a table as far from the bar as he can get.  He sits so he can watch it all unfold, so he knows when to intervene, just shy of dead would be nice.  He’s a good friend, maybe my only friend.  I hand a twenty to the waitress and tell her to get Jerry the next few beers on me.  I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a long night.

      I let my eyes swing slowly, slyly to the left so I can check her out.  Maybe on closer inspection I’ll wise-up, forget about the girl, leave this place as I found it and let it leave me the same.  She’s pretty, but I’ve seen prettier.  She’s got legs that won’t quit, but I’ve never been much of a leg man.  She does have the deepest, darkest eyes I’ve ever seen.  They could swallow a man whole.  A man could drown in those eyes with a smile on his face.  Maybe it’s the eyes that decide me though the mouth too has a lot of potential, the way it quirks to the right in the slightest of smiles, like she’s in on some sort of cosmic joke the rest of us just don’t get.  Still, I think it’s something else that calls me, a certain je ne sais quoi.  I’m a fool who’s going to rush in where wise men fear to tread.  I’m going to make a play for this local girl, whatever the cost. 

      “You gonna do this, or what?” she asks.

      “Who?  Me?”   Oh yeah, is that brilliant repartee or what?

      “I thought you were interested, interesting.  My mistake.”  She takes a deep drink of whatever is in that highball glass she’s cradling in her hand.  That quirk to the right deepens.  It’s like catnip, that sly slip and curve of her mouth.  I’ve gotta have her.  I take a breath.  It’s do or die.

      “I’m interesting.  You interested?”  She throws her head back and laughs.  I’ve never heard anything like it – deep, rich, full-bodied, slightly naughty.  I was wrong about what calls me in this woman.  It’s the laugh.  I knew before I ever heard it that it was the kind of sound I couldn’t live without.

      “Oh brother.  If that’s the best you’ve got....”

      “I’m afraid it might be, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be interested.”  She looks at me, really looks at me.  No one looks at you in a bar like that.  People don’t look at you like that ever, as if they can see into the very heart of you, know what you are, what you could be.

      “So tell me, Mr. Smooth, why me?  There are prettier women.”

      “There are,” I say.  She laughs again.

      “Touché.  I deserved that.  But really, why risk a local girl?  It’s not going to win you any friends.”  Her eyes drift over to the local beef.  My eyes follow.  They don’t look too happy but they’re keeping their distance, watching and waiting. I take a gulp of amber colored courage, follow it with another.

      “Why risk it?  Why me?”

      “This is why,” I say, letting my thumb rest in that tucked right corner.  I don’t have to look at the beef to know they’re pissed.  I’m not just talking to a local girl, I’m touching her.  No guts, no glory though.  “There’s a 1001 stories behind this smile and I want to hear every one of them.”

      “You want me to be Scheherezade?”

      “Only if you want to be.  I just want to look at you.  I just want to look at this.  It tells me all the stories I could ever want to hear.”  I let my hand drop.  There, I’ve said it, what she knew already when she looked in my heart.  And it doesn’t matter what the local boys think; it doesn’t matter that Jerry is sure I’ve lost his mind.  All that matters is that she hears me, knows my words are truth.

      She finishes her drink with one swallow.  That right-sided smile deepens.  The bartender looks at her.  She nods for another.  “You’ve got quite a way with words.” 

    “I only say what I mean.”

      “I know.  That’s why you’re going to walk away when I turn my back on you.  You’re going to leave the bar.  You’re going find my white F-250, the one parked over by the dumpster, and you’re going to wait for me there.  You’re going to think I’ve stood you up.  I’m going to be chatting up my friends over there, making them think I’ve shut you down, that you don’t have a chance.  And then I’m going to find you, take you home, and see what one night brings.  And maybe, if it goes the way I think it will, we’ll try another night.”

      “And another one after that?” I ask.

      “Stranger things have happened.” 

      She turns, just like she said she would.  And it hurts like a slap, her sudden, utter disregard.  If I hadn’t heard her tell me how it would go down, I’d have thought the worst.  As it is, I finish my beer and leave with a dull sort of ache where my heart should be.  Jerry catches my eye but I shake him off.  He shrugs, goes back to his beer.  He’s there if I need him.  He’s a good friend.  I hope I’ve been the same.  He deserves that at least, and more.  As I leave, I can hear her talking to the boys who were eyeing me.  I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I know it isn’t flattering.  It cuts, even if I know it’s all part of a plan. 

      I find her truck, at least I hope it’s her truck, and begin the waiting game.  It’s cold, damp, and I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.  Yet something keeps me standing there.  Doubt comes, seeps in with the sharp chill of the last weeks of a Northern winter.  I stamp my feet, trying to chase it away, trying to keep warm, without much luck.  And still I wait.  She said it would seem like I’d been stood up.  She was right.  It does.  I’ve been here fifteen minutes that seem more like an hour and I’ve lost my faith, in her, in myself, in love, in hope.  I don’t move though.  I don’t leave.  I lean against her truck, shove my fists deep into my pockets for warmth, and wait.  If you asked my why I was still standing here, I’d say a man has to believe in something and my line in the sand is her.

      I watch one of the muscle-bound local boys leave the bar.  I can’t help smiling.  Maybe it’s going to happen just like she said it would.  Maybe this time it’s going to be different, the boy is going to get the girl, I’m going to get my happy ending.  I’m going to finally belong.  I completely forget that there are more of them then there are of me, a lot more.  The one gone is nothing to the five that surround me.  It’s a rookie mistake, one I haven’t made since the early days.  So I’m not really surprised when metal makes contact with my skull.  Of course I crumble to the ground, a jointless heap of flesh and blood and bone.  There’s a lot of blood, but then there’s always a lot of blood.  It surprises me every time how much blood a body holds.  My eyes are closed and yet dark seeps in and through.  I let go and let it sweep me away.  Betrayed by a local girl, again.  Some things never change.

 

      “You’re really here.”  I’m not sure how long I’ve been out but I’m glad she’s the first thing I see. 

      “I told you I would be.”

      “You did.”

      “But you had your doubts.”  She sounds sad that my faith wavered, but what is faith but staying even when hope is gone. 

      “I’m still here, more or less.”

     “That you are,” she laughs.  “How do you feel?”

      How do I feel?  Surprisingly good, actually.  I’m not cold; I don’t feel any real pain despite the tire iron to the head, not to mention the associated kicks to the gut I took.  In fact I haven’t felt this good in years.  It’s weird, actually, but I’m not complaining.

      “Wanna help me up?”  She puts out her hand.  I take it, rise.  It’s easy, too easy.  “Why do I feel so good?  And where are your friends?”  I look around.  The parking lot is quiet.  The bar throbs with bass, but the night is so still I can hear my own heartbeat.  No wait, I should be able to hear my heartbeat and I can’t. 

      “They’re not my friends,” she says.  Whatever.  I’m still trying to figure out what’s going on, why the parking lot is empty, why I don’t feel the savage beatdown I got.  That’s when I look down and see what used to be me on the ground.  I’m a bloody pulp.  The boys did a number on me. 

      “I’m dead.”  I’m really quite calm as I say this.

     “You are.”  She’s calm too.  “I’m sorry,” she offers and she sounds it, sorry that it had to end this way.

      “Me too.  Are you Death?” I ask. 

      “Me?  Death?  You’re kidding, right?  The Big Guy?  The Grim Reaper?  Hardly.”  She has a great laugh, really she does.  I’m going to miss that.

      “Then what are you?”

      “I’m your death.  Everybody has one.”  She smiles, letting the right side of her mouth quirk in that peculiar way of hers. 

      “Is that why you’re so damn beautiful?”

      She smiles, preens a bit. She seems genuinely tickled. “It’s sweet of you to say.  You really think I’m beautiful?” 

      “You have to ask?” I wonder looking down at my shattered body.  

      “Since I’m your death, I suppose the powers that be want you to want me, when it’s your time, of course.”

      “Of course.  Though sometimes they get it wrong.  You want it too early.  Is that what happened to me?”

      “I don’t know.  I’m not supposed to know.  You found me.  It was time.  That’s how it works.”

       She stands with her hand awkwardly resting on my arm.  She wants to comfort me but isn’t sure how.  I feel bad, that she feels so bad.  Funny.  You wouldn’t think I’d worry so about my death.  So, I pull her close, hold her tight, drink in the dark, deep scent of her.  She smells not of heaven, not quite of earth, but of something in-between, something slightly familiar, something I can’t quite place, but something that fills me with a wild kind of longing.  I want her.  Still.  

     “It’s okay,” I whisper.  “It’s okay.”  She’s sobbing; I can feel her shuddering shoulders.  She's taking my end hard.  “Don’t cry.” 

      I hold her for I don’t know how long.  The parking lot empties.  The night deepens to that inky dark that comes just before dawn, and still I hold her.  The sky grays, lightens, and still I hold her.  The dawn comes and she’s still in my arms.  And it doesn’t matter what’s next.  I’m content to hold my death for as long as it takes. 

 

 

 

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