Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

It was hard and risky work, and my skin looked like a pepperoni pizza' cause I had insect bites on every square inch of my body, but when there is money in it you don' t think about stuff like that.

You want money? Forget about pot. Coke is it, but then you aren' t dealing with Bubba anymore. Stealing pot meant undercover work in the wilderness, sneaking in and sneaking out, hush-hush, you know, we looked like walking bushes. Pot was a game of cunning and smarts. But Tony and Mike decided to go after cocaine. That shit doesn' t grow in the Florida swamps. Junkies have it. Dealers have it, so they went after them. Now it' s a game of confrontation, of big guns. I don' t like it. Would you shoot some asshole for coke? No way… I just drive, and keep my head low and my fingers crossed.

The vacuum' s hose inhales dirt after digesting Mr. Twonbly' s two quarters; down the silver slot they went, one after the other. It' s Sunday morning; bright and deeply clear with an intense blue sky that stretches from horizon to horizon. Mr. Twonbly climbs on his minivan armed with the hose, and he twists his middle aged body between the seats and the console while wrestling with the vacuum, mechanical serpent of electrical sibilance, and he, Laocoö n of modern age.

He doesn' t like going to church in a dirty vehicle. Rise and shine, clean your soul of mortal sin, wear a good suit, eat a hearty breakfast, clean the van, because it is Sunday, the day to be good. These thoughts flash in his mind like the Fasten Seat Belts signs in an airliner.

A clump of candy wrappers ("Good for your breath," says Mrs. Twonbly), a few crumpled balls of tissue paper ("The seal lergies are killing me," says Mrs. Twonbly), and a sheet with directions to go to somebody' s home ("You' ll love meeting them, they are such a nice people," says Mrs. Twonbly), this harmless hodgepodge of trash collects in Mr. Twonbly' s small hands which carry the neat pile to the big fat barrel sitting beside the Vacuum' s steel armor. His hands part and turn face down, and the barrel swallows the paper jumble.

What' s that?

Mr. Twonbly sees a flash of color coming thorough his own trash. He parts the trash and exposes the color. Oh mighty. His eyes bounce inside his eye sockets, right and left and back. Nobody is looking. His hands roll the colorful magazine into a tight paper cylinder, and he pulls it out of the barrel in a swift motion:from barrel to under his arm to the van.

Mr. Twonbly' s van idles under the shade of an oak tree, by the Dumpster behind the car wash. His eyes dance once more in his face, and he unfolds the magazine, or what' s left of it.

A naked blond with two faces tattooed on her right shoulder, one sad and one happy, is on her fours with her genitalia staring at Mr. Twonbly' s taut face. The same blond is now on her back, her shaved slit exposed with a caption under the picture that reads "Diana likes it hot in Atlanta." If Mr. Twonbly could take his eyes off her crotch, and stop fantasizing about Mrs. Lubkemann own' s (the choir lady), he, perhaps, would notice the blonde' s cute dimples above her smile of thin lips.

Ken circles around the block in Tony' s car, his fingers sticky around the steering wheel. A cold sweat slithers between his back and the worn out vinyl seat cover. He is not used to this kind of sweat. He goes around once, twice, three times, every time in a different direction, never approaching through the same street. The house sits at the corner, light green, cinder block with an open carport sheltering a black Trans Am. Lights are on. Is that good or bad? Damn, where are they?

On the fifth pass, Ken sees Tony and Mike walking on the side of the street like two guys going out for a night stroll. He stops the car, doors open and they hop in. Before the doors close Ken hits the gas. Easy… take it easy. They drive by the green house where normality doesn' t seem bothered. Nobody speaks.

"How did it go?" Ken asks, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

"Fine," says Tony. His burly figure shifts on the passenger seat as he opens his coat. A small package comes out in his big hand. "About half a kilo."

"Let me see," says Mike from the back seat. Mike leans forward to grab the package. Ken can see the glitter of Mike' s glasses inside the frame of the rear view mirror. Tony opens his coat again and pulls a black revolver that looks huge in his big hand. He opens the glove compartment and throws the revolver in.

"I tell you what," Tony says. "The bigger the piece, the less shit those mother fuckers give you." Tony laughs in short snorts, and Ken feels Tony' s weight pushing on the bench seat as his chest heaves.

From the back seat Mike speaks," That bitch got hysterical when you put that thing in her face. I was ready to whack her on the head. Jesus, screaming like that."

"I bet you she doesn' t think that her boyfriend' s coke business is so cool anymore," Tony says. "She fucking shut up when I stuck that barrel down her mouth." Tony' s and Mike' s laughs reverberate inside the metallic darkness of the car.

"Tony," Ken almost whispers," what' s gonna happen the day some dealer or his bitch pulls a gun on you?" Ken' s voice chills the air and the laughs drop frozen and shatter into silence. "Are you gonna shoot them dead?"

Mike sinks back into the shadows deep inside the view mirror, and Tony' s countenance becomes as rigid as pavement.

"You know, shit happens," says Tony in an unconvincing voice, like if he had never thought of that possibility.

"Yeah, shit happens," says Ken in a whisper.

Sparrows, dozens of them, a whole flight; yes, a flight. Debbie remembered that much from school. Fishes swim in schools; animals run in herds; wolves hunt in packs; sea gulls fly in flocks; helicopters fly in gaggles (where did she learn that one? She couldn' t remember). Airplanes fly in flights, and she remembered that one from watching CNN. Now she was confused. Is it a flight of sparrows, or a gaggle, or a flock? Whatever it is, the sparrows stood outside her window jumping over the serrated fence top and bouncing like Mexican jumping beams among bare, spidery branches, so happy and so carefree.

Her face hurt. Bruce' s hand had left her skin blue and bruised. No good for business. Her head hurt with a deep and pounding headache, like a pulsating beach ball trying to pop out of her head. She had tried not to mix drinking and drugs, but she could never resist.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember last night. Dance, dance, lights and heat, dance, dance, money and touching hands. Coke in the bathroom, coke in the dressing room, uppers at the bar, nicotine in the vending machine, alcohol in customer' s glasses. The rat standing in the hallway.

Of course she remembered the rat just outside her door, waiting for her arrival, dirty, filthy thing. And Bruce too, drunk and all fucked up.

"Hon, I' m dead tired. Can we do it in the morning?" she asked. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her on the bed. His hand felt hot on her face, more times than she cared to remember. "Don' t you tell me what to do!" he yelled. His breath slathered over her sweaty skin, a breath like the smell of stale beer in a hot can abandoned on a parking lot, and she felt his penis proving, bending itself into inconceivable shapes, penetrating.

Debbie opened her eyes and tears fell, one by one, warm and humid they rode down her swollen cheek. The sparrows danced outside her window in a bliss of cold morning sunshine. Her sphincter flared in burning pain. The bastard had done it again. Her body shriveled in to a tawny parchment and her skin dried up into cracked tissue, and then shed into pieces that landed on the sheets to turn into dust. Her bones turned black and her whole skeleton dropped flat like the armature of an old cage. Her spirit hissed out intact through the window mesh and joined the sparrows on the branches, so warm under their coat of fluffy feathers.