Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

Questions with impossible answers had taken Ken' s time since the first moment. Why? Why? Some asked. Many others suspected. But nobody said anything out of respect for the grieving parents. Times get tough and young men get into trouble; that' s the way it was, and is, and will always be. Damned mills closing down and laying off people; they have to make a living somehow, whisper the gruff, tired voices of union men inside the chapel. It was drugs. No, it was stolen cars. No, it was a Mafia thing. It was a hit. The Colombians did it. It was bad luck. Poor Tony.

Ken stands in front of the coffin, and wishes he were somewhere else. The jetties in Ponce Inlet surface in his mind, and Debbie naked under the water, and he feels ashamed of such thoughts.

"I' m sorry," he mutters to himself, and tears slide from under his gold rimmed Ray-Bans.

" Dee, I want you to meet a buddy of mine," says John. "We did business together out west."

A twelve string guitar bounces notes between the old Deep Ellum' s warehouse fronts. Some broad on a street stage sings about boy friends. Debbie thinks it is a cool song.

" Dee… are you with us?"

Beer and ecstasy give Debbie a hell of a good buzz. Her hips undulate with every chord. Smooth turn to the right, slow twist to the left, knees down a bit; yes, flow with the music.

"Yes honey, I heard you," says Debbie with a frolicsome smile, her eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses where a magenta sky shines its dying lights.

John and his buddy look at each other and laugh.

"She is royally fucked up," says John and adds after a pause," this is Erich."

"Nice to meet you, Erich."

"We wanted to talk business with you, but you won' t remember shit by tomorrow," says John.

"Probably no," says Debbie and she burst into a silly, uncontrollable giggle.

Johnny and his buddy leave her alone on the street corner to go their own way. Debbie watches them disappear into the partying crowd wondering who was the guy with John. Rick?Lorenzo ? She can’ t remember either where she was going before the music had enthralled her to this corner.

A heavy mugginess presses on the crowd and the odor of sweat and fried foods drifts in slow eddies around her. The sun hides behind the downtown buildings, the signal for the winos to come out of the gutters and underpasses to make a living off the ones coming to down town seeking pleasure.

Debbie drifts shrouded in street aromas past biker bars, tattoo parlors, clubs, avant-garde furniture stores and trendy eateries. Debbie floats through the crowd using alcohol, ecstasy and coke asher magic carpet.

Later that night Debbie gets herself a new tattoo. She lies on the reclining chair, almost flat on her back while this Ernie guy, or was Randy?Whatever, draws a red rose where her pubic hair met her leg. The prickling pain excites her, that pain concentrated down in her middle, and she so detached from it, like a foreign observer watching her own pain from a far away tower, but feeling the physical strain moving up and down under the skin, and her juice gates open to a flood.

"I think I wet my panties," says Debbie with a giggle.

"Some people get excited," says the Tattoo guy running his index fingers in circles around her belly bottom. "Care for another one?"

Freedom of choice is what it is all about, thinks Debbie as she enters the loudest and raunchiest club with the dumpiest facade she could find open that late at night. The music booms and bodies writhe under dark lights. She carries her new pricking pain as she carries her small purse, right there at her fingertips, but not areal part of her, like something going just for a ride.

The bathroom' s counter is a mess of wet paper and butts but she manages to clean and dry a small section. From her compact devoid of make-up she pours a long line of coke on the counter. With a razor from the compact she aligns the white powder in a narrow ridge. Reflected on the mirror Debbie see faces that ignore her doings, and faces that wish they had what she has.

"Nice line," says a voice from the mirror as Debbie prepares to snort her coke. Debbie smiles and snorts half the line.

"You want some?" offers Debbie.

"Sure."

The face comes over the counter with Debbie' s straw, snorts the rest of the line and licks the counter clean. The pretty face belongs to a red hair of good body and hairy armpits. Debbie finds her armpits intriguing; they are like two more crotches, but real close to her freckled breasts.

She – Debbie couldn' t remember her name – kissed her first, just like that, and she let her do it. They ended up in a stool kissing, touching, caressing. Tongues rolled over damped skin and fingers got wet, and Debbie continued to live life by the drop.

Youngstown drifted in and out of Ken' s mind like a miasma rising from a sewer. The drab factories, the rusted clunkers on the road half eaten by winter salt, the shuttered stores downtown, and the lines at the Social Security office, what a shit ass place to remember. And the cramped cemetery full of concrete crosses where Tony was laid, what a human dump ground it was. Smokeless stacks reached to the sky like cold fingers poking at the curly clouds' bottoms. Psalms came mixed with the noise of trucks from the nearby highway. Down the hole Tony went in his shiny coffin, probably the most expensive thing he ever owned.

But those things now belonged to a past that Ken had been able to extricate himself from, the hard faces, the questioning faces that expected no answer but somehow understood. Ken sipped his piñ a colada and contemplated the blue and green water surrounding Ortega' s yacht now moving steadily over the waves. Splash, splash, its hull parted the waves, so nice to be away from that shit ass place. Tony, why in hell didn' t you come up front with me? Dumb ass. No, you had to fight it out like some fucking cowboy, like Rambo. Damned coke bales were like sand bags, stopped every bullet behind me. But there you were, sitting behind thin aluminum, shooting at the Cubans like if you were Mr. T in the A-Team. I pity the fool.

It was all over with. Life continued. Again. Ken slurped his piñ acolada and let the rolling and pitching of the boat cuddle him into a pleasant numbness fueled by alcohol. He heard somebody arguing at the stern in Spanish. He looked down in that direction and saw Ortega giving Sonia hell about something. He had no idea what the fuss was about.

Ortega and Sonia were at each other' s throat, yelling insults – at least they sounded like insults to Ken. Ortega pulled a nickel plated pistol from behind his waist and pointed it at Sonia' s head. An orange flash and a crack made Sonia' s head explode in scarlet. She fell to the deck shaking in jerky contortions while her blood tinged the wooden deck.

Ken dropped his piñ a colada between his feet. Two of Ortega' s men showed up with a short but heavy iron pipe and a rope that they tied to Sonia’ s still kicking legs. They heaved Sonia' s body overboard, still exuberant but now just a heap of fish bait. Ken saw her head go under followed by her hair leaving a bloodied spot soon diluted by the ocean water and the distance.

Ortega' s minions remained silent, neither celebrating Sonia' s fate nor showing any discomfort about it. Ortega said something in Spanish, still angry. He looked up and saw Ken looking at him from the upper rear deck, and he saw Ken' s ashen face. Ken couldn' t hold his stare and turned away.

"Am I next?" Wondered Ken. He figured Ortega had whacked Sonia because she was screwing him. Now was his turn to go for a swim. Ken though of jumping overboard. And then what? Swim to Miami?

Ken stood with both hands on the handrail, his knees trembling, looking at the waves, wondering what would be better, swim or stay. Ortega came behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Ken started to turn around, expecting to see the black hole of his pistol' s barrel, right on his face. Instead, he met Ortega' s smiling face standing in front of him.