Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

Two more Pink Floyd songs go by. Debbie believes that the old guy in the corner is going to have an orgasm. Glyn Preston enters the bar and smiles at Debbie right form the threshold. She reciprocates. Glyn walks to the jukebox and puts a few bills into in and starts pressing the keyboard. Debbie and all the regulars in the bar know what he is up to: blues. His broad back is stooped over the jukebox and its lights make his dark skin shine like a vinyl long play. His ivory teeth framed inside his everlasting smile glow with an electric blue hue as he presses the keys. The Pink Floyd guy is going to get kicked off his cloud when B.B. King starts belching The Thrill is Gone.Glyn is a blues aficionado, a rather dedicated one, and his personal collection holds many old and obscure records, but for a jukebox that plays Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash and Sinatra, B.B. King and Johnny Langare adequate.

Glyn sits at the bar and Debbie serves him his Scotch and soda without him having to ask for it. He will run a tab until closing time. After closing time him and Debbie may or may not got to a motel and have sex. They don’ t know for sure until they are in the parking lot and look at each other. There is no need to say a word. Some nights it feels like the right thing to do and others it doesn’ t.

The odd couple they are, mismatched in size, color, marital status, musical taste and everything else that could be of interest to a match maker but somehow their oddness is their link, knowing that their playful sexual romps cannot be become anything else. They enjoy each others company, have sex and small talk and leave each other in good spirits, without any debts standing, without issues to be solved later, without promises or guarantees.

Tonight they smile to each other in the parking lot and end up in the Lucky You motel. The pink neon lights adorning the edges of the balconies outside make their way into their room through the thin curtains and bathe their naked bodies. Debbie always has to get on top because Glyn is too big to do it the other way around. White on black glowing in pink and Debbie’ s stump ignored by both. After sex they talk for hours about nothing and go at it again. They never go to sleep together and always leave in separate ways when the sex is done with and there is nothing else to talk about.

Now and then Glyn gives her a trinket, some piece of gaudy gold jewelry that both know Debbie will never wear. She always hocks it and Glyn never bothers to ask where his gift went. It is a strange relationship, Debbie admits, but a harmless one. Glyn’ s wife must be used to him not being able to keep his big pecker in his pants, and Debbie is sure she is not his only side dish. Glyn’ s must be a truly bizarre marriage. But she loves his everlasting smile, good disposition and sincere willingness to listen to her; they make her life less gloomy, and that is worth a good fuck in return.

There is an early morning cinnamon sky to the east that casts a soft glow in the far away snow on Pikes Peak. Ken sits at the break fast nook and faces the mountains, another world so distant and different from his house. He may as well be looking at a Martian landscape. His jaws chew his cereal with listless determination. Crunch. Crunch. The noise fills the inside of his head but cannot drown his thoughts.

Thinking about last night makes him both angry and ashamed. Being rejected off hand by Helen felt like a back handed slap on his face, and his cheek still burns. Anger and shame, he swings in and out between both mind states, not sure where to stop the maddening pendulum.

How naive he had been, trying to patch up things with his wife by walking into the bedroom naked with a stiffy standing ready between his legs. Had she laughed and refused, or had she got mad and refused, that he could have handled, but the mute and disgusted look she gave him, the look she would have used if a sewer creature covered in refuse had walked into the bedroom, dripping scum and stinking to heaven, that look, that he couldn’ t swallow. Her obvious revulsion turned his stiffy into an instant floppy. The way she had turned her back to him and had hidden under the blankets had buried his hopes for a truce and reconciliation.

They had been unfounded hopes from the beginning but his stubborn and misguided optimism had chosen to ignore what now was rather obvious:Helen, the mother of his son, revolted at the idea of him touching her.

Crunch. Crunch.

Seconds turn into minutes and cereal goes down his mouth but Ken still cannot figure out how or when or where things had started to turn bad. It had not been something you could circle on a calendar. There was no turning moment, no key event, no relevant flash of memory; things had just turned into shit as fresh snow melts under the morning sun, and Ken knew that he cannot recreate snow from a muddy spot on the ground. What was gone was gone forever.

Helen came into the kitchen and started opening and closing drawers in search of her breakfast, without saying a word to Ken. He keeps on eating, watching her ignoring him. A kernel of hatefulness inside him starts to heave and expand. His rib cage feels the pressure growing from the inside, the hate trying to sip out from between his ribs. His head tries to simmer down the rising emotions that are making his hand shake and the cereal spill back in the bowl.

This struggle is not new to Ken but today it is different because he doesn’ t want the common sense in his head to suppress the ugliness that is brewing inside him. There is a time to take it and there is a time to give it and today Ken feels like it is his time to let it out, to let that thing inside him explode and screw Helen and everything else.

His spoon drops in the bowl with a clank that splatters milk over the counter top. He pushes the bowl away from him and its contents spill out.

“ Helen!” he says aloud. “ I’ m tired of this crap!”

Helen says nothing, her back still to him, bending over and looking for something inside a cabinet.

“ God damned! Do you hear me or are you playing dumb?” Ken’ s voice is now a yell. Helen stands upright and turns to him. Her eyes are welled up with tears, and she cries when she answers.

“ I hear you. I hear you and I’ m also tired of this life.”

She runs upstairs to the master bedroom and slams the door shut.

Ken remains sitting at the nook, disgusted with himself and Helen and the world. He is not running after Helen. To do what? To say what?That he’ s sorry? Bullshit. He can hear Helen sobbing. Probably is his fucking fault that things had turned to shit; he doesn’ t know how or when or where but somehow the blame is his but he doesn’ t know how to fix things. Love cannot be rekindled like a stove after the fire is extinguished.

After their young love had died under the subtle but constant beating of boredom, they should have remained friends and stayed together for the sake of giving each other company in their old age, but instead of becoming used to each other like tired feet and old worn out shoes do with each other, they came to see themselves as a disagreeable strangers living under the same roof… Something had gone wrong and Ken cannot figure out what.

Ken tires of thinking about it. He grabs his keys and cell phone and heads out for the garage. He spins tires on the way out of the drive and sees his suburban home getting smaller in his rear view mirror.

He has to unlock one of his rental homes for a crew to replace the carpet. The last renter and their dogs left a mess. Ain’ t that funny, he thinks, his life is falling to pieces and a fucking pissed on carpet is the only excuse he has to keep on living.

Glyn ejaculates and Debbie feels his thrust pushing her high and keeping her up there, like if she were bucking a wild horse. After the orgasmic wave passes a panting Debbie gets out of bed, stands upon her one leg and hops to the bathroom to clean herself up. With each jump a few drops of semen hit the floor. Debbie is thankful that of all the crappy jobs she has had, she never had to work as a motel maid.