Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

Debbie recites the happenings at the Night Owl two nights ago, and the history behind Billy. She swallows and says," Glyn, the shit is going to hit the fan sooner than later, and I need your help."

"Sure. I can get a few of my homies and we can roll him pretty good, if that is what you think will work."

Debbie laughs. "Oh please, don' t get yourself in trouble. He isn' t worth it."

"Listen," Debbie says after a pause. "Other than hiring a bodyguard, I have no way of protecting myself."

"Yes…," says Glyn to follow Debbie' s silence. Debbie hesitates but then speaks again.

"I need a piece Glyn. The fucker is gonna jump me when I' m alone. That' s the way the bastard operates."

"Babe, that I can get."

"I' ll pay you for it but you need to make sure it cannot be traced back to you, and I mean that."

"Hey, if you ain' t gonna stick up a liquor store with it, it will be no problem," says Glynn. "You know, self defense is a valid reason for shooting somebody."

"It' s not that Glyn… I' m a… I' m a convicted felon and I cannot own a gun. If something happens I don' t want the cops knocking on your door asking why you gave a piece to a felon."

After a short pause Glyn comes back on the phone," Good Lord girl! I knew you were a tough case and now you' re gonna be packing heat." He laughs loud and long.

"Glyn, just don' t piss me off," says Debbie, also laughing."And please, get me a snub nose revolver or a small semiautomatic but not twenty-two' s. I got small hands and I can' t shoot a big gun, plus it has to fit in my purse or under my shirt."

"Jesus, you even know your weapons," says Glyn. "Iain' t messing with you again." His laugh is the last thing Debbie hears befores she hangs up.

Debbie puts the cell phone away in her purse and prays that she will never have to use the gun, that Billy will go away and never return, that her little life can be hers again. Still, now she will have to carry an unlicensed concealed weapon on her, into a bar. Fucking Billy, she is getting set up for trouble, she thinks, but she ain' trunning again. If the shit hits the fan, let most of it fall on him, and she doesn' t mind a little splatter on herself if it comes to it.

I got up that morning thinking that my so called life with Helen was the center of my universe and I went to bed that same day with my head filled with the idea that the woman serving drinks at the DTC party was Debbie, and Helen and her bullshit took a step back and sank into the darkness where things of no consequence rot into oblivion.

But all things are relative; I’ m sure that many people got up that same morning with their own problems and by bedtime they were dead. At that point their former problems were truly irrelevant. I wasn’ t dead so I can be thankful for that. This may seem like a extreme comparison but it is one that works for me and lets me handle what seems to be unsurmountable problems by realizing that to the next guy, they mean nothing, that to the world they mean squat, that only in my head do they amount to anything.

I took a good look at her; hell, I just stared at her in a way that could be considered rude. I know she caught up with my abnormal and unprovoked attention but she did a good job of ignoring me, busy as she was doing her job.

She had to be Debbie, I don’ t know why, but she had to be.

The moment that I linked the stranger to Debbie, my life ceased to be like it had been until then and I cannot explain why. I want to say this though, I’ m not sure if she was Debbie. Come on, the last time I saw her was over twenty years ago, and she had a swollen face from the beating she took in Atlanta. but the face at the party had those Debbie like smiling dimples, and that face, older of course but yet the same, was the one that I remember from walking on the beach and cheap motel rooms and having dinner at Al ’ s Dinner.

Until that moment, I could have not told a sketch artist what Debbie looked like even if my life had been at stake, and the excuse that I haven’ t seen her in over twenty years would have been a reasonable one. But seeing her that night was like the smell of old things, that smell that shocks the brain into a explosion of memories fulls of images and textures that until then had been buried so deep in the archives of time that they may as well never existed.

Seeing her took me back in time over twenty years, and there I stood at that party, skinny, long haired, wearing a dirty apron and a paper hat, flat broke but still hopeful for a good future. The last twenty years of my life disappeared like a bad dream and I was sure if I had walked to the parking lot, it would have been a hot and muggy Florida night and my old clunker would be parked under lights surrounded by a cloud of crazed bugs.

Such a brief span of time, a blink of an eye, and like stepping out of a time machine, you are who you used to be. The consequences of such a short moment still linger in me like the aftershocks from an earthquake. I got jolted into remembering things that I had given for long dead and forgotten but which now are here, thrown into my lifelike unearthed corpses, and those corpses are disturbingly alive and fresh as if they had been kept fresh in another dimension and not buried under layers of time and forced forgetfulness.

I looked at her from different angles, from varying distances. Sometimes I stared at her and other times I looked at her askance. No matter how I did it, she was Debbie all right. Despite all my observations and the constant self assurances that she was Debbie, I didn’ t have the guts to approach her.

Why not? It beats me. I can’ t figure it out. Perhaps I was afraid of finding out that she was not Debbie. Perhaps I was afraid of confirming that she was indeed Debbie. Perhaps I was afraid of making a fool out of myself regardless of she being or not being Debbie. Had she been her, what could I have told her? Would she even remember me? Perhaps she remembers the john and the drug dealer who almost got whacked, who gave her money and then left her standing on a Dallas sidewalk, but she wouldn’ t remember me as Ken.

I toss alone at night. I find myself daydreaming during the day, always mulling in my head if she was or was not Debbie, thinking about what if’ s and what could have been and then I hate myself for being such a fool, a coward, a loser. I try to forget but her image, both her images, the old and the new, come to my mind and dislodge any common sense I had succeeded into getting crammed in there.

Debbie comes from work and parks her Geo under the light next to the laundry room. It is a longer walk to her apartment but at least her car is not in the dark, and she can see what is around her. Before she leaves her car she takes the thirty-eight Special revolver out of her purse and puts it in the right pocket of her jacket.

A few days back Glyn and her had stepped out the back of the Night Owl where a rusted Dumpster stunk to high heavens. He stood in front of her, put one hand into each pocket of his over sized jacket and pulled them out at the same time. In one hand he had a small silver semiautomatic with wooden grips and in the other he had the blue snub nose with rubber grips.

“ Which one do you like better?” he asked.

Without much hesitation Debbie chose the revolver. Simplicity and reliability before anything else, she thought.

“ The lady knows her hardware, ” said Glyn with a smile.

“ Thank you. How much do I owe you, ” said Debbie.

“ Nothing. It’ s on me.”

“ Come on, this thing is not cheap.”

Glyn had refused to take any money from her, and had given her a half full box of shells.

Debbie walks through the parking lot with her hand in her pocket and her eyes scanning her surroundings. It’ s hard to live like this, she thinks, but it’ s better than being caught unaware and defenseless. She climbs the stairs and peeks around each corner before moving forward. When she reaches her apartment, she realizes something is not right.