Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

His mind goes back to Debbie. Divorcing his ass like that, what the hell was she thinking? Getting the divorce papers in jail via a messenger, and having his jail buddies laughing at him, about how his old lady must be screwing the whole neighborhood by now, giving head for free to anybody who dropped his pants in front of her face, that had pissed him off a great deal. He had ended in a fist fight and in solitary confinement. When he came out, nobody was laughing at his face, but he knew they were at his back. For better or for worse, those had been the preacher' s words at their alcohol propelled wedding but the little bitch had bailed out on him. Now it is payback time.

Billy chain smokes. Knife. Gun. Bare knuckles. Acid. Hit and run. Rape. Steel toe boots. One thing is for sure, he wants to hurt her but doesn' t want to kill her. Murder makes the unwieldy apparatus of justice shift its ponderous weight against the perpetrator but a good beating, even though it is a felony, at the end it' s just that, a good beating, quickly forgotten by an overloaded judicial system. He will be a person of interest, he even may become a suspect, but if he leaves no evidence and removes himself from sight for a prudent time, the cops can go fuck themselves. The stupid cunt will have to live with her mangled body and her anger and he will be laughing off somewhere.

As those signs on trail heads read, Leave no trace . Gun, rape, knife, bare knuckles, too messy, too lethal, DNA left behind; they won' t work. After a while Billy runs out of cigarettes so he gets up and leaves without bothering to luck the door. He returns hours later smelling of alcohol and with a baseball bat in his hand. He drops it on the floor next to his bed. From his jacket he pulls out a ski mask and drops it next to the bat. He takes his jacket and gloves off, drop son bed face down and in a couple of minutes his snores and farts fill his hiding hole.

Debbie packs cold sandwiches wrapped in cellophane into card board boxes. Her movements are automated, her body doing one thing and her mind being elsewhere: Ken, out of all people, had to show up in the middle of her crisis. She had almost pulled the gun on him. Only after he had identified himself she had seen the young Ken of years ago, hiding under the middle aged, hair receding, love handle equipped man standing in from of her. He had that look of stunned surprise, as if he had seen a long lost dog come home when it had been given for dead. She was sure she had had that same look on her face.

There had been awkwardness and confusion in her head, in her actions, a feeling akin to stepping out of her motel room and instead of landing on the expected soiled concrete breezeway, finding herself standing at the peak of Mount Everest looking at a world of snow and mountains under a deep blue sky. She didn' t know what to say or what to do. Ken didn' t seem too assured of himself either. He, Debbie had the feeling, was standing at his own unexpected summit, his toes hanging in the air past the solid edge of a shear cliff with his back to a cold mountain.

He had taken the plunge and had stepped forward, closer to her, and his arms had reached for her, and she had backed off like a released coiled spring, more out of instinct than out of her volition, and that step backward had frozen him in place, the smile on his face transformed in pure disappointment. Why had she done that? She can' t say. This Billy thing is making her behave like a scared rabbit, a rabbit with a gun. From their stand off positions they had talked to each other.

"Ken, is that you?" she had asked. "I can' t believe it."

"Yes, it' s me," had been his answer. Seconds that stretched like long minutes had gone by before the conversation had started again.

"How did you find me?"

"You catered an evening party and I was a guest. Pure coincidence."

The awkwardness wouldn' t go away. The silences grew longer. The whirling thoughts could not be reigned upon. It was time for a truce, a time to regroup and come back with more coherent words.

"Listen," said Debbie. "I' m late for work." She rummaged through her purse and on a piece of paper wrote down the name Night Owland its address; she stopped to think for a second, then added the bar' s phone number. She didn' t give her cell number to anybody, not even to Ken, or this guy who claimed to be Ken.

"Here is my night job place. Please stop by." Debbie was not sure for what, not at the moment. Now that she is stuffing boxes with cold sandwiches, she is glad that she gave Ken that piece of paper.

"Tonight?" said Ken.

"Sure."

That had been it. She ran back into the building and never looked back. She was afraid of stopping, looking back and then having her rubber legs collapse under her, exposing her emotional shocked state. She had learn not to show her weakness to others because that is where they pounce, eager to draw the most blood and pain.

As the morning grows old Debbie' s memories assault her mind. She doesn' t know if to smile or to be afraid. Questions pile inside her head like fish on a dock coming out of a big trawler, heap after heap, and no answers. Whys and hows and whats come and go and she has no clue what the answers are. At times she thinks that the parking lot meeting didn’ t' happen, that her head is playing tricks on her. He may not show up at the Night Owl, or he may loose that piece of paper, or he may die on his way to see her. Stupid thoughts she thinks, but they don' t go away; instead, they multiply.

She realizes that she had acted cold towards Ken, and that he had been taken aback by her standoffish stance but she had been caught unawares, and had reacted under the rule of the gun which now controlled her life: watch your back first, worry about others' feelings later. She knew it but he didn' t. Maybe he thought he got the cold shoulder and would never bother to try to see her again. If so, what the hell does she care? But she cares; she cannot fool herself. She cares, she wants to see him, wants his arms around her, just like in the beach, just like in their cheap motel rooms full of youth and indolence.

Who is she fooling? She was a whore, and this older Ken came back for more of the same, pussy for hire, came to see if she is still available for a few bucks. She slams sandwiches into the boxes. He probably has a fat wife at home and wants some side action.

Too much trouble, thinks Debbie; Ken is going through too much trouble to just get laid. Colfax is full of young pussy for hire, why her? Maybe he' s afraid of cops, of getting nabbed as a john. She doesn' t know. At times she slams sandwiches into the boxes and other times she has a blissful smile as if she were seeing the image of the Virgin Mary reflected on the walls, smiling back at her.

"Yo, Debbie," says Maria. She is standing next to Ana and both look at Debbie with curious faces.

"You don' t seem to be all there," says Maria tapping her head. "You' re too quiet. You' re giving us the creeps, you know."

"Sorry, I just… I just have a few worries."

She is back in reality mode. She checks her surroundings, feels the gun under her shirt, its hardness, and reminds herself not to let her guard down. Ken or no Ken, she has to watch her back, always.

What was I expecting to happen? Fireworks? Fiddles playing on the background? A big wet kiss and my fucking lousy life fixed for good and for ever? All I did was scare the hell out of her, moving on her like a big and clumsy clod expecting a warm embrace and she jumping away as if I were Frankenstein reincarnated. Instead of walking away happy I did it embarrassed to death. I don' t know what I was thinking. After twenty years I' m nothing but a stranger, a fleshed memory, a memory that perhaps she wants to forget, that of a paying customer, that of a witness to the Atlanta incident, that of the jerk who left her standing alone on a Dallas sidewalk.