Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

Despite my recurrent fantasies about Debbie and I being together, I haven' t had the balls to go back to Denver and look for her. I don' t have her phone number. All I know is where she works, just like I did before. I know I have to do it, that I cannot just leave her behind like I did over twenty years ago in Dallas. Just as I know that I must seek her, I' m afraid of her, of her looking at me and laughing at my naive illusions, middle age desires, at my bold head and fat and soft middle.

I fool myself with the idea that work keeps me busy, that I' m not ready to go after her but with every minute that ticks by, I know that I' m running out of excuses, and like the snow in Pikes Peak during spring time, I’ m also running out of time.

Debbie is back in her apartment. The place has no furniture but at least the fixtures are fixed. She sits on the floor with Ernie in her lap. His leg is out of the splinter and his limp is gone.

"For a while I thought you were going to end up like me," Debbie whispers to her cat. He purrs in agreement.

Besides her and the cat the only items in the apartment are Ernie' slitter box, his food and water bowls, a few cans of cat food, a biggym bag holding Debbie' s few new clothes and shoes, her toiletries, and a blanket and a pillow on the floor. She had thrown everything else away because it had been either destroyed by Billy or soiled by his mere touch. Now she is going to start from scratch again. Billy won' t have that chance so Debbie sees the fabled silver lining to her situation.

She leans her head against the wall and sighs. Past forty, former prostitute, one legged, no teeth, twice divorced, with no children, no husband, no relatives, no true friends, one cat, the clothes on her back, and a beaten up Geo with bald tires, and a murderer, all adds up to a picture perfect loser. The road to old age everyday looks more like a steep downhill into lonely senility, to a pauper’ s grave, or to ashes in a can with her name on it that is never to be claimed and that will be disposed of in the trash bin by a quiet an anonymous clerk.

But she will start anew because that is what it takes to keep on living, to stay in control of one' s life. Tread forward through the mud, uphill, with the heavy and clumsy baggage of a fucked up life on one' s back, but tread one must because falling flat on one' s ass means giving up life, and treading up the hill is always better because, who knows? maybe there is a pleasant sight at the hilltop, maybe the downhill side is not through mud but through strawberry fields. With her luck, Debbie thinks, the mud will turn into broken glass and a mine field and another Billy will be waiting at the bottom of the hill.

For days she has been expecting a knock on the door, the cops coming to arrest her for either shooting Billy or for having a concealed weapon, or for both, but nobody has knocked at her door yet. She is afraid of showing her face at the police station to ask about the disposition of her case; there is no reason to rattle the hornets' nest. At the Night Owl she has become a sort of celebrity, all regulars pleading with her to describe the gruesome details of the shootout.

"Did his head blow up, you know, like in the movies?"

"I heard you shot him in the balls, is that true? Man, that was mean."

At least when she announces the last call for alcohol nobody gives her too much lip and she and the waitresses have been able to close in time every night. Nobody wants to mess with a gun packing mama. She doesn' t have a gun anymore, but the reputation is enough, and Debby is fine with that.

She has talked to Glyn since the shooting.

"How you doin' girl?" asked Glyn.

"Fine but a little bit shaken."

"Good Lord, I would have shit my pants if that mother fucker had come at me like that."

"You wouldn' t, I know you. You first would have bashed his head in, and then you would have shit your pants."

Glyn' s hearty laugh had soothed her. It' s amazing, Debbie thinks, what little kindness it takes to make a shitty day not so shitty.

"That dude that was with you, how he doin'?

"Ken? He got hit on the side of his head. At the hospital the doctors said he was pretty lucky he didn' t get killed."

"When is the wedding?"

"Why?" Debbie' s face turned sarcastic. "Do you want to be my bridesmaid? You would look good in a pink dress holding a bouquet."

"Sure, that way I can get in a room full of naked women and help them get dressed."

"Like nobody is gonna notice your fat boner trying to poke out from under your dress."

He exploded laughing. Thank God, or Glyn, for a good laugh.

Ken hasn' t called. Of course he can' t because he doesn' t have her cell number. He could have called her at the Night Owl. Even if he lost the paper she gave him, the damned place is listed in the phone book. Now, why would he be that stupid? He almost got killed for nothing, and his wife probably made a public ass out of both when he came out of the anesthesia. Between Billy and his wife he probably had enough of Debbie to last him to eternity.

She could call him, Debbie mulls, but she doesn' t have his phone number. His name must be in the police reports, and he' s probably listed in the book. Assuming she would call him, what the hell can she say to him? Sorry you had your head smashed in? Sorry I' m still a loser? Sorry your fat wife is such a bitch? As they say, if you ain' t got nothing nice to say, keep your mouth shut.

Despite her indurate thoughts, her pragmatic and level headed musings, she cannot get Ken off her mind. Granted, they had not clicked all night until he finally got off his ass and started helping, and the time by the sink washing dirty dishes, it had been so… Debbie tries to find a word for it but nothing comes to mind because the definition is not in the mind but in the heart. She had felt young again, ready to give the world the big finger, willing to tell anybody to kiss her ass, unashamed of being who she was, and more importantly, she had felt that link to Ken, so special, strong and undeniable and yet so far beyond the reach of explanation and definition.

Maybe she should try to call him to see how he’ s doing, you know, just to be polite and show her concern. But then no, she doesn' t want to stir more trouble in his married life. Maybe he and his wife patched things up and a call from her would throw off the perilous balance that makes up marriage life. Who is she to get in the middle of another' s life anyway? Her intrusions are deadly, like the time she drove her car into the woman she killed.

She sighs again. That brief feeling at the sink, together, that had been a flawed desire to have what had past, what had never been and never will. Debbie closes her eyes and imagines sea breeze flowing through her hair, the surf whirling between and around her whole ankles. She opens her eyes and sees an empty apartment under septic electric lights that makes the bare white walls look like they are covered with watered down mustard.

A tear slides down her face. Ernie is looking at her with an amused face. It is time to go somewhere else, to see new things, to get away from Denver' s nasty winters. May as well, she will be traveling light, both in material possessions and the memories of those left behind. Billy is dead and she has proven her point, that she is not running away. She picks up her cell and dials Glyn' s number. She wipes the tear off her face while the phone rings.

"Glyn?" she asks. "Is this a good time to talk?"

Debbie lets out a great sigh.

"I' m just calling you to say good bye, and thanks for everything."

After a hard day’ s work Ken is out of the tiny shower in his motel room. He puts on clean jeans and a shirt and sits on the edge of his bed, a bed that smells like mothballs. He hopes it is mothballs that he’ s smelling. He could watch TV, flipping through channels and never stopping for more than five minutes on any program, like he has been doing for the last few days, or he could go out for a long supper and then hit a bar to drink alone until it is time to go to bed.