Jose Rodriguez - Snapshots of Modern Love

"You get two for the price of one," Debbie says to me. She is leaning over my new old car' s window with a cigarette nervously burning between her fingers.

"What' s the catch?" I ask. Debbie doesn' t give it away for nothing, and I understand; hell, I don' t fly for free either.

"Well, I need to see this guy tonight, you know, we have some business," she puffs on her cigarette. "It' s not far, by Volusia Avenue." Her smile is working at its best. "I just need a ride."

I have nothing better to do tonight, so I agree. Two for one. I don' t know if I' m going to be able to deliver. Shit, I' m the one who should get paid; after all, I' m doing all the work.

We drive inland, on Volusia Avenue. Traffic is light tonight, probably too hot and muggy for the old farts to leave their condos. Lowlifes without air conditioning like Debbie and I go out anyway; it doesn' t make a difference to us.

"What' s that bruise under your eye?" I had noticed it while talking to her through my window.

"Some mother fucker hit me on the face and ripped off my money," she answers in a calm voice, almost a whisper although her body language is one of jitters.

"You called the cops?"

She takes the last draw from her cigarette and throws the butt out of the window. "Sure I did; basically, they told me to fuck off." She pauses to light another cigarette. "They said it was my own damned fault for working the streets."

"That wasn' t nice."

"Fuck' em all."

Her mind is tuned to a different frequency tonight. It' s going to be a wham-bang-thank-you-ma' am night, two in a row – maybe. I give her the money in advance after she pleaded for it," Man, I need that money to pay that guy, or he' s going to get mean." Her pretty smile brings her dimples back. "You don' t want anything bad to happen to me, do you?" It' s amazing how she can switch moods to fit her needs, like flipping frequencies in an airplane radio, back and forth.

She takes me right into Nigger town. I park between two junked cars(a perfect disguise for my old clunker). She sneaks into a house using the backyard gate. I slide downwards in my seat and lay low, waiting for her, keeping an eye on my mirrors, just in case.

Time passes by and I start to get uncomfortable. Buying drugs should not take this long. I' m pretty sure they don' t give free samples. Something is wrong. I wait for a while and nothing, no Debbie. Damned, I got ripped off tonight; she pulled a fast one on me. Noway in hell I' m going into that house looking for her. After a long wait I conclude that I have been taken. "Two for one," I say to myself. "Sure, there is one born every minute."

The Trailways station on Volusia Avenue is next to Nigger town. I took Debbie here once so she could get her fix and for that I got a free blow job and she let me play with her tits. I wish dating respectable women were that easy. The station is dusty and the parking lot reeks of diesel and rubber, not different than any other bus station anywhere else. I have no idea why my mind links what I see to Debbie; it' s getting kind of annoying. My annoyance gets pushed aside when the bus arrives. The door opens with a clang and passengers start to descent the steps: matrons holding small children in their arms or dragging them out by their hands, Metallic a types with cheap sung glasses and just an overnight bag for luggage, soldiers eager to go home, and the last to come down is Tony, big Tony, dressed in a brown suit with padded shoulders, a skinny dark blue tie and steel toe working shoes on his feet. In his hand there is a gym bag with our high school colors. I' m sure he has at least one gun in there. He' s wearing a pair of sunglasses that make him look like John Belushi in the Blues Brothers; the only thing missing is the hat. The man likes to be stylish but doesn' t know how and can' t afford to. Style is not something you pick up in the rough Youngstown neighborhoods. What he had picked off the street is a tough guy look, and it is not just the look but it is the real toughness in him that shows up on his face. His nose is crooked to his left. Tony doesn' t remember which fist fight gave him that crooked nose, and he doesn' t remember the details of his broken ribs and fractured jaw and other scars. To him, all those scars are what happens when he tries to live his life, something as elementary as breathing to stay alive.

But I love the big fella. He' s a stand up guy and will never go back on his promises. He spent time in the slammer after that Christmas tree fiasco and told the D.A. to stick it up his ass when he came around with promises of leniency if he would testify against his partners in crime. Fred took the deal and Tony got the book thrown at him. I' m sure Fred didn' t give me up because he didn' t want to face a really pissed off Tony after he got out of jail. Just the same, Fred left for California right before Tony was due for release from the county jail. Distances keep your bones unbroken.

"Ken!" Tony drops the gym bag on the ground and hugs me. He bangs his fists on my shoulders. I can feel his strength through his cheap suit and on his affectionate beating of my back.

"How you doin' " I say.

"Glad to be here, out of that shithole."

We wait for his bag to come out of bus' bowels. When his worn out duffel bag is out, he picks it up with one hand and we walk to my car parked outside next to the sidewalk.

"How' s my old man doing" I ask.

"As always, working his ass off and keeping to himself, but he seems fine."

"And your parents?"

"Well," he seems to be looking for the right words before he continues. "Their livers are holding up amazingly well."

I say nothing. Some things don' t change.

The door to her place is open, and she knows some thing is amiss; she always locks her door before leaving. A closer look confirms her fears: somebody has kicked the door in and the flimsy lock lies on the floor surrounded by bits of wood. Her stuff litters the floor. She rushes to the bathroom and lifts the toilet' s tank cover. Taped to the inside of the cover is a plastics and wich bag bulging with cash. Relief lights up her thin face, and she places the cover back over the tank. Her pot is missing. Somebody went through her drawers and took a bag half-full with good sin semilla. Her TV is missing too. From the pay phone at the corner she calls the cops. Being ripped off really pisses her off, and the cops may as well now about it; after all, they give her enough grief, let them catch some shit now.

A young rookie shows up looking like a spring breaker disguised as a cop, his dark Ray-Bans failing to hide his baby face. She doesn' t know him, yet. He' s trying to be all business with his new clipboard on hand. The radio perched over his shoulder keeps on transmitting unintelligible words.

"How much was that TV worth?" he asks from behind his sunglasses.

"Three hundred bucks," she quickly answers, even though she only paid fifty and didn' t ask Charley where he got it from.

"Do you mind if I look around?"

"Look as much as you want, hon," she says, puffing on a cigarette.

He walks around her room, his radio still going, and she wonders how he can stand that constant clatter. He' s now hunching over her coffee table. With his pen he pushes to the center of the table a syringe that had been half hidden under a TV guide. His pen is now searching into her ashtray where a metal roach still holds a tuft of white paper and weed in its teeth.

"What' s all this?" he asks and stands erect behind the shield of his glasses suspended over his serious baby face, and his radio turns mute at last.

"I don' t know," she expels a long plume of smoke on his direction. "My friends come here to party when I ain' t home." She knows that he knows her answer is bullshit.