Thursday, September 3, 2015

The Run Down





She breezed into the bar, kind of late at night for a society dame.



Gliding toward my booth in the back, she raised one of her sleek eyebrows and smirked at me.

“Good evening, Ma’am”

“Ma’am?  You make me want to look over my shoulder to make sure my Mama isn’t here”, she drawled, in a thick southern accent that sounded like molasses poured over hoe-cakes.



It took me a minute to take her in.  Glossy, black hair, skin that looked like sweet cream, and eyes that looked like someone chipped them out of a northern glacier.


Her lips looked like a couch I wanted to sink into…soft, pillowy, lush…



You expect some broad that looks like Snow-White-come- to-life would be wearing something red hot – but she was dressed in black.


Her gams were amazing….. this gal had legs to make a man weep.


“Mr. Olson, I hear you are a man that can…..arrange things.”


“I arrange business matters, ma’am, what sort of business are you interested in, Mrs. Williams?”


 “You know me, then?” she asked—still smirking.


“I had some business with your husband.”


“I am aware of this Mr. Olson, which is why I have come to you—you are a man that…fixes thangs”


I can’t believe she said “thangs”.


This broad looks like New York Society.

 Ice cold. White hot.

She sounds like Scarlett O’Hara over ice.



“I was sorry to hear of your husband’s untimely demise”, I offered.


“Yes, well, these things happen.”  She allows.


“What can I do for you Mrs. Williams?”


“You can arrange an accident”, she smiles, eyes turning into chips of flint.


“I need someone’s knees busted, and I hear you are the one that can make that happen”


“Why would I do that?”


“Cash.”  She intoned.  “100, 000.00 dollars.”


Now we’re talkin’….


“I could…”


 “Mr. Olson, I am not interested in ‘maybe’, ‘possibly’, or ‘perhaps’.  I need a certain whore on the ground, with broken knees, at the corner of 12th and Larsen at 9:00 Sunday.  Barneys is having a pantyhose sale, and that bitch loves her hose”


Again, those ice-chip eyes.


“I could do that, lady," I say, so taken aback I forget to call her ma’am.


“Good.  Do it.” 

Voice like a whip-crack. 

“Morgan Stone”, she says, naming a VERY famous escort - favored by most of my colleagues; mostly famous for breaking up marriages.

  
“Done”.


She smiles, and those eyes warm up like a summer sky.


“What for?” I ask—breaking one of my cardinal rules.


“I’m gonna run that bitch into the ground,” she says, smiling and showing a bit too much teeth.


I take one more look at that mouth.


That Mouth.


I nod at her…



She leaves a brown bag, presumably with $100, 000.00 cash, on the bar and spins around like a dancer.


I watch her leave the bar.


I look at the pumping arms, spinning the wheels below her dead legs and dead heart.

 I am suddenly glad  I am not Morgan Stone.

That Other Life




Janice sat up, gasping.
Looking for threats, as always.
She was in a clean, white bedroom - clearly furnished for a couple.
Ok….
Not the first time.  Occasionally, for blow, meth, or ANYTHING, she had been the third party at a kink-fest....
Not today.
Today she felt...clean.
  Literally.
No aching head, no pounding heart, no cement-caked sinuses or glass-filled lungs.
Her head was clean.
Why?
Why was today different?

"Mom!" A boyish voice -not cracked, but husky- called.
A knock, and the door burst open
It was Shawn...her baby.  Last seen at the age of 5, crying as the police car rolled away; reaching for her and screaming, “Mama!”
She would know those Arctic Blue-grey tinged with periwinkle- eyes anywhere.
"Mom, you gotta sign this permission slip for the Gorge!"
She sat back and held out her (unshaking) hand for the paper – ready to sign anything to keep looking at her grown boy.  Her son.
The lump next to her stirred; turned over.
Colin? Husband? (Ex)
The man who restrained her crying babies as the police dragged her off?
The man who killed her Happily Ever After when he caught her?
Pills. Drugs.
Colin who consigned her to days and nights of Sex, Drugs, and Flophouses, when he cast her out?
She turned; ready to scratch his eyes out….
Adelaide walked in, flipping her caramel hair over her shoulder.
"Ew. Get a room, guys, or just get up. Feed me!"
Huffed out – flipping that hair again.
Addie, no longer a 7 year-old cherub, but a gorgeous long-limbed woman. 

What WAS this?
A second chance?  A crank-led delusion?
What?
Over the next few weeks, she settled in. 
Making pancakes, checking homework.
Momming.
But there were DREAMS.

The last 10 years of drugs, degradation, and desperation were a bad dream. 
Right?
But she kept having them, no matter how obvious it was, there was no truth to them.

No spiral into addiction after copping Shawn's Ritalin to cope with 50 hours a week at work, two kids, and a husband that spent too much time with The Blazers.

No blowjobs and begging.  No achingly pathetic life, wondering about those babies.
Just this.  Other Life.  Clean, shining, right.

Just this life.

Except for the DREAMS.

Of that life.
Waking up from those dreams, she needed a few shots of vodka.
Waking up from the dreams, she needed a handful of pills.
Waking up from the dreams, she needed to smoke a rock.

Waking up from the dreams, her beautiful babies were miraculous people, and her life was sane.
Clean.
Whole.
For Colin and Shawn and Addie, she stayed clean.  Whole.

One Saturday, as she was cleaning Shawn and Addie's bathroom, she saw it.
White cap, orange bottle.
OxyContin
Seduction in a bottle.  Salvation in a pill.  Spoliation in the palm of her hand.
On Wednesday, she opened the bottle.

On Thursday, she palmed two.

In case.

In case the dreams were too much.
In case…..
In case this life was too much.

In case.

Sad But True

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