Characters sketches/Vignettes

[noxxville]

The Mule

They'd turn to him. They always do. Come pinching with questions, poking with dilemas, tearing at his flesh with their fears. It was his duty.

It hadn't always been this way. Once he was faceless, invisible. Just another blade of grass. Unbeknowst to the world, and that was O.K. by him. Head down, feet first, he walked through his life without remoarse or question.

But something changed. He could never put his finger on it. One day he was a mystery, wandering alone in his world. Then, quite suddenly, they were upon him. Asking his advice, presenting their problems, waiting for salvation from their pain.

He never fully delivered. That wasn't his job. He picked them up, brushed them off, held them up to the light and said, "Look. It's over." Then sent them on their way. The rest was up to them.

They relied on him. No burden to much to bear. He took them all on, lifted them up, and watched them run. And they ran.

They never looked back.

But that was OK too. It was his job. He carried their burdens and pulled them through. He was their shoulder to cry on, their person to blame, their inspiration, their mechanic, their father, their son, their love long lost. He was whatever they needed.

[laughingbuddha]

The bar was crowded not as much as in it's heyday but crowded all the same. The walls were a memory of the times when it was the place to be, the adorning's were rich but now in a state of partial decay.

He entered the place and surveyed the surroundings for a victim.

Someone, anyone..who would listen to him talk. He was a talker, an impulsive talker..one who talked without reason or thought...just talked.

Especially in times of stress and today was one of those days.

His friends usually left him alone in moments such as this, they knew, he was beyond hope and in a bid to keep their sanity intact they would disappear. They did not mean him harm, they were not deserters...but they put their good before his.

So, he had steped out from his neighbourhood to find an innocent victim.

In the crowded bar...few tables were empty but he spied one with a solitary guy on it.

"Just perfect!" he told himself, surprised at his good luck.

His senses came alive, with alertness he moved towards the table. The man was in a sorry state, most probably drowning his sorrows..., he thought.

As he moved towards the table, the to-be victim looked up...his eyes were glazed and watering..were they tears, our man could not say.

"May I join you?" he asked the innocent chap. Without waiting for an answer..he seated himself.

Having made certain that his victim could not escape..the hunter smiled triumphantly.

He started making small talk and much to his surprise he found the man more then willing to talk..Soon they were engrossed in a conversation...each relating to the other...understanding each other. The killer instinct melted away, he was actually enjoying himself.

Suddenly he noticed, that he was hardly uttering a word...the conversation was being dominated by the so-called victim. The hunter had become the hunted.

He wanted to speak but he was not allowed to. The words flowed, fast and straight, without any stop or inkling of stopping in the near future.

He looked around in panic..at the bartender, who had a devious smile on his lips, and the people all around him, they all were smirking. Only now did he realise the trap had been laid and he was the victim. A spider caught in a fellow spider's web.

The words pounded his ears..his mind and his pysche. His love for talking started to slowly dwindle..he realised exactly what his friends were going through. He resolved to change. To change for the better. In so many years, he had never caught a glimpse of how the others viewed him. That day, the harsh reality dawned upon him...

To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant - Amos Bronson Alcolt

[nycwriters]

"She's 15 minutes late," he said, mumbling to himself at the Union Square station. "FIFTEEN GODDAMNED MINUTES!"

He was pacing back and forth along the platform, completely unaware of the cursive glances he was getting from others who were waiting for the train.

You could spot the tourists from the locals. The tourists clutched their packages and purses a little tighter with each loop the man made in his preoccupied pacing.

He loosened his tie. The subway was scorching hot. The back of his white dress shirt visibly wet -- as if someone had poured a pitcher of water down the center of his back. It was easily 20 degrees hotter down in the bowels of the city than upstairs in the sunlight.

He stopped suddenly, his body tensing, sensing her approach rather than seeing her. His head pivots, almost independent of his entire body as he watches this waif in high heels drift from one end of the subway platform to him. She's almost like a mirage in the heat -- fuel fumes wafting up blur her image for a moment.

She takes her time. He fidgets. Agitated. His fixes his loosened tie and unconsciously runs both his hands through his hair to fix it -- like a woman would.

"Hi," she says, her breath puffing out a plume of her fragrance with it.

He'd never forget that fragrance. Ever.

Especially not now.

"You're late," he glowers, then catches himself and smiles as he sees a crease appear on her forehead to his response.

She stares at him. She says nothing. He melts.

He falls down to his knees and grabs her around the waist. She reaches down and puts her hands on his hair and pets him like a lapdog.

"Look can we get out of here?" she says, distracted, looking for an exit.

The train light grows larger in the tunnel on its approach to the station. Hot dead wind billows up from the engines pushing errant pieces of newspaper down the platform.

The noise is deafening as the train bellows into the station. She's busy holding down her hair and being jostled by people trying to get ready to board the train. She doesn't like being here. It's so loud.

"I love you," he says -- for the first time.

She can't hear him over the noise.

Today was a busy day for her.
3 to midnight, as usual.
at night, slips into the heady world of unasked for wishes and conversations with funny ghosts.

[nycwriters]

Unsteady.

That's how every boyfriend before had described her. Funny how moments before she walked down the aisles, tulle in place, head adorned, she stumbled.

Not ready. Those two words flashed in her mind. Runaway bride.

Four inch stilettos, baby steps down 100 feet. Knees knocking, flowers in hand. Everyone staring.

It wasn't right.

Knees caving in. Knees unable to propel a step forward. Seeing him at the end of 100 feet. It wasn't going to happen.

She knew it. He didn't.

All eyes looking. Her mother flapping paper against her face on the hot August day. Her mother giving her the look that said so many things ... all and nothing.

Sartre would be proud.

Feet folding over onto themselves. Feet finding fleet.

Running.

Look of confusion on husband-to-be's face.

Limousine on the street. Sanctuary.

Safety.

Blackness.

[nycwriters]

She was 12 going on 40.

A child so young, she shouldn't have witnessed half the things she'd already seen -- and that was going two years back. Pretty little blonde head in makeshift pigtails. One dirty baubled elastic slightly higher on her head than the other. Part crooked. Startling green eyes that had been dulled by years of pain.

Daddy had a junk problem. Half the time he wasn't there, even when his body was slumped over in the ratty living room lazyboy. Greasy hair, soiled clothes, long greedy fingers that were part of the skeleton that represented her male role model.

But he was harmless compared to Momma.

Momma had a similar problem, only the junk didn't make her placid -- it turned her into what the 12 year old called "the heebies."

"Momma's got the heebies again," she'd say and roll her eyes, hitching up a pair of pants that were two sizes too big, held together with a gigantic baby diaper safety pin. Little girl woman.

Momma's heebies were basically the involuntary shakes she'd make after her first hit. Body twitching, eyes rolling into the back of her head. That's how it started. Then the violence would ensue.

The 12 year old often met the end of her Momma's closed fist, sending her reeling across the room.

She'd since learned to hide when Momma hit the junk.

That's what she was doing now, out on the front stoop, close to midnight, on a school night. She hoped that the inevitable fight between Momma and Daddy would start and be over soon so she could safely go back inside. They'd roll around inside their one room studio, throwing punch after punch, biting, kicking, screaming obscenities, until they both crumpled into a heap exhausted -- spent on the fighting and the junk.

They'd sleep it off. And somehow they'd find more money, magic money, out of nowhere to get more.

She wasn't afraid, even though the neighborhood boasted nightly ricochets. She was more afraid of what was inside.

Still, she looked at you coolly. Bold, not afraid to look you in the eyes -- but it was in defiance, a false confidence meant to deter. Assessing you before you could even say a word.

You were either bad or worth ignoring. There was no in between, no promise of friendship, no hope for anything more than hitting the brick wall she'd erected.

An at 12, she was an island.

“No!” he shouted, at the top of his lungs. “No, wait. Listen to what I have to say. Can you do that for once, can you just listen to me?”

The steam rose in the shower. His thinning hair limply stuck to his forehead. He stared off past the tiles and continued…

“Why do you always insist on making things into disasters when they aren’t? Everybody comes across these bumps in life. Everybody makes mistakes.”

“Five years, Harold!” he imagined her saying. “Five years, I’ve listened to you. Five years, and where has it gotten me? Should I have listened to you when you told me to not go to the doctor when I found that lump in my breast? When you said to go tell Mr. Sintei to go f#ck himself? Where would I be then, Harold? Where would you be? I’d be dead and you’d be sued off your ass, you jerk!

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, backing into the tile and hitting his head. Ow. “I had a valid reason for not wanting to go to the doctor right away. And we wouldn’t have been sued by Mr. Sintei. He didn’t have the balls or the brains. Really, Caroline; this is the whole problem. You take everything I say out of context. You’ve been doing this for ten years. When will you ever learn to stop all this fatuous knitpicking and see reason…”

The water had begun to turn cold. Wrinkles formed on his toes and hands. Inevitably, the landlords would come knocking on the door in about a week, with their mouths puckered into a frown of disgust and their eyes squinting in the darkness of his duplex apartment, asking if he’s noticed any water leaks…

The argument had been Harold’s last with Caroline. The one right before she left. The kids had all moved out by then. They never called him. He had alienated them. “They never understood,” he thought to himself, as he turned off the water and grabbed at the slightly mildewed towel to dry himself off. “…They never knew how hard it was. How hard it always was, trying to do what was right for them, without hurting them.” He could see them now, in his mind’s eye, Craig and Dustin, always out of sight, never talking to him beyond a simple “hello,” “goodbye,” “yes,” “no.” That time when Craig got hit by a car when he was skateboarding, he felt like he was going to explode with grief. Instead, he gave Craig a four-hour lecture about how stupid he was to have skateboarded in front of a car.

He wiped off the fog from the mirror. He still couldn’t see himself very clearly. “Probably better that I can’t,” he said aloud. With shaving cream and a disposable razor, he scritched away at the scraggly stubble that grew from his chin and jawline. His outline in the mirror seemed a little too big. He looked down at his sagging stomach and repeated to himself: “Yeah, better that I can’t…”

The thoughts were the same as they had been yesterday, last week, last month… life had become a messy series of routines. Moldy towels. The acrid smell of the dirty dishes he hasn’t washed in a month. The frozen pizza boxes that filled the trash can. The endless hours spent in his underwear on the sofa he found in the alleyway, watching Letterman, then Kilbourne, then Carson Daly, then a movie. What’s the point, life, rhythm, love?

There was no point anymore. He slept until 1:30 most days, then went to work at the office, sitting in front of the monitor, making phone calls, harrassing people. Sometimes he didn’t get up at all. He kept the phone right next to his bed in case one of those days comes along. Calls in sick. What’s the point of getting up in the morning? What is there to look forward to? His coworker’s snickers about his rank body odour, an inevitable accompaniment to the two weeks he had gone without taking a shower? The angry voice of an irate client on the phone? Another night of frozen pizza, until he could muster the effort to wash the dishes?

No point. No point at all. He remembered one of the last conversations he had with Craig, the month before he left. “You don’t even understand yourself, Harold; you could never have understood me. If that’s how you want to live your life, fine…”

“…But, it isn’t,” he said to himself. “It isn’t that simple. You don’t understand the sacrifices I made for you.”

The lights went out again.