Apology (revision, new direction) -- The Fiercest Calm

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Date Posted: 21:43:12 11/06/02 Wed
Author: Porthos
Subject: Apology (revision, new direction)

I really thought this needed to be changed so I changed it. I'd appreciate comments on the ending. Thanks.

Isaac

Apology

Two weeks ago when you came over and said hi, crossed the street with a daisy in your hair, I had thought I understood you. You moved your hands over your lips as you searched for the words. I helped you. �You want to tell me that you are sorry, that you wish things would be different, am I right,� I�d said. You looked down at your boots and grimaced. I left you standing there; I had no idea.
Do you know what I did then? No, of course you don�t. Well, I walked right into the smoke shop on fifth and high and I bought a cigar. The guy behind the counter with his hairy knuckles and alligator skin lit it for me. He said it was a good choice. I sucked in and spit out. I manipulated the smoke with my tongue and tried to sculpt it into something magnificent. Something that would be beautiful until the wind caught it. I walked on down the street, passing every kind of girl. The indie girl with her bangs and scarf, she looked at me and I exhaled. The intellectual with her Ohio State sweatshirt and straining book bag. She took notice and I made eye contact. I could fuck every one of them. The business suit and the sorority T, oh yeah them too, and I took another drag and held it. I thought about the way a girl�s skin feels warmer in the winter. My nose tickled.
I sloshed the saliva around my mouth, tasting the tobacco. Somebody made this, I thought. Somebody took this leaf in their hands and changed it. Grabbed it with their wrinkled fingers and thought of me. He will enjoy this, he said out loud. He will need this someday.
Do you know where I was walking? No, I�m sure you don�t know that either. I was walking to your house to get my things. We�d spent Christmas Day there after I told my dad to fuck himself. We�d had a grand time with that bottle of merlot, sitting nearer the fire then we ought. Half naked, we wrapped in a fleece blanket, thick and white, and we drank to the falling snow. It had been over two years at that point. I�d met you in December at the train station. I was filthy, returning from the endless trees in upstate New York. You were like a porcelain doll, searching for your sister. My ride never came. I was going to ask you for the time but choked on my words. Remember how you giggled?
So what did I do when I got to your house? I looked in through the window and saw you watching TV, watching some sitcom. Which one? I don�t know; they�re all the same. The same like every kid whose parents are divorced is the same: my dad manipulates us with guilt or my mom only cares about what the church ladies say. So there you sat with a Sunkist in your hand, nursing it like an infant. There you sat letting the light from the TV dance on your face. Good lord you were beautiful.
You�d said to me �all my friends are turning into the worst kind of people.� Your brow had furrowed. What does one say to that? You tell me. I stared at you for five minutes while you smoked, your eyes glazed over. You never told me about how your dad used to stick his hands where the sun don�t shine. He made you feel like a washcloth, warm and dirty and you never told me. I had to find out when the social worker drove me over to your house to get my things. Your apartment seemed frozen as the lady talked to me, told me if I wanted to talk about it I could. I left her standing in your kitchen as I rummaged through your room, putting the relics of our past in my book bag. Under the play tickets and my copy of Modern Ocean I�d let you borrow, I found your diary. I heard the social worker in the other room talking on her cell phone, so I opened the cover and shuffled through the pages. That�s where I found it, words floating on the page like lilies. If you�d only told me.
Remember that night I told you everything? We were in the park and it was cold. My breath caught the light and glistened. I told you the twilight made you look more alive than is possible. You said you saw your aunt dead in her coffin and it was dimly lit. You said you thought you saw her breathing. That made me remember my great grandfather�s funeral. My dad was solemn and he said that nobody knew if he came to Christ before he passed. At ten you take those things in and choke on them. I heaved. Then there was the time, I told you all of this on the park bench (the one on the hill by the pond), there was this time that I caught my father masturbating in his priest getup. Collar and everything. I went to find him in his office on a Monday afternoon and he was jerking off on the prayer list. You followed the white duck with your eyes as I told you this. What was there to say? I made up my mind to say it all, so I told you about how when I was eight I told the neighbor girl to pull down her pants and she did. I told you how she went home and told her mom nonchalantly and how the phone rang at my house and I said no my mother was not home at the moment. I told you how when my father found out he laughed and patted me on the shoulder.
So there I was at your house. It was the end of the show and the single father was laughing after a heart felt moment with his rowdy but good intentioned preadolescent. God how the earth tones reflected off your face and made you alive. You sat there through the credits and into the next commercial break. You didn�t bat an eyelash. I rapped on the window. I knew your doorbell didn�t work, hell I tried to fix it more than once. I remember how my face bloomed when I had given up and resigned to let people knock. So I rapped on the window and called your name. �Rachael� I said and then said again louder. You didn�t hear me. You never looked up. It wasn�t for another five minutes that I realized what you�d done. The pills, ground fine into fairy dust, sat in a mound on your coffee table, the empty Sunkist bottle in your lap.
I�m here to apologize. I�m here to say I�m sorry, Rae. You�d said you needed time and I didn�t understand. I thought there was someone else. The way your face caught fire after that night, after I�d tried to� God I�m sorry. I brought you this peach rose, the kind you like. I hope you�re warm. The wind has gotten cold these past weeks. You always said you wanted to watch the stars all night together and we never did. Well, I�m here now.

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Re: Apology (revision, new direction) -- the Lady, 19:01:13 11/09/02 Sat