Falls Street (18) “Sit,” she said. And I sat down on the corner of the bed. After a moment or two, she came over with a big black box and sat down right beside me. “Here,” she said opening the box. “If you like pictures. You’ll love these.” “What?” I said. They were shitty photos, the kind you expect to see featuring someone’s thumb. The first few were just her sitting around her house or in the back seat of her mother’s car looking bored as hell. There were a few of her goofing around with Connie. There was one of her waving while she pet her dog, one of her just before the prom, getting ready. She flipped through them all really fast. Not once did she pause to explain a single photo. She just tore through a stack of twenty to thirty in no time. When she was done, I had all these visuals popping up feverously in my head. “What do you think?” she asked. “Want to see some more?” And she didn’t wait for a response. She got two more boxes and opened them up. She went through the first pile the same way. I saw her on vacation at Six Flags. I saw her and Connie drinking wine coolers on the deck. Nothing really struck me. It was all too strange. She was trying to force something on me, trying to force some kind of reaction, but I don’t know what. The photos just kept flashing by, and the most she’d say was “how about this?” or “And this one?” When I tried to touch the photos, to hold onto them, she quickly snapped to the next picture, her walking the dog, her as a bride’s maid in one of her mother’s weddings. Once in a while, she’d give half a laugh and continue even faster. Once, she paused at a really fuzzy picture of her and some guy with a big, bushy black beard. Before I could ask, she had flipped forward a couple more time. Finally, she came to a stop. “There,” she said. “That’s almost all of them.” And we didn’t say anything while she put the first two cases away. The third sat upon the shiny, brown sheets of her bed. I thought about her legs just then, how much of a contrast it must be. I tried to burn the image in, fill my head with the experience of being on the edge of her bed, knowing its color and feel. She didn’t have a tan, though. It wasn’t until then did I realize what that meant. She never came back in September all sun tanned with tiny freckles on her cheeks. She was always stark white. I looked around the room, and there wasn’t a damn thing on the walls, just plain white, without cobwebs or dust. She seemed odd against it. The sheets shined. The bed frame shined with this deep red color underneath like cherry wood does. The dresser was the same way, and it’s copper knobs shined. She was pale and her hair was dark. She seemed out of place in her own room. She closed her drawer and hopped onto the middle of the bed. Then, she reached underneath the pillow and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She tossed me one, and then tossed me a light blue Bic lighter. I don’t usually smoke, but I didn’t feel like saying anything. I just lit the cigarette. When I looked back to her, she was leaning against the headboard, looking up at her window with a cigarette resting between her lips. The blinds were closed. I leaned across the bed to light it for her. She didn’t seem startled, but I dropped back to the edge of the bed anyway after the cigarette was lit. “I have a few more pictures,” she said. “There in that last box. I want you to see them.” And I opened the box while she blew these incredible smoke rings over my head. And I just about passed out when I saw the first of them. She laughed. And I didn’t know what to do. I just put them back and closed the box. “No,” she said. “Look at them. I want you to.” And I was shaking. I must have been, because it was hard to hold the photos in my hand. They were shitty prints, some real blurry and not centered very well. I saw these fuzzy images of her, lying on her bed or lying on the floor of her bedroom. The first few just showed her chest through thin white sheets. The next couple showed her wearing nothing, covering up with her arms folded. A few more picture into the pile, she was completely uncovered, her legs spread wide for the camera. Sometimes, she’d be touching herself and smiling or giving some strange look to the camera pouting her lips or trying like hell to be seductive. It just seemed wrong, so wrong I wanted to puke, but she kept calling out, “Look at the next one.” And she was excited, laughing and tossing her head back spreading her dark hair against a white pillow. It was a long time to sit there. It was absolute hell seeing her touching herself, seeing everything exposed in the worst way possible, seeing her acting like all those no account magazine whores, trying to live up to a standard, trying to be what men want. And I wanted to hit her. I wanted to bust her up something good to knock that strong and beautiful look off her face or maybe just to knock some sense into her. I couldn’t think about it then. It was all too much to see and feel at once, and no, I didn’t want her. A voice was screaming in my head, “This is it! These are her tits. That’s her, spread open. It’s everything, look at it!” And the absence of wanting her, the absence of wanting anything at all, made me feel like the strangest creature on the whole fucked up planet. I hated the world, I think, not just with the kind of hatred a kid would feel when he’s down on his luck. I hated the world for being exactly what it was, and I wanted no damn part in it. There I was in the pit of the bitter fucking world, closer to center of all things than I had ever been. There I was seeing her naked, sitting on her bed, and feeling worse about everything. She looked like some kind of monster, legs spread, and a facial expression ripped off from one of those porno flicks, nothing close to a real smile. It was shaky, unsure, and all for somebody else, some thing else. And she was giving it to me, overjoyed, laughing hysterically. And I knew if I cried over it, I’d hate everything forever. I knew I had to hit her first, right in the pretty little face. I think I might have done it if she hadn’t got up from the bed and taken the pictures out of my hand. “All right,” she said. “That’s enough.” She stopped smiling. She looked at me, but her eyes never met mine. After she put the photos away, she took a seat beside me. “What do you think?” she asked leaning against me. Her arm was cold against mine. I turned my face to the wall. “I don’t know,” I said. “I think too much.” “Well, that’s not bad,” she said. Her smile returned a bit, but she seemed uneasy, like she was hoping to hear something specific. I just wanted to make it out of there, but for some reason I couldn’t move. It was almost as if I was expecting to wake up or drop dead. It felt like an ending, such a strong conclusion that I was sure something major inside of me was shutting down and my whole mind was about ready to overload and crash. “I want to know what you think of my pictures,” she said. “Are they good enough?” And I had to look at her to get some idea of what she was thinking. She was waiting, staring at the side of my face, completely interested in what I had to say. I was hoping it was a lie or at least a cruel joke, but she sat there waiting. “Good enough for what?” I asked. She tossed her hair back and gave this dreadfully beautiful smile. Her lips, the color and shine, the symmetry… she was a shock to behold. I burned to see her and at that moment, I wanted to embrace her so badly, but I also wanted to cry. I also wanted to yell to top of my lungs, and I knew she’d be the last person in the world who would understand why. “I want to be model,” she said. Her dark lashes danced across the glittering emerald of her eyes. It was such a wonderful waste. “Do you think I have what it takes?” “I don’t know,” I said. “What?” she laughed. “What’s wrong?” “Nothing,” I said. “Good,” she said. “Because I want your honest opinion. You know, Randy was going to have Tommy down here, and he said I should invite you, because that way he’d be sure that you’d come.” I just sat there waiting for it to be over. “And I asked why, and he said that you thought I was….” she paused and got all red. Then, she put out her cigarette in an ashtray she had hidden underneath the bed. “What?” I asked. “You know,” she said. “Sexy.” “He didn’t say it like that,” I said. “No, no,” she laughed. “Of course, not. He said you wanted to fuck me.” I kept looking at the wall, hoping it would take mercy on me by collapsing and pulling the whole house down on top of my head. “Is it true?” she asked. “Do you really want to?” “Yes,” I said. I barely said it. It couldn’t have hurt any less to stay silent. “Well, then what’s wrong?” she asked. “Why won’t you say anything?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Didn’t you want to see me naked?” she asked. “Do you want to see me naked, now?” “Yes,” I said. “Well,” she laughed. “What’s the problem? Didn’t you like the pictures? Come on, I want your honest opinion. What do you think?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Jesus Christ,” she said. I guess she was starting to get annoyed. “What’s the problem? Don’t tell me you didn’t like them, is that it?” “I’m sorry,” I said, and I shut my eyes. “What?” she said grabbing my arm. Her nails dug in and four shots of pain came up to my shoulder. I ignored it. She squeezed harder. “Come on! What’s wrong with you?” “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know.” “I thought you said I was sexy,” she said, and her grip melted away. She fell back onto the bed and crawled up beside the headboard. She got quiet, laying down staring at the mirror on the wall above her dresser. I ran my fingers down my left arm and wiped some of the blood away before it could fall onto her sheets. She was in a ball silent, lost. “What is it?” I asked leaning towards her. “No,” she said quietly. I held still. “No!” she shouted. “Just get out of here. Get out of here!” And I left, shutting the door behind me. I waited there in the hallway seeing her pictures once again. I reach my finger up to trace the patterns in her hair while I heard her crying on the other side of the hall. And I couldn’t take much more of anything. I couldn’t take hearing and not being there to face it. Everywhere I moved I could sense her through the walls. I could feel that awkward hum of her muffled cries. I got drunk. What the hell else was I supposed to do? And when Crash came out of the laundry room, I was on the floor with three empty bottles and two empty cans beside me. I had another can of Bud half drank. I didn’t see anyone for a while in there. The party had died down a bit. I didn’t hear Reggie playing video games. I didn’t hear Ray telling jokes. I sat on the floor beside the refrigerator looking up at the sink. Once, Connie Stults came in to get another round of whine coolers. I said, “Hey, Connie, how’s it going?” I never say things like that, but I just did because I thought it’d be sick and funny. “Oh hi!” Connie said. “How are you doing?” “Fucking spectacular,” I said. “Un-fucking-believable.” “Great,” she said. “Do you want to come over to the deck?” “No,” I said smiling away. I always like to smile when I really don’t want to, because my lack of enthusiasm always shows through. “I want to sit right here and get fucking drunk. Would you like to join me?” “That’s all right,” she said chuckling a little. “I’m going back out on the porch. I’ve had just about enough to drink anyway.”
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