What do some women want?

  © 2000, 2001 Channel49___

"What have you got going?" He was sharp, his hand a knife at the air.

She frowned and pulled the chair under her. She looked quickly to see if anyone familiar was there.

"Nothing..." She said in an annoyed atonality, questioning her being there with him.

Rudy could smile. The hand turned into a wave. He sat. "You got plenty. It’s me with the nothing. For real."

"You mean, there are women who won’t have you?" She asked, innocent eyes spilling over the top of her sunglasses which came off and slid into her handbag.

"Plenty. The women who wouldn’t have me? I suppose my sorrow was that they weren’t who I thought they might be." The answer put her at ease.

So, Rudy.... darling," She mocked with affectation, "Tell me some of your recent tales..."

His teeth were so even, his eyes deadly.

Round and round went the drinks and laughs, drawing them closer and closer. Two hours ago she was ditching her fiancé. Too stolid, she lowered her jaw and bobbed around mocking those folks who just can't see how stupid they are.

Oh Rudy, rooty-tooty Rudy. A used car salesman without his own car. He said he didn't do cocaine any more, "No mo' blow," He joked hitting on the smarter colored folks who took his money.

Oh and she had the upper hand, yes she did. Why, because she was now so damn smart. She almost landed a dentist, but threw him back because the way he said some of his words was just too... But Rudy, well she knew he was full of shit so how could she fall twice.? But when he was on, when he was focused. When he was giving his all to her...

Once upon a time she was doing Rudy's laundry. Ironing his shirts... And he took an ironed shirt and went out and...

He saw her face freeze as if a pain provoked her. He knew. Rudy, so smart Rudy, reached across the divide, the ash tray and the dessert advertisement. "Shhheeeila. God I missed you." His eyes were moist. What a salesman.

So smart. She was programmed. Shhheeeila her name made a love cry. What was she thinking?

"Another round here."

All things end badly, she thought. There were never enough moments when all options were clearly laid out. The choices were always relative and each road, it seemed, veered off in its own impenetrable direction. Time speeds by and through most of it, all are powerless to do anything of consequence. Anything, that is, but dream. And the dreams themselves become poison, mocking.

For awhile he talked and she nodded, knowing it wasn't important. Instead she listened to herself. The options that wanted her wanted her totally. Wanted what she might become and not what she was --uncomfortable with that thought, she moved on quickly.

And the rest? The rest was incomplete. Men she cared for only in some impermanent way, or who thought they could get something easily from her and go, not realizing that maybe she wanted the same thing from them but with a different, incompatible rhythm. God, how she craved a greater freedom!

And there was one who could provide a cynical passion through the night while joking till dawn. But she had no control over the course. It was a river with no direction. It could flood wildly and then suddenly disappear into an underground bed for months. This was Rudy. Again, she listened.

He seemed to be kidding her about having babies together... Rudy? Maybe half kidding. "Rudy..!" She slapped the table and shook her head.

He laughed, "Just a thought..." before launching a tale.

...Another crazy joke. They contorted their faces, spent their equilibrium, fled their balance, laughed so hard their faces hurt.

Round and round went the drinks and laughs. But they knew better. Rudy slowed it down. Let the ice cubes melt. Too many trips to the john were uncool. He told his stories, slower now, with poignancy, at least for him. She listened. When he was on the stage he could be good. When she was his audience she listened.

***

So they drove to the spot. The gravel road along the blueberry bog, with its adjacent meadow, and a half moon, and seemingly no mosquitoes. He worked silently, knowing that words only meant no.  He spread the blanket out and smoothed it down, laying the tangle of vegetation flat, then helped her to sit. She pulled her skirt so as not to wrinkle it, for the time being anyway. He was in no hurry. In some things Rudy knew how to get what he wanted. In others, well, he just didn't know what he wanted. The sky was peaceful above them. The breezes whispered nothing. He almost spoiled it, "It could be different this time," he offered. She tried looking into the shadows of his face very close, now, to hers. She imagined for a moment another attempt with Rudy. After the laughs, and the good times, would be long evenings home alone, with excuses for company. Nothing to cultivate but illusions. And then there could be the children of such a union. Wild children who knew no bounds, constantly reaching, pulling, screaming, fighting. They would demand insatiably and then demand more, rooting through everything, taking over and devouring, drying out her insides, pulling up her youth, making her age before her time. Choking the life from her. Such creatures would then loose themselves upon the earth, entangling and multiplying like weeds, turning a garden into a forest, and a forest into a jungle with their native ways; for this is the way of the earth.

No, she would have Rudy this night, but the rest of her life, she thought, would be only for her.

1996

  © 2000, 2001 Channel49_________                                        

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