An Inhuman Condition

Jamie thinks she is so cute. The way she flicks her hair and sways away. Those tight leggings and ugly hunting boots that look like Nordic, sealskin vomit trimmed with dryer lint – she’s such a bitch. Because it’s ironic and in to look like you woke up raped by a trashcan. I wonder how long it takes her to perfect that “impromptu” ponytail. Why would anyone spend so much effort to look like they aren’t trying at all? I can just imagine how she would defend it “Oh, some of us just rely on our natural beauty, Christine.” Natural beauty – ha! I see the brush strokes where she applied just the right amount of “natural” from a bottle. Ray might not see it, but I can see it. I could just strangle her.

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The car never starts in this weather, and it’s shaky when it does. The damn thing is old enough its developed arthritis. It creaks and moans with the painful fury of age longing for the reaper’s scythe. It sees the other cars on the road – bright, young things with a future. They’ve got all sorts of comforts it never had – heated seats, GPS, remote starters. When it was new, older cars probably envied things like seat belts and fuel injectors, but not anymore. New is the new old. Old is forgotten, thrown away, taken for granted. It can still move on good days, my car. It’s probably happy to still be out in the world instead of sent away to a junkyard somewhere to be poked and prodded. Cars these days.

Everyone says I should buy a new car, and, believe me, I agree. I’m not attached to the old bastard. We’ve had a good run, but it limps along begging to be put down. I just can’t afford to replace it. The housing market crashed. The banks all went broke, and the auto industry collapsed. Despite all of it, the cost of a car is still ten grand plus. Even a decent used car is going to cost three thousand, and I couldn’t get a loan to buy a cup of coffee. If I saved up, I might be able to buy some $500 clunker with more internal problems than my ex-girlfriend. I guess I just don’t want to gamble on all that. I’d rather deal with the devils I know, and I know my car won’t start right now.

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A fireplace pops and flickers on the tavern wall – the electric lights submissive and low. Dancing shadows paint the patrons’ faces like barbarians prepped for battle, and the mood is calm, spirit-enticed reverie. They pass pints to and fro’, smiling softly at the shared stories, memories and ideas. Evening approaches twilight with the wisdom of age. Its wrinkled features trace the topography of a full life. Tonight has seen the entire world, and any man would be lucky to say he came close in his years.

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Pacing. Fidgeting. I wander back and forth looking for any distraction – anything to pull me away from it all. I start walking, and it’s cathartic. All day I’ve wanted to walk. Like boiling water, I’ve been bubbling up just waiting for the right push to escape into steam. I circle the block a few times, and it’s good. One foot after the other in the cold – the warm cloud of my breath escapes, and I walk through it. Every four steps, exhale.

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Names mean something. They may seem arbitrary out of context – just a convenient mix of syllables and letters, or the signifier is not the signified. And if you take the time to deconstruct it, you can always dance your way around it – deny the meaning in a name. Go ahead, Juliet did it. What a lot of good it did for her, eh? The light burned from both of them like a snuffed out cigar (of the same name perhaps).

It’s no coincidence that many people name their children after an old relative – someone meaningful hidden in the past. It’s not always as overt as a Jr. or second, third, etc. But the meaning is there. It’s a big deal to a new parent that this young, living thing is connected to them. We make the world around us, and those names anchor it. They give them a heavy weight that sticks with us.

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My knuckles lock and crack like goddamn peanut brittle. Even with the gloves, I can’t feel a thing. It hurts to even sit on them. I don’t know if it’s cold enough to get frostbite, but it sure as hell feels like it. My nose is like a thawing icicle – frozen and dripping. My lips have a dry burn from the cold. I feel my wet socks starting to freeze, and I shiver like every muscle decided it was a fuckin’ metronome – but the hands – they’re the worst.  Skinny, little fingers weren’t made for this. I barely have the dexterity left in them to light a cigarette, and I am not taking the gloves off.

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She worked nights at the jazz club. The stars were glitter on her chest; her legs skewered the moon to garnish a Gibson. The boys called her Strawberry Martini, and you knew from the look of her she was trouble. Her hair was the red of revolutions – writhing in united uproar, curls whipping fury across her slate-blue eyes, lashing out at anything close. Her face was a pale and fragile kind; her smooth cheeks luring you to stroke them gently. Keen to kiss her lips, crimson and wet with little ripples and ripe, raspberry dimples, the smoking scarlet sent shivering twitches down your spine – a primitive warning of danger, an imminent sting and impending venom.

She danced a pole between the bars trapped in the seclusion of her burlesque seduction. They kept her back there like top-shelf liquor so expensive you could never afford a single sip. Stare and swoon all you like, there was no getting into the tigress’ cage. The real irony was in the wild freedom of her dance. We were the ones trapped, stuck under her spell. We swilled and smiled, hollered and hooted, leapt and lunged, longing for a sip of her attention. She was fluid stone, hot magma that kept on moving – too hot to touch and immune to outside intervention.

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