Snapshots of Modern Love

by Jose Rodriguez

  Atlantic Avenue surges abeam of my left wing. Debbie' s favorite corner is empty. She may be sleeping it off, or she may be servicing a paying customer. It' s not my business and I don' t want it to be my business. Can this be jealousy? Do love and jealousy come hand on hand?

  "Dad, I want you to meet my fiancé , Debbie The Whore. Debbie, this is my dad."

  I can see my dad grunting; that short and raspy grunt that denotes surprise, and his clear blue eyes squinting to penetrate through the bullshit.

  "Yes dad, she' s a social worker, fifty bucks a pop, some times two for one."

  I start to laugh aloud. A flight of unsmiling pelicans goes under my plane.

  The Reckoning

  We lie naked on her bed. Sex was good, of course. Debbie purrs on top of me, breathing with a somewhat heavy cadence, her face resting on my chest. Working girls always get out of bed as soon as they are finished and run for the bathroom to cleanup, but Debbie is just resting on my chest, docile as a contented cat. My hands caress her body, warm and sweaty, curvy and delicate, female and lusty, all mine, right now. Dad, I want you to meet my fiancé , Debbie The Whore, that thought does not go away from my mind, and I don' t find it amusing anymore. She smells good, and it' s not perfume; it' s her own odor. Respectable women pay big money to smell good, to have nice skin, to have pretty smiles, to be desirable. Debbie just lives from day to day, from high to high, but she has all those things. God gives bread to those who don' t have teeth. My hands continue to caress her body with delicate, whirling motions.

  A deep sigh escapes from her. As if suddenly she had remembered something important, she gets up and runs to the bathroom, sits on the toilet and grabs the douche bottle, and starts to clean herself up. We look, really look at each other, and the world around us fades and only our knowledge of each other remains tangible.

  Debbie, who are you? Why do I desire you with such force? She knows my thoughts. The empty distance between us is no barrier; my closed lips are no obstacle. My hands told her how I feel and my eyes scream to her with desire, and her eyes tell me what a fool I am.

  Graduation

  I' m back at the Trailways station. I wonder if I will ever go the airport to pick somebody up. My dad decided to take the bus because he had doubts about his old pick up truck making it all the way to Florida. Hell, he had doubts his rusted truck would make it out of Youngstown.

  It is dark and I can smell fried chicken. I must be downwind from the Bojangles across the street. The scent makes my stomach growl with desire. Maybe the old man will also be hungry and we both can dine on some fine spicy chicken and biscuits. No fancy restaurant for us.

  Graduation is in a couple of days. I’ ll get a piece of paper that says I' m a college man and the F.A.A. gave me more papers, little rectangular cards, wallet size, that say I' m an aviator, you know, commercial, instrument, multi engine, flight instructor kind of aviator. After all the money and effort I, and my dad, put in the sepapers you would think they would be good for something. So far all I can think of is that they are good for wiping my ass. The student loans need to be paid and I have no idea how, and my dad, dear God, I almost didn' t recognized him when he came out of the bus, so old and tired, as if the burden of my education and his solitude had turned his hair white as snow and the sag under his eyes had become one with the sag on his cheeks. I felt guilty for his premature aging, of his burdens at an age when he should be enjoying some peace and some money in his savings account.

  Life dealt him a bad card when mom died. At times I felt he just wanted to fold and leave for good, no reason for going on living, but the tough Pole hung in there. Maybe he did it for me, to be there for me even though he didn' t care much to be there for living his own life. He never had anything worth stealing; the only thing worthwhile in his life had been mom. He loved her beyond measure and when the big C took her away, well, he didn' t fall apart - that wasn' t in him- but the future ceased to be a thing of much importance. Since then he has lived from day to day, doing what was required of him, living a mirthless life where only memories brought a smile to his lips. And I feel guilty because I have nothing in my power to make the old man' s life less painful. I' m a college man, the first in the family, but what good is it? All I can do is treat my old man to some fried chicken and biscuits.

  We carry our plastic trays full of chicken and biscuit and soda and sit in a booth by the window. Volusia Avenue is busy. I don' t know what to say to my dad. I wish I had good news, like I got a real flying job that paid a decent salary and not a few dollars by the hour. Our conversation covers the initial and mandatory inquests about how relatives, friends and acquaintances are doing, as if knowing about other' s crappy lives would make ours look some what better.

  "Any luck with a job" my dad asks.

  "I got the degree and the licenses but I don' t have the hours," I apologize. "Nobody will hire a young pilot with the few hours I have."

  "What are you gonna do?" My dad talks without really looking at me, his eyes moving from his dinner to Volusia Avenue. There is no anger or excitement in his words. He knows what it is like to want to work and not to have a job.

  "I' ll keep on towing banners until sores grow on my ass, you know, fattening my logbook." I stop to drink. "But eventually I need to start flying multi engines and turbines if I' m ever going to get a job with a commuter."

  "How you gonna do that?"

  "Catch twenty two." I say. "You need the hours to get a job but they won' t give a job because you don' t have the hours."

  My dad laughs, thank God. He is looking straight at me.

  "Someday you will be flying for Delta or Eastern and then these days won' t seem so bad."

  "Amen to that." My dad and Johnny, beaten by life but not down, standing on two legs with bloodied noses and black eyes and not giving up, still optimists to the end. I know he is proud of me being a college man and an aviator, and he would be prouder if mom could be here. All I pray for is that I won' t disappoint the old guy.

  Farewell

  Sitting atop a dune, among sea oats, I can see the jetties in front of me. I cannot tell where the river ends and where the ocean starts. A school of dolphins frolics on the silver waters, their dark and sleek bodies intermittently flashing on the surface with amazing speed. Sex and love, I cannot see where one ends and the other starts. Maybe it' s all the same waters and we, like dolphins, swim back and forth without noticing the difference.

  Debbie is gone for good. The other girls told me. She packed her few things, said she was tired of Daytona Beach, and left. Just like that. Nobody knows where. I will always wonder if my hands and eyes scared her. I was scared. Dad, I want you to meet my fiancé , Debbie The Whore, somehow I know she read this thought right out of my mind, like a giant banner flapping in the breeze, and she got scared.

  Other cities, other men, life continues for her as a heaping of time to be lived as best as possible, without strings. I stand and raise my arms over my head as I deeply breathe trying to fill the emptiness that swells inside me.

  Turning Point

  I can either say that Tony is a well connected man or that he is a magnet for trouble. I know he has tried the honest work for honest money route and has come up empty handed. Empty handed means making the kind of money I' m making working two jobs and still not being able to afford anything but food and rent, barely. The tried and tired wisdom that if the sucker keeps at it, somehow, like magic, things will get better, ain' t happening, at least not fast enough. Tony gave it up but I' m still trying.

  Look at my case: I' m no longer flying fabric covered, made out of tubes, tail dragger antiques; now I' m flying worn out aluminum cans that leak oil by the quart. Lucky me gets to fly at night through thunderstorms with half my instrument panel in the dark because the gages are out of service, with a few duffel bags of bank checks in the back. The job pays better and I can afford to eat at Bojangles more often, and instead of flying up and down the beach I now fly between cities.


  Still, the money sucks, and the student loan monkey is as big as before and doesn' t want to get off my back, and my dad needs a new truck.

  When I don' t fly at night I stop by Al' s to help Johnny and to make a few extra dollars. Between orders I say to him," Hey Johnny, you' re a respectable business man now."

  "Sure I am. Look at this coolinaryempire. Even the roaches are respectable." He winks an eye and laughs.

  "I know you have worked your ass off all your life, just to keep food on the table but ..."

  He is now looking at me with a straight face. I don' t know if heal ready knows what I' m talking about or if he is just thinking another joke up.

  "Haven' t you ever got tired of it? You know, working like a nigger and having nothing to show for it."

  "Many a time, more than you can imagine." He is not joking this time.

  "Well, I got this friend, from up north ... he is a hard guy, connected, always on the move, making cash under the table and not too legally. You know what I mean."

  Johnny nodded, his eyes fixed on me with an intensity I had never seen before.

  "Well, he' s always offering to cut me in, and I know it is the stupid thing to do, but there are days when I' m so flat ass broke, his offers look mighty good." I don' t know why I' m asking Johnny these questions. I think it' s because I respect the man, as peculiar as he may be. He didn' t get to be this old and hard by accident.

  "I did time for listening to friends like yours," said Johnny. "Easy money comes and goes the same way. I tell you, keep doing your honest work. I' m dumb and hard headed and this joint is the best I could do but you are smart and you can and will do better."

  A couple of customers walked in and sat on the stools. Before taking their orders Johnny looked at me one more time and said "Don' t listen to fools. I' m an old crank and un-educated but ain' t a fool."

  When I left Al' s that night my mind was made up. I would follow the old coot' s advise and stay out of any funny business. If I didn' t get killed flying aerial junk I may eventually get a job that would pay a living wage. Maybe.

  Of course, good intentions, nothing but mental hogwash, cannot stand against the hard facts of reality. When I pulled into the trailer park Tony was waiting for me on the steps of our dilapidated hovel. His things stood next to his second hand Camaro. I got out of my fifth hand wreck and walked toward him.

  "Moving out?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said, then smiled and added," We are."

  "We?"

  "Yes man. Pack your shit and let' s go to my new place."

  "I cannot afford a new place. I can' t barely afford this dump."

  "Don' t worry. It’ s on me." Tony grinned like a devil.

  There are those decisive moments in your life that mean the difference between what it is and what could have been. You know them, you recognize them years later when you look back and wham! It hits you right between the eyes. Then you say to yourself," if I only had done this, or that" and you know that your life would have been quite different. I don' t want to say it would have been better, I just mean different. I gave up long time ago trying to second guess missed opportunities and how good things could have been. That' s bullshit. All I know for sure is if I had acted differently at those decisive moments, things would have been different for sure, but I dare not to say they would have been better, or worse. I leave that to God or whoever is in charge.

  Standing in front of Tony, looking past him and through the door of the trailer at the squalor inside, that was a decisive moment in my life. At the time it looked like just a decision between living like white trash or like white people, between sweating between wet sheets or sleeping in air conditioned, a choice that bore not much debating. Today I know it was a choice between minding my own business, like Johnny had told me, or getting dragged into Tony' s.

  I packed my things and went with Tony. That night I slept in a dry bed without a big fan at the bottom of the bed blowing hot and humid air through my toes. Man, that was life. It was the beginning of anew life, for better or for worse; up to this day I don' t care to debate which one. Like the Catholics say, it was God' s will.

  Orlando Night

  "And now! . . . from Miami! . . . here she is on the center stage! Deboraaaaah! Please gentlemen, give her a hand!"

  Booming music stifles the D.J.' s stentorian voice. Nobody claps. Debbie in high heels ambles on stage wearing a translucent negligee and a G-string stippled with sequins. The pumps chafe her feet and her crotch flares in a rash of too many close shaves and sweat. But she smiles and her dimples, so wholesome and cute, form above her thin lips.

  Money sits in front of her, inside the pockets of drunks and on the counters beside drinks and smoldering cigarette butts. Eyes, dazed, bright, drooling, and indifferent follow her. She bends over and grabs her heels exposing her derriè re to a fat, bearded guy, the one with drooling eyes. She knows by instinct which one will let go of his money; it' s just a matter of showing the right part, of playing the perfect slut.

  Drooling Eyes smiles and flicks a dollar bill in his fingers. Debbie turns around and squats in from of him, wide and inviting, and runs her hand from her crotch along the inside of her leg to the garter where a couple of crumpled greenbacks await company. She lifts her belt and Drooling Eyes slides the dollar bill in a long and slow path along her thigh, rubbing his wedding ring on her skin, and his eyes brighten as his hand inches toward her belt.

  "Thanks honey," Debbie says.

  "Anytime babe," he says.

  She kisses him on the cheek, stands and does a complete turn on stage, dancing as she searches for more tips. She wishes she had big tits, then she could shake those babies like Cynthia on the left stage does, round and round, like udders under a running milk cow. But she knows a few tricks of her own, like splits and bending over far enough to touch her forehead on the floor, and undulating her pelvis in provoking ripples.

  The flashing overhead lights bring a sweat to her skin that takes after the juice exuding from a meatball under a heat lamp. That' s right, a meatball, a piece of meat, she thinks. She still has three more hours to go. She smiles and her dimples, so wholesome and cute, form above her thin lips.

  With such a smile she ought to be working down the road at Disney, Helen told her, wearing a polyester suit and greeting tourists in to the monorail. Grandmothers in flowered sack-like dresses and screaming brats wearing rat ears are not her bag though, Debbie knows.

  She leans back until her palms rest flat on the floor. Her legs spread and her belly pulsates in waves of flesh. The money is right there in front of her, twisted around the fingers of a hand yearning to touch her.

  "My feet are killing me," Debbie says to Helen as they both step into the parking lot after closing time, gym bags under their arms.

  "Them bunions gettin' too big girl."

  Neon signs along O.B.T. glow through the veil of a sultry ground fog. Red and Blue lights flash across the road where cops and paramedics gather like vultures around a figure lying on the ground.

  "Damn, I' m parked right there," complains Helen.

  They cross the street and land on the sidewalk just as the paramedics push a gurney into the ambulance. Drooling Eyes lies on it, wrapped in bandages and tubes stuck in his arm and up his nose.

  "What happened?" Debbie asks a deputy.

  "Got mugged," says the deputy. "Where' re you two going this late?"

  "We' re parked right there," says Helen, pointing to her beater.

  "I' ll walk you to your car. Who knows where that mugger is hiding."

  "Thank you sir."

  They drive north on O.B.T., right through Nigger town where the black whores stand on the corners flagging cars down, and Debbie is grateful that she is not working the streets, but has a nice, legal job instead.

  Hide and Seek

  First thing, Tony and I would fly around the countryside in a Cub or a Champ, low and slow, put-put-put. You cannot believe the amount of shit growing out there. A forest
fire would get the whole county high; I ain' t lying.

  We would find the shit and then Mike would plan the snatching operation a lacommando, decked out in camies, faces painted, you know, the whole nine yards. Mike had been a Marine, one of those reckon guys, and he knows his stuff pretty well. We would get maps at the county office showing all the farmland and swamps so we knew where to go and hide, and how to get the hell out. I tell you, it was a real military operation, nasty work but fun.

  Waddling in swamp water up to your armpits, watching out for water moccasins coming at your face, or a damn gator biting you in the ass, that wasn' t fun. The fun was getting to some Redneck' s pot and stealing it right from under his nose.

  We got found out a couple of times, but by then we already had the shit and we were on our way out. Here we were, back in the swamp with a bale of green pot on our heads and the water around us would explode with a sharp crack, you know, fucking bullets aimed at us hitting the water. Damn, they came close. I suppose had we had antlers them rednecks wouldn' t have missed. I can picture my ugly head hanging on some shack' s wall," Yup, I got them Yankee mahself, stealin' mah pot."

  We made good money selling the stuff to college students and bikers. I' m walking on money right now, two hundred and fifty dollars worth of it; these fancy snake skin boots are so damn soft they won' t stand straight when you get out of them.

  It was hard and risky work, and my skin looked like a pepperoni pizza' cause I had insect bites on every square inch of my body, but when there is money in it you don' t think about stuff like that.

  You want money? Forget about pot. Coke is it, but then you aren' t dealing with Bubba anymore. Stealing pot meant undercover work in the wilderness, sneaking in and sneaking out, hush-hush, you know, we looked like walking bushes. Pot was a game of cunning and smarts. But Tony and Mike decided to go after cocaine. That shit doesn' t grow in the Florida swamps. Junkies have it. Dealers have it, so they went after them. Now it' s a game of confrontation, of big guns. I don' t like it. Would you shoot some asshole for coke? No way ... I just drive, and keep my head low and my fingers crossed.