THe Day it Rained (Finale)
Here is the finale. Enjoy.
More than This
The tree was decorated. We did it as a family. We enjoyed our company with laughs and kisses. It just him and me, Jamie was in his room. He knew that we needed this time together so that we can enjoy each other, the first time in a very long time. We sat for a long time on the floor. All the lights were off except for the tree. We laid on the big over stuffed pillow listening to the rain. Ray was on one elbow looking over my shoulder watching me watching the tree. He took his hand and ran it across my cheek. It was nice and warm, smelled of a horseman and felt soft though of his work. It felt nice. I couldn’t remember another moment as kind as this one even though I feel I messed it up though I know I didn’t. It didn’t matter though with the work that we just completed. For the first time in a long time I felt his love for me. “It’s pretty.”
“Yeah, it is aint it?” Ray replied.
I then grabbed my cigarettes and leaned on my elbow and lit us both a smoke. I gave one to him and we sat there on the floor. My head felt heavy from lying down. I sat with my legs crossed. I guess Ray was looking at me, “I love you.”
I slowly cut my eyes over to him. I really didn’t want to look at him but I didn’t know what to do or say or whatever. I didn’t know. I started to freak out just a little bit. I opened my mouth and let whatever come out, “yeah, me too.”
I really didn’t mean that but I said it anyway. That moment you know you fucked up and couldn’t really take it away. What do I do? I know it was on my face. He changed his position and opened his mouth, “you don’t mean that.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” I said calmly.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said.
“Ray,” I sigh, “I don’t think you love me.” I said.
“How?”
“I think that you are in love with the idea of being in love with me.” I can’t believe I actually said it. “The last time you hit me, I knew it then. If you loved me you wouldn’t have hit me. And all the disappearing acts that you pulled. Like this morning you just walked out and didn’t say anything and we had a fight last night, which you leave every time we have a fight.”
He looked at me, “So you aint in love with me?”
I looked at him in a solemn face, “No I am in love with you. It’s crazy that I would be with a guy like you. It’s crazy that you would be with a guy like me. I mean, you’re a redneck. I know that I am not a city slicker but I know that I am not a redneck.’
“Now I am a fucking redneck, huh?”
“I didn’t call you a fucking redneck, just a redneck.’
I looked amazed that I called him a redneck. “You want me to go?”
“I don’t know what you want. What do you want?”
He looked at me with tears in his eyes, this was the first time I ever saw him like this, “I want you.”
“I know you do, but do you really want me or want what I do?”
“Why are you being mean to me?”
“Me? Being mean to you?” I said, “how about you being mean to me. It’s not that I am being mean as much as I am giving you some reality.”
We sat there for a minute and his arms come up like he is going to hug me. I just sat there. More than This starts playing from Jamie’s room. I guess he heard us and was tired of our arguing. “TURN IT DOWN, DAMN IT!” Ray screamed. Jamie didn’t turn it down. He just ignored us.
We stood there listening to it:
I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
CHORUS
More than this-there is nothing
More than this-tell me one thing
More than this-there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like a dream in the night
Who can say where we're going
No care in the world
Maybe I'm learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this- there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
We listened to the whole song. We knew why it was important, but then again maybe not.
HE… I… HIM…WE
He woke from the most violent dream to the point when he woke, he shook the bed and I woke as soon as I felt the bed shake. “Baby, you okay?” I asked concerned.
He couldn’t say anything and he turned his face into my chest and began to cry. I took his head in my hands and comforted him, patting his hair softly and gently.
He sobbed for a few minutes. After awhile he looked at me with tears in his blue eyes. He took in a few deep breathes and sat up in the bed. He hugged his knees and rested his chin in between his knees. I ran my hand down his muscular back and tried to comfort him a little bit more. He was braking my heart and I didn’t know why, I just knew that he was in pain.
“I had a dream about my dad,” Ray said, “and it was…” he stopped there.
“it was what?” I asked.
He hardly ever talked about his father. He looked at me with tears still in his eyes. He looked scared and frightened of what he had dreamed. “I never told you this, but I was the one who found my father after he tried to kill himself.”
I remember back in the middle 90’s, 95 or 96 of reading about Ray’s dad. He was a man who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar of the place where he worked. Ray must have been 15 or so then. I never knew how graphic it really was for him.
“I came home from school that afternoon. There was gun smoke still hovering in the living room. You know what gun smoke smells like, that powdery electric smell.” I shook my head.
“Well, I started looking for him; I knew that he had to have been home. I looked in the living room cause that’s the first room I was in but nothing. I started to walk from room to room. I still couldn’t find him. I called 911 when I got to the kitchen and was walking around with the phone still talking to them. I was nervous because something wasn’t right. I turned around and froze because he was standing behind me with his arm out stretched. Trying to tap me on the shoulder but the thing about it was, he had shot his face off and when I realized what I was looking at I started screaming and I dropped the phone. I really didn’t realize that he was him, but it was just so creepy that he could hear me but he couldn’t speak or see because he had no face. It actually was on the ceiling in the bathroom. The only place I didn’t look.”
I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know that this is how it happened or the fact that Ray was the one that found him. “And this is what you dreamed of tonight?”
He looked up at me, “Yeah.”
“Where is your dad now?” I thought he was died.
“He went to Milledgeville soon after that.”
That explains why he went to visit his sister in Milledgeville a few months ago.
“After he got out of the hospital after, you know, the accident, he lost his mind.”
Again I was shocked, not because his father is insane, but because he referred to the suicide as “the accident” even though the whole county of Hinder knows it was no accident.
He grabbed the pack of smokes off the night stand. I grabbed the ashtray off mine. We smoked a cigarette in silence but holding hands and pulling each other toward one another until he was laying with his back against my stomach. After our smoke I kissed him and he kissed me. Wrapped like a present in each other, we fell back to sleep with some sort of love in our hands.
I know what I want now. All I want to give to Ray for Christmas is a home, a place with some kind of love and patients and care.
Christmas Day, the Affair of the Lost Gift
He jumped out of the bed with a child like agility because it was Christmas Day. “Merry Christmas,” he says joyfully.
I crane my eyes open and say the same thing, “Merry Christmas.” I throw the sheets and blankets off of me. He jumps on the bed and says, “Get up! Get up! Get up!”
“Okay” I say under my breath.
I finally get up and we kissed. That was very nice way to start Christmas Day. I go straight to the kitchen and he goes straight to the living room and turns on the tree. He then comes into the kitchen of course in boxers. I am in my usual t-shirt and gym shorts. The coffee brews. I make cinnamon muffins. He takes his cup of coffee from me real close and kisses me again. The second time this morning I thought to myself. “I aint never had a Christmas morning,” he reminds me.
“I know,” I say.
We finish our coffee and muffins. “Let’s open gifts!” Ray says.
We walk into the living room. He starts sorting through the gifts. He comes to me with three small boxes. I go over to the tree and give him three boxes. He took them and started opening them. His blue eyes bright like a child as he unwrapped the first gift. It’s a gold necklace that he wanted. I thought he was going to explode. “Oh thanks baby.” He says.
He goes to the next gift and he repeats. It’s a Pro Bass Shop hoodie. I thought he was going to go crazy. His smiled so big that I thought that the sides of his mouth were going to split. I was excited for him, but I felt down.
He then goes for the last gift. A simple gift: a trip to the mountains. That was a surprise that he had no idea about. “Oh baby these are awesome!” he says with such joy. It’s the first time in a long time that I heard him like this. It was warming.
“Okay your turn,” another large smile.
I take the one of the small boxes and was about to open it, “No, not that one… the long slender one.” I take that one in my lap. It looked like a tie box. I open it and it a pair of driving gloves. I looked at them curiously. “Thanks, Ray,” I say trying to hold my disappointment in.
Okay then that one.” I open it and it’s a hot wheels car. It’s a 1962 Dodge Dart, red. I was a bit confused again because he knew that I have always wanted one. I smiled with a bit of fondness. “Ah, thanks babe, wish it was real.” He laughed.
“Okay, the last one,” he says, “I hope you won’t be disappointed with it.” I look at him with a puzzling look.
“If it’s coming from you, I don’t think I will be.” I replied.
I unwrapped it. It was a jewelry box about the size of a pocket watch. Again I looked at it with a surprised look. I popped it open and inside was an old worn automobile key tied to a blue ribbon similar to that one Granddaddy had. I pull it out with my index figure and hold it up to my face, going cross eyed looking at it. “What’s this?” I said. Hoping it wasn’t going to be the cheesy response of, ‘it’s the key to my heart.’
“It’s the key to my heart,” he smiled and said, “Nah just playing, lets so outside.”
Parked in the yard was a red 1962 Dodge Dart. It was unbelievable. He remembered every detail; right down to the blue ribbon the key was tied, the white piping on the seats, the stirring wheel black and smooth from years of use, the dashboard with its chrome piping, metal needles of the gages, and the white numbers of the odometer. It smelled of history a cross between old rubber gaskets and new cleaner on the floor carpet. “I LOVE IT”, I say as I jump into his arms for a big hug wrapping my legs around him.
“Where did you find it?” I asked.
“Uncle Rickey had it. He said he bought from James Buchannan. “
“James Buchannan?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“Yeah, he bought this car from Daddy after Granddaddy died.”
“It can’t be.” I said as I sled my hand over the hood and over the roof.
“Wow, this present is bigger than I thought it was gonna be.”
“Holy shit, you gave me my granddaddy’s car that I remember from growing up. For years, I wanted my dad to get this car back for me but he would just blow me off about it.”
I looked it over again and started crying. It was the best Christmas present I have ever gotten.
“So you gonna stare at it or are you gonna start it or what?” Ray says.
I opened the door and got in. I put the key in and started it. It hummed like a new born baby. I was so in love with Ray all over again. “Oh my God, you installed a cradle for my iPod!”
“And you have an awesome sound system.” He said in a southern drawl.
“Why did your Granddaddy have the key on a blue Ribbon?” he asked.
“The day he bought it he didn’t have a key ring so my Grandmother had a blue ribbon in her purse and she tied it on it. That’s why the car is called Vena Belle. Vena Belle was my Grandmother’s name.”
“OH Shit!” I said, “What time is it?”
“9:30 or so.”
“We have got to get ready to go to daddies.”
We go inside and I ask, “Who is going first?”
“Why can’t we both?”
We got into the shower… It turned out to be a wonderful day.
And then there was one…
The day after Christmas we went for a long drive though the country in the Dodge. It was all smiles and good times. We were invincible and happy feelings were strong. For some reason Christmas Day brought us together. Everything seemed to click. I felt loved. I felt love. I felt him finally and it seemed that he was not going to go anywhere. Moby played on the iPod as we drove.
“The mountains are beautiful, aren’t they?” Ray says looking out the window.
“Yeah, they are, and blue.” I say.
“Why don’t we stop?”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m sure there aint folks on the trail today,” he takes my hand and gives it a squeeze and he looks at me and gives me a wink.
We walked on the trail for 20 to 30 minutes until he said, “hey, come on.” I looked at him puzzled.
He took my hand and led me to a boulder that was shaded under a tree thicket were the ground was soft. I pulled a small sleeping bag out of my bag. We curled under the tree, a perverted version of Adam and Eve. But I believe that it’s not truly perverted as I think about it. What’s wrong with making love? What’s wrong with making love with someone whom you love? His hand found me, mine found him. And in the moment we fooled around.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“What?” he said with breath on my neck.
“That.” Feet were rustling in the dead leaves.
“Don’t worry about it.” He said as he went back to what he was doing.
“Honey,” the discombobulated voice said, “I think a couple is in there.” She finished saying.
“Damn,” the man’s voice said, “come on, I know another spot.”
We giggled as they made their way on the trail. He continued his magic. It was the best sex we ever had without actually having sex. He is the best lover I have ever had.
We sat afterward and had a cigarette. We packed up our stuff and headed back off the mountain.
We stopped in Rome and had dinner. We laughed and smiled as we were leaving he said, “Can we stop by mamas so I can give her, her gift?”
I agreed, “But I’m staying in the car.”
He called her to tell her that we were stopping by.
She creeps me out. She is not right. The last time we were there, the day we got the Jeep, I noticed the row of medicine bottles. All of the pills treat bipolar disorder. Her speech and mannerisms are sketchy. The devil lives in her eyes. I’m sure he is in her soul as well.
The Dead Kennedys was playing as I pulled up and turned the engine off. I wanted to just pull off but I couldn’t. I could see here sitting in the small kitchen smoking a cigarette. He opens the door of the Dart and says, “I’ll be right back. “Okay,” I said.
“I love you,” he replied.
I looked at him said, “I love you too.” He kissed me.
He scaled the front stairs and knocked and opened the door and walked in. I could see she had something in her hand and then it came into view, a pistol.
“Oh, God! No!” I said I honked the horn at the same time she pulled the trigger. I started the car and could see that she was lifting it to shoot at me. I backed out and drove in reverse until I hit something that stopped me because of the old seat belts I hit my head on the stirring wheel. I busted my forehead. I remember the blood on the wheel and the dashboard. I got my wits back and grabbed my cell phone got out of the car and called 911. Sobbing on the phone, I told the operator where I was. I was trying to have a cigarette but failed. As I was trying to get my wits again, I drove back to Ray’s mother’s house. I walked up slowly and softly and looked in the kitchen window she looked at me and put the gun in her mouth and killed herself. I looked over and Ray was laying there. I couldn’t see his face but I heard the sirens coming to the house. I collapsed to the ground with blood running down my face as I put a smoke in my mouth finally lit it and began to smoke. I sat there on the cold wet dewy ground not knowing really what was going on. I remember people around me. I remember an officer telling me everything was going to be okay. I remember sitting in the back of the ambulance. And now here I am. I don’t even know if Ray is dead. All I know it’s raining again and I am ready to walk out the back door of this the hospital and disappear.
I turned over in the bed and closed my eyes as tears began to roll from the corners. I heard from the TV that I accidently turned on, “Surprise , Surprise, Never something I could hide, When I see we made it through another day …”
I will dream again, I thought as the lights went dim behind my eyelids.
More than This
The tree was decorated. We did it as a family. We enjoyed our company with laughs and kisses. It just him and me, Jamie was in his room. He knew that we needed this time together so that we can enjoy each other, the first time in a very long time. We sat for a long time on the floor. All the lights were off except for the tree. We laid on the big over stuffed pillow listening to the rain. Ray was on one elbow looking over my shoulder watching me watching the tree. He took his hand and ran it across my cheek. It was nice and warm, smelled of a horseman and felt soft though of his work. It felt nice. I couldn’t remember another moment as kind as this one even though I feel I messed it up though I know I didn’t. It didn’t matter though with the work that we just completed. For the first time in a long time I felt his love for me. “It’s pretty.”
“Yeah, it is aint it?” Ray replied.
I then grabbed my cigarettes and leaned on my elbow and lit us both a smoke. I gave one to him and we sat there on the floor. My head felt heavy from lying down. I sat with my legs crossed. I guess Ray was looking at me, “I love you.”
I slowly cut my eyes over to him. I really didn’t want to look at him but I didn’t know what to do or say or whatever. I didn’t know. I started to freak out just a little bit. I opened my mouth and let whatever come out, “yeah, me too.”
I really didn’t mean that but I said it anyway. That moment you know you fucked up and couldn’t really take it away. What do I do? I know it was on my face. He changed his position and opened his mouth, “you don’t mean that.”
“I could say the same thing about you,” I said calmly.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he said.
“Ray,” I sigh, “I don’t think you love me.” I said.
“How?”
“I think that you are in love with the idea of being in love with me.” I can’t believe I actually said it. “The last time you hit me, I knew it then. If you loved me you wouldn’t have hit me. And all the disappearing acts that you pulled. Like this morning you just walked out and didn’t say anything and we had a fight last night, which you leave every time we have a fight.”
He looked at me, “So you aint in love with me?”
I looked at him in a solemn face, “No I am in love with you. It’s crazy that I would be with a guy like you. It’s crazy that you would be with a guy like me. I mean, you’re a redneck. I know that I am not a city slicker but I know that I am not a redneck.’
“Now I am a fucking redneck, huh?”
“I didn’t call you a fucking redneck, just a redneck.’
I looked amazed that I called him a redneck. “You want me to go?”
“I don’t know what you want. What do you want?”
He looked at me with tears in his eyes, this was the first time I ever saw him like this, “I want you.”
“I know you do, but do you really want me or want what I do?”
“Why are you being mean to me?”
“Me? Being mean to you?” I said, “how about you being mean to me. It’s not that I am being mean as much as I am giving you some reality.”
We sat there for a minute and his arms come up like he is going to hug me. I just sat there. More than This starts playing from Jamie’s room. I guess he heard us and was tired of our arguing. “TURN IT DOWN, DAMN IT!” Ray screamed. Jamie didn’t turn it down. He just ignored us.
We stood there listening to it:
I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind
And hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
CHORUS
More than this-there is nothing
More than this-tell me one thing
More than this-there is nothing
It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like a dream in the night
Who can say where we're going
No care in the world
Maybe I'm learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning
More than this- there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing
We listened to the whole song. We knew why it was important, but then again maybe not.
HE… I… HIM…WE
He woke from the most violent dream to the point when he woke, he shook the bed and I woke as soon as I felt the bed shake. “Baby, you okay?” I asked concerned.
He couldn’t say anything and he turned his face into my chest and began to cry. I took his head in my hands and comforted him, patting his hair softly and gently.
He sobbed for a few minutes. After awhile he looked at me with tears in his blue eyes. He took in a few deep breathes and sat up in the bed. He hugged his knees and rested his chin in between his knees. I ran my hand down his muscular back and tried to comfort him a little bit more. He was braking my heart and I didn’t know why, I just knew that he was in pain.
“I had a dream about my dad,” Ray said, “and it was…” he stopped there.
“it was what?” I asked.
He hardly ever talked about his father. He looked at me with tears still in his eyes. He looked scared and frightened of what he had dreamed. “I never told you this, but I was the one who found my father after he tried to kill himself.”
I remember back in the middle 90’s, 95 or 96 of reading about Ray’s dad. He was a man who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar of the place where he worked. Ray must have been 15 or so then. I never knew how graphic it really was for him.
“I came home from school that afternoon. There was gun smoke still hovering in the living room. You know what gun smoke smells like, that powdery electric smell.” I shook my head.
“Well, I started looking for him; I knew that he had to have been home. I looked in the living room cause that’s the first room I was in but nothing. I started to walk from room to room. I still couldn’t find him. I called 911 when I got to the kitchen and was walking around with the phone still talking to them. I was nervous because something wasn’t right. I turned around and froze because he was standing behind me with his arm out stretched. Trying to tap me on the shoulder but the thing about it was, he had shot his face off and when I realized what I was looking at I started screaming and I dropped the phone. I really didn’t realize that he was him, but it was just so creepy that he could hear me but he couldn’t speak or see because he had no face. It actually was on the ceiling in the bathroom. The only place I didn’t look.”
I didn’t know what to say, I didn’t know that this is how it happened or the fact that Ray was the one that found him. “And this is what you dreamed of tonight?”
He looked up at me, “Yeah.”
“Where is your dad now?” I thought he was died.
“He went to Milledgeville soon after that.”
That explains why he went to visit his sister in Milledgeville a few months ago.
“After he got out of the hospital after, you know, the accident, he lost his mind.”
Again I was shocked, not because his father is insane, but because he referred to the suicide as “the accident” even though the whole county of Hinder knows it was no accident.
He grabbed the pack of smokes off the night stand. I grabbed the ashtray off mine. We smoked a cigarette in silence but holding hands and pulling each other toward one another until he was laying with his back against my stomach. After our smoke I kissed him and he kissed me. Wrapped like a present in each other, we fell back to sleep with some sort of love in our hands.
I know what I want now. All I want to give to Ray for Christmas is a home, a place with some kind of love and patients and care.
Christmas Day, the Affair of the Lost Gift
He jumped out of the bed with a child like agility because it was Christmas Day. “Merry Christmas,” he says joyfully.
I crane my eyes open and say the same thing, “Merry Christmas.” I throw the sheets and blankets off of me. He jumps on the bed and says, “Get up! Get up! Get up!”
“Okay” I say under my breath.
I finally get up and we kissed. That was very nice way to start Christmas Day. I go straight to the kitchen and he goes straight to the living room and turns on the tree. He then comes into the kitchen of course in boxers. I am in my usual t-shirt and gym shorts. The coffee brews. I make cinnamon muffins. He takes his cup of coffee from me real close and kisses me again. The second time this morning I thought to myself. “I aint never had a Christmas morning,” he reminds me.
“I know,” I say.
We finish our coffee and muffins. “Let’s open gifts!” Ray says.
We walk into the living room. He starts sorting through the gifts. He comes to me with three small boxes. I go over to the tree and give him three boxes. He took them and started opening them. His blue eyes bright like a child as he unwrapped the first gift. It’s a gold necklace that he wanted. I thought he was going to explode. “Oh thanks baby.” He says.
He goes to the next gift and he repeats. It’s a Pro Bass Shop hoodie. I thought he was going to go crazy. His smiled so big that I thought that the sides of his mouth were going to split. I was excited for him, but I felt down.
He then goes for the last gift. A simple gift: a trip to the mountains. That was a surprise that he had no idea about. “Oh baby these are awesome!” he says with such joy. It’s the first time in a long time that I heard him like this. It was warming.
“Okay your turn,” another large smile.
I take the one of the small boxes and was about to open it, “No, not that one… the long slender one.” I take that one in my lap. It looked like a tie box. I open it and it a pair of driving gloves. I looked at them curiously. “Thanks, Ray,” I say trying to hold my disappointment in.
Okay then that one.” I open it and it’s a hot wheels car. It’s a 1962 Dodge Dart, red. I was a bit confused again because he knew that I have always wanted one. I smiled with a bit of fondness. “Ah, thanks babe, wish it was real.” He laughed.
“Okay, the last one,” he says, “I hope you won’t be disappointed with it.” I look at him with a puzzling look.
“If it’s coming from you, I don’t think I will be.” I replied.
I unwrapped it. It was a jewelry box about the size of a pocket watch. Again I looked at it with a surprised look. I popped it open and inside was an old worn automobile key tied to a blue ribbon similar to that one Granddaddy had. I pull it out with my index figure and hold it up to my face, going cross eyed looking at it. “What’s this?” I said. Hoping it wasn’t going to be the cheesy response of, ‘it’s the key to my heart.’
“It’s the key to my heart,” he smiled and said, “Nah just playing, lets so outside.”
Parked in the yard was a red 1962 Dodge Dart. It was unbelievable. He remembered every detail; right down to the blue ribbon the key was tied, the white piping on the seats, the stirring wheel black and smooth from years of use, the dashboard with its chrome piping, metal needles of the gages, and the white numbers of the odometer. It smelled of history a cross between old rubber gaskets and new cleaner on the floor carpet. “I LOVE IT”, I say as I jump into his arms for a big hug wrapping my legs around him.
“Where did you find it?” I asked.
“Uncle Rickey had it. He said he bought from James Buchannan. “
“James Buchannan?”
“Yeah, you know him?”
“Yeah, he bought this car from Daddy after Granddaddy died.”
“It can’t be.” I said as I sled my hand over the hood and over the roof.
“Wow, this present is bigger than I thought it was gonna be.”
“Holy shit, you gave me my granddaddy’s car that I remember from growing up. For years, I wanted my dad to get this car back for me but he would just blow me off about it.”
I looked it over again and started crying. It was the best Christmas present I have ever gotten.
“So you gonna stare at it or are you gonna start it or what?” Ray says.
I opened the door and got in. I put the key in and started it. It hummed like a new born baby. I was so in love with Ray all over again. “Oh my God, you installed a cradle for my iPod!”
“And you have an awesome sound system.” He said in a southern drawl.
“Why did your Granddaddy have the key on a blue Ribbon?” he asked.
“The day he bought it he didn’t have a key ring so my Grandmother had a blue ribbon in her purse and she tied it on it. That’s why the car is called Vena Belle. Vena Belle was my Grandmother’s name.”
“OH Shit!” I said, “What time is it?”
“9:30 or so.”
“We have got to get ready to go to daddies.”
We go inside and I ask, “Who is going first?”
“Why can’t we both?”
We got into the shower… It turned out to be a wonderful day.
And then there was one…
The day after Christmas we went for a long drive though the country in the Dodge. It was all smiles and good times. We were invincible and happy feelings were strong. For some reason Christmas Day brought us together. Everything seemed to click. I felt loved. I felt love. I felt him finally and it seemed that he was not going to go anywhere. Moby played on the iPod as we drove.
“The mountains are beautiful, aren’t they?” Ray says looking out the window.
“Yeah, they are, and blue.” I say.
“Why don’t we stop?”
“Okay,” I say.
“I’m sure there aint folks on the trail today,” he takes my hand and gives it a squeeze and he looks at me and gives me a wink.
We walked on the trail for 20 to 30 minutes until he said, “hey, come on.” I looked at him puzzled.
He took my hand and led me to a boulder that was shaded under a tree thicket were the ground was soft. I pulled a small sleeping bag out of my bag. We curled under the tree, a perverted version of Adam and Eve. But I believe that it’s not truly perverted as I think about it. What’s wrong with making love? What’s wrong with making love with someone whom you love? His hand found me, mine found him. And in the moment we fooled around.
“What’s that?” I whispered.
“What?” he said with breath on my neck.
“That.” Feet were rustling in the dead leaves.
“Don’t worry about it.” He said as he went back to what he was doing.
“Honey,” the discombobulated voice said, “I think a couple is in there.” She finished saying.
“Damn,” the man’s voice said, “come on, I know another spot.”
We giggled as they made their way on the trail. He continued his magic. It was the best sex we ever had without actually having sex. He is the best lover I have ever had.
We sat afterward and had a cigarette. We packed up our stuff and headed back off the mountain.
We stopped in Rome and had dinner. We laughed and smiled as we were leaving he said, “Can we stop by mamas so I can give her, her gift?”
I agreed, “But I’m staying in the car.”
He called her to tell her that we were stopping by.
She creeps me out. She is not right. The last time we were there, the day we got the Jeep, I noticed the row of medicine bottles. All of the pills treat bipolar disorder. Her speech and mannerisms are sketchy. The devil lives in her eyes. I’m sure he is in her soul as well.
The Dead Kennedys was playing as I pulled up and turned the engine off. I wanted to just pull off but I couldn’t. I could see here sitting in the small kitchen smoking a cigarette. He opens the door of the Dart and says, “I’ll be right back. “Okay,” I said.
“I love you,” he replied.
I looked at him said, “I love you too.” He kissed me.
He scaled the front stairs and knocked and opened the door and walked in. I could see she had something in her hand and then it came into view, a pistol.
“Oh, God! No!” I said I honked the horn at the same time she pulled the trigger. I started the car and could see that she was lifting it to shoot at me. I backed out and drove in reverse until I hit something that stopped me because of the old seat belts I hit my head on the stirring wheel. I busted my forehead. I remember the blood on the wheel and the dashboard. I got my wits back and grabbed my cell phone got out of the car and called 911. Sobbing on the phone, I told the operator where I was. I was trying to have a cigarette but failed. As I was trying to get my wits again, I drove back to Ray’s mother’s house. I walked up slowly and softly and looked in the kitchen window she looked at me and put the gun in her mouth and killed herself. I looked over and Ray was laying there. I couldn’t see his face but I heard the sirens coming to the house. I collapsed to the ground with blood running down my face as I put a smoke in my mouth finally lit it and began to smoke. I sat there on the cold wet dewy ground not knowing really what was going on. I remember people around me. I remember an officer telling me everything was going to be okay. I remember sitting in the back of the ambulance. And now here I am. I don’t even know if Ray is dead. All I know it’s raining again and I am ready to walk out the back door of this the hospital and disappear.
I turned over in the bed and closed my eyes as tears began to roll from the corners. I heard from the TV that I accidently turned on, “Surprise , Surprise, Never something I could hide, When I see we made it through another day …”
I will dream again, I thought as the lights went dim behind my eyelids.