November 2005
Jesus, Marathon is so nothing. This street, all these little craphole cottages, pitch dark. Not even a hint of a nightlight coming from any of these empty little shacks. Cars are parked in the driveways so I guess people live in these. These could easily be vacant. I'd get the same amount of interaction. Nothing to listen for out here but the occasional truck on the freeway. Can't even make out crickets, I don't think. Trucks must scare them away. At least you can see the stars pretty well out here. That's one of the things that never quite gets old.
After Pierce's right leg was reduced to a bloody pulp up to the pelvis, Smith turned off the main power switch. All the machines shut down slowly. The vacuum hose that sucked raw cotton out of the wagons and into the gin was the last to stop with a diminishing moan. In the sudden quiet of that moment, on cue, he smiled at Pierce, speaking around the stub of unlit cigar.
I don't remember my father. I can't picture his face. It's blurred in my memory, coming clear only when I peer into an old family photo album. Although unable to visually recollect him, I do remember the feelings he gave me and recall a collection of actions and events, of which he was a part, that I have filed away only to be pulled out of memory in the darkness of a still night or under circumstances I cannot predict. I was a small child when my father died. I don't remember the loss. I don't remember grieving for him. Yet his absence has left a void in me that I have struggled with all my life.
Flowers was what she intended to study, simply flowers. Jade didn't show that she was a little startled when an older gentleman, maybe in his forties, took the seat across from her. He didn't request the seat, Jade realized, he just assumed he could take it. How does he know I'm not waiting for someone, wondered Jade. Although, she wasn't waiting for anyone at all.
As the plane touched ground at Sacramento International Airport I looked down at my Betsey Johnson pink leopard print dress and smiled. My gaze traveled down pink fishnet covered legs and ended at the six-inch pink Patricia Field stilettos which adorned my feet. My aching feet. I had had these shoes on for nearly 12 hours; since the idea for this trip entered my mind; since I had impulsively decided I absolutely had to travel across country. My baby needed me. I would run the three thousand miles which separated Kunda and myself had I not just earned the money for my nearly $500 plane ticket. Even on Jet Blue, a same day purchase is not too reasonable.
The channels kept changing into a never-ending swirl of images. Brazilian boys playing soccer, a man revealing his infidelity on "Maury," New York 1 News, a bombing in Indonesia, a naked couple humping on a flat mattress, dogs running on dewy grass, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn Monroe.
At 5:00 sharp, they dined on truffles, Gouda cheese and crackers, and downed the leftover champagne and chardonnay. No sense letting everything go to waste, Mr. Hollis thought.
The scent of the sea reminded me of the beaches back home. The smells are pretty much the same: rank, rotting seaweed carcasses, metallic, salty breezes. But it's still so different here, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise. Something in the climate, the pretense of clear skies as the smog looms at my back. The littered beach cordoned by concrete strands and parking lots.
Bar code tattoos and pierced lips.