Ribbons, a novel -- Chapter Two

Ribbons

TWO

Excerpt #2 from Burl Wonder’s Journal
Dated 12.24.2010
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         I am lost at the moment.  I am unsure of my direction; there are too many options.  I am faltering here.  I am tired, perhaps.  I am frustrated.  I am drifting backward, instead.  I am drifting backward to simpler, less-demanding times.  I am drifting backward into the arms of Catherine.  It’s always this way and I am tired of fighting it.  So I will tell you.
         I wasn’t sure who I was until Catherine revealed to me myself.  I unwittingly made her pay for that revelation in many ways.  Twice I made her pay for that supremely!
         She was wearing a black-and-white, striped shirt the first time I saw her with short hair and a confidence that strained against the angry muscles in her jaw.  I loved her and didn’t know her name.  I loved her for ten seconds as she moved through the corridor at the high school like a tsunami and it lasted ten years!  It lasts still!  I never saw her again during those first two years while I entertained myself somehow with other girls.  I can recall only flashes and twinkles of that time.  And then she was there again, and I was older and less mature.  It happened like this:
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(CATHERINE: MY FIRST LOVE)
         We drink French wine and listen to the radio.  An old house, a big house with hardwood floors, intricately designed rugs and leaves falling outside.  Warm music.  Low lighting.  The walls are a deep red, contrasting richly with the healthy, green plants placed methodically around the den.  A simple, black chandelier adorns the vaulted ceiling.
         Our peers hurry about us rolling joints the size of candlesticks.  But we two are watchers, Catherine and I, and I can see her mind working.  She controls the room the same way I do, with glances and grins that say: “Without me, you wouldn’t even want to be here--but I’m glad you came.”  We don’t talk and we don’t move with our friends from the sofa.  She waits with me in silence while everyone goes to bed.  I did not know her until tonight--had only seen her from a distance a few times, in fact.  But now I know her name. 
         Finally, I say, “I think I’m going to go to sleep.”
         “Okay,” she says.
         I stand and I am dizzy.  I am only slightly intoxicated, but Catherine’s presence has made me light-headed.  I remind her to blow out the last remaining candle before she goes to bed.  She nods.  Her eyes are pretty.
         But she follows me upstairs instead of staying behind as I had expected.  No words are spoken as we ascend.  The creaking floorboards speak for us.  And we are young and I couldn’t possibly matter to her.  Yet, here she is, following me into a mutual acquaintance’s loft.
         It is dark and I am unfamiliar with the layout of the upstairs, so I begin turning random doorknobs and interrupting random sleepers and lovers alike, plus one bathroom.  Finally, I find the only, empty bedroom remaining and I step inside and so does she.  She closes the door and we walk to opposite sides of the bed, pull back the thick, crisp quilt and sheets, and get in.
         I lay completely still facing straight toward the heavens, my heart betraying me with what might as well have been club music.  Catherine is relaxed and curled in an “S” facing me, not aggressively, but warmly.  Like a cat you’ve slept beside since childhood.  I allow my face to fall slightly toward her, but my body is dead and in the casket.  Frozen and embalmed.  I feel her soft, puppy breath in my face and I tell myself to be content with this alone.  And Myself replies, “I am.”
         Slowly, so slowly, slower than that, slower still, our faces move until our nose tips touch as if by mere accident, and then our lips, but just barely, parted in the smallest way.  We breathe, taking soft drags from one another as if sharing an invisible cigarette.  Forty days and forty nights pass like this until, at last, moist tongues slide forth like a pair of new moons emerging from behind cumulous clouds, two bubbles colliding gently in the dark.
         Fingers feel cautiously, parting folds of sheet, taming the landscape and preparing the fields.  Her hair is golden wheat; my hand is a wandering child passing through in sepia tones.  The moon through the open window marks the coming harvest.  Clothes begin to evaporate now, effortlessly, like a mist that the sun easily burns away--thick one moment, and simply gone the next.
         Warmer collisions begin to occur.  Tickle becomes touch, touch becomes hold, hold becomes grasp, grasp becomes pull; the key is turned, the ignition sparks, the engine fires, the gears grind, and the machine is moving.  Steam begins to roll, is rolling steady now, soaring over the track and train, the valley, the hills, trees, fences, shrubs and stalks and rivers and grasses, as whistles sound and steel meets ground and we are rising and falling, heavy and swift.  Her breasts shift and bounce and her hips circle and genuflect, glisten and work.  My hands and eyes do that task which lies nearest to them, sporadically, revisiting each and every surface of her at leisure.  It excites her to watch me watch her until, at last, she closes her eyes and her entire body draws into itself like a partition, save her arms and hands grasping the headboard; and the destination is reached, and the machine shudders and folds, and both conductors collect their pay!
         Early the following morning, Amelia, our hostess, enters the now-golden room to congratulate us, literally; and we take naked, blushing bows, but receive our ovation, figuratively; and we are all laughing now.  And I want to make a sacrifice of the unblemished bull and the fatted calf, both; but my new love tells me it is too early in the day, for the cock has yet to crow, and the people are still at slumber.
         We got breakfast at Hardee’s.
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         Over the next several years, Catherine changed me.  She matured me and added decades to my understanding.  She rolled me around in her mouth like a candy, turning me over and over with her tongue, examined me and made a judgment; she revealed to me my true flavor.  She led me from behind.  Pushed me and encouraged me and emboldened me.  She dipped me first in bronze, then in silver, then gold and gave me a new mirror.
         But then she was gone.  I told her over the phone, the last time we were to speak, that she’d made a wise decision and that I would never fully recover.
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         The first time I cheated on Catherine was as much an accident of adultery as there can possibly be without involving a banana peel and a gynecologist’s office.  It was literally an accident, one of the automotive kind, that set the whole thing in motion.  Without that minor fender-bender, who knows how my life might have turned out?
         There was this period of internal solitude.  College.  Living like a ghost.  I haunted the Indiana highways, north to Indianapolis and south to Bloomington in a black, Dodge beast that leaked gas as if it had been designed to do so.  Always restless.  Tiny fits of conversation, forced through the mouth like a baby through the birth canal, were the best I had to offer anyone, even Catherine.  Endless sketchbooks, it seems.  Never-ending impressions of things, of places, of people:
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(JENNA: MY FIRST CHEAT)
         It’s the first day of the spring term at Herron School of Art and Design and I am early.  The sun reflects off the students’ cars, slowly returning the dirty snow to its previous, liquid state.  Next to a picnic table that looks like a horizontal billboard, advertising the army of graffiti artists attending the school, a group of students play hacky-sac beneath the budding branches of a white, birch tree.  In the street, birds play chicken with oncoming traffic and splash about in cold puddles.  The McDonald’s across Pennsylvania Street looks as if it might have to add significantly to the “sixty-billion served” sign, as cars full of hungry people honk and threaten to tear the place apart, McBrick by McBrick, unless service improves drastically and soon.
         I make my way through the door of the Museum Building and into the lecture hall--a wide, open room with picnic chairs for the students lined in crooked rows, a podium with a wireless microphone for the professor, and an 8’x8’ white screen at the opposite end.  Above the entrance is a small projector room from which come the stereotypical rustling sounds of a disorganized teacher.  I make my way to the third row of metal chairs and sit down.  I record this in my black journal:
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Classroom WHITE.  Chairs DIRTY, SCRAPING FLOOR.  That SOUND.  What does that remind me of?  Outside window: WHITE BIRCH WAVING GENTLE FINGERS with premature buds, CONFUSED by abnormally warm winter, DESTINED TO DIE quickly.
GLANCES FROM A GIRL.  Hesitation.  She moves across the room SLOWLY, staring intensely at the floor--like she has dropped a contact lens.

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         “You have dope hands,” says Jenna, a gorgeous student, a girl straight from a 1940’s pinup calendar sitting in her picnic chair next to me.  Beyond her, on the 8’x8’ screen, are slides of the Venus of Willendorf.  Cave paintings at Lascaux and Altamira.  All around us students gather their books and pencils, pens and jackets.  Jenna, however, sits.  She waits silently, though her demeanor is intimidating and vibrant.  She appears to be going nowhere and everywhere at the same time.  Physicists should be studying this woman.
         “Thank you,” I reply at last.  “They’re like my grandfather’s.”  And in my notebook I scribble the following thought in red crayon:
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         An achromatic chameleon:
         Sometimes black and absorbing,
         Often white and reflecting,
         Never far from gray.
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         We walk outside together and she gets in her car: a sleek, new, foreign zipper, and I get in mine: a 1987 Daytona with a turbo that sounds like a police siren if I go too fast.  I am to follow her to her apartment to see her pet snake and to smoke a joint.  We head out and at 16th and Delaware, just as the traffic light is turning green, I slam directly into the back of her car while trying to drive and read and listen to Lemonheads lyrics.  We immediately pull into an empty parking lot to survey the damage.  Not a scratch to anything except my ego.  She tells me she doesn’t mind, but that this anecdote, for future ears, would be much sexier and better received if we could agree that I was reading Elvis Presley lyrics instead.  So, if she ever asks, that’s the way I told it.
         We agree to this pact, which I’ve now broken, and decide that it might just be a little simpler if we go together in her car.  I concur, mainly because I’m already a little lightheaded from the Dodge’s gas fumes, and I jump into Jenna’s car and off we go.
         She drives like a city-born.  I can tell from the way she works her gear shift that she’s headed for bigger and better things.  Her firecracker-red lipstick parts over white teeth and she weaves through traffic like a boxer dodging blows.  Her hair is coal black, shiny and short, pinned above her right temple from where it bounds, slick curls and all, to the side.  Draping her right shoulder is a tattoo of a snake sliding down the front in a serpentine toward her right breast and disappearing beneath her single-strap, flouncy-shift dress with jagged, red-and-black stripes running counter to the strap and down to the soft cream of her thighs.  Her knees, which rise and fall with her pedal-work, are just visible above knee-highs that match the red in her dress to perfection.  She talks to me like I’m her co-pilot: “Press eject and grab that case beneath your seat.  Put in the first disk, track eight, and find out why you’re wasting time with those Lemonheads.”  I do as I’m told and I see what she means.  I truly should have been listening to Elvis.
         We park in front of her apartment and head up the stairs to the landing and go inside.  I see a pair of men’s sneakers just inside the door and ask, quite innocently, if they belong to her boyfriend.  She quickly says, “No,” and explains that they are her brother’s, whom she lives with.  Just then, the brother emerges from a side door in the hallway.
         “Good, you’re back.  I need the car,” he says, grabbing a stack of books and a banana en route to the door.
         She hands him the keys without consulting me and he exits.
         “You know I do need to get back to my car,” I remind her.
         “Oh, I’m sorry.  I assumed you were finished with classes for the day.”
         “Well, yeah.  But--”
         “Then you’re in no hurry, right?”
         “No.  I guess I’m not.”
         “Okay then.  Follow me.”
         She leads me to her bedroom to meet the three-dimensional counterpart, the muse and model behind her tattoo, Kong.  Kong is in a large, glass case.  He is wrapped around a tree branch and I feel sorry for the branch because Kong is enormous.  I step back as she removes the lid and pray that she doesn’t ask me to hold Kong because I am rather fond of my limbs.  To my relief she simply retrieves a rolled-up baggy from behind the lighting on the underside of the lid and replaces it squarely and securely over the reptile.  She smiles at me with amusement; I’m guessing my face is as white as her lips are red.
         “Don’t be afraid of him,” she says.  I’m about to defend myself, trying to make up some quick, childhood trauma that would explain my reservations for handling large snakes, when she continues, “there are more devious things than Kong in this room right now.”  My mouth rests agape at this until a slight, involuntary grin gives me away.  She proceeds to the bed, unrolling the baggy and pulling my strings at the same time.  She has absolute control and I get the feeling she’s used to having it that way.
         She rolls a joint the size of her slender pinky--a lady’s joint, slim and elegant--seals it with her tongue, places the whole thing in her mouth and pulls it out from between her moist, red lips.  She smiles again at me and lights it.  It’s intoxicating to watch and I am unaware that the foreplay has begun; I’ve played the lottery and know that I am just not that lucky.  I’m unaware of anything besides her mouth, to be honest, and I feel high already.  I try with all my being to maintain composure and conceal the porno being filmed inside my head.  She takes a drag, inhales, and allows the ribbons of smoke to simply slither out and up, using her tongue as a launching pad.  She extends her hand to offer me a hit.  When I look down to take it, she springs forward and, with her free hand, reaches around and pulls me toward her. 
         I try for the smallest fraction of a second to resist--I really do--but it’s absolutely futile.  I’m trapped in her grips; trying to free myself is the last thing on my mind.
         Her lips taste like forbidden apples and smoke.  I feel her taste buds on mine and the silky friction overwhelms me.  She stands and snubs the joint out in an ashtray on the nightstand, then pivots to face me.  With a single snap of her finger to the single strap of her dress, she stands before me naked, slick and irresistible. 
         As sheets twist and tangle, tying us together, and the scent of sweat and sex fills the room, I know I should feel guilty; that I know I should confirms I do, but makes not one ounce of difference.  As Jenna’s tits press against me and her legs wrap around and around my waist, infinitely it seems, squeezing, I’m the happiest prey ever caught.
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(“OUT W/ M.J.”: BURL’S FIRST LIE)
         Catherine awoke the next morning alone for the first time since she and Burl signed the lease.  The sky had lost its tan and returned to the gray-blue of a recently frozen corpse.  The oversized bed mocked her solitude and the silence of the under-occupied room was as insisting as a telemarketer on cocaine.  Her complexion was pale in the early haze and she sat up gripping the ivory comforter and wishing that she hadn’t awoke at all.
         She arose and stumbled sleepily to the restroom.  She did her business and walked into the living area where she found Burl asleep on the couch in yesterday’s clothes.  She shook him gently with one hand while holding her cotton robe close to her waste with the other.  Burl startled, then yawned and stretched as she leaned over him.
         “Hey, honey.  Where have you been?”
         “Huh?” Burl feigned another yawn.
         “Where were you last night?” she asked sweetly.
         “Hmm?” he hummed innocently, “I was with Michael Jackson.  Didn’t you see my note?” he said, acting confused and at peace.
         “Oh.  No, I didn’t see any note.”
         “Yeah, right there,” he said, feigning another tired stretch as he pointed to a small table in the far corner of the apartment farthest from the couch.  Catherine walked over and plucked the corner of a note nearly half covered by a small table lamp:
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         OUT W/ M.J.  PROB. BE HOME LATE LATE.  LOVE U.
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         “Hmm.  Sorry, I didn’t see it.  Why would you put it over here, dumbass?”  She leaned in again and kissed him on the forehead.
         “Heh, yeah, I guess that is kind of a bad place, but I had my portfolio and everything on the table.  Sorry, babe.  Wasn’t thinking.”  He swung around her and left the couch, walking toward the kitchen, eyes wide with shock at how easily his deception worked.  “Want some coffee?”
         “Yeah.  I’m gonna’ take a quick shower,” she said, dropping the note obliviously to the coffee table and heading back toward the bedroom.
         “Okay, beautiful.  I’ll make us some breakfast.”
         Lying was so much easier before cell phones.
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Excerpt #2 from Burl Wonder’s Journal (cont’d)
Dated 12.24.2010
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         Those days, for some reason, seem very European to me now.  I can’t really explain this--a product of cinematic romanticism and a few entertaining spy novels, I’m sure.  I can’t quite get my fist around it, but I’m absolutely unable to envision a single occasion without wrapping a scarf around everyone’s neck.  In my memory, everybody smokes.
         I hear a door squeaking down the hallway from the room where I am writing this.  It must be morning: time for bed.  I will sleep only a few hours before I wake and walk downtown to the courthouse.  My goals for the day are to visit my probation officer and pay the monthly installment on my debt to society for allowing me to go crazy, visit the library to glance at the librarian whose eyes are fierce with fear and inhibition, prepare the paperwork for bankruptcy, and stop by for a visit with Sarah.  And I’m fairly certain that I will accomplish at least two of these goals, depending on the weather, of course.
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         “This Room is where Cain shared a secret with his brother and where Judas perfected his poker face in the silver-molded mirror by the books and the bric-a-bracs.  And on that dusty bookshelf you’ll also find every adulterous secret, bound in volumes of ancient leather, sewn from the skin of the first unholy sacrifice, (not to mention the vintage porno collection and your photo album filled with pictures and love letters from 1999.)
         “This is the Room where the mosquito returns each morning to feed its young the blood from last night’s hunt.  You can hear them, but you’ll never see them in the velvet-blue, dim lighting.  Hornets are known to mate with vipers in this Room, and they are not modest or discreet in the slightest when they do.
         “You’ll have noticed that the wallpaper is peeling badly and the leaden carpet is drenched in a sadness that clings like mud.  For this is the very Room in which the raped and the whores alike come at night, together, to wash their panties and cry their tears and scour their faces with alcohol and wool, hoping to finally remove the stains of yesterday.  It is kept cold in this Room for those who are freezing, and its bed is made of coals and embers for the weary in need of a place to rest. 
         “The oils that line the walls, just there, are of lilies, roses and honeysuckle from your mother’s garden; and the one above the bed is of that sundrenched picnic near the canal in September, when you first realized that you truly did love her; and all are framed with gold and copper, and inlaid with rubies and onyx. 
         “Upon the corner dresser stands the atomizer of a fragrance worn by your ex-lover; the pump is depressed once each hour by the hand of the automated Santa Claus that once stood in your Grandma’s front lawn.  And in the dresser’s drawers are your most recent lover’s forgotten blouses, as well as the dress she wore to your sister’s wedding and the petals from her garland.  She left no socks, of course; she always did have cold feet, as I’m sure you will recall.
         “And, Oh!  Come!  You’ve got to see the closet, tailored even more specifically than anything yet for each guest.  You must remember this costume from your first, Halloween party together!  The simplicity is what made it so clever, you devil!  The plain, white shirt on which you wrote, ‘CHAD,’ and the noose that made you a ‘Hanging CHAD’--a costume so appropriate for the holiday while, at the same time, so politically astute!  You were a fun one, I’ll bet.
         “And these boxes, here, from the University--how drastically different are the files within.  These, from your first try, where your marks represent a focused and enthusiastic student, a promising intellect brought down only by financial insufficiencies.  And these, your second attempt, from a different time and a different mind, when you spent half the semester drunk and confused, and the other half Bukowski-drunk, spending all those loan monies on vodka and Parliaments and, of course, probation fees, only to drop out because of an over-inflated ego. 
         “And this: a box of brushes and tubes of colorant and painter’s linens from a once successful career.  But, I must say, I am a bit confused about that: how is it possible for one to be too much of a drunkard to continue as an artist?  I’ve seen your portraiture, and it’s so-so.  I guess those tall, ceiling murals and that scaffolding might have finally proven too difficult before noon, eh?
         “Now, you may visit this Room as often as you dare, but please bear in mind that it is a guest room, and that others--oh, so many others--also require its mind-fucking charms from time to time.  So, please prepare a plan of departure quickly and mind the hourglass--you’ll need to arrive at a conclusion before it runs out.  Okay? 
         “Oh, almost forgot: the dog there, chained to the bedpost with a slave-ship’s leg-irons and abandoned by its mother at birth, the poor thing hasn’t eaten since last Tuesday.  Be a dear and feed it a fat cut of rare steak from the icebox and fill its two bowls--one with clean, cool water from the faucet, and one with vodka, (because nothing, beast or man, should suffer sobriety’s thick thumb here.)
         “This is the Room where it would be nice to be an atheist, ‘cause if there’s a God in Heaven, you know you’re going to pay and that the process has only just begun.”
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--Recovered from Audio File
Dated 12.31.2010