Look at the Moon
young woman approached a dilapidated man sitting by himself in the
corner booth of Monty's Cafe. "Can I get you anything?"
"Why yes, madam. I will have a cup of coffee, if you don't mind." The man said as he straightened out his posture to address the young woman.
"I don't mind. Not a'tall."
The two gave each other a knowing wink, as if to communicate the fact they were both flirting, obviously. The young woman began to walk away. She then turned the upper part of her torso to face the man again, and smiled. He gave back to her the accepting nod as she continued her walk into the kitchen.
The glossy spheres contained within J's eyelids darted back and forth. The sunlight bade him awake. His groans were muffled by puddles of saliva that spilled over his bright red puffy lips -which in no way contrasted with his brightly colored shirt (unbuttoned whole) that exposed a vast field of sparsely grown chesthairs, as well as the lower left calf muscle of a slimly provocative hula dancer. He cursed the day with bubbly insolence and turned his body moodily to distract his mind of the time. In doing so, an ashtray slid across the nightstand, pushing its weight against an empty bottle of bourbon. A high pitched crash ensued, lifting his lumbering body instantly. Just as his maladjusted spine began to settle, the phone rang to verify consciousness.
"J? Is that you?" A female voice asked diligently, quickly.
"Huh?"
"J? Is that- J, you have to wake up. Honestly now, it's almost five-thirty for crissake. You have got to stop doing this to yourself, it's not healthy. Not healthy at all. J? Are you there J? Answer me. J? I'm coming over."
J threw the phone away from his ear as the other end concluded its soliloquy. He stretched his body, and with great effort, attempted to lay the receiver into its cradle. Instead, the device plummeted to the floor and made a soft thud. his furry head rested its weight on a single pillow.
Crystal placed the plain piece of white bread down on the remainder of the sandwich, smacked her lips together, and brought her yellowing incisors down, expending peanut butter from the outermost sides of the bread. She shook her head in discontent. "I don't think you should marry 'im."
"What?" Maria said, lifting her head from her purse.
"I don't think so. No, not at all. If you think that he's cheatin' on ya- and besides, what reason do you have for gettin' married at such an early age?" Crystal paused, clearing her throat. "And... Why do you always go running over there? That man is worthless. A bum. Do you know that? You watch. You'll be runnin' straight back into this apartment one day. You'll be runnin' back, cryin'. You just watch."
"J's a good guy! He just needs to be cared for, that's all."
"Give me a break! A good guy? How good a guy is it that is passed out when he's s'possed to be takin' you out to a nice fancy dinner? Do you remember that? Or drunk at three in the mornin', screamin' at the window wakin' you up? Or, what about Quinn and Dolan's? Don't you remember that soiree they were goin' to have? All these stories that you tell me, cryin' even. He's just got you on a leash, that's all, pulling you around. Hand me my milk."
"You think what you will. J has problems neither of us can possibly understand. He needs me. I'm his own personal guardian angel."
"Oh hell, you ain't no guardian angel. You the devil, if anything."
Maria ignored the comment and continued shoving loose papers and a bound dictionary, intently into her purse. Her eyes became soft and watery as she turned her head to witness the frothy white mustache that was now painted on Crystal's upper lip. Her face was still with determination as she mumbled under her breath: "I'm his angel. I'm his angel."
"J! Honey, I'm here!" Maria sang to the room, opening the door slightly. She walked about the room slowly, choosing her steps carefully. She studied the room with the queriment of a private investigator. She lifted a picture of a J with a young girl, and after looking at it stolidly, she placed it back on a nearby coffee table. She stood in silence for a moment and sighed. "J! Honey, where are you?"
"Who's there?" A voice came from behind the kitchen door.
"It's me honey! I've come to save you! To help."
Before opening the kitchen door, J kinked his neck in a puzzling form, slowing the spread of peanut butter to white bread. He heard Maria inching her way around the living room. "What do you want?"
"What do I want? What kind of question- I'm here for you honey! Just want to help. That's all!" Maria was still talking very loudly to the air, much in the way a mother talks her child out from behind a locked bathroom door, hiding.
J finally subsided -although with great hesitation- and pushed the door open slowly. "How did you get in here?"
"Oh it doesn't matter J. I'm here for you honey! I've made myself a key!" She flew at J with her arms extended, running awkwardly and tripping over old newspapers scattered about the floor. She wrapped the pair of skinny claws around his neck, squeezing him with unnatural attention.
"You made yourself what?"
"Come sit down honey. You look a little bleak. Right here with auntie Maria on the couch. That's right."
J followed her to the couch unwillingly, and in a daze. He sat, pushing the cushion down and raising the remainder of the couch a good five inches. Maria had to rearrange her position.
"I'd like for you to explain to me what this mood you're portraying is. Is this an act- Are you trying to audition for a play again? I told you before- don't you remember what happened last time? You're going to end up in the hospital again. I'm not paying for broken backdrops anymore."
"No, I'm not auditioning for a play again." She paused and looked at J suspiciously. "J? Are you delirious?"
"Maria. Stop this."
"Oh J! I love you!" Suddenly, Maria leaped onto J's exposed lap in a single bound, sending his torso forward in agony. She began kissing his forehead intensely; her brittle fingernails digging into the nape of his neck.
"You're a nut!" J yelled.
"But I love you, honey"
He threw her over to the side of couch and leapt to his feet.
"You're a nut!" He blistered again as he made his way from Maria. "I gotta get outa here!" He whipped the front door open, turning to look at Maria's smiling lips that were now forming the words "I love you" in slow exaggerated form. He sighed, and hurriedly left the room, slamming the door shut.
Maria sat for a moment, stunned and silent. She mouthed the words "I love you" again and began to sob. She picked up the phone, caught her breath and chose cautiously the numbers with which she would dial. The voice of an older woman answered. Maria sat momentarily in silence, shaking. She began to sob once again in sporadic breaths. And in realizing it, she rushed the phone back into its base, stared into nothingness ,and began to weep hysterically, screaming "J!" with every exhalation, at top volume.
J approached his apartment door hesitantly. The door was open slightly and exposed a soft light glowing within. He gave the door a touch, and with natural momentum, it swung open completely. He walked in cautiously. "Hello? Maria?"
The apartment was in shambles. The cushions of the couch were on the floor, scattered, and contained within them what looked like teeth marks, as if some animal had tried to mame and eat the square, soft seat. The picture of him and the young girl was smashed against the wall and lay in pieces where it meets the floor. His drawers had been gone through. He turned to face the sink, where he eyed twenty-four empty beer cans, opened, leaning upside down, as if a police officer had been to this scene, fining underage drinkers by pouring their activities down the drain.
"That's it." J said out loud. He walked into the living room, lifted a saliva soaked cushion from the floor, and lifted the phone to his ear. "Maria? Is that you?"
"No. Who's this?" A chomping mouth asked.
"This is J."
"Oh, the same J this is playing my Maria like a slave. Huh? Well, listen bud-"
He sat down and looked around the cafe, interrogating the tables, inspecting the workers that hurriedly carried plates of greasy food lined up along the lengths of their arms. He sighed as the waitress approached the table.
"Would you like something?"
He paused and stared momentarily, as if in a daze, at the girl who was standing -towering- before him. "Yes. I'd like a cup of coffee." J said realizing that it was the same waitress that he had always had, always flirted surreptitiously with, he smiled. "How have you been?"
"I'm fine. Can I get you somethin' else?"
She walked away, as J stared directly at her eyes, almost hypnotically. He had always come in, drank his coffee, flirted a bit, and then left. But today, something was different in his mind.
J looked up as the shadow of the waitress drew itself upon his paper. "What's your name?"
"I'm really not in the mood." She said staunchly. "You're not goin' to tell me yours, so why the hell should I tell you mine?"
J looked again into her eyes, catching them off guard, silencing her quirky monologue. They stared in silence until J finally spoke: "Do you mind if I see you? Somewhere else I mean. Not here."
The waitress looked at him stone dead, her eyes swimming within their sockets. "Well..." She agreed and J met her outside the cafe, sitting, waiting on the stoop, staring at the cabs that zoomed by.
"It's like one big yellow blur." He said
"Yeah, like bananas being slipped on."
J laughed, "Yeah, like bananas being slipped on. Let's walk."
She laughed and took her arm and slid it between J's torso and his bicep, cradling and locking their arms into place.
"Why do you work there? You seem smarter than that."
"I don't know. It's good money, I guess." The waitress shrugged her shoulders. "And, I get to do what I want to do, when I want to. Y'know, because of the shifts. Why do you work where you work?"
"I don't know." J paused, digging way back into is mind in an attempt to answer her question. He took her arm and led her to sit on the side of a hill. The moon was slowly rising. "I do not know. You don't work only for the money?"
"Yeah, it's only for money initially. But, I think that people get too caught up in money. Then, they are forced to get too caught up in their jobs. And then, they're really not doing what they want to do. They're doing what other people want them to do. For money."
J sat back, leaning his spine against the side of the hill. He thought about what Maria had said. He put the length of his left hand against the side of her cheek, rubbing it gently. He kissed her suddenly. She turned to stare at him once again, capturing his attention.
"What's you name?" J asked slowly, and with a whisper.
"Crystal."
J smiled and held her close to his breast. She rested the weight of her head lightly. He raised his head to the sky, pointing indirectly and without saying a word said, "Look at the moon."
Back to the archive 
Return to.... SSC