|
|
||
|
|
Lex's Story Fiction By Valerie Markva Intro Every year on my birthday a carnival comes to Plaintown. Turned 25 today, too old to feel thrilled by the sight of the multi-colored lights & the rides. Walking down the street I smell hot dogs and greasy fries, laughter and distant screams like waves building higher & higher only to crash down like thunder. The sound of the carnival will halt my attention then, and I ponder the passing of time, the subtle distances crossed. Brilliant lights illuminate the sky like lives, a sudden and brief existence. To fade and find only darkness. The vendors and the rides, the fortunetellers with their gypsy wagons, lower their tents and then they are gone. Vacant space in this concrete lot, trash and unidentifiable things roaming on the wind, is a caress, a lost sad whisper. Emptiness like the days to follow my birthday - the lost carnival. No one knows the yearning I've felt to own my life, like a carnival. There is no control over the direction of the rides, and I am lost and wondering. Two weeks after Lisa left I walked down James St. with Violet. Every year on my birthday we'd gone together to the carnival and every year I wished I hadn't gone because it reminded me that nothing changes. That we grow older, but life itself takes on no new altering difference. At least that is the way it is for me. "It's your birthday, Lex. Why do you want to stay at home?" Violet asked. We stood in front of my building, and she dug in her purse for her keys. Looking at me with inquisitive eyes that told me she didn't think staying home was a good idea. Then she put on her sunglasses, stepping closer to me. "Does this have anything to do with David? I mean I hate to bring it up." "No," I told her. She thinks I'm going to waste away without a man. Suddenly I felt irritated and wanted to be alone. Her mention of David made me feel unusually isolated, as if she no longer understood me. Now she held the car door open and throwing her purse inside, she glanced back at me. Calculating, sizing up the situation. "Well, okay. I just want you to have a good birthday, that's all," she said. "Hey, did Eben tell you about his new girlfriend?" Now she leaned on the roof of the car. A bum that resembled Quentin Tarantino shuffled past between us. Mumbling to himself he disappeared into the alley beside my building. "She's a stripper, and he asked me to go watch her strip! Can you believe him?" she said. "Huh, that sounds like him." I couldn't help thinking about Quentin the alley. Since Lisa left, I started to feel really paranoid about creeps hanging around outside my apartment. "Oh, you forgot these," Violet said. Getting out of the car, she handed me several back issues of Strangers in Paradise. My favorite comic book, so thoughtful of her. Taking them, I gave her a hug. "Thank you, you've made my birthday special." She squeezed me tight, then stood back and smiled. "Just don't mope around tonight." She glanced at her watch. "Oh, wow. I'm late and have to meet Kevin. I'll see you later, K?" 7:00. This is my day, five hours left. I wasn't moping about David. The bar, a party, even dancing - none of those things appealed to me right now. Something silent was urging me to spend the time alone. To think. No, David, you are definitely not the reason. Then what was the reason? Soaking in my bathtub, filled with lavender smelling bubbles, I determined to discover what it was that I felt. This lacking, some kind of loss, a missing piece. And these lyrics in my head - so vivid, so real. Just one line from that song by For Non Blondes, 'What's Up', repeated, echoed over & over in my head. 'Twenty five years of my life and still, trying to get up that great big hill of hope for a destination." My cat Lenore nimbly balanced her oversized body on the edge of the tub and licked the bubbles off my foot. She sneezed and jumped down, running into the kitchen. 25 years of my life-too many years for things to remain unchanged. Strange, now that Lisa was gone, in her absence I can see just who she was, who she's always been. For a long time I thought she was the lonely one, searching for connection. All those years in college I thought I was connected, responsible and stable. While she roamed through her life, it seemed in such a careless way, with no fixed direction. Now I understand that she knew all along that she was going somewhere. It didn't matter that she wasn't in school, that she worked with artists, posing nude for portraits and photographs. When asked what she planned to do with her life, she'd smile and say she wasn't sure, always an impeccable sense of content with her position in life. Sometimes I felt sorry for her, when the false stability of my future was compared to hers. Now here I was, with a degree for nothing. Suddenly deciding not to purse a career in business, not to get married, at least yet. Stuck in this apartment, twenty-and five years with no destination. After my bath, I sat outside on my patio with my neighbor, Eben. We ate the brownies that he brought over for a present. Below, Quentin hovered for a moment near the edge of the St. James River. "That guy gives me the creeps," I said. "What guy?" Eben shoved a brownie into his mouth and chewed, looking past me toward the river. "That." I turned around, Quentin was gone. "Nevermind," I said. "Anyway, I really want you to go to the Electric Blue with me Friday," he said. Eating my third brownie, I began to laugh uncontrollably. "To meet your stripper girlfriend?" I asked. "Her name is Jasmine, and yeah I want you to meet her." Something was wrong with the brownies; still I couldn't stop laughing. "Weed brownies! You jerk!" This time my eyes began to tear. "Sure, get me high so I'll say yes, yes I'll go with you to watch a bunch of strippers!" "So you will?" he sounded desperate. Swallowing the last bite of my brownie, I licked my fingers. "Hmmm, I'll think about it." Next time: JASMINE Send comments to: FIVEMILEBOOT@aol.com
|
|
|
|
Enable frames | |
|
home | out/about | events | personal | store | classified | real estate | forums | archives | contact |
||
