Her pt.2

Melissa and I had been officially seeing each other for a few weeks. To whom it was made official I’m not sure, but she had been staying at my place, and I had allowed Her toothbrush to grace my bathroom counter for more than a night. To me, that said “Official Couple”, to Her it probably said “Official Dumbass Has Allowed You In”. That was a term I began hearing a lot more, “dumbass”. She only called me that every now and then, but that was Her official description of everything, ESPECIALLY things she didn’t care to understand. “Look at that dumbass”, “What kind of dumbass”, “What the dumbass”, “Who in their dumbass mind”, trust me, it got old. But I was blinded by attraction, and, arguably, a dumbass about the ways of love or even a healthy relationship. It seemed the only healthy relationship was Her status with cigarettes and getting Her nails done.

I never asked how or where she got those nails fixed up every few days. Once, I was being catty with Her. We had the window cracked, a fresh breeze full of exhaust fumes and noise trickled in to vacate the stale smell of smoke and flesh. It wasn’t much of a trade, but the air was slightly colder than the muggy 90 or so inside. Thank God for the rotation of the Earth.


“You’re beautiful you know,” I said to Her.

She thumbed Her lighter, a spark lit up the messy apartment in a flash, the fire and cherry red of Her cigarette illuminated Her face. She looked up, letting smoke roll out of Her mouth as she spoke, “Yeah?”.

I gave Her a nod followed by a snarky grin, “From a distance, anyway.”

She shook Her head, turning it towards the window and the city, immediately seeming miles away from the stool she sat on, the apartment we lived in, us as a whole.

“Everything’s uglier up close.”


I wish I had listened to that. Rather, I wish that I had taken it seriously. I think at the time, I was too concerned with what I wanted. At that very moment, it was sex, but the way she turned and just.. departed from everything threw me off. I remember opening my mouth to say something, offer some cliche line of comfort, some stereotype that everything would come out better in the end. I remember thinking that maybe none of it mattered, and this was already falling apart.


I think that’s when the paranoia started.


It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Her. I don’t think either of us trusted the other, and that was kind of a mutual respect we shared. I didn’t think for a moment that she wasn’t doing something illegal for money to get Her nails done, and I think she thought I was always looking for a better trophy. To be honest, I wasn’t really, but knowing I had the option was nice. Despite our strange symbiosis of basic life functions, there were things that left gaping maws of uncertainty, and after too long you start to wonder why those gaps exist.

She brought a friend over one day. The first time I had ever seen or heard of any of Her friends. If I thought Melissa smoked like a chimney, Her friend was a barbecue smokehouse. I opened the door to the apartment and I wondered briefly if the whole place wasn’t on fire. I felt no sorrow for the loss of my pittance of a material collection, just a distant wonder if maybe I should have bought that renter’s insurance after all. That thought dissipated like the smoke cloud that had built up after I opened the window. Just Her, and Her friend, “Jane”. I don’t think that was her real name, so much of my life had just become assumptions and vague memories. Jane sounded as fake as her name, with an uptown vocabulary mixed in with lowtown accent and vulgarities. It was painful watching her try to pretend until you realized, she wasn’t pretending. She believed she was uptown proper who had just fallen on hard times. Yeah, the hard times just now happened, Jane. That’s right, give it another week or two and your man will be back on his feet, we will just wait and see. The war may have ended in proper, but the ripples of it were still sending shockwaves through the country. It had been quick and brutal, and there hadn’t been enough time for we civilians (more like peasantry these days) to adjust.

Based on the amount of left-over containers and lack of food, I could only assume Jane was trying to A: sell Melissa an absurd amount of plastic, B: sell Melissa an absurd amount of plastic AND get Her involved in what can politely be called a “Top Down Hierarchy of Management and Sales” (the pyramids died with the pharaoh's, sister), or C: Jane herself needed money to get a fix.

Jane was not pretty. Maybe once upon a time she had been but now she just tacky. Like a piece of hard candy, half chewed, half slobbered on, all left out in the sun to bake until someone unwittingly steps on it. From there it latches on and goes for one last ride before being unceremoniously scraped off and thrown away. Jane’s cheeks were sunken, her arms held bones but the skin was draped on them like a moth-eaten curtain hung over a banister. Her breasts looked like a pair of oranges inside tube socks, stuffed into a gaudy, shimmery blue dress. Her hair was probably what threw me off the most. Blue like her dress, and done into sort of a mini afro. This woman screamed problem. She was painted blue, but a red flag all the same.

As I opened the window I heard Jane going through her spiel, neither woman gave me even the slightest glance. Initially I was offended, but women ignoring me was nothing new in my life. It may not seem like it, but I liked Jane. She was a reminder that I had found something better, something that hadn’t eroded into a hollow shell of Herself. A reminder that the world had moved on but there were those still clinging to the old ways of life.

“C’mon darlin’, you know how rare these things are anymore,” her voice crackled like an old vinyl record with one too many plays. “It’s not like oil grows on trees,” oil came out almost like “ole” or “owl”, a random southern drawl had emerged. It was like Jane didn’t even know who Jane was, just went with whatever voice dripped into what remained of her brain. “Ye can’t even git cheap silverware no more. Let alone clean stabbers for your dribs!” I was sat by the window, trying desperately to turn my lungs into filters to no avail. But when she said this I looked over, she had a mostly toothless grin going, giving Melissa a knowing look. Her green eyes dropped and turned away, away from me, away from Jane, away from reality for a moment. That’s when Jane turned and saw me looking at the two of them with curiosity. Then her eyes did the same dance and Melissa’s.

“I… look, it’s gettin’ late. I need to be gettin’ back. Keep a few, see how ya like ‘em, you can bring ‘em back to the salon if ya don’t, or just bring me the money then, alright?” she gave that checkerboard smile to Her again. Melissa returned it with Her own, and grabbed a couple of the smaller containers. I can only imagine it was to humor Jane, we ate out mostly. Fresh food had become a luxury, especially on our end of town, but who knows, maybe a boxed meal might not be devoured entirely in one night.

Jane left with a last few goodbyes, Melissa saw her out. “I’ll see ya back at the salon, doll.” “Yeah, I’ll let you know then. Take care,” Her words drifted through the haze that hung in the apartment still. Jane lit up another smoke in front of our door and started her way down the hallway. Melissa shut and latched the door behind her, standard practice for us.


“Who was that?” I asked, “Friend from work?”

“Something like that,” she replied, Her eyes wouldn’t meet mine, “Just someone else down on their luck and trying to make some extra money.”

I snorted, “Like people have extra money these days.”


Somehow that was the end of that discussion. I stared out the window for what felt like hours. I stared until the mandatory power curfew kicked in and the streetlights went out one by one, block by block, until they hit our building and everything plunged into darkness. I heard the stroke of a lighter behind me, that sharp inhale as she took a drag on a cigarette.

It’s strange to think that despite the war, despite the economic ruin it was causing throughout our city, the vices were never in short supply. Tobacco, liquor, beauty products, grooming products, sports paraphernalia, movies, TV, drugs (so many drugs), all hung on like ticks in the lifeblood of cash. The law had become lax, the officers corrupt, the citizens unruly, it was a wonder we all hadn’t revolted. But I suppose if there was one thing a city full of capitalism and sedatives was good at, it was ignoring the obvious and painful truth:


The city was dying.


We were all dying, mostly from hunger, but also from our chosen vices. My vice was poor choices in women. Her’s seemed to be cigarettes and acrylic nails. But that day made me wonder. Dribs and stabbers seemed like slang, but for what I wasn’t sure. I could make an (un)educated guess that hung tightly onto assumptions and suppositions, but more importantly, the weight of guilt that coalesced as soon as Jane had brought it up. It wasn’t much to go on, but it felt important to remember.

Unfortunately when my brain decides to remember, it also decides to build foundations. Shakey ones at first, which grow into rock solid bases, which become the basis for all manner of thinking.


This was where my paranoia began: dribs and stabbers.