M.

His shoes stopped squeaking and his plastic grocery bag stopped swinging and M. found himself standing atop the hill, in the middle of the street, looking west towards the Pacific and panting from his quickened pace. He doffed his neon green cap and scratched his bald pate and he could see the blue vastness from where he was perched even though he was still fifteen minutes away from that oceanfront terrain known as Sunset Cliffs, walking - ten if he ran, which he would have to do now if he wanted to save himself.

In spite of his hurry, even when M. was ready to run again he still took time to reflect on the area around him - at the intersection of Santa Monica Avenue and Santa Barbara Street - because the sound of traffic was muted there and the houses were big enough for whole families to live in, with several cars in their driveways and lawns kept cut. And now, when passing through with that terrible scent lingering in his nose, and his grocery bag and clothes smelling of decaying sun and salt and sweat, he salivated at the serene functionality of it all: the furniture that was bought with the intention of matching the walls and paintings in specific rooms; the flowers in vases and pots that were either budding or blooming all year round; the flickering of television sets; the ringing of door bells; the open windows on second floors leading into dark rooms with parquet ceilings and a sluggish fan; the golden retriever; the wafting of full course meals; the lights; the talking.

M. shook his head and made a nervous sound and said, “No!” and put his neon green cap back on and started running - shoes squeaking, bag swinging - down the hill, passing palm trees with their tops reminiscent of bursting fireworks and the fourth of July celebrations of his adolescence: days when society had welcomed him.

Yes, his youth was spent inside of these houses with friends who had important fathers and cultured mothers. He would sit down at their tables and eat their food and the mothers would satisfy any needs he might have for seconds, and then, when everyone in the house was asleep except for him and his friend, he would go into their kitchens without asking for permission and pop open a can of soda, or a bag of gourmet chips, or make himself a sandwich with meat and cheese and freshly baked bread from the deli.

But now, forsaken by his family because of his slothfulness, M. was a vagabond who lived in a shelter with the sound of airplanes soaring closely overhead and ate the food that was donated by the churches of different denominations in Ocean Beach - mostly canned vegetables and fruits - or from the soup kitchens in the vicinity, or from a trashcan in front of Little Italy, a restaurant under new ownership that he happened to pass twice a day while walking west and then back east on Voltaire Street and usually had a half-eaten slice of pizza, or a crust, or the remnants of an unfinished calzone somewhere near the top of its refuse pile.

However, M. had already passed the trashcan once today - while traveling west towards the Pacific - and, upon digging, found something of a completely different nature: a whiff of a terrible scent capable of giving life to a dead man - his own scent! - that wrinkled his nose and parched his throat and made his tongue heavy and changed a part of his heart into stone.

And it was this scent that made M. start running to Sunset Cliffs, running to save himself.

 

P.

Just out of the shower, P. was standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom - door closed, window open - and the towel was wrapped around her body - from her chest down - and her black hair was still wet, scattered and clumped along her neck and shoulders. Sometimes music from a radio would play in from the traffic on Voltaire Street and she would listen to the beat behind the melody and let her hips absorb the rolling of her waist. And when the words were familiar she would sing without humming beforehand and her voice would make the pigeons on the gable roof above her second-floor window coo and flap their wings.

Suddenly, the coquet lifted the tongue of the towel and let her cover fall down in folds and, when the instep of her feet was the only part of her concealed, P. filled herself with pride by imagining all of the men who would suffer from commotion in their hearts if they were to see her as she was now: denuded, capable of granting any wish with her hands above her head and her fingers massaging the air and her bellybutton stretched and shallow, reaching up to her breasts and down to her . . . The door opened and Bethany, her roommate, walked in. Though P. was aware of the entrance, she did not respond, and Bethany, as was her custom, stood on the threshold and compared her own body to the one standing in front of the mirror that was dancing and singing intermittently. However, there was nothing envious in her stare, only indifferent and weighing, and, at the end of her analysis, she curled the ends of her lips into a grin and said in her bubbly way, “It’s beautiful out; you wanna go down to the beach?” It was only then that P., continuing to massage the air with her fingers, averted her eyes from the mirror and looked at her roommate and answered in between singing a song: “Let’s go . . . down-to-the . . . cliffs . . . instead.” “You mean in one of those coves?” “Yeah. We . . . could . . . tan-there.” “Hey, yeah! That sounds like fun. Just let me change.” At this, Bethany walked across the short hallway and into her bedroom and disappeared behind the door of a small closet, where she slid her panties off and lifted her oversized t-shirt above her head and changed into her bikini.

Meanwhile, P. was left naked in her bedroom with her arms above her shoulders, both door and window open, through which nothing except for the sound of hollow tires came, along with the abrupt squeaking of a pair of shoes, sprinting towards the west. Unable to roll her waist into her hips any longer, or even sing - the music from car radios was lacking - she followed Bethany’s lead and changed into her favorite bikini, a baby blue number that she covered once over with a sarong and tank top.

 

D.

The book in his hands was a novel, and D. was beginning to read his quota of fifty pages for the day. He was shirtless - wearing only boxer shorts - and sitting in front of his second-floor window, the sun heating him up; and feeling calm, that is, until a bus roared east on Voltaire Street. This clamber made him distort his face and curse man because the noise was too loud and there was no need for all of this transportation and everything bothered him when he should have been alone in his bedroom, undisturbed. However, the sound of its engine attenuated into relative silence before he could get irate and he found his calm again and steadied his eyes on the words and soon the page turned and he was involved in the novel like before.

But then a motorcycle hogged by and the man riding it was wearing sunglasses with his beard sailing in the wind and D. thought about throwing a rock at him if he ever passed him on the street and was within throwing distance. “Hey you bastard! Will you let me read in peace now or what?” he thought to himself angrily when the purr of the motorcycle had faded. And the answer he received was in the form of tolerable silence, so he gruffed a “Jesus Christ” and focused on the page again and read the next string of words, involved.

But then an orange van that did not pass the smog test and was playing music and was in need of a tune-up drove by outside of his window and he looked at the van and cringed at the noise that came from its speakers and exhaust and wanted to leap from his bedroom window and onto its roof and start beating it with his fists - shirtless - until the driver pulled over and stepped out of the van and looked up and then D. would spring on the cause of his disturbance and bellow and berate him with: “My God! Don’t you realize how much I hate you? Don’t you see how obnoxious you are, you fool? What makes you think it’s all right to make more noise than other people, ah? Have some consideration, you savage! And go home! And leave me alone!”

At this, D. regained his breath and slowed his heart until his face was drained of red and then he heard the sound of squeaking shoes approaching. A vagabond holding a plastic grocery bag and dressed in blue jeans that were stained green and a flannel jacket that was stained green and a neon green cap that was sitting at a slant on his head entered the scene, from east to west. D. watched him move, already angry with him because of his seedy gait. Then the noise from his shoes stopped when the vagabond passed by a trashcan, where he rummaged on the surface and then a little below and then paused and scrunched his nose and let his mouth and eyes go agape before shuddering and running farther west - towards the Pacific - squeaking and empty handed. “Look at that damn bum,” said D. aloud. “Man, I wish he could see himself sifting through the trash, looking shameful, and for what - a morsel of food? Jesus Christ, man sure is savage; nothing but a beast I tell you! Run away you bum! You worthless bum! Get away from here!”

Frothing with wrath, D. kept his eyes on the vagabond until he left the scene to the west, at which point his gaze strayed up two-stories from the street and into an open window, where he saw a woman with her arms above her shoulders, bare ass staring at him - frozen - the leanness wanting to thaw into action. “Hmm . . . damn, I’ve never seen this before,” he wondered, content, and then he let his book close by itself and edged closer to the cheeks and crack until his forehead touched his window; but this was where his advance stopped. It was then that the woman was prompted into action and, with control and deliberation, picked out a baby blue bikini from her dresser. And as she turned to profile and bent over slightly to snap the top into place he saw her breasts and her thin shoulders and the definition between the front and back muscles of her legs and the way her body tapered at her waist. D. sensed commotion in his heart and felt himself stretch out to her and he hastened into his bathroom, where he sinned and flushed and came out shortly thereafter, emptied and smitten.

 

P.

“Where do you want to lay out?” asked Bethany. They were at Sunset Cliffs, in the only cove that was empty of other basking women. “How ‘bout right here,” said P., already placing her towel onto the sand. Bethany, without looking at the other options, set her towel next to her roommate’s and took off her shirt and shorts and lay down. “God it’s a beautiful day! Isn’t it?” asked Bethany, as if the sun and cloudless sky still necessitated this question. “Uh-huh, I really don’t know why people live anyplace else,” offered P. in a humoring tone. “I know! Right? It just doesn’t make any sense.” Bethany giggled in disbelief and then silence followed and the two women burned supine underneath the sun - bodies shinning - and P. decided to take off her baby blue top.

“Excuse me, Miss? . . . Miss? . . .” Bethany looked up at the ledge that circumscribed the cove and saw two male cops in shorts and sunglasses, one shorter and older than the other, looking down at them, and when she realized that they were not speaking to her she tapped P. on her shoulder. The shorter and older one then said, “Could you please put your top back on? This isn’t a topless beach.” Annoyed by the tapping, P. looked up and smiled and, though she attempted to fill herself with pride by trying to sense commotion in their hearts, though she even tried to instigate commotion by pressing her breasts together and making the bulk of them spill forth from in between her arms, she found only a steady beat, undisturbed. This sobered P., and she said to herself: “Hmph, that’s strange.” But then she realized that they did not belong to her species - no, they were not man - they belonged to The Law. This relieved P. and she said aloud: “Oh, so that’s why!” “Miss,” suddenly blurted the shorter and older one, growing impatient, “now if you could please hurry and put your top back on or else I’ll be forced to give you a ticket.” P. nodded her head and sat up halfway on her towel and did what she was asked to do without telling him that his request went against what should have been his very nature.

It was then that a scream came from the next cove down - and the screaming intensified, refusing to stop.

The cops looked at each other with perplexity in their mouths and density in their eyes and gripped their belts before following the ledge over to the squalling. When the screaming worsened Bethany, infused with curiosity, climbed the trail that lead up to the same ledge and traced the cops’ footsteps all the way until a boulder, where she hid and spied. Minutes later she returned, panic-stricken, and said to P., “My God, there’s a dead man over there!” “What?” “Yeah, a dead man - some woman found the body. C’mon, you have to see this.” So P. went up the trail and met Bethany and together they hid and saw a man without any clothes on, his body white and clean except for a rupture on the back of his bald pate, where he must have hit the edge of a boulder on his way into the Pacific.

“Hey - do you smell that, Bob?” suddenly asked the shorter and older cop, roving his nose over the dead man, and his partner, Bob, while using his hands and words to assuage the screaming woman, quickly answered, “Uh-huh,” and then went back to his mutterings.

Bethany, managing to overhear their conversation, immediately started sniffing the air and soon said, “Hey yeah . . . I smell that, too. Do you smell that?” So P. quivered her nostrils and the scent she picked up closed her eyes and lay her down on a patch of moist soil - a flowerbed teeming with violets and roses and hyacinths and oleanders - and she breathed in until her bottom three ribs showed symmetrically, and then she opened her eyes, charged with fragrance, and saw something that beckoned her. On the edge of the cliff, above the cove where the dead man had washed ashore, P. saw a mound of clothes stained green - topped by a neon green cap - and a plastic bag and a pair of shoes next to them, flaps blowing in the wind.

“A clue,” thought P., and she dodged unseen towards the evidence, where she opened the bag and saw a comb with several missing teeth, an index card with a list of science fiction books below the heading: MUST READ, random colored flyers that she had seen hanging on posts and the bulletin board at the Ocean Beach Public Library, an empty can of green peas without a lid, and crumbs of pizza crust and calzone. Although none of this told her anything pertinent enough to build on, when she focused on the pile of dirty clothes stained in green and smelt the decay in their fabric she was hit by an impression that her subconscious soon supplied the details to, and she recalled seeing this vagabond before, walking outside of her window on Voltaire Street. That was when she could not stop herself from uttering, “Of course, the trashcan!”

“Hey, did you find anything?” whispered Bethany, who was still behind the boulder, unable to pry her eyes off the wound and the wet hairs sticking to the dead man. “Nope,” curtly answered P., “nothing.”

 

D.

There were black clouds in the sky and it was already twilight - the objects on the street darkled - and D., sitting fully dressed in his unlit bedroom with a camera prepared, wondered when the woman who he had seen through the window across the street in the morning would return. After his shower he had not taken his eyes off the spot where she had once stood naked, not even to begin reading his book anew or to throw wrath at noisy passersby, and then the light switched on and she came in alone wearing her sarong and tank top, baby blue bikini visible underneath. He pressed his forehead against his window and waited to see what she would do next and thought, “I wonder what her name is? She looks like a Jessica, or maybe even an Audrey. Nah, it’s definitely Jessica. Yeah, for sure. Damn she’s beautiful.” Then D. lifted the camera in his hands and focused on his Jessica and zoomed in as much as his lens would allow. He could see her lashes curving upwards and her eyes wide and black and the space in between her upper lip and nose - magnetic - and a more feline face he had never seen. There was a click and her image was made into pixels that showed on the small LED on the back of his camera. He looked at her in the screen and put her at eyelevel and spoke to her: “You know what, Jessica?” “What?” “I was just thinking . . . now that I have you I don’t want anything else from life; you’ve sapped my ambition.” “But is that a good thing?” “That’s a great thing.”

D. kissed her mouth and when he had separated from her lips he noticed that the light across the street had been turned off. “What?” he asked, urgency in his voice. His head darted in search of his Jessica, and then he saw her walking east on Voltaire Street. He focused on her with his camera and saw that she had not changed out of her sarong and tank top even though the temperature had gotten brisk. However, she had put on tennis shoes. Then she stopped by the trashcan in front of Little Italy and D. was certain that she had forgotten her purse to pay for her take-out order of baked ziti and garlic bread. That was why he was surprised when she started rifling through the trash like that vagabond he saw earlier - her black hair falling over her cheeks, her arms vanished in the heap - and when she surfaced her expression was vacuous and repugnant; disgusted with whatever she had discovered. It was then that D. heard her say the word, “No!” and she bolted west down Voltaire Street, towards the Pacific.

D. whispered, “Wait, something’s wrong?” and dropped his camera and tore out the front door of his apartment and down the cement stairwell and saw his Jessica running in the distance. “Damn she’s sure fast!” and he tucked his elbows close to his torso and kept his upper body as quiet as possible as he propelled himself forward with his legs, in pursuit. When he reached the top of the hill he saw the blue expanse looming and the figure of his Jessica nearing its beach, chugging along without a break in her pace. He hastened in her direction until he could hear her panting and he could see the muscles in her calves and the way her ass was like a motor. “Wait!” he yelled. “Wait up!” Only she did not acknowledge his pleas. Instead, she turned south when she reached Bacon Street and picked up speed until she was running in the red. “Wait!” he tried again. “Please!” Then came Santa Cruz Avenue, where she turned west passed a yellow sign that cautioned all those who entered with the words, NOT A THROUGH STREET, and sprinted down the wooden staircase that led to Sunset Cliffs. D. was close behind her now, feeling like he could trip her if he tried, if he needed to keep her from falling. But he did not have to do anything because she stopped on her own accord, loose grains making her skid, and walked, as if being pulled, to the highest precipice, where she looked out in the distance, at the diffused line between horizon and sky.

“What’re you doing?” asked D. No answer. So D. tried again, “Jessica, please.” The woman turned around and laughed and said, “I’m not Jessica. What made you think I was Jessica?” “Well, every Jessica I know is beautiful.” “You think I’m beautiful?” she asked, her body automatically perking up to further his compliment. However, it was this last movement that made D. unable to respond, and she sensed commotion in his heart. And that was when the woman he would only know as his Jessica cringed and said, “No!” and then stumbled backwards into the Pacific, thudding against the tip of a boulder. D. shouted and rushed towards the edge, but when he searched for her he only saw waves, a lot of waves crashing.

Later on that night, in the early morning of the next day to be more precise, D. saw what he had been waiting for: her body washed ashore. He walked over to her and could not see the wound on the back of her head because her black hair was draped over it. Other than that, she looked white and clean. “What was your name, Jessica?” asked D. and he did not feel the tear curl down his cheek when he knelt down beside her - when he noticed the way her tank top stuck to her chest and the way her sarong outlined her thighs - and he could not remember her naked, and he did not dare to try. Then he was drawn towards the space in between her upper lip and nose, where he kissed her and felt nothing stir inside of him, as if the woman who had made him sin just yesterday was suddenly sexless.

 

[END]

© 2004 Michael Davidson - Contributor's Bio