Gasoline

The day Innocence confronted the Divine Playwright

Ma, when will I get a new dress?
Soon child, sometime soon.
Ma, I want one just like Anita’s.
Okay. Are you done with your homework?
Please ma, every girl talks of her new dress, they asked me when I’d get mine.
Hmmm…
Ma. I’ve decided I’ll go for the same design as Anita’s but not pink like hers, let us buy one that’s orange in color. I love the color orange.
I’ll stitch you a better one sweetheart.
But ma, I want a dress just like Anita’s, all my friends liked it so much. I don’t want you to stitch one ma.
You cannot have a dress like that child, we cannot afford clothes like that.
Please ma, why can’t I have a dress like Anita’s? I have been a good girl ma, haven’t I? Please ma…please…sniff
Stop bothering me now and go do your homework, I’ve got loads of work to finish
Sniff…you always say that…
You want to know why you cannot afford a dress like that. You want to know don’t you, you little fiend? Because your daddy is a poor loser, that’s why….
What do you think you’re telling that girl you wretch?...

"For thyn is the kingdom...power and the glory...forever ....and ever...Amen"

The Blessed Damozel - PART2

Sunday 8:00 am. Vicky was up and awake. Her trained eye was now at work scanning the room. She was yet to spot what she was looking for when Jim awoke. Jim did not appear pleased seeing her in his shack. Jim cursed her in a mumble. Vicky’s profession had taught her resilience when it came to customers behaviors. Jim’s mumble and many other words like that weren’t a curse to her anymore she only looked at him and her mind was preoccupied with something else. She remembered he was smiling the previous night when they were together. Now the expression was demoniac, it was the same with every man, no matter how much they enjoyed the broad’s company, the next morning the men always woke up with a “holier than thou” attitude. The whore is never offered coffee for her previous night’s services, and they are trained not to expect such occurances either, because Jim and every other man on earth are hypocrites. Vicky got off the edge of the bed and was now sitting on the floor pretending to be searching for her clothing while actually she continued to look around. He cursed her again and threw money on her face and was threatening to smash her face if she didn’t get her filthy body out of his place the next minute. Vicky stooped down to collect the fallen notes when she noticed it. It was below his bed glistening, it was his saxophone.

Vicky collected her money and walked out, on her way back her mind raced back to two years ago when Jim had promised the world to her, and she had believed him. Jim was an aspiring musician. He was working on shifts as a delivery man, and practicing his saxophone. He had a dream of making it big in the world of music, and Vicky had her share in that dream, it was their dream. Vicky was a waitress at the bar, and he would pick her after her work. He would play to her his compositions and Vicky thought Jim was the best. Soon Vicky realized that she was pregnant with Jim’s child. Jim had been happy to hear the news and they had exchanged rings. Soon the child was due in a couple of months and Jim began to change. He would come home late at nights, drunk and angry and curse her and the unborn child for having screwed up his career and life. Vicky would cry herself to sleep most nights, and hope things would better. Vicky was being cared only by another co waitress at the bar, who’d come in after Jim had left and be out before jim could arrive. The child soon arrived into the world, a sweet little girl. Jim wasn’t pleased as Vicky thought he would be. Jim hardly caressed the child or cared for its mother. Vicky cried for a change, and the one day it happened. Jim came home smiling in his hand was a pacifier he had bought for the kid.

Vicky was glad to see him smile. She was glad she waited for him, glad that she’d be able to live their little dream. He went up to Vicky’s side on thee bed, held her close whispering little promises of love and finally told her, he needed her help. There was this guy at the radio station who had promised to record his numbers. But he wasn’t going to do that for free. The cash he had saved was used up for Vicky’s and the child’s medical expenses. Both their little savings couldn’t possibly amount to his demand, and that was where Vicky could come in...he whispered the rest into her ear. It was necessary to whisper this part because Jim knew he wasn’t doing the right thing, so he whispered as if the baby would understand his words. Tears streamed down Vicky’s cheeks, she sniffed for about an hour and finally told him that she loved him and would do what he thought was the right thing to do, because she dreamed his dream....

-- Sujay Sukumar

Epilogue:
The Blessed Damozel
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away!

Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea
Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.
Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!

The Blessed Damozel - PART1

8:30 pm Saturday. The man Jim saw in the broken mirror in his shack was unshaven; he had unkempt hair and a permanent frown. It was a face that made kids look away, but the face appealed to Jim, it was a man’s face. Apart from that face, Jim owned 2 pairs of jeans, a couple of t-shirts, a knife, a Zippo cigarette lighter, and a year long subscription of Playboy. There was something else he owned from a pretty long time that was put away in some corner in the shack, but it didn’t occur to him now. He still wore the ring that Vicky had slipped into his finger the previous year, or maybe the year before that, he couldn’t remember exactly. The ring did not mean much to him anymore; it didn’t remind him of much either, and it wasn’t important anyway, nothing was.
He didn’t have to make deliveries on Saturdays, so he’d done what he usually did on Saturdays – hang out at the bar. He had come home early from the bar that evening, he was hardly drunk. He was looking into the mirror now and started to run the comb over his hair, today he would spend some cash on the broads, the thought excited him and he grinned exposing his nicotine stained teeth.

10 pm. Jim walked towards the alley, and everything in the neighborhood looked familiar. It was as if the same scene was being played out by a bunch of actors every night. Even the street cat seemed to play its role perfectly for the hundredth time, puffing its fur and looking at Jim from the corner where the overflowing trash cans were. The place even smelled the same. And now the whores were in view, he no longer cared about the scene or the smell, all that mattered was the woman he’d take to his shack. He stopped short of crossing the road, and a car zipped by, Jim cursed loud enough to cause the vagabond sleeping at the street corner to shift sides, nothing else changed. One of the broads seemed to be looking at him from across the street; soon a couple of them had noticed him.

‘Rose’ wasn’t a selling name, but it hid her identity well, just like the makeup that hid the dark circles around her eyes. The name did not make her ashamed of what she was doing. When she went by that name, she felt as if she was looking at the world through someone else’s eyes, sometimes she even heard the thoughts of that person, but the person wasn’t her at all, the person was a hooker called Rose. But then who was she? How had things gotten so crazy? It was precisely at this point that she abruptly ended the stream of thoughts every time.

10:04 pm Rose was with the other girls that Saturday night looking out for customers when she felt a car approaching them. Suddenly her composure changed and she was soon giggling. She felt something being released into her blood on the sensation of that car, soon the instictive crazy feeling followed making her do all the right things that made her a successful broad. Her instincts were great. Today her instinct made her stare at the road for a fraction of a second longer than she usually would and she noticed somebody emerging from the darkness of the alley. The approaching car had now pulled over next to the group of girls and the guy at the wheel was nervously smiling at her tapping his fingers on the steering wheel all the time. It's that high school kid again,Rose told herself. The kid was too young and too rich to haggle with her prices, and he did not spank or hurt her, he wasnt into bondage and fetish like her other rich customers, he was almost certainly her favourite customer. And then she glanced back at the alley, and swallowed hard.

In a flurry of nods and gestures, signalling to the kid and the girls, she sent the kid off with another girl and waited for the man approaching from the alley. Something made her wait, suddenly she wasn’t Rose anymore. Vicky recognized that walk, and she was scared of something she couldn’t tell. Jim had crossed the road and was soon walking towards the girls. For a fraction of a second their eyes met, he quickly turned them away. Jim was deliberately looking at every other girl on the street apart from than Vicky.
Meanwhile Vicky was unable to hear any sound, her legs trembled, and she saw things in little jerks. She watched him as he enquired with the girls, she saw him growing increasingly annoyed trying to make a deal with the girls, Then she saw him throwing an cold stare at her, her fear grew, little droplets of sweat were forming on her brow. Then in a flash she saw Jim approaching her, she heard him curse his job for not paying him enough to afford a decent hooker, and before she could react he was dragging her by her hand, and she wasnt protesting, it was as if she was hypnotized.

To be contd...