Carpet
Rash and White Trashed Page
5
9/7/2002
Rain
Thirty-nine months. Thirty nine fucking long months and the drought was finally over. Thank you Chico State.
Morning
Two naked bodies entwined on the carpet beneath the telly under a blue sheet that came from I have no idea. Faith Hope must have put it over us in the middle of the night. Or late in the morning. I don't think we cashed in the gig until maybe five, if not later.
Patsy Cline sang "I Fall to Pieces" on CMT. Sunlight poured in the window to our left. Faith Hope opened her eyes for a second, closed them again, and mouthed the words. Diane walked-in looked at us with disgust, plopped down on the couch, picked-up the remote and changed the channel.
You could feel a surge through Faith Hope. She unwrapped herself from around me, and shot straight up from the floor.
"Goddamnit! Don't you ever interrupt Patsy Cline again! Ingrate! Heathen! Philistine!!!!"
Diane just looked at her, a naked Faith Hope standing before her ready to jump from her skin.
"Change it back to Patsy, damnit!"
"Okay, Okay," Diane whined as she clicked it back and left the room. "I didn't know that you were watching it," as she departed.
"Sacrilege!" Faith Hope said and wrapped herself back around me.
"My kind of girl!" I thought.
My shoulder blades were burning, as were my lower back, tailbone, and the middle of my butt. "That's what you get for letting her on top", I thought, "Worth it. Worth it in every way."
It was 8:30am.
Faith Hope let me hang around while she and the two others went to church.
"It's my uncle's church," she explained. "I have to go at least once before I head back to Chico."
"But you'll be back most weekends," I retorted.
"Yeah, but I haven't been all summer. I'll be cursed to hell if I don't go."
I watched Ten Things all the way through without a foreign, metallic tongue in my mouth. It made me want to go to Seattle.
Ciao Bella
I scribbled my phone number and email address on an envelope, found some Scotch Tape, and plastered it to the computer monitor in Faith Hope's room before she returned.
When the three ladies did return, Faith Hope bounded back to her bedroom where I was half asleep. She jumped on me and planted multiple smoochies. I pointed to the envelope on the monitor and said, "Don't forget me."
"How can I?"
"I don't know," I responded, "Coming to your senses...Bottle of Vicodin...Severe blow to the head...Getting to know me better and seeing me for the directionless piece of shit I am..."
She raised her head from mine and those deep brown eyes shot stinging daggers into mine.
"Okay self-esteem boy," she said, "Don't make me start analyzing this coupling and start thinking, 'Oh, this cool,Cowboy dude from Texas almost the age of my dad only slept with me because he hates himself.' Don't do that to me Mr. Issues. Don't fucking do that to me."
I laid on my back and looked at the ceiling fan whirring above.
Faith Hope grabbed me by the mouth and turned my face toward her.
"When you fuck me," she said, "You'd better fucking mean it."
A week later, those words still echo in my head.
Diane was ready to roll. I kissed Faith Hope one last time.
"Ciao Bella. Have a nice college."
She just laughed and tweaked my nose.
"Get some counseling," she whispered in my ear.
"Maybe from you," I whispered back.
"Not my job," she whispered again, putting her finger over my lips, and kissing me on the cheek.
"Go away now," she said with a gentle tone, index finger still on my lips, patting me on the butt, and pushing me toward the door.
Diane, observing this exchange from a distance, just rolled her eyes at me when I walked up to her. I saw her looking back at Faith Hope, giving her the rolling eyes, too.
Heading back to Midtown in Pop's van, love seat in the back, Rio Fucking Linda never looked so fucking good.
BJR
9/7/02
