They Know Me Everywhere



3.



Emily:

Try not to hate. Hating him won't help me. But I wish this anger



would subside



seated in rented townhouse condominium with cup of black tea and Camel cigarattes (for outside use only and remember smoke only seldom) seated in a beat up third hand chair (one of three) before a beat up third hand kitchen table procured at dump swap shop, seated with cup of black instant tea gazing out sliding glass door, gazing, wiped out tired, zoning out gazing at the snow and sleet mixture falling on the white ledge embankment that sloped down before and into oak and pine woods. Her 2 boys Nate and Mike aged 6 and 8 seated on the couch in the living room beyond watching a kid show on a color TV that has followed her everywhere now since her first, Mike, was born.



Nate with his once flaxen red hair now shading to a darker auburn hue, his bright hazel eyes and his father's curious monkey mouth. And sweet Mike with his secret black eyes and Billy's pale skin and Billy's sinewy catlike lanky coiled way too. Yes, she could see that



stealing an afternoon in the snow here because she can't reach Billy doesn't really care either this time really because of this angry (hateful) feeling that creeps in now creeps in always there some days more than others but especially now because Billy had come to her club last night and he was drinking and lurking and his black eyes had that flashing scaly look and as she finished one dance she quickly put her things back on and stepped quickly saying nothing to anyone, yes, she just about raced back to the DJ booth and said very seriously to Big Chuck who was yukking it up back there with Kris the DJ over their smokes and black coffees, she said to Big Chuck quickly and very seriously grabbing his big forearm and looking straight in his blue eyes, Chuck, Billy is here and I don't like how he looks. You better watch it.



And Chuck nodded now, not grinning through his huge wiry beard and she saw in his watery blue eyes that he understood her and she was glad that he was a good guy and not stupid because, of course, there had been a last time, and a time before that with old Billy Buck, who was tougher to tangle with because he was after all The Law, but also and more importantly a good and trusted friend to some



but then when she came out of the booth Billy was gone and it was just the darkened room with its colored lights and shadows and the endless thumping rap music and rock music and the drab guys with their drinks and their stares and their hairdos, cigarettes, egos, guilt, decadency, and their laughs a minute and in many cases their tawdry hopes, their lusting and their desire for her, toward her, near her, for what they thought she could do or worse should do for them with them to them



she had had her bright day full of hope and danger and lust and alcohol and drugs and it was gone. things had shaded blackly and she wished and dreamed sometimes that her life and her pain were melodrama, fire and blood, instead of this constant aching of quiet gray picayune tragedy, the mundane gritting machination of her own private pain all shot through this smallish city, taken hold and not letting go



The boys had been wanting a dog lately. And she wants to get them one. But how can they make that work? How could she make it work, fogged in as she was by the quiet, persistent madness of others so often thrust upon her – but oh and by whom? Or did she do it to herself, mainly, as she sometimes believed? Was there a ratio to whose fault it all was?



She could honestly say she wished she'd never known either of them. Never met them. She could remember the days before she'd ever heard of this used up dishwater town, ever knew of it, when her life was different her own fate still open. But those days were long gone now. But who I am isn't



the angry hating feeling had waned and now suddenly surged into wringing painful tears and she sat weeping, straining to be quiet about it, there at the table. I don't want them to see me, she thought, swallowing, suppressing any sniveling, peeking toward the couch where the boys sat in front of their shows inert, transfixed. still innocent.



She got herself under control. There were a lot of ways she knew how to be and one of the more useful ones was to be fucking tough as nails



She would have to call her mother to see if her mother could take the boys tonight. Clearly Billy was off now too. She reflected that there was really no difference between the two them, Billy and Buddy, despite what you saw on the outside.



She then thought that she could really use a drink and that she just might have one tonight. Then she thought



but I better not because then in that case I am just like them too



That is what she thought, and she saw that it was so.



She thought that she could really use a drink and then she thought that she just might have one tonight, just one, and of course she knew that she wouldn't because the two young ones were hers and hers only and they were innocent and she wanted them to be so. She was hanging on to herself now for them alone and only for them.



She knew Big Chuck had dogs.



Turning a page in her mind, she thought she’d have to have a conversation with him about that tonight.