LeftExchange
Delilah’s Red Hair
A Theme Park Opera
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........... Delilah shows up in furtive smile or masked in coquettish glance.
........... Carlos sneers out an offering of tequila with the bold conquistador hand holding the bottle under Andy’s chin. A caboodle of co-workers thrive in the chortling kibosh of the gossip house, their hard boiled heads in assiduous exercise radiating from the epicenter over the lawn and out into the street like a ball of needles.
........... 'Happy Birthday, man, you gotta get some dis.' Clasp the bottle turning the label catching the Cuervo label. Laura’s lip-basting her muckraker’s.
........... Cuervo’ll douse the worries and drown this disfavor of that social fungus they’re cultivating. Andy hears it like a froth or some septic byproduct as he stands under the tree with Carlos on the front lawn. He sips his bilabial prayer of libation. A thorn of contempt prods Andy to the fringe of fresh air in milque-toast isolation. Among fellow sots in the apparition of night wind that runs puerile, enticing toward the Jacaranda down the street, his urge to walk aimlessly rises.
........... Summer hires start there bickering, recapping the hustle of the theme-park crowds and the madness that wells up until your standing over a hornets nest trying to answer to the buzz. Jimmy and Carlos begin exchanging stories. Andy stays in the rotation waiting for the bottle to come back around. The anger of a crowd of ripped-off, sunburn, tourists with Sea n’ Ski noses smelling like solar-cane in a swarm of aggravation maximizing their breakneck vacation, as a subject, no longer has any merit for Andy. These conversations begin to overlap and all he hears are a thousand variations of the same mundane altercation. New-hire enthusiasm almost breathes some life into the telling. Carlos adds color to the beaten horse. 'People stupid—this lady’s all saying like she’s from Iran and her plane’s leavin’ in ten minutes and I better let her into the show and shit. She sends her kids up a little later with some other story about this visit being the one and only visit to San Diego so they gotta get in. Then her husband, all towel headed and shit starts breaking through the chain up the ramp with one of his kids all yanked behind him. Sean and I caught him before he started a stampede of lame ass late idiots. ‘Hey I paid thirty five bucks to get in here and you gotta let me in’, so Joey’s up on it with the logistics sayin’ how all they gotta do is check the back on their map where it says they outta get there at least fifteen minutes before the show.' Milio cut in, 'I was at the back ramp of Dolphin the other day and some irate Arab takes a swing at me after I’ve explained to him I don’t know how many times, that his sand-dried ass ain’t slippin’ through. Shit, McPhail stepped in to clear the guy outta there or I woulda broke his nose off.'
........... Andy began to feel the sun. It could burn from within him like a long day on the drag or an eight-hour trash-shift on a busy July day. The years of sun inside him, petrified light of consecutive summers, sallow with memories he tries to preserve against the menial direction the of inane managerial force.
........... Somewhere a vat of forlorn sunglasses lost in haste lie in Oedipal prophosy of his inevitable blindness. From the beginning an opaque film, a sideways stammering of vision critical of the gaggle of managers perusing with persnickety eyes through the show areas, up-holding Park Management Standards as a superfluous fog of obsevational chatter. After deciding on who needs a little decumentation concerning their grouping tendencies, the prefects amble in their mid-morning deliberation over where they might catch lunch later.
........... He Stays-
........... Away from that sinecure sob and the clotted acrimony of standing ensiled by the acne of conversations popping like sun ripened zits that struck Andy’s face in a grimace as he imagined himself the mirror before their pinched purging.
........... Better to walk under the perfuse purple of an unprincipled sky as the avatar of emotions caught in frustration and prodigal paces. Andy, dilettante, unsettled Aries pondering nocturnal descants of abnegation, listening to the shlack…slhack-shlack…shlack of the blue bus sign with the white icon on the turgid pole. Walk back in reflection of scissors—tequila chemical augur—septicemia of desperation. Voices, the critical mass of controlled decibels binds him within the living-room warmth. Laura and Ryan are dancing near the kitchen, their eyes sown together with a lank smile that folds up into his eyesight like an unapproachable partition of social solidarity. Prima Facie: It's an affair maintained in collective imagination, and that makes it all the more vivid. Andy leaves the room for potatory possibilities.
........... Once a young man planted some crab grass
........... around the memory of his favorite flower, watering
........... the circle of gray-green that slowly choked the cherised
........... vision from the sunlight of his mind. Everyone who saw
........... the flower begin to die said that I was imitation crab grass,
........... that he should only water the proven seed. Confused, he
........... went out and bought himself a new rake, naming it
........... Karma-marga or path of action. He treid to forget about
........... the truth of flowers and delt only with nutrients of soil, sifting
........... every hour, of every day through a grounded medium.
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Was she a bitter-faced wallflower, her stomach turning in her usual disgust over the possibility that some young little picara might have her eyes on you. Oh, and vice versa: you the obligatory Don Juan, a reputation gained through the maxims of gossip- the insatiable ladies man of Hunts and Carrison.
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Her concerns are genuine. It’s not that I’m any sort of Don Juan. It’s how our relationship evolved from the Sarah sanctioned ruins of my last relationship with KB. She learned to face the eventuality of my betrayal; my self confessed art form of true, yet, ephemeral love. I’d grown out of that though. Still, it was like the bug in the irreversible pre-programming of her emotions for me. Her love was only passionate while I refused her. Her goal was to win me. She did, truly and entirely she did, and soon enough, after about a lustful year and a half of dreams suddenly harnessed, the banality of commitment transformed me in her eyes. I was a domestic amenity, like a favorite lampshade that the family makes favorable comments about from time to time and even dusts-off in passing- but that was it- I was something enjoyed in passing.
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She spoke so highly of you, and would even talk of her plans for marriage. Sure, she’d always mention your apprehension to marriage, but when it came down to it she wanted you, just you.
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But what we both recognized, as an honest couple, our individual dreams, how they differed and how we were torn in our hearts by our love. We can agree that relationships at certain stages require focused effort from each mate, and when a distance imparts itself, when a couple appears to be growing apart from one another, their minds must coax their hearts and urge open, honest communication committed to strengthening their union. I became aware of the distance in our relationship that arose of our differing social interest. I’ll avoid details. It got to the point where I was expected to attend all of her softball games and join her new set of friends, but she made no effort to involve herself in my life. And just from the way I’ve use the dividing language of ‘her life/my life’ indicates the separation that I feel she’s most responsible for having delineated what used to be our life.