Throwing Copper (739 hits)
Category: RomanceRating: 1.53 on 15 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by lodikcom (View user info) at 2005-06-05 23:29:16 EDT
While most people would say the way to judge someone's mood using music is to pay attention to the temper of the songs played, I promise you, the correct way to do this with Em is to take into consideration the music's pure quantity.
I'm lying in bed and she's in the bathroom bellowing along to an Ani DeFranco song aptly named Untouchable Face. This is a somewhat pessimistic song, but that alone is not a hint that Em is pissed off. You know she's pissed because at last count she's played this song twenty three times in a row. Anticipating her bad mood, I roll over and place my feet on the floor beside the bed. I shift my weight to my feet, and call to her as I get up.
"Good morning honey."
Em sticks her head out of the doorway and shoots me a glance. Her black hair is wet and hanging in her face. Since I can't see her eyes, it's hard to tell just how pissed she might be. Just before she flicks the hairdryer on, she says, through the cloud of steam coming through the doorway, "Can't talk I'm in a hurry."
Through audible bursts of heat and water she tells she's got to go. She doesn't have to be at work today, but she has to run to her place and then take care of something. As she's telling me this, I'm slipping my shirt on over my shoulders.
I stare at the small box on the dresser, as she walks out the door, and I tell her that I need to talk to her tonight. I reach to feel her belly, but she bolts to the door and I say, "Let's meet at Our Place around, say, 9?"
"OK. Sounds good. I'll have to talk to you by then too. Later," she says, and walks out the door.
Let me tell you a little about Em.
I already told you she'll listen to the same song over and over when she's in a bad mood. This is particularly funny when the only CDs around are something horrible like Cher or Live's Throwing Copper.
Oh yeah, she's also an atheist who doesn't believe in putting syrup on her pancakes.
In the morning she likes to eat dry brittle pancakes. This has always bothered me because how can you trust someone who doesn't like toppings on her cakes. I mean, how can a person like that have any morals?
Em, she says, she stopped believing in God the day her mother committed suicide. Her claim is that the moment she found her mom in the tub, she knew God was dead.
When you ask her if the whole mother suicide, God dead thing is alluding to the fact that her mother was God, she'll tell you that, no, Jesus was a messiah, and unfortunately her brother isn't dead yet.
How Em and I started dating was, I took her virginity and then broke her heart. Months later, I caught her crying alone in a room full of store mannequins and consoled her. That moment, us alone in a room of plastic corpses, she said was beautiful.
Now sometime, years perhaps, later we've been dating for a couple of years. We practically live together and our friends always ask why we haven't gotten married. She says it's because she'll say no, and I say it's because she'll say no. Tonight, I'm forgetting all of that.
Tonight, I'm going to ask Em, the woman pregnant with my child, to marry me.
So here we are.
It's 9 o'clock, and I'm at "Our Place".
Our Place, it's this abandoned school. I know it sounds funny, but we had this special moment here once. What happened was we both went to this party someone threw here. I know it's weird throwing a party in and abandoned school, but we were in college and we thought is sounded cool.
So anyways, we knew each other before this party, and she was pissed about seeing me because I had broken her heart. Later that night, I found her alone in this one classroom full of plastic corpses. I sat with her for hours, holding her. That is when we fell in love.
So that old room, that's where I am now.
It's 9:05 and I can hear Em's shoes knocking up the hallway.
Now that she's here, Em is trying to talk, but I hold my hand over her mouth and tell her to let me go first.
I place my hand over her stomach, our baby, and kiss her cheek.
"Em, will you marry me?"
Right now, I'm starring at her while she's crying for the second time in this room. They're tears of joy this time, but I still want her to stop. I want her to just get it over with and say, "Yes"
This is where she leans over me kneeling in front of her and says what she always promised she would.
"No," she whispers.
Now I'm a little surprised. I should have seen this coming, I'm sure you did, but I guess I was being a little hopeful.
"But Em, please what about our baby?"
"My baby has nothing to do with this."
Now, what does she mean that our baby has nothing to do with this? It's my fucking kid, I want to take care of it, and I want to show my baby that I love his mother. So once again I ask her, "What about the baby?"
"Forget my baby."
"How can I forget our baby? Huh Em? Tell me that. How am I supposed to just, up and forget?"
"Easy, I aborted the baby this morning."
Ok yeah, I'm a little pissed now. I'm yelling a bunch of stuff about atheist bitch this, cunt that, but none of it is helping. So I just ask her how she could kill our baby without even talking to me.
"It was my baby, my body, to do what I wanted with."
What does she mean by that shit? It was my fucking kid too. I yell at her to shut up and stop acting like, and referring to it as "her baby". It was my baby too.
"It was my baby Victor. It was inside of me."
"Yeah, it was inside of you, but I was the father. It wasn't some fucking virgin birth or anything. You're the one who doesn't believe in God so you should know that. For God's sake, I love you."
"I know Vic, but you weren't the father."
This is where I listen to Heartbreak Hotel a few, hundred, times in a row.
User Reviews
Submitted by Tigre (user info) at 2008-09-28 23:04:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Right on. I wish you'd come back..
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-09-13 19:48:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I know I read this long ago, so why didn't I comment? Probably because I was either a noob, or was reading a bunch of your stuff all at once and didn't want to seem stalky. Either way, thanks to kk for resurrecting it, and why don't you post something? You're so goddamned ELUSIVE.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-03-13 01:46:02 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Good story.
Submitted by AshyLarry (user info) at 2005-06-06 11:12:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Gotta live, gotta live, gotta live
in Shit Towne
Submitted by QueenAshlee (user info) at 2005-06-06 06:40:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Ha...
Submitted by williamson (user info) at 2005-06-06 04:06:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bloody Em.
Submitted by dragonninja (user info) at 2005-06-06 03:53:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Way to fuck with my conscience
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2005-06-06 03:43:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
A few nice moments but in desperate need of a second draft.
Submitted by Viciousriffs (user info) at 2005-06-06 03:08:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
And it had to end like that....
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2005-06-06 01:07:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
damn good...
fuck live.
Submitted by Saxon (user info) at 2005-06-06 00:39:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice stuff, a fun read.
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2005-06-06 00:27:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
interesting
Submitted by mockidol (user info) at 2005-06-06 00:17:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
yeah, i like live too.
i just threw that in to piss people off...
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2005-06-06 00:15:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
good story, but Live's Throwing Copper is a great CD.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-06-05 23:38:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
A classic example of why one should hit it, and forget it.