Dreams Deferred (691 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 2 on 13 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by goferforhire <goferforhire.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2006-08-20 17:05:02 EDT
Sasha wrote a poem. It wasn't a very good poem, but it rhymed and it used a few big words, so she was pretty happy with it. She kept it in her purse for a very long time, occasionally finding it by mistake and getting a good laugh out of it. Every now and then she'd reach for her credit card, feel its folded, awkward weight and smile. One time, it sort of saved her life, in a convoluted way. I was there, and I still don't get it.
I met Sasha completely by accident on the hottest day of the year, or rather re-encountered her. I was getting coffee in a daze, completely lacking in a good night's rest or a healthy breakfast. The thrice-pierced semi-man behind the counter got a good chuckle out of my several botched attempts at ordering a caramel latte. I hid a 'fuck you and your mother' behind a forced yawn and took a seat at one of the tables. The coffee was too hot, but the steam twirled out and in my sleepless trance it had all the vital signs of a Chinese dragon. I blew on it, it died, and I gave myself three cheers as a conquering hero.
A laugh interrupted my victory dance. She was staring at me and chuckling at my stumbling antics. She was just as you would picture the name- visibly Eastern European down to the pale skin, pale eyes, dark hair and voluptuous figure. The accent didn't match, though. Honestly, I couldn't figure it out.
"What are you doing, David?" She asked me.
"How on earth do you know my name?" I countered, wide-eyed and intimidated.
She smiled, slight and ironic, and gestured to my chest. The left mound of bicep and flab was emblazoned with a 'hello my name is' sticker and a scribble in sharpie that distinctly bore my signature. Who knew? I grinned sheepishly.
"Sorry, I didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night. Who are you?" I tried to blink some sense into myself as she chuckled a reply.
"I'm Sasha Von Straum."
And the conversation died. Just like that. I wasn't in a place to talk and she didn't look bright enough to run the show on her own, so I just sipped my too-hot latte and tried to experience a jolt of energy from the caffeine. We sat in a thick silence for a few minutes before she got up, placed a piece of paper on the table, and walked away. I felt some momentary excitement when I saw that it had a phone number attached, but disappointment took over readily. She was a whore. At least, her business card said she was. I mean she used a fancier term than that, but that's what she was.
I felt sick. I'd been raised in a very conservative Christian family. As far as I'd been told, whores didn't have souls, didn't have personalities and certainly didn't have senses of humor. Sasha had seemed to have at least two out of three of those. I stared at the business card and my sleeplessness slowly blossomed into a kind of tired loneliness. I seriously considered calling her, wondered if I would go to hell for employing her services. I felt sick. I couldn't finish my coffee. No more energetic than when I'd dropped the 5 bucks down on the counter, I left the overpriced glorified caffeine watering hole and went off to work. Hottest day of the year, too. It dragged.
The walk home stung my feet. Every fiber of my body reeked of sweat and stung with the exertion of carrying its own mass without any outside assistance. I briefly considered napping on the street and seeing if I could make a buck or two with an open cup, but just as I thought I would run out of willpower, I made it into my apartment and collapsed onto my couch. My wallet fell out of my pants and skidded across the floor. Sasha's card stuck out of it like a stickynote reminder to get more celery. I thought again about calling her, but the icon that my mother had given me, the desolate and judgmental face of Christ stared at me with its condemning brown eyes and I didn't feel right reaching for the phone. Instead I fell asleep and woke up hungry, 7 hours later.
I sat in front of a bowl of cereal, tuned to the 24-hour news. They were running something about a serial killer active in the downtown area. I swallowed heavily, made up my mind, and picked up the phone. The voice on the other end was thick, smoky. It wasn't Sasha's. I asked if they did business this late, they said 'of course' and asked what I had in mind. I didn't know. I just asked them to send for Sasha.
"She'll be right over."
I waited. She came. The meeting was silent, with both of us watching each other like neither of us had done this before. I hadn't, but she had. I was waiting on her. She took a step forward, and it struck me that she was exceedingly familiar.
"Sasha?" I whispered, rummaging through my head for an answer.
She nodded and smiled, slowly reaching for the edges of her sweat-stained tanktop. I furrowed my eyes and said her name again, louder and with more confidence.
"That's me." She said with a mix of seductiveness and tired humor, easing herself out of her shirt. I put a hand on her lips.
"No kissing." She muttered, averting her eyes.
"Hold on." I said, thinking again about religion, "Can't we just talk about this?" She stared at me, a perfect imitation of the condemning icon.
"You called me over here. This is what I do. Can't you just make it easy for me?"
She started to undo the buttons on my shirt and I panicked.
"Who are you?" I asked, an unexpected crack in my voice, "Who is Sasha Von Straum"
She sighed, closed her eyes tightly, and put her hand to her forehead.
"If you aren't going to fuck me," she said, "I'm going to need to leave before I waste any more time here."
"Who are you?" I said again, desperation adding sincerity to the question. "Why can't I do this?"
She grabbed her shirt, put it back on with a rapidity that spoke of experience, and headed out the door without a sound. She left her purse behind. In it, I found all kinds of things: prophylactics, phone numbers, thongs, money, and two scraps of paper. One of them, a picture, was familiar enough to be frightening, and the other, a poem was not something I recognized. The picture hurt to look at- it was imbedded, recessed in my memory, repressed and buried beneath layers of high school experience with friends and books and church. It was a symbol that meant something to me once but for the life of me I couldn't remember what anymore.
Too late, it struck me that Sasha would need her purse. I dashed out the door with it, made my way too loudly down the steps and into the lobby of my apartment building, and stumbled out into the darkened streets of the city. Sasha was walking away as fast as her heels allowed, hips swaying this way and that with a practiced but still visibly false grace. I called to her, raising the purse in the air, but she didn't seem to hear me. I tried to gain some ground on her.
It happened fast. She looked back at me, saw me with her purse, and sighed with pure exasperation. Before the altered breath had left her lungs, a stranger materialized from one of the doors by the street. She walked the shorter distance between himself and herself before I could think to care, pulled out a gun, and blew her brains onto the concrete. I don't think he realized I was there, because he just giggled, grabbed his crotch, and walked off. My jaw dropped in horror.
Carefully, I approached Sasha's body. I wondered if maybe I could have come to her sooner if I hadn't gotten so lost in thought. My hands grasped the poem and the picture she'd left in my apartment. Again, coming out of a daze, I realized she needed my help. My cell phone was ready
"Hello?" I screamed at the operator, "This is an emergency. There's been a murder in broad moonlight. A strange man with a gun just appeared from nowhere and blasted this poor hooker's brains out."
There was a sigh on the other line, and a muted, brief conversation.
"I'm sorry sir. Prior evidence indicates that this is most likely a prank call, and in addition, we really don't have the time to deal with some nutjob killing prostitutes. There's a more serious threat we're working on. If you'd like to file a formal report, come in tomorrow morning. Until then, try to get some sleep and think about if it's worth it to you."
I was speechless. Stunned. There was nothing left to do, really, so I took her purse back to my apartment, crawled in bed, and watched night turn to sunrise in peace. In the morning, I stopped by the same coffee shop and used Sasha's money to buy myself a latte. I sat and drank it, even though it hurt my throat, and watched the other customers. There was a teenage girl, couldn't have been older than 17, curled around a clipboard with a mocha, scribbling something like it mattered to her. I fingered Sasha's poem idly, and wondered what she'd been like as a child.
Think of me as the marshmallow in your fire,
The sugar-puff and horse-hoof of desire.
Think of me as a lazy summer's day,
A book you read and never put away.
Think of me as a breeze between the trees,
Think of me with rugburns on my knees,
Think of me as the girl you knew before,
Before I ever knew the label 'whore.'
Think of me as boredom takes its due,
When all other distractions just fall through,
Think of me with longing and a smile
And think you haven't seen me for a while.
Think of me and wonder where I've been,
Remember how it was when we were ten,
Think of me, your imaginary friend,
And wonder was I lonesome at the end?
Think of me, your dream beyond belief,
Think of me, your sleep-corrupting thief,
Think of me, your misty gray mirage
Think of me in the dust of your garage.
Think of me as I vanish in the haze
Of your adolescent, naive dreaming days
And think of me as an object of desire,
The horse-hoof, the marshmallow in your fire.
User Reviews
Submitted by Maltese (user info) at 2006-09-05 13:23:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I'm +2ing all your posts as a sign of good faith. I just want to show that there is no animosity between us. Friends?
Submitted by Stogie (user info) at 2006-08-24 21:53:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great read
Submitted by mles76 (user info) at 2006-08-21 16:44:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sweet hooker killing fun. Good read.
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-08-21 16:01:29 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
That was the most useful comment ever. I'll consider those changes.
Submitted by alwayspeach1 (user info) at 2006-08-21 12:06:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good...just a few comments if you don't mind.
I think there should have been more of a transition from work to home than just "it dragged."
I'm thinking that if she has business cards she is more of a call girl than mere prostitute, which would then make me think that she shouldn't have had a sweat stained shirt on. Perhaps I just don't have too much experience with prostitutes and call girls, I don't know.
I think she should have been stabbed instead of shot.
Just my thoughts.
I did enjoy it.
Submitted by coley (user info) at 2006-08-20 23:15:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I logged in just to +2 this.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-08-20 22:57:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
"almost" saved her life?
I really liked the way this was narrated.
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-08-20 22:47:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very good. I want to say more, but I'm too tired to articulate it. Maybe later.
Submitted by ripple (user info) at 2006-08-20 22:39:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2006-08-20 20:29:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hahahaha. Yarr.
Submitted by Sockster (user info) at 2006-08-20 19:02:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I must say, what I've read of your stuff, I really like.
Submitted by UnderOathMeal (user info) at 2006-08-20 17:08:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Profound. Somber. Good.
Submitted by goferforhire (user info) at 2006-08-20 17:05:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
there's an "almost" missing in the first paragraph