It was about a week later, as I was in the middle of a painting… a full body self portrait …, standing in front of a mirror with hands down… the mirror image facing directly out... It was an angry one; in cadmium reds, yellows and black.... it screamed, “I hate you!” I heard the dogs barking and then they calmed down. It was someone they knew well enough. I looked out from my studio window down to the garden pathway that led from the garage. My heart leapt when I saw it was Nick. I dropped the palette and rushed down the stairs to the back door to greet him. Before I got to the door my mood began to change.
He stopped… stunned to see me when I opened the door, “When did you get home?”
“Is that what you want to know? Don’t you want to welcome me? No answer to that.
“You look fucked up,” changing the subject he tried to skirt past me.
I could see his eyes… the pinhole irises. “You could have called to find out? I left a message for you before I left Orly.” I grabbed his arm, “Aren’t you going to greet me with a hug?”
He gave me one of those pat-pat on-the-back hugs: he smelled of perfume.
“Nice cologne,” I sniffed, letting him escape my embrace. “What is it, au de pus-say?”
“I’m not going to argue with you. You smell like vodka.” He then dashed up the stairs to the room I let him keep that we had converted into his office.
Sushi stood by my side and followed me into the kitchen where I got her a doggie treat. Tofu heard the bag open from way out in the garden and he was there at my feet before I could get the treat to Sushi. “No Tofu… I am not giving you a treat,” I teased. He stood on his hind legs and I gave him one. “No more. You go back outside and guard the house.” I then gave one to Sushi who always waited her turn patiently.
I grabbed the phone and went back up to the studio and called Mickey. The phone rang several times before the answering machine turned on, “Who are you to interrupt me?” it said: After a pause… the beep.
“Mickey, are you home?” Pick up the phone. I have been home a week and you haven’t called. I miss you and need to see you.”
I was flushed with joy when the phone was picked up…
“What, are you out of pot?” he sniped. “I haven’t been smoking pot these days… cigarettes, yes, but I don’t keep it around anymore, not like the old days…”
“No, Mickey that isn’t why I am calling. Please, can I come over Sean?” I purred like a kitten.
“Sean? You’ve never called me Sean.”
He was melting… purring like a kitten always works with men, “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
When I got to Mickey’s place he was working on his motorcycle in front of his truck in the shade of the orange tree. That tree had sweet and juicy oranges better than anything I can buy in the grocery store. I pulled a ripe one off the tree and opened it up with my thumbs sucking the juice out.
Smiling he looked up at me and said, “Love to watch you do that, Fu.”
Spitting out a seed, “I know. You are a pervert and like to watch me suck.”
“Ooooh, don’t get me excited, girl.” He went back to changing a chain on his bike. It wasn’t a big bike… a small Honda he calls his Rebel. I know nothing about motorcycles but Robert once had a Harley until he tipped it over and had to have Gotson help him pull it back up. Though Robert is a big man he looked silly on it anyway: like a banker trying to look like a bad-ass… not a Hell’s Angel. He wasn’t that committed. He was more of a halfway type… a Purgatory Angel.
Mickey was another story altogether. Though he dressed and looked a little rough, he wasn’t a bad-ass either. He was just okay to me on any kind of bike. “Why don’t you ride a Harley, Mickey?”
“I ride a Honda because I can’t afford a Harley. Harleys have been priced out of my reach since all the lawyers and yuppies turned fifty. They want to do now what they had no balls for when they were younger.”
“Yes, I know what you mean. My brother had one.” I watched him as he started the motor, checked the chain and adjusted a bolt while it ran. He looked so professional. I admired him about that. He was able to fix almost anything.
“The only way I could afford one now would be to either get a good job or sell drugs,” he grinned, showing a row of nice but somewhat neglected teeth… one was missing on the side of his mouth. I asked him what happened to it and he said it had been knocked out.
“Where did you learn to fix bikes?” I knew the answer but I was doing my best to show that I was proud of him.
“Where did you learn to be so damned sexy?”
“It comes natural… with the territory, maybe it is the ac-cent… eh?” I flirted, pouring it on.
“Some are born with it and some have to work at it,” he answered spontaneously.
I have to admit I like to tease with him. He always comes back with a good one and we have had some good laughs together. As we laughed the wrench came off a nut he was adjusting and he cursed, “Damn. See, that is how I lost this tooth.”
“I thought you said it was knocked out in a fight.”
“That was just to impress you.” Again, he ginned pointing to the gap in his teeth, “Truth is, I am too slick to get hit in the face to have that happen.”
“Oooh, I am impressed alright.” I cooed, “You never lost a fight?”
“I didn’t say that.” he stood and did what I’ve heard them call, shadow boxing, “I just never get in a fight with someone that is bad enough to do that.”
“You are a champion fighter?” I posed in an old fashioned boxing stance like in the old posters.
“No, I am a champion coward.” He faked a couple of jabs at my stomach, “I get in fights with people I know I can beat and stay out of the way of those I know I can’t.”
He danced, backing away like Mohammed Ali, “Fly like a butterfly and flee like a rabbit.”
I came at him like John L. Sullivan. He pretended he was backed-up on the ropes and curled his fists up against his chest… I came at him feigning a punch… he grabbed my hand, pulled me to his chest in his arms and placed a full kiss on my mouth. No tongue… He knows I don’t like what is called French kissing. Pressing my lips to his I held on to him and let all my affection flow as we stood there embracing. I never wanted to let go but when I did he didn’t insist. That is the way he was with me… he just backed-off knowing… knowing what? Knowing better after being burnt so many times… the boundaries? I don’t know. There is a knowledge that is intuitive… it has no logic… you can’t be taught that; when to go… when to stop, like the act of painting.
“Are you okay?” he asked as he looked into my eyes.
“Yes and no…”
“What do you mean? Yes and no.”
“Okay, we put away Papa. I am not over that yet.”
“As you ought not be.”
“Robert swept my mother away and I hardly saw her at all.”
“Robert, your brother?”
“Yes, luckily for me he was in Paris with her most of the time and I was able to get clean before they got back.” She was fidgeting now.
“You want to go for a ride? You’ve never been on the bike,” He really wasn’t asking because, before I knew it, he was on the porch and coming back with a couple of helmets.
“Here, you’ll look cute in goggles.” He handed me them to me and I put them on.
“Hey, do I look like a pilot?” I felt light-hearted and almost completely sober.
“Yes, you are a World War One flying Ace!”
We took off out of the yard onto the sidewalk… and the he gunned it onto the street as I held on to him against the acceleration.
Even though his little Honda purred rather than roared like a Harley, we couldn’t talk or hear without shouting while riding. I couldn’t joke against the sound and the rush of the wind caressing my face. Sometimes it is best to have a conversation without words. An occasional shout of glee is enough and all is said with our bodies leaning in tandem as we swerved around corners on the mountain roads around Santa Barbara. I held tightly to him and that is exactly what I needed for a homecoming.
Up on Camino Cielo we stopped at a place Mickey says was special to him. We hiked back a half-mile or so to a place that was an amphitheater circled with boulders. He pointed out one, “See, that is a hippopotamus.”
“Yes, I see. It looks just like a hippo with its mouth open wide looking up from the Nile.”
“I’ve heard of Lizard’s Mouth, is that it?”
“No, it’s on the other side facing the ocean. When my daughter was a year-old our friends came with us up here to picnic and celebrate her birthday. I love this place…haven’t been here since then.”
He looked sad and I wanted to comfort him. I hardly ever heard him talk about his daughter but I did know that she just graduated from high-school last June. Saying nothing more, looking down from where we sat on top of a boulder, we had a view of Cachuma Lake in the distance below.
“What happened with Rod when you went home? Is he still in your retinue?”
“No, I threw him out. Did you know he kept a shotgun under my bed after you broke his jaw?”
“No, but I figured you threw him out when he finally pressed charges.”
“I found the shotgun under the bed and I asked him, ‘What the fuck is this?’ like he is going to shoot someone? He just said that he kept it there in case you came back around.”
“A brave man.”
“So who’s your lady friend?
“What lady friend?”
“The one you were banging the… you knew I was there, didn’t you?”
“I saw your car but I wasn’t sure until I heard it pull out of the driveway.” He was grinning at me.
“Shame on you, you bad boy: I was going to let you get lucky that night.”
“Should I say, thank you?” He put his hands together, Namaste style.
“You still haven’t told me who she was.”
“Just a girl… a friend, you know.”
“What is it they say now, a friend with benefits?”
“Yeh, she still uses so I don’t even try to get too close to her. Know what I mean?”
“Fucking isn’t close?” I chided but, even then, I began to feel a little jealous.
“You ought to know better than me.”
I didn’t say anything more. I couldn’t let him know how much it hurt. However, in spite of my longing, it was beautiful to watch the sunset from there. It started to get cold. Dreading the ride back to town in a light windbreaker… He saw me starting to shiver he took off his leather jacket and offered to trade.
“How gallant… But no, I’ll just hold on close to you.” I teased, “Riding behind a man is the most fun a girl can have outside of bed.”
I sat on the stool in my studio again after laying in bed for an hour. Then I got up and took to the easel with renewed energy. The blank canvas held no fear as I swathed it in blues, blacks and greens… framed by zig-zags of yellows and red energy… another portrait but not angry… more like an agitated distance with a hint of pathos. The conflict was gone and I was no longer suffering. Yes, I don’t suffer addiction. Up to a certain point addiction is the solution to suffering for me. When heroin leaves the body it exits the same path that it entered… only it leaves with a vengeance. Every cell, muscle and nerve-ending cries out as the hunger makes itself known.
