Dirty White Tennis Shoes

Mar 14, 2008 - 20:07 PM PST

I

They were a stoic rain, that never bounced twice across old glass. The music flowed through as a needle popping across a record wearing it all away. A rhythmic tap, gushed down it’s side down a slanted glass into large of puddles round the doors.

She stroked her curls falling on her face, her skin a mercury blended gold wrapped around her soul. It beamed through her eyes sparkling like pale brownie sapphires before a fire. She tied her scribble spun hair and zipped her blackened low brown boots. She stepped out. It was as everyday was, she always used her back door, no matter the time or the weather. But it was on this weary rainy day that she would not return.

She stepped out for coffee and sprinted across two circles and into a red building, inside a mellow leather hall racing up staircases forgetting at times to take each steep step, she'd convinced herself that this was a viable alternative to eating green foods and the gym. At the time she was used to this route and barely panted as she finally reached the fourth floor. Round a maze of halls now emptied, but normally full up of the berkinstocked, sneakered and bare-feet aside sandals she finally reach her destination.

The humiliation of her lateness was acute, all eyes about 80 of them would be immediately on her. The door never opened quietly, she'd always wondered if it was designed that way, in which she would be sabotaged. She quickly dismissed such a notion at least biweekly, her rational was that the building was at least 30 years old. She felt barely past 16, but was truly ashore in her twenties. She ignored the eyes as she stood catching the attention of the purple haired nun that continued her lecture. In that same instant she noticed that she had to take her regular seat. Every class period she dreaded the position, but her classmates were so regimented that one shift would shake the comfort level in the room as if someone carefully pranked them by leaving super-glue on each chair. She felt they all judged her and only thought she was agreeable when she sat. Front row about 8 seats in on a 12 seat row. She sat and listened. Behind her was an empty seat and behind the empty he watched closely, almost mesmerized. He memorized what she wore during each class. He felt it better than a morality lecture. It would take him at least ten minutes to get past her hair.

Her locks would be lost in moonlight. That when bored she'd let loose mid period, and it would it would fall in a malady of ways on her face which was rounded like a quarter grapefruit’s rim. She touched her 12 ounce Styrofoam cup filled with a coffee confection that was popular at the time. She slouched the small of her bare mistakenly bare back gently tapping the cushion. Her nails were healthy, never polished. Her world wobbled and spun so much that she couldn’t focus on the coffee cup. It felt as if it whirled in her hand as her fingers dug in as it cracked. Her head slumped over her weight shifted and her body hit the floor. She shook the carpet, growing an ever bright red, jutting back and forth twitching lost in the moment. Oblivion. Seconds steer toward minutes before the twitching stopped.

The constellations were bright where she was suddenly she sunk as her minds skies were and orange lemon blend.



II

Her eyes laid open but she only knew blinks. She could only make out white corked brick in a white corked room. Cold light splashed filled, swallowed all, like overexposed Polaroid's left in wet faded blue jeans. The crumpled frames and weathered wood background noses and rounded glasses. Lonely dancers standing alone, slowly filling vessels streaking and dissipating. Blinking steady and stopped. The man with rounded glasses sat alone in a white cork brick room, he wore a dark jean jacket and a shirt titled “dissent is a choice.” He read in a rhythm low and garbled speeding through the lines. As if he was reading in his head her buried his head in book. He wore khaki pants, tied with a tight belt that strangled his waist like the tie around his left index finger. He was scrony and guiltily sauntered out of the room dissappering. He didn't notice her eyes were open.

It had been nine years since that rainy day on the plateau. The longest rainy day imagined. She knew not what to do, how to move where the white noise ends and she begins. She stared and could see the sun bake the cork as she circulates her eyes around the room aching with every moment, every movement. Her fingers trembled and her sockets ached her pupils moved like pedulums as her lungs scream silently as she begins to tear. The widening noise of of wheelchairs down sqeaking floors scratches the surfaces and a mop head slapping on the olive hardwood, as a motor rushes through the air.

The fresh fragrance of grass flipping against the siding, the blades shift vexing her nostrils and cheeks. Her heart rate bounces, she slowly shakes her head, her lungs open and shut as a nurse approaches. The nurse creeps toward her bedside reaches toward her hand. She grabs at his fingers he turns and runs. She than lost consciousnes.

III

Her mother on her right and her father on the end of the bed. Her younger brother behind her mother, yet another over her mother’s shoulder. Her sister on her left grabbing at her hand, her sister’s hand has a band-aid on the finger next to her left thumb from many sketches of her sister on the walls. Her eyes were wide, speckling.

A scant day later, she felt the bumps of a wheelchair as she was pushed up the hall. Her body and mind sharp but she was only communicating on paper. She soon learned what happened as they wait at the bus stop while she has difficulty walking as she is sat beneath the bright sun before moving her beneath the dented dome they waited for the bus to pass.



Everyday on legal pads she asked to be perched on the porch. She looked forward as the cars drove by none of them seemed to notice she was alive. She rests her hands on her knees and looked forward, she could see a pair of glasses in the distance. They float.

IV

Around the dinner table the family surround her in silent hurlyburly and they weren’t sure what to expect of her, but they knew to expect something she eats very little. Her father enjoys public smiles but rarely speaks. Her brother is older and engaged to his second college sweetheart which sat next to him and she never met before. Her mother is a swirl of movement.

Her mother keeps adding to her plate. She doesn’t clear it. Her face continues as a constant blank. Her brother and father help to her room. Her room looks the same as nine years eariler, alone for a few half hours, she mumbles as her mother approaches.

“Who is he?” she asked

“Who?” her mother responded

“The man with glasses?” she asked

“He’s a friend.” her mother answered ernestly.

“A friend. A friend I don’t remember.” she asked

“You were out for a long time honey the doctor said things could be hazy.” her mother continued

“Why?"



VII

Her parents were joined around the kitchen table discussing her question.

“i wonder if he’ll visit.” her father said | “I don’t know. But we have to thank him he’s given us so much.” her mother was quite sure as she listened muted from the stairwell. | “We won’t tell her anything until he’s ready.” |

Her father continued writing a note of thanks to him. She snuck into the basement and sat in the darkness as they passed over her retreating upstairs. She struggled but lifted herself up the stairs and across kitchen floor. The walls were thin. She pulled herself living room gripping walled that weren’t made to be gripped. Leaving her sweaty fingertips on the off white surfaces. Barefoot her trek ends on the porch. Attatched to the mailbox is a carrier and the letter which she opens it as she sits between the doorway and the screen.

Her mother startled her.

“Owen Anthony” she says softly

“Corrine.” her mother said her name low and looked away from her.

“Who is he?’ “Why are we thanking him?”

“We almost lost everything we morgaged the house and the bakery to try and keep you alive.” she paused “ Until about seven years ago when he visited you like he did from the start. And he asked to be billed. He’s why we still have you. And the house and store”

“I want to meet him.” Corrine says with a tear.

“I don’t know where he is. It’s a PO Box."



VIII

Tomorrow started early for Corrine | it’s eve was restless it’s anticipation rocked her sheets as she struggled to gain an ounze of rest. | With daylight came her moment.

She searched and found the post offictes. She could feel a presence around her.

She watched the rowers row with whistles and the students reflections as they walk cross courtyards. She flopped her heels on her toes against the bench. Their movement made a slight noise against the metal bolts. She moistened the banana once with her tounge and

Her jean jacket smelled like the places she’d been. The dirty jean comforted her on her cab and bus rides to the corner. She visited the mailbox every weekday Saturdays she slept in. She she sat inside of the lobby. She got to know the postal workers. And the stool was not longer forgien. No visitors that looked like him appeared. But everyday she continued to glare at the small metal box.

That afternoon she left. She left in mittens and a scarf and laid out on three front seats and facing the back of the bus which was empty. Her head laid against the plexiglass and looked at an old lady in a gangreen sparkly dress. The woman was barely awake.

One late fall morni

Eventually she stood up and walked away.




IX

On a late fall morning, Corrine wrote a letter licked the envolope and put in their mailbox. Corrine volunteered at an after school program she found thrills when she taught mathematics. She took a course at the university, Statistics.

In order to pay for it, she began helping her father at the store. The store was small. Just repainted an abrasive blue that only Corrine liked. The customers didn’t flinch. She worked the register and cleaned constantly. She enjoyed arranging the store f

She woke at 4:00am and they walked 7 blocks on a chilly morn to the shop. Her father started the morning rolls. Corrine swept the sidewalk with a grin. Hours passed and the buzzing store filled and emptied and over again Her shift ended at 1. She didn’t enjoy the walk back. The sidewalk seemed tender with each footstep and she thought it caused a dimple. Like she was walking over a freshhly paved lagoon.

She felt a presense.

She knew the presense as block after faded and heavied.

She approached the front step. There sat a faceless clump

“What are you?”

She heard wailing men

| chansons |

some forgotten hymnal about long deranged robots | she barely remembers | and what she could swear were Paul Simon’s lyrics and pounding drumbeats from a foriegn land..

“Who are you?

“What are you?”

“What are you?”

“What are you?”

“Are you a luntic?”

“Owen?”

She uttered but could not turn away.

She tried.

She felt like a wound rubberband.

She turned and turned back.

Her feet didn’t leave the ground.

The dimples swallowed her feet.

She thought that it was psychosis

She thought to foul her tounge with profanity.

She couldn’t utter.

She could move torward.

She touches him.

He’s waxy

His glasses appear.

From inside his head.

She turns him.

The mass turns.

The glasses don’t.

“OWEN!!!”


X

They were a stoic rain that never bounced twice, across old glass. The music flowed through like a needle popping across a record, wearing it all away. A rhythmic tap, gushed down a slanted glass into large of puddles ‘round the doors. She stroked her curls falling on her face. Her skin a mercury blended gold, wrapped around her soul. It beamed through her eyes sparkling like pale brownie sapphires before a fire | she tied her scribble spun hair and zipped her blackened low brown boots. She steps out, it was her everyday experience. She always used her back door. Inside a mellow leather hall racing up the empty steep stairwell reaching for the second floor.

Corrine had hair that would lost in moonlight that when loose it would fall in a malady of ways on her face. It was rounded like a quarter grapefruit’s rim. She touched her 12 ounce Styrofoam cup and filled it with a coffee confection that was popular at the time. She slouched the small of her bare mistakenly bare back gently tapping the cushion.

He stared at the bareback. And watched as she fell. He stood still. Continued scribe with his blue pens. Two packs unopened he bought them last night with Oreos and a blue jean tinted notebook and condoms at the bookstore. He scribbled his name.

She was a wax goddess on his stage.