Scattered Clouds - A Short Story
Dec. 4th, 2014 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jephmatA short story about unrequited love and hanging out with Bohemian women.
“Now where are we going?”
“There's a small town just before the bridge that's having an art walk.”
They were headed up North. He finally cajoled her into driving for once, even though they were still taking his car. Highway 80 was only sparsely populated after a rainy Friday, and the sun kept peeking in and out from behind scattered clouds, going from gray to dark to bright and back again in an instant.
“You're not telling me where we're going,” he said as he squinted through the Sun's emerging rays.
“To that city with the big factory,” replied Cheryl.
“Well that narrows it down.”
They had been going out for three months, and had settled into a routine. Cheryl was always looking in nooks and crannies of the art world. Any free days on the weekend would be spent haunting flea markets, eclectic galleries, and garage sales.
Cheryl already knew too much about the Bay Area art scene. She wanted to find the undiscovered treasures, the weird and obscure pieces of artwork, undiscovered artists, and hidden art scenes that others hadn't found or found out about yet.
This often involved trips to small towns or out of the way places, small crammed warehouses in the depths of Oakland or farther South, or even longer trips up North. They spent one weekend in the Emerald Triangle, looking for art amongst the paranoid natives of Willits.
“So which factory town are we going to specifically?” he asked as he opened his eyes wide again. The Sun had hidden itself once more behind a passing gray cloud.
“The one with the big sugar cane factory.”
He became quiet. He hadn't been back to that city since he had left her place, that singer he had been seeing, on that foggy early morning, when his head had been spinning and he had sent that text.
He had been trying to forget about that.
“I went by that art walk once before,” he said.
“Yeah? How was it?”
“I just remember an art van in front of a gallery. I have a pic of it on my Instagram. It was pretty cool, but there wasn't that much art or walking.”
It was nothing he wanted to talk to Cheryl about, that one morning when he had let his fiery temper get the best of him. It was a temper that showed up all the time in his younger days, but not so much now. Even so, when it did show up on those rare occasions, it could be a regretable mixer.
After winding through multiple freeway bridges, Cheryl found a spot in downtown Crockett, parking near a corner shop.
“I need to smoke a cig.”
She stood by the side of the corner shop as he stood downwind. She puffed away and looked to the freeway bridges as the reemerging Sun lit up her long bleached blond hair. She was rubbing her tattoo again between puffs, the one on her right shoulder that had scarred up badly. It was an old tattoo, and he remembered how it felt when he had run his hand over it, the raised rough skin of a dark and botched tattoo job. Her habitual tattoo rub was one of those intimate habits of hers that he had gotten used to in the past few months.
When she was done smoking her cigarette, he stepped up, put his hand on her hips, and kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around him and they embraced. He didn't like the smoke, but he liked the taste of her lips after she had smoked. It was the nicotine taste of nostalgia. So many women from his past had smoked, and the taste brought back many wild and warm memories.
He was tasting Cheryl's lips as the Sun went behind yet another cloud, but he was thinking about someone else.
His heart dropped and he felt flush. He stopped kissing her and wrapped his arms around her, putting his cheek up against hers, so that she would hopefully not see his flushing face.
She held him a little while longer. He remembered how she had gushed about how lucky she felt to find someone who didn't mind going on her neurotic art trips to obscure places and out-of-the-way towns. It was quite a compliment. And he was thinking about how he really did enjoy her art trips, even though many of them turned out to be duds in the way of finding anything worthwhile.
Then he saw her.
The singer was crossing the street with a couple of friends, crossing in front of that kitschy corner bar.
It was enough to make his heart skip a beat.
He had hoped that it was just a slim chance. No such luck. The Sun came out again and bathed the singer and her friends with stark sunlight, as if the Sun wanted to make sure he had seen her. He looked away. He had no idea how she'd react if she saw him. He had never heard from her after he sent that long and detailed email apology. He had been tempted to try and contact her again, but he didn't know what else he could have said, so he let her be and waited hopefully for a reply, which never came.
He turned towards Cheryl, hoping the singer hadn't spotted him.
“Where did you see that van the last time you were here?”
“Up the street,” he answered, without turning around.
“That way?” she asked, pointing.
“No. The other way.”
She jabbed her pointing finger over his shoulder and up the street. “That way?”
“Yeah. A gallery next to a restaurant.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
She brought herself nose-to-nose with him. “Something's on your mind.”
He looked around. “My speed supplier used to live near here.”
“Really?”
“Just a couple blocks away. It's kind of a trip when I remember it.”
That much was true. Him and his old toxic twin used to drive out to Crockett all of the time to pick up supplies from a big time dealer. They had been doing small deals and go-betweening, and used to go to the supplier's apartment just across from the sugar cane factory.
“Let's go up,” she said, taking his arm.
Cheryl turned him around. His heart skipped a beat when she saw that the singer and her friends had stopped to chat on the corner. The singer more or less had her back to him, so she most likely hadn't seen him.
He got on the other side of Cheryl and put his arm around her waist. Cheryl had the advantage of being fairly tall, so she might have been able to obscure him from the singer, just enough.
Cheryl looked right at him. “What's up? Are we going to have to save another one of your ex-girlfriends?”
He always did go for the smart ones, and Cheryl was no dummy. She could tell something was really on his mind, and he wasn't sure if the drug story was covering him up. She might have pegged his supplier story for what it really was, a diversion.
“I certainly hope not,” he finally said.
“That day was fucking nuts.”
She was talking about their shopping trip to Union Square, when they pretended to be German tourists, the day when they ran into an ex-girlfriend of his, the crazy biker chick, who had lost herself in the department store because she was being chased by her abusive boyfriend, a boyfriend that had been hell-bent on beating her up.
“You sure clocked him good though,” he said, recalling that day.
“You liked that though, didn't you?”
Cheryl proved herself that day. When he had been grappling with the violent boyfriend who had suddenly appeared and had lunged at his ex-girlfriend, Cheryl had sucker punched the attacker and sent him to the floor like a bag of wet cement, after which he and Cheryl held him down until the store security guards came.
Cheryl stuck right by his side after that, as they walked with his frightened ex, and spent the rest of the day with her, being her security guards, even though her attacker had been arrested. That day had also been a stark reminder of how wild and bizarre his life could be. He was sure he was incapable of leading a normal, run-of-the-mill life. There was no place where his wild past and atmosphere would not catch up to him.
“I don't see any van,” said Cheryl.
“Maybe it's up the block, past the gallery”.
He took a risky glance at the corner where the singer and her friends were still talking.
He had always been attracted to the wild types, the fiery types. He knew he might have been in trouble when he asked the singer out to that show in San Francisco. Those kind of women always got him worked up. It was too easy to get swept up.
And he had gotten far too worked up on that day, the day he left the singer's house and lost his head. On that very same day it didn't take long for him to realize that he messed up, that he shouldn't have popped off on her like that, that he never should have sent that text, that if he was going to say anything he should have called. Better if he had said nothing at all and just collected himself, rather than act on crazed and misplaced emotions.
It was the same thoughts and regrets that had swirled in his mind so many times before. Rarely had he spent so much time kicking himself over a regret. Usually there was some moral wiggle room for some of the unfortunate things he had done. Not so this time. This was a screw up that was all on him.
Cheryl loosened her grip on him as the Sun disappeared again and the wind kicked up. He risked another glance at the corner. The singer and her friends were still there.
He was sure the singer hadn't spotted him. It had been awhile since he had last interacted with her. Who knew how she would react to his appearance.
But it was more than that. He knew that.
“Is this the place?” asked Cheryl.
“Yeah.”
There were some gallery pieces in the window, but the gallery was closed.
“Are you sure there's an art walk today?” he asked.
“Positive.”
“There wasn't much going on at the one I was at either.”
“Hm. What do you think? Should we look around or go back down South and do the garage sales?”
He paused, just for a moment, to make it seem as if he was thinking about it. “Let's go back for the garage sales.”
“Maybe there are some around here.”
“Maybe.”
Cheryl turned him around again and they started back down the street. “I'll look up Craigslist when we get back to the car. I'd like to check out some sales around here since we're already up here.”
The wind kicked up, just as the sun came out. The biting wind combined with the warm rays of the sun to set his skin on edge. She was still there, on the corner, and standing at an angle that made him uncomfortable. He could see her face, as she talked brightly with her small gang.
“Are you cold?”
“Yeah, a little.” He didn't like to lie, even if it was just a fib.
She held him closer as they walked back to his car. He didn't know where his relationship with Cheryl was going. He had always been a sucker for inked women with artistic proclivities. They had crossed wires a few times during their short relationship, but nothing compared to the dustup that he started with the singer.
He liked Cheryl. She was smart and she was tough. He found all of that out quickly.
Even so, he felt something was missing. Maybe it was too easy to get along with her. He drifted back to the corner and risked another glance. The singer was still chatting on the corner. His memories struck him, how fiery and multi-faceted the singer had been.
Those were the kind of women who activated him, for better or worse. It could bring out his bright side and his ugly side, taking him back to the passions that had led him on his reckless life as a wild clubber, a bacchanalian chance taker, and a drug dealer. It was a part of himself that he both admired and loathed. Even though the singer had reminded him of other past women, he knew there was so much more to her. Her fire and intricate personality went in so many directions. He had rarely met anyone who was so dynamic and intelligent and talented. There was so much more to her than you could ever learn in a short dalliance.
He had barely gotten to know the singer, at least not as nearly as much as he wanted to, when it all fell apart all too quickly.
He was trying not to think about what he had missed.
He thought about Cheryl. It was nice to be with someone, nice to have a partner, but he still had too many questions about her and their relationship. Maybe he was overthinking it, maybe he was casting doubt on something he should hang onto. Or maybe by sticking with her he was missing out; Missing out on someone else, someone who might help him take his life in the sharp directions that he wanted it to go.
The wind came back, as did the slicing rays of the Sun. But the sting and warmth barely registered. His skin was numb from his sinking heart.
And he knew that was going to stay with him for a long time.
If he saw a shooting star, he'd wish he could go back and do it right.
“There's a sale not too far from here,” said Cheryl, as she busied herself with her smartphone. He had gotten so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that she had been fiddling with it.
“You still wanna drive?”
“Sure.”
“Cool”.
Cheryl glanced at him as he got in the car. It was a worried look that told him she knew something was really on his mind, but she had already determined that it was pointless to keep asking, at least at the moment. No doubt she would pester him about it later. He knew her well enough by now to know that she didn't let things like that go very easily.
“You really think you'll find anything at this garage sale?” he asked.
“You know I find some of the coolest shit in the weirdest places.”
“That's true.”
“I mean, probably not, but you might get that hedge trimmer you've been looking for.”
“That'd be nice.”
Another glance as Cheryl backed the car out. The singer was still conversing with her friends. For a split second, he thought she looked over in his direction.
Then he realized, it wasn't that he was worried about how she would react if she saw him.
He was worried about how he would react if he caught sight of her, if he saw her, looking right at him.
Because he wasn't sure if he could handle it.
“Now where are we going?”
“There's a small town just before the bridge that's having an art walk.”
They were headed up North. He finally cajoled her into driving for once, even though they were still taking his car. Highway 80 was only sparsely populated after a rainy Friday, and the sun kept peeking in and out from behind scattered clouds, going from gray to dark to bright and back again in an instant.
“You're not telling me where we're going,” he said as he squinted through the Sun's emerging rays.
“To that city with the big factory,” replied Cheryl.
“Well that narrows it down.”
They had been going out for three months, and had settled into a routine. Cheryl was always looking in nooks and crannies of the art world. Any free days on the weekend would be spent haunting flea markets, eclectic galleries, and garage sales.
Cheryl already knew too much about the Bay Area art scene. She wanted to find the undiscovered treasures, the weird and obscure pieces of artwork, undiscovered artists, and hidden art scenes that others hadn't found or found out about yet.
This often involved trips to small towns or out of the way places, small crammed warehouses in the depths of Oakland or farther South, or even longer trips up North. They spent one weekend in the Emerald Triangle, looking for art amongst the paranoid natives of Willits.
“So which factory town are we going to specifically?” he asked as he opened his eyes wide again. The Sun had hidden itself once more behind a passing gray cloud.
“The one with the big sugar cane factory.”
He became quiet. He hadn't been back to that city since he had left her place, that singer he had been seeing, on that foggy early morning, when his head had been spinning and he had sent that text.
He had been trying to forget about that.
“I went by that art walk once before,” he said.
“Yeah? How was it?”
“I just remember an art van in front of a gallery. I have a pic of it on my Instagram. It was pretty cool, but there wasn't that much art or walking.”
It was nothing he wanted to talk to Cheryl about, that one morning when he had let his fiery temper get the best of him. It was a temper that showed up all the time in his younger days, but not so much now. Even so, when it did show up on those rare occasions, it could be a regretable mixer.
After winding through multiple freeway bridges, Cheryl found a spot in downtown Crockett, parking near a corner shop.
“I need to smoke a cig.”
She stood by the side of the corner shop as he stood downwind. She puffed away and looked to the freeway bridges as the reemerging Sun lit up her long bleached blond hair. She was rubbing her tattoo again between puffs, the one on her right shoulder that had scarred up badly. It was an old tattoo, and he remembered how it felt when he had run his hand over it, the raised rough skin of a dark and botched tattoo job. Her habitual tattoo rub was one of those intimate habits of hers that he had gotten used to in the past few months.
When she was done smoking her cigarette, he stepped up, put his hand on her hips, and kissed her.
She wrapped her arms around him and they embraced. He didn't like the smoke, but he liked the taste of her lips after she had smoked. It was the nicotine taste of nostalgia. So many women from his past had smoked, and the taste brought back many wild and warm memories.
He was tasting Cheryl's lips as the Sun went behind yet another cloud, but he was thinking about someone else.
His heart dropped and he felt flush. He stopped kissing her and wrapped his arms around her, putting his cheek up against hers, so that she would hopefully not see his flushing face.
She held him a little while longer. He remembered how she had gushed about how lucky she felt to find someone who didn't mind going on her neurotic art trips to obscure places and out-of-the-way towns. It was quite a compliment. And he was thinking about how he really did enjoy her art trips, even though many of them turned out to be duds in the way of finding anything worthwhile.
Then he saw her.
The singer was crossing the street with a couple of friends, crossing in front of that kitschy corner bar.
It was enough to make his heart skip a beat.
He had hoped that it was just a slim chance. No such luck. The Sun came out again and bathed the singer and her friends with stark sunlight, as if the Sun wanted to make sure he had seen her. He looked away. He had no idea how she'd react if she saw him. He had never heard from her after he sent that long and detailed email apology. He had been tempted to try and contact her again, but he didn't know what else he could have said, so he let her be and waited hopefully for a reply, which never came.
He turned towards Cheryl, hoping the singer hadn't spotted him.
“Where did you see that van the last time you were here?”
“Up the street,” he answered, without turning around.
“That way?” she asked, pointing.
“No. The other way.”
She jabbed her pointing finger over his shoulder and up the street. “That way?”
“Yeah. A gallery next to a restaurant.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
She brought herself nose-to-nose with him. “Something's on your mind.”
He looked around. “My speed supplier used to live near here.”
“Really?”
“Just a couple blocks away. It's kind of a trip when I remember it.”
That much was true. Him and his old toxic twin used to drive out to Crockett all of the time to pick up supplies from a big time dealer. They had been doing small deals and go-betweening, and used to go to the supplier's apartment just across from the sugar cane factory.
“Let's go up,” she said, taking his arm.
Cheryl turned him around. His heart skipped a beat when she saw that the singer and her friends had stopped to chat on the corner. The singer more or less had her back to him, so she most likely hadn't seen him.
He got on the other side of Cheryl and put his arm around her waist. Cheryl had the advantage of being fairly tall, so she might have been able to obscure him from the singer, just enough.
Cheryl looked right at him. “What's up? Are we going to have to save another one of your ex-girlfriends?”
He always did go for the smart ones, and Cheryl was no dummy. She could tell something was really on his mind, and he wasn't sure if the drug story was covering him up. She might have pegged his supplier story for what it really was, a diversion.
“I certainly hope not,” he finally said.
“That day was fucking nuts.”
She was talking about their shopping trip to Union Square, when they pretended to be German tourists, the day when they ran into an ex-girlfriend of his, the crazy biker chick, who had lost herself in the department store because she was being chased by her abusive boyfriend, a boyfriend that had been hell-bent on beating her up.
“You sure clocked him good though,” he said, recalling that day.
“You liked that though, didn't you?”
Cheryl proved herself that day. When he had been grappling with the violent boyfriend who had suddenly appeared and had lunged at his ex-girlfriend, Cheryl had sucker punched the attacker and sent him to the floor like a bag of wet cement, after which he and Cheryl held him down until the store security guards came.
Cheryl stuck right by his side after that, as they walked with his frightened ex, and spent the rest of the day with her, being her security guards, even though her attacker had been arrested. That day had also been a stark reminder of how wild and bizarre his life could be. He was sure he was incapable of leading a normal, run-of-the-mill life. There was no place where his wild past and atmosphere would not catch up to him.
“I don't see any van,” said Cheryl.
“Maybe it's up the block, past the gallery”.
He took a risky glance at the corner where the singer and her friends were still talking.
He had always been attracted to the wild types, the fiery types. He knew he might have been in trouble when he asked the singer out to that show in San Francisco. Those kind of women always got him worked up. It was too easy to get swept up.
And he had gotten far too worked up on that day, the day he left the singer's house and lost his head. On that very same day it didn't take long for him to realize that he messed up, that he shouldn't have popped off on her like that, that he never should have sent that text, that if he was going to say anything he should have called. Better if he had said nothing at all and just collected himself, rather than act on crazed and misplaced emotions.
It was the same thoughts and regrets that had swirled in his mind so many times before. Rarely had he spent so much time kicking himself over a regret. Usually there was some moral wiggle room for some of the unfortunate things he had done. Not so this time. This was a screw up that was all on him.
Cheryl loosened her grip on him as the Sun disappeared again and the wind kicked up. He risked another glance at the corner. The singer and her friends were still there.
He was sure the singer hadn't spotted him. It had been awhile since he had last interacted with her. Who knew how she would react to his appearance.
But it was more than that. He knew that.
“Is this the place?” asked Cheryl.
“Yeah.”
There were some gallery pieces in the window, but the gallery was closed.
“Are you sure there's an art walk today?” he asked.
“Positive.”
“There wasn't much going on at the one I was at either.”
“Hm. What do you think? Should we look around or go back down South and do the garage sales?”
He paused, just for a moment, to make it seem as if he was thinking about it. “Let's go back for the garage sales.”
“Maybe there are some around here.”
“Maybe.”
Cheryl turned him around again and they started back down the street. “I'll look up Craigslist when we get back to the car. I'd like to check out some sales around here since we're already up here.”
The wind kicked up, just as the sun came out. The biting wind combined with the warm rays of the sun to set his skin on edge. She was still there, on the corner, and standing at an angle that made him uncomfortable. He could see her face, as she talked brightly with her small gang.
“Are you cold?”
“Yeah, a little.” He didn't like to lie, even if it was just a fib.
She held him closer as they walked back to his car. He didn't know where his relationship with Cheryl was going. He had always been a sucker for inked women with artistic proclivities. They had crossed wires a few times during their short relationship, but nothing compared to the dustup that he started with the singer.
He liked Cheryl. She was smart and she was tough. He found all of that out quickly.
Even so, he felt something was missing. Maybe it was too easy to get along with her. He drifted back to the corner and risked another glance. The singer was still chatting on the corner. His memories struck him, how fiery and multi-faceted the singer had been.
Those were the kind of women who activated him, for better or worse. It could bring out his bright side and his ugly side, taking him back to the passions that had led him on his reckless life as a wild clubber, a bacchanalian chance taker, and a drug dealer. It was a part of himself that he both admired and loathed. Even though the singer had reminded him of other past women, he knew there was so much more to her. Her fire and intricate personality went in so many directions. He had rarely met anyone who was so dynamic and intelligent and talented. There was so much more to her than you could ever learn in a short dalliance.
He had barely gotten to know the singer, at least not as nearly as much as he wanted to, when it all fell apart all too quickly.
He was trying not to think about what he had missed.
He thought about Cheryl. It was nice to be with someone, nice to have a partner, but he still had too many questions about her and their relationship. Maybe he was overthinking it, maybe he was casting doubt on something he should hang onto. Or maybe by sticking with her he was missing out; Missing out on someone else, someone who might help him take his life in the sharp directions that he wanted it to go.
The wind came back, as did the slicing rays of the Sun. But the sting and warmth barely registered. His skin was numb from his sinking heart.
And he knew that was going to stay with him for a long time.
If he saw a shooting star, he'd wish he could go back and do it right.
“There's a sale not too far from here,” said Cheryl, as she busied herself with her smartphone. He had gotten so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed that she had been fiddling with it.
“You still wanna drive?”
“Sure.”
“Cool”.
Cheryl glanced at him as he got in the car. It was a worried look that told him she knew something was really on his mind, but she had already determined that it was pointless to keep asking, at least at the moment. No doubt she would pester him about it later. He knew her well enough by now to know that she didn't let things like that go very easily.
“You really think you'll find anything at this garage sale?” he asked.
“You know I find some of the coolest shit in the weirdest places.”
“That's true.”
“I mean, probably not, but you might get that hedge trimmer you've been looking for.”
“That'd be nice.”
Another glance as Cheryl backed the car out. The singer was still conversing with her friends. For a split second, he thought she looked over in his direction.
Then he realized, it wasn't that he was worried about how she would react if she saw him.
He was worried about how he would react if he caught sight of her, if he saw her, looking right at him.
Because he wasn't sure if he could handle it.