I thought it would be different. I thought it would be something else. He said he loved me and I thought love was enough. So I gave up everything and walked after him. And there was the music. When he played guitar and hung his voice on the thrilled air, boy that was food for the soul. I saw the way others looked at him then: boys who wanted to be him and girls who wanted to be me.
‘There’s nothing we can’t do,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to follow the paths of our mothers and fathers. They got it all wrong. Look at their mean little lives and everything mortgaged to the hilt, and I ain’t seen my father smile in years and my mother cries in her sleep. There has to be another way.’
And he had confidence enough for both of us, and his face lit up when he spoke these thoughts aloud, and I believed in what he said. I had a little money put by. It would have seen me through college if I’d stayed. He wouldn’t take it at first. He said it had a smell and that it was tainted; holding the bills to my face and breathing in I knew he was not wrong. The money smelled of sweat and dirt and grease. But it was enough it kept us through the first months. Then it was spent and he seemed pleased that it was.
We slept in a house that was not his or mine. He broke a window to get in, and he was sorry for that. There were beds in the rooms upstairs, but we slept on the carpeted floor downstairs, and he said that this was part of what we were now.
At first our days were all kisses and he couldn’t keep his hands off me and he said how I completed him. We fucked when he woke, even if I wasn’t really ready. He was always in a hurry then, like it was a race he was determined to win and he always did win. And afterwards he was all soft and sweet, and he made a fuss of how beautiful I was and how perfect everything was. I cleaned myself in the kitchen.
I wanted to sleep in a bed and eat meals sitting at a table, and I wanted a bath and to make my hair nice. I didn’t dare tell him that, just like I didn’t dare tell him that I’d missed my period.
He played his guitar in the subway most days, shifting from place to place to avoid being moved on by the police. He called them pigs and his words were all spit and spite when he said that. He collected pennies in a plastic cup, enough some days we could drink sweetened coffee or buy fresh bread. Other days we went hungry.
I thought love was enough, and his music fed my soul, and we had everything we needed – that’s what he said. But some days it all got heavy. Days when he could not hang onto the things that he said, when the song was not in his voice, and my belief in him faltered. I thought about going back then, back to the girl I had been before – only there was no going back, not with the child I was carrying inside me.
Thanks, Patty. These continue to be fun to do. You just pick such interesting pictures and then you tag them with some few evocative words. The rest is just play.
http://judithlindenau.wordpress.com/2013/05/06/may-5-2013-sometimes-it-all-got-heavy/
I thought it would be different. I thought it would be something else. He said he loved me and I thought love was enough. So I gave up everything and walked after him. And there was the music. When he played guitar and hung his voice on the thrilled air, boy that was food for the soul. I saw the way others looked at him then: boys who wanted to be him and girls who wanted to be me.
‘There’s nothing we can’t do,’ he said. ‘We don’t need to follow the paths of our mothers and fathers. They got it all wrong. Look at their mean little lives and everything mortgaged to the hilt, and I ain’t seen my father smile in years and my mother cries in her sleep. There has to be another way.’
And he had confidence enough for both of us, and his face lit up when he spoke these thoughts aloud, and I believed in what he said. I had a little money put by. It would have seen me through college if I’d stayed. He wouldn’t take it at first. He said it had a smell and that it was tainted; holding the bills to my face and breathing in I knew he was not wrong. The money smelled of sweat and dirt and grease. But it was enough it kept us through the first months. Then it was spent and he seemed pleased that it was.
We slept in a house that was not his or mine. He broke a window to get in, and he was sorry for that. There were beds in the rooms upstairs, but we slept on the carpeted floor downstairs, and he said that this was part of what we were now.
At first our days were all kisses and he couldn’t keep his hands off me and he said how I completed him. We fucked when he woke, even if I wasn’t really ready. He was always in a hurry then, like it was a race he was determined to win and he always did win. And afterwards he was all soft and sweet, and he made a fuss of how beautiful I was and how perfect everything was. I cleaned myself in the kitchen.
I wanted to sleep in a bed and eat meals sitting at a table, and I wanted a bath and to make my hair nice. I didn’t dare tell him that, just like I didn’t dare tell him that I’d missed my period.
He played his guitar in the subway most days, shifting from place to place to avoid being moved on by the police. He called them pigs and his words were all spit and spite when he said that. He collected pennies in a plastic cup, enough some days we could drink sweetened coffee or buy fresh bread. Other days we went hungry.
I thought love was enough, and his music fed my soul, and we had everything we needed – that’s what he said. But some days it all got heavy. Days when he could not hang onto the things that he said, when the song was not in his voice, and my belief in him faltered. I thought about going back then, back to the girl I had been before – only there was no going back, not with the child I was carrying inside me.
I never tire of seeing what narrative impulses these set into motion for you, Lindsay. Thank you again! Makes my job satisfying.
Thanks, Patty. These continue to be fun to do. You just pick such interesting pictures and then you tag them with some few evocative words. The rest is just play.