Heart of It
C.A. MacConnell
7/27/2019
7/24/2019
Photo: Young's.
Young's Jersey Dairy
Yellow Springs, OH
Best ice cream I've ever had! <3
C.A. MacConnell
7/19/2019
Alllllmmmmoooosttttttt There............!!!!!
371 pp. folks. Almost there! Cover looks amazing! #bookthree <3 C.A. MacConnell
7/16/2019
Photo: Hoping, and a Note to You.
Hoping
I'm working on the edits on the first proof of BOOK THREE ... the front cover looks outstanding. I love it. Back cover needs work. Interior is almost there.
Life has been getting in the way, and I haven't been feeling well, but I'm trooping along anyhow. 💪💪. Trying to be strong as well as pay attention to my gut.
I sure hope that someday I can focus all of my time on my art, rather than have outside jobs. It's hard to manage day in, day out. I've been hoping that for God knows how long. Years. Let's put that wish out to the universe one...more...time. It'd be such a relief.
Gave a talk last night...told my ridiculous story to a huge group. Felt good. Really flowed. I was "on," so to speak. I know when I'm "on," and when I'm not. Coffee helps. Public speaking is my element for sure. I love it. I love doing the book signings as well. Here's what they saw: a super calm girl, flowing with words, cracking some jokes some, and getting down and dirty and deep some. Here's what they didn't know: I was having a bad reaction to an antibiotic, and my stomach was a mess, and I had strep last week, a virus this week, as well as work, brain, and money problems. But when I'm in front of people, I forget about all of that and just do this: give. Rad.
Next time you see a hyped-up, smiley singer on stage, remember that. You never know what issues or problems might be lurking behind the slick exterior. Hell, that goes for everyone. We've all got struggles, if we are indeed part of that band of wild things we call this: human.
Fuck, good luck to you all out there.
I'll have the third book out soon, soon, soon. :) I promise. Pass it on,
Life has been getting in the way, and I haven't been feeling well, but I'm trooping along anyhow. 💪💪. Trying to be strong as well as pay attention to my gut.
I sure hope that someday I can focus all of my time on my art, rather than have outside jobs. It's hard to manage day in, day out. I've been hoping that for God knows how long. Years. Let's put that wish out to the universe one...more...time. It'd be such a relief.
Gave a talk last night...told my ridiculous story to a huge group. Felt good. Really flowed. I was "on," so to speak. I know when I'm "on," and when I'm not. Coffee helps. Public speaking is my element for sure. I love it. I love doing the book signings as well. Here's what they saw: a super calm girl, flowing with words, cracking some jokes some, and getting down and dirty and deep some. Here's what they didn't know: I was having a bad reaction to an antibiotic, and my stomach was a mess, and I had strep last week, a virus this week, as well as work, brain, and money problems. But when I'm in front of people, I forget about all of that and just do this: give. Rad.
Next time you see a hyped-up, smiley singer on stage, remember that. You never know what issues or problems might be lurking behind the slick exterior. Hell, that goes for everyone. We've all got struggles, if we are indeed part of that band of wild things we call this: human.
Fuck, good luck to you all out there.
I'll have the third book out soon, soon, soon. :) I promise. Pass it on,
C.A. MacConnell
7/08/2019
Come Down
-- a fiction piece, first version was published in CityBeat Magazine's 'Living Out Loud' column
Come Down
I woke to these sounds -- workmen, storm sirens, and the wind testing my window, the steady rattle, the fight of thin panes against the frame. Below, men hammered, and across the room, my window spoke; it moaned, squeaked, and knocked, trapped inside the wall of my cramped efficiency. Screenless and stubborn, it was stuck shut.
I glanced through the glass, looking down below, but few people walked into the alley. I sat for hours, trying to write, looking for bodies and stories. Besides the workmen, no one appeared, and they never glanced my way. Only relentless pounding and storming. At war with sound, I stared at the computer. Nothing. For a long time, a blank trip, my fingers suspended over keys, hanging there.
At dusk, when I peered out the window again, someone entered the alley. Hands in his pockets, he stared at his feet. Then he looked up. His hair, brown, was a mess. He was small, thin. His blue sweater burned a neon blur through the shadows. His jeans were the borrowed kind, gray. He squinted to see me.
The window moved, seemed to sing. I eased closer. Bang, knock, went the workmen. Crack, smash, went the storm.
Come down, the stranger mouthed at me. Shrugging, he smiled, and his thick lips spread; his face was all teeth.
I pressed my forehead against the glass.
He waited, wet and mute.
I thought about practical things -- feed cats, clean, try to write. But the window shook, and when I touched it, it whisper-screamed. Or maybe I did.
In a blue-gray turn, pivoting on one foot, he left. Just like that.
The workmen sawed trees, demolished skyscrapers, and blew up my world. I forgot to sleep or eat. I reminded myself to blink. My hearing heightened. The hammering shook the walls. I wondered if they'd cave in, collapse. But I wouldn't leave. I watched.
Three nights later, he reappeared in the alley. Pulling his sweater tight around his middle, he mouthed, Come down.
The sky drooled rain on the roof, smothering the building and all inside.
Shifting in his shoes, he waited, drenched.
I thought about stripping him dry and clean. I thought about kissing something. For two years, I had been stuck inside blank pages. Here, I studied the glass cracks. I imagined the window breaking, my body falling, sucked out by the wind, a leech. The wind's pitch grew higher. Whale sounds. One floor down, I could fall into him gently. No suicide.
He shrugged and left.
I guessed that was goodbye. I felt nausea beyond butterflies. I was good at forgetting. The queen of amnesia. I went out for smokes. Then, back in the building hallway, I felt a draft. I opened my apartment door. Someone. In there.
His back turned, he seemed at home, sitting on my floor. Then he whipped around, looking at me, startled, as if I were the intruder.
In our holding places, we were silent, divided by the broken glass scattered across my ground.
Expressionless, he stared with dark eyes, his seeing holes. For a moment, I thought I saw behind them into the nerves, the song of his scattered mind. There, I saw my own damaged mind. Two years, no touch. Nothing. Inside, trapped in the lone, rhythmic hammering. Deeply.
"You got in," I said.
He nodded. "Fire escape. Broke the window...with a rock," he said. His voice was airy, with slight pauses in between words. He smiled, nervously. "Sorry...you wouldn't...come down."
I moved closer, standing above him, hands on hips. I shook.
He grabbed my arm.
All skin was slippery.
I thought of practical things -- call cops, play dead, shout profanities, but my voice was throat-buried. With my free hand, I picked up a piece of glass. A weapon, just in case. I imagined cutting him. I imagined the way the blood would spread a thick slide across his hand as I freed myself. I imagined his generic, hurt expression.
No workmen chattered. No wind whistled. But outside air drifted through the space where the window used to be, and I felt the urge to kiss his small hand, the hand that broke it, the violent, flawless, nameless hand. I grabbed his damp, blue sweater and hung on, dropping the glass.
He reached toward my eyes. I guess to touch the lids. Yes.
Quiet.
Everywhere, hands.
His sweater, the blue shade, so elusive. If I tried hard enough, maybe I could see through the color straight into his chest, his throat, his brain, a brain that held this new draft, the broken glass, the story of two nameless beings touching shared, broken minds and broken space, one stranger lost in an alley, hammering through vacancy, shattering it, filling it. The story of lifting each other, inside and up.
God, I hope the room is still there when we come down.
-- C.A. MacConnell
Come Down
I woke to these sounds -- workmen, storm sirens, and the wind testing my window, the steady rattle, the fight of thin panes against the frame. Below, men hammered, and across the room, my window spoke; it moaned, squeaked, and knocked, trapped inside the wall of my cramped efficiency. Screenless and stubborn, it was stuck shut.
I glanced through the glass, looking down below, but few people walked into the alley. I sat for hours, trying to write, looking for bodies and stories. Besides the workmen, no one appeared, and they never glanced my way. Only relentless pounding and storming. At war with sound, I stared at the computer. Nothing. For a long time, a blank trip, my fingers suspended over keys, hanging there.
At dusk, when I peered out the window again, someone entered the alley. Hands in his pockets, he stared at his feet. Then he looked up. His hair, brown, was a mess. He was small, thin. His blue sweater burned a neon blur through the shadows. His jeans were the borrowed kind, gray. He squinted to see me.
The window moved, seemed to sing. I eased closer. Bang, knock, went the workmen. Crack, smash, went the storm.
Come down, the stranger mouthed at me. Shrugging, he smiled, and his thick lips spread; his face was all teeth.
I pressed my forehead against the glass.
He waited, wet and mute.
I thought about practical things -- feed cats, clean, try to write. But the window shook, and when I touched it, it whisper-screamed. Or maybe I did.
In a blue-gray turn, pivoting on one foot, he left. Just like that.
The workmen sawed trees, demolished skyscrapers, and blew up my world. I forgot to sleep or eat. I reminded myself to blink. My hearing heightened. The hammering shook the walls. I wondered if they'd cave in, collapse. But I wouldn't leave. I watched.
Three nights later, he reappeared in the alley. Pulling his sweater tight around his middle, he mouthed, Come down.
The sky drooled rain on the roof, smothering the building and all inside.
Shifting in his shoes, he waited, drenched.
I thought about stripping him dry and clean. I thought about kissing something. For two years, I had been stuck inside blank pages. Here, I studied the glass cracks. I imagined the window breaking, my body falling, sucked out by the wind, a leech. The wind's pitch grew higher. Whale sounds. One floor down, I could fall into him gently. No suicide.
He shrugged and left.
I guessed that was goodbye. I felt nausea beyond butterflies. I was good at forgetting. The queen of amnesia. I went out for smokes. Then, back in the building hallway, I felt a draft. I opened my apartment door. Someone. In there.
His back turned, he seemed at home, sitting on my floor. Then he whipped around, looking at me, startled, as if I were the intruder.
In our holding places, we were silent, divided by the broken glass scattered across my ground.
Expressionless, he stared with dark eyes, his seeing holes. For a moment, I thought I saw behind them into the nerves, the song of his scattered mind. There, I saw my own damaged mind. Two years, no touch. Nothing. Inside, trapped in the lone, rhythmic hammering. Deeply.
"You got in," I said.
He nodded. "Fire escape. Broke the window...with a rock," he said. His voice was airy, with slight pauses in between words. He smiled, nervously. "Sorry...you wouldn't...come down."
I moved closer, standing above him, hands on hips. I shook.
He grabbed my arm.
All skin was slippery.
I thought of practical things -- call cops, play dead, shout profanities, but my voice was throat-buried. With my free hand, I picked up a piece of glass. A weapon, just in case. I imagined cutting him. I imagined the way the blood would spread a thick slide across his hand as I freed myself. I imagined his generic, hurt expression.
No workmen chattered. No wind whistled. But outside air drifted through the space where the window used to be, and I felt the urge to kiss his small hand, the hand that broke it, the violent, flawless, nameless hand. I grabbed his damp, blue sweater and hung on, dropping the glass.
He reached toward my eyes. I guess to touch the lids. Yes.
Quiet.
Everywhere, hands.
His sweater, the blue shade, so elusive. If I tried hard enough, maybe I could see through the color straight into his chest, his throat, his brain, a brain that held this new draft, the broken glass, the story of two nameless beings touching shared, broken minds and broken space, one stranger lost in an alley, hammering through vacancy, shattering it, filling it. The story of lifting each other, inside and up.
God, I hope the room is still there when we come down.
-- C.A. MacConnell
7/07/2019
The Country Club
Some poetry for you today. If you're having a hard time, remember, everything changes. Much love to you all. We ALL need love, every day. It's the best medicine. :) <3 C.A.
The Country Club
Their world rages pink,
like a chapped lip,
like a strange,
split sunset
on the mouth
of a private plane.
Some smoke cigars
in the basement.
Leather lazy boys.
Nothing but time
and sheep.
Today’s party
is in the main room,
down the hall,
the side table beneath
the exclusive painting.
A golf course view
of buttons and zippers.
Windbreakers.
For the children,
somewhere near
the all-you-can-eat
buffet, they'll bring in
five or twenty
live bunnies.
C.A. MacConnell
The Country Club
Their world rages pink,
like a chapped lip,
like a strange,
split sunset
on the mouth
of a private plane.
Some smoke cigars
in the basement.
Leather lazy boys.
Nothing but time
and sheep.
Today’s party
is in the main room,
down the hall,
the side table beneath
the exclusive painting.
A golf course view
of buttons and zippers.
Windbreakers.
For the children,
somewhere near
the all-you-can-eat
buffet, they'll bring in
five or twenty
live bunnies.
C.A. MacConnell
7/06/2019
Mental Tapes: Be Easy
Don't we all have mornings where we look in the mirror and think this: I look like absolute shit.
Well, I suppose I don't know if you do, but I do, for sure. Had that
thought this morning. And yesterday. I suppose we all have some sort of
old mental tape that plays over and over in the mind. Maybe the tapes
are different, but they creep up on us, aye? Aye, matey. I have no idea
why I suddenly turned into a pirate, ha.
Mental tapes. Maybe some girl wakes up terrified of work because when she was little her father told her she would never succeed and every day, she battles this demon. Some kid at the U.S. border wonders if he'll ever see his parents again because his entire life the outside world has stripped him of relatives, one by one, with no fucking warning. Some older woman collects canned goods because when she was little, there was no food in the house. Some man ferociously cleans his car at the self service wash, even though he already did it once that day, because when he was little, his father lost it all gambling, and the message is clear to him: the work is never enough. And deep inside me, there are still the remnants of myself as a little girl, depressed and full of self-hatred.
The tapes play on; they creep up on us in the strangest moments. Some people are never aware of these tapes. Others are. Awareness can be a beast...over time, I've worked to fight against these negative mental tapes, and there's been great progress, but I suppose we all carry the deepest ones with us for years...maybe some of us hold on to them our entire lives.
These days, I mainly battle self esteem issues and fear. What makes me most afraid? It changes, but lately, judgment of my life and body, and the fear of being stuck. Trapped.
But there's something miraculous within all of this -- these pains can bring us together. And with all of these highs and lows, with all of these battles within us, remember to be easy on others and be easy on yourself today.
💞💞💞💞💞
C.A. MacConnell
Mental tapes. Maybe some girl wakes up terrified of work because when she was little her father told her she would never succeed and every day, she battles this demon. Some kid at the U.S. border wonders if he'll ever see his parents again because his entire life the outside world has stripped him of relatives, one by one, with no fucking warning. Some older woman collects canned goods because when she was little, there was no food in the house. Some man ferociously cleans his car at the self service wash, even though he already did it once that day, because when he was little, his father lost it all gambling, and the message is clear to him: the work is never enough. And deep inside me, there are still the remnants of myself as a little girl, depressed and full of self-hatred.
The tapes play on; they creep up on us in the strangest moments. Some people are never aware of these tapes. Others are. Awareness can be a beast...over time, I've worked to fight against these negative mental tapes, and there's been great progress, but I suppose we all carry the deepest ones with us for years...maybe some of us hold on to them our entire lives.
These days, I mainly battle self esteem issues and fear. What makes me most afraid? It changes, but lately, judgment of my life and body, and the fear of being stuck. Trapped.
But there's something miraculous within all of this -- these pains can bring us together. And with all of these highs and lows, with all of these battles within us, remember to be easy on others and be easy on yourself today.
💞💞💞💞💞
C.A. MacConnell
7/04/2019
Photo: Parade Girl
Parade Girl
Northside, OH
Happy Fourth! If you go to a parade, I hope you see a girl this hot, like I did a while back. ;)
I have received my first copy of BOOK THREE. It's still in proof form, but now I'm editing right on the book! It's wonderful to have it in my hands. I love the cover. That won't change at all.
I'm so excited to share my art with you. Very soon, very soon.
Working hard.
Love,
C.A. MacConnell
7/03/2019
7/01/2019
Behind the Partitions
Fiction, first published in the Anthology, 'From Here to There: Stories from Mobile Virginians,' and the piece was later performed at the Roanoke Civic Center. Something I'm still working on, but here's a secret taste, C.A.
Behind the Partitions
1991, Midwest
As I drove him to the airport, I lowered the partition just a crack to watch him in the rearview mirror, not because I felt like it, but because I knew Tiny would drill me later with the same old questions - what was he like? Was he cute? Did he talk to you? So, I watched the singer twist his body into a pretzel in the backseat. I guess it was some kind of hardcore yoga. That guy was so little and flexible, but he never smiled once, so I’m not sure if the yoga was working. People thought it was a big deal and all, being a limo driver, but really the singers mostly seemed serious or scared to me. And hell-bent on getting some exercise. I mean, it’s one thing to work out, but Jesus, we’re all gonna die, and if you’re already a billionaire, who gives a fu…I’d say fuck, but since you’re riding along with me, I wouldn’t want to offend you and all.
But he was gone and on his private jet before I even got my freaking name out. That’s the way it was with stars and anyone, really. They were all just all one blank face, handing me cash and trying to remember things like names. That was how the morning went - faceless money, pretzel boys, and gorilla managers. Did I mention Tiny’s legs?
Cowboy here. You copy?
Copy, Cowboy.
Out from airport. Off to the tit show party at the church.
Base, copy.
Behind the Partitions
1991, Midwest
“Cowboy to base, you copy?” I
said over the two-way radio.
The office said, “Base copy
Cowboy. All clear.” It was Tiny’s voice.
I don’t need street signs,
maps, red lights, or scarecrows pointing the way. I know every inch of this
city, from the alleys to the highways, and every sweat shop and mansion in
between. Been driving limos for as long as I can think back. Before I started
crawling, seems like my hands were already black, covered in slick, leather
gloves. My chauffeur cap was already on my bald head before I could even stand.
Drove limos before I drove Playschool cars, before I pulled red wagons, before
I rode big wheels down the driveway, before I could chew, spit, talk right, eat
right, before I even had a woman.
Janet and I made our first kid in the back of a white, stretch Lincoln. Made our second kid in the back of a black 8-passenger before I left for my run to pick up a pain in the ass boy band from England. Let me tell you about some others - the hard rock superstars I drove who had two cars, one for the drunks and one for the smokers. I was just glad I was driving the smoking car. It was easier than vomit, and they paid for burns. Then there was the Pop singer from L.A. – made me go buy her plugs because she was on the rag, damn, but the tips were good. Then there was that Rock wailer with the bad back. He just hugged on his manager and gave me no grief, other than the sob story about how he was worried the band was going to find another singer. I listened, but what could I do. And then we had the multi-platinum beach bum guitarist, the good old family man who brought them all in town for each show. All sixty of them. Took our whole fleet. And the heavy metal guys who cracked me up. Day after day, whoever it was, these stars all told me the same things - turn off the AC, turn it on, put the partition up and leave it there, I thought we ordered a white car, not black. Let’s just say nobody was calling me “sir.” You get the deal, buddy.
Janet and I made our first kid in the back of a white, stretch Lincoln. Made our second kid in the back of a black 8-passenger before I left for my run to pick up a pain in the ass boy band from England. Let me tell you about some others - the hard rock superstars I drove who had two cars, one for the drunks and one for the smokers. I was just glad I was driving the smoking car. It was easier than vomit, and they paid for burns. Then there was the Pop singer from L.A. – made me go buy her plugs because she was on the rag, damn, but the tips were good. Then there was that Rock wailer with the bad back. He just hugged on his manager and gave me no grief, other than the sob story about how he was worried the band was going to find another singer. I listened, but what could I do. And then we had the multi-platinum beach bum guitarist, the good old family man who brought them all in town for each show. All sixty of them. Took our whole fleet. And the heavy metal guys who cracked me up. Day after day, whoever it was, these stars all told me the same things - turn off the AC, turn it on, put the partition up and leave it there, I thought we ordered a white car, not black. Let’s just say nobody was calling me “sir.” You get the deal, buddy.
I just smiled and kissed some
backsides and kept their secrets and tried not to cuss my brains out, opening
doors and shutting them, bowing down, ready to jump, ready to sit down, just
damn ready, buddy. That’s chauffeur life - we let them step all over us until the last stop when
there was only one gloved hand held out open, waiting for a tip. See, it was
all about the secrets and the tips.
And then there were the
office girls -- the long-legged, short-skirted, fake-nailed girls in the
office. Buddy, I mean long legs. Back at the ranch, there were three sets of
long legs - the manager, the owner,
and the “go-fer” girl, Tiny, who did all the work while the other two filed
nails or ate these huge meals of ribs. Amazed me how those girls ate so much
food and stayed as thin as radio antennas. And how they could keep from
slurring on the telephone, even after putting away six coffee cups full of
champagne. That’s who was in charge. Over and out.
I drove LIMO10, which had a
dent in the passenger door, so when I opened it for the VIP, I stood in front
of the dent, reminding myself to write it down so I didn’t get blamed for it. Which
I swear happened to me more than once.
Good morning, sir, I told the
singer guy right after I smoothed my mustache in place.
The singer just stared at me
and didn’t smile. He was a billionaire, but his face was straight and worn out
looking. He wasn’t exactly frowning either, and neither was his ape of a
manager. They were both just expressionless, faceless, and the swollen eyes,
the black circles underneath them, the baggy clothes and hanging eyelids just
made them look like they were frowning. Just the two of them mumbling in the
backseat. They thought I couldn’t hear with that partition up. Then again, everyone seemed to think that. And
they seemed to think chauffeurs liked fried chicken better than steak. That’s
what they fed me backstage the night before - freaking greasy fried chicken, while the managers ate
steak and the singer ate some godawful veggie thing with roots and trees and
stuff in it. Boring, buddy, boring.
As I drove him to the airport, I lowered the partition just a crack to watch him in the rearview mirror, not because I felt like it, but because I knew Tiny would drill me later with the same old questions - what was he like? Was he cute? Did he talk to you? So, I watched the singer twist his body into a pretzel in the backseat. I guess it was some kind of hardcore yoga. That guy was so little and flexible, but he never smiled once, so I’m not sure if the yoga was working. People thought it was a big deal and all, being a limo driver, but really the singers mostly seemed serious or scared to me. And hell-bent on getting some exercise. I mean, it’s one thing to work out, but Jesus, we’re all gonna die, and if you’re already a billionaire, who gives a fu…I’d say fuck, but since you’re riding along with me, I wouldn’t want to offend you and all.
So anyhow, the pretzel singer
gave me some kind of big tip and said, Thanks, what’s your name again? after he
was all meditated out.
Thank you, sir, name’s
Cowboy, I said, tipping my hat.
But he was gone and on his private jet before I even got my freaking name out. That’s the way it was with stars and anyone, really. They were all just all one blank face, handing me cash and trying to remember things like names. That was how the morning went - faceless money, pretzel boys, and gorilla managers. Did I mention Tiny’s legs?
Cowboy here. You copy?
Copy, Cowboy.
Out from airport. Off to the tit show party at the church.
Base, copy.
AC went out in the car by
noon. I was on my way to a wedding, a three-car wedding, and I had the
bridesmaids in my car because Tiny knew I was the best with the women. When I
picked them up, they were already drunk, falling into the backseat, all six of
them, stuffing their dresses in with them. When we got on down the road, two of
them started kissing. The partition was up again, but even then, I could hear
lips smacking.
So, pretzel singer, then the
lesbian bridesmaids, two more airport trips, three cups of coffee, a biscuit
from Hardee's, then turning on my two-way radio to check in with Tiny and her
legs.
Cowboy, on my way back to the ranch. You copy?
Hey, Cowboy, got a night out run tonight, can you take
it?
Damn sure knew I shouldn’t
have checked in with her. Hadn’t slept in two days, and had been bossed around
by Sting’s manager that whole time. That’s the thing about being a chauffeur- they don’t tell you that the job description includes
things like picking up condoms, strippers, gum, mints, lubricating lotion,
Chinese, Mexican, beer, liquor, smokes, yeast infection medicine, toothpaste,
floss, shoe polish, lipstick, and mistresses.
Sure, Tiny. Cowboy out.
I said yes cause if I said
no, they’d strip me of the good runs all the next week, put me on nothing but
airport customers that stiffed me. So, I said yes. And mostly I said yes cause
of the way Tiny looked in her skirts, and because when she bent across the desk
to read something, you could see down her blouse sometimes.
An address was all I got,
buddy, and I was always just expected to know - the office girls just gave you an address and you
just knew. Yeah, we knew, and if we didn’t, we were pretty much screwed. You
late, you suffer, and get crappy airport runs the whole next week. That’s the thing about the office girls - you screwed up, and they remembered.
So, I filled LIMO10 with gas
again and headed over to the Quality Inn, where I downed three more cups of
coffee and cleaned leftover wedding streamers from the back of the car. I waited.
Then I waited some more and some more, smoked a cigarette, fixed my cap,
tried the AC again and it worked that time, watched a little of Rambo on the TV,
picked at a scab on my face, smoothed my mustache in place. I waited. Cleaned
Hardees biscuit crumbs from my mustache.
Sprayed potpourri scent in the back of the car. I waited.
When she came out of the hotel,
she walked fast, faster than most drummers, who always seemed to be in a hurry.
She was dressed all in purple. Even her purse and the hat on her head were a
lavender color. On the other shoulder hung a camera. I knew it was strange, but a chauffeur knows
how to read the crazies after a while.
Just by the way they walked - head down, few belongings, alone, and they’d be all
short in their speech, as if they too were talking on a two-way radio, only
they would stare at their hands when they did it, cracking knuckles and
cracking them again. That’s what the purple lady did. Crack, crack, crack.
All she said was, “Waterfront,”
sitting with her face pressed against the window, gripping her camera, spacing
out like a kid on the bus. She wouldn’t try to kill me or anything. She was too
spacey. The scary ones paid much more attention to the way I drove.
I got back on the highway,
driving slowly so she didn’t flip out or anything, watching her in the mirror.
“Partition’s broken,” I said.
She didn’t look up. She
smoked and pulled a notepad from her purse. She didn’t write in it. She just
flipped pages. Flip, flip, flip. Then she got on the phone and said, “I’m in
the car. I’m in the car.”
Would’ve thought she was
chasing her cheating husband at first, but I could tell by the way she was all
dressed up that it was more than that. (Wives chasing their cheating husbands
down usually wear sweats and have makeup smeared from their face, and they'd drag
along two kids with them or something). Not the purple lady. She was in it for
some money, she was taking secret notes for someone else, watching and noting
what happened. What happened was that
she got out of the car and said, “Thanks, Cowboy,” handing me a two-hundred-dollar
tip at the Waterfront restaurant. “Leave the car running,” she said.
That was it with the purple
lady. Hired stalkers were the best to drive. They paid you to say nothing.
Secrets - it was all about keeping
things in - husbands cheating on
wives, men robbing Getz jewelers, brides-to-be kissing bridesmaids, businessmen
taking prostitutes to the Playhouse, stars smoking pot or doing speed or
twisting their bodies into pretzels, and all of those sounds coming from behind
the partitions - the mutters, chuckles, farts, belches, moans, rustles of clothes,
laughter, loud music, snot blowing from someone’s nose, screams, calls to
clients, calls to girlfriends, calls to clients that were girlfriends, calls to
wives and kids and dogs, and then there were those who talked to themselves, or
the window, or the radio, or the door locks.
Never drove the speed limit with those kinds of talkers.
Then there was the purple
lady running from the Waterfront with a man in a suit chasing after her, and
her jumping in, saying, Make it to the Quality Inn in five minutes.
And I made it, and another
two hundred. You do what you got to do. No attention is paid to speed limits,
buddy. I dropped her off and forgot about it.
Through downtown at 3AM, when
all the faces were black, when the eyes were as white as the walls on tires,
when the prostitutes were smacking gum, I waved at one and she waved back and
said, “Heya Cowboy,” before I was on my way home to Janet and my two kids.
When I stretched out next to
her, still wearing my black suit, she turned over and breathed on me, coughed,
and kept on sleeping.
“Good night,” I said,
reminding myself that nothing, nothing happened that day. And nothing had happened when I dropped the
car off at the ranch, when Tiny was there to take my run sheets, when she asked
me if everything went okay, when she bent over the desk and looked at my notes
on the pretzel man Sting, the two airport trips in between, the bisexual
homosexual bridesmaids, and the purple stalker, when she batted her lashes and
asked, What was Sting like? Nothing
happened. I gave her my hours, and then
she bent over that desk again, and Buddy, she had the longest legs, and well,
the partition was up. I didn’t need any
directions. I was Cowboy and nothing had
happened. You can bet nothing happened, buddy.
You copy?
-- C.A. MacConnell
-- C.A. MacConnell