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Scribe
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Toledo, Oh
Posts: 64
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A Filthy Life
“This place is a disaster,” Tina said, “Don’t your neighbors complain about the smell?”
She stepped meticulously across the floor, as if the dirty clothes, the dishes encrusted with the rotten remnants of food, and the various other flotsams scattered about my apartment were anti-personnel mines, eager to explode at the slightest provocation.
“Yeah,” I replied, “But I just tell them it’s from the dead hookers I keep in the fridge. They understand.”
“Wonderful, jackass. I bet the cockroaches just love you.”
“Well, at least I hear no complaints from them. You want coffee?”
“I’d rather drink straight bleach than anything from your kitchen.”
“Hey, no need to be mean. I have some beer. There’s wine too. Well, kind of… it’s Boone’s Farm. Watermelon flavored.”
“I don’t drink on the job, honey.”
“Suit yourself.”
I poured a cup a thick, cold coffee for myself and placed it in the microwave. It bleeped in response as I pressed the six, then the zero, followed by the start button and, with a buzz, the microwave switched on.
Precariously, between her thumb and index finger, Tina held a pair of socks she had picked up from the couch cushion, “Hey, these just go on the floor or what?”
“Here, I’ll take them,” I said and rushed to her side, grabbing the filthy socks and tossing them into the hamper, as if placing this insignificant portion of my soiled laundry into the proper receptacle would, somehow, absolve the much larger issue of my filthy, degenerate existence.
With her seating area free of debris, Sarah nestled her pale, diminutive frame onto the couch and kicked off her shoes. I switched the lamp on so that I could see her better, and the soft light washed over her, illuminating a supple, innocent face that I had never quite noticed before. She seemed terribly chaste in that light, as if the specks of blood on her pouting lips, as if the hollow sniffles echoing from her coke ravaged nose, and as if her bloodshot eyes, surrounded by a gaunt, sunken darkness, were somehow illusions and I was simply a very bad man taking advantage of a sweet, naďve little girl.
“Hey,” Tina called out, tearing me away from my ruminations, “Your microwave is beeping.”
“I don’t want coffee anymore,” I said and sat on the couch next to her.
“Well, what do you want then?” Tina asked suggestively.
I placed my hand on her thigh, sliding back her skirt to reveal the pale, bruised flesh of her leg. Tina didn’t recoil; she didn’t shy away from my groping advances. Most women would, and how could I have ever blamed them? Every mirror, every reflection in every glass window reminded me of my flagrant unattractiveness. I was and still am a repulsive, obese slob, balding and unwashed most of the week, pursuing a life of unemployment and sordid iniquity. Tina simply looked into my eyes and smiled. She was a professional.
I leaned in to kiss her. She turned her face away and the sharp, bristly stubbles of my unshaven chin grated noisily across her cheek. Tina repelled my advances with a gently push of her hand.
“Whoa, slow down. We gotta talk about what you want today, honey, before we start to have any fun,” She said.
I caught her meaning and rummaged through my pocket to retrieve a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. Tina eyed the money warily.
“Is that all you have?” She asked.
I nodded.
“Honey, do you think I’m some second-rate whore you picked up off the street? What do you expect to get for twenty bucks?” She asked angrily, then her tone softened, “Listen, since you’re one of my regulars I’ll give you a break, just this once, though. So, you want the whole package or what?”
“Yeah, Tina,” I said, “You’re so beautiful. I’ll make it up to you next time, I promise.”
Tina smiled and secreted the money away into her bra. Suddenly the door to my apartment burst open as police, ignoring the makeshift minefield of refuse scattered about the floor, flooded inside. I stared at them, mouth agape, unable to move, as they descended upon me like a ravenous pack of wolves. One of the police officers pulled Tina away as the others tackled me.
“I’m sorry, sugar,” Tina apologized over the cacophony, “But I just can‘t go back to jail.”
I watched as the police ushered the repenting Judas hooker out of my apartment. Soon they carted me away too and threw me into a waiting squad car, never to see my sweet, beautiful, treacherous Tina again.
I’m not angry with her. They say that I’m a criminal, a degenerate, propagating the exploitation of woman who were failed by a floundering educational system, neglected by parents, and who crave the tender embrace of drugs above all else, even life and liberty. I can’t blame her for betraying me, because there are no true bonds between money and sex. Tina did what she had to do to survive, to keep herself feeding at the bottom, feeding off the foul, lonely bacteria like myself.
It’s been countless years since that incident and I haven’t changed. I am still the disgusting, unemployed slob I’ve always been and, unlike wine, I don’t grow finer with age. My life is still a series of humiliations and lonely misdeeds and, of course, I still find solace in the arms of prostitutes. They’re my companions and I’m their income. Perhaps this isn’t the life any of us would have chosen when we were kids, but it’s our lot and nothing, no law or intervention or self-righteous politician is going to change it. The way I see it, people akin to Tina and me need each other, because when we finally pass from this world, there will be no one else around who cares enough to even pause and breathe a quiet sigh.
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