This is a story I wrote back in college, something like 23 years ago now I think. Even though I was a Creative Writing major, I didn’t write much that I like or want to revisit but this is an exception. It’s pretty terrible, I’ll admit, but it’s fun — like a train wreck kind of fun where the train wreck happened 23 years ago and no one got hurt and we can all laugh about it now? That kind of train wreck. See, I was fairly obsessed with the Counting Crows’ first album, August and Everything After, and searching for inspiration it’s not hard to imagine I was listening to the CD on the U Haul cardboard box speakers in my dorm room (thanks, Smitty!!). I do remember in the writing seminar I had given my fellow classmates this story cold and they were all a little confused until I mentioned the song (they were all probably too cool for the Counting Crows). So, now you know it’s about the song, and here are links to the song (Amazon, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube). I didn’t touch the text – didn’t fix the typos, didn’t change a word. Reading it is a time machine for me, going back into 19-year-old Jordy’s headspace. It’s fun revisiting this. I hope you get a smile out of it, too!
I jerked awake at the strident phone which ripped through my sleep and yanked me bolt upright. Taking a deep breath, I said carefully, “Hello?”
“Adam! It’s Dave, man,” the phone returned too loud for the middle of the night.
“Dave, hey man, what’s up?”
“That chick who’s staying with you, man, what’s her name–?”
“Maria,” the word emptied all drowsiness from my brain. “What’s she done now?”
“Dude, she’s pretty fucked up.” I nodded, not surprised. “Can you come get her?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, the party’s at your house?”
“Uh-Huh.”
“I’m on my way, thanks Dave.” I put the phone down and put on my jeans lying on the floor. I grabbed my jacket and keys and headed down the main hallway of the apartment building to the parking lot.
Opening the door, I found San Francisco predictable in the nights weather. Engulfed in fog, a heavy drizzle fell like a million icy needles. It was the type of thing where you think a cloud walked over and swallowed the city up whole. I stepped out the back door, and I feeling like a ghost. I wondered for a second if anyone could appreciate the contrast of the white on white. No, probably no one. As I climbed into my car, the usual puddle was already forming in the passenger footwell where the rain dripped through a niche in the canvas top. I threw an old towel into the puddle as the old engine sputtered to life.
Dave’s place was up in Berkeley, and I wasn’t too excited about driving through Berkeley in the middle of the night, but I was used to picking Maria up from wherever she was — at least I KNEW Dave. There was no parking in front of his house. I had to park like a quarter mile down. When I got to his house I was less wet than I should have been. I remembered what my mother told me years ago as a child — “walk in the air between the raindrops.”
I knocked on the door, which gave way and opened slowly with the second knock. The foyer was empty, but the music pouring from the next room told me where everyone was. Everyone, as it turned out, was about five people who were the last of the party. Dave looked up at me from the couch, sitting comfortable between two women I’d never seen before.
“Adam! Good to see you, man,” he started to get up.
I held out my hand for him to stop, “Don’t worry man. Where is she?” His smile faded, as if he were telling me bad news.
“Out back.”
“Thanks.” Outside I found Maria reclining in a lounge chair in the middle of the lawn, soaking wet. Her arms were swinging wildly as she sang a drunken chorus of “Heard it Through the Grapevine.” “Maria!” I called.
She tried to prop herself up on the arm of the lounger, but slipped and slammed her chin into the metal bar, “Shiii–iit,” she spat as she slapped the arm rest and held her chin. She looked up at me, “Adam? Is that you Adam?” Her southern accent was thick as she giggled, “whateryou doing here Adam?”
“We’re going home, Maria,” I said.
“Okay, Adam. Okay, let’s go home. Okay, I’m ready. Go home, okay…”
“See ya’ Adam, Maria!” Dave yelled from his seat on the couch as I led Maria dripping through the living room.
The next morning, early, I heard fast footsteps past my bedroom door into the bathroom. Looking over at the clock I noticed I hadn’t laid down just three hours earlier. It was an ugly five in the morning and I fought with my conscience about whether I should check on her or go back to sleep. Conscience won. Damn him.
I knocked at the door. Nothing. “Maria,” I spoke to the door, “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” I could hear her sobs through the door. Nothing else, just heaving sobs resonated by porcelain. “Maria! What’s wrong?”
“I’m dying!” she cried back all at once.
“Why?” I knew she was sick, but why was she dying? No answer. Just sobs.
Maria came from Nashville, a suitcase in her hand as she stepped from the Greyhound bus. She recognized me immediately. We were friends years ago, our parents inseparable — until mine moved out to San Jose. That was the last time I saw her. I was all of thirteen years old, she twelve, but she still remembered me. She looked like an older fuller picture of the girl I remembered. Her long dark hair hung loose around her thin shoulders as she smiled at me with hollow blue eyes and a toothless smile, “Hello Adam.”
“Maria! It’s been a long time…” I said.
“Yes,” she shifted nervously from foot to foot, “too long.” I’ve heard that line a million times in sappy movies where it worked and I melted. This time, from her red painted lips and tinged with the southern accent she was noticeable fighting to hide, it felt like she was still the 12 year old girl saying that line.
As we walked to my car I started “So what brings you to the Bay Area?”
She smiled again as the bay wind blew her hair about her face and her flower-print sundress fluttered like a flag. “I want to meet a boy that looks like Elvis,” she looked up at me.
“You picked a hell of a place to look!” I laughed.
Her face contracted into a pout as she spoke again, “I want to live! I’m out’v Tennessee and I want to go crazy,” maybe it was the way she said Tennessee — like only southern natives do — or maybe it was the figure that emerged as her dress pulled taut against her lithe figure, but I knew I was in trouble.
“Look at the water!” she yelled as we drove along the shoreline. “Stop, will ya? I wanna feel the water!” I pulled my Karmen Ghia into the big parking lot and she bounded from the car towards the bay.
The sun nearly down as she pressed her bare white feet into the lapping bay. “It’s so COLD!” she shrieked.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know, but…” her sentence trailed off as she walked along the edge where the ocean meets the land just like she was walking a tightrope in the circus. To her left, the bay glittered black with the first stars beginning to reflect. To her right, flies buzzed around old seaweed that had washed up. She walked a few feet and then turned and ran towards me, jumping at me and hugging me tightly, “Oh Adam,” she breathed, “I feel so ALIVE for the first time! This is wonderful!”
That night we got drunk. I took her to a party my friend Matt was having in South City. I remembered drinking too much, and I remember Maria flirting and dancing and whooping and being really obnoxious. I also remember lying down in Matt’s bed, falling asleep. When I woke up in the morning, though, Maria’s body was pressed tightly against mine, her dress covered legs awkwardly wrapped around mine, her face buried in my chest. My first reaction was “What the FUCK?” I said the words quietly, but apparently it stirred Maria, who moaned softly, miserably. I pushed her away from me on the bed. Free of me, she curled into a fetal position, clutching blankets. I studied her from the other side of the bed, then stood up, walked to the bathroom, threw up and promptly forced myself to forget the incident. This was not the Maria I remembered.
A few weeks, and a couple of parties later, Maria had a good grasp of the city and where my friends lived. “We’re going to Charlie’s party tonight, right?” she asked me one morning as I read the newspaper before work.
“No,” I said, “Actually, I can’t go. I have to work late tonight — I have to work on the weekend issue that comes out tomorrow.”
“Oh,” she said. Standing in a white terrycloth robe, letting its folds spread suggestively, she sat down opposite me, never taking her eyes from me. I turned my attention back to the paper. “Adam?” She asked. It was her tone combined with the tilt of her head and angle of her eyes as she looked at me that brought me back to the morning after Matt’s party.
“Yes?” I stated as flatly as I could.
“Can I take your car and go to Charlie’s house tonight?” Her question sounded way too much like something she probably asked her father a million times, but the seductive air she was trying to persuade me with made me feel pedophiliac. I was 27 years old, she was 25 (“almost 26!”), but there was no way only a year was between us. To dismiss the conversation and the air, I said she could, and that I’d take the bus to work.
Early the next morning, I was awakened by the blaring of a horn — my horn. I quickly opened my window and looked out. There, in the parking lot was Maria, standing on the seat, honking the horn. “Adaam” she yelled, a drunk southern belle.
I whipped on a pair of jeans and bolted down the stairwell throwing open the back door just in time to hear a neighbor scream “Goddamn it! Shut the Fuck up!” Maria’s drunken bliss turned cold as her jaw dropped. “Dare you, sir, take the Lord’s name in vain?!” No response from the neighbor as I walked towards her. “Well, I forgive you my son! Whoopie! I feel like Jeeesus Chrissst!” She ripped open the flannel shirt she borrowed from me and flung it clumsily into the back seat. Likewise her bra. As she struggled with her skirt, I stepped into a run towards the car.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
She looked down at me, only her shoes and panties on, goose-bumps plain on her white skin. “Ad-am,” she started, “why, I’m jee-sus chrisst!” She smiled. She shook visibly in the cold air. I just looked at her — naked and smiling, standing in my car, parked cockeyed in two spaces, under the luminescent glow of the buzzing yellow aluminum sulfur streetlight. Her arms closed around her chest and she began to crouch down to stay warm. Neither of us said a word for a long time. Then I grabbed the keys from the ignition, opened the hood, and wrapped an old Mexican blanket around her. And led her, teeth chattering, up to my apartment.
She took a hot shower and I put an extra blanket on the ones already on the couch for her. I closed my door and crawled back in bed before she was even out of the shower — I didn’t want to hear her voice. I didn’t care what she was going to say. I didn’t want to hear “I’m Sorry,” or “Thank You,” or even “Why?” I was tired.
Minutes later I did hear the shower turn off and her footfalls from the bathroom. They did not stop at the couch, but continued to my door, which opened and closed. I did not move as she lifted the blankets and slid into bed. I lay still on my side, back to her, as she pressed her naked body, still warm and wet from the shower, into the curve of my back. Her lips were inches from my neck, and I could feel her breath warm, cool, warm, cool, warm, cool. The heat of her body radiated through me, but I didn’t move. After long minutes, she sighed hot on my neck and began softly, “Adam, I know I’m more than a little…” she searched for the word, “misunderstood?” My body shook from an involuntary chuckle. Her arms snaked around mine and she pressed her hands tight against my chest. “I don’t know, Adam….” she shook her head a little bit. “I just have trouble acting, I don’t know, NORMAL when I’m nervous.”
“Whe-” I started but had to clear my throat, “When are you nervous?”
“All the time,” she pressed her body tightly against mine. I could feel her cold wet hair on my shoulder as she pressed her lips against my shoulder. “Around you, your friends…” her voice muffled by my shoulder. “I guess that’s why I’ve been so…stupid. I don’t know, like talking to Donald –”
“Who?”
“Donald? Dark hair, leather jacket…”
I had no idea who she meant. “…Daniel?”
“Yeah, that’s him…. You all look the same ’round here!” She knew she was lying. The subject died.
I straightened my legs, and she followed trailing the back of my thigh and calf with her foot, sending shivers through me. I didn’t say anything. “Adam?” her voice sounded new.
“Yes.”
“Kiss me.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. My body urged me to kiss her. I didn’t move. I don’t know how long we lay there, unmoving, unspeaking. I finally fell asleep.
I dreamt while I slept. It was an uneasy dream that opened up on the sprawling plain lands. I watched as a flock of crows took flight from the knee high brush. There were hundreds of them. As they touched the sky they melted into dark storm clouds that blotted out the sun and blue ceiling sky. Rain began to beat down the brush still swaying in the whistling wind . The first forked lightning streak lit up the sky and struck the ground maybe a half mile off — but close enough for this city boy! I turned to run, but found my feet anchored to the solid earth. As a deafening peal of thunder shook the ground, heads began to pop up around me — children lying in the grass, now alert. A woman’s voice rose over the howl and clamor of the storm, “Children — come in! Now! Get in here!” She was not angry, but concerned.
One by one, like rabbits, the children leapt from the brush and bounded by me, past the woman and into the house that had materialized almost behind me. Running by, they didn’t see me. All but one. A girl, alone, her head visible above the brush. Her back to me, she began to rise. Another strike of lightning — a little closer. She turned to me and another lightning strike lit up the face of a 12 year old Maria staring at me. Behind me I heard the door opening again and the mother’s voice calling, “Maria…” the pitch rose and fell as it danced on the wind. Turning, I could see the worry-line creases in the mother’s face as she called the name again. “Maria…” I turned back. Maria just stared straight ahead at me, unmoving. Another wicked strike much closer.
As I watched, Maria began to age. Baby fat melted away as her legs lengthened, her dark hair grew, breasts began to fill out her dress — the same she wore when I picked her up at the bus stop — now soaking wet under the heavy drops. Her face thinned, leaving cheekbones perched high and pronounced under soft flawless white skin. I looked at Maria as she must have looked in high school, then graduating. Lightning flash, closer. 19, 20 years old, the lightning ever closer. The wind screaming a deafening roar, thunderclaps piercing the din, fighting for decibels. In the moment of blinding lightning flash, I saw the 12 year old Maria standing before me. As my eyes adjusted the adult Maria still stood ahead of me. Lightning pulverized the ground barely next to her, certainly singing her dress, yet Maria did not flinch. Her lips moved gently pouring out words that floated to me — “Adam… Adam…” A blinding flash turned everything piercing silver and I jerk straight up.
“… Adam?” Maria’s soft voice.
“Yeah.”
“I had a bad dream.”
“So?” I thought. “You’re not the only one,” I said quietly.
“I know it’s only in my head, but,” she whispered, “but I’m still scared.” I could feel her pressing closer to me — was it for comfort, warmth or something else, I didn’t seek out the answer. The image of the 12 year old Maria with lightning dancing around her in the rain still lingered in my brain. I opened my eyes to banish the image, but it still held behind my eyelids when I blinked. Maria shifted, her skin slid smoothly over mine. I shuddered as I blinked. I forced my eyes closed and begged for dreamless sleep.
In the morning, she still clung to me, her legs tightly wrapped around me. I climbed out of bed and walked into the kitchen. I turned on the tap and ran my hands through the cold water. I splashed it on my face, walked into the hallway to get the newspaper, and sat down to read it with a sigh. I didn’t understand anything anymore. As I read the front page, I heard Maria slip into the bathroom. When she emerged I was on the sports page. She was wearing the oversized “University of Tennessee” teeshirt that she usually wore to sleep. “Morning Adam,” she rested her hands on my shoulders. I must have flinched, because she pushed her hands down my shoulders to my chest. I snapped the paper loudly open, and she stepped back.
As I finished the paper, Maria stood by the sink, just staring. As I put the business section down and started to get up, she stepped quickly, put one hand on my shoulder, straddled my lap, pressed her lips tightly against mine, and opened her mouth, her tongue searching for mine. Her fingers pulled my head hard against her open mouth.
I was frozen for a minute, then my hands found life, and I pushed hard against her, but she didn’t budge. I pushed harder and turned my head, breaking the kiss. Quickly I stood up and walked to my room. Maria watched me go, breathing through her open mouth. I closed my door and locked it as I tried to catch my breath and slow my heart, which was a hummingbird in my chest. I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans and threw on a shirt. I grabbed the cellular phone and dialed work.
“Randy?” I asked quickly.
“Yeah, Adam?”
“Yeah, look, I’m not going to come in today. Could you take my clip today?”
“Adam! No way man, I’ve got my own–”
“Randy, you OWE me! Remember the Olson story you didn’t want?”
“Fuck you, man, fine.”
“Thanks, man, I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later!”
“Adam, what’s up, man?”
“I don’t know,” I paused. “I’ll tell you all about it later.”
“Yeah, sure.”
I walked back into the kitchen where Maria was sitting at the table. She smiled at me when I entered. It was the smile of a kid who just raided the cookie jar and I felt dirty for receiving it.
“Get dressed,” I said, as I walked directly past her to the fridge.
“Why?” she asked.
“We’re going for a drive,” I said as I grabbed a Diet Coke and closed the door.
“Sounds like fun,” she said seductively. I ripped open the can and took a hard swallow, the icy carbonation burning my dry throat.
Half an hour later we were driving through the city, top down, in the morning chill. I didn’t know where we were going, but I had to get air to my brain, and driving seemed like the best way to get it there. I had to talk to Maria. This was so wrong. I didn’t understand anything. The girl I remembered sat in the seat next to me and played with her hair as she stared out at the buildings towering above us.
All at once, I knew where to go. I rounded a corner with my tires screeching as I turned onto Castro street. I turned into a parking garage, grabbed the ticket which lifted the cordon barrier, then raced into the cement building. Up one flight, wheel cranked, tires singing a consistent high note as they struggled with the light pavement. Up another, and another and another. Finally, the car rounded another ramp and we were spit out in sunshine as we reached the top of the structure. Unlike the bottom floors, which were crowded with cars, the top level was empty. We were alone on top of the building so I parked carelessly parallel in the diagonal spots, shut off the engine and leapt from the car without opening the door. I sprinted from the car across the parking lot, running hard, my feet pounding the ground beneath me, my heart beating, my breath coming fast. I was out of breath, my feet struggling to catch my surging body just as I reached the wall at the far end of the top floor. I panted loudly, my mouth not opening enough.
Slowly, I turned back to the car. Maria was standing again on the seat, like she did just the night before. From the distance she looked quite beautiful and young, I thought. Her black hair blowing in the breeze that already was picking up strength in the morning sun. She wore a long skirt and short-sleeved blouse, unbuttoned too far down. She just stared after me. I turned around and looked over the edge down at the cars and people far below. Looking back at Maria, I knew that I couldn’t get away from this. I started slowly walking back towards the car.
“That was silly,” she said as I put my hands on the driver’s side door, leaning heavily.
“Yeah,” I nodded. My mind was blank. If I had prepared anything to say, it was gone.
She sat back down sideways in the passenger seat leaning against the door, her long skinny legs stretching against the door my hands rested on. She pushed against the driver’s door, arching her back, her hands slightly hiking up her skirt enough to show her smooth white legs. “Maaahn,” she moaned, her eyes shut, “you should take a shot. Mmm,” she opened her eyes and stared at me with those empty blue eyes, like the pale sky above so big and full of nothing this morning. “My walls are CRUMBLIN'” she smiled, lifting her skirt up higher to reveal the pink underwear she wore (I was relieved to see that she HAD worn underwear).
I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. I’d wanted to so many times, and now I just couldn’t stop. I laughed hard and loudly, my voice resonating back to me from the surrounding buildings, blotting out the din of the faraway traffic. “What the hell’s so funny?” she demanded, her hands jerking the fabric back down over her legs.
I finally caught my breath and asked, “Why did you come out here?”
“I wanted to get away from Tennessee,” she responded.
“And?”
“And nothin'”
“Bullshit!” I said, pushing hard off of the car door. “You came here hoping you wouldn’t find anything you recognized. You wanted to get away from your parents, your friends, everyone who gave a DAMN for you! You even wanted to get away from yourself — did it work? Is your shadow still there? Do you check when no one’s looking at you at a party? Between mixers and cocktails, do you remember who you are? It didn’t disappear! It blurred, didn’t it?”
Maria hugged her legs up to her chest. “I don’t understand,” she said.
“Why do you want me so badly?” I asked bluntly.
“I’m…I’m in love with you, Adam.”
“You haven’t loved anything in your life, Maria!” I yelled back at her. “You think fucking me,” she flinched at the word, “is love.” I shook my head. “You’re too busy running away from everything that means anything in your life to love anyone! You’re even running from yourself now!”
Tears began to slide from the blue eyes, her lips trembled.
“You’re going to face it, Maria. You’re going to run and run and run, and when you can’t run anymore, you’re going to trip fall, and come face to face with yourself! And God help you when you get there!” Her eyes closed, the wet streaks ran unabated down her pale cheeks.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered through her tears.
“No, Maria. No, why are YOU doing this?”
She turned her face into her knees and started crying silently. Her face drawn, her body shuddering with sobs, but she didn’t make a sound. It scared me, I think, and though I knew she wanted me to touch her, how she longed for any sort of human, flesh contact, I didn’t dare get close. Instead I turned and half sat on the window ledge of the driver’s door and stared out at the buildings as she cried.
“I want to jump,” she said finally. I didn’t say anything, nor did I turn. “I want to climb to the top of that building and jump off…” she sniffled. “I want to die. I’m tired of life…”
“Damnit, Maria, we’re ALL tired of something!” I wheeled about, facing her. She was startled. “You got to deal with your life! You don’t get a another one at the drop of a hat! You have to play the cards you’re dealt, for good or bad. Make it work for you! Get a grip on yourself and move on with your life!”
As I stared into her wet eyes, I swear I saw my reflection there. I knew, though, that she didn’t hear me. No, she heard me, but she didn’t understand. She didn’t want to, not yet.
The next day I went to work. I left her alone. She said she’d look for a job. I knew she wouldn’t. When I got home, she was gone. A message on the answering machine: “Adam, it’s me, Maria. I’m at Dave’s house. He stopped by to see you. He’s having a party tonight, you should come by. I’m helping him set up and I’ll be here tonight. Talk to you later, Adam. Bye.”
I let the answering machine reset without erasing the message.
“Maria!” nothing, just sobs. I tried the handle, but the bathroom door was locked. I stepped back and kicked the thin door open with my bare foot. It flew open revealing a startled Maria sitting crosslegged in front of the toilet bowl. Her hair was kinky, her blue eyes were red with crying and heavy black bags hung underneath.
“Adam,” she said feebly, “I’m dying.”
“You’re not dying,” I said, sitting next to her. “It’s just a bad hangover — can’t be worse than last week’s,” I smiled.
She did not smile, for once. Instead she closed her eyes and shook her head twice. “No, I’m dying. I’m killing myself, Adam.” She opened her eyes and looked at me. Her blue eyes were filled with something I hadn’t seen before. “What am I doing to myself?!” she began to sob. She hugged her legs to her chest and began to rock back and forth like a metronome, sobbing. “I’m sorry, Adam, I’m so sorry,” she rocked and cried.
I moved next to her and wrapped my arms around her thin frame. She did not clutch at me, but held herself together for dear life. She turned her head into my shirt and cried. “It’s okay, Maria, I’m here for you, let it out.”
She cried for a long time. Finally she whispered into my shirt “thank you, Adam,” just loud enough for me to hear. It was the first time I heard her say those words.
