| Christopher Orlet |
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Cynthia Sometimes a stick in the eye or a thumb in a jamb will make me think of Cynthia. When things get really bad I like to think of her and run my hands through what's left of my hair and almost magically I feel better. She was bad news, Cynthia. Nothing good ever happened to that chick. She was thrice divorced, her body blackened from years of pummeling. Her teeth were bent, her smile crooked, and she spoke with an annoying lisp. She wore cheap, revealing clothes over her leathery skin that made you wonder what the hell she was thinking. I laugh now when I think how every time she left a store she would set off the shoplifter alarm, then stand around humiliated while the shopboys went through her purse, pulling out packs of condoms and maroon lipstick. Or if she'd stand in line at the bank some old woman would accuse her of butting in line. Cynthia would snap back, but to no avail. She never won an argument. She never won anything. It was like she had a sign Abuse Me tattooed to her forehead. She'd sit out front of her office building trying to enjoy her cigarette break watching some cocky punk purse thief circling like a shark, thinking, he's going to try to steal my purse, he's going to try to steal my purse, and he'd steal her purse. She would park her crappy Chevy on Fourth Street and when she went in to pay her parking ticket somebody would smash her car window and not steal anything. When you would talk to Cynthia she would look at you like you were speaking a foreign language, say Australian or British English. When you weren't talking to Cynthia she would butt in with some fervent irrelevant comment that would stall the conversation for days. She gave everyone she met the constant impression that her fragile little Band-Aid and gum world was on the brink of collapsing. Guys would sense her desperation and exploit it by requiring her to do unspeakable acts that she would do despite the hopelessness of the situation. She got older quicker than most people. She aged like a dog. She lost teeth like a child. Her son, Gary, was five years into a ten-year prison sentence. Her son's father was in the same joint. She tried to visit Gary on his birthday and all the major holidays if she could manage to get off work. She wasn't sure what to do on Mother's Day so she didn't do anything. Sometimes Gary sent her a card, mostly not. I lived with Cynthia in a rented house on Cannon Street. She couldn't cook worth a damn. It was a crime the way she murdered eggs. She had three different jobs during that period: kennel cleaner, hotel maid, nurse's aid. I asked her why she was always cleaning up somebody else's shit. She laughed halfheartedly, a half laugh, half sob, which seemed to ask is he being funny or mean? She followed me around the house, this little yellow house on a dead end, and gabbed at me, vapid, uninteresting things about how lousy her life was. I tried to hide from her, went into the basement or out on the back porch and she followed me out there no matter what I was doing, till I finally lost my temper and told her to shut the hell up for five seconds. All right. That was a mistake. She got angry, said she was paying the rent and if I didn't like her talking I could get the hell out, mister. I apologized. Then she started crying. I kissed her wet eyelids. I had no where else to go. Once out of the blue (or maybe she had led up to it but I hadn't been listening) she told me she had been raped by her stepfather when she was thirteen. She told it matter-of-factly, so matter-of-factly that I thought either she was lying to get sympathy or attention or else it didn't matter a whole hell of a lot to her. I said, "You know what Cynthia, you ought to go on one of them Jenny Jones or Jerry Springer shows. They'd love you." "You think I'm that screwed up, do you?" "Pretty durn close." "Then why do you stay with me?" "Who says I'm staying?" I already had one foot out the door. I was already planning my next move and it sure as hell didn't involve Cynthia. She was nothing but bad luck. In fact, since I'd started seeing her, my life had taken a sweeping turn for the worse. And this was after I didn't think life could get any worse. I'd been laid off, but only temporarily. Then I moved in with Cynthia and it became permanent. What else? Little things. The starter in my truck went out so for a while I wasn't going anywhere. Which led to me drinking again. One awful thing led to another. "See what I mean?" She looked at me, her arms folded under her sad, sagging breasts. "You've been here a month. That sure seems like staying." "Don't push it, Cynthia." She'd often told me I was the nicest guy she'd been with in a long, long time. Sure I drank, she said, but I was a nice drunk. I wasn't a violent drunk. I didn't beat her. Yet, she qualified. And I wasn't addicted to anything stronger than nicotine. She'd tell me about the other men she'd had in her life. What a bunch of losers they were, and I'm talking capital L. Mostly I only pretended to listen, but every once in a while something would slip passed my defenses and I'd hear things like coke, whores, jail, the kinds of things you'd expect to hear from the mouths of girls like Cynthia. In the beginning I wanted to help. I said, God, Cynthia, you've got to get your life together. Quit counting on other people because the kind of people you meet are just looking to take advantage of someone weak. You got to count on yourself. "I met you. You're not like that." "God, you're hopeless," I said. Then I got sick and my hair started falling out thicker than autumn leaves on a windy day and I said that's it. So one morning while Cynthia was at work I left. I thought about a note. I even sat down at the kitchen table and found a nub of pencil and a scrap of paper, but everything I tried to write sounded too sappy or too cruel, so I ended up not writing anything. When she noticed my gear was gone she'd get the message. She'd been expecting it anyway. She used to say I know you won't stay. I know you won't stay. I said how do you know? She said I know. I know. You're too good for me. I said cut it out now. But she was right, of course. I couldn't stay. She was too depressing and too many bad things were starting to happen to me. More bad than usual. And that's pretty bad. It didn't take me long to find a good job, a new girl, one that wasn't so ill-fated, I guess you'd say, one that hadn't been dumped on by a hundred guys, and I moved in with her. I never saw Cynthia again, but I knew she was out there, still trying to make it happen for herself. Still visiting that convict son of hers. Still as hopeless and hapless as ever. She called once. Said she just wanted to catch up on old times. I said look Cynthia, I can't talk to you. My girlfriend is here and besides I don't want to talk to you. I'm sorry, but please don't call again. She'd obviously been drinking. She said I'm sorry. I knew I shouldn't call. It's jus'it you were so nice to me, so much nicer than those other guys. I began to regret being nice to her. Cynthia could do that to you. Anyway, I don't remember being so nice. I said look, I don't want to be compared to all those other losers you shacked up with. And please stop calling. I mean it. Are you trying to destroy what I got going here? She said she was sorry. That she was just bad news. She started to tell me about the boyfriend who'd just gotten locked up for domestic battery and how he threatened her saying he'd walk through any order of protection. I said that's nice, Cynthia, bye now, and I hung up the phone. And that, God willing, was the last I heard from her. I don't know why this should come back to me now when I'm happier than I've been in a long time. Good home, nice girlfriend, good job. But there it is. Sometimes I suffer these terrible nightmares where I'm back with Cynthia, where she's lying beside me in her worn Goodwill nightgown and I wake up in screaming in a cold sweat. And I think I'll never get that damn woman out of my head. Not completely. And I could just cry. |
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