Beads
By Drew Giorgi

I am in a short-tempered and tense mood because Patrick is not here. Sitting at the bar drinking screwdrivers I watch the kind of scene I hate more than anything: some drunk dude hanging a few paces away from a girl he’s been watching intently with that stone expression that speaks of nothing more than want and lust, truly devoid of any intelligent thought. Get a life, I think as I sit by the bar glad he’s not hovering by me. Patrick would kill.

This one is short, thick bodied and has a head shaved bald. I know him from around town; he’s a police officer. Now he’s off duty and so is his pride as he stands there talking to some skinny kid who is apparently the third or fifth wheel one of her friends brought along, not the club type at all, not built, the hair’s not slicked, and I’m sure he hasn’t taken a walk around the block for a good long while.

The girl is pretty enough, in my estimation, a crown of shoulder length long black ringlets, a triangular face with only a few zits--wait until she steps in the light honey--and a skinny little waist I’m sure Mr. Policeman would like to grip between his two thick short-fingered hands.

I turn away from the scene and Cheryl behind the bar brings me another drink. Cheryl is not her real name--the real one is something from the Islands that I can’t pronounce--and she is a friend of mine and Patrick’s. She tends bar here, the same place Patrick tends bar, and takes care of me. People around the bar like her because she doesn’t play any favorites as long as you tip her well enough. The art community likes her because she’s a damn fine painter and is learning to sculpt at the local college while doing a teacher/assistantship. The town however, took awhile to get used to her long-braided hair that is adorned by multi-colored beads.

She has told me she wears them because she once planned to marry, back on the Islands, but that it fell through. It’s the reason why she is here. She wears the beads not because she is unhappy or hoping things will change; she wears the beads because it was the most special time in her life she doesn’t want to forget it. Aside from that, she believes they helped her gain recognition as an artist and an individual when she first came here.

"Aren’t they ever cumbersome?" I once asked.

"Not really, they just stroke me occasionally so I remember," she’d replied.

I like her because she helps Patrick and because I like her paintings. I also like her because she propositioned me once. I accepted a kiss, but that was all, because I was so flattered. Nobody had ever propositioned me for my body like she did. She was real sweet and understanding and enjoyed the kiss. I’m glad I’m only looking forward to the lighter weight of a ring.

Patrick and I grew up two miles away from each other. He’s large and strong and that is the reason he was hired to tend bar. He’s better at mixing drinks now thanks to Cheryl. He and I work out together thrice weekly. I teach aerobics and go to school at night for biology and a religion minor. He tends bar at night and goes to school during the day for criminal justice. We both go to the local college because we can afford it.

I’m watching the officer again. His bald head seems whiter now, but he has managed to move a few paces closer to the girl. He still looks pathetic, but it doesn’t matter what I think because he’s going to be successful. The girl is paying attention to him now and they look like a couple. This scenario always happens at the end of a night. After an evening of playing head games and generally being elusive to one another, drunk guy and drunk girl will now bond. I’m sure I’ll see their engagement in the wedding pages in a few months.

Now the one who looks ridiculous to me is the third or fifth wheel who was previously talking to her. He’s just faded into the background with his beer and his thoughts. His eyes catch mine, but I look back toward the bar where Cheryl is mixing a drink. I know he must have shrugged or something--just shake off the world, boy, I think to myself, you just got to wait your turn.

"Where’s Patrick tonight, Jessica?" Cheryl asks delivering a drink and picking up a tip.

Does any of her hair, weighted down by those beads, ever end up in any of the drinks she makes?

"His parents are away," I said. "We were supposed to do something tonight, but it got canceled. He has some report to do, which he has known about for three weeks."

"Ever hear anything about that girl?"

"Not since I picked up the phone," I smile. Although all she turned out to be was a partner in a school project. Thank God they never turn out to be more than that. I just don’t get it Jessica. What’s your problem? Why is she calling you, Pat?

"Who are you here with?" she asks and grabs my empty glass offering another.

"I was with Sharon and Christopher, but they got in a fight about a half hour ago and left. I just didn’t feel like going home."

"How’s your mom?"

"Good," I say. "Still waiting for those monthly checks from Seattle."

Seattle is where my father is. He has been there for a year.

Cheryl smiles and gives me my last drink. Then she tells the D.J. to announce last call. I get up from the bar and walk swiftly passed the dance floor to the other side of the club. There, in place of a wall are windows from floor to ceiling allowing the patrons to look out onto the Delaware. The water looks smooth and black. It is night and it is spring, but the green has not come yet. I will graduate in a few months. It will be green then.

I sip my drink savoring the taste of it. Sharon and Chris got in a fight over him looking at supermodel posters. I’m not so sure about them anymore. Looking around the room I feel as though I am the absolute fly on the wall. On the dance floor hot sweaty bodies--thick and thin, flabby and tone--are engaged in the last fifteen minutes they have of tonight--of this week--to make something happen. Tomorrow it is back to the grind. At the tables by the bar there are people smoking and drinking their last drinks, preparing to leave. I often feel like this, even when Patrick is here tending bar. He has many friends, but they only consider me incidental to him; he is the main attraction; I am the girlfriend. They are cordial to me. None of them have spoken to me tonight. Except Cheryl, she is different.

I catch a girl and someone whom I assume is her boyfriend looking at me. They are talking into each other’s ears and laughing as though afraid to be overheard. I look away, back toward the Delaware. They don’t know me. Mom always said look at the water whenever you need to get away from things. Instead of looking at the water I look at myself in the crude mirror that the glass, dark night sky, and water have created before me. I decide that with all the aerobics I do I will never have to worry about being overweight. No matter how many weights my boyfriend lifts he will never be able to out-endure me. I cannot however, overcome my butt chin, not quite sensual oversized lips, or the unfortunate fact that I am cross-eyed and can’t look at you straight when I’m looking at you. Like most of the women I know I have striven to be beautiful, healthy, and in shape, but I will not get an operation if I am not sick. I can see fine.

A friend of mine has perfect breasts. Everybody marvels at them and she credits them for every boyfriend she’s ever had. She had plastic surgery done in her late teens because they were way out of proportion. She endured severe pain for a month to get them looking perfect. I remind myself of this whenever I get low. When I look back toward the tables the couple is gone, no doubt off searching for some back road where they might copulate.

The lights come on. They are harsh and unforgiving, but the imbibed alcohol is forgiving and keeps the newly formed couples together. The worst are those in silk who sweat a lot. The fabric, filled with hot damp salty perspiration, just sticks, creating a whole new layer of skin.

"Hey," Cheryl is calling for me. In the bright enveloping light she is one of the few people in the place who is not completely waterlogged by their own excrement. Though she has worked the entire night, her eyes are still clear and her voice is still fresh, not strained in the least.

I smile at her and walk over to the bar where I hand over my drink.

"Don’t look so glum," she says.

"What," I say just for the sake of saying it. I know what, and so does she.

"I’m going back to my studio," she says. "I have some painting to do and I’m not tired in the least."

I look at the floor and think about Patrick. What do I have to do to make you understand?

"All I’m saying is," she pauses. "If you want to talk, stop by."

"Okay," I say, "I think I’m going to go for a drive, though."

I take the back roads because I know I’ve had a little too much to drink and I’m upset. I drive around for a little bit and stop at my house. The lights are out and I don’t know if it’s because my mom’s gone to bed or because she has gone out with this man she met in her support group at church.

Our house is by Washington Crossing Park and overlooks a remote spot on the Delaware. It is a special spot to me and my mother. It is the spot where I first tasted that inescapable feeling and it is the spot my mother stared at as she watched her feeling crumble. On warmer nights in the summer we sit outside on week nights and drink tea. My mother is a sweet religious woman who keeps to herself. The closest I’ve ever come to her is on those nights we’ve spent sipping tea watching the water through the trees where, as a child, I once touched a baby deer.

Now, it is too chilly to do that as winter has not completely left us and the air has the edge of a deep penetrating cold my wind breaker cannot fight for long. I get back in my car and decide to drive the two miles to Patrick’s house.

The roads are darker due to the fact that there are more trees to block out the light of the stars and the moon and this forces me to turn on my brights. The night sky to me is not black; it is a cloth which God uses to envelope us, naturally allowing us the pleasant, and necessary, comfort of sleep. Driving under the dark trees, my mind plays the same game it always has since I was a child. My imagination creates a myriad of shapes before me. I see childish monsters of the past in the leaves and religious symbols form out of the naked branches; they are silver on the moon’s side, cast in a mixture of gray and black on my side.

When I get near his house I am expecting to find it dark, standing alone flanked by two large oaks with the moon as its backdrop. It is two a.m., his parents are gone, he is not with me, but what I find is dually satisfying and upsetting. The lights in his den are on and I kill my lights immediately and continue to drive, slowly.

I drive down the road and count slowly to twenty, only stopping the car after I finish. I kill the engine and then I am sure the only sound I am hearing is my heart thumping furiously, trying to keep pace with the uncontrollable amount of blood my nervous system has stirred into action. I say to myself that he loves me and that he is just tired and has fallen asleep in front of the TV after a long night. I remind myself of his warning, but it doesn’t help me. Daddy, why do you need to spend time with them?

I get out of my car and look around the woods suspiciously. I am afraid. I am afraid to go to the house. I am afraid to leave the car. I am afraid to be alone in the woods. I am afraid because I know that even if I am looking straight at you and telling you everything on my mind I know you are looking at me thinking I am looking off in the distance thinking about something else.

Swallowing hard, I take my first steps toward the house looking all around for that which might do me harm. The ground is hard and unforgiving to my feet. I feel as though its tightness is propelling me toward the house at a quicker rate than I truly care to move. My heart is still going like a battering ram and I tell myself the sound in my chest will wake him up before I even make it up the hill to peek in the window.

I make it up the hill and when I come to the window I find him asleep on the couch in the den before the TV in the same jeans and T-shirt in which I kissed him goodbye. An open book is lying on his chest, an easy expression on his face. A girl, the one he’s been studying with, is asleep on the lounge chair. She is in a similar position with the book open on her chest and her face turned upwards toward the ceiling as though she were receiving the Holy Spirit through her slightly parted lips. There are two tea cups on the table and I move closer to the window and rest on the sill watching Patrick sleep, admiring the tea cups both of which I have used in the past.

I am not prepared for the shriek of the girl when she wakes up and sees me staring through the window. Her cry wakes Patrick and I duck down out of sight and bite my hand in shame and fear.

I glance quickly at the moon and then move swiftly back to my car. I am not afraid of what is in the woods. Nothing can hurt me now because as I step out of the moonlight and into the cover of the trees I realize I have nothing left to lose. Patrick will not come out of the house. But, I know he knows, about tonight and all the other times. He has warned me. He will instead calm the girl and will wonder about my actions, just as I wonder about them.

By my car is a deer, a baby and a doe. They are picking at the ground by my car and when they see me coming they stop. I stop too. The mother nudges her child away from my car and they retreat from my presence. I know they cannot see my eyes, but I am sure they can hear my heart.

I get in my car and I drive to Cheryl’s. She is up late painting just as she said she would be.

"Looks like I won’t be the only one sleeping all day Saturday," she says.

Then I believe she sees the look in my eyes--or eye as I do not know what people look at to gauge my feelings--and her casual manner turns stiff.

"Honey," she says. "What’s wrong."

"I just need a moment," I say as I step into her apartment.

We go to the table in her kitchenette and she pours me a cup of tea from the pot she has on the table. On the table she has sketches of nude males, cinnamon sticks, and jewels from the islands.

"Have some of this," she says.

I try to open my mouth, but something nonsensical begins to come out and I feel myself beginning to hyperventilate so I promptly shut my mouth. The tea feels like hot melted lead that lethargically travels through my body desperately trying to heal the bleeding wounds of my innards caused by a trauma I have brought upon myself.

"Don’t say anything girl," she says. "It’s written on your face."

I nod and finger the jewelry she has on the table, mostly necklaces made out of beads, the same beads she wears in her hair. Cheryl comes back with her night’s work and asks me to appraise it. I give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down as I consider myself to be ignorant of art. I like her work tonight, parodies of the people at the club.

"Saw you eyeing up old Mr. Police officer’s attempt to get his loaf in the proverbial oven. When I came home I made a sketch of it. See, I figured you be coming by tonight."

"How?"

"You just seem like you were going to need a place to go that’s all."

I look at her and shake my head. "I really have done it this time."

"Yeah," she says and takes a seat. "I believe you have."

She knows what’s been going on because both Patrick and I confide in her.

"I trust him too," I say. "I just…I don’t know. I just keep thinking about it and I just don’t understand what’s gone wrong with me."

"You can’t fix things over night, Jessica." She says. "But it’s been going on for about a year and Patrick is ready to burst."

I nod. "He’s warned me--"

"Egging that girl’s car was a little much and then going off on him at the club." She says reminding me of my worst moments. "You’re driving the poor boy out of his mind."

"I know--just finished paying for the damage--and studying his phone bill and checking up on him at school and--oh God," I shake my head and wipe a tear. "I know. I just can’t help it."

We sit in silence for a spell, and my mind runs through all the incidents. I am embarrassed by my actions and for the person I have become. I do not understand what has made me like this.

"You’ll have to wait till tomorrow to find out what’s going to happen."

But I already know what’s going to happen. I continue fingering the beads with my left hand, my gaze transfixed on my naked ring-finger.

"Would you like to have some of those?"

I look at her questioningly and then look at the floor.

"I know what’s going to hap--" I stop myself feeling choked up, two streams forming on my face.

"Come come, honey," she says pulling up a chair beside me.

She strokes my hair and kisses me on the side of the cheek. I feel an odd paralytic chill come over me. She starts taking some of the beads off the table and gently ties them in my hair. I do not move or even try to touch the beads as they fall to rest on the back of my neck. They are not that heavy, only my hair feels a little odd as Cheryl wraps it tightly slipping the beads on one by one. When she is finished she kisses me again.

She shows me the results in the mirror, colorful and odd. I never pictured them on a white person before, on me before. I pour two more cups of tea which we drink in silence and then I leave.

I drive back up to my house, which is still dark as no one is home, and take a seat on the porch. The wind has become stronger now and I am freezing, but I do not wish to go inside. I sit there and look at the Delaware. It is steady, unbroken and has a clear path which I observe through the trees.

In my mind I see the girl. She is not the girl who was calling on the phone. She is not any girl I have met. She is an average girl. But she is not what bothers me.

What bothers me is the lack of faith that I have shown in him. My mistrust led me there tonight. My mistrust will lead him to what he will do tomorrow. I know this because we grew up together and because I know Patrick would not want to hurt me. But I know that if I no longer had his heart I would not have him. Patrick is not the type to settle or turn a blind eye to bad things and he always sees the truth. He is the only person who has ever looked straight into my eyes, making them straight, with the conviction in his eyes.

I look out at the Delaware and clasp my hands together in prayer. I feel the beads touch the back of my neck. They are cold from the air and send a shiver down my spine that makes my whole body jerk. My hands feel naked and my heart feels empty, like a hollow eggshell that just refuses to crack as it finds pleasure and delight in its wholly barren state. I do not look forward to the time when the sun will rise above the waters before me.