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Short Story Intro/ UncompletedThis story may contain adult content. |
| Written by Bruce | |
| Sunday, 23 March 2008 | |
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Share it:      “Those rich guys…….: the ones that knock around in the Village: they all go ape-shit over ‘ambiance’. It means mood, just in case you didn't know that particular word. You know, I go through a lot of those “Reader’s Digest” vocabulary lessons. Guess you could sort of call me a ‘word collector’. It’s just this poet’s flair, I have.. Everybody tells me I should be a professional writer or something like that." Rosa reaches up and picks apathetically at a plump welt behind her ear. Her left eye has a perceptible flutter, a tiny horizontal twitch that developed after the doctor placed her on a regimen of phenytoin – an anti-convulsant -- to keep her seizures in check. Otherwise, she’s attractive, in a “longshoreman’s sweetheart” sense. Her clothes look shabby….conspicuous in contrast to Giuseppe’s Mediterranean, fine-dining backdrop, but there’s a demimonde magnetism -- a vicious, unrelenting sexuality inside of Rosa . Rosa’s working-girl sensibilities – her hustler’s intuition – pick up that something is unbalanced with Travis. She doesn’t like his presentation: his nervous bookie fidgeting, his lacquered-down, black hair; his emaciated, shipwreck of a face, with its bulging, over-stimulated eyes. Something about his face reminds her of a hairless, premature kitten…..a poor kitty getting crushed underneath a millstone, starting from the hindquarters and working its way up, until the entrails make an appearance outside of the cat’s mouth. “Be honest with me Rosa. Do you like all of this? What I mean is ….the food……the company? I know you’re here in like, a ……..like a …….professional capacity of sorts……but are you really enjoying tonight?” “Steve Buscemi!” Rosa thinks. That’s exactly who Travis looks like! Everything is right: the hungry, desperate gaze; the high strung, neurotic aura! Everything fit the profile! “This is really good, Travis. I think I’m starting to feel a rapport between us.” She lies to chumps, parasites, socially-inept creeps for a living. Selling the illusion….the illusion of worth…..the illusion of attainability is her manna, her forte. Everything that comes out of her mouth, they will accept….. out of desperation and the sexless man’s need for self-validation. “Looks like you know a Reader’s Digest word or two”, Travis answers. He’s frenzied now – pleased with himself and his “charm”. It’s the first time in fours years that he hasn’t felt like a socio-economic wreck – like a minimum wage dishwasher is a posh, East-Upper Side bistro. Copyright 2008 Bruce |
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