Black
Hey...oooh...
Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Her lace spread out before me, as her body once did
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn
Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything?
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...
I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning, oh, I'm spinning
How quick the sun can, drop away
And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything?
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything...
All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll ever be...yeah...
Uh huh...uh huh...ooh...
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, why can't it be mine
(Pearl Jam )
*****
"They call you 'the city that never sleeps'…so I guess I could blend in here
just fine for a while," he said, taking in the immediate scope of New York
City, in all of its glory.
In a lot of ways, he felt at home driving through the streets. It was big
and bold, larger than life---in your face---impressive and domineering, able
to make or break a soul. Grandeur on the outside, a rich exterior, hidden
frustrations, broken spirits, and darker things hiding in the corners in
different parts of the town that long time New Yorkers knew not to venture
into.
All that, and cab drivers who couldn't drive worth a damn.
Usually Todd could deal with fellow members of the human species who made up
their own rules as they went along. The guy who came flying down the one
way street at him from the other direction was another story, especially in
the early morning of a day like this. His eyes felt as if someone had
dumped several buckets of sand in them, he was more irritable than even he
was used to, and he was being haunted by a painful ache somewhere in the
region where he thought the heart would be in a normal person. Physical
distance did nothing to escape the hurt…it did nothing to escape her. Tea
was everywhere---in the laugh of every woman that traveled from the street
to his ears, at the back of his eyelids when he closed his eyes at each red
light for a few seconds of relief, and in every song that cranked out of his
car's premium speaker system. This city where she grew up also seemed to
carry her with it---he punched the car's leather seat for emphasis…
"Everything you touch, you leave forever changed Delgado…your gift…and now,
my curse."
He lost track of the number of times he almost pulled the car into a sharp
U-turn with the thought that it wasn't too late to get back to the
Penthouse, tear up the letter full of words that came from a place so deep
in him that writing them almost seemed unreal, and find her where she slept,
hopefully plagued as much by dreams of him as his thoughts were of her,
pulling her from them into a new reality where they would survive.
But he gripped the steering wheel with the fight in him so intense that his
knuckles turned white, and continued on, feeling each mile building between
them in such a way that it felt like losing another piece of himself the
further he traveled.
"I can never be what you need, Delgado," he whispered, the thought from
someplace so deep that he almost didn't recognize his own voice. Then he
cleared his throat and flipped off the guy in back of him who was leaning
on his horn as Todd sat at the light too long.
"Hey, fuck you! Like somebody like you could really have anything important
going on this morning…"
"Aw, that's nice Todd…really classy, yeah."…He turned to see her give him
that look. Her tone was disappointed, but her eyes were laughing.
"Something told me you'd like that one, Del…" He paused, as he realized the
voice and the sense of her was merely that of a ghost.
He rubbed a frustrated hand across his tired eyes.
"Screw this insomnia shit," he muttered. But the truth of it was, overtired
or not, it made no difference. She was in everything.
She had become such a part of his everything it was impossible not to see
her everywhere. He knew just what she'd say and just how she'd look when
she said it. And there were those times that she didn't say anything at
all, when he knew how she was feeling by looking in her eyes, or what she
was thinking by the subtle way that her body moved or reacted.
"If only I'd known…I never saw it coming. She's good like that."
There was nothing in their contract that warned him that he would grow to
love the sound of her laugh in the morning, or that he would grow to need
the comfort of her shared company like a drug, even when they were merely
sitting in silence, him focused on the TV or the latest copy of The Sun, her
on the cheesy romance novels that she thought she hid in her law books, in
the evenings. Or that even when she was a nudge, he would come to rely on
that about her, and to crave her advice about everything under the sun, that
just finding her eyes would calm him, and that even the gentlest of touches
would make him feel alive again, in every sense. He didn't know that the
way she looked at him would make him feel like more than he was, or that
every single thing she did would be the sexiest thing that he had ever seen.
He didn't see it coming that every tear that he caused would be a source
of ultimate pain, and every smile would feel like she turned a light on in
his own heart that reflected the emotion on her face.
Their contract never said that he would fall so deeply in love with
everything she was that it would feel impossible to breathe without her.
"And you never even knew…did you, Delgado? You never figured that out."
He pumped up the radio, trying to drown out his own thoughts for a while.
Karma Police
I've given all I can and it's not enough….
Radiohead broke through with the perfect sentiment to match his feeling of
uselessness. He could never be enough of what she needed, and he'd always
be too much of what she should never have to deal with. His father told him
how karma would settle the score and set his future in stone, and even when
he was dead and gone, Todd discovered that he couldn't prove him wrong.
Even Karma was on his father's side.
He pulled in close to the curb on a little side street to squint down at the
small piece of paper on which he'd scrawled the address of his NY
destination. Gazing up at the street sign, he decided he was close enough.
Too early still for most of the world to be awake, he leaned back in his
seat with a frustrated sigh and decided to watch the city come to life
around him for another hour or so before he would get down to business. As
the streetlights flickered out all around him, removing their warm, albeit
artificial glow, he felt a chill overtake him. The early morning shadows
advanced in a seductive dance, and the city seemed colder than usual as they
battled with the light of the rising sun.
*****
Leave: Matchbox Twenty
It's amazing
how you make your face just like a wall
how you take your heart and turn it off
how I turn my head and lose it all
It's unnerving
how just one move puts me by myself
there you go just trusting someone else
now I know I put us both through hell
I'm not saying
there wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying
we ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me
But if that's how it's gonna leave
straight out from underneath
then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
you know you've been depending on
the one you're leaving now
the one you're leaving out
It's aggravating
how you threw me on
and you tore me out
how your good intentions turn to doubt
the way you needed time to sort it out
Tell me is that how it's going to end
when you know you've been depending on
the one you're leaving now
and the one you're leaving out
Tea sat wrapped in a combination of silence and her own sadness on the
stairs of the Penthouse. She hadn't gotten very far, weighed down by
disappointment and despair, and the letter still lay in the middle of the
room, on the carpet where it had settled after slipping from her fingers.
The fog in her dreams now invaded her thoughts, surrounding them in such a
way that she couldn't separate the rational from the irrational, and her
mind carried her through the realms of both. Attempting to sort through
feelings now was like trying to find her way out of the maze like tunnel of
a medieval labyrinth.
"When did you get so complicated, Tea Delgado?" She asked herself, with a
laugh that she meant to come out light, but instead, even to her own ears,
it sounded harsh and bitter. She thought hard, trying to figure it out,
feeling her forehead creasing with the effort. It was like….It felt as if
she were….
"Twisted up inside…" She said aloud, realizing where she had heard that
before as it broke from her lips.
"You help me to…untwist…and that's what people do, right?"
"Damn it Todd…that's what I wanted to be for you…and that's what I needed
you to be for me, didn't you get that?"
Her voice sounded like it was coming to her from a distance.
Maybe I had no right to ask that…to ask anything of him…
"And that's why we are where we are. Well…we…'we' aren't anywhere…"
She was reminded of that quote that "you come into this world alone and
ultimately you go out that way too…" only that felt a lot more
courageous…and it didn't make the feeling of being alone seem like a failure
and a curse, just a fact. There was nothing reasonable about this
loneliness that she felt now. Nothing brave about it, not like this.
Once upon a time she had been convinced that "alone" was her fate. It
wasn't just something to accept, she convinced herself it was the goal…so
that in the end, the state of being just that wasn't failure. She could
point to her career and how much more money she had in a savings account
than her parents had ever dreamed for her, and she could nod to those who
looked at her with sympathetic eyes and say "this is just how it was
supposed to work out". Only when she had to meet her own eyes in the
mirror, dead inside from never knowing love or being loved, would that
veneer shatter. But no one would know but her reflection.
No…walking through life alone, letting fear steal all the dreams that she
had when she was younger where there was a prince for every princess, left
only overwhelming sadness, and sense that she was living the ultimate
defeat, letting down both herself, Todd, and all of their mutual desires.
"But you didn't do it alone, Tea. Your damn stubborn streak wouldn't let
you give up that easy." Todd had walked away, first, literally and
figuratively. She made a face at the letter that was lying in a spreading
patch of morning light, as if the truth of it all needed to be further
illuminated. He'd given up on both of them…he doubted her strength, and
gave it all up. It hurt too much to see past that to the thought that maybe
he loved her too much.
She only felt one familiar sensation---that of being abandoned.
When her mother left, she felt a big gaping hole open up within her, and the
rest of her curled up around it in the mental and emotional equivalent of
the fetal position. She felt herself retreating again now, as the sensation
of that thing coming to tear at her soul stalked her from within. Tea
wondered if she had it in her to fight it again. The first time, she had
survived, but she was noticeably changed for it. Loving Todd seemed every
bit as unconscious and unconditional as loving her mother had been. It was
without question, without reason, and she had sought the reciprocation in
the same way, a quest for which she would give everything to find that
ultimate prize.
Suddenly, she felt like she was fighting the ultimate exhaustion. She
rested her head on the step above, pulled her legs up, and shut her eyes
against the world, losing herself again to that "hole in her stomach"
*****
"Bomb's awaaaaaay!!"
Blair opened her eyes in horror right before Starr landed with a heavy thud
and a giggle just inches from her stomach.
"Starr, what did I tell you about bombing Mommy at this hour of the morning
before my first cup of coffee?" She asked, her voice just serious enough to
make Starr's eyes widen, before breaking into a huge matching grin. "Aren't
you just looking too beautiful today!"
Starr was not only up, but dressed and sitting with hairbrush in hand.
Blair pulled herself up against the pillows and settled her daughter in
front of her, taking the brush from Starr's hand and beginning the morning
ritual she loved of gently pulling it through the golden locks that just
about matched her own.
"I wanted to look real pretty for Daddy today," she answered, closing her
eyes at the soothing feeling of her mother's gentle actions.
Blair sighed inwardly. The time she had with Starr went by far too fast.
It seemed as though the week she had with her had just started and it was
already time for her to let go for another one as she went off to stay with
Todd. Frustrated, she bit her lip, lost in thought. Her eyes wandered over
to the drawer of her bureau, which held her little project. Within the
safety of it's darkness was the tape---she called it,
"Leverage"---containing what now appeared to be Todd's deepest and darkest
thoughts on that Delgado woman. She couldn't even think her name without
making a bitter face. She smiled, though, at the emphasis that belonged on
the "darker", and shook off only the slightest twinge of guilt at the
knowledge that the "appearance" part was the result of her own machinations,
the twisting of very different sentiments to paint a completely different
picture. She knew it was one that would crack his Queen of Darkness into a
thousand shards and destroy whatever truth ("twisted", she thought to
herself) that existed within their relationship. Depending on what hands it
fell into, the tainted lies could ripple beyond just the relationship
between Todd and Tea.
RJ had outdone himself. Tea could be destroyed.
"OW!" Starr cried out, and then giggled, rubbing her head where the brush
had just become too rough. "Mommy, you're brushing my head right off."
Blair pulled her into an apologetic hug, but she was having trouble focusing
on the beloved task, lost in thought.
This was what it was all about. There was no time to go soft, or let guilt
enter in. Her fight had multiple goals---it was time to reverse her
fortune. She wanted the control back that Todd had taken---of their
daughter's custody, of the Sun. If Tea got demolished in that war---
"Mommy, do you think Tee will be over at Daddy's when we get there? I miss
her. I think Daddy does too. He gets sad without her. Can you do that
braid that Tee does sometimes? I like my hair that way, it looks so
pretty…"
Blair had paused her thoughts for a second as her daughters innocent chatter
filtered through, and then set her mouth in a determined line, her eyes
flashing---so be it. There was no love lost between them. She'd helped to
set Todd in motion in the first place; without her, there would be no need
to win back control of anything. She had held all that stolen control.
The motivator. The instigator. And now, the target and direct opening to
get back all that she wanted. Tea's downfall in this, if that is what this
came to, was nothing to cry over. Perhaps it was even something to
celebrate.
I'll have to remember to toast myself at breakfast.
"What do you say you and me have Ming whip up a batch of 'made from scratch'
pancakes dripping in syrup this morning, Starr?"
"Chocolate chip? No, no…blueberry….no, chocolate chip?"
"You're starting to make me crave waffles the way you're doing just
that---waffling!" She grinned. "Whichever you want, honey. Either one
sounds like the start to what could turn out to be a wonderful day."
Starr sighed, playing with a loose thread on the comforter, something deep
settling in her mind.
"I wish you didn't have to work, Mommy. Then you, me, and Daddy and Tee
could all go to the park together!"
"Wouldn't that just be…cute." Blair could barely spit it out through
clenched teeth, but she tried to smile for Starr as she said it.
Her daughter was not only smart, but she was sensitive to things also.
"Mommy, don't you like Tee even a little? You love me, and I love them,
so…" Starr screwed up her face in deep thought.
"Honey, we're going to be late, okay? Go get your shoes and I'll go get
Ming started on breakfast; how's that sound?" Starr just hesitated for a
second, and Blair raised her eyebrows in question.
"Okay," Starr responded eventually, and Blair failed to notice that she
seemed a little more heavy hearted than the bright version of herself that
had come in before.
She was too focused on just how it would feel to gain back control and take
down an enemy, and see Todd punished, all at the same time. Three for the
price of one. She'd have custody of her daughter, control of the Sun, and a
huge sense of accomplishment. What could be the downfall of that?
She failed to see any, and went downstairs to join her daughter for
breakfast with a bounce in her step.
*****
Tea was pulled from the sleep of the emotionally exhausted by the sound of
the bell ringing insistently. Slowly, she tried to rouse herself, brushing
the hair from her eyes and straightening her nightgown.
"Todd?" Her heart skipped several beats as she walked to the door with the
hopes that he was on the other side. If she found him there this time, she
was ready to grab this chance and not let go. It would mean that what they
were meant as much to her as it did to him. And that would give them
something to hold on to and to build upon…
And I'll stop hiding behind my own walls, and I'll do more to fight for
us…
Mentally, she went through a whole list of quick thoughts and bargains, like
it was her own private prayer.
She opened the door, the tears already springing to her eyes, her breath
catching in her throat with hope and anticipation….and found Blair, instead.
*****
Todd was leaning against the wall at one end of the long, dark hallway in
the New York apartment building trying to rely on a patience that he'd never
acquired. Pushing his hair out of his eyes, he glanced down at his watch.
"Screw it…time for a wake-up call." He squinted down at the scrap of paper
on which he had scrawled his contact's phone number and then walked with
determined strides down the hall, glancing at the doors. Once he reached
22D, he rapped sharply, and danced back and forth with impatience.
Enough with the games.
The door swung open with a squeak that needed oiling, and his mouth dropped
open at the informer awaiting him at the other side.
She nodded, knowingly, with a smile, reserved, yet one that reached up to
her eyes with a devilish glint. They had met before, and just like the
first time, he was taken off guard with the authority and presence that
filled her small frame.
"Abu…A…Maria…."
"Delgado….You can call me Delgado the First, if Abuela is too difficult for
you, Mr. Manning," she said, waving him inside with one eyebrow raised
specifically designed to intimidate. Only when she turned her back to him
did she allow herself a smile at the look that had registered on his face.
Todd followed her inside, intrigued, yet also feeling like he was ten years
old again and about to get in trouble with one of the ruler wielding nuns
that he'd had in the fourth grade.
The door closed with a definitive click behind them.
*****
If you're gone: Matchbox Twenty
I think I've already lost you
I think you're already gone.
I think I'm finally scared now
You think I'm weak - But I think you're wrong
I think you're already leaving
Feels like your hand is on the door
I thought this place was an empire
But now I'm relaxed - I can't be sure
I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm just scared - I think too much
I know this is wrong it's a problem I'm dealing
If you're gone - maybe it's time to go home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home
Cuz there's a little bit of something me
In everything in you
I bet you're hard to get over
I bet the room just won't shine
I bet my hands I can stay here
I bet you need - more than you mind
I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm just scared - that I know too much
I can't relate and that's a problem
I'm feeling
If you're gone - maybe it's time to go home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home
cuz there's a little bit of something me
In everything in you
To Be Continued...
