MEA CULPA: I'm a lazy-pants. While I'm hyper-aware that I haven't posted anything of substance in several days, I'm too tired to drum up the words to weave together a decent narrative. And so, I'm going all re-postal on you. Forgive me.
Anyway, I wrote this piece several years ago -- it's mostly true, although I twisted and tweaked a few truths to make it a better tale...
By day, I slouched in the second to last row of AP government class and tried to make myself invisible. I ate lunch with the randy cafeteria manager, and pretended not to care when no one else talked to me. But at night I changed selves with a pair of black pleather pants that squeaked when i tried to sit down. I smeared makeup all over my face, and if I avoided direct light, my face was pentimento pretty -- beneath the makeup spackle, you could hardly see the bumps and craters of what was my teenage nightmare. I spritzed my hair with hairspray, and sprayed cheap perfume between my boobs, and applied a heavy coat of lipstick.
I heard Moti before I saw him -- the heavy throb of Trance music smashed the quiet evening. I could hear the eager squeal of breaks and the intrusive sound of his horn as he pulled up onto our driveway. In the hallway, I heard my mom's scurry-shuffle as she threw open my bedroom door "Don't go out there! Let him come to the door like a person! And don't you think that lipstick is too dark?" The phone rang. "hello?" "Hey baby! I'm outside? Didn't you hear me honk?" I felt my jaw stiffen and my mom's gaze fastened on me "Come to the door then...like a person." I responded.
"I look good baby, no?" Moti asked when I opened the door. He looked like a middle eastern skin-head -- Kojack minus the lollypop crammed into a too-tight body shirt. "of course you look good" I answered. He smiled gallantly and draped his arm across my bare shoulders. I could smell his thick after work smell - part Benson and Hedges, part Dolce E Gabana, and part something else. His arm was heavy and felt like a giant cobra as he guided me to his car.
"Did you miss me baby?" he asked as we squealed out of the driveway, his right hand kneeding my thigh. I obliquely nodded. "I missed you too!" he said, his hand moving up my waist. We drove in silence for awhile. "Baby, do you love me?" he asked practically without a question mark...
"Moti, we've been dating for a week..." I answered tentatively. I lit a cigarette and relished the sensation of something familiar and secure as the nicotine raced through me. I opened the window and watched the smoke shimmy out into the quiet June night.
"Baby, you want to marry me?" He asked, again more of a statement than a question. I bit my lip hard, and tasted the warm coppery taste of my blood. "Will I marry you? " I responded "We just met..."
"Yeah, i know baby" he whined, "but you're going away to Berkeley and I think that we should get married.. besides, I talked to my lawyer and I'll have to leave the country unless I can get a greencard..........." SO THATS IT. I was a greencard with a nice rack.
"Baby, we should do marry soon, before we can to change our minds..." He cajouled.... I didn't answer. I just sat there and perhaps he understood my silence as acquiescence because he grabbed my head and pulled me into a rough, sloppy kiss.
We pulled into the parking lot of Tempo, the Israeli bar in the valley. The air was swampy with the smells of different perfumes, colognes and cigarette smoke as we made our way through the throngs of people in the front. Pini Cohen, the Los Angeles Israeli community's answer to Ricky Ricardo was in full voice as he shook his hips and sang one of Eyal Golan's most famous songs...
"...Yafa sheli Et kol melot ha'ahava eshkor beseret Eten otan bematana, eten gam vered... My Beautiful, I will tie all the words of love with a ribbon, and give them to you with a rose... " Moti pulled me against him as he began to dance. I stammered for breath -- so many people around us, reaching, grasping, groping... I broke away and stumbled to the bathroom.
I could feel the hot music through the pale blue walls as I crouched on the cracked tiled floor. I got up and turned the faucet on full-blast as I stared at my almost unrecognizable reflection in the mirror. I mixed soap and water in the palms of my hand, watching the little bubbles snatch pieces of overhead light. I pulled my stiff ringletted hair back into a scrunchy and bent down over the cool water spray. I began to wash my face, gently rinsing it with water as the makeup ran in rivulets down the drain. I dried myself off with my tanktop and went back into the club.
No one looked at me when I walked out of the bathroom, and I felt myself give into the music as I swayed freely to the beat. I was relieved to be invisible again as I pushed my way through the heavy crowd. I passed Moti who was standing near the door. He looked at me strangely as though he knew that he was supposed to know me, but couldn't figure out how or from where.