Snow Falls on the Hill - more bad prose

Spinning. Christ, I’ve never spun so fast. Turn the heat on. Shit, don’t have the money to do that. I’m not made out of money, you know. No. No, not at all. What is this place? Spinning. Please, just stop. Just. Stop.

Why are you looking at me this way? Don’t you know who I am?
”Fuck off. Leave me alone. I have nothing for you!”
I scream as he tugs the damp cap over his carnelian eyes.
“You walk on,” I growl, “The liquor store is just two blocks up. Go on, go! Get away!”
He stands and blinks at me, wiping the cold white dust from his face. I, in turn, shudder, blanketing myself in the frail sweater I wear. Should have worn a jacket – no, a coat. I needed a coat.

He licks his crusty lips and says nothing, just keeps holding out a gloved hand, enclosing a bottle of National Bohemian in the other.
“Say something, damn it! What are you, deaf?”
He just blinks at me and shakes his open hand.
“Keep your filthy hands away!” I shriek as he advances, “Away!”
Closer, closer. Oh, God, oh, God, what am I doing here?

I cry out and take off in the opposite direction. My arms flail in the falling winter flakes. I know he’s back there. He’s advancing. I keep running. They don’t call this Race Street for nothing.
“I just want my ticket! Oh, God, it’s all I want!” I scream, darting behind a vomit colored/covered dumpster.

Silence. Since when? That doesn’t happen here, are you kidding? Where are the sirens? Where are the gunshots? Where is the loud music and the breaking of glass? Where is the wailing of underage girls and their fake IDs being denied access to the bar with their middle-aged fuck-buddies? Where? Where? All I hear is this screaming!

I peer around the side of the dumpster, my left foot deep in a mound of blackened snow. He’s gone. Before me, I notice a great orange glow. It’s home. This is it. This is where I need to be! I sigh and place my right foot before me, but a cold set of filthy fingers in a dank black glove capture my wrist.
“Get away!” I shout at him again as white flakes smear my vision. I can still see him wiggling his matted paw below me.
“Can’t you see? I’m just as poor as you. Stop following me! Stop, stop, just stop!”

His lower lip quivers, though I can’t say if it’s the weather or the situation in which he and I are placed. He drops his eyes to my naked legs, then gawks at my ankles. I pause to take note of a thick scar just below his eye. He sees me staring and smiles, pointing and wagging his finger.
“Do you speak English? Hell, do you speak at all?”
Nothing. Just stands there, empty-headed while living empty-handed. I shake my head.
“No time for this. I’m out.”

I push past him, knocking him into a heap of gray slush. My legs wobble as I hurry through it. Swearing under my breath, I careen through waves of slush, snow, and ice, but I can see it ahead of me: the morphine-vomit lamplight of Cross Street. Just a few more steps, just a few more! Yes, I’ve almost reached you. My toes go numb and soon, the strength of my ankles disappears, too. I need to get back there.

I pass the gas station, but no human contact prevails. Where have they all gone? I’m crawling now, swimming now, through this mess. I just want to reach you, is all, why is that so hard to see? One more block, I swear. I promise I can make it, honey, don’t forget me. Shards of glass tickle my fingertips, penetrating my skin with such ease. Oh, I don’t have the time for this. Get up, girl, get up, you’ve got to stand on two feet!
“Can you help me out, honey?”
She’s huddling on a step with an empty pretzel jar, maybe a handful of change to her name. I stare at her, swaying side-to-side and tensing my muscles.
“You’ve got more money than I do, Peanut. Damn.” I reply, gripping a lamppost as my equilibrium fails.
“Dat ain’t true, honey. Look at ya. Look how nice you lookin’.”
She rattles her jar and looks up at me with wide ebony eyes, “Come on,” she insists, “gotta eat.”
I laugh so loudly.
“Me, too, Peanut. Me, too!”
The laughter grows as I skip up the slippery sidewalk. I’m closer now, closer than I’ve been all night.

The cold, cold night drips down my thighs and past my knees as I shiver below the orange light of the streets. I peer inside the Market, but see nothing, just blackness amidst the neon glow of signs within it. Bums line the brick walls and glass doors, sleeping on heaps of snow and trash and tattered advertisements. I tap them with my tormented toes, but not one of them moves. They seem to be dead, just like everything else here in December.
“Wake!” I cry in my stupor, “Get up and breathe. You can’t play this game forever!” I tap them, I kick them, I slap them, hell, it seems like I try to kill the lifeless bastards. But for what? They’ll just follow me around for the rest of my life, begging for money I can’t even give myself. Even in death, the beggars never cease to thrive.

A door opens just a few buildings up on the left. Yes, I’ve finally reached you! I nearly sink to bare knees on the hard, wet, asphalt. My hands and fingers tremble profusely as I make my way to the purple-bricked building. Crying out in elation, I dig deeply into the pockets of my tight, denim mini, hastily seeking out my right of passage – a piece of plastic, falsely marked.
“Yes!” I exclaim to myself as I pull it from the lint and debris of my skirt pocket. I wrap my fingers around the door handle and enter, pushing my poor excuse for breasts together, and smiling much too boldly. I open my mouth to speak as I hold out the piece of plastic. Yes, this is my ticket to entry!

“Out.” He says, not moving at all from his spot on the stool, not even glancing at my card. I freeze, blink, and wobble.
“What?” I question, mistaken.
“You can’t keep doing this. Out.”
I stand, catatonic, as the raucous of the band onstage blares right before my eyes and ears. What can I say? How can I defend this? I’ve waited so long for this show. How can he do this to me? How?

My lips tremble and I look into his black, black eyes.
“But I paid for this!” I cry, “I have the right to stay!” I stumble while standing and he catches me.
“You go home, girl. Don’t make me get outside help. You know what they do to kids like you in jail? You know how much it costs this place if they come in and catch us serving you? Huh, do you?”
My face contorts. My tears fall.
“But the band!”
He sighs heavily, “Go home, baby. I’m not losing my job over this. You got six months yet. I’ll bring you something when I come home.”
I punch him harshly in the arm and scowl,
“You better!”
I rush to the bar and steal three shots of unsupervised whiskey before falling out the door and tumbling back to my home on Fort and Patapsco.

I lay in bed, tossing and turning beneath a plethora of worthless blankets. Spinning. Christ, I’ve never spun so fast.
“Turn the heat on.” I whisper as he enters the dark, dark room.
“Shit, baby, don’t have the money for that. I’m not made out of money, you know.” He sneers as a case of National Bohemian slips from his filthy, gloved fingers onto the bedroom carpet.
“No. No, not at all,” I reply. He flicks on the light and my eyes flinch, “What is this place?”
He cracks open a bottle of beer for each of us, then another and another and another. All things blur.

I feel his raw, naked body in and on top of mine. Spinning.
“Please, just stop,” I wail, “Just stop.” He does not.
“Why are you looking at me this way? Don’t you know who I am?” He asks, pushing harder. I scream as he tugs the cap of hair upon my head, staring down into me with carnelian eyes.

Silence. Since when? That doesn’t happen here, are you kidding? Yes. Here are the sounds of sirens. Here are the gunshots. Here is the loud music and the breaking of glass. Yes, here is the wailing of an underage girl and her fake ID being denied access to the bar with her middle-aged fuck-buddy. Yes, here. Do you hear it?