“Yes, what’s up Walt?”
There was silence on the other end except for his
breathing into the mouthpiece. It wasn’t
that labored prank phone call breathing, but something more contemplative and
measured. It was laced with beats not
everyone could hear. Its feeling
unregulated. She waited for his litany.
“I think you need to come over here right now. I mean really because there is something you
have to try. It is off the chain.” She could feel him fidgeting over the phone; could
see the tremble in his hands and the tapping of his toes he did unconsciously
that she always noticed.
“Walt….it is a really long drive for this time of night.”
“I know, but you have to,” he insisted. His insistence was always child-like and
never offensive. The power behind his
asking was always knowing that she would say yes. This made her predictable and in turn made
her irritated with herself. “Ok.”
***
Marnie pulled into the dirt driveway and made a mental
note of the sound the stones made under her tires. It reminded her of the day she found out her
grandfather died. He was old and crazy
and mean and now dead. For some reason
it didn’t stir her heart towards him, but she liked the sound just the
same. It was dark now that she was in the
country out by the lake. Marnie had
hoped the moon would have given a bit more reflection off the water, but like
most everything else, it disappointed her.
She was egotistical for even thinking the moon would be so gracious.
Walt her the creak of her car door and stood on the porch
leaning on the pillar. He was smoking a
joint and Marnie liked that smell too.
She told herself she wasn’t going to smoke. She couldn’t afford being loose in the
mind. It disintegrated her inhibitions
and made her reckless. She shuddered
with the memories too many to count.
Walt’s toes were still tapping his internal beat. They were his metronome and sometimes they
were hers too.
“No, no baby in there.
You have to taste the water….it’s off the chain.”
“You asked me over here to have some water? God, why do I always say yes?” Marnie turned to go back to her car. If she left now, she could still get home
before she was deathly tired…before she ran herself off the road.
Walt grabbed Marnie’s arm gently. She looked at his fingers in the dark and
then at him, but all she could see was the glow from the lit joint on his
lips. He sensed she was irritated about
being touched. He could feel it on her
skin and so he let go.
“Wait Marn…come on.
Just come taste it and talk to me.”
“I’m pissed right now Walt and you don’t want to talk to
me, seriously.”
He took her hand this time. He liked the softness of it so he held it
awhile. They said nothing. He put all his good energy into that hand sitting
lightly in his. He felt Marnie’s body
slacken a little the longer he held it.
He felt her mood soften some. It
was time for the water.
“Come on,” he whispered.
I
The well was traditional and stone built with a
bucket. It made Marnie want to make
wishes and she supposed she had made a few a time or two without telling Walt
she did. In the blackness, she listened
to the pulley haul the bucket up from the water. There was that rush of the pail ripping the
placid surface and the cascade of splashes as it spilled over the sides on the
way up. Walt pulled the bucket from the
center of the well and let the rope go limp behind it. He set it on the edge and cupped his hands
into the cold, clean earth driven water.
Walt offered his hands to Marnie. “Here, drink this.”
“You want me to drink out of your hands? Are you being a pervert?”
Marnie hated it when he swore at her. It was unlike him and now she knew they were
both irritated. She stepped closer to
him and reached out in the dark to find his wet hands. They had a slow leak and the water was
dripping onto the tops of his shoes.
There was that beat again. Always
a beat. She held his hands in hers and
drank from them as if she had her face in a stream.
The water was beyond anything she had ever tasted. Her mouth felt alive and her thirst doubled
and tripled with each slurp. When she
had drank it down so low, she began to lap it up like a cat. She stood there in the dark licking the water
off the texture of his skin. Her head
was spinning. Her heart was bursting
with light. Her body feather like. Her thoughts somehow free. Free.
Free.
Walt took his hands away from her mouth and put them on
her shoulders. By the well in the night
they had shared something. They both
knew it.
“I just saved you,” Walt said quietly.
“I know.”
Published by Not From Here Are You? Guest Writer, 1/11
