4 She Did Rewrite #4
Content
SHE DID by max keanu ©2012
A vehicle drove up my road, broke my concentration on the facts and figures of the coffee business. I expected no visitors today. I stood, flipped open the louvered windows and breathed in the late afternoon breeze. Sipping the last of my coffee, I followed a dust cloud rising behind massive Koa trees from a van or a truck ascending the volcano at a high rate of speed. I plugged the telephone back in and poured myself another cup. This uninvited guest meant my workday was finished. Thank God for small favors! From the kitchen window I followed the vehicle as it emerged out of the jungle. It was my boss, Ben Goodman, in his big delivery truck racing up my dirt road. This was not like Ben. Ben did not race. He drove too fast. He cut corners, skidded, spit gravel and fishtailed around curves. Near the waterfall he lost control, left the road and slid into a drainage ditch. From a half-mile away I heard redlined reeves of the truck’s engine. Seconds later, the hydraulic lift rose, this months coffee shipment slid off, bag after bag tumbled off and sank into jungle mud. The truck freed, Ben returned to the road and raced towards my house. No, this was not like Ben. The Boy Scout in me told me to be prepared. My heartbeat increased. Time slowed a bit. My eyes focused on Ben’s still vague face in distant reaching. I wanted him to slow down, to smile. This was not like Ben at all. The truck roared in, devastated the gravel perfection of our circular drive. Ours was a virgin driveway never assaulted in this way by anyone. Dust billowed up, settled over the fountain and covered our marble Cupid who spit water from an always-smiling mouth. Limbs of our shading Koa tree shuddered when Ben's truck clipped a branch. Hundreds of leaves fluttered down in protest and Myna birds squawked as they alighted in frenzy. Ben flew out of the truck. It was Ben, but not Ben. This was a Ben of a stone face, a hard face, a heavy face. This Ben I didn't want to know. "Hector! Hector! Where are you? Get out here!" And, oh my God! His voice ranged a thousand degrees askew from normal. It contained alarm, dread, fear and a million years of yelling to save a fellow human. His voice was the fight or flight screeches our primate ancestors made, a voice pushing the overtones of panic. "Hector! Where the fuck are you? Get out here! Now!" He entered the house, boots heavy pounding on old wooden floors, vibrating through carpets, the walls wanting to refuse him entry, the screen door slamming
behind him like those clamoring, damning demons in Paradise Lost. I wanted to crawl under our kitchen table, hide like a timid cockroach and stop his demanding intrusion. Bad news rang on his voice, echoed in the humid air, tintinnabulations of the unknown resonating, ringing. His words, penetrating nasty rhomboid sound shapes, invaded, penetrated my space in ugly vowely transmutations into words sharp, serrating blades of strident punctuation slicing into me. "Hector! Hector! There's been an accident!" The words seemed to boil out of his bent down mouth. I knew right away my wife Anne was hurt. I looked about the kitchen for something of hers, anything she'd touched to give me a handle to hold on to. The here and now came forth in a pitiful exhale of shoulders slumped, a body trembling, a man grasping inward towards unresolved worlds and imperfect words. His eyes reached out to prop up my soul with pillars of everything he was and could be in tenderness for another human's feelings. "My wife and ... I... we found Anne. She... she was hit by a car." I wound Anne and myself back in time to this morning’s sunlight on her golden hair, to a past moment of her in her favorite smiley-face bikini, sitting astride her pink Schwinn bike, purple movie-star sunglasses, smiling so big, throwing me kisses in last bye-bye loves and her melodic gotta leaves.... "She went to your house hours ago." My voice came out an ugly warbling thing that stuck in my throat. "Let's go Hec! Now! The ambulance may be on the way to Hilo Hospital right now. Move it!"
On the road, Ben was crazy. "How bad was she hurt?" His eyes flashed to mine. I'd pulled the rug out from under his self-control. A tear formed in his eye. It was bad. "Oh fuck! God damn it, Hec... She’s suffered a hit and run. But man, she's gotta... she’s gonna live." The mind has mysteries and hormones and God things that flood the body and drench it in masking pain relievers to save it. My mind swirled in a mean tsunami of corrosive chemicals hitting my brain walls of fast decaying resilience.
I'm drowning. Save me!
"It happened around the next curve," Ben said, expecting the scene to be a thing of the past, the ambulance having come and gone and we'd then fly down the road towards Hilo Hospital. In a split second, I saw my Anne on the roadside. Ben’s wife kneeled next to her, both of them covered with blood. Annie's arm, up in the air, waved crazy like a deadly cobra. Revati looked towards me before
Ben stopped the truck. The expression on her face shattered everything I’d believed in and ever dreamed of with my Anne.
She was filthy and muddy and bloody, her bikini bottom ripped off, her bikini top like a hangman noose around her neck. She bled so red, a red of the reddest flowing blood, in bright reds against the greens of tangled roots and vines. A cranium of blue-sky lingered above on this cloudless day, allowing the sun’s rays to cascade over wounds vicious and violent. Up close, I looked into her eyes, looked for the place that was our everything, looked for the place allowing me entry. I wanted to shout at her, plead with her to reverse time, take us back to this morning, to take back that kiss she blew me. Take that kiss back! Use it in woman-magic to change everything to happiness again. Make this go away! She raved on in wheezing whispers and mysterious wishes.
The ambulance screamed down jungle roads, negotiating a labyrinth of unpaved roads, finally merging into a two-lane highway snaking along a rainy coast. The late afternoon’s shadow of the volcano swallowed us; the sun’s abrupt descent behind Mauna Kea left the heavens in darkness. Out the window of the ambulance, I connected to curious driver’s eyes reflecting our red lights flashings, ears perked up to our siren’s blare. “My Anne, she hurts so bad!” I yelled out to the unknown, “Please, save her!” "Snookums, by the by, on the yellow brick road. The little doggie we owned, Cookie... If there's no Heaven, when we die, the good... the bad... We all go to the same place... Oh baby, I loved Rivercity, Papayas, Kona and I love you Hec. I loved..." She closed her eyes her breath exhaled, a last whimper sounded and she was gone. "This is too quick! I never wanted you to suffer. You can't die! You can't do this to me!" But she did.
A vehicle drove up my road, broke my concentration on the facts and figures of the coffee business. I expected no visitors today. I stood, flipped open the louvered windows and breathed in the late afternoon breeze. Sipping the last of my coffee, I followed a dust cloud rising behind massive Koa trees from a van or a truck ascending the volcano at a high rate of speed. I plugged the telephone back in and poured myself another cup. This uninvited guest meant my workday was finished. Thank God for small favors! From the kitchen window I followed the vehicle as it emerged out of the jungle. It was my boss, Ben Goodman, in his big delivery truck racing up my dirt road. This was not like Ben. Ben did not race. He drove too fast. He cut corners, skidded, spit gravel and fishtailed around curves. Near the waterfall he lost control, left the road and slid into a drainage ditch. From a half-mile away I heard redlined reeves of the truck’s engine. Seconds later, the hydraulic lift rose, this months coffee shipment slid off, bag after bag tumbled off and sank into jungle mud. The truck freed, Ben returned to the road and raced towards my house. No, this was not like Ben. The Boy Scout in me told me to be prepared. My heartbeat increased. Time slowed a bit. My eyes focused on Ben’s still vague face in distant reaching. I wanted him to slow down, to smile. This was not like Ben at all. The truck roared in, devastated the gravel perfection of our circular drive. Ours was a virgin driveway never assaulted in this way by anyone. Dust billowed up, settled over the fountain and covered our marble Cupid who spit water from an always-smiling mouth. Limbs of our shading Koa tree shuddered when Ben's truck clipped a branch. Hundreds of leaves fluttered down in protest and Myna birds squawked as they alighted in frenzy. Ben flew out of the truck. It was Ben, but not Ben. This was a Ben of a stone face, a hard face, a heavy face. This Ben I didn't want to know. "Hector! Hector! Where are you? Get out here!" And, oh my God! His voice ranged a thousand degrees askew from normal. It contained alarm, dread, fear and a million years of yelling to save a fellow human. His voice was the fight or flight screeches our primate ancestors made, a voice pushing the overtones of panic. "Hector! Where the fuck are you? Get out here! Now!" He entered the house, boots heavy pounding on old wooden floors, vibrating through carpets, the walls wanting to refuse him entry, the screen door slamming
behind him like those clamoring, damning demons in Paradise Lost. I wanted to crawl under our kitchen table, hide like a timid cockroach and stop his demanding intrusion. Bad news rang on his voice, echoed in the humid air, tintinnabulations of the unknown resonating, ringing. His words, penetrating nasty rhomboid sound shapes, invaded, penetrated my space in ugly vowely transmutations into words sharp, serrating blades of strident punctuation slicing into me. "Hector! Hector! There's been an accident!" The words seemed to boil out of his bent down mouth. I knew right away my wife Anne was hurt. I looked about the kitchen for something of hers, anything she'd touched to give me a handle to hold on to. The here and now came forth in a pitiful exhale of shoulders slumped, a body trembling, a man grasping inward towards unresolved worlds and imperfect words. His eyes reached out to prop up my soul with pillars of everything he was and could be in tenderness for another human's feelings. "My wife and ... I... we found Anne. She... she was hit by a car." I wound Anne and myself back in time to this morning’s sunlight on her golden hair, to a past moment of her in her favorite smiley-face bikini, sitting astride her pink Schwinn bike, purple movie-star sunglasses, smiling so big, throwing me kisses in last bye-bye loves and her melodic gotta leaves.... "She went to your house hours ago." My voice came out an ugly warbling thing that stuck in my throat. "Let's go Hec! Now! The ambulance may be on the way to Hilo Hospital right now. Move it!"
On the road, Ben was crazy. "How bad was she hurt?" His eyes flashed to mine. I'd pulled the rug out from under his self-control. A tear formed in his eye. It was bad. "Oh fuck! God damn it, Hec... She’s suffered a hit and run. But man, she's gotta... she’s gonna live." The mind has mysteries and hormones and God things that flood the body and drench it in masking pain relievers to save it. My mind swirled in a mean tsunami of corrosive chemicals hitting my brain walls of fast decaying resilience.
I'm drowning. Save me!
"It happened around the next curve," Ben said, expecting the scene to be a thing of the past, the ambulance having come and gone and we'd then fly down the road towards Hilo Hospital. In a split second, I saw my Anne on the roadside. Ben’s wife kneeled next to her, both of them covered with blood. Annie's arm, up in the air, waved crazy like a deadly cobra. Revati looked towards me before
Ben stopped the truck. The expression on her face shattered everything I’d believed in and ever dreamed of with my Anne.
She was filthy and muddy and bloody, her bikini bottom ripped off, her bikini top like a hangman noose around her neck. She bled so red, a red of the reddest flowing blood, in bright reds against the greens of tangled roots and vines. A cranium of blue-sky lingered above on this cloudless day, allowing the sun’s rays to cascade over wounds vicious and violent. Up close, I looked into her eyes, looked for the place that was our everything, looked for the place allowing me entry. I wanted to shout at her, plead with her to reverse time, take us back to this morning, to take back that kiss she blew me. Take that kiss back! Use it in woman-magic to change everything to happiness again. Make this go away! She raved on in wheezing whispers and mysterious wishes.
The ambulance screamed down jungle roads, negotiating a labyrinth of unpaved roads, finally merging into a two-lane highway snaking along a rainy coast. The late afternoon’s shadow of the volcano swallowed us; the sun’s abrupt descent behind Mauna Kea left the heavens in darkness. Out the window of the ambulance, I connected to curious driver’s eyes reflecting our red lights flashings, ears perked up to our siren’s blare. “My Anne, she hurts so bad!” I yelled out to the unknown, “Please, save her!” "Snookums, by the by, on the yellow brick road. The little doggie we owned, Cookie... If there's no Heaven, when we die, the good... the bad... We all go to the same place... Oh baby, I loved Rivercity, Papayas, Kona and I love you Hec. I loved..." She closed her eyes her breath exhaled, a last whimper sounded and she was gone. "This is too quick! I never wanted you to suffer. You can't die! You can't do this to me!" But she did.
