Cray-Rae

cdibbs 2 Comments

My hands were clammy and my mouth was dry. I was so focused on the road and trying to listen to the voice spewing directions, so yeah, I was silent for the first couple of rides. I wasn’t sure if I should say something after greeting them, or just go. I headed for the destination we were both wanting, dropped them at their door step, and went on my own way.

My first ride was a couple from the building next to me, and my third ride was a sweat girl from own building I live in. She was headed for a blind date, so cute. She said the app name, I new what she talking about, but I have never heard of this app! I’m forty-something. I told her I was new in Denver and so to forgive me for not knowing exactly where I was going. She laughed and said, “You’re doing fine…I’m so nervous.”

I told her she will do fine, “Walk like you own the place.” We said goodbye.

I don’t know how many times I circled the same block looking for a group of people. They were fun, my age, and one guy was commenting that his pants weren’t skinny enough to be going to the neighborhood they were about to enter. I laughed. I immediately imagined a kid with cigarette pants, sleek shoes, a beard, and wearing a knit sweater. When they exited the car I told them to have fun, the two ladies yelled out, “We’re already having fun.” Then I heard them say how cute I was.

The drunk girls were my favorite. I couldn’t help but keep thinking back to the days when I would get shit-faced drunk, and falling from the car. Yes, three girls swung themselves into the vehicle like it was their bedroom, they hit the seats like it was a bed. Chatty next to me was hilarious and I told her she could be a stand-up. Of course she replied, “I’ve heard that, I’m from New York, Stanton Island to be exact.” She had the most beautiful natural red, curly hair. Her eye makeup was perfect, not a smudge–however, her friend who had passed in the backseat was a different case. When we arrived at her apartment she rolled out of the car and dropped to the ground. Her friends jumped and squealed, scrambled to get out of the car and to her side. She fell again behind the car, and again in her front yard.

Her friends propped her up against a tree, she leaned in and hugged it like a bear. One girl got the keys, the other went for the tree-hugger. Well, tree-hugger fell back taking out her friend, both girls splayed out on the front yard while New Yorker stood there beautiful holding the door, yelling at them to get up. I wasn’t sure if I should help, and thought twice real fast. I couldn’t stop laughing. I drove away wondering how they were going to get her up that flight of stairs to her apartment.

My last two rides were fabulous and left me smiling. I get another couple, they’re from Chicago, but had just moved here from Utah. She was going to medical school out there. She had to leave because of the culture. She said, “They have this matrimonial medical exam to make sure you’re still virgin and then they use some device that is supposed to stretch out your vagina, so the woman can be more comfortable when she is conceiving.”

My jaw dropped. I could only imagine what that device looked like, and unless it’s for kink play, why would any woman want to stretch out their love maker. I was happy that she moved here, and will not have to perform that medial exam, ever. But, I did want to tell her to look up some kink sites and she’d find out what that device looks like–and that masochists use it during play. I refrained.

My last ride was the best. Two guys, drunk and taking shit about their good friend’s girlfriend. Guy 1 said, “Dude, you’ll see, you’ll see I’m right. Even my wife doesn’t like her, she is so crazy that she named her Cray-Rae.” These guys made me laugh. “No, listen Guy 2, you will see, I bet money you will come back and tell me how right I was. She is so crazy. She talks  to you like you’re stupid. She has to know everything, be right all the time–”

Guy 2 cut him off, “Yeah, we’re having a party and she was like ‘You’re inviting those people.’ When did we become Those People?” 

“I’m telling you, this wedding is going to be a disaster, I mean the bride hates her and Cray-Rae is going to the bachelorette party. I bet Bride kills Cray-Rae before anyone can even get over the border.” He broke his conversation and directed it to me, “I’m sorry M’am, I don’t mean to offend you, I just, she is just super crazy, and sorry, but she is a bitch, she is full of herself, and I know I am not the smartest person, but I’m smart enough to know she isn’t either, and its so annoying.”

I told him not to stop, I had a comedy show happening in my backseat.

Writing, and all it’s charms

cdibbs 3 Comments

I graduated, yeah, from a masters program. MFA in creative writing. In all that glory, I find I still don’t have what I need. I still feel lost and/or confused as to how and when I keep writing, and if I am even good enough…will they like it, will it grab anyone, am I the only one who likes my stories? The trials of writing a story or novel can take endless hours, for some. I am one of those. I pound it out when I feel like it, and simmer on it, the story, while I sit around and wait. But, what am I waiting for? To keep the writing going is the hardest part of graduating. My deadline is now on my own regard. I also don’t have a professor looking over my work letting me know what works and what doesn’t. To keep up the writing, the story telling, to share it with the world is not the easiest task.

Perhaps it’s my dialogue about the writing, calling it a task creates a motivational blocker. No, really?

I have to change the narrative, writing is now my art – paid or not – a job that will share my voice. Why I started writing to begin with was for my voice to be heard, you can’t silence me in my art. So, if I feel so strongly about the story and a character’s Why, or How, and their outcome – then why do I feel like the writing is a task? Because when I’m in it, and the character is talking, it is the most enjoyable part of my day. I tell myself to change the narrative, but change it to what?

Change is the only constant format of life, everything else is a crap shoot. So I take the challenge of the change that has been presented with my art. My narrative will be that writing is my art. I do it because I love it, and it’s how I can be heard…but will this change. Yes. I’m sure the doubt will strike me once a day, or more. So, to continue in this forever-changing-world that will trigger doubt, I can embrace the fear, hold it close and turn into fuel, courage, and see the charms in writing, not the task.

The changing narrative will be my challenge. I see this. I know this. Not the writing. The writing will be my charm in life.

POEM

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                             An American by Constitution

OK.
Volunteering to go fight in a war, is hard.

Hard, for the family she leaves behind.
America’s soiled by a single father

Who can’t afford the rent. While a United States
Senator falsifies his Net-worth to the IRS.

Who marches to the beat of plenty?
The CEO who’s holding it, a refugee who needs it, or

A President, who will destroy it. Pro-choice
Between men and women carry different values;

Then you add Black Awareness Day, Christians and Muslims killing each other,
Infidelity among neighbors, prison facilities for alien children…

The list can be made new everyday,
How many pages do I have here?

Now I stand ashamed of myself.
I drank too much wine, and voted too late.

Another Poem

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The Devil Talked Back

Been almost eight years
since you slid your fingers
around the neck of my body.
Do you miss me?

While you’ve been gone others
have enjoyed my smooth syrup,
mixing with elixirs, easily swallowed,
using me until night’s end. I don’t mind.

For you, I wait. I sit within my dated
barrel and age—the older the better
they say.

Some enjoy me sweat and sour, or
with sugared cherries—Manhattan please.
Or, perhaps a Sidecar. No matter.
You know me best, naked and neat.

I don’t feel ignored by the absence of
your touch. I know your blood flows thick
without me. Yadi, Yadi, I know you think
about me everyday. Just one more taste.

No-one will know, it can be our secret.

I can hide behind the linens in
your closet; The backseat of your car;
In the bathroom on the airplane—
mile high club?

Is that too much? Go on then, let me age.
I know you like a challenge.
I am everywhere. I’ll be waiting.

A Poem

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Girls:

The joint couldn’t have been any bigger than my first studio apartment.
I entered through a haze of smoke to the innards of a beast’s heart.
Red all around me, with welts of black in form of table tops.
The stage was short in height but ran along the whole of one wall,
The wall of the room which had no windows.

In fact, come to think it,
The whole bit was dark, not a window insight.
The only way out
Is the way you came in.

My feet vibrated along with the base, making my shoes slip on and off
As I walked towards the bar. Metal stools lined up and filled with asses,
Bare asses. Each girl wore a blonde, red, or brown wig—couple of them
Had blue streaks. I found an empty seat and slid into it, next to the blue.

The bartender asked me, “What’s your poison?”
“Bourbon, straight.” I played with a lighter, ran it through my fingers rotating each one.
“Five. Five dollars.” She snapped my money faster than I could think what the change would be out of ten.
“Can I have ones…”
But she already knew and surrendered five crispy, one dollar bills. I snatched them up and handed one back, “Thanks.”

She didn’t say a word, just flipped her black hair off her shoulders
And straightened her Betty Page bangs. Her red and black corset
Pushed up on her body, raising her bust and spilling her cleavage.
Tattoo’s of pin up’s traced her arms, shoulders, and lower back.

Her eyes narrowed.