For this semester’s Creative Writing class I had to write a short piece between 5 to 7 pages double spaced. I am notorious for handing in 20 paged (single spaced) stories in my classes. The rules were that we could not write a love story, nor a genre story. That means no period pieces (historical fiction), no science fiction, no fantasy, no mystery, no noir, no time traveling or majestic pieces. I nearly had a heart attack and my professor knew it. Which is why she assigned it this way. The following is what I came up with, in about an hour. I hope you enjoy it.
Last Christmas
It was an hour until midnight and men in long coats and thin hats still were wandering in. They shook off the snow from their tired frames and long faces, slumping into seats at the bar, into the worn velvet covered seats at round tables. The lights were dimmed low; the candles flickered in the winter air that flew in with every new straggler. Tired eyes and homeless hearts, The Oleander Lounge was home to the midnight blues with Marion Jones singing to fill their voids.
It felt like any other Tuesday night to Marion, as she drank from her glass of water under the fixated spotlight up on stage. Bartlet, her piano man, look out into the crowd, most of them regulars. She followed his gaze and saw Doc Howard, the veterinarian who didn’t go back to work after his wife died six months ago. Henry Gilliford who couldn’t keep a job. All the faces and sad stories kept safe within this basement of abandonment. Even that man that always sat up in the far mezzanine corner, hidden under a hat, sat by the door. Newspapers and magazines all had something to say about this fella from the east that came in and interrupted Hollywood for a week or so, and then never saw again until Marion recognized him one night a few weeks back here in a dingy part of Chicago. Even he had no place to be but here, on a snowy night this Christmas Eve.
“What next doll?” asked Bartlet, sighing from the weight of the world. Marion brushed a gloved hand across her forehead, eyeing her crowd of mangy men. “Another holiday tune? Perhaps some Let it Snow? Or White Christmas?” He was being bitter. Bartlet was just like the rest of these men; only he could play a tune.
“No Barry,” she said. “Lets give ‘em a River.” She sang the Joni Mitchell ballad, adding background music to the men who drank to those they lost.
“I’m so hard to handle/I’m selfish and I’m sad/Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby/That I ever had/Oh I wish I had a river/I could skate away on.”
She wore a deep blue cascading gown to the floor that sparkled in the light with a slit cut up to her thigh, gloves that were not as white as they once used to be reached up to her elbows and her bob hair cut curled under her ears. She had been quite plain back home and here she had a bit of glamour.
Barlet’s fingers lingered on the last few notes, before ceremoniously closing down the lid to his grand piano.
“Well gentlemen,” Marion said into her mike. “I’m afraid, ‘cause of the holiday, we’re closing up early tonight. Y’all get home safe all right? I hear the snow is gettin’ thicker by the hour.”
Jeremy up in the lighting and sound booth finally shut off the spotlight, letting her step to the side of the stage, where Bartlet began putting on his coat and hat.
“Got a place to go tomorrow?” she asked him. He was an older man, with a long white mustache and a sour disposition.
“My granddaughter sent over her husband to fetch me,” he grumbled. “He’s waiting outside I suppose.” She patted his shoulder.
“Good, I’m glad.” She gave a caring smile and took his place at the piano bench after he got up and left.
Marion collected up the sheets of music as the men slowly left the Oleander, leaving empty glasses but taking with them their sullen faces and heavy hearts. Only the candles on each of the round tables filled the room with enough light to guide them out.
“I heard you fucked her in the backseat of that Ford Coupe, the one used in the movie.”
Marion glanced over her should to the men sitting at the bar. One of them was David Thickler, a warehouse stocker down Hamilton. He was standing next to the nameless mezzanine man, yelling in his face.
“Is it true?” Thickler continued. “That her tits were a piece of heaven and that pussy as tight as they said in Playboy? I bet you never had a hooker that dirty before.”
“Fuck off,” the man muttered into his drink, his face buried under his hat.
“Did you read that article?” Thickler asked the bartender, who was trying to stay out of it. “Said that she was the greatest lay in all of Hollywood, that directors were putting her into their movies just to get a taste of that fine piece of ass.”
The man slung so hard at Thickler’s face, he caught him in the jaw, but only barely. Thickler was surprised more than anything else but once he gathered his bearings he swung back twice as hard as the man ever could.
“Oh fuck,” growled the bartender, jumping over the counter, trying to wrestle Thickler off of him. The man fell to the floor, but dragged his attacker down with him by his coat collar.
“Take it back you son of a bitch!” the man yelled, throwing a punch at Thickler’s face. But Thickler punched harder and faster, laying it into the man.
“You fucking pussy,” Thickler yelled as the bartender tried to pull him away. Marion jumped off the stage and got down on her knees to the man, grabbing him by the shoulders.
“Get the hell up,” she hissed. Thickler was finally pulled away from him, thrown at the door.
“You can have your whore!” he yelled, as the door was slammed in his face. The bartender turned to reprimand the nameless man but all that was left of him was his hat, bloodied now, on the floor by the stools.
“You ought to pick your fights better,” Marion said, as she dragged the stranger into her worn, but cozy dressing room. “Thickler isn’t exactly the best choice to tussle with.”
“I didn’t start anything,” the man said, as she plopped him down in the little golden chair at her vanity. “I just couldn’t take him talking shit about….”
Marion sighed, getting a good look at him. He was younger but taller than she thought he was, with dark hair and a day’s worth of scruff. And covered in blood.
“God, take this,” she said, pulling off one of her long gloves and pushing it under his bleeding nose. “Hold that there.” He, alarmed, did what he was told, watching her disappear behind a thin paper screen. “Just let me get out of this stupid dress.”
He did not watch her change. Instead he looked to the floor, holding her glove to his face.
“You know it’s all true what they say,” he said after a moment.
“What do they say?”
“That I had an affair with her, out in California, even though she was married to that lawyer. Her husband did love her too, very much. He wasn’t cruel or nothing.” Marion didn’t say anything as she slipped the dress over her head. “But what they all got wrong was that I loved her too. I wasn’t with her to get a story about her, to write a book about her, or make the cover of a magazine. I loved her too. I loved her too.”
Marion walked back out in an oversized man’s shirt and black leggings. She sat on the floor at his feet and pulled out a pair of workmen’s boots. She was a lot younger than he thought she was. No more than twenty-four. Only a few younger than he.
“Anyway,” the man said. “What are you doing in a place like this?”
“I’m here every night. I thought you’d be aware of that by now.”
“But on Christmas eve? Doesn’t a girl like you have someplace to go?”
“Oh I do.” She slipped the boots on and tied them up around her ankles while she spoke. “Gonna meet my folks for midnight mass in a bit and spend the day with them.” She paused and looked at his right hand, lying in his lap. “Give me a look at that.” She reached out and cradled the bruised fingers.
“This might be broken,” she said. “Stay there.” She jumped up and rummaged through the drawers in her vanity. “There we are.” She pulled apart white medical tape, cutting it with her teeth. “I’m gonna wrap this up but promise me you’ll go see a doctor tomorrow.” She stopped and looked up at him fiercely. “Promise me,” she hissed.
“Yes, yeah I’ll go,” he said, wincing at the pain.
“I had a fella like you, last year,” she said after a moment. “Had to bandage him up a few times.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes sir. Tall dark and handsome. Terribly mysterious. We had one hell of a time.”
“I met her on Christmas last year,” he said quietly. “I was covering a press junket for a ball one of the directors threw every year. I work for a newspaper, you know. At least, I did.”
“I know,” Marion said simply.
“I was supposed to do a write up on all the guests and such. But I ended up spilling my cocktail all over her shoes. Felt like total shit but she said it was her excuse to get the hell out of there. After that, well, all that happened.”
Marion finished wrapping his injured hand and placed a calm hand over his.
“I’m sure she loved you very much,” she said quiet but firmly. “I saw some of those television interviews, how they all said you seduced her just to get a story. All that cover up business to make you the bad guy and save face. But under all that, even I could tell that she loved you.”
Marion got up and pulled on a fake fur coat that enveloped her tiny frame.
“Now I don’t know either of you,” she continued. “But I bet more than anything that she loved the hell out of you, and misses you something fierce.”
The man nodded.
“Do you got a place to be tonight?” she asked. “You could come to church with me and my folks if you like, but you don’t seem the type.”
“No. I have a brother that lives in town. I’ve been staying with him.”
“You’ll be alright getting there tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And you promise me that you’ll go see a doctor ‘bout that hand tomorrow?”
“Yes m’am.”
Marion grinned and held out her arm.
“Come on stranger, walk me to the door. I haven’t had a man walk me to the door in such a long time.”
He took her arm and escorted her out of The Oleander; snow blowing in and broken hearts tucked away.
Zoë A. Gulliksen
November 7th, 2011
My imagination keeps me sane (and I’m 22 
) -@liamnicholson
