Anything Goes

Chapter 1 NEVER MIND Kurt Cobain was teaching me how to play "Lithium." One of two songs off that record I ever liked well enough to care to learn it. How the changes were just so brutally stupid, like they went out of their way to pick the exact wrong chords. The funny thing was I was playing guitar. Kurt was explaining to meyou got to keep it rough. Which it seems like rough was built into the chord progression anyway but maybe it wasn't quite so simple as I thought. So he was reaching for the guitar to show me what he meant but somehow the guitar sort of went tilting away from both of us and that's how I woke up. The girl was up. That's what it was. She was so pretty. Getting her clothes. Kind of a sack dress with some discreet little flower print on it, she was just now diving into. When her arms came out of the sleeves, I touched her on the elbow, to slow her downI didn't necessarily want her to come back to me but she didn't need to feel so rushed. She shied away from my hand, eyes spinning white like the eyes of a spooked horse, and I wanted to call her name, like you might with a horse to quieten it, bring it back to itself, only I couldn't just then think what it was. She'd turned her face away from me, toward the other bed, and when she saw the smear of snarled hair and snoring across the pillows there she snapped her head back in the other direction, dropping it so her hair swung in her face. Straight black hair as glossy as a grackle's wing, just long enough to graze her collarbones where they showed out of the V of that thin cotton dress. Long enough it hid her face. She turned around toward the door, stuffing something in her purse, her bra. I saw our faces swimming together in the mirror for a second, in the dim green water light that came through the curtain from outside. What time was it? Daylight slapped my head when she snatched the door open, a red hot hammer opening my headache up a little wider. I was still hearing the "Lithium" run in my head, that awkward shift over G-flat, D-flat to A. And at some point I must have jumped into my jeans because there I was blinking in the motel parking lot, barefoot and bare-chested but at least with my pants on. What motel was it, anyway? This bright daylight was just messing me up even more. "Hey," I said to her, "hold up" And she did stop to face me for a second, barefoot too, holding her Doc Martens in the other hand from the purse. The clunky shoes looked cute because they were so little. "Let me take you to breakfast anyway," I said. Smile felt dry and cracking on my face. "Something . . ." "I gotta go." She dropped her head again so the black hair swung, such a sweet movement, but I knew I shouldn't touch her. She would be thinking that people might be watching us from behind the curtains on all three sides of the motel courtyard. I was looking down on the part in her hair, which was kind of unusual because I'm pretty small myself. Then following her as she stalked across the asphalt, which was soft and hot alreadymust be pretty late. "Let me give you a ride somewhere?" The name, Karen, Sharon . . . Damn it. She glanced back. "I got my car I gotta go." Without a pause. Now she was in it too, red VW Rabbit, shying away from her own face in the rearview mirror and then adjusting it to drive. I was moving up to tap on the window but she just flashed me a quick unhappy smile through the glass and almost ran my bare toes over, peeling out of there. I waved at her tailpipe, kind of limp. Oh well. Ocean City, that's where we were. Been there for a three-week run so it ought not to been such a trick to remember. Older motel of the type Perry favored. They got more character, he would say, then Chris would go, sarcastic, Yeah, and a whole lot cheaper too.Bell, Madison Smartt is the author of 'Anything Goes', published 2002 under ISBN 9780375421259 and ISBN 0375421254.