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Worry
By Herbert Foster Kaufman
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Kaitlin
I
think kindness is important. I don’t care about people saying its
weak and we can only help by buying and working and killing. I say they’re
full of it. Still I can’t keep from worrying. It’s not like
I don’t try. I try every day but its hard not to worry. I moved
in with Dave and he paid a month’s rent on that little room and
his friend Simon moved into the closet and for a week everything was fine,
was really a lot better than fine. Simon doesn’t say much, not because
he’s stupid but because Simon doesn’t have an opinion on anything.
He can only repeat opinions. I don’t suppose that’s bad, but
we haven’t seen Dave for a week and its just me and him in that
little room, or more like me in the little room and him in his closet
and he never says a damn thing, but he’s always there, maybe he’s
judging me in there. Luckily I get asked out to coffee a lot and that’s
been keeping me going. I have style and I steal a lot of cosmetics. It’s
the only thing I’m willing to steal, but its hard to survive on
coffee, people never ask me to dinner, I guess because a thin, young girl
doesn’t eat, she has coffee, I usually get some cake too, but any
real money, like $10 or more and I buy speed because its cheaper than
eating and it keeps away the worry. Helps me live in the moment. You were
probably going to give me money until I said that, weren’t you?
I chase money away, I swear to God, that’s what Simon said today,
because he heard Dave say it once.
Simon
I know its my fault. Its my fault that Dave left, went wherever people
like him go. He must have a thousand places where people know him and
like him and he can go and they buy him drinks and they take care of him
instead of him always having to take care of people like Kaitlin and me.
I’m so afraid to tell her its my fault, cold in the belly afraid,
but I think sometimes she knows already, sometimes I think she knows because
she looks at me in a secret way, when I’m looking at her and she
won’t look back but I know that she still sees me looking at her.
I can’t really tell for sure. If she knows she’s so nice not
to yell at me and if she doesn’t know she’s still nice not
to blame me. I’ve been blamed for plenty of things I never did,
so it wouldn’t surprise me if she blamed me, seeing as it may be
my fault. I’m not sure. I know Dave getting caught by the police
was my fault, I was on look-out while he was painting his big dogs. Dave
paints the best big dogs in the world, on construction sights and empty
buildings and the sidewalk, people love the dogs, they smile when they
see them. I’ve seen it. I stand around them and watch people pass
and they smile. I also stand around the dogs because I miss Dave and hope
that he’ll come back, but not to the apartment, I can’t see
that, but I could see him coming by to see the dogs, visit the dogs, if
he comes back it will be around the dogs.
Kaitlin
He’s
always there, looking at me when he thinks I’m not looking, judging
me. No one is going to ask Simon to coffee. He has a hammer and he goes
out with that at night and sometimes comes back with stuff, but I hope
he’s not stealing, that’s all we need, for Simon to end up
in jail and then we’ll really be fucked. That would be such shit.
Simon
I
thought they were drunks not cops. They were walking down the middle of
the alley talking so loud and that big light behind them only let me see
their shape and hear them. I don’t think I ever saw cops walking
down an alley, its always getting out of a car or getting into a car,
never walking and talking, so I told David there were two drunks coming
and he said he was almost done and then they were there and he still had
his brush in his hand, David always used a brush and little buckets of
paint, one white and one black to make black, grey and white dogs. They
took down our names and ID’s, and didn’t arrest us or take
us to lock-up, but David was real sad and said something about an Anti-Graffiti
Task Force, I remember those were his exact words, Anti-Graffiti Task
Force, and it feels to me like that’s why he’s not here to
take care of Kaitlin like she needs, and I can’t do. I can’t
even say I’m sorry, but I think it every time I look at her.
Kaitlin
I’ve
never done prostitution. I could never take it that far. Its just not
something…oh, yeah, sure, I mean, once. But I didn’t even
have to get paid. This guy wants me to sleep with his beautiful wife and
do his cocaine and drink his champagne. Of course I say “yes”,
blonde, big tits, we’re high as fucking kites. He didn’t even
have to pay me. I didn’t even have to touch him. Two hundred dollars
and coke and champagne and a beautiful wife. Hardly prostitution, but
technically yes, since I did take the money. I’m trying to be really
honest, technically honest. I’ve got to do something.
Simon
You
never paint on another persons picture. Not in a gallery or a home or
a wall on the street. The owner painting it white is sad but inevitable.
It is not a sin so much as nature reclaiming its own. Art goes on. But
another artist is physically beaten for painting over. And they are normally
such a peaceful group. We are. I am, now. I have half a bucket of Dave’s
black and I’ve been painting silhouettes next to the dogs, off to
the side, respectfully, a little man with a top hat in a suit with padded
shoulders, pants ending into the ground, a shadow man.
Kaitlin
I
put in a lot of milk and a lot of sugar and its like you’re a kid
again, you know, when they first give you coffee, they water it down with
milk and sugar so its like hot chocolate, so you’ll go to school
even after you’ve really stopped going to school. By the time I
was thirteen it was a little line of coke. “Get up Kaitlin, you
gotta go to school today.” And a little line of coke. That’s
why my sinuses are so awful. It did help get me to school. When my parents
were angry at each other, the insults of choice were always, Coke Head,
Fucking Coke Head, Coked Out Bitch/Son of a Bitch. It wasn’t until
they were both gone and I was in a friend’s house watching TV with
my friend’s parents, my friend’s little brother, my friend’s
cat, that I realized no one in this house is going to say “Coked
Out Son of a Bitch”. I knew right then my home hadn’t been
normal and I would have to fix some things. I would still trade anything
to have them back. Without their demons. Without parents its like your
heart is permanently on a stick.
Simon
I
can’t let Kaitlin know I’ve been eating out of dumpsters,
she’d pitch a fit and it makes it so I can’t bring anything
back for her to eat because she’d know it was dumpster food and
I’d have to admit to eating it, then I’d end up promising
to never do it again and starve. No one asks me for coffee.
Kaitlin
Out
in front of the house, in the yard, drying out.
Simon
When
I was young, when I was alone, when no one was watching, I would lock
the doors and cover the windows and dance around the house in a silly
and violent and immature way until I was exhausted, not giggly-exhausted,
like I was full of joy, but good solid tired, like I’d done something
important and well and just in time. I tried to hide it, but the importance
spilled out of me, I knew I was vital. People didn’t like it, they
found me ridiculous. Somehow they had seen me. I had to quiet down. As
an adult, I dance only when I can touch all four walls. My dances are
small. I don’t feel as important as I used to, but I feel safer.
Nobody notices me.
Kaitlin
It’s
not judging, its commiseration and its just as unwelcome as judging.
Simon
The
hardest four days of my life.
Kaitlin
Getting
thinner.
Simon
My
hammer. My little man.
Kaitlin
My
coffee.
Simon
Dave!
Kaitlin
Dave!
And Dave made himself known to Simon and Kaitlin, and gathered them to himself and there were tears in Kaitlin’s eyes.
Mother fuck, Dave, don’t ever do that again.
But there were tears of joy descending from Kaitlin, and they all ate for many hours the wonderful Chinese food Dave had brought and a golden peace filled the apartment.
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Herbert Foster Kaufman has published short fiction and poetry in Wasted Space, Errata, The Underwood Review, Sugar Mule, Cherry Bleeds, Thought Magazine, Outsider Ink and Caveat Lector. He has written restaurant reviews for local papers, ad copy for Playboy, and the play Montgomery Clift Can't Save You. He is the author of A Testament to Grace, a novel of lies and evil. His website is www.monkeybrains.com/~herb.
©
2004 Me Three