‘It’s My Life!’
Slowing down behind a big shiny tanker truck carrying chemicals, I turned my head and saw her on the other side of the road.
Neolani.
She was standing at the bus stop looking into the distance as she waited for a bus. There were a couple of teenagers nearby looking just like we did seven years ago. It was beginning to drizzle.
She hasn’t changed at all. Only the piercing ring in her bottom lip and her bright make-up have gone. But I had seen her in many ways, including like this, homely. She hadn’t put on any weight, hasn’t changed her hairstyle or style of clothes. She was still the same Heavenly girl.
My first instinct was to lower the window and call her. But then the engine of the truck in front of me roared, and letting out a dark cloud of diesel exhaust from underneath its shiny chassis, the truck began to move.
I had to move to. There were a few cars behind me and some red Japanese pickup was already honking impatiently – displeased with the fact that I, in the opinion of its driver, was lingering.
I got to the nearest cross road – which was quite far away – turned round and raced my Nissan back, praying to God, the Universe and Mother Nature for the bus not to beat me.
I don’t know why I was doing it, or what came over me then. I had been deeply angry with Neolani after what happened in the Garage. I had even wanted to kill her back then, to be honest. To take a knife or get a gun, go to the college and there right in front of everybody thrust the blade into that beige knitted top where it bulged with her chest. Or to fire a gun into her face from short range, but before doing it shouting, like in a movie: ‘Die, you lying bitch!.’
But the offence and bitterness were forgotten, covered over by new events, and then there was the Recruiting depot, Master Sergeant Vesterhauzen and other things. Neolani’s image faded and became an unclear silhouette, a bleak picture in a dull frame hanging on the back wall of my memory.
Then suddenly I had seen her! And everything came back to life, became bright, clear and etched in relief. The memories crashed back like ocean surf and my leg almost suffered a cramp as I tried to press the gas all the way down to get to that damn bus stop!
She hadn’t left. She was still leaning with her shoulder against the post. And she was still wearing a similar top – knitted and beige. Flared trousers, handbag of hemp fiber, amber earrings, feathery hairstyle – damn, she really hasn’t changed at all!
I stopped my car by the bus stop, leaned over and looked out of the passenger window and, just like Mr. Jenkins, said:
‘Mrs. Neolani! Would you be nice enough to give me a little of your attention, dear lady?’
She turned her head at looked at me with perplexity and indifference. Then a shadow of irritation ran across her face and after it – a happy grimace of recognition and, straight after, a smile.
‘Josh? It can’t be you!’
‘It can, Mrs. Neolani.’
‘Actually Miss,’ she began to flirt. I grinned and opened the car door.
“Would you like a lift? Get in.’
She nodded and got into the car.
‘How are you?’ I asked, pulling away.
‘Everything is great!’ she replied. A standard answer to a question like this but I suddenly cringed because that former, real Neolani, would have never replied like a classic housewife from the East Coast. She would’ve said: ‘All is cool, dude!’ or ‘Things are ringing like bucks on the counter!” or, at very least: ‘The case is in court, babe!’
But she replied the way she did and I felt sad thinking that I’d turned out to be a man who experienced the rightness of Heraclitus – one indeed cannot enter the same river twice…
‘Where would you like me to take you?’ I asked, trying to be polite.
‘Home. Do you remember my parents’ home?’
‘On Aquaheart Road?’
She laughed.
‘’It’s hard to forget a street like that,’ I smiled.
Actually I had been going in a completely opposite direction – the Agency’s headquarters were located halfway between Baltimore and Washington while Neolani’s parents lived in Glen Bernie, much further to the east.
But because I didn’t have set working hours and I had no meeting arranged in the Agency, I left the large Baltimore-Washington Parkway, turned on to the Paul Pitcher Memorial Highway and headed the Nissan towards Curtis Bay.
All the way there, we were chatting pleasantly, remembering old friends and funny events. But neither she nor I mentioned that wretched day or the names of the guys in the Garage back then.
I remembered the house where Neolani’s parents lived very vaguely, and for some reason I thought it was a small two-storey cottage on the east coast.
In reality, the house turned out to be neglected, with a shabby door and dirty windows. Only one thing I was right about: it indeed was two-storey high.
The hall and rooms of the ground floor were littered with junk, old chairs, boxes and bags.
‘Follow me!’ Neolani called. ‘I live upstairs.’
Her bare feet slapped on the wooden staircase – just like they did back then. I followed her, avoiding the dream-catchers hanging from the ceiling.
‘Where are your parents, Neo?’
After a short pause, an indifferent reply came from upstairs:
‘They died, Josh. Just like they lived – happily and on the same day. An overdose. I’m selling the house.’
Upstairs, I found myself in a bright room, flooded with pale autumn sun, with a big bed in the middle. Neolani was lying on it face down with her arms spread.
‘You were almost right with Mrs,’ she said hollowly. ‘I am getting married.’
“Congratulations. Do I know him?
‘You do. It’s Bach.’
‘Is it? And what…’ I couldn’t find what to say.
‘And that’s all!’ she turned around sharply and sat up, pulling up her knees. ‘The Garage burnt down five years ago together with a drunk Pincher. Studies finished and everyone went all over the place. I got hit by a car and spent two years in the hospital. The only person who visited me there was Bach. I’m not blaming anyone, and especially you. It’s retribution, everything according to the laws of karma. I do know that I stand guilty before you, Joshua-boy, very-very guilty, that’s true, but – and try to understand me – I will not be asking for forgiveness, because…
‘It’s My Life! It’s my… your life…’ I murmured the words of Bon Jovi song.
‘So when’s the wedding?
‘We are free people. There’s no future – have you forgotten?’
…Then we were lying, naked, and she was smoking and I was looking out of the window at the clouds floating by. A strange unexplainable emptiness rang inside me. Somewhere deep in the bottom of my soul, dark water was splashing – the water in which I had almost drowned a few weeks ago. I knew that if this water rose it would drown me from the inside, and I would die. But now I felt very content.
Neolani moved and touched my arm.
‘Bach and I are moving to Cleveland after the wedding. He has relatives in Ohio and his father’s brother has a medical clinic in the city. I’ll work there.
‘Doing what?’ I asked for the sake of asking something.
‘At first as administrator. While I was in the hospital after the accident I did a distance learning course for ‘manager in a sphere of medicine’.’
Everything went silent. Cars swept along the street outside. Somewhere in the distance some kind of juvenile country music was playing. A sleepy autumn fly crawled across the window.
‘I should go,’ I got up and began to get dressed. As I buttoned my shirt I heard Neolani crying.
‘Don’t comfort me!’ she shouted as she saw me watching her. ‘Go. Go away! Take something from downstairs as a souvenir – and goodbye, Joshua-boy! Goodbye forever!’