rivers_bend

So this week, we read Dutchman by Imamu Amiri Baraka [LeRoi Jones at the time he wrote the play in 1964]. It's an interesting play, and I would argue, an even more interesting movie. There's a whole lot going on in terms of race, and a lot of what I wrote down in my journal talks about that, but apparently I was struck by the issues of attraction and sexual predation too.

Title: Appletini
Words: 600 (how I love even numbers)
Rating: R for themes
Warnings: may contain triggers for some people



The man was just her type, rugged, out-doorsy even, like he'd look at home in hiking boots, but pretty too. Eyelashes out to here, sharp curves to his jaw, wore his clothes like he knew how they fit. He stood out. Even in this watering hole, where rugged-pretty men roved in packs, catching the eyes of women like her and being caught in return. Mandy's TV told her that the singles scene had changed, that she should now let computers calculate variables and determine her perfect match, but she still liked to see how a man moved through a room, so she refused to give up on the bars.

No one clapped him on the shoulder or hailed him as he made his way from the stairs that led down from the street to the bar. Not here to meet friends. Beer, imported, no frosted glass, no whiskey chaser. Mandy guessed he either wasn't intimidated by the bar's pretentions towards elegance or he knew what his lips looked like wrapped around a bottle neck, or both. He wasn't recently single, or at least wasn't driven to drink about the break up. He was looking better and better.

The angle of the bottles racked at the back meant she didn't notice at first that as she watched him from ten feet down the bar, he was watching her in the mirror behind it. When she did notice, he tilted his bottle in her direction, an acknowledgement and a question. Mandy nodded.

The tilted bottle caught the bartender's eye too, and when Mister Rugged came over, he held a fresh beer and an apple martini. "You look like an apple girl," he said.

"Now what would make you say that?"

"I know your type."

"And Jonas knows my drinking habits."

"Well, I don't know Jonas, but I saw you in that green dress, cut just so, sequins on the straps but nowhere else, your hair up, but loose. You drink cranberry margaritas, frozen, no salt, but only with Mexican food. You were drinking Cosmos before they were trendy, and gave them up when everyone started drinking them. You want to give up the appletinis for the same reason, but you like the apple, so you pretend you don't care that people might think you're a fashion victim."

"That's not the worst kind of victim to be."

"I'm Andrew." He handed her the drink.

"Mandy. And thank you." She drained the last of her original 'tini and took a bite of the apple garnish.

"Cheers," Andrew said.

Mandy lifted her new glass to Andrew's bottle, and savored the first icy mouthful. A drink never tasted better than when it had just come out of the shaker.

"To sequined shoulder straps." Andrew raised his bottle again.

"And hiking boots," Mandy toasted back, wondering if that exactly made sense as she took another drink.

The room seemed to expand and then contract, blurring around the edges. Andrew took her glass and gripped her arm, and that was all she remembered.



Mandy's sister held her hand as the nurse did things with swabs and combs on the other side of a sheet. There was a police officer waiting outside to ask her questions. "The thing that gets me," Mandy said. She felt like she wanted to cry, or maybe like she should want to cry, but tears had never seemed farther away. "I would have slept with him anyway. He didn't need… He would have looked really good in hiking boots."

Caroline just squeezed Mandy's hand. She had nothing to say. There was nothing to say.