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The Projector: Vignettes 1 & 2
by Cesca Janece Waterfield He sat barefoot, fingers loosely wrapped around a remote control, hands between his legs, which were propped on a table littered with corks and payment due notices. "If you would give me a total commitment," he said, "I could change my life." He looked to the corner where a small keyboard stood, catalogues and shopping bags piled at its base. He looked up into her face: "Anyone will tell you... You ruined my life." The words of one who knew him, "Honey, he doesn't need you to ruin his life. He's done a fine job of it for twenty years," echoed silently in her memory, and she bit her tongue. He pressed a button on the remote and the slide wheel advanced to project another image; this one of 1980. He stared into its frame, at paling colors and faces of people who no longer stopped by. "Everyone asks why I stay with you," he said dully, as an empty pint of ice cream slipped from his lap and a spoon sent a stack of CDs tumbling. She knew in the morning he would accuse her of having eaten it, or of having left it out to spoil, so she bent to pick it up and place it in the wastebasket. Inside the trashcan, she saw a cellophane wrapper and flashed back to days earlier when she'd arrived with a DVD of a favorite band, one unknown to him. Having just arrived from class, she didn't then know what shape his afternoon had taken, talking animatedly about the ongoing tour as she opened the case. As she'd done for years, she pulled it open while seeking to keep its top label intact. He abruptly rose to his feet, and bent over her, lips inches from her face, and said tensely, "That's not the right way to open a D-V-D." By now, she had developed some strategies for defusing his rages. Resourceful resolution was in her best interest, since inevitably, the morning brought forth his blame on her for his behavior. Many times he actually accused her later of what he'd screamed and thundered as she watched in sickened-stomach fascination. She continued fumbling with the plastic case and he leaned in, awaiting her defense. She said, "It's okay, baby, let's not spend the night this way." "Opening a D-V-D- that way ruins the quality," he said between spittle, each word a barb, as he stood before her, eyes narrowed to bore into her conscience. She hurried to shove the disc in the player to distract him with images, if not appreciation of the music. It began, and she sat down, pointing out members of the band in an attempt to divert his attention from rage. "People… people like you…" he paused, searching for words. In an instant, he found them, leaned down into her face, and screamed, face red, bursts of breath heating the lids of her eyes, "YOU'RE THE REA-SON CHART FOUR LOSES MONEY!" Some of her favorite music and performers came alive onscreen. Heart racing, she hastened to bed and slipped beneath the covers as he continued to scream outside the door. Her anger and tears vied for expression. If he would not fall silent, tonight, she would find her own. It was three A.M. and her dog lay curled up by her guitar. He ranted, and eyes closed, she counted blasts of the train's horn; explosions made soft by distance down the hill, as she waited for morning. If she were lying in the dark, she trusted time to cogently reveal her. If he continued to spit his own disguise, he would neither make notice, nor admit it, but keep busy trying to discredit who lay now, already dreaming. Vignette 2 "I wanted to take a rifle in my mouth, honestly." He knelt before her, his back to the fireplace. She sat motionless, staring ahead as he spoke: "I've never seen sores like this, so I've been online all day, learning, learning. I called all the women I slept with in California, and asked them." She wondered how he could have completed the depth of research he claimed, how he could have garnered so much information in so few hours. But she wanted to believe that past plagues were receding, that love could stand between her and events of earlier months. She knew forgiveness was a holding place between a cold, empty room and infectious joy. Which was he? she would wonder at various stops along the road. She would know, as she walked on. On this evening, as he gave her the news, she filled with a spiritual bitterness comparable to gurgling a mouthful of battery acid while watching a dancing clown. She lifted the blanket in her lap and placed it over her head, wearing a smile that comes only after enduring a series of miseries. "Couples can have long term relationships when one of them has herpes," he explained, and she did not think to wonder how he would know. He began providing examples, by mentioning local people. She questioned why he would divulge their privacy, make of their private challenge a tool to defend and gratify himself. But then she remembered how willing he was to share – bottles, blame, legwork, contagions – and once again went flush with gratitude that he would fuck her once a day after she performed the psychological acrobatics required to get him to the sexual ones.
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