The Seven Deadly Virginia Slims

The Seven Deadly Virginia Slims

1.
“He who angers you conquers you.”

~ Elizabeth Kenny ~

I reached for my pack of cigarettes because when someone says, "we need to talk," you know it's going to be rough. Shane Holiday took my hand and dramatically led me out onto his balcony; the clatter of partiers humming inside was shushed by the closing of the sliding glass door. And then he dropped the news as I was inhaling.

"Your boyfriend Tate, is nailing Renee?" He stated bluntly and I coughed a cloud of smoke.

It was early in the party and I didn't want to be dealing with this.

"Renee Mallory? Chad’s ex?" I inquired and my face was getting hot. I could feel the intense rhythm of my heartbeat rattling through my veins and pounding in my chest.

Shane was motioning yes, in slow exaggerated nods.

"That bitch!" I continued. Cigarette still in hand, I turned on my heals and headed straight through the party. My target, Renee.

I abrasively grabbed her arm and jerked her towards me, not hard enough to really move her, but enough to throw her balance off and gain her attention. I unleashed my wrath, like gunfire and her face said she was guilty before her mouth did.

"I'm so sorry," she said in a calming tone, in a way that was more aimed at soothing me rather than out of genuine regret. "-But this isn't the time or place to discuss this. Perhaps we should take this to a more private location."

"I could care less if this conversation is private or not. I can give a fuck if you're embarrassed or not. You're a tramp, everyone knows it so I don't care how this conversation makes you look or feel."

The room fell silent and heads turned.

"Look, I said I was sorry." She repeated.

"Oh, ok... you apologized. Well, I guess that makes it all better then?"

"I don't know what you want me to say."

"I don't want you to say anything." My voice was becoming more intense as the minutes rolled on. "I know you're not sorry and you saying it, just pisses me off more. If you were truly sorry, you wouldn't keep nailing all the guys in our school and fucking up every relationship."

"Stop yelling at me! I'm not your boyfriend, I'm not the one that's committed anything to you, and I don't owe you anything." Her face was red and her words came out in a flustered, face-paced tone, "Why don't you go yell at him?"

Renee gave a smirk and shrugged as if to say, "I can't help it if the men prefer me to their girlfriends." She didn't have to say it; it was all over her face.

"Yea, keep smiling Renee. You think you have one over on every girl, but I know the real deal; you're not good enough to have a guy longer than one night. You are nothing."

She stopped smiling.

I wanted to hurt her as much as she hurt me, so I continued to verbally hit below the belt.

"Keep whoring yourself around to make yourself feel needed, Renee -" and with that she balled up her fist and aimed it right at my face.

I guess being the victim in this situation becomes null and void, when you become the aggressor. When you verbally take an aim-shot at someone's ego and self worth, you shouldn’t be surprised when the fight becomes physical, but I was surprised.

2.

“There are some circles in America

where it seems to be more socially acceptable to carry a hand-gun

than a packet of cigarettes.”

~ Katharine Whitehorn ~

It happened so fast that I couldn't remember the details. The next thing I remembered was sitting in the bathroom with Shane holding a bag of frozen vegetables over one eye and Rude Boy, dressing a cigarette burn on my forehead.

"Honey, you really should learn to keep the cigarettes away from your face when someone’s about to punch you." Shane suggested.

"I forgot I even had the damned thing in my hand and I didn't know that bitch was going to start swinging."

"She knocked you out in one punch, ran through the party and started whaling on Tate. I guess she thought he was the one that told you. She was so bent out about you confronting her in front of... well, damned near the whole school. Three people had to pull her off of him. It was the best fight I've seen since those two cheerleaders went at it a year ago."

Chad stopped talking to let his mind replay that cheerleader visual for a minute and then focused his attention back onto me.

"Lets go get something to take the edge off, something a little stronger than the Miller Lite they have here." And when Chad says "something a little stronger," he means whiskey.

"Hey!" Shane scoffed, body stance switching flamboyantly to the I'm a little Tea Pot, position. "And what's wrong with Miller Lite Mister?"

"Nothing Shane, Miller is fuckin' fabulous." Chad scoffed shaking his head.

"Ok that sounds great, Mr. Jobless, but I'm low on the cash flow and can't afford stronger, right now."

"I've got it covered." Chad assured.

"What does that mean?"

"Lets just say that people don't pay attention to their purses when fists are being thrown, especially if they're the ones throwing them. Some greedy little fucker helped himself to something that wasn't his." He said, pulling a wad of money out of his pocket and then reached back in his back pocket for more, "And whattya' know, she also smokes Virginia Slims." He continued, waiving the slender box of cigarettes.

"You're bad... but far be it from me to judge others for their wrong doings. Besides, that cow nailed my boyfriend and made me burn my face, she owes me a drink." I finished, lighting up one of Renee's cigarettes.

"Hey," Shane grabbed the lit cigarette out of my mouth and flicked it into the toilet. "No smoking in my bathroom!"

3.
“The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.”
~William Penn ~

We surfaced out of the bathroom and walked through the party, in search of the stealthiest exit. My gaze lingered across the room and caught a glimpse of Renee, being calmed by a crowd of men. Even though she was my target for the evening, I wasn't as mad at her as I was at Tate.

She was right, she didn't owe me anything; she wasn't the one in the relationship with me. I was more envious than anything. Jealous that she seems to get the attention from men, that I wished I could have. Jealous of the fact that she could break through the bond that I thought Tate and I had, even if it was just on a physical level instead of a mental level. I guess boys aren't really capable of such connections, especially when being presented with such tempting, lustful offers.

4.
“Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.”
~ George Santayana ~

The next morning I awoke with anxiety already consuming me. And it wasn't just because of the news, it was everything; my public display of hate and humiliation, my gluttonous consumption of cigarettes and whiskey, my regrets.

By the time Chad pealed himself off of the spot where he had passed out (the kitchen floor), I had reached the lowest point. I was slothfully sitting Indian style in the middle of the living room, crying with an unlit cigarette dangling between my lips. Not just any cry, the kind you had when you were a child. Deep heavy sobs that causes your body to jerk back when you inhale and every now and again, you choke on your own spit. The kind that reduces your ability to talk down to a broken one - word - per - deep - breath type of speech.

Unsure of what to do with me, Chad stepped lightly, sat quietly next to me, pat me on my back and eventually gave me a confused "there, there, now."

I sucked up my tears and swallowed my sorrows away, enough to try and hold a conversation. No one wants an audience to their pity-party.

"I just feel heavy and regretful." I slurred through deep breaths as Chad removed the soggy cigarette that had set up camp between my lips. He reached for a new one from the pack and scrambled around for a lighter.

"You've just reached Dante's fifth circle, girl. You're under water."

"Drowning." and when I finally composed myself, I continued. "I can do the math. Shouldn't Karma have kept me from getting my ass handed to me by that heifer?"

"I think your attack negates due Karma."

Just as Chad found a lighter to light the cigarette with, we were interrupted by the sound of a car rolling up to the front of our house. Chad and I glanced at each other and simultaneously stood up to view the world outside of the living room window. That car looked familiar. It looked like the real confrontation was about to happen and an inevitable end of a relationship.

"I guess it's time for the talk, whether I'm ready for it or not" I stated to Chad with a sigh as I watched Tate's car door swing open.

"Hey," Chad called my attention back as he popped the cigarette in his mouth. He lit his and tossed me the pack and the lighter. "Don't take his shit, you don't need him. You're better than both of them, remember that."

Chad drew an imaginary heart in the air with his index fingers, framing my face in it.

I smiled a weak smile and nodded.

5.
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
~ Anaïs Nin ~

Out on the front porch, I told it like it was. There was no buying of his bullshit, no acceptance of his apologies, no taking him back.

"I just want to explain. I don't think you realize how much you mean to me. It was a mistake and the situation is not like you think it is -" Tate tried to explain, words stumbling over his thoughts. I can only presume that he was hoping to talk his way out of this one.

"You hooked up with some other girl while I was wearing your promise ring. The situation is exactly like I think it is. That's all the details I need to know. There's nothing more to explain and there's nothing that you can say that will make this ok."

"I just want to, uhm -" There was an eternity of silence as I stood and watched him struggle to find some other words to rectify the situation. " I'm sorry."

"You are sorry. Sorry and stupid." I removed his ring and tossed it on the ground in front of him. "You'll be even more sorry when you realize that you just fucked up the best thing you'll ever have."

And with that I turned, lit my last cigarette from the pack and walked back into the house. Even though I didn't fully believe it myself, I didn't want him to leave thinking that he got the better of me. It was the only piece of pride I had left.

A Fraction of Myself: Beginning from an End

A Fraction of Myself:
I once heard someone ask that if we are reincarnate souls and we have 10x's the population we did centuries ago, where did all these souls come from? Had they just been waiting for their day or is it set up that every time we die only half of ourselves are able to come back, where the other half is recycled into a new human spirit? Am I only a fraction of the person I used to be eons ago... 1/16th of my spiritual possibility, having random encounters with pieces of myself through the eyes of my friends and family?

Beginning from an End:
We've got curves, we've got swerves in all different kinds of places
Like, the curves of our hips or the swerves shadowing our faces
Or how the spaces of my paces, one foot in front of the other
swerves my hips like a tree in the wind, from one side to another.

When . . .
my mother would cover my eyes she'd say,
"Our beauty mirrors the earth,"
from the smile in her sunrise, to the cries of each birth
and the worth of the world is weighed in each and every creation
to recycle life and add exuberance from her imagination

You see . . .
reincarnation, in my interpretation, is a Beginning from an End
and every time you come back your spirit will transcend,
descending history, bending centuries as our dreams links and traces
mind straining for higher gnosis to fill gaps and spaces
each face maps and places souls we've met and where we've been
from the familiar axis of each feature to the symmetry of each grin

Now . . .
within the final moments, as my eyes begin to close
the positions of my lifelines shift and juxtapose
the present day self transposes with the past
the day has seen the dawn of my lessons and I exhale at last.

Rude Boy

The first time I met Chadwick Nieson Rude, we didn't quite fall into the rapport that we have now.

I was a small town bred girl stepping onto big city grounds for the first time and was nervous as hell. Poor little me, unusually dressed up in a lacy yellow sun-dress smothered in 70's style flower prints and white lined tights. I was dressed for the part, but a delicate young lady I was not. I had put up the biggest fight a third grade tom-boy of a girl could give with her mother, but lost.

The mood had already been set for the day, so after a brief but negative interaction with Rude Boy, as the school kids called him, I popped-off at the mouth. He then brought it upon himself to introduce his fist to my face. I was a mouthy little one, but had managed to never end up throwing blows, until now. They handled things a little differently out here in the city.

I was walking across the school yard, looking confused and fidgeting with my dress when Chad walked up to me. Politely, I said "excuse me" and tried to walk around him, but he side stepped in front of me again. I tried moving around him a couple of times, but when my movement was returned with him blocking me every time, I became frustrated.

"Move the fuck out of my way!" I barked. My father swore like a sailor when he drank, and he drank like a sailor drowning. Drowning in his own private vast ocean of whiskey. I picked up on some of his habits early.

The swearing, I mean. I wasn't a third grade alcoholic.

My verbal demands were met with a push, so I pushed back even harder and then that's when he swung at my face sending me off balance. Within seconds of me landing butt first in the gravel, I bounced back up and squared off face-to-face with Rude Boy, little hands puckered into fists.

As Rude Boy's expression changed from a smirk to mocking laughter, my balled up white-knuckled fists swung into action.

Right fist.

Left fist.

My anger fueled fists collided with his jaw and that was all it took to send him to the ground. Crying, I pounced on him like a threatened wild animal and unleashed my fury.

Was it extreme force, or was it catching him off guard that sent his stalky fourth grade frame into a backward cement dive? To this day I still don't know and Chad never put it into question.

As all good schoolyard fights go, I was pulled into the office by the yard duty officer who only happened to see the later half of the incident. That would be the part where I viciously attacked Chad. I was granted suspension on my first day of third grade without a question as to why. The office labeled me a troublemaker, both threatened and promised to keep an eye on me upon my return and Chad walked away with only a sore jaw and a bruised ego.

The second encounter with Chad was the very next time I set foot on school grounds. I had just finished getting the index-finger-in-the-face type of lecture by my mother, as I shifted uncomfortably on the plastic blue station-wagon seat.

I remember that it was a hot day and I was experiencing a whole new, very uncomfortable sensation from the seat that I had never felt before. Through all of her yelling, I had remained emotionless and somehow that bothered her. Was it that I had become numb to all of her yelling or could it have been that I was preoccupied with the strange sticking and peeling phenomenon that was happening between the faux-leather seat and the skin on the back of my legs? Perhaps, a bit of both.

"You're a horrible child," she barked and then came the WHOLE name.

It wasn't until Jr. High that I had teachers at role call and students refer to me as Bailey. I was embarrassed by my full name and this was due, in large part, to a comment made by some boy that I had a sweaty palm kind of crush on.

I believe his words were, "who's the girl with the unfortunate name?" Ouch, that hurt and I'm reminded of that every time I see or hear my name at length.

"... Bailson Zucker Sky Shabbari, I'm SO disappointed in you." Bailson is my grandmothers maiden name, Zucker is my mothers maiden name and Sky was the middle name of my fathers godmother. Confusing, I know. Lucky me, they promised everyone in our family with the oddest names that they'd honor them by naming their children after them. I'm not even going to get into my sisters name.

You know, one can really zone out in moments like these, when the parents are laying into you like a house pet that just diddled on the rug. Rub my face in my problems.

She continued her lament as I stuck and peeled myself off of the passenger side seat for the last time of the morning, with thoughts of less aggravating chairs on the horizon.

At that point her words traveled completely off-path into her usual detour of a verbal dirt-road ramble, saying "...where did I go wrong? I try so hard with you and your sister, but it's not easy seeing as how your father left me all alone..."

My father, as if I had the choice in who she wanted to marry. Leaving just her all alone, as if my sister and I were not affected by his abandonment.

I leaned my whole body into closing the door and in my distorted regression, it's remembered to be as big as a house door, creaking in it's agony as I struggled it to a close. I waved as she quickly pulled out from the curb, leaving me in a cloud of old station wagon exhaust and tire dust.

No longer than a minute afterward, I was pulled into an empty walkway offside some unused portable buildings. Chad was staring me dead in the face and asked me what I had to say for myself. The only thing I could think of was my mother's words to my father as he was heading for the front door for the last time.

"Kiss my ass!" I said, just like that, without hesitation.

Chad put his hands on either side of my face and pressed his lips to mine. It was my first kiss and I didn't know whether to be flattered or furious. He first punches me in the face and then kisses me after being told to press his lips to my backside.

My sister, Darrison, who's knowledge exceeded mine by three years, explained with a straight and serious face, "When you tell a boy to kiss your ass, you need to point at what part of the body that is." She twisted her hip and pointed to her butt cheek, finishing her thought she said, "...'cause, sometimes they just don't know."

In retrospect, this his how schoolyard love etiquette goes. The more you like someone, the more you taunt, tease, pull their hair and knock them down. So, in lieu of this theory, it must have been love at first sight for Chad to send my tiny third grade body skidding across the cement like I were on a slip-N-slide. For me, it was his persistence that eventually wore me down to friendship. Well, that and the candy out of his lunchbox.