wild dogs

I met him in 1982. He wasn’t all of my hopes and dreams, but I saw to the heart of him. He was everything I needed after a long, depressing stint as a paid intern for a lifestyle magazine in Pennsylvania, close enough to New York that the people didn’t bother to learn your name. I wanted something more. I wanted passion, and closeness.He wasn’t all of my hopes and dreams, and he wasn’t even nice, but I fell in love anyway. My mistake. I’m so full of mistakes.

My mother was a well-practiced party host. Especially the adult parties, the kinds with drinking and philandering and the kind that made you want to lock up your bedroom so no one got any ideas about fucking in there. Even though I had refused to formally attend my first “adult” party, I stomped downstairs to throw away the garbage from my indulgent 7/11 meal. I passed the throngs of people dancing and drinking on my way to the kitchen.

My cousin Mikey had pimples over his lip, under the fine wisps of his “moustache”. He was brassy, my polar opposite, always trying to talk to me about something.

At that moment, he was trying to get me to holla at one of his friends.

“Did your mom tell you?” He came up to me, and asked, as I was separating the recyclables from the bag.

“Tell me what?” I replied.

“About my homie.” He said, in typical fashion, scratching at his scalp under his flat top. “Brought him back in town for a visit. He wanted to meet you, ’cause he saw your pictures.”

“And yet, I’ve never heard of him.” I said, crumpling up the empty plastic bag and shoving it under my mother’s kitchen sink.

“I think you’d like him.” He insisted.

“One of your buddies? Un-fucking-likely, Mikey.” I parried. “All of your friends are immature lowlifes, who don’t know how to treat women, wear their pants too low, and smell like too much fucking cologne.”

From behind me, someone laughed. “Really?”

I turned around, mentally chewing out the motherfucker who interrupted my conversation, when my eyes landed on him.

He took the breath, and the fire out of me. It was just the two of us in that kitchen. I stood in silence, soaking in his auburn curls, and the diamond studs glinting in his ears. The slope of his jaw, and his big brown eyes that stared me down as I tried to make myself small in the midst of my embarrassment.

“Damn, ma.” He said.

That snapped me out of it. I felt the fire grow back inside of me. I cocked my hip, and shoved my thumbs in my back pocket. “I’m sorry, who the hell are you?”

He stepped into the kitchen, his brown work boots thudding on the ground. He was wearing a brick red windbreaker, and his jeans were torn open, providing a gaping window to his knees. He stuck his hand out to me, and I caught sight of the golden bracelet on his arm. The air was delicate, and hazy, and the ground stirred under my feet.

“This is my homie,” Mikey said. “Dane.”

Dane, I said to myself. Turning the word over and over again like a leaf trying to understand it, trying to warm up to it. His name was sweet and soft like frosting on my tongue. It didn’t seem to suit him, too dark, too edgy. At the same time, it was perfect for him- new, alluring.

“Dane,” I said, holding my hand out.

“Dane Green, beautiful.” He corrected.

“It’s Mariyah,” I snapped. “And don’t call me that.”

I caught a whiff of his sprite-and-vanilla scent as I pushed past him, and back up the stairs.

Later, Mikey knocked on my bedroom door, and let himself in without waiting for me to allow him to.

“How’d you like him?” He asked. I could tell that the question was loaded; he was waiting to trip me up, waiting to see what I really thought.

“He’s cute,” I admitted. “Kind of. But he’s still one of your friends.”

“Girl, you were drooling...”

“... But he’s still one of your friends.” I said. “And I don’t trust him.”

Mikey came up to the side of my bed, and plucked the magazine that I was reading from my hands. He dug around in my bedside table for a pen, and scribbled something on the page.

“This is his number,” Mikey explained. “You should give him a call.”

“I won’t,” I said, taking the magazine from his hands. “But thank you for fucking with my magazine. Bye, Mikey.”

“Give him a call,” He said, one last time before he finally left my room.

I considered ripping out the page, and I equally considered calling him. The two thoughts weighed on my brain, and I layed staring up at the ceiling for what felt like hours.

I rose from bed as the sun was setting. I didn’t hear anything from downstairs, and I ventured downstairs to eat the food that the guests left behind.

And he was there, sitting on my mother’s couch, watching the fucking television.

“Mariyah,” He said when he saw me, standing up, and walking towards me, like Jesus walking on water.

“Dane.” I said, though I could barely breathe.

From behind me, my mother spoke, “Mikey and his friend are staying for dinner, Mariyah.”

I looked over my shoulder, though my body was facing Dane. I said through gritted teeth, “Wasn’t eating dinner the whole point of your party?”

She was setting me up, I could tell. This was all apart of her plan to marry me off to the lightest and tallest man she could find. She claimed that my kids would have “good genes”, and never ceased to say so, even though I found her opinion disgusting. I would love my kids no matter how “good” their genes.

“No.” My mother said. “I didn’t serve dinner. It would cost too much to feed a bunch of strangers.”

I agreed to eat dinner with them, and I wished that I hadn’t, but I’m glad that I did.

“Where do you go to school, Dane?” My mother quizzed him. “What are your plans after college?”

Her eyes were on me.

“Arizona State, ma’am.” His eyes were on me, too. “And I plan on getting my Masters in Engineering.”

I was staring down wishfully at my food, trying to will myself away. Out of the corner of my eye, my mother tightened her grip on her fork, and she kicked me under the table.

After dinner, when I was finished trying to make myself as still as possible we cleared the plates off of the table. When Mikey disappeared, it was me and my mother, and when she inevitably made herself scarce, it was me and Dane, loading dishes into the sink.

I was trying to scrub food off a plate without touching it.

My heart pounded in my chest like hoofbeats on a racetrack. He was so fucking handsome. He looked at me like I was fucking beautiful.

“Mariyah…” He began, taking a plate from my hand and setting it on the table. I hoped he wouldn’t notice that my hand was shaking.

“Yes?” I murmured. My head was singing, YES YES YES YES YES?

“Walk me to my car?”

The humid Arizona air felt like butter on my skin. I could practically feel my hair frizzing up. But I didn’t care. Dane was beside me, and we were walking, at a leisurely pace to his car.

“You drove your own car?” I asked. “I thought Mikey drove you here.”

“I followed him, in my own car. I wanted to see you.” He confessed. He began to dig around in his pocket for the keys. When he found them, he spun them around his finger in a continuous loop. His hands were big and lined with veins, and I found myself wanting him to touch me with them, feel his calloused skin on my neck, and my arms, and my chest.

Shaking those thoughts away, I asked, “He brought a picture of me to college?”

“He brought pictures.” Dane said, leaning up against his car. “He loves you a lot. I can see why. You’re sweet.”

“Thank you.”

“I want to go out with you.” Dane said bluntly, like he was spilling his words at my feet.

My face became so hot that the air around me became cooler. My entire body was trembling like a leaf in the wind. His eyes, so big and warm and brown, stared deep into the heart of me, and took me apart. As we got to know each other, I realized that his eyes were the part of him that I liked the most.

“Yes.” I nodded eagerly. “I want that.”

He jumped into his car, and I was in such a daze that I still don’t remember him driving off, to this day.

He took me to the mall for our first date. He liked the way I lit up when I saw the food court, so he bought me something to eat.

“Hungry girl,” he said, his voice low.

“Always.” I said, slowly licking the tip of my thumb, diverting Dane’s eyes to my mouth. “I’m always hungry.”

His mouth opened slightly, and he whispered. “I like that.”

His pupils were big and dark when he stared at me. I imagined that that was what animal magnetism felt like: him staring deep in my eyes, stirring up the butterflies lying dormant in my stomach; the read threads of fate tying us together.

“Where do you work?” I asked.

“Here and there.” He said. “Odd jobs.”

“How odd?” I dangled the cheap, thin napkin from my fingertips. When I dropped it, it floated to my plate like a snowflake.

“Odd enough,” He answered. I could tell that he was swallowing part of his answer down, trying to keep something from me. Naturally I wanted to know more. I wanted to know everything he wanted to tell me, and the shit that he didn’t because I wanted him.

“I’m going to be an engineer when I grow up.” One corner of his perfect mouth lifted above his perfect teeth, and his curls flopped so beautifully to one side of his forehead. I wanted to be the only woman in the world to see him.

I could practically feel my mother’s guaranteed excitement. An engineer, She would say. A good choice. A financially secure choice. “Financially secure” was her way of saying that she wanted me to send her gifts once I got a rich husband.

“You like science?” I asked him.

“Enough.” He admitted. Suddenly, he leaned over the table, hand outstretched.

I knew it, I thought. He’s going to slap me, or pinch me like Mikey does. This was just some elaborate prank on their behalf. None of this is real-

He swiped some barbecue sauce off of my cheek. He licked it off of the tip of his thumb.

“What about you?” He asked. He was none the wiser of my small breakdown. “What are you doing?”

I thought. If I told him about me, I wouldn’t be able to take it back. Yet, I didn’t want to take anything back. I wanted him to know everything about me. I wanted him to have everything that I could give.

“I was a writer.” I said, taking a long sip of my soda and sucking my teeth. “For a magazine.”

“Are you a writer now?”

“I’m always a writer,” I laughed. “I’m just a writer without a job, who’s living with her mother.”

“What do you write about?” His face rising and falling with his genuine interest in me, in my work, in my stupid little “career”.

“Nothing, just stupid stuff.” I took another long sip of my soda. “Nothing worth talking about.”

“I bet I could guess.” He said, stacking our empty plates on top of the trays, which were stacked on top of each other as well. “I’ve got your number.”

“I don’t want you to.”

“At least, tell me what you wish you were doing instead?”

I gulped. I suddenly couldn’t think beyond the immediate. I just wanted him. I wanted him still when my thoughts and desires slowly came back to me.

“Nothing,” I shook my head.

“There’s gotta be something.”

“That’s it.” I explained to him. “Nothing. I just want to be happy doing nothing. I want to eat, and not work, and not think. I just want to die having done nothing.”

Dane said- and it was so fucking sexy when he said it- he said, “I believe that you could have that. Any man would be lucky to give that to you.”

My heart sank in my chest like the napkin falling to the plate. Any man, He said. Any man that wasn’t him. I thought he wanted me. I thought he chose me.

“Let’s go to the arcade,” Dane interrupted my thoughts. “Let me throw the trays away, first.”

I worried incessantly in the split second that he threw the plates and trays away, and then he was at my side, and I was still worrying.

My eyes were trained to the tacky, neon-floor, loaded with soda stains and popcorn. My feet followed Dane while my body followed them, into the dimly lit den of teen-boy sweat, and dirty sneakers.

Didhewantmedidhewantmedoeshewantmedoeshewantme?

Suddenly, he grabbed my arm, and pulled me towards a big glowing box with a window inside. Through the window I could see an ominous silver claw, dangling over mountains of plushies and boxes of cheap toys.

“If you want me to win something for you, you’re out of luck,” I informed him, running a finger along the edge of the claw machine. “I’m shit at these games.”

“I want to win something for you,” Dane said, reaching for my purse.

“With my money?” I said, but I was giggling as I said it.

“I don’t have change.” He stated, matter-of-factly. “And you have too much of it. Some of it fell out when you tried to shove those napkins in, and you thought that I didn’t see.”

You wouldn’t have been able to tell under my skin, and the dim lighting of the arcade, but I began to blush furiously.

“You know me so well.” I dug in my purse for a fistfull of quarters and dumped them into his palm.

“I want to know more about you,” He didn’t take his eyes off of me as he expertly dropped coins in the slot and took his place in front of the machine. I stood beside him.

“What do you want to know?” I asked. “You get three questions. I get three questions. You go first.”

“Where do you work?” He asked me, expertly aiming the claw, picking up a Roadrunner plushie, and dropping it down the chute.

His prize tumbled out and he handed it to me, then dropped my coins in.

“A local restaurant.” I said, wrinkling my nose in disgust at my job. I hated to think of it on the days that I didn’t have to work. Not thinking about it was the only escape I had from it.

“And you hate it,” He affirmed. I looked at his reflection in the claw machine and I realized that he had his eyes closed, and was navigating through the stuffed animals as if they were open.

“Is that your second question? Whether or not I hate it?”

“No.” He said. “But you answered it, anyway.”

“Okay,” I said. “Next question.”

“Do you believe in God?”

I sucked air through my teeth. I instinctively looked around, like my mother was hiding in the shadows.

“When it benefits me.” I sighed.

Dane cracked one eye open, and masterfully maneuvered the controls to pick up a “And when is that?”

“When I need absolution. Or solace. Or someone to talk to.” I said. “Or when my mother is around.”

Dane nodded, like he understood. “For her sake, or yours?”

“Maybe a little bit of both.” I confessed. “Everyday I go to church is another day I stay under my mother’s roof.”

“You’re at her mercy. And the mercy of God. That’s why I hate religion.” He told me. “I’m in control of my own life.”

I slunk up to his side, felt his arm against my front. “Sounds amazing.”

“Your turn.” Dane grunted.

I took a deep breath, and asked, “Do you like me?”

Dane stopped playing on the machine, a toy still hanging in the claw. He lifted his hand to run his fingers on the edge of my jacket, and his other hand tilted my chin up. Every one of his actions stirred up the air around him, and his scent wafted up to my nose.

“Can I?” He asked me, his breath spilling onto my lips.

“Can you what?” I whimpered. I was trying so hard to keep it together. My knees were buckling under my body, and he wrapped his arm around my waist to lift me.

“You know what, Mariyah.” He said. Our voices were getting quieter and quieter, and I hoped they would fade away and he would just do it, fuck the arcade game, fuck the question games.

“I want you to say it.”

“I want to kiss you.” He said, our noses practically forced up against each other. His gaze was too much for me to look at; his eyes were full of desire. “I want to kiss you Mariyah. Let me kiss you, please.”

I nodded, and the force of his lips knocked the air out of my lungs, and through my nose. His hands pulled me ever so closer, grabbing onto my cheeks, as he backed himself against the wall. I don’t want to fuck in front of these children! I don’t want to fuck in front of these children!

I pulled away from him, and we watched each other like animals in an enclosure.

“What’s wrong.” He stated, rather than asked me.

Dane’s eyes were trained to my lips when I answered, “I don’t want to fuck in front of these children.”

We rented a motel room. I didn’t stop to think about how stupid it was to rent a motel for a few hours, because I was too busy trying to get his jacket off of his shoulders, trying to kiss the bare skin that I saw, trying to get him on top of me.

We spent the night together. His hand was on my wrist when I woke up, and I realized that I had forgotten to call my mother. I gently slid out of the bed. As quickly as possible, I slid on my underwear, and I reached for my shirt, before stopping myself, and grabbing Dane’s instead. My purse was on the beside chair and I grabbed that too.

I left the door open, and walked briskly to the payphone, Dane’s shirt flapping in the breeze. I frantically dug around in my purse for change, like it would make the phone ring faster, and my mother answer faster.

“Mommy?” I said, when I heard someone pick up.

“What?” She grumbled, her voice thick like she had just woken up. “Mariyah?”

“Mommy,” I groaned, hopping from foot to foot on the burning pavement. “I’m so sorry, I forgot to call.”

“Where were you?”

“I was- I was with-”

My mother casually interrupted me, “Are you on the pill? I’m not taking care of a damn baby.”

“Yeah, but-”

I heard a click on her side of the phone, and I realized that she had hung up.

I slid back into the room, quietly shutting the door behind me. The room was quiet, save for Dane’s soft snoring, the sound of the AC, and my own breathing.

I threw my purse onto the floor. I took off Dane’s shirt. I crossed to the bed and straddled him. I watched him sleep. Was eerie for the sake of printing him in my brain, over and over again. Just in case he was a dream.

His eyes fluttered open, suddenly, and he lifted his hands to stroke my thighs.

“What do you want to do now?” He asked me.

“Whatever you want.”

I didn’t believe in love at first sight, and then it happened to me.

You never believe in something until it happens to you.