Naked

We were sitting on a bench outside the Whaling Museum in New Bedford. Court was in recess for lunch. There was a terrible car accident the night before. My friend had been there. He had burns to both hands. His Fingers poked out through holes of the bandages like bold warms. She drove out of the club parking lot onto the Island road in her station wagon." His voice was low and empty. She was going home to her 3 kids." He wore a black baseball cap and black sun glasses. "The paper of course had to sensationalize it....'STRIPPER DIES IN HEAD ON COLLISION' The assholes. I wish they knew what she was like...Actually, screw that...they don't deserve to know anything about her her. The same goes for the guys in the club, they had no idea what she was like. they could care less. I say F**k em, F**k em all.

"I'd like to hear about her." I said. He looked at me. I could see anger leave his face. His eyes opened wide. I'm not sure what to say about her, really." 

"Well, tell me this, what'd she like to do on her days off?"

A smile came to his face. "She liked to smoke pot on Sunday mornings and brew expensive gourmet coffee."

"She'd have the entire day free cause her ex would take the kids." He continued Sundays were her everything. She'd listen to 'Breakfast with the Beatles' on the radio while watching "The Phantom Gourmet" on the T.V. with the volume turned down. She'd roll a giant joint and bake Blue Berry Muffins in the oven. Her voice is in my head, you know, asking me how many eggs I want, or if I want to make a run to some tag sales etc..., and she was so pretty, you know. Even when she had bed head, wore no make up and bopped around half the day in her frumpy pink bathrobe, She looked great.

A group of grade school kids in Catholic school uniforms filed off a bus and into formation and marched single file into the Museum. a couple of the kids stole glances at my friends bandages as they passed. Once they were out of ears reach, he spoke. "She had this little precious freckle in a spot on her body that even the guys who gave her dollar bills at the club couldn't see." He whispered. "She told me that it was now my freckle and named it after me." 

"I was the first one at the crash. He said. " When I got to her, I knew..I knew...she was dead. Her teeth were clenched and her eyes were shut. She must have known. She must have closed her eyes when she saw the head lights. She must have known.... All I could do at that point was stand there and gawk at her. I tried to undo her seat belt and didn't even feel the flames burn my hands. He raised his arms and looked at them. She seemed so, naked. Isn't that a strange thing to say? A woman who made her money taking her clothes off on stage, and here she was in this mangled station wagon fully clothed.... and yet so fucking naked, and I  stood there glaring at her like a drunk with a wad of singles.

He took off his glasses and looked at me. His eyes were bloodshot and desperate. I finally got the seat belt undone and started to lift her out and...and ...her head fell forward and ... a drop of blood fell from her eye. It rolled down her cheek and into my hand." He looked over at me now.

"What's it all about, Brian?" he asked. "I mean, when all is said and done"

I brushed away something invisible off my pant leg. "I don't have that answer." I said.
He nodded and put his sunglasses back on. He tilted his head back and rested on the wooden bench. I watched his Adam's apple move up and down his neck like he was waiting for some invisible hooded executioner to let an ax fall.

My friend tilted forward and held his hands out palms up to the sky, as if he had surrendered to something or someone invisible. He had come to know quite thoroughly the world in which he lived. His outlook was bleak. The world as he saw it was a brutal world, a world without warmth, a world in which affection dies senselessly on a dark road outside a strip club. And I felt helpless to convince him otherwise.