by Memphis Lupine
(memphis_lupine@hotmail.com)
--
She walks to school with the lunch she packed
Nobody knows what she's holdin' back
Wearin' the same dress she wore yesterday
She hides the bruises with linen and lace
-
The teacher wonders but she doesn't ask
It's hard to see the pain behind the mask
Bearing the burden of a secret storm
Sometimes she wishes she was never born
-
Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete angel
-
Somebody cries in the middle of the night
The neighbors hear, but they turn out the lights
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate
When morning comes it'll be too late
-
Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete angel
-
A statue stands in a shaded place
An angel girl with an upturned face
A name is written on a polished rock
A broken heart that the world forgot
-
Through the wind and the rain
She stands hard as a stone
In a world that she can't rise above
But her dreams give her wings
And she flies to a place where she's loved
Concrete angel
-Martina McBride, Concrete Angel
--
Story One: Concrete Angel
Introduction
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Saturday night turned the sky of Winchester electric, a brilliant cast of fluorescence spilling out of the building at Fifth-and-Maine near the old grocery store two blocks north of the high school, and the wind of advancing spring was loose. It challenged the sanctity so hailed by those who wished to move to its small location and those who whispered about subsidizing it into the metropolis of New York City, a flash of chaos and noise pouring from each window. During the week, Baratie's was a quiet restaurant serving to a clientele of quiet couples and small families too harried and sick of fast food to eat anywhere else. A menu of delicious food at reasonable prices attracted them both, taking in anyone who wanted something to taste so long as they paid and tipped reasonably. The weekend was the property of the teenagers old enough that they could drive the few dusty streets leading through the wooded New England country to the place never known as the Hangout, as it would be in another place, another time. It mattered little if they could walk to its entrance in a few minutes time, as most could, as much as showing off their prized trucks and dented cars did.
Winchester sprawled across the southern countryside dotted below the affectionately dubbed Big Apple on the map, a town composed of countless expensive homes built in the trees and along the hills just as the rowed townhouses were part of the community. The high school was an eclectic mix of the poor and the rich, each youth dreaming desperately of the day they could break free of the small town binds and enter the exotic city so near. They were Goths and cheerleaders, jocks and future rocket scientists, teenagers with no aspiration but to simply escape, and those who knew precisely where they were heading and who they were. The high school students knew everyone's name in the town of two-hundred-twenty-two students readying for college in the four-year interim, with old jokes of their town being one-third of hell known by all. If you hated someone you saw their face at least once a week, in school or at the old theatre-and-playhouse along the Main street still paved with cobblestones, but mostly at Baratie's. Space was filled quickly, with people squeezing three more people than usually possible into the small booths for the sake of community and fellowship. Romances were started and friendships were lost when you were forced into a seat you had not expected to be, and when an elbow digging into your ribs turned out to be the elbow of The One. It was impossible to live in Winchester and not believe in The One, for that was the single greatest philosophy of the gangly young man named The Sandman.
Everyone knew The Sandman, a tall graduate of the high school who had lived and breathed in the kitchen for as long as anyone could remember. He had been a scrawny preadolescent, a child with an oriental name that did not fit his european looks, but his mother, they all agreed, had been one of the more creative people to live there in a while. She died or left or simply never existed, for when he entered the junior high and forced his way into popularity in spite of his lack of prerequisites such as money, there was no mother. Baratie's raised him, and they all thought it suiting he help raise Baratie's even further.
When pressed, no one could rightly say what his real name was, exactly, and confused glances would be shared before someone laughed and joked about the student population and popcorn was thrown amidst groans of disgust. He was just The Sandman, a moniker adopted for his humorous love of tales with an olden feel, suggested by one of the kids who read with great dedication every comic book he could find. Even those who did not understand the joke took it on, and the first name was forgotten for way of this new one. Everyone liked The Sandman, with his curling eyebrows and love for girls and the scented cigarettes he always had, and it was never reported to the officials that he was underage. That, as someone put it succinctly, would not be cool.
Sometimes a person they did not know would arrive in town, just as The Sandman and his mother had once been, and the old war veteran who ran Baratie's.
She was different as anyone new was different, a sudden flicker in the vision accepted as normal, something exotic that needed to be examined. She was small, but not short, a girl who looked to be a sophomore but swore she was a senior, with hair the color of carrot-streaked strawberries and a loose dress of pale red. It belted at the middle, a sleek band of leather knotted around her waist, and the sleeves hung clean over her arms, folds sweeping the underside of her wrists. She was not hostile, but she was not friendly either, and when asked where she came from, she smiled thinly.
"Somewhere I had to leave," she answered, and she would sip at the bottled water she had brought in with her. Gradually, they kept away from her, sensing not a dislike coming from her so much as an intense desire to be alone. "I'm here with my sister," she continued for the sake of those who would not abandon her so quickly. "I'm going to be in the senior graduating class this year," for the teens who refused to believe she was eighteen. A smile that did not reach her eyes signified her nonverbal way of saying, There is no more. I can't give anything else.
The rumors began immediately, the usual bit of malicious gossip that meant little to those who spread it, but a great deal to those who began it and those who were the center. Farfetched ones about spies and aliens and Elvis Presley coming back from the dead, ones about an abortion and her being married and the fact that maybe she was an undercover cop, no way, but did you see her tattoos? None of it meant anything, though, and they disappeared as midnight fast approached.
Lacy black dotted her ankles in the form of anklet tattoos, little emblems of interlocked crosses and fish, mingled in with a pirate's symbol every now and then. When she smiled, though, it mattered very little if she was an alien or a government agent, because they could see something they did not understand. Bright mixed with dark, sorrow woven in with joy, and the curiosity of those who had never seen someone move of their own free will to Winchester was peaked.
The Sandman was never as prone to staring as now.
They thought it hilarious that he kept glancing at her, a lost sort of look on his face as he worked his jaw lightly, chewing on the end of the cigarette pinned in his mouth. It was funny to the senior who was said to be in his late twenties until he was forced to choke down ash in his shot of whiskey, and then it was death for The Sandman. A girl dressed in a Hawaiian wrap and a bikini top, casting herself to the mercy of the chill breezes of ending winter with her garb, clasped at his fist and directed his attention to the drinking contest somewhere in one of the darker corners. The Sandman would live another day.
At some point, The Sandman adopted the sort of look that stated he thought himself blindingly insane, and he ignored the girl chipped from frozen embers. He flirted openly with the other girls, showed off his ability to cook over an open flame, and by the time one o'clock rolled around and the war veteran, old Sef, gruffly ordered everyone out, the girl was gone into the early morning darkness.
--
Notes: No, the whole thing won't be written in this style, just in case it bugs someone. This was the introduction to the first story (which will be about three chapters in length, I believe, this notwithstanding). Please be aware that names can and will be changed as I see fit, my apologies to everyone, and, yes, The Sandman is Sanji. Don't judge me on that too soon, though! Give me a chance, okay? ;]
Pop Culture Reference: Sanji being called The Sandman. I was trying to think of something new for him, and it popped into my head. (My sincerest regards to Neil Gaiman, for the reference to his comic book – which, to be honest, I haven't actually read yet. Shame on me!)
Disclaimer: Still applies (see foreword).
Feedback: Please do. E-mails are welcome at memphis_lupine@hotmail.com, and reviews via the little clicky-box below.
Written: April 1, 2003.
Revised: ----