Beautiful, Starry Nights

You actually believe that just because you were the first handsome, intelligent, and charming young man to walk into the class today, that she would run home and phone you up, dying to meet you again in some quant, little coffee joint just up the street. You’re thinking that there isn’t any reason why she wouldn’t be attracted to you, and the only reason why you’ve been sitting around the phone for the last hour, intently waiting for the phone to ring, is because you’re only looking for a quick and easy. You even try and convince yourself that maybe the ink that you used to jot down your number on her hand, had accidentally rubbed off when her palms got sweaty, and that she really wanted to call you but she couldn’t make out the distorted numbers. Not even once did it cross your mind that maybe she thought you were a total scumbag, and that immediately after you left, she ran into the next room to quickly wash off her palms so that she could forget that she had ever met you. This is probably the more reasonable explanation, but you are not a very reasonable person and you don’t really perceive yourself as a pretentious and arrogant jerk, but others do. If she weren’t one of the most beautiful girls you had ever met, you may have never said a single word to her. But you had talked to her, and this usually meant that the girl would become wildly infatuated with you, and then you would break her heart in the most sadistic way that you could possibly contemplate.

You here the phone ring and your heart jumps, but you don’t answer it even though you are sitting right near it; you wait for the answering machine to start before you answer, just to keep the anxious girl on the other line waiting, undoubtedly worried that a handsome guy like yourself may have played a cruel trick on her and given her the wrong number. But you didn’t give her the wrong number because she is beautiful, otherwise you would have never acknowledged her existence. When you finally pick up the phone and come to her rescue, being the prince charming that you are, you answer very casually and smoothly.

“Hello,” she giggles as she speaks. “It’s Veronica from your chemistry class; I’m the blonde one.”

“Hi, Veronica. It’s nice to hear from you; I was just in the shower when you called,” you say, as if she had interrupted your hectic lifestyle.

“I’m so sorry to have interrupted you, but I was hoping that we could pick up some coffee at Starbucks in a few minutes. You seem like such a nice guy and I could use a break from all the studying.”

“That sounds like a plan, Veronica. I’ll meet you there in a few minutes after I put some clothes on and finish a few more pages from my book. Does that sound O.K.?

“Great!” she excitedly exclaims. “I’ll meet you there. I can’t wait.”

“Goodbye, Veronica.”

You hang up the phone and confidently smirk, not at all surprised that you had a date tonight. You have dates almost every other night so you don’t have any inhibitions; you think of yourself as a connoisseur of women.

After grabbing for your wallet and your leather ‘Members Only’ jacket, you throw an unused condom into your pocket and head out to the coffee shop. The street is dark and gloomy, but you are not worried of being burglarized because you carry a gun in the pocket of your jacket, and you would have no regrets using it on an unsuspecting thief. The sidewalk is still damp from when it rained this afternoon and you have to hop every once in a while to avoid getting your shoes wet in the puddles. You’re only a couple blocks from the coffee shop, so you decide to disappear into a familiar side alley to have a cigarette; this way you will arrive fashionably late.

The air is chilly so you wrap yourself tighter in your jacket. You quickly grab the lighter in your pocket to provide some temporary warmth and also to satisfy your craving for a cigarette. Dogs bark their annoying howl as the sound of police sirens drowns out the crappy alternative rock blaring from the bar in the alley. It is your typical back alley with a dirty, grungy atmosphere and rancid, putrid smell that penetrates through the lid of the dumpster. As a rat scurries past the dumpster, you toss your cigarette bud at it and whisper, “You little scum bag.” You turn towards the street and begin to walk out of the back alley, when a voice lightly whispers, “Pssss. You gotta’ dolla’? I’s very hungry.” The voice belongs to a poor, homeless man leaning up against the wall with a tin can held out; the man, who you perceive to be disgusting and ugly, looks to you for help, but you tell him, “Get a job, you fucking rat,” and continue walking.

A few meters before you reach the street, a finger taps you on the back of the shoulder, which you believe to be the bums, so you pull out your gun and quickly turn around. You are relieved when you see Veronica’s face staring back at yours and you hear her say, “Easy there partner.”

“I’m so sorry; I thought you were a bum. I just got a little spooked,” you explain.

“You almost blew my head off with that thing, but I will forgive you. Just put that damn thing away, would ya’? I got something special to tell you.”

You put the gun on safety lock and stick it back into your right coat pocket. She leans up against you and begins caressing your neck, blowing in your ear, and whispers, “All my friends tell me you’re a great kisser. They tell me you broke their hearts, too. You wouldn’t break my heart, would ya’?” Suddenly, you feel a sharp pain in your stomach like nothing you’ve ever felt before. “You fucking scumbag,” she yells as she runs with a knife limply dangling down from her right hand. You touch your stomach where you shockingly find your own blood, and then you abruptly fall to the ground. You begin to sob and yell with blood-curdling intensity. As you lay in a rising puddle of your own blood, tortured by your state of pain and immobility, you look up into the face of the poor, homeless man, outlined by the faint gleam of the stars that seem further away then ever before. You look to him for help the same way in which he looked to you a few brief minutes ago, but he just stands there looking down at you, almost as motionless as yourself. You cry, “Help me. Help me. Help me,” over and over again in a monotone voice, repeating the call like a broken record, staring off into the sky.

The homeless man then begins to laugh a hauntingly mordant laughter as he reaches into your coat pocket and searches for your wallet. He finds the gun and the wallet. He stands over your cold, helpless body for a few seconds, taking pleasure in your suffering, and then unloads the round of bullets into your stomach. The light from the fired rounds of the barrel drowns out the gleam of the stars, as the cold of the night chills your bones, and the caustic laughter of the poor, homeless man begins to travel farther and farther away into the distance. “Getta’ job, ya’ fuckin’ scumbag! Getta’ job, getta’ job, ya’ fuckin’ scumbag,” the bum chants as he slowly strolls away, rummaging through your wallet. You casually allow your eyelids to fall when the stars blur to where they are no longer recognizable, and it is no longer possible to see, beautiful or ugly.