Thursday, February 22, 2007
Summer day
We took a train up to a lake. We stopped at an A&P to buy chips and beer, but ended up with chips, beer, apple-flavored wine coolers, silly string, a disposable camera, and a hula hoop. She got carded when she tried to buy cigarettes. The cashier at the register inspected her i.d. and said, "This isn't real. Look how young he looks!" She sold them to her anyway.
We drove to the water and she took off her shirt and stretched out on the warped grey planks in my red basketball shorts.
I wore a green bikini, and put my sneakers back on when the ball we were playing volleyball with got knocked into the woods.
This is when she took my picture, by the edge of the lake, as I'm trying to retrieve the ball with a stick; the pink hoop slung over my shoulder, my hair in a knot on my head, my shoes an awkward punctuation mark at the end of my body.
I took her picture as I laid on the dock. I was looking up at her. She was smiling with a mouth full of beer, looking off to the right. Her skin looks bright white in the sunlight. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and sticking straight up on either side. We had just seen a family of ducks swim by. We forced ourselves to go in the water on the count of three. It was cold.
When I came up for air I screamed, "OH MY GOD." She laughed.
We left when the sun went down and my shoulders started to hurt from the burn. We drove down back country roads until we found some creepy little motel with a vacancy. I put on a dress and she put on a black shirt and beige pants and we left a bottle of whiskey in the room for later. In the meanwhile, we went to see Kill Bill II and it was good.
When we returned to the room, I got drunk and she didn't. I wrote the following in a journal:
"My back is red and I'm lying on white polyester sheets, propped up on my elbows beneath the mirrored ceiling, drinking Jack and Coke from a plastic cup with mostly melted ice in it. You are smoking a cigarette. You're upset that you are not tan."
The next morning we woke up and took pictures outside our room. I got one of her using the hula hoop as I sprayed silly string in her direction with my free hand so it would be in the frame, and then she did the same. This time I was sweating in a wifebeater as hair whipped across my face. She was wearing that hat she got in Vegas, the one that stood a foot off her head. Then we noticed a short Indian woman in a sari approaching, and would it be too much to ask for her to take our picture and also spray the string in our direction as she got the shot? It wasn't.
She took a good picture.
We drove to the water and she took off her shirt and stretched out on the warped grey planks in my red basketball shorts.
I wore a green bikini, and put my sneakers back on when the ball we were playing volleyball with got knocked into the woods.
This is when she took my picture, by the edge of the lake, as I'm trying to retrieve the ball with a stick; the pink hoop slung over my shoulder, my hair in a knot on my head, my shoes an awkward punctuation mark at the end of my body.
I took her picture as I laid on the dock. I was looking up at her. She was smiling with a mouth full of beer, looking off to the right. Her skin looks bright white in the sunlight. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and sticking straight up on either side. We had just seen a family of ducks swim by. We forced ourselves to go in the water on the count of three. It was cold.
When I came up for air I screamed, "OH MY GOD." She laughed.
We left when the sun went down and my shoulders started to hurt from the burn. We drove down back country roads until we found some creepy little motel with a vacancy. I put on a dress and she put on a black shirt and beige pants and we left a bottle of whiskey in the room for later. In the meanwhile, we went to see Kill Bill II and it was good.
When we returned to the room, I got drunk and she didn't. I wrote the following in a journal:
"My back is red and I'm lying on white polyester sheets, propped up on my elbows beneath the mirrored ceiling, drinking Jack and Coke from a plastic cup with mostly melted ice in it. You are smoking a cigarette. You're upset that you are not tan."
The next morning we woke up and took pictures outside our room. I got one of her using the hula hoop as I sprayed silly string in her direction with my free hand so it would be in the frame, and then she did the same. This time I was sweating in a wifebeater as hair whipped across my face. She was wearing that hat she got in Vegas, the one that stood a foot off her head. Then we noticed a short Indian woman in a sari approaching, and would it be too much to ask for her to take our picture and also spray the string in our direction as she got the shot? It wasn't.
She took a good picture.
# posted by Katie @ 11:48 PM 
