Snapshots of Modern Love Read Online Free

fervor. She screams as loud as her lungs allow. His eyes open. Passersby are looking into the car. She screams again, still pounding on the window. His trembling hands reach for the unlocking master button on his door. The lock snaps free with a click, and she bolts out of the car.
    "Asshole!" She slams the door shut and speeds away from the car. "Fucking nut!"
    The old man is gone. After a cigarette Debbie goes back on the street because she has to make rent money. The sun shines with pristine opulence; thunderstorm clouds simmer over the ocean line.

Debbie, the Beach, and the Plane
    Our feet sink into the wet sand and foam bubbles between our toes. The surf is brownish and frothy. An aircraft' s laboring engine comes overhead. It' s Seven Two Papa, and Ron is probably flying it. The old Champ flies in a crab, fighting the stiff wind trying to push it inland. The banner behind it, Reggae at the Beach Pub , makes a sound of its own, like a plastic bag tied to a car' s door handle while speeding down the highway.
    "You working tomorrow?" Debbie asks me.
    "Yeah. Another long fucking day," my eyes are still fixed on Seven Two Papa. "I hope the wind is not so strong. Bucking the wind all day long is n' t fun."
    "It must be pretty neat to fly up and down the beach, ."Debbie says. Her eyes follows the little airplane that continues to fly north defying the wind and earning a living.
    "At the beginning it is; later on, you get sick of it."
    She walks into the surf, knee high, and the waves' crests kiss her dress' s hem. "This is fucking great, isn' t it?" Facing the ocean, she brings her arms high over her head and spreads her fingers as if trying to catch breeze and sunshine. I stand beside her. The rolling waves slap our legs; yes, it is great. The past and the future don' t matter; but right now it' s fucking great.

Self-Service
    With the cops cracking down on prostitution - no good for family vacationers and business, preach the city leaders - things become difficult on the beach side. Now Debbie works Ridge wood Avenue. Glaring sunlight adds brightness to the scandalous and shabby storefronts of biker and tittie bars, and to the huge yellow, dirty movie theater. It is a subtropical colorfulness that masks the harshness of a life lived from day to day, from minute to minute, devoid of any plausible future, or expectant with such a sordid one that there is no point to think about it. She doesn' t think about hers.
    Her eyes are half closed, in part due to the glare, in part to the downers she has taken. A sedated drowsiness has a hold on her body. Her gait is slow and at times staggering but she doesn' t know that. She stands by the corner, wrapped inside the Mandrax bubble she has created for herself. Outside the bubble things move at the speed of light, in a blur of intense light and motion; sounds are far distant and muffled, but she is happy inside her bubble where life exists at a more peaceful pace.
    A beat up station wagon pulls in front of her and stops. Automatically, as if reacting to a surviving instinct, she approaches the passenger door window and leans her body through it. A small and dark young man smiles at her, his sharp teeth shining like ivory daggers.
    "Hello. How arre you doing?" He drags his r' s with a powerful accent. He' s got to be one of them foreigners who goes to the school by the airport, she thinks, then she forgets she thought of that.
    "Hi babe," she manages to open the door and get in. The wagon rolls over the hot asphalt, flanked by traffic on all sides.
    "What' s your name, hon?" she asks from inside her bubble, her voice reverberating from invisible walls. He says a name but she doesn' t get it. Hon will do. She props her legs over the dashboard, lifts her dress and pulls her pink panties down, exposing her crotch to Hon whose jaws drop almost to his chest.
    "This goddamned thing is giving me a fit," she tugs at her panties and pulls them off. Her legs stay over the dashboard; the mat of hair