Walking down the street in the semi-darkness of dull yellow streetlights, Annie latched playfully onto Joanie's arm, exclaiming, "What a night! It's kinda' cold out here!"
Joanie liked the way Annie held onto her. It felt sisterly... safe. "Yeah, and quiet," she responded.
And, as they turned the corner into the unlit cul-de-sac where Joanie's apartment was located, she added in a mock-frightened voice, "...and dark!"
Joanie liked the way Annie held onto her. It felt sisterly... safe. "Yeah, and quiet," she responded.
And, as they turned the corner into the unlit cul-de-sac where Joanie's apartment was located, she added in a mock-frightened voice, "...and dark!"
Soundtrack: The Sound of Silence--- Simon & Garfunkel
The two women looked into each others’ eyes, let out melodramatic terror-filled screams, and broke into a run toward the back door of the large Victorian house in which Joanie lived. Flinging the door open, they scrambled up the back stairs, arriving on the fourth floor, breathless and laughing playfully.
“We outran the bogeymen!” Annie exclaimed, as she struggled to regain her normal breathing.
Joanie chuckled, as she pawed through her pocketbook, searching for her keys. Distracted and still shaking from their fake-terror-filled run, she couldn’t find them at first. "What the hell's the matter with me?" she exclaimed aloud. Was it really the running that was causing her hands to tremble or something else?
Annie smiled, patiently, allowing Joanie the time to compose herself, find the right key and open the door. This simple gesture touched Joanie deeply. A guy would have just grabbed the keys and, in an obnoxious overbearing manner, opened the door for her, believing his action to be chivalrous. Men were such assholes; they really were!
"Welcome to my humble abode," Joanie clowned, throwing her jacket and pocket book rather deliberately on the mattress that served as her bed. Her apartment was really just one room in a converted attic in the home of a widow of some prof at the U who'd died years ago. Her unauthorized kitchen consisted of the bathroom sink and a clearly illegal two-burner hotplate, which sat on a large table that dominated the room.
Annie tossed her things on the mattress as well, and sunk down to the floor, crossing her legs, yoga-style, her long dress spreading out to cover the entire bottom half of her body. She looked like some gypsy fortuneteller with her long curly black ringlets falling over the tops of her generous bosom, which bulged up, out of, and over the peasant blouse she was wearing. “Funny,” Joanie thought. “I've known Annie for three years or so and I just realized what a beautiful woman she is.
"Some tea?" Joanie asked.
"Yeah. That'd be fine. Herbal." Annie replied, looking around Joanie's crowded little den.
Besides the mattress and the long brown lab table that Joanie had salvaged from the Bio building renovation, there was a large stuffed armchair covered with several items of recently worn clothing; a couple of open folding chairs, acting as drying racks for Joanie's underwear; and a series of uneven cinder-block and pine bookshelves that snaked around the periphery of the little room, occupying every inch of available waist-high wall space, looking a bit like a model of the Great Wall of China.
On the upper walls were a randomly placed pastiche of cheap prints from the college store: the usual Utrillo, Modigliani, and Van Gogh admixed with photographs of Joanie, her friends, and family at various stages in her life
Originally uploaded by .Arkham
as well as torn and faded magazine photos of Che, Mao, Lenin and Uncle Ho.
But on one wall, there stood alone Joanie's most prized possession: an incredible drawing Jake had done as a study for a painting of Joanie as Joan of Arc, replete with armor, halo, and hand raised to ear, as though listening to voices. But, instead of leading 15th century French soldiers against their English counterparts, she was at the head of a platoon of pajama-clad Viet Cong, ambushing a column of U.S. and ARVN soldiers in the jungles of Viet Nam.
"Wow, Joanie! That drawing of Jake's is intense! Did he give it to you?"
Annie's question wrenched Joanie out of the pleasant reverie she'd sunk into, as she pawed through her tea collection. She'd been fantasizing about the gentle, sensual back rub she might get up the courage to ask Annie to give her. Then, bang! Annie reminded her about Jake! Shit! She just remembered that she'd asked him — no, she’d actually begged him — to come back to her place after the party. God, what if he shows up now? A wave of anxiety and disappointment washed over her.
Links
Maurice Utrillo
Amedeo Modigliani
Vincent van Gogh
Che Guevera
Mao Zedong
Vladimir Lenin
Ho Chi Minh
Viet Cong (National Front for the Liberation of South Viet Nam)
ARVN (Army of the Republic of Viet Nam)
Simon and Garfunkel
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New Year's Eve 1968: Joanie, Scene 5 "First Love"
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New Year's Eve 1968: Joanie, Scene 3 "Let's Split"
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