Mary at the Docks

Days by tinted windows, nights by candlelight and car radios. And if it’s moving, well of course it’s moving, that’s the central point. And if it’s a diatribe, well of course it’s a diatribe, that’s the secondary point. And if good fortune has you in a vulnerable position with your pants, uh, metaphorically down, well then, that’s just the price of doing business in today’s flashiest of societies. 

I thought to myself and chided, and I thought to myself and had to stifle laughter when I thought of what Mary had said to me on the last day of our stay at Barbados. I believe it was Barbados, it was one of those silly little islands. Barba-something. Not Barbasol, but Barba-something. Mary said many things to me that last day on the island of Barba-something. She was acting like it was the last day on planet Earth, everything was going to turn to rubble or evaporate, and she just had to get everything off her chest and out of her mouth before time ran out. She didn’t even have any particular attitude towards me, not even like a neutral attitude (which I know sounds weird but trust me, it’s how it felt). It’s more like she was talking at me, as if I were an inanimate object. Lord knows when we were doing the Devil’s Tango robotically on most nights of the vacation, she was using me like an inanimate object, too. But that’s neither here nor there, and not at all relevant to what she was saying to me on the last day on the island of Barba-something. 

Somewhere in the middle of her exasperated ranting and raving, she told me at one point, “Chickens don’t have eyes, they absolutely do not have eyes. If you really stop and look at a chicken at any point in your life, you will see that none of them have eyes. It will blow your frickin’ mind when you discover it for yourself.” 

Like any sane person, I insisted that she was wrong, but she just kept talking over me and saying, “It might look like they have eyes, but what looks like their eyes are not actually their eyes. It’s just useless bumps on the sides of their heads. They cannot actually see a thing – that’s why they walk funny and more often than not chase each other in endless circles.” 

I could do nothing to refute what she had to say because she wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise. And even if I had been able to get a word in edgewise, it seemed like there was no point to it because she wasn’t about to believe any refutations anyway. She was on a roll, she had to get whatever was brewing inside of her out into the open before an internal combustion. 

Don’t get so close to the edge of the dock, I managed to say. I’ve got plenty of room, I’m not about to fall into the water, just relax, she said. You’re not even listening to what I’ve been saying. I’ve been doing nothing but listening, I said, and it was true, I could feel it in my bones as I was saying it, the veracity was so apparent. What was the last thing I said, she asked. I told her the last thing she said, and I was grateful she didn’t ask me for the second-to-last thing she said, because I had completely forgotten that thing. She insisted that I wasn’t even listening, even though I was correct in naming the last thing she had been talking about. Her curly red hair was bouncing up and down on her shoulders as her head bobbed up and down, and her large painted mouth was forming the words, you’re not even listening to what I’ve been saying. 

Don’t get so close to the edge of the dock, I repeated, and I had reason to repeat it, for she had taken a few steps closer to the edge without realizing it. She was so busy bobbing her head up and down, yacking away, and shifting from one foot to the other that she was entirely unaware how far she had drifted from where we had originally been standing on the dock to how close she was now to the edge. And I had drifted along with her, magnetized by her wide open mouth and her yacking, so that I was also closer to the edge, too. We were like two boats that were drifting farther and farther away from where they were being docked, untethered, being gently pushed along by a steady current of tropical wind. Eventually those boats were going to wind up lost at sea, in the middle of nowhere, marooned. 

Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow. And everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to blow. 

Mary had a grey streak in her hair, a long tangled grey lock, which seemed to stand out even more because she was a redhead. I was inspired by the way she did not ever attempt to conceal the grey streak, instead letting it bounce up and down in the midst of her red hair. 

You’re not even listening to what I’ve been trying to say, she said again. I was finding it difficult to not become aroused – the arousal was outweighing the irritation for me. I always seemed to find women’s unbridled irritation, and shall I say bitchiness, to be incredibly attractive. A man loves a woman in control. Mary was a woman who knew how to be in control, and she knew how to bend the wills of men to her wishes. 

Damn. I should write erotic fan fiction.

If you’ll just let me attempt to explain, I started. I’m not about to attempt to let you do anything, she insisted, talking over me. I’m not about to attempt to let you do anything. Everything I’ve been saying is important, and you don’t seem to be paying attention to a word of it. What was the last thing I said. 

I repeated the last thing it was that she had been talking about. I was hoping she wasn’t about to ask me the second-to-last-thing she had been talking about. 

What was the second-to-last-thing I was talking about, she demanded.

I honestly don’t know, I said. 

See, there you go, she said. You haven’t been listening to anything I’ve been trying to say all day.

You’re getting awfully close to the dock, now. I said. 

Don’t tell me where I am, she said. It’s just that you’re awfully close, I said. If you take one more step you’re going to fall right in. And then you’ll get all wet, I added. 

She continued to stand there and yack, that wide painted mouth open and yapping away about all of life’s problems and why the world was being so unfair to her, why everyone was wrong and secretly out to get her. I was finding myself aroused, irritated, and worried in equal measure. 

You’re about to fall in, I’m trying to tell you, I said. 

Don’t tell me what I – 

And splash! She slipped off the dock and into the water. 

Get me a life jacket, or a rope or something, she yelled. 

I don’t see anything like that around, I said. And it’s true, I didn’t. 

Well jump in and get me, she said, arms flailing and painted mouth opened wide like a shark. 

You can swim, can’t you, I asked. I was pretty sure that I thought she could swim. 

I’m not a child, I can swim perfectly fine, but jump in and get me. Come on, you wuss. Come on, you sissy.

I’m not jumping in and getting you, I said. I warned you multiple times that you were going to fall off the dock. 

I warned you multiple times that you were going to fall off the dock, she mimicked in a high nasty voice. Just jump in and get me already. 

I’m going to be at the bar, I said. You can meet me there, to finish whatever it is you were wanting to say. 

As I was walking away I could hear her crying, Help, help, murder. Over and over again, help, help, murder. My boyfriend is trying to kill me. 

She didn’t end up meeting me at the bar. She must have gone straight to the room, packed up her things, and took the last evening boat out, because I didn’t find any trace of her when I got back. 

That was the last night at the island of Barba-something. It was probably Barbados, but I’m not entirely sure.