Shrike 

She was a beautiful girl, ferociously intelligent, tolerably kind & pleasantly cynical.

posted by jeremy on April 21, 2004

& she is a ghost now. No... Less than a ghost. There is no psychic residue, no traces of her anywhere in my life, except... maybe... trapped within this easily discarded story. She was an emotional interlude that collapsed; A snake biting its own tale, eating every cell. It could've been different, it should've been, but it isn't.

Jump back, maybe nine months. I'm living in North PDX, just behind Mississippi, right off of Beech, in a huge green house. I am working/living with my ex, Debs & summer is past its expiration date, closing out. The leaves are turning & falling, becoming dust. The smell of rain is in the air & I am happy enough.

I have no suspicions about what is coming; A hard uncaring winter, bleak & cold & fucked. For now, I ride my bike, go to parties, cook on the grill, sit on the porch till late in the evening, drinking beer, staring at the dim stars.

& one bright afternoon, I get an email from a girl named Kendle. She tells me she picked up a copy of Shrike 3 at the Portland Zine Symposium & the story about my father, well, it made her cry as she sat there on the bus, reading it. She wants to get the back issues & she then thanks me for writing what I did...

& I sit there, pondering the fact, I've made somebody cry. It's been a while since my writing has made someone cry, yeah, it's happened before. Still, I am not accustomed to this, nor the concept of fan mail. I hesitantly write her back. I tell her, Thanks. I can send you more copies, where-ever you want. Let me know... & take care.

A few days later she writes me back & suggest we meet somewhere, have a drink. She tells me that we have a mutual friend, Cor. This is not a huge surprise, this being Portland. I write her back saying, Sure, why not? & we declare our friend Cor, the arbitrator of this meeting. It seems too strange just the two of us meeting, too shady somehow, on a subliminal level. I talk to Cor about this at the bar several times... But he seems hesitant, obtusely reluctant. He makes sure that I know she has a boyfriend, that they are in love. He never commits to helping us. He sensed the storm, long before us.

Weeks pass, we email each other comfortably enough. We haven't really revealed much of ourselves, we don't truly share much information, just short witty notes, shot back & forth, always puncuated, someday we'll meet...

Until finally, one starless night, we do.

My dish-washing shifts at the Pied Cow are short but arduous. Billions of pre-hipsters, pouring in, wrecking havoc. The servers run like jackals, delivering scraps to pups. The servers, all female, also scrap like jackals, ferocious beast that females are. Six beautiful girls to a shift, strong-willed; It's bound to get ugly. A mere male, I am mostly immune to all of this psychic warfare & backbiting, but still, it's sometimes difficult to watch. So I keep my head down & my big mouth shut. It's safer that way.

This particular evening though, the weather is bad, the yard isn't full, things are slow & mostly peaceful. We get done early, head to the Vern, racing last call.

Like I said, I work with my ex, Debs & I live with her. We are still friends & often enough, we find ourselves sharing the same futon... Though things are still treacherous between us, a dark jungle filled with obstinate land-mines, emotional & trigger-happy guerillas. We get along right up until we don't.

The five of us grab a table & some beers. I grab the pool table & rack up for a game of eight ball. Suddenly, my friend Cor is at my side, drunk as a dog. He is the arbitrator of our mystery meeting & he finally fulfills the role he has to play.

Kendle's here. He says, Right over there... & points to a table where a girl is looking at me. She stands up & walks over & says, Hi. It's good to finally meet you.

She's a beautiful girl with unusual features, those bright pale eyes that I've already mentioned, short-chopped black hair, a faintly punk style to her. We shake hands. I'm tired & Debs glaring daggers at us, ever-territorial. I don't remember what we said... We make noises, complimentary, mandatory. I meet her boyfriend, an incredibly handsome kid, almost pretty but short as hell, maybe a foot shorter than me. He tells me he loves Shrike & I say thank you, not much else. Kendle & I make plans to meet at the Jockey Club in a few days. I'll get her those back issues, she'll buy me some beer, it's all so innocent. 'Til then, I tell her & finish my pint.

& I ride the 50 blocks home to fight with Debs & fall asleep, beside her.

Nathan & I ride thru the surprisingly warm evening, pointed at the Jockey. We lock up our bikes to a stop sign & step inside, where the smell of puke... & Kendle... await. Brash punk pulses thru the sound system & I can't even begin to estimate the number of studded belts in the place. Kendles waiting with her rockabilly room-mate. He seems nice enough, though in a few months it'll come clear, he's a fucking mook, apparently missing certain vital areas within his cerebral cortex, whether from birth or from drug abuse, I just won't ever be able to determine. Either way, a fucking mook. As for now, Hey dude, good to meet you. I hand Kendle the Shrikes & she purchases a couple of pitchers. Other friends of hers arrive, including Cor & Jer, friends of mine as well.

We all talk comfortably, easily enough & I discover that Kendle is a talker, excited & full of ideas, fortunately the good kind of rambler, spilling useful information everywhere. The night itself rambles on & Nathan eventually leaves as we decide to play some pool. Cor & I go back & forth, kicking each others ass & just when we're all considering making an exit, someone approaches me, asking, Is that your bike? & yes, leaning against one of the ragged couches, is my bike, complete with destroyed front rim. I simply nod, somewhat shocked & the guy adds, Here's your lock. Hands me my thick Kryptonite cable lock, though it's torn in half, in god-fucking half. I mutter, though with true sincerity, my thanks & go stick my head out the front door. The stop sign I had locked to is bent to the ground, run over. Everyone in the Jockey is either pissed about it or laughing... & me? I start laughing after checking my bike over for further signs of damage. Besides a trashed front rim & a fucked lock nothing seems amiss. I'm completely lucky, it seems, I thought for certain there would be damage to the frame, but no, not a scratch. To this day, the physics of it all escapes me.

But fuck it, yes, I'm laughing & so is Kendle. We exit & decide to relocate to her house. I pull my front rim off, toss it on a curb, stomp it back into a shape resembling round. The tire isn't even flat. God, that bitch, does indeed move in mysterious ways.

Kendle & I ride ahead of our band of brigands, yipping & joking. We dive into Safeway, buy food & copious beer, meet up with everyone at her house. She cooks up a big meal of beans & rice & we all sit on the front porch, spewing drunken philosophy & bad jokes. Eventually her boyfriend arrives home & I start to say hello but he just glares at me, stomps off into the basement. Shit, I think, what is this? But carry on. One by one, everyone passes out or stumbles off into the night. Only Kendle & I remain awake, trashed but coherent, talking in the dark, till dawn cracks the sky.

When she says goodnight, I think again, What is this?

In the morning, Kendle pads barefoot down the stairs, dressed in her pajamas, wearing glasses. Even through the serious pall of my hangover, she is too cute. Everyone wakes up rough & cranky. I decide to go, needing coffee. I tell Kendle goodbye & she says, Kris is upstairs & he's mad. He's not talking to me. I ask her why & she tell me that she does not know. Me, I think & leave.

She invited me back for a barbecue on the following day but I didn't go. My temporary tribulations are about to hit me & pull no punches... The thought of her is lost in the winter deluge. Nathan & I decide to find our own house, so I move out of Debs & surf the beaten couch-wave for a month to save money. Four weeks quickly morph into six while we search, fruitlessly, for a cheap & suitable house. Finally, thru the undeniable glory of Craigslist, we find a semi-delapidated but cozy two bedroom house just off of Killingsworth & 25th. Moving in takes all of my money. That same week, my two year stint of unemployment checks come to an end. The week after that my summer job at the Pied Cow dries up with the coming of the rains. So now I make resumes. Now I look for work. Now I find nothing.

This is your average Portland story.

A few weeks pass & Nathan has to cover my rent. I am humiliated. Twinges of depression hit me, something I haven't felt in years. Nate leaves for a three week landscaping gig on Orcas Island & it's just me & the cat, Oin. The rain pours down & I skulk around the house listening to the same songs over & over, drinking the cheapest beer I can find, living off of rice & the occasional vegetable. Nobody is around or maybe I just don't feel like communicating with my options. I start to get lonely. Debs has flown to Chile, to toodle around Central & South America for five weeks or so & I find that I miss her more often than not. I begin having long conversations with Oin... well, usually one-sided diatribes, I'll admit. But he does put his two cents in occasionally. Mrrrph, he'll say or maybe, Mroww... kurp. Then he'll just stare at me with those amazing green eyes & I'll ask him, Just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?

I'm in the Fresh Pot on Shaver one day, when the manager approaches me, ask me if I'm up for an interview & I nearly hug him. I nearly dance with joy. Sure, I respond, nonchalant, compressed. He tells me to come in tomorrow, we'll talk. I get so excited that I go home & get trashed, show up at the interview hungover... but fine. Still, the sheer weirdness of the two kids interviewing me, throws me into a tailspin. The two managers sit across the table from each other & never stop staring into each others eyes. I sit there trying to fill in the wide open silences they leave for me but I'm just not making it work. I leave knowing I fucked it, fucked it real good & it's true... They never call me back.

I've prided myself for years on being one who never gets depressed, not anymore. From the age of 16 through 22 I was a spastic bundle of manic depression. Elated, bursting with joy & filled with ideas one moment, curled in the closet, racked with nightmares the next. It eventually grew very tedious, so fucking boring. So I decided to become something else. So I waged a internal war... & I won. I also discovered alcohol & I became a self medicant but say what you will about this, my nightmares faded, I levelled out. My personality quickly became something like a tundra, filled with flowers or maybe snow, inhabited by the occasional mammoth or polar bear... A barren place but still wild & interesting enough, I'd like to think. All I know: It is far preferable to the jagged treacherous geography I had previously inhabited, that vast unstable kingdom.

But sitting in the house alone, day after day, waiting for work, I begin to realize that my old self is back, a disliked brother coming home from the bar, violent & weepy. I want him gone, pronto, but he's decided to stay, Just a little while, for old-times sake, c'mon... I lock myself in my room, listen to music & pace, I want to leave, but its raining & I have no money, nowhere to go. He rages outside my door, punching walls or grows sentimental, talks about days gone by & then starts to cry.

There's nothing I can do about it. He is me.

I'm digging thru my yahoo account one day when I find an old email from Kendle. I decide to write her, see how she is, where she's at. I fire a short note, full of brave humor, telling her where I've moved to, what I'm up to, not much, & tell her to write me, lets hang out. Almost immediately I get a message back from her. She tells me, I've moved too & you live, like, half a block away. She tells me where, exactly & I step outside on my porch & I can see her apartment building from where I am standing. She gives me her phone number & tells me to call her... & I do.

We start hanging out on regular basis. She comes over & we drink beer, talk late into the night or just sit around, watching bad movies. I even hang out with her boyfriend with whom she's still living. We get along but our interactions are cool, as in chilly. I'm not competing with him but I begin to suspect, he's competing with me & as Kendle & I start hanging out more & more, I understand...

Kendle is a closed book on certain things. When she talks about her relationship with Kris, it is in cryptic code, unbreakable. I know that shes growing unhappy with him but as to why or what or how or when, I've no idea. I hope for nothing, I think of us as friends, compatriots, I'll leave it that way, OK? I do find myself thinking of her often, when she's not around, when certain songs play, but that is as it is. I want to be innocent of whatever drama is brewing. I don't want to be that guy... But fuck it, I know, deep inside, that if it's necessary, I most likely will be...

Because I'm slowly falling for her, falling down.

One cold sodden night, she calls me up almost sobbing, raging but communicating nothing. She asks if she can come over. I tell her, Of course & she's here in two minutes... To tell me a story. She just found out that Kris has been spotted all over town, canoodling with some Suicide Girl. (A girl, it turns out, that I actually know from the bar, tattooed & brazen; More uncomfortably flirty than your friend's 15 year old sister, the one who had a monstrous crush on you, remember that?) Kendles pissed more at the treachery than the actual fact. She confronted him & he denied everything, though she knows that it's all true. He runs away & she calls me. Now she's here, angry & sad & something else, something yet undefinable. I don't know what any of this means. A long wave is breaking on a desolate beach... & it has nothing to do with me & I want nothing to do with it. Yet I want what I shouldn't; For Kendle to stay. I want to collapse what's left of that pain & begin this one. As it is, she stays for hours... then leaves.

The theme of our interaction is bound to be set. I just don't know it yet.

At this point, I'm finally working again, having scored two jobs in two days. First, my old co-worker from the Pied Cow called me up, her new restaurant needs a dish/prep & I tell her, Fucking wonderful, I love you, yes, yes...

So I clamber aboard the good ship, Lovely Hula Hands.

& the other job, ironically, was suggested to me by Kendle's ex, back before everything became so horribly complicated. A new yuppie housewares super-store, Storables, is in the works downtown. They need people for light construction. If I show up then the job is mine.

I show up & the job is mine.

So now I'm working seventy hours a week instead of zero. Up at six every morning & working, too often, double shifts & I slog thru it all, destroying my considerable debt with every tedious hour passed.

This particular night, I work & work til work slows & I am let go, given a beer, sent on my way. I ride thru the wet streets, the dazzle of streetlights thru rain-covered glasses.

Home... & I carry my bike in to the smell of cooking food. Kendle emerges from my kitchen to greet me. I am happily surprised & make it clear. Kendle's friend, Mck & Nate are laughing like hyaenas & tofu is frying in the cast-iron. I open a beer, make a bad joke, smirking, completely content suddenly. This is just the evening I wanted.

After dinner, we sit in the basement & chainsmoke, talk about life & work & love, tell bawdy stories, get drunk. We stomp upstairs to watch a DVD. What are we watching? I ask & Kendle informs me, South Park. I tell her that I'm one of the three humans left in the Northern Hemisphere that has yet to see that damn show. It's funny, she says, trust me... & I do. Nate, Mck & Kendle pile onto the couch & I sit on the floor, just in front of her. Who? Who else... & she did not lie, not this time, South Park has me snorting in seconds, almost crying with mirth in mere minutes. Another treasure, so long beneath my radar, emergent finally & I laugh my goddam ass off... & so does she.

& then I feel her fingertips, so gently, so very hesitantly, caress the skin of my neck, touch my earlobe, slide smoothly across my cheek. She leans close, as do I. My heart leaps like a startled cat & I wrap my arm around her legs & turn to her... She kisses me & I kiss her. We do not stop. I sense Nathan & Mck leaving, off to consumate their own brief affair & we laugh, still kissing, touching, holding. I remember what someone once told me, in this very situation, as we kissed & laughed, I can feel the smile beneath your kiss & this too, is very much like that. Life runs in circles. Nothing changes though nothing is ever the same.

Like I said, we just laugh & kiss & laugh.

Kendle spends the night, though we sleep, shyly, in our clothes. She tells me of a dream she had, months back, incredibly pornographic, the two of us on my couch. I ask for details, she declines, Very raunchy but very fun, she says. I laugh & wrap my arm around her. I didn't think this would happen, I tell her. But it has, she tells me.

Morning wakes us & Kendle gathers her things. Time to face the music, she says & walks home to deal with her certainly furious ex. She calls me 20 minutes later & tells me the apartment is trashed, her ex just screamed & shoved her, stormed out the door, she's coming back over immediately. We spend the day talking & she spends the night again & then again. The following morning I find a pile of garbage, beer cans & some of Kendle's things thrown into a pile on the front lawn. I call to Kendle, Hey, we got a love gift out here...

I'm so sorry, she says & runs home to confront him... again.

She does not spend the night that evening, never will again. She says she has to spend her nights in the apartment, to keep him from flipping out, just until one of them can find a different living situation. Ok, I say, believing her. This is where I should have signed off, Sayonara senorita, call me when it works out because this isn't wise, it's dumb...

But I didn't, but I should've, but I'm no fucking cassandra.

& now, an ice storm hits PDX like a giant white fist, shutting down everthing. For a week or more, just getting to the store, 7 blocks away, is a treacherous, if fun, affair.

One night, Kendle & I get fairly thrashed, adventure out onto the icy teflon that was my front lawn. We slide around for an hour, throwing ourselves down, sometimes even on purpose & as our laughter echoes warmly up the jagged terrain of the empty streets, I'm thinking, I could fall in love with this goofy crazy girl.

& I'm also thinking, Have I already?

As we are struggling up the porch stairs, heading inside, Kendle falls, hard this time, right on her ass & the heart-shaped bruise there will nearly outlast our relationship.

So the weeks pass & we hang out often. She stays till 3, 4, 5 in the morning & then, maddeningly, always staggers home. Thru all of this, she wants to sleep together, as in Let's Fuck, but I refuse, until she can actually stay. I'm not going to let you fuck & run, I tell her, because I know... I know that would piss me off in a deep way.

But my anger was palatable anyway, some mornings, watching her leave, when everything, absolutely everything told me, Kendle, you should stay.

My situation is no secret. What a fucking cunt, says one female friend of mine, she simply cannot do that. Another friend tells me, You are being played, somehow, I don't exactly know... But fuck that. Run the fuck away. Get out of it all. Now. & his face is serious as he says it.

& yes, I think, I am indeed, somehow, being played. I tell this to Kendle one night, as we sit in the dim glow of the christmas lights in my room. Rebound, I call myself & her eyes are worried. I thought you might think that, she says. We talk about the concept for a while & then, as ever, she leaves...

& I realize, as the door shuts behind her, she never did contradict me.

I also begin to realize that this entire ordeal, it isn't about me. It's about her & Kris. I am a stray component, a bridge, a weapon of sorts... in a war I can't see, only feel. It's been a couple of months now & she hasn't moved, nor has her ex (current?) lover. They cohabitate still & I'm a fool. My anger grows, she senses it & we both know that this pseudo-romance is but a diseased limb, in need of amputation.

Her classes fire back up & shortly after, one grey wet morning, we walk to the coffee shop, sit & talk nothing talk. We walk back to my house & she says she has things to do. On the front porch of my house, a light kiss & she walks away...

& I haven't seen her since.

Four months later & I sit here, finishing this story up. Summer is just around the corner, a kitten about to pounce & I welcome it, it's wonderful warm claws...

& I work only one job now, at Lovely Hula Hands. Life is good & though I still drink too much, I am a mostly happy bastard. Still, I wonder about Kendle sometimes, if she's found her way thru the obstinate maze that is her mind. I hope so, I hope she finds her way to where it is she wants to go. Sometimes, I think, too bad, we could have made the journey together. Yeah kiddo, we still had a lot of laughter left in us.

Other than that, there isn't much to say, or to feel. The whole sad little clusterfuck never ended, it just disappeared, poof! Like the collapse of some confused melancholy star & where it is now, no-one knows.

Now I've only one last thing to do. I still have her email address. I'm going to to attach this as a file & I'm going to fire it off, thru the mysterious & tangled web, to where-ever she is, where-ever that melancholy star disappeared to.

Goodbye, Kendle... & good luck.