Short Story: Afghanistan Bananastan
Too big to get lost, the stone hangs so heavily around her neck that no matter how she moves it stays centered between her breasts. Her hair moves over her shoulders: one piece of silk. Her lips move when she talks. Her cheeks move when she smiles. Her eyes light up when she grins shyly and looks away. Her body moves a little to the music. But the jewel is always.. right there.
Faintly shining, it is dark blue on a rope of silver; a gold clasp through a small hole in the sides, the stone has become its own presence in the room.
Jimmy sees her and snaps his fingers with a smile. “Julie’s here.”
John stares at her, lowers his arms and wiggles his fingers at the scene before them like a boxer warming up for a fight. “Really? Where?”
Jimmy just laughs out loud and steps into the crowd. She hears his laugh and looks to the man standing next to her, suddenly admiring his tie.
When you see Julie, you don’t hear finger picked acoustic guitar with maybe a harmonica for innocence. Don’t get me wrong. She is her own kind of clean. But you hear old jazz, a kind of decadent, sophisticated music full of horns and drums. Hello. I knew a girl named Paula like that once. No matter where she is in the world I still do. Never even kissed her. Long story (only if you are young). She loved it—and hated it. I just hated it. I always hang out with the wrong kind of girl.
A guy like me—I’m more acoustic. A little too simple maybe. Even I think I’m stupid sometimes. Paula. I see what’s happening and just head to the bar.
Julie appears beside me. The music has picked up and everyone is dancing.
“Don’t look so shocked. I can’t help how I look.”
I smile and laugh a little at that. Yeah. Very heavy stone. Expensive.
“So what is it?”
“Oh. The stone?” She fingers it and holds it up so she can look at it.
“Aren’t you ever real?”
“It’s lapis L.”
“L?”
“I hate to say it because I’ve always seen it in print but I’ve never heard it pronounced. I hate being wrong. Lazoolee?”
I catch myself staring. And nodding. “Close enough. It’s a combination of the latin word ‘lapis’ which means stone and the Arabic word ‘azul’ which means blue. Mined mainly in Afghanistan. It looks good on you, whatever you call it. ” If I was a real authority on it and it was main attraction I would have pulled out a monocle, cradled it in my hand and twirled it in the light. But it’s just some info I picked up reading a magazine in the doctors office waiting for my mother. I’m a regular encyclopedia of trivia that spills out on the odd cues I never see coming.
“You ask questions you already know the answer to. I’d love to hear your prayers.”
I shrug and take a sip of my drink.
She doesn’t stop. “You want to get out of here?”
I look her in the eyes. She has that “I’m pleading but not really” look. Sometimes I think she is me in reverse. If I really thought she could be real for a minute, if I would get a real kiss and we could build something, (or at least get some good conversation) instead of a ‘hot’ kiss I would go. Hell, I’d run with her. But she just wants me to play against Jimmy and John and start some trouble.
We catch ourselves staring at each other and realize we don’t know how long we’ve been doing it. This is the third time we’ve come within a hair’s breadth of kissing and everything else. Before Paula I would have swallowed hard out of reflex. I pick up my drink and nod to the bartender. He comes over and asks her what she wants. She frowns and takes a deep breath as she sighs. The stone is a witness between us. She’s not mad, just frustrated. The only reason she comes back is because I haven’t fallen for it yet.
That’s how they get you on hold: Hoping for reality in the middle of all the background noise. She won’t speak to me at church. She just looks at me sometimes as she sits there; doesn’t answer when I speak to her. She says I’m more approachable in here.
She smoothes a stray hair back and pulls out the barstool next to mine. “I’m not leaving this time.” Her eyes play over my face. “Wine cooler.”
———————————————
Proverbs 7:10-12 And behold, there met him a woman in the attire of a harlot, and subtle of heart. She is clamorous and unmanageable; her feet abide not in her house: now without, now in the broadways, –and she lieth in wait at every corner.
In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen
Am I now come up without Jehovah against this place to destroy it? Jehovah said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it. 2 Kings 18:25
Anti-Christ tried the lie that God had sent him to conqueor Jerusalem through the Assyrians. But God says to the worshipers of demons who hate Jesus Christ and Israel: "But I know thine abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, And thy raging against me." 2 Kings 19:27