It always took her ages to get ready, smudging kohl precisely into a faux-trashy look, winged eyeliner on the top lid. She applied eyebrow pencil, not arching too high, hoping to avoid the “permanently surprised” effect. He texts “You on your way doll?” She replies that she needs to put on her fake nails, that she’ll run them down his back later. His text back, “alri darlin’, I’ll wear my fake shoulder blades”. Even when he was high, he was dead funny. Tells her he has a guy calling and then he’s on his way too. She hesitates to tell him she has butterflies in her stomach about seeing him again. “haha I think I have moths”, his text says. His joke reminded her that she liked “doll” or “babe” but hated “moth”, Dublin-speak for girls who want their men to buy them gifts, pay for meals, prove their love, eating away at their pockets and wallets. Over a short satin skirt, she laces up a steel-grey PVC corset, wondering if he’ll like it or whether it looks too “Terminator”. She spends ages tying up her cybergoth boots though there’s a zip at the side.
Mid-November and the air is already cold enough to hurt her face. She pulls her hands inside her jacket, at least four pairs of gloves at home but she never remembers them. Can’t help looking like she’s power-walking in the boots, platforms about a foot high, passing dingy Dublin shopfronts and alleyways that always smell like piss. On Lower Gardiner Street, a piggy-looking teenager with giant hoop earrings, white bomber jacket, shouts “Halloween is over luv” but Jade ignores the by-now familiar jibe. She has that tingly feeling and an ache in her solar plexus, not unpleasant, but the anticipation is rising. She conceptualises it as love bubbling inside her, waiting to burst out when she sees him! Checking her reflection, she sees red lips dark and shapely, black fringe over eye sockets like two black buttons on a rag doll in the distorted shop window likeness. She thinks of him, of when they can move away, when he can get out of the mess he’s in. Both were saving up and they would have a fresh start where no-one knew them and he wouldn’t have to deal anymore. Just another while till they had it all in place. She can’t wait until she sees him, he’ll be smoking and impatient, pacing. She will hold his tattooed hand, the crudely drawn black ink on his fingers that read GAME OVER.
Out onto O’Connell street, oblivious Spanish teenagers bash into her as she walks toward the spire, like a 120 metre high stainless steel needle, the “stiletto in the ghetto”, a beacon to junkies to congregate here. She waits for him. Every strutting man she sees, she thinks it’s him. No texts from him and he’s not usually late, in fact usually here first. It rains and she fears her makeup will run and she wished she’d worn a hoodie and not the jacket but this showed off the corset better and she wanted him to be impressed. Now a figure motionless by the spire, all types pass by her on this busy night, early Christmas shoppers struggling with bags, preachers, lovers talking about a film, friends in a group on the way to a restaurant, buskers packing up. So cold, she has to walk around in a circle. Can’t go in anywhere in case his phone is dead and they can’t locate each other. Two hours now and no sign.
She recognizes a man from the Metal bar on Parnell Street walking toward her, his piercings glinting in the streetlights. He’s talking loudly on his phone, drunk maybe. He doesn’t glance up as he passes but she can hear his side of the conversation. “Yeah, heard he got done, earlier tonight. Some Lithuanian drugs gang. No more gear from him, wha?” She feels like her insides are crumbling, like she has to sit down. Before she can locate the curb to sit on, she is falling but like slow motion, arms and legs like jelly. It’s like a weight is being pulled through her, pulling her heart downward. She hits the wet pavement face first. She hears the voices of two young women and feels their hands on her, trying to lift her, in their drunkenness failing to be graciously helpful. She never wants to open her eyes again. On the inside of her eyelids she visualises his hands. GAME OVER.
# # #
Dr Jenny Butler’s writing is inspired by what’s left when the glitter is brushed away. She has had short stories published most recently in Adelaide Literary Magazine and previously in various places including The Raven’s Perch Literary Magazine, Fictive Dream Magazine, Literary Orphans Literary Magazine, and Corvus Review. You can read more about her on her website www.drjennybutler.com. You can also find her on Twitter @jenny_butler_ and on Instagram @spiral_eyed_grrl.
Photo: Matteo Kutufa
