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Bound by Contempt
BY DAN RADKE I SEPTEMBER 8, 2008
Dolores, an emaciated, beautiful woman, her style still clinging to the flapper rage of a decade and a half earlier, had just finished the "t" of "contempt," her own message written on the sidewalk of a busy street in Buffalo, New York. She used chalk. Her print on the world would surely fade away with enough time. She smiled at her words, then turned and strolled into the dark, bustling hotel.
She looked out of the open window, watching the many automobiles and bodies fly past her. She slowly poured her fourth glass of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. Placing her nose far into the glass, the end of it just above the bitter liquid, it slightly evaporated, burning her eyes. She took in a slow, deep breath, filling her lungs with beautiful poison. After taking down the contents of the glass in little under a moment, she poured herself another.
Dolores carefully stumbled through her shady hotel room. Opening the top drawer of the dresser, she produced a framed photograph. It was of a couple. The woman was her, but more robust, sober, and fewer wrinkles. The man was in his late twenties, with dark hair and a squared jaw. He wore a wife-beater, a little hat tipped to the side, and his pants were the bottom half of a full outfit worn by marines. His massive arms were wrapped around her, hugging her.
Both forgotten figures smiled at her.
She made way back to the window with a quickened pace. Peeking her head out, she could see her one contribution to the city already fading away from footprints.
She finished her drink in two large gulps, then lightly tossed the picture out the window, its frame and glass falling to pieces, settling next to her worn message. She poured one last drink, this time sucking it down a moment after it settled in the glass.
She grabbed the crowbar waiting for her on the counter, then faded out of room 203, leaving the door open.
Entering the elevator, with a somewhat concealed weapon, she told the bellboy to take her up to the eighth floor. He complied.
Scanning the hallway, she found room 803. She brandished her crowbar, using it to knock.
A large man swung the door open, his eyes darting from the woman's face to the crowbar in her hand.
"Can I.... help you, ma'am?"
Dolores let out a tiny laugh.
"I doubt anyone can..."
With a quick swing, Dolores planted the crowbar between the man's legs, sending him to the floor. The wind was knocked out of him, he couldn't scream.
She walked to the window, shattering it with iron. She leaned over, peeking out onto the street. Right below her, eight floors down, she saw her almost finished work of art.
"Perfect," she said.
The man looked up, just in time to see the sickly woman hurl herself out of his window. Moments later, a sound wave rivaling thunder penetrated everything alive and dead within a half a mile. Her skull cracked, a fracture running across her hairline, dipping down and disappearing at the bridge of her nose...
Then her thin blood flowed out onto the sidewalk, washing contempt away.
This is based on a true story. I doubt the words "Bound by Contempt" were written on the sidewalk. I doubt she was bound by contempt at all. Probably bound by despair, loneliness or remorse.
One thing's for sure, she wasn't bound by a thing after she passed through the window in room 803.
Many things are true. Later that evening, a man told police that the woman had shoved a crowbar between his legs, that he couldn't do anything but watch.
Searching her room they found a bottle of bourbon, a few shots from finished. They also found a picture of her with a man, never identified.
I now stand at the same window she leapt out of over sixty years before. I peer out, down to the street. There's a crack in the sidewalk eight stories below, but I doubt it was her last impression on this earth. That was probably erased by new pavement long ago.
I'm here because this woman, Dolores, fascinates me. I envy her. To find someone you love so much that when you lose them, (like she lost her Marine man, most likely to World War II) that the only feasible option is suicide. To know that anyone else you find in your life will be second to them?
There are similarities between her and me. I, too, sit in a room in the same hotel with a picture and a bottle of bourbon.
The woman in my picture is Amanda Livingston. We're sitting on a beach in Virginia, my arm wrapped around her, both of us loving the moment, smiling at the camera, the sun a dark orange rising behind us. Two years later, six months ago, cancer took her.
They say that time heals all wounds, but I haven't seen it. I'm as sad, as depressed, as hysterical as I was six months ago when I saw her draw her last breath. One thing has changed, though. I'm filled with hatred. Hatred for whatever's out there, whatever took my one love. Be it chance, poor genetics, or God himself. I hate it.
Staring out the eighth story window, I realize, I'm the one bound by contempt.
But there's no fucking way I'm jumping.
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