Steven Hunley
12-02-2010, 08:12 PM
Rio/Hannah
by
Steven Hunley
You all know Rio. She’s hard to miss. When you checkout at the grocery she surrounds you. And not just here, she’s all over the world. Cosmo, Elle, Vogue, Paris Match, Der Spiegel, they’ve all used her face. That’s just how it is.
She always had that something that made men look at her just as he always had that something that made women look at him. In her case it was a figure built like a brick sh*t-house. In his case it was an Afghan hound. So it’s no surprise they met. I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Better to start at the beginning.
He used to go to the park to smoke joints with his best friend George who he insisted on referring to as Jorge. They’d take the dog too. After they’d copped a buzz they’d sit on the lawn under the eucalyptus trees and watch the tennis players.
Gleaming white in their tennis outfits, intent on bonk-bonking their green neon balls back and forth, they seemed to inhabit a world apart. But soon their worlds would collide.
It all started when Jorge said,
“Take a look at that.”
“At what?”
“At that,” he said, motioning to the courts.
He saw a girl stepping onto the court and knew at once that she was what it was all about.
“Of course you mean at her,” he replied, “she certainly has all the curves.”
“Yeah,” Jorge said thoughtfully, “ and in all the right places.”
He had to agree. Even though it was filtered through a chain-link fence the evidence was undeniable. Even the Afghan hound Mahmood was looking. The dog was a sight-hound and male as well, so you could hardly blame him. Maybe all men are sight-hounds. The girl’s curly dark hair contrasted against the white of her tennis outfit. When she ran or swung at the ball she displayed a certain grace. Watching her play, he finally understood the phrase “poetry in motion”. You can imagine how pleased he was a week later when he saw her again. No details were available. She was yards away and behind a fence. No sounds, no eye color, no details.
It’s funny, when a man can’t talk to a girl, he speculates, and she takes on a mythic quality. That’s how it was with her. Mood’s master became obsessed with her origin and her name. It should be explained that he was a writer and expected the name to match the woman. A name should alway mirror the character. But what was hers? Whatever it was it had to be as lovely as she, he just knew it. As exotic too. But there was no way to find out. Knowing this he resigned himself to a dull fate. He felt sorry for himself, which wasn’t unusual for him.
Then one afternoon it all changed.
He was in his normal spot dope-dreaming, waiting for her to show. A green neon ball bounced up and over his head. For the first time in his life Moody fetched. He looked around, wondering where it came from. He looked at the courts and she still wasn’t there.
“I’ve been daydreaming too long and missed her entirely,” he surmised.
But he was wrong, for not ten steps away and coming toward him full-throttle was the mystery girl herself. He was shocked. He had no time to prepare himself or think of something clever to say. That was O.K. because she spoke first.
“He doesn’t bite, does he?”
“No, he’s a lover not a biter.”
He was amazed and rather proud to have gotten off such a clever response on such short notice.
“He’s got my ball. You see?”
She pointed to the hairy dog’s mouth.
“Ah yes, so he has. I’ll get it.”
It was easy to remove. Some dogs are tough to get things out of their mouths, but not the Mood. He’d let you retrieve a sirloin steak if you wanted it back. It did have a bit of dog-slobber so he rubbed it on his Levis.
“Here you go,” he said handing over the damp ball, “good as new.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mahmood.”
She was petting him now, running her fingers through his hair. She didn’t have to lean over, he was tall enough, and leaning tight against her leg.
“Mahmood, pleased to meet you,” she said, “I’m Hannah.”
Some dude started calling her back to the courts.
“I practice here every Wednesday and Saturday. I hope to see you again.”
She said this last bit addressing it to the dog with her voice but looking at his master with her eyes. They crinkled at the corners.
“See ya,” and she was gone.
The next week you know he was back. She expected he would be. They talked and talked. It didn’t matter about what. They were the perfect strangers. The kind you confide in just because you think you’ll never see them again. She noticed he didn’t listen to her words. He listened to her. It excited her. He noticed her half-languid girlishness that looked so soft, yet was balanced and inalterable underneath. She seemed so unspoiled, so unpretentious, so perfect. She charmed him right out of his skin.
But something was wrong, something about his perception of her. He couldn’t figure it out so it nagged him constantly. Finally he realized what it was. It was her name. It didn’t fit. I mean, here she was, dynamic, exotic, possessing a dark flame that set him afire. Her name produced an image that was entirely different. I mean think of it. Hannah? Hannah wasn’t much. Hannah wasn’t her. Hannah was a blond-haired, thin, anemic white girl who was probably a Quaker and had no spark at all. Not this dark exotic Portuguese girl who possessed the flame of desire itself. No way.
This idea possessed him until one day it came tumbling out. He couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Hannah,” he said, “did you ever notice how in novels the characters’ names always fit them, how they almost represent them?”
“Yeah,” she replied, looking at him attentively. She saw something familiar coming.
“Did you ever think,” he started to say but fumbled his words.
“That my name doesn’t fit me?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“I’ve been thinking that for years.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought it was just me.”
“What am I gonna do, change it?”
It seemed logical that nothing could be done. Then it happened. The radio. He listened to oldies and when the radio was playing oldies he heard Duran Duran’s Rio, one of their first hits. They sang, “Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.” It was so obvious to him. It fit her like a glove.
Hadn’t he called her an island girl? Weren’t her people from the Azores? Isn’t that what island girls do, dance on the sand? Where else they gonna dance? Wasn’t she like the city of Rio? Fun, foreign, sexy, a regular carnival? She was to him. After he viewed the video on You Tube he was convinced. The girl in the video was only playing Rio. This girl was Rio. The name fit. In his mind that’s who she became. He never told her. It was such a crazy thought, and it was something else. It was a magic name, a name you could conjure with. So he figured he’d keep it a secret. At least for a million years. That was the plan. Until the day they went to the beach.
They walked towards the cliffs with a view. Seagulls screamed and circled overhead. Soon only the sea was crashing beneath them. She stepped away and looked at the horizon lost in thought.
“I’ve always wondered what was just over there,” she said wistfully.
He knew she was speaking metaphorically, but the geographer in him spoke out.
“Well, straight ahead is Honolulu, about twenty-five hundred miles I’d guess.”
“And beyond that?”
“After that it’d be Tokyo, at about fifty-five hundred, if you like sushi.”
“And,” she said turning south, “what if I went this direction, and real far away, then what would I run into?”
“It’s you, you’d run into then, it’s Rio.”
It just slipped out.
“You mean Rio De Janeiro?”
“Oh, I mean the city alright, but I mean you too. Let me explain.”
They sat on the grass. He proceeded with the story. About her name not fitting, about the song by Duran Duran, about how Rio fit so well. She agreed that it was his craziest thought to date, but also that it made sense in a pretzel-logic sort of way. She sat silent for a minute. Then she spoke.
“Well,’ she said, “it is kinda crazy, but I do sort of like it. Rio. It is kinda cool. Kinda slutty,” she shook her finger at him, “but kinda cool.”
When she got home that day from the beach that day she found a letter in her mailbox. She’d been accepted to U.C.L.A. on a tennis scholarship. She couldn’t seem to get him on the phone and he never came by the park. She left town a week later and started school. Though it was only a hundred and twenty miles away it might as well have been a million.
Three years went by. He never forgot her. How could he? Still, life has a way of intervening. A few seasons came and went, a few women came and went, but all the time she remained on his back burner, simmering, until the flame was so low it went out. Finally he’d reached the point where he thought of her only on some nights, instead of all, so he neatly filed her away in the four-word category file. It’s a file that men and women have in the filing cabinets of their minds. He put her in the “One Who Got Away” file and closed the drawer tight.
He also returned to his old job which was smuggling dope. Now, like some computer program, he was up again and running. He was in L.A.X. on the side that had international departures. His passport was fresh and he felt the same way. It was his first trip out of the country in three years. He was wasting his time, having missed his Varig flight, and now waiting to fly on Braniff. He had two hours to kill. He wasn’t in a very good mood. One simply isn’t satisfied with Braniff once they’ve flown Varig. It had been three years and he was as spoiled as ever. It felt good to be spoiled and heading back down south. He’d read his photo magazine from cover to cover. Now he had nothing to do and an hour and a half to do it in. He looked around.
It was late, and there were few people there to amuse him. Still, he decided to people-watch.
Directly in front of him was couple about two rows up. The dude was sleek and slim and talked with an accent. He looked Italian and it only made sense he was wearing an Armani suit. Nice Italian shoes too. Figured.
“Some sort of Euro-trash,” he thought, “probably wants to go home to Milan real bad.”
He couldn’t see the woman too well, she was directly in front of him facing away but he couldn’t miss her. She had one of those hats with an enormous brim. He could see her arm as it was extended. I mean, how could he miss it with all that bling? Then from the other side her hand appeared. It was festooned with bright shiny rings. Double-bling.
“Probably only buys haute-couture,” he sniffed, “probably wears it too.”
They’d been making announcements over the P.A. system, but it stopped. Now he could hear them well. It was time to ear-hustle. She was letting her man have it.
“You know Enrico we mustn’t be late for the countess’s party nor for the photo shoot.”
She spoke with authority, like she was married to the dude.
“Yes Darling.”
“I won’t have it Enrico, I simply won’t have it. And the people at the gala last night, you let them get much too close to me, really much too close.”
She shook her jeweled finger at him and continued to reprimand,
“You know I don’t like it. I won’t have any of that either. I simply won’t have it Enrico, I won’t have any of that!”
“Yes Darling,” he repeated deferentially.
Maybe that was the only two words of English he knew,”Yes”and “Darling.” He was beginning to feel sorry for the guy. Imagine being married to her. It would be “Enrico” this and “Enrico” that, twenty-four seven.
Finally Enrico excused himself with, “I have to use the W.C. Darling.”
Poor dude, he’d do anything to get away from her. He walked by and tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. What could he do? Right then the P.A.system announced with a crackle,
“Braniff boarding in fifteen minutes.”
He was glad to escape this side-show. As he walked past he couldn’t help but look under the brim of that hat to cop a glance at the b*tch. Who do you think it was? Yeah, it was her. It was Rio/Hannah.
“Darling,” she screamed, “it’s you!”
She clutched his arm with her jeweled hand and pulled him down into the seat next to her.
“So it is, Hannah, but what’s happened to you? I mean…how are you?”
“Fabulous darling, simply fabulous! But it’s Rio now darling, Rio. But let me bring you up to date.
I got a tennis scholarship to U.C.L.A. Just for fun I took a film class. They’d make you do all the stuff. They’d make you produce, do art design, paint backdrops, direct, and even act. All the students had to act in the films and be the audience as well. One day a student would be a director or an actor, the next day he’d be selling tickets or in the audience. We’d all be in each other’s films.
I had a small part, and when they were doing the credits they asked me how to spell my name.
“Spell it R.I.O.” I said.
What did I have to lose? Nobody knew me there. Somebody saw it of course. He wanted to make a shampoo commercial for television. He wanted me, who else? That was the start. Then it was toothpaste, which led to a sweater catalogue for Fingerhut, which led to fashion, and then it, I should say I, really took off. The rest was, as they say, history. But you know all that don’t you?”
He looked puzzled. He didn’t read fashion magazines, or watch T.V. He missed it all. Suddenly the P.A.crackled again.
“Braniff flight 762 boarding for Lima.”
“That’s me,” he said, “I gotta go.”
She pulled him close and kissed him desperately, as if she wanted to escape. He started to walk away.
“Thank you, thanks so much,” she cried.
Had he left something? He didn’t give her anything. He hesitated a second and turned.
“What for?” he shouted.
“For Rio, darling, for Rio,” she sobbed.
As he was handing the stewardess his boarding pass he saw it was raining outside. He buttoned up his coat, which was pretty funny since he’d never get wet, the entrance was an accordion-companionway and completely enclosed. It was as if he was already thinking of how it would be down south. Walking down the companionway alone he reflected upon what he’d just seen. About half-way down he hesitated a minute while he whispered to himself a kind of prayer.
“Forgive me Father, for I know not what I did.”
He walked up to the door of the plane, and hesitated once more as thoughts raced through his mind. Was he really at fault? Was his name what had changed her? And what about now? This dope running scheme. Would God judge him harshly for dreams he had yet to fulfill?
“Not if I can fulfill them first,” he decided and resolutely stepped aboard only too happy to make his escape.
by
Steven Hunley
You all know Rio. She’s hard to miss. When you checkout at the grocery she surrounds you. And not just here, she’s all over the world. Cosmo, Elle, Vogue, Paris Match, Der Spiegel, they’ve all used her face. That’s just how it is.
She always had that something that made men look at her just as he always had that something that made women look at him. In her case it was a figure built like a brick sh*t-house. In his case it was an Afghan hound. So it’s no surprise they met. I’m getting a little ahead of myself. Better to start at the beginning.
He used to go to the park to smoke joints with his best friend George who he insisted on referring to as Jorge. They’d take the dog too. After they’d copped a buzz they’d sit on the lawn under the eucalyptus trees and watch the tennis players.
Gleaming white in their tennis outfits, intent on bonk-bonking their green neon balls back and forth, they seemed to inhabit a world apart. But soon their worlds would collide.
It all started when Jorge said,
“Take a look at that.”
“At what?”
“At that,” he said, motioning to the courts.
He saw a girl stepping onto the court and knew at once that she was what it was all about.
“Of course you mean at her,” he replied, “she certainly has all the curves.”
“Yeah,” Jorge said thoughtfully, “ and in all the right places.”
He had to agree. Even though it was filtered through a chain-link fence the evidence was undeniable. Even the Afghan hound Mahmood was looking. The dog was a sight-hound and male as well, so you could hardly blame him. Maybe all men are sight-hounds. The girl’s curly dark hair contrasted against the white of her tennis outfit. When she ran or swung at the ball she displayed a certain grace. Watching her play, he finally understood the phrase “poetry in motion”. You can imagine how pleased he was a week later when he saw her again. No details were available. She was yards away and behind a fence. No sounds, no eye color, no details.
It’s funny, when a man can’t talk to a girl, he speculates, and she takes on a mythic quality. That’s how it was with her. Mood’s master became obsessed with her origin and her name. It should be explained that he was a writer and expected the name to match the woman. A name should alway mirror the character. But what was hers? Whatever it was it had to be as lovely as she, he just knew it. As exotic too. But there was no way to find out. Knowing this he resigned himself to a dull fate. He felt sorry for himself, which wasn’t unusual for him.
Then one afternoon it all changed.
He was in his normal spot dope-dreaming, waiting for her to show. A green neon ball bounced up and over his head. For the first time in his life Moody fetched. He looked around, wondering where it came from. He looked at the courts and she still wasn’t there.
“I’ve been daydreaming too long and missed her entirely,” he surmised.
But he was wrong, for not ten steps away and coming toward him full-throttle was the mystery girl herself. He was shocked. He had no time to prepare himself or think of something clever to say. That was O.K. because she spoke first.
“He doesn’t bite, does he?”
“No, he’s a lover not a biter.”
He was amazed and rather proud to have gotten off such a clever response on such short notice.
“He’s got my ball. You see?”
She pointed to the hairy dog’s mouth.
“Ah yes, so he has. I’ll get it.”
It was easy to remove. Some dogs are tough to get things out of their mouths, but not the Mood. He’d let you retrieve a sirloin steak if you wanted it back. It did have a bit of dog-slobber so he rubbed it on his Levis.
“Here you go,” he said handing over the damp ball, “good as new.”
“What’s his name?”
“Mahmood.”
She was petting him now, running her fingers through his hair. She didn’t have to lean over, he was tall enough, and leaning tight against her leg.
“Mahmood, pleased to meet you,” she said, “I’m Hannah.”
Some dude started calling her back to the courts.
“I practice here every Wednesday and Saturday. I hope to see you again.”
She said this last bit addressing it to the dog with her voice but looking at his master with her eyes. They crinkled at the corners.
“See ya,” and she was gone.
The next week you know he was back. She expected he would be. They talked and talked. It didn’t matter about what. They were the perfect strangers. The kind you confide in just because you think you’ll never see them again. She noticed he didn’t listen to her words. He listened to her. It excited her. He noticed her half-languid girlishness that looked so soft, yet was balanced and inalterable underneath. She seemed so unspoiled, so unpretentious, so perfect. She charmed him right out of his skin.
But something was wrong, something about his perception of her. He couldn’t figure it out so it nagged him constantly. Finally he realized what it was. It was her name. It didn’t fit. I mean, here she was, dynamic, exotic, possessing a dark flame that set him afire. Her name produced an image that was entirely different. I mean think of it. Hannah? Hannah wasn’t much. Hannah wasn’t her. Hannah was a blond-haired, thin, anemic white girl who was probably a Quaker and had no spark at all. Not this dark exotic Portuguese girl who possessed the flame of desire itself. No way.
This idea possessed him until one day it came tumbling out. He couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Hannah,” he said, “did you ever notice how in novels the characters’ names always fit them, how they almost represent them?”
“Yeah,” she replied, looking at him attentively. She saw something familiar coming.
“Did you ever think,” he started to say but fumbled his words.
“That my name doesn’t fit me?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
“I’ve been thinking that for years.”
“Oh, thank God. I thought it was just me.”
“What am I gonna do, change it?”
It seemed logical that nothing could be done. Then it happened. The radio. He listened to oldies and when the radio was playing oldies he heard Duran Duran’s Rio, one of their first hits. They sang, “Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.” It was so obvious to him. It fit her like a glove.
Hadn’t he called her an island girl? Weren’t her people from the Azores? Isn’t that what island girls do, dance on the sand? Where else they gonna dance? Wasn’t she like the city of Rio? Fun, foreign, sexy, a regular carnival? She was to him. After he viewed the video on You Tube he was convinced. The girl in the video was only playing Rio. This girl was Rio. The name fit. In his mind that’s who she became. He never told her. It was such a crazy thought, and it was something else. It was a magic name, a name you could conjure with. So he figured he’d keep it a secret. At least for a million years. That was the plan. Until the day they went to the beach.
They walked towards the cliffs with a view. Seagulls screamed and circled overhead. Soon only the sea was crashing beneath them. She stepped away and looked at the horizon lost in thought.
“I’ve always wondered what was just over there,” she said wistfully.
He knew she was speaking metaphorically, but the geographer in him spoke out.
“Well, straight ahead is Honolulu, about twenty-five hundred miles I’d guess.”
“And beyond that?”
“After that it’d be Tokyo, at about fifty-five hundred, if you like sushi.”
“And,” she said turning south, “what if I went this direction, and real far away, then what would I run into?”
“It’s you, you’d run into then, it’s Rio.”
It just slipped out.
“You mean Rio De Janeiro?”
“Oh, I mean the city alright, but I mean you too. Let me explain.”
They sat on the grass. He proceeded with the story. About her name not fitting, about the song by Duran Duran, about how Rio fit so well. She agreed that it was his craziest thought to date, but also that it made sense in a pretzel-logic sort of way. She sat silent for a minute. Then she spoke.
“Well,’ she said, “it is kinda crazy, but I do sort of like it. Rio. It is kinda cool. Kinda slutty,” she shook her finger at him, “but kinda cool.”
When she got home that day from the beach that day she found a letter in her mailbox. She’d been accepted to U.C.L.A. on a tennis scholarship. She couldn’t seem to get him on the phone and he never came by the park. She left town a week later and started school. Though it was only a hundred and twenty miles away it might as well have been a million.
Three years went by. He never forgot her. How could he? Still, life has a way of intervening. A few seasons came and went, a few women came and went, but all the time she remained on his back burner, simmering, until the flame was so low it went out. Finally he’d reached the point where he thought of her only on some nights, instead of all, so he neatly filed her away in the four-word category file. It’s a file that men and women have in the filing cabinets of their minds. He put her in the “One Who Got Away” file and closed the drawer tight.
He also returned to his old job which was smuggling dope. Now, like some computer program, he was up again and running. He was in L.A.X. on the side that had international departures. His passport was fresh and he felt the same way. It was his first trip out of the country in three years. He was wasting his time, having missed his Varig flight, and now waiting to fly on Braniff. He had two hours to kill. He wasn’t in a very good mood. One simply isn’t satisfied with Braniff once they’ve flown Varig. It had been three years and he was as spoiled as ever. It felt good to be spoiled and heading back down south. He’d read his photo magazine from cover to cover. Now he had nothing to do and an hour and a half to do it in. He looked around.
It was late, and there were few people there to amuse him. Still, he decided to people-watch.
Directly in front of him was couple about two rows up. The dude was sleek and slim and talked with an accent. He looked Italian and it only made sense he was wearing an Armani suit. Nice Italian shoes too. Figured.
“Some sort of Euro-trash,” he thought, “probably wants to go home to Milan real bad.”
He couldn’t see the woman too well, she was directly in front of him facing away but he couldn’t miss her. She had one of those hats with an enormous brim. He could see her arm as it was extended. I mean, how could he miss it with all that bling? Then from the other side her hand appeared. It was festooned with bright shiny rings. Double-bling.
“Probably only buys haute-couture,” he sniffed, “probably wears it too.”
They’d been making announcements over the P.A. system, but it stopped. Now he could hear them well. It was time to ear-hustle. She was letting her man have it.
“You know Enrico we mustn’t be late for the countess’s party nor for the photo shoot.”
She spoke with authority, like she was married to the dude.
“Yes Darling.”
“I won’t have it Enrico, I simply won’t have it. And the people at the gala last night, you let them get much too close to me, really much too close.”
She shook her jeweled finger at him and continued to reprimand,
“You know I don’t like it. I won’t have any of that either. I simply won’t have it Enrico, I won’t have any of that!”
“Yes Darling,” he repeated deferentially.
Maybe that was the only two words of English he knew,”Yes”and “Darling.” He was beginning to feel sorry for the guy. Imagine being married to her. It would be “Enrico” this and “Enrico” that, twenty-four seven.
Finally Enrico excused himself with, “I have to use the W.C. Darling.”
Poor dude, he’d do anything to get away from her. He walked by and tilted his head and shrugged his shoulders sheepishly. What could he do? Right then the P.A.system announced with a crackle,
“Braniff boarding in fifteen minutes.”
He was glad to escape this side-show. As he walked past he couldn’t help but look under the brim of that hat to cop a glance at the b*tch. Who do you think it was? Yeah, it was her. It was Rio/Hannah.
“Darling,” she screamed, “it’s you!”
She clutched his arm with her jeweled hand and pulled him down into the seat next to her.
“So it is, Hannah, but what’s happened to you? I mean…how are you?”
“Fabulous darling, simply fabulous! But it’s Rio now darling, Rio. But let me bring you up to date.
I got a tennis scholarship to U.C.L.A. Just for fun I took a film class. They’d make you do all the stuff. They’d make you produce, do art design, paint backdrops, direct, and even act. All the students had to act in the films and be the audience as well. One day a student would be a director or an actor, the next day he’d be selling tickets or in the audience. We’d all be in each other’s films.
I had a small part, and when they were doing the credits they asked me how to spell my name.
“Spell it R.I.O.” I said.
What did I have to lose? Nobody knew me there. Somebody saw it of course. He wanted to make a shampoo commercial for television. He wanted me, who else? That was the start. Then it was toothpaste, which led to a sweater catalogue for Fingerhut, which led to fashion, and then it, I should say I, really took off. The rest was, as they say, history. But you know all that don’t you?”
He looked puzzled. He didn’t read fashion magazines, or watch T.V. He missed it all. Suddenly the P.A.crackled again.
“Braniff flight 762 boarding for Lima.”
“That’s me,” he said, “I gotta go.”
She pulled him close and kissed him desperately, as if she wanted to escape. He started to walk away.
“Thank you, thanks so much,” she cried.
Had he left something? He didn’t give her anything. He hesitated a second and turned.
“What for?” he shouted.
“For Rio, darling, for Rio,” she sobbed.
As he was handing the stewardess his boarding pass he saw it was raining outside. He buttoned up his coat, which was pretty funny since he’d never get wet, the entrance was an accordion-companionway and completely enclosed. It was as if he was already thinking of how it would be down south. Walking down the companionway alone he reflected upon what he’d just seen. About half-way down he hesitated a minute while he whispered to himself a kind of prayer.
“Forgive me Father, for I know not what I did.”
He walked up to the door of the plane, and hesitated once more as thoughts raced through his mind. Was he really at fault? Was his name what had changed her? And what about now? This dope running scheme. Would God judge him harshly for dreams he had yet to fulfill?
“Not if I can fulfill them first,” he decided and resolutely stepped aboard only too happy to make his escape.