elle
i worked in a bar for about one year, every evening this elegant woman would come in and have a glass of wine, she was extremely well dressed and presented. in her late twenties i'd seen her around the town, driving a sporty car with personal number plates. always looking fantastic, wearing designer clothes, in the best restaurants, surrounded by beautiful people, but each evening you wold come into my bar and sit there perched on that stool looking like a marylyn monroe in her twilight. i don't know if i saw that then or now in retrospect, i was still fucked up and self centred. still caught up in my ego and identity games.
one day your drinking and i'm clearing up the bar, it's just us two, some funky piano plays, no one else around, the lights are low, and you ask me what i do when i am not fixing drinks.
it's the first time we speak, and i tell you that i work with homeless kids.
you suddenly appear interested in me. that happened a lot back then, everyone thinking i was some sort of saint or something, i was far from it, just a fucked up guy on the payroll, very occasionally i did something right and helped some kid, but most of the time it was just work.
elle came into that bar every evening, she always spoke to me from that moment, asking questions about my work, i'd only be happy to break up the monotony plus elle you were easy on the eye, easy on the ear, a god listener.
you started telling me about your childhood, about your alcoholic mother and how that traumatised you. how you wanted to give something back to children in trouble, how you had married a very rich man and yet you were miserable. how you pleaded with me to give you a chance to put something back.
well i said i would.
our friendship kinda grew, i felt really sorry for ya elle, a woman with everything except a happy childhood, how terrible your hurt, only stupid selfish me, did not know how deep it went.
you had the rich husband, you had the big house at whale beach and two beautiful children. and i was just a guy who made you drinks and gave you a few hours of my time when i had it.
then one night i finished work and went to a party, it was summer and i wore a tee shirt and my black jeans, i walked into that room, the one with all the mannequins, the first thing i did was sit at that big crowded table, the round one and roll a joint. i said hi to a few people who were on the table, sitting around in their pockets and then looking up i see you, dressed in white, opposite me, sitting there staring at me, not just staring but looking at me so pleadingly when i think about that look it still fucking haunts me.
'i want to leave mission, will you take me home?'
'elle, i just arrived. i wanna stay.'
that look intensified, i met it head on, scanned the face but still i refused.
what a fucking stupid fool i was elle, fucking selfish egoist, the life and soul of the party, the cool bartender, the idiot with the sexy drugs and easy smile, yeah elle i was so foolish.
you came over and pleaded with me to take you away and i stood my ground.
why?
so i could flirt with some girls, smoke some spliffs, no reasons really, just felt like i needed to kick back and chill out.
i didn't see you leave.
next morning i am sitting on the balcony at my friends place in palm beach, we are basking in hangover ambience, drinking tea and smoking joints, looking at girls on the beach, when a helicopter flies past. our attention follows the chopper to the cliffs at north avalon, we see some kinda commotion, some kind off drama being played out.
i spend the day languidly lazing around, recovering from a big night. that evening they tell me you threw yourself from that cliff. that your body crashed down upon the rocks broken and bloody.
i forgave myself but it hurt like hell.