Dirt

Part-time Model

    “Do you mind if I ask you something?” Trevor inquired as we were driving away from the land I was now exiled from until I learned the meaning of friendship as if I were some grouch-like character from a children's picture book.
    “I guess not, considering I’d be dying of starvation somewhere in the desert without you.” I replied with the sarcasm of a woman scorned.
    Trevor eyed me warily as if speaking to a toddler short of their nap, “Why do you hang out with them? They could have easily come out and looked for you last night, they’re both being fucking selfish.”
    “Well, it was my choice to leave and it was my responsibility to come back. They would never make the effort to do anything for me, and to be honest I’m pretty sure they’ve been searching for a reason to upset me for a while now, I’m also pretty sure they’ve been catching on to the fact that I hate them.” At this I snickered even though there was nothing funny about what I had concluded, to be honest I hadn’t admitted any of that to myself until that very moment, leaving me with a deep nauseating emptiness in my stomach.
    I would have been an idiot to believe that the look on Trevor’s face was empathetic but I liked to believe that I caught a hint of it, nothing in my life had probably compared to the hardship he had had in his own. I was a university student, with a part time job, who had mustered up some money for a spring vacation, and everything about my situation screamed American middle class, something which Trevor probably hadn’t tasted in a very long time.
    “Nora,” When he spoke my name it almost came as a surprise, the sound of sincerity in his voice was almost startling and I felt myself go tense in my seat, “Your friends are assholes. If I know anything, it’s assholes; I’ve known more than enough of them in my life and, well, I’m one of the biggest assholes out there. Come with me, we’ll laugh at some addicts high off their asses and we’ll grab some beer and get fucking sandwiches. Forget about your friends.”
    His speech made me wonder where he had been all of my life, it gave me an ounce of self worth that I had desperately needed for months. “Can you please be my motivational speaker?”
    Trevor let out an abrupt laugh, a simple ‘ha’ without looking in my direction, “It’s about fucking time someone listened to my ancient wisdom.”
    He took me to an abandoned strip including but not limited to a diner, a barber and a grocer. We parked in front of a man slouched over a couple of torn trash bags and murmuring under his breath, it was the King himself, and we gave him 5 dollars to lift our spirits and sing us a terribly butchered version of Heartbreak Hotel.
    He knew all of the lyrics, I gave him that much, and he did very much lift my spirits so I decided to give him an extra 5 to which he replied, “Thank you, thank you very much,” in an Elvis-esque fashion. Trevor pulled a crumpled 20 out of his sweat-pant pocket and threw it at the despicable fellow, “Go buy yourself some of the good stuff, your rhythm is fucked on whatever cheap shit you’ve been shooting.”
    As we turned away from the homeless King and made our way to the truck I was surprised to feel an arm interlock with mine, of course it was Trevor’s. I had to make an effort to conceal my enthusiasm that he had not abandoned any feelings he may or may not have had for me, and I allowed myself to hold his hand and intertwine our fingers, feeling the map of calluses I had been missing.
    I turned my head ever so slightly to catch even the smallest hint of emotion on his haggard face. Not surprisingly he had his head turned away as if observing some other event that had yet to exist. “Let’s grab something to eat.” He stated, still staring into the distance.
    We walked into the diner whose trash Elvis had been sleeping on, it looked to have been abandoned for years with the exception of the smell of fresh grease that filled it. The dusty grey blinds let the morning sun in as a dim yellow haze, illuminating the grime that covered everything inside as well as tiny particles in the air. I felt as if I were in a movie about a post-apocalyptic future where the only thing that lingered were strips of sentient bacon that had learned to cook themselves.
    Trevor let his hand slip away from mine and he strode towards the empty cash with determination. Slamming his fists onto the speckled blue countertop he yelled, “Customers here, hello, we’d like to fund this shitty excuse for a business in exchange for some food.”
    From behind the kitchen door came an older gentleman with a yellow tint to the whites of his eyes and a grey tint to the white of his hair. His eyebrows were silver and sparse forming tiny striped patterns on his forehead that far out-shined the dull grey of his irises. His apron was so incredibly smeared with grease and colours that I could only guess as to what their sources might be that I was surprised I could have even recognized it as an apron.
    “Yeah what is it you want?” He grumbled miserably as if he would have much rather sat in his lowly kitchen all day and make no money whatsoever than serve a single ill-mannered customer such as Trevor, or a large percentage of the population of Sandy Shores for that matter.
    Trevor slouched over the counter on both elbows like a boy who had yet to learn how to properly behave in a restaurant, “I’d like some bacon, some sausage, uh, some ham, eggs, scrambled, some bread, uh, some hash browns, uh, yeah.”
    “And you?” The cook nodded lazily in my direction likely eager to have us out of his sight and out of his mind. It was at this moment that I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the previous day and that I was just about ready to devour anything that came within a 2 meter radius of my mouth.
    “The exact same.” I replied immediately, feeling some pity for the man; being someone who enjoyed solitude myself I wanted to simplify the order so that he wouldn’t have the displeasure of being in our company for much longer.
    Without a word he turned back to his kitchen, his chamber of self-reflection, and began to prepare our banquet. I followed Trevor to a nearby booth plastered in decaying orange leather faded by the sun and a scuffed up plastic table. I could only imagine what the two of us looked like. I assumed Trevor always appeared to be quite dusty and unkempt but to have myself beside him, in the flowing purple top I always wore to bars, dressed somewhat presentably but now covered in dirt from head to toe with tangled hair and faded eyeliner. We must have been a sight to see.
    “You know you’re absolutely gorgeous?” Trevor asked me as if he had once again been reading my mind, filled with self-conscious thoughts of how unappealing I must have looked at the moment.
    I let out a laugh, “Is this more sarcasm or what? I look like fucking shit right now.”
    “No, no, no, you look high fashion, like you know those chicks in the magazines? It takes hours of hair and makeup to achieve what you have going on now, the real dirty look, you know? You could be a part-time model or something.” He used excessive hand gestures to shape hair and makeup and high fashion, making me smile stupidly.
    “Oh, only part-time? What about the other half of the time, I’m not good enough to make a living off of my looks, eh?” I let out even more laughter, feeling completely flattered and on top of that just a bit smitten but not quite wanting to accept it yet.
    Trevor grinned again, the grin I was now becoming very accustomed to but that made my stomach spin circles in my abdomen more and more every time I saw it. “Well you’ve got to have some time left to spend with me don’t you, sugar?”
    At that moment the cook dropped our plates of food onto the table, shattering the tension between us and nearly making me jump out of my seat. My heart was pounding and whether the cause was Trevor’s warm words or the loud thud of plates and cutlery against old plastic I did not know. Suddenly I no longer felt hungry, and instead the hunger was replaced with a tight feeling in my chest and stomach.
    As Trevor wolfed down his breakfast I had to force myself to shovel down fork-full after fork-full of protein and carbs, having realized that there may be something more to the affection I had been feeling towards the man, or possibly that my meat was overcooked and my eggs far too undercooked. Either way my brain was telling me there was something amiss, and my body had decided to revolt.