Headphones

She was running out of patience at that moment and lurched forward in order to pull them from his head, but he was swift, his upper body snapped back and she never got a hold of him. He grinned at her and at that moment she hated his grin. He grinned like an idiot she thought, then said it out loud straight to his face. Something she might have avoided under normal circumstances, as he was prone to fits of anger and it had happened more than once that he had lashed out at her, given her a nasty bruise on her arm or her shoulder. One time he got her below the eye and she wore a pair of large sunshades to hide it after. The way they did in movies. It didn’t make her feel like a star, it made her feel shabby and somewhat bad, cheap or worthless was another way to put it. It was a time when she considered leaving him and her friend Claire was there with her and told her she had to and that she owed it to herself. Of course she didn’t in the end it was a foolish thing of Claire to say. He had made her see that, Claire was a single woman and she was jealous of the thing she had with him, that’s why Claire told her she ought to leave. It had made sense to her at the time, but that time had passed and today she thought Claire might have had a point, even if nothing much worse had happened since.
She looked at him again, he was still grinning, his eyes half closed and his head nodding along to the music coming from the headphones, even if she could not hear it.
‘You look like an idiot,’ she said out loud, much louder than the first time. And followed that by telling him that he was in fact an idiot, it was empowering to be so frank without the fear of retribution. He raised an eye brow and shrugged his shoulders and she stood there for a moment longer before she turned to leave the room.
In the kitchen she looked at the box the headphones had come in. A noise cancelling break through it said on the box.
Noise cancelling she thought, that was what she had become to him, a noise, that had to be cancelled out in order to be tolerated. And what was he to her? A nuisance most of the time, a nuisance she had run out of patience with. She would be gone in a moment if she had somewhere to go to, someone to take her there, rely on etc. She wanted a pair of those headphones so they could sit in silence with no need to talk.
She realized that he was as weak as her, he did not want her anymore, but he would not leave or let her go.
If there was a way to talk without the need to argue, they might resolve something. But they hadn’t been able to talk for a long time. Instead he would say and then they would do, there were rarely discussions. Discussions had turned one of her front teeth black, it was another nail in her coffin. She wasn’t being listened to, so mostly she decided to stay quiet. Quiet unless spoken to. Mostly she was just being ignored. Unless he wanted her to spread her legs that was the only time she was of remote interest, but only for as long as it lasted. The moment he was done he would roll over and light a cigarette, get up to get a drink or watch the TV and fall asleep. The moment he was done was the moment her pussy started craving a man. One that would love her, adore her and want her, she wanted to feel wanted. One who wanted to talk to her even after he’d fucked her. With Kyle she just felt used and more and more she felt used up.
She was wiping the surface of the kitchen top, she’d been wiping it for a while, she’d felt tears inside her but she didn’t cry. She was 28, she had a long way to go yet.
She heard his steps behind her felt his large hand grab her arse, but didn’t turn.
‘I’m going out,’ he shouted.
She nodded.
‘You hear me?’
She turned and nodded again. He grinned and nodded too, then turned and walked from the kitchen. She heard the door open and she heard it close.
After a while she went back to the living room to tidy up.

Kyle took two steps at a time and bounced out of the house to the rhythm of the music ‘…never wanted to be anybody's anything at all,’ he sang loudly. These headphones where the best thing he had ever wasted money on he thought. No more of Betsy’s whine. She had become a real pain, sooner or later he would have to get rid of her, he thought.
But not just yet.
With music turned to the max, the rest of the world had disappeared. It was as if he was inside a music video directing it by the turn of his head or the blink of an eye. Directing it by the way he turned a corner by the way he moved and looked and that way the power of the music grew within him as if he in fact was the music and it was the music which was directing everything he saw around him. It would be better even if he’d had a smoke before. But this was different already.
He had gotten in a kind of running speed, running around groups of people or through them if that seemed the way to go. He was almost dancing he realised, the star of a musical. He pushed through a group of middle aged women who appeared to voice their displeasure loudly and probably called him things that he could not hear. This was the way to go he thought and raised his middle finger high as he walked on.
He had left on a whim, now that he was out and walked a couple of blocks he wasn’t sure where to go. Andy was living about a block east from where he was and Steve another one and a half from there. He’d try Andy and if Andy wasn’t in, well then he would try Steve.
In the end he ended up with Teddy whom he ran into on the street after neither of the other two were home. Teddy was more of an acquaintance than someone he claimed to know or went to see. Teddy always had money and never seemed to be without a hot chick by his side. Teddy was like the rich guy who wanted to be street, but street with amenities. Teddy had a nice pad another couple of blocks east and Teddy was rolling down the road parallel to Kyle for a good few minutes trying to get his attention until Kyle glanced towards the road and saw him wave. That’s when Teddy stopped the car and Kyle walked up to it. He grinned and Teddy said something he couldn’t hear. He took the headphones of f at last.
‘Noise cancelling,’ he said, ‘you hear nothing but pure thrash metal through these man, not one unwanted noise penetrates your ears with these, it’s listening heaven.’
Teddy nodded. ‘They make you go deaf in time though.’
Kyle shrugged his shoulders. ‘Life has that effect.’
‘I’m on my way to see Theresa, she has a few people over for drinks and to admire the sunset from her top floor balcony.’
‘Oh, yeah!’
‘Yeah, I saw you, thought I ask if you want to come. Have a drink, a smoke,’ he shrugged. ‘Unless you’re busy.’
‘I kind of finished being busy for the day, was just, you know,’ his hands moved through the air spinning round an invisible centre, ‘thinking things over you know. A drink and a sunset sounds… like good to me. So yeah let’s.’
Teddy flexed the cars muscles, the car roared.
‘You’ve met Theresa, right,’ he said as they drove, ‘big girl, tall, big bones, big everything, but…’ and he looked over at Kyle, ‘in a good way you know, good big. Dark hair, blue eyes. You remember her right?’
Kyle nodded, but didn’t.
Theresa included there was seven of them when they got there
‘You remember Kyle here, right?’
Theresa looked him over, her eyes had gone lazy and she looked stoned.
‘Don’t think I have.’
‘Kyle here knows you.’
‘I think I got you confused.’
‘Well come on in anyway, so I can close this door. We are all friendly. You want a drink, a beer, something else?’
‘Beer is good if it’s cold.’
‘Yeah,’ he nodded again, looked around the large living space he was in now. Expensive designer furniture, two girls sunk into corners of deep chairs giggling. A couple out on the balcony, leaning against the railing and the sunset, big and red in the distance. There was a fat girl on the floor in front of a large screen playing video games. A guy stepped out of the bathroom, pushing his shirt into his pants with one and slicking his hair back with his other hand. Tommy, he said and waved one hand in their direction, stepping around the girl on the floor picking up a bottle and stepping out to were the couple stood.
And there was Theresa handing him a beer, an inch or two taller than him and smiling, her teeth showing a trace of lipstick. She wasn’t what he would have thought of as big, she was more like pure sex he thought and the low cut top made sure everyone knew. Aside from wanting to walk Theresa through to the bedroom and show her a thing or two he felt a little out of place, these were not his people. The only thing familiar was the thick sweet smell of weed being smoked right around him and it was Teddy who was passing it on to him now. He did what he always did, he had one deep drag, followed by three somewhat smaller ones after which he would be wiped out. His mouth started to dry up when he passed the joint to the still giggling girls and felt like he needed a cigarette followed by another. The sunset looked pretty he thought and took a swig from his bottle. He motioned Teddy to follow and they stepped out on the balcony. The red glow from the sun had intensified, but was soon to come to an end. Teddy knew the couple and moved over to talk to them. Kyle was friendly from afar, smiled and faked a deep interest in the sunset as he was downing more from the bottle. He would get out of here once the beer was finished, he was getting vibes, these were people bound to ask things. He didn’t want to answer any of the questions though, they would be the same questions people always asked when they met you the first time trying to figure out who you were and where you belonged. But it wasn’t anyone’s business who he was, he’d told Betsy that more than once and he wasn’t going to tell these guys here, not tonight anyhow. He was getting itchy and needed to do something, like run around or turn the music up loud and listen and that was when he recalled the headphones around his neck. He emptied the last of the bottle then stepped forward reaching out to tap Teddy on the shoulder.
‘Kyle,‘ Teddy said as he turned, ‘this is Kyle.’ They raised their hands or nodded and said ‘Hi’ and Teddy proceeded to introduce Linda and Clark to him.
‘Linda and Clark and Teddy I have got to go,’ he grinned his mouth was dry and his bottle was empty. ‘I’m sorry,’ he lifted the bottle to his lips and felt the last bit of liquid drain from it moistening the inside of his mouth. He thanked Theresa and felt like he had a sock in his mouth as he spoke.
‘You are welcome to have another drink,’ she said.
He wondered whether she was trying to pick him up.
‘That weed is strong stuff,’ he said. ‘I must go now, some other time, OK.’
He waved at everyone else on his way out. He had actually winked at her, he thought, he had raised his hand, pointed at her and winked when he said his last words. And he had meant it, he had a thing with women, a radar sort of thing were he could tell what was going on and his radar had told him that she wanted him. But he had to get out and once through the door he pulled up the headphones and sealed his ears from noise and then Slayer started reigning blood onto his mind and drown him with the excellence of that album. He walked and he swallowed and his feet went along with the music and he would have to get some water and chewing gum or something. And then he was walking back home, nicely spaced, the night not quite night yet and his mind on the music and he walked with long steps, along to the rhythm, carrying a bottle of water from which he sipped now and then.
Another corner and a crossing, someone flashing their lights and on the other side shops Turkish or Algerian or Italian, general stores, vegetables and fruit out front. Hundreds of them next to each other and going on for miles, lit by different colours, different lights, flickering. Sirens to go with the blue lights flashing past. Traffic, and the drums come in strong and run right through the length of his body. So much traffic he thought and then the drums came in again harder this time, harder he thought and wanted to scream it out loud then stepped into the street again and onto the road and there was a roar he never heard and the van caught him full on, hit him so hard before he knew that he was being hit and then the tyres squeal and all other noise ceased. Heads turn, people spun and ran and the van stopped dead and the music was playing on, but no one was listening now.

© Marcus Bastel