Through Glass

Last time with Helene Troy: http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/100-word-song-telling-stories/

Narrow lanes of red and purple scrapes stretched over the knuckles on each of her fists. Tiny specks of asphalt crumbled out of her cupped hands as she moved her thumbs over her palms. Helene picked up the bottle of beer and swigged from its settled brew. She sat it down and turned to face Sadie. Morning sunlight bounced off the glass patio door. She blinked and caught her reflection through the glass then looked away feeling shame.

“Leney, I think you hurt your hands when you fell out of the cab. You were screaming at the guy to take you to Ramona’s. We wouldn’t let you. You threw your phone at me and Dawn then rolled out of the cab. I think you punched the cab too.”

Helene’s eyes moved back to her patio door reflection. She was twenty-four but looked older. Out of nowhere, Mara appeared in the door’s threshold holding the two gray and white kittens.

“Helene, I didn’t know you were a crazy cat lady! What are their names?”

Mara’s interruption caused Helene to turn around in her chair and resume drinking. Sadie took one of the kittens and the two women stood around Helene’s chair admiring them. Helene finished the beer.

“Tegan and Sara. The one with white on her belly is Tegan. I got them from the Bodega on the corner. They’re seven or eight weeks old.”

Helene put the empty bottle on the table and stood. Her knees buckled as she tried to steady herself. She clenched her fists and breathed through pain and dizziness.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so fucking sorry. I don’t know why I lost it last night. I could say Ramona’s a bitch. I could say I was nervous. But I think…..”

She stopped as the words made her gasp and start to cry. Large tears fell from her sharp green eyes. Her head pounded from her hangover. Sadie handed one of the kittens to Mara and extended her arms. The two women hugged. Helene cried into Sadie’s left shoulder. Mara walked back inside with the kittens and closed the patio door. Sadie patted Helene’s long brown hair.

“Leney, other than whatever’s going on with you and Ramona Gallery, I think you made it out of last night alright. Jackson punched Case in front of a bunch of reporters right after you got seriously drunk. The Golden Apples fucked up a lot more than you did last night.”

Helene couldn’t stop crying. Through sobs and sniffs she caught her reflection again. She grit her teeth and swallowed, hard.

“Sade, I look like shit. Let me get in the shower, take care of Tegan and Sara, then we’ll go see the manager and get paid. You and Mara can help me buy a new cell phone.”

Sadie smiled and touched Helene’s left shoulder as she walked back inside the apartment. Helene opened and closed the patio door but refused to look through the glass.

****blogger’s note****

This is a new story episode of The Ballad of Helene Troy. You can find the rest of the story, so far, here: http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/the-ballad-of-helene-troy/ This is also patterned to the Write On Edge prompt for  detail:   http://writeonedge.com/2012/05/red-writing-hood-advancing-the-plot/ 

Today’s song just fits the story. It’s a little lame but there’s a point here. The lyrics are perfect. Here’s Stone Sour’s Through Glass.

Hit Rock Bottom

Last time with Helene Troy : http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/sex-on-fire/

Helene woke to the chill of the bathroom floor on her bare back and the tickle of little tongues on her damaged fingers. Her head ached from whatever happened over the past few hours. Throwing her cell phone and falling out of a cab were only flashes of recall. She pulled the grey and white kittens to her chest then placed them in front of their food bowl.

“Oh God, what did I do?”

Helene gagged from thoughts of what her thriftless drinking may have done. She pushed sore hands through matted hair and walked naked into the living room.

****blogger’s note****

This is a new story episode of The Ballad of Helene Troy. It’s back to where we left off as opposed to the reworked opening. You can find the rest of the story, so far, here: http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/the-ballad-of-helene-troy/ 

My friend Velvet is back after a four month hiatus with her 100 word meme http://www.velvetverbosity.com/2012/05/06/100-words-treasure-hunting/ word is “thriftless”. I changed worthless to thriftless and rejoined my old stomping ground at vel’s place.

I’ve been wanting to use Dandy Warhols Hit Rock Bottom for a long time. When I wrote this weeks ago, I realized it would be perfect for first 100 words of this chapter.

Walking With A Ghost

Last time with Helene Troy: http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/seether/

Helene ended her cell phone call with the landlord standing outside her favorite Bodega. The landlord dictated terms for keeping the apartment. The two months rent that hadn’t been paid by her roommate Darcy Bridges, plus a third month, all in cash, up front. Also, Helene must sign and honor a one year lease. That meant she would have to come up with $3,300 and pay $1100 a month, by herself, until September of the following year. She currently had $2100 and the promise from Ramona of two months studio work in advance, which was $300 a session, 3 days week. She bit her bottom lip, stared into the window of the Bodega where she’d agreed the week before to adopt the two kittens and cursed.

“Damn you Darcy. It’s like I’m walking around with a fucking ghost.”

Helene smiled as she thought of one of her favorite songs, Walking With A Ghost by Tegan and Sara. She walked into the Bodega. The owner threw his hands up and greeted her warmly. Minutes later, she walked out with a bag of cat supplies and two identical twin female gray and white kittens inside a cardboard carrier.

She put the supplies down on the street corner and waved down a yellow cab. Plopping herself in the back seat, she shouted her apartment address and dialed a number on her phone. Darcy answered.

“Darse, it’s Monday morning. I want your shit out of the apartment by Friday. I’m keeping the place.”

After a few seconds of silence, Helene pulled the phone away from her face to hang up when Darcy yelled.

“I thought you loved me, Leney! I thought you loved me!”

Helene moved the phone back to her left ear and responded in calm, low tone.

“I did Darse. But you’re not the same person I loved. You’re like a ghost of that person. Goodbye, Darcy.”

The cab rolled over a pothole and the cardboard box with the kittens jumped a couple of inches off the seat then settled down. The kittens mewed. With tears in her eyes, Helene sang, with perfect pitch, the opening lines to the song in her head.

“No matter which way you go ,no matter which way you stay,  you’re out of my mind, out of my mind”

She wiped her tears and looked into the small holes of the carrier.

“That’s what your names will be, girls; Tegan and Sara.”

****blogger’s note***

This is a new Helene Troy episode based around this prompt:

Red Writing Hood: Music 

For Friday, let your character be inspired by music. It doesn’t have to be a specific song or genre, it doesn’t even have to exist anywhere outside your mind. Show us in 400 words or less how your character reacts to a piece of music. It can advance a story line or provide a character sketch–or both!

 

You can find the rest of the story, so far, here: http://lancemyblogcanbeatupyourblog.wordpress.com/the-ballad-of-helene-troy/

 You’ve have to be an idiot or maybe a ghost, to not figure out what’s today’s song is going to be. Here’s Tegan and Sara, identical twin sisters, in human form, with Walking With A Ghost.