Red, White and Blue Makes Me

Red, white and blue makes me vomit. Its only purpose serves as a reminder of him and her. Not one of us endured as much as she while living below in the crappiest of flats. Their spats added to the agony of not having another room to retreat to when the usual Saturday night special was telecast. It wasn’t easy listening to the belt welt her naked back. Her lips, pressed right up against the wall, muffled the crying. The face slapping was always sudden, sparing us of grimacing while clasping our hands together to pray. The screams always ended in a sniveling whimper. Then, complete silence for almost an hour, before the bumping would start. He’d passionately grunt and say “I love you," and she’d respond back with sleazy affections that caused him to bang her head harder and faster against the wall. It would be over much quicker than their fights. Sunday sunrise would find Saturday night oblivious. Strong black coffee and the smell of pig frying seemed to cure the all-night woes. Our intentional glances did not stop the back and forth trips to the trash bin to dump the previous nights souvenirs. The sharp pieces of broken glass sticking out of the bag danced off the mirror in the hallway foyer as she passed my door. Not once was there ever an utterance of anything sounding like help-me-please. Perhaps the exposure of the marks on her once olive skin was a cry for help. Days to weeks to months to years, life just went on. It must be a hellish torment to live in a quiet storm that unwittingly captures day-to-day livelihood fueled by misery and no mercy. On the eve of their demise, some of us still talk about how love and pain took both of them. She waited that evening, not sure at first of her plan to help him stop hurting his self. He’d come back, as usual, after being told to get the hell out from police officers. He walked right up the stairs and was immediately blinded by blinking lights that fired off like a- stroke-of-midnight New Years Eve celebration. Big and bang! Quick and loud. The four-walled-apartment was dead. Instead of a judgment of death, she still breathes. A padded five by ten room is home, donned with pictures she paints of roses, some blooming and some dead. No one visits, except the woman who lives under 201B. She always takes lots of paper with her.