The Blue Bottle (Part 5)
Did Rosie really doubt that Frank would return for her? If she did, she was wrong. Frank and a 1955 Ford Thunderbird were ready to take her farther back, as far as the farm. What do they expect to find there, read on and find out.
Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3 here Pt 4
“I canna’ change the laws of physics.”–Montgomery “Scotty” Scott
Frank steps foot on the dusty red dirt, his boot leaving its imprint in the red soil as he starts toward the old farmhouse. Rosie, following along behind, is suddenly aware that the clothes she’s wearing are those of the 1960s, not the clothes she left the house in. She wants to ask Frank about this but follows, hanging onto Frank’s jacket, her breasts heaving with anxiety as the sun, low in the sky, extinguishes its fiery body.
Franks pauses and is still. Rosie begins to tell Frank about her clothes but his forefinger presses against her lips. A breeze becomes a gust, picking up the hem of her polka dot dress, revealing the tops of her nylons.
The hairs on Frank’s neck feel that same gust, telling him everything about why children run away from that which they don’t know.
“Lorenzo is here, Rosie,” he whispers.
Slowly, they edge silently closer to the porch. Frank smells rosewood, and the dryness of the red earth. Curtains, stained with gold, move in the open window. The farmhouse looks welcoming, and the scent of the earth smells with the scent of grapes. Frank, motionless, hears a clock ticking away time.
“Do you think Lorenzo isn’t home,” Rosie says, soft as a sigh, urging him to turn around with a slight tug.
But somewhere close by, Frank senses a dribbling lip, and knows Lorenzo’s eyes are focusing on a valley of Rosie’s milky softness. If Frank has learned anything about Lorenzo, it is his squatting desire, waiting his chance beyond this porch, sniffing the closeness of a woman.
“He’s here, Rosie. He’s left all the clues.”
“Clues?” Says Rosie, her face showing bewilderment.
“Do you think that gust of wind was nature?” Says Frank. “No, Rosie, Lorenzo is a voyeur, a poet, a man nosing his way through prayer books, dreaming in yellow and gold, and his desires traverse the indentations of woman’s body till his knowledge of her is microscopic.”
“But what clues?” She asks.
“Never mind, stay close. Lorenzo will adore you for your runny, rag doll eyes.”
“You make me sound like some gangster’s moll,” Rosie says, hurt.
Frank signals she be quiet. “Be calm. When we enter, Lorenzo will be waiting. His breath will be slight, his heart slow. He eats the poetry and writes it down like a bolt of lightning. Inside, Lorenzo is wondering whether you have the faith. It is a question already on his lips. ‘Rosie, do you have the gift of faith?’ His hand will reach for you, Rosie. Your body sniffed, lusted after, and licked.
Rosie steps closer to Frank, and at the same time, she stops breathing. “Frank?” her voice sounding like a dry leaf underfoot.
“It’s okay, Rosie. Com’on, let’s get to the door. Stay behind me but keep hold.” Nature feels the universe split.
In one window, the closed one, a candle’s flame flickers.
There is an unnatural aura of nothing, everything, emptiness, and wholeness. “Stay close, Rosie,” Frank says again.
The door, slowly pushed open, creaks to the sound of non-maintenance, or the trickery of someone using a sentry that requires no batteries. Frank pauses: a hand is trembling on the tail of his jacket. Then, leaning one hand on the door, Frank eases the door wider. He feels a gust of breath. It moves with the grace of a dancer twirling on balls of feet, weightless, leaving the dust on the hardwood floor unmolested.
“We’re going inside, Rosie. Remove your shoes,” Frank whispers.
“But… I’m wearing nylons. That’s what I was trying to tell you.”
“Rosie, just do it.”
Rosie balances on one foot, holding onto his arm, removes one shoe, then the other, her red toenails wrapped in nylon.
Stained gold curtains forbid the last of the sun. The door is ajar; an eye is watching from within. Frank leans his body forward, reaching back for the hand of Rosie, who is feeling something else — a caress that blushes her cheeks, soft as the word forgotten. Inside, the smell of freshly picked strawberries pushes up against her breast, a pleasing touch of the suitor’s caress. It is a moan, a wound, an ache, something she is not aware of in her consciousness. More like a calling, one to follow, unafraid, leaving behind a poor wretch.
“Frank, I feel something…?”
But Frank is intently listening for clues. She whispers again, carelessly louder. “Frank, I feel something.”
“Rosie, listen to me. It is Lorenzo’s trickery. He’s offering you passion, a reverence so pure you will feel gratitude enough not to leave with him.” Frank stops, turns to Rosie, “Whatever you do, do not let go of my hand, do you hear me? Lorenzo is trying to steal you away.”
Frank, without saying more, hears a sound from the closet. Lorenzo is one with the both of them, as surely as seawater spills from a hand when lazily dragged along the sea’s surface, droplets going back into itself again.
“He is here,” Frank says. “He is wanting your ear, more than mine. He wants you, Rosie, in this room, inside these walls. Trust me, hold on, he is in the curtains, in the soil, in this moment, in this….” and Frank goes silent; a clock has stopped ticking. On the dashboard of the Thunderbird, the second hand is standing still. It is ten minutes and ten seconds before ten o’clock.
“Rosie, the next clue is somewhere here. We have ten minutes to learn what it is.”
Rosie nods without saying anything. She isn’t dreaming. They have returned to a before time, here and now. Frank moves through to another room. He hears his heart beating in time with Rosie’s. There’s a dining table, a closet, and the window is open, blowing pages of a manuscript, first one way, then balanced, softly falling back. Frank’s fingers bid the pages still. The answer lies wrinkled between them, torn free, and reinserted.
“What does it say, Frank?” Rosie tries to read over his shoulder but only sees the page filled with letters as if a printer were buzzing out of control.
Frank would have answered, had he not seen footprints in the dust on the floor? He points to them. A man’s shoes going into the closet. None coming out.
Frank is thinking, if he didn’t come out, then where… ?”
Frank turns to Rosie. “Remember, do not let go of my hand. To do so is to lose you, do you understand?” Rosie doesn’t respond, other than to grip Frank’s hand fiercely tight. Frank turns his attention back to the torn page.
“Unforgettable, Hemingway books,” he mumbles, running his finger across the text. For Whom the Bell Tolls.”
“What does it mean, Frank. Who is Hemingway?”
“It’s a clue, Rosie. A clue to where we need to be.”
“It is…where is that?”
“Havana.”
“Where?”
“Never mind, Rosie. We need to get back to the car.”
“Listen to me, put on your shoes. Lift your dress and caress your legs.”
“Caress? I don’t think this is the time, Frank,” she says, blushing.
“Lorenzo is here. He wants you, all of you. He can’t have you while you hold on to me.”
With one hand, Rosie pulls on her shoes.
“Good, raise your dress, let your hands smooth over your legs.”
Rosie, blushing, does as Frank instructs. If he likes me so much, why not just say so, she thinks. “You were born with some ancient charm, Frank,” she says with an eager smile.
But Frank is already picking up on a deep sigh, erotic, full of lunacy.
“Do you hear that, Rosie?”
Rosie concentrates. “Hear what?”
It’s the sound of smoke coming across in small whiffs, the whirling blue smell of a Havana cigar.
Frank’s chest is still, hardly a breath taken as he walks through to the sitting room. The carpet is brown, threadbare, edged with once-bright yellow flowers. On the mantle is a large clock, framed in black wood. On either side of the clock, vases of roses. In the corner of the room sits a small table on which a letter, scribed on parchment, waits.
‘Old friend,’ it begins, ‘we became very close. Never so close since the times we were together on the streets of Paris, selling our poetry for a smile’s ransom. There is no one here, and there is someone.’
“What does it mean, not here?” Rosie asks.
Frank holds up the flat of his hand, ears tuned, and moves quickly to the closed window. Too late, the power of the white Ford Falcon’s breathing, noiselessly departs the barn, disappearing in a dust cloud beyond that which mere glances cannot see.
Frank returns his eyes to the letter.
‘You were always so difficult to be around. You had the heart of a song-maker. Me, well, I was merely the magician. Our fates headlong, bound to meet destiny. I magic away sobs, invent new flowers, create entrances for storytellers. But you, Frank, you are a wave, starting out mid-ocean, rushing toward a shore, happily knowing nothing can keep you from leaving those shores, relishing only the foaming froth of your being? I remember wondering what galaxies of women were out there, but I knew you would one day lead me to her, to the one. You know where I’ll be. Crouched in the hissing hellfire of past loves, beathing the stinking sighs of laughter and wine. We will meet again, my friend. Have faith, old man.’
“What does it mean, Frank…is the ‘her’ he talks of…is that me?”
Frank sits Rosie down. “When you were seventeen, you fell in love with a boy,” he explains, “he never forgot you; never a day in his unnatural life did he forget you. Glance-to-glance you were the one he sought, the one he calculated to arrive. The one he couldn’t lose, and in utter torment he lost himself, his breathing, his body, his light of day…but not what remained in his heart.”
“Me, Frank, seventeen, in love? What did he mean? Why did he thank you for bringing me to him?”
“Because he feels Raven’s presence in you. Enjoying the closeness but fearing it, too?”
“Raven is here…?”
“There is no one here…but there is someone in your heart, Rosie,” Frank explains.
“I’m confused,” she complains, unbuttoning two of the buttons at the top of her dress.
A sighing breeze sweeps through the cobwebs, it could have come through from the door, something unseen, wanting to caress the taught, innocent skin of youth.
“I feel afrai….”
Rosie collapses. A ferocious tongue is licking at her body, a God-forsaken impulse reaching out and wanting its way. Lorenzo teasing her into believing that his scarlet heart desires her milky treats, a creamy perfection with which to lie.
Rosie is slumped into Frank’s arms.
Dare yourself, Lorenzo, try to take her. Did you genuinely believe you could kill me? Of course, but then you have the advantage of knowing the chemistry hidden inside the Blue Bottle. But I understand the treacheries in the world, the cause of all your doings. Look at her, Lorenzo, don’t you want her? Don’t you want to work your idle hands over her body? Isn’t she the lost love of biblical history, ready as an August poppy, asleep in future dreams? She is Raven’s love, Lorenzo, not yours. Never yours.
Shivering’s mutter, rise, while new clothes form on feminine bones. Then, finally, a happening, a night’s last brilliance. The red Thunderbird rumbles its tires over geological faults, a signal that the past is falling forwards.
Rosie turns over in her sleep.
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