johnny by sophie isbister The time between now and something you dread can go two ways- either very fast, so fast that the thing you’re dreading hits you like a pile of bricks before you could even comprehend what you were dreading. Or it can go very slow. Excruciatingly slow. So slow you can feel the seconds peel off, one by one, and fall dead to the floor where can you can reflect on them for a moment, and then continue on in a dream-like state. Where your biggest fear seeps into every pore, saturating you in the very thing you want to escape the most.. I slid into a booth in the back of the diner. "Johnny darlin’," I started at the shaggy haired boy across from me, "Why ever do you operate out of this dive?" My put-on Southern drawl dripped out of my mouth like honey, or iced tea. He mocked me, tipped his silly fedora towards me, and tried on his 1930's detective voice. "Love, dive is too good a word for this place." He paused and sat back. Took off his hat, ruffled his tawny hair, then put the hat back on. He desperately needed a haircut. "I think I stole that line from Woody Allen," in his normal voice. He probably had. It didn’t matter. He knew why I was there, and I knew why he was there. It was a mutual understanding, and a similar unspoken rule existed that we would never talk about it. He would say I was too good for this occupation, this oppression. I would ask him why, then, did he continue to see me. I would think, he is too good for it also. But to him, it’s cheap flirtation with a bonus at the end. He could afford it. I needed it. He needed the stability, and a person to test his lines on. We were the perfect pair. This conversation was as good in the thoughts we both shared as it would be in words, so we never had it. Our coffee arrived. As usual, he asked if I took cream and sugar. As usual, I said no. It was another important aspect to the weekend. I felt another second flake off and fall to the floor. We went on talking, and he leaned across the table to brush my hair off my face which was when he also gave me a bouqet of dried flowers. This was also when I blushed for the first time and looked away, and he called me his beautiful rose. An awkward minute. One of those minutes that feels like ten, dropping to the floor one after the other like those maddening slow motion scenes. Johnny left the booth, and slipped a quarter into the broken jukebox. I looked down at my dancing shoes, with their cracked soles and ribbon laces, and then glanced up at Johnny. His hair was in his eyes, hat almost falling off, as he looked at me from the other end of the room. I knew why he was looking at me and I knew what he meant, those see through puppy dog eyes. He was too young, he just wanted affection. We went swing dancing, because it was Friday. It wasn't the most reputable place, but the Switch Bar & Grill on Main had the best live bands. Who needed dinner and hushed conversation when you were invincible? The men in their business suits dancing with long-legged women, God-knows what kind of long-legged women but certainly not their wives. The energy spraying off in every direction. The whole place was alive, so throbbing that even the junkies couldn't bring you down, so many hipsters that the crawling scum of the Earth faded into the noisy background. Johnny could dance with the best of them, throwing me around the dance floor, the flowers he gave me falling out of my hair as he swung me up, around, under him. Pulling close, and pushing back, maybe a metaphor for my life. Afterwards, sweat drenched and shivering in the cold, Johnny put his big trench coat around me and hailed a cab. It was hanging around the both of us, what we would do later. Covering the atmosphere so thickly, the cab driver probably felt it too. I looked out the window at the passing buildings, swallowing an onset of inexplicable tears. The cab stopped at 112 Thorpe. Johnny paid the man, tipped him handsomely, and walked around to hold the door open for me. I think he thought he was living an old movie, and I was happy to play along. Something about today was lighter, maybe it was something in the air. I didn't know what was going to happen, which was a new thing for me. He led me to the couch and put on some music. We made our traditional small-talk, again pretending that it would matter in a minute, or an hour or a day. He got up to change the record. Romantic jazz. Something was definitely up, and it wasn’t just the sky, or the bulge in Johnny’s pants. That night when we fucked, or had sex, or made love even, it was different. Better, in a way. I could say it was the best I’ve ever had, but I think that would be a lie. Nothing about the actions were different, or maybe they were. Maybe they had more feeling, set to an instrumental sound track. I slept in, maybe that was the mistake. The morning was bright, there was no cloak of darkness to hide that I was going to scoop the money off the bedside table and leave. I woke up late, and looked at the ceiling. There was a crack running from the window to the door, which wasn’t there the last time I was over. Maybe the neighbour upstairs was fighting with her boyfriend again. Or maybe they were making up after their last fight, and things got a bit too rough. Johnny was next to me on the bed, his chin nuzzling my shoulder, cuddled up like a little kid. I glanced at the money on the table, and then pretended it wasn’t there. It almost felt normal, or what I could remember of normal. Johnny woke up, surprised to see me there. I kissed his forehead, and told him to go back to sleep. Smiled kindly. "Shh, shh. I’ll be here when you wake up." He drifted off again, lazily resting his arm across me. A lock of hair was stuck to his temple with sweat, illuminated by the morning light filtering through the window, a sweet image. It almost broke my heart, and I knew what had to be done. No more kisses, no more dancing, no more pretending I could have a real life. I waited for a moment, a brief hesitation, before shifting his arm off of me. I didn’t know if I’d miss it all or not. I got up and pulled on my panties. Dress. Stockings. Shoes. Maybe something was different. This time I left the money. I could give him what I hadn’t been able to give him before- the idea that maybe this was real. It's something I wanted as well, a faint glimmer of a fading hope that something could someday come of this in a faraway land in another reality. For the last time at least I could leave him with this.