Kiele part one

Her xeric skin crackled and split, despite the dewiness of the June morning. She couldn't remember how long she had been waiting at the bus stop, two maybe four hours. All she new was the relief that the cool mist brought. The sun broke through the fog of the morning and the misty cold dissipated in minutes drying her already parched and perilous mouth. She dredged her tongue over the ridges of her teeth, feeling every bit of plaque and residue of tobacco and rum sugar that remained from the last night. Kiele looked up toward the brightening sky and out at the expanse of New Mexico wasteland ahead of her and prayed for rain. A prayer surely to go unanswered. An all too familiar reality, but nonetheless she prayed. Her mouth moved slowly and silently, mimicking the shapes that words would make; an inaudible rain dance performed by the ridges in her calcium deficient teeth.

That which brought her to wait for four hours at a bus stop along state road 382, six miles outside of Rancho de Taos, New Mexico; a two horse town with less people then a one bedroom apartment in a tenement slum, was a long string of misunderstandings starting in Los Angeles in the parking lot of the Johnny’s Diner on the corner of Wilshire and La Brea on the first day of May.

She waited in the front seat cigarette smoldering in her hand, eyes glassy and fixed on an indefinable point out toward the bumper to bumper traffic the am rush hour brought without fail to the 'Museum Row'. “Hey”, he said, startling Kiele out of her traffic induced trance. “Oh, shit man! Where they hell have you been? I’ve been waiting out here since five this morning; you know my car don’t have any heat!” As she said this Kiele realized that her cigarette had burned down entirely and the butt was singeing her middle and ring fingers. Instantly the butt dropped into her lap, she flung open the door of her 79’ Nova knocking him down.

“Fuck it all Kiele, I know I was late but what the hell!?” Troy exclaimed dusting off his dungarees. “I’m sorry Troy, the butt was burning the shit out of my hand. Now come’ere give your little mama some love.” Troy pushed her up against the Nova, and holding her chin in his hand kissed her hard, she winced and tried to push him away but the grip of his working-man’s hands locked her there. Forcing his angry hungry tongue into her mouth. Finally as she submitted to his embrace, he let her go. She rubbed her cheek, reddened by the blush that came to her face and the pressure of his hand.
“You’ve got some way of treating ladies”, she spat at him. “You ain’t no lady Ki, that’s for damn sure”, Troy chuckled and walked over to the other side of the car and got in.