"Be Prepared For Love"

Her name was Julie Steel. She's the kind of person you never see at a shelter. We all have our trials and tribulations marked for us in the journey/hell that is life but for some homelessness is right out of the question, never fathomed for even a moment. The building of very high dollar condos around uptown Dallas is going through the roof. When I get the chance, I peek into their pools and dear Lord in heaven the nooky meter is off the charts! Had no idea there were so many young, hot babes able to cough up $2,000+ a month.

Women like to get up on their hind legs on Oprah and say how it's all for love, he just happens to have money. That's no concern of mine and I'd love to win the lottery so I could marry a hot babe for "love". But for all their protestations to the contrary, hot babes really do learn early how to "open doors with just a smile." It's all about exploiting men to one degree or another so their feet never touch the ground. So how the hell did one end up here??

Just seeing her face was like CPR for the soul. Maybe you'd see some decent broads donating - dropping off then skedaddling - but never be one of us. But there she was, getting the attention of every guy whose heart still pumped an ounce of life. Not that I was any better but you could see all the guys fidgeting as they watched her, wheels turning on how to approach this alien being of desire. As far as approaching her, it was the same old story: there were those who didn't but should have and those who did but shouldn't have.

I just hoped for any opportunity to speak with her without my tongue hanging out.

In high school there are goddesses who blind you with their stardom. You never stop to think they might forsake that star or are mere flashes in the pan, their lives having peaked at 17. To you, the poor bastard teenage boy crawling with burning ants inside him, you wonder how anyone can be so lucky or the gods so cruel. Surely, you think, the world never touches these ethereal creatures of desire. But, oh, does it ever.

That dictatorial prune Mrs. Case, my English teacher, was the first hint, finding out she was once a cheerleader. My first thought: "What the hell happened?" She became addicted to that teenage approval drug and died. One girl got six marriage proposals then picked one only out of fear they'd vanish like her beauty. She died too. Those who married money got fat without fail - some sort of inner rebellion I think. Some of the cool chicks married the cool guys but they turned out like the Carly Simon song "hating themselves for what they are, their kids hating them for what they're not."

But even witnessing all these accounts, I can't help but feel there are those destined for a free ride if they just play their cards right. I know for a fact right now as I type this there are hot wild babes living it up at Hotel Zaza whose only worry is what perfume to put on next. Julie was late twenties, a little late to the party but she could have fit right in there. What the hell was she doing here?

I had an edge in intel. I know the disorienting feel and muffled screams that invade a soul upon first arrival - especially a suburban soul. That's when she'd be at her most vulnerable, that's when she'd kill for a face she could recognize. I had to take a chance I'd be that face even though I knew I might get a hard time for it from the guys. Do they really think she'd go for anyone so far outside her element? Not a chance. Not at first anyway.

There's a separate place naturally for women to sleep but not for eating. She chose to eat by herself, away from all the "icky people" no doubt. As a cripple of a different sort and to pay back a girl who'd once done the same for me, I sat down across from her, my teenage heart pounding before the princess.

Welcome to Jamaica!

I had to read her on the spot. Was she weak or strong? No way to know but dive right in.

"Hi, I'm Harry. Welcome to paradise! Pretty bad here, huh?"

"Bad? This place would scare Dante. I suppose you're here to tell me it gets better."

I had her venting  - which is exactly what I'd hoped for. Nothing worse than having no one who can relate.

"Oh, no, it gets worse," I smiled, amusing myself with the truth of it.

"I can imagine," she said opaquely, fear drawing her back, thinking I'd come over to make fun of her. But very gently I was sensing strength in her so I made a bet on it.

"Do you plan on living the rest of your life here?"

"Hell, no!"

"Then that means at some point you'll be moving on and all this will be just some sort of bizarre experience you look back on."

"I suppose." She was wanting to hold on to her anger but we were starting to bond. We liked each other's face. "What about you, how long have you been here?"

Aw, fuck. Time for my defenses to go up. "That's different. I'm a special case."

"What's so special about your case?" She was eager to put her mind on someone else's problems for some relief. But this isn't the kind of conversation I have with anyone barring the second appearance of Jesus. If I have to explain it then you're incapable of knowing anyway. I knew I'd lose her with a dishonest answer.

"Maybe the world isn't what it thinks it is."

If she were a world defender we'd be broken from that point forward. No matter how fine her figure or how softly her hair caressed that featured face I'd be done with her in any but a carnal way - and even then only to a point.

"The world's a shithole and no one wants to admit it." She answered to herself, not me, so I knew her words true but also probably temporal. A little too much newfound bitterness in that voice.

"Well, if you want some free advice on world beating, look me up." I got up. Was I leaving too early, selling myself short? Or was I actually giving her needed room to deal with the shit she's feeling? Man, communicating is a motherfucking bitch! Of all the skills of the universe, I wish I were better versed in that than anything else. I walked away, thinking of nothing but her rest of the day.

************************

"Hey."

"Hey."

I sat down beside her in the TV room. She accepted me as a companion. I had to remember: she's in a stressed situation, in the real world she'd have nothing to do with me. In the end, I'm nothing but a poacher. But hot damn was I enjoying her company! Just sitting next to her was a dream, inhaling her presence and charms, imagining her previous life. I needed to make myself useful.

"They're going to want you to do a bunch of stupid stuff you won't like here. I got ways through all that."

"I don't want to talk about that right now."

Being your usual I-can-fix-the-world male I took that as a personal rejection. I pouted but maybe I saw her smirk. I watched shit I didn't want to watch on TV for a while but could stand it no longer feeling like a failure. I sighed and was about to go when she said she wanted to get out of there. I was so excited I didn't even think what it looked like me walking out with the hottest babe in years.

Again, I had to remember I was a port in a storm but for that evening I wanted to drink the wine and take my hangover later. She was feeding me and I somehow her. It was just me and her on a warm, humid night and if we'd both been 17 it would have been the biggest night of my life. I had to keep that knowledge from her at all costs.

Her tale did not surprise me. She'd partied all her life, right through school and into the real world. Time came when all she really cared about was keeping the party going. She'd had a fantasy life and fantasy lives require major funding. Men worshiped her so why not cash in and live the good life? There's enough suffering in the world already, she reasoned.

I felt a twinge of vindication at that point. In the name of avoiding suffering, suffering became her! I started half-guessing the rest.

"Then you fell in love."

"Why...yes." Her eyes were grateful, having expected judgment.

Her sugar daddy had his own fantasy and that was that a girl like Julie could actually love him. Finding out otherwise blew everything apart but she was adamant and not geared for lying. He left her high and dry, bridges burned. But the boy she loved already moved on, unable to wait for her. She'd been blindsided. One moment the world at her feet, the next, nothing. She had only a few dollars to her name, no credit, no job history, no way out.

But even after hearing all that it didn't make sense to me. But you're a wildly attractive woman! You've got it made!

What if we'd met at one of those parties she told me about? She laughing with all her friends, skinny dipping in the pool, living the life. I'd have been an object of ridicule, a broken toy no one had time for still aching to be played with and feel alive. No way I'd ever approach her in those circumstances. And yet, here we were, talking and bonding, me holding her respect. I was going crazy wanting equally to jump her and jump away.

Julie said she had laughed at her mother's mantra. "Be prepared for love." Julie thought that the most useless advice ever. Now she thought it the most wise. Fun, fame, fantasy, fortune - it all means nothing. The world truly does revolve around love at the end of the day. That was her bitter lesson. Much as I liked seeing a "free rider" get her comeuppance I had to feel her fate had been too harsh.

And worse, I was beginning to think of her as a person. My inner teenager was wracked with confusion, wanting to befriend her more the be-fuck her. That's not me, I'm no adult. Who am I hanging out with superstars pretending devotion to true love? But that's the impression she was getting of me, unaware I was still under the spell of her physical charms - right? Crap, how do I break this illusion when being with her is what I most want in the world?

I had to make her want me.

I didn't do anything I do like with the day-to-day fuckers. No games, no coy answers to those who choose only to bring me grief. Julie was more than just a looker, I found out. She was educated and funny. I penetrated her mind and found it satisfying. Dear God, I wanted to be inside her in every sense of the word. I found myself desperately wishing to be Somebody, to be able to move in her circles as a person of respect, to have an identity. If I could do that I could then have her on the up and up.

But the beast of judgment came knocking. "You're only opening up to her because you want to fuck her." I didn't really see how I could fight that charge, even with having real feelings for her. "You're only taking advantage of her deprived state." Again, hard to imagine even going to the movies with her if she had her life back. "She's feeling lonely so she gives you time, but she's not feeling like you are." I don't want to be a creep to her. What a rotten time not to be an adult.

I started avoiding Julie, I couldn't face the fact she'd never want me in the real world. May as well break off now before the feelings go any deeper. Fuck! I was polite but curt with her. She seemed hurt by that but I didn't believe it. She just wasn't thinking it through. Who am I after you leave? Don't answer, I already know.

She started getting phone calls she didn't tell me about. Though I had no right having already been standoffish I was deeply wounded by that. I was being shut out. Maybe never before had I trusted someone like this, she had no reason to hide anything from me. She murmured something about a guy she once knew, a "friend who liked me". Yeah, some fucker who can take care of you in ways I never could. What was I going to do? Ask her to spend the rest of her life sleeping in a cot?

I hated her, sulking day and night. I took the opposite opinion of hers no matter what. She thought I was being for real. I wanted to make her feel as inadequate as I actually was. That only made me feel uglier. There was no future anyway, right? She needed to leave to stay alive. Well, me too, lady. I just can't do anything about it. You really think I'm OK here, do you? Who are you people?

And then she was gone. No notice, no nothing. Can't say I blame her at that point. Over time the fog cleared and it became clear to me she'd found another sugar daddy to take care of her. This time I hope she squirrels away some money. I can see how she might be ashamed of going back to that life, not wanting me to know. But as a friend I'd have said for her to survive any way she can but remember her lesson of love. But we didn't part friends.

I thought that the end of it. I wondered if I'd been a better friend to her she might have chosen a better path. But maybe that was the only way out for now. Who the fuck knows? I can't wrap my mind around it. Especially a few months later when - miracle of miracles - she shows up again, waving to me at a distance. She was with a fancy girlfriend. I was more than terrified. She was going to humiliate me in revenge in front of her real world friend. No way I could face that and survive.

I ran out the side door into the cold February air, a hazy sun chasing me down a nightmare alley as I found a dumpster to hide behind. Home at last with the trash. But as I ran away in the name of survival, I died. "Be prepared for love" rang out in my ears. Would she drive by in her car, relentlessly searching for me in a fantasy come true? Had she found her way to legitimacy at last, anxious to share it? Was it love she had brought me after all? The answer to these dreams I'll never know.