Participants:
| Scene Title | Eventually |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sable commits her first love to fire and water. |
| Date | July 3, 2010 |
Near Port Morris
A pier by the sea, at sunset.
Here's the deal with Adelaide.
Down the street you can hear her scream you're a disgrace
As she slams the door in his drunken face
And now he stands outside
And all the neighbors start to gossip and drool
He cries oh, girl you must be mad,
What happened to the sweet love you and me had?
Against the door he leans and starts a scene,
And his tears fall and burn the garden green
She was with someone. His name was Dale. He was a hick and a prick. Raven (she still called herself Raven back then) knew Dale first. Dale came by the store where Raven worked and sold weed to Raven's first real employer, Jason. Jason introduced her to rock and roll. He gave her a soul.
Raven loves Jason a little.
And so castles made of sand fall in the sea, eventually
Raven loved Adelaide a lot.
She came with Dale sometimes, because she loved music too. She loved Johnny Cash. She loved Hank Williams. She loved Stevie Ray Vaughn and Albert King and she even enjoyed some Elvis, and was adorably unapologetic about it.
Raven thinks, even now, that she might not have learned to loved music so much if she didn't love Adelaide so much. Loving what she loved, it was almost like getting to love her.
A little Indian brave who before he was ten,
Played war games in the woods with his Indian friends
And he built up a dream that when he grew up
He would be a fearless warrior Indian Chief
Many moons past and more the dream grew strong until
Tomorrow he would sing his first war song and fight his first battle
But something went wrong, surprise attack killed him in his sleep that night
And, eventually, she did let her love her. Or so Raven felt at the time. Raven had always gotten by on a certain degree of charm. She learned that conversations could be handled like cons, that people were often uncertain or unsure of what they wanted and that by applying the right pressure, invoking the right will, you could steer them in the direction you saw fit. You could, through insinuation and instigation, get most anything out of most anyone, provided you were smart enough. Smarter than the other. Smarter and stronger.
Looking back, Raven's not so sure that Adelaide was very smart, or strong. She was very lively, very eager for attention, very obvious with her passions. This made her beautiful. It did not make her smart. It did not make her good. But to Raven, her beauty was her goodness, and there was enough of it to make all other potential evils disappear.
And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually
Not smart, maybe. Not strong. But more experienced.
And she had her evils.
As it turns out, Adelaide was very good at making herself loved as long as she was interested in being loved. And she let Raven love her, and Dale was too dim to realize the yellow-eyed sixteen year old record store clerk was making a cuckold of him. That Dale was once as Raven was never occurred to Raven, for first love is the great exception, in which the lover and loved are extracted from all patterns, excused from all rules, existing in a world built of love and confusion.
But while Adelaide was Raven's first, Raven wasn't Adelaide's.
There was a young girl, who's heart was a frown
Cause she was crippled for life,
And she couldn't speak a sound
And she wished and prayed she could stop living,
So she decided to die
She drew her wheelchair to the edge of the shore
And to her legs she smiled you wont hurt me no more
But then a sight she'd never seen made her jump and say
Look a golden winged ship is passing my way
Raven was a lot smarted than Dale, that was for sure, but it still took almost a month for her to figure out what was going on. The biggest clue was missing time. Unexplained gaps, covered over with distracting kisses and, increasingly, accusations. About Raven and other girls. About Raven and Jason (insane, insulting!) Unfaith presumed to excuse unfaith practiced. Justification, retroactive.
In the end, Adelaide laughed at Raven. The stupid girl, so simple, so dogged. So young. So inexperienced. She laughed and said she'd had fun. And that it was over. Had been for a while.
When Raven's alone (and only when alone is she Raven) she can occasionally still hear that laugh still echoing in deep, painful hollows of her mind.
And it really didn't have to stop, it just kept on going…
She couldn't stick around. Much as she loved Jason, she hated Adelaide more. And even though she didn't come in with Dale anymore, Dale still came, and even this was too much. Raven had been abused, mistreated, coerced and manhandled all throughout her life. But she'd never been betrayed. Until now. And it was a poison to her soul, only so recently acquired.
So she used her last week's pay and the good grace of her boss to purchase a guitar, and she moved on. She left Adelaide behind.
And she took Adelaide with her. She played Adelaide, sang to Adelaide, cared for Adelaide. She was with Adelaide every moment, and her touch upon Adelaide's strings were loving, even when they were firm. Even when she frustrated her. Even when she was hungry and cold, and scared. She would never do her no harm, no no.
And so castles made of sand slips into the sea, eventually
Sable casts the match with the flick of her finger. The flame flickers through the slowly cooling air of summer evening, tracing an arc towards the shattered pieces of wood panelling. The lighter fluid catches at once, and soon fire is dancing across what remains the guitar. The guitar that bears her name. As smoke flits up towards the dimming sky, Sable crouches on the damp wood of the pier, watching as the last pieces of Adelaide are eaten up and carried away on the wind.
“Love you,” she murmurs, “Always 'n' f'rever.”
She smiles.
“Fuckin' bitch.”