Phoenix Drowning

Phoenix Drowning Roya Sorooshian 11.3.01

 "I feel like I'm crawling out of my skin," she said, and I felt the
familiar tingle in my own body. Something about her had always made me want
to lose myself and crawl inside her body and mind. To protect her. To become
her, maybe. To make her larger than life so that no one would mess with her.
To give her the strength to say what she needed to say. My best friend, for
so many years. Sometimes it was hard standing next to her, when it looked
like she needed another voice inside her throat. 

I have this picture of Phoenix standing on a gravelly beach, her bright orange-red impossible hair the perfect contrast in texture and color. You can't see the ocean, but you know it's there and you know she both wants it and abhors it. You can see the way her skin stretches, reaching for it. You can see the way her eyes grow hard and she taks a step back, steeling herself from the salt air. I can see this, anyway. I always get so mad when someone sees that photo on my wall, and says "she's so hot." To me she is this poisonous beauty who will kill herself if she escapes her body, but will kill herself trying. This was running through my head like wet sand sticks to your legs, and her voice washed around me.

"...just out of my skin, you know? I can't fucking deal with this anymore. This shit is fucking breaking my heart." I heard the sound of seagulls, wheeling over empty beaches, hoping that someone had left a watermelon rind, or empty fritos bag.

"I need a tequila." I could hear resignation in her voice. So different from that first night she introduced me to Reb. I remember she was so drunk she could barely stand and she couldn't even kiss. Reb was drunk too, but in a soft way that made you forgive the way his eyes couldn't stay focused for a whole sentence. Standing in the 2 am drizzle of Northern California, I reached for the bottle of schnopps as Reb reached for Phoenix, and was surprised at the sweetness. She wore his jacket and I thought about how she was always trying out these different plummages. I thought about how with birds, it's always the male who's bright and colorful, and why do we human girls want to shroud ourselves in the baggy colors of a boy's sweater? Why aren't the shades of our own feathers enough?

Reb was a musician. Phoenix said that when she introduced him, like it explained everything. Maybe it explained the way the phone never rang when it was supposed to. Maybe it explained his deep eyes. Maybe she tried to make it explain why she never questioned the days he spent away from her. It was his concert we were at, shivering, our knees weak with cold and alcohol. Between every set he leaned over the railing and pressed against Phoenix. I watched them and was glad. The sugar sweet schnopps melting the corners of everything and blurring them together. He was 26 and she lied and said she was 18. "I think I'm crazy for him," she said, as way of an explanation. I didn't know what to do except take it as one. Besides, I liked the way he played the bass. Building the music up around him like walls built out of one way mirrors, so we could see in, but he couldn't see out. And when he was done, he'd open his eyes and grin sheepishly, finding Phoenix and smiling at her, where she sat, smoking and clapping in the front. Because of this I thought he knew about his inside, what went on in his own heart and mind. And I thought that someone who could see themselves that well would never hurt the deepest parts of someone else. They would know what it was like, all alone in their own glass house, made from their own mind. They'd know how loudly the telephone not ringing could sound, how it could bring the walls crashing down. And how sometimes, the best bassline couldn't cover up the neverending echoes of that sound.

"I knew he would leave me. We used to joke about it I'd tell him that he'd dump me someday, and he said no way. I was gonna fucking break his heart... sure. I knew this was going to happen." She took a deep breath and I heard the cigarettes.

I thought about how long I'd known her. Thought about the different jackets I'd seen her in. I thought about her now, staring at the bottle like it held the whole ocean inside of it.  How she stared like she was swallowing waves of pure salt. Like she wanted to drown in it. I wanted to take the bottle and pour it over her head, watch it drip down her face, make her laugh, get some reaction out of her. I wanted to pick her up and carry her to the edge of the water, so the gravel wouldn't hurt her feet. I wanted to take his jacket and place it quietly on the dry sand away from her. I wanted to take her cigarettes and put them in an empty bottle and send it like a wish, an SOS, a hopeful plea in a hopeless situation. Watch it until the sun glinting off of the glass made us wince and turn away. Then hold her hand, and tiptoe into the water with her. I wanted her to realize that the two of us, crazy in our colors, didn't need a lifeguard. And that maybe, somehow, we could swim out of our own skins. I wanted to help her realize that wading in the shallows is a long way off from drowning.