Running

Ruby Ann Masterson has never liked her name, as a child she often changed it when playing at the park with other children.  She didn’t play like the others though.  While she was at the park she sang, and she walked letting her gaze wander over the playgrounds and up to the clouds then off to the trees before stealing a quick bashful glance at a boy nearby.  She wouldn’t sing any songs; just sing her thoughts, imaginative and bright.  “Who will marry me?” she would sing to no particular rhythm, “Who will marry me?”  She would carry the last word and note longer if she hadn’t captured the attention that she desired.

She was a princess, the manifestation of a damsel in distress, sweet, pretty, and longing, Walt couldn’t have imagined a more perfect princess.  Naturally the boys would quickly introduce themselves, innocent and proud, then they would ask, “What’s your name?”

Ruby Ann never gave them what they wanted, “Cinderella,” she would respond, or, “Rapunzel,” but her favorite was, “.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Yes! It is!”

All smiles that were too young to be wicked yet too knowing to be kind, Ruby Ann would run and run.  The boys always chased her, always tried to catch her, but they would never catch her.

The first time Ruby ran from love was the night of her high school senior ball.  Eighteen years old and about to graduate, Ruby had been dating the same guy for three months now, her longest relationship yet.  On the dance floor and having a blast the two of them jumped up and down to the rhythm, onlooking chaperones barring any possibility of more intimate dancing.

Ruby was tossing her head back and forth with a huge smile on her face not really paying attention to her date while he watched her with admiring eyes.  He finally got the courage to do what he’s been waiting to for weeks, oh the sweet brevity and innocent ignorance of high school love. 

“I love you,” the boy shouted just loud enough for Ruby to hear over the music.

“What?” Ruby pretended not to hear.

“I love you,” the boy repeated.

“I can’t hear you,” she gestured to her ear.  So the boy led her out into the foyer, and in that semi-quiet Ruby says overenthusiastically, “Let’s get some water!”

The moment gone the boy had lost all of his courage and vigor.  With a couple of umms and uhhs, Ruby quickly caught him off guard before he could say ‘it’ again.

“I really need to go to the bathroom, I hope there is no line.”  Ruby hands him her water and walks away saying, “Hold on one sec, I’ll be out in a little.”

The boy was so relieved to have more time to gather his courage again; he gave no thought to her quick departure. 

Ruby slipped out of the bathroom window that night and walked home to find it empty.  “Mom’s out drinkin’ again,” she sighs to herself.  She doesn’t know why she ran, just that being there at that dance didn’t feel right, her boyfriend didn’t feel right.  She texted a guy she had been seeing at another school told him to come over and bring some friends.  She drank her mom’s booze until they got there, and when they did she had fun.

Ruby’s mom came home belligerently drunk after everyone had settled down with whomever they were hooking up with for the night.  She kicked everyone out, “Who the fuck do you people think you are?  Get the hell out of my house before I have my man come down here and beat yooooooo…” her last word ending in a stream of projectile vomit.  The kids all left, and Ruby set her mom on the toilet, cheek on the seat, bottle of water in the left hand.  That’s the way she would wake up in the morning.

Ruby left her a note and a picture of the two of them at Bolinas Beach, it was a cloudy miserable day for weather in the photograph, but the two of them wore the same exuberant smile.  That day is the second time Ruby ran from love.

She never spoke to her mom, though it was her mother who continued to pay her phone bill in the hopes of hearing from Ruby, she never did.

Ruby used up her texts and her minutes on boys, one then another.  She would sleep with some of them and date others and use the couches of others.  She would go out with them, she would drink, she would smoke weed, do blow, roll.  Everything had a different name or lingo, but they all meant the same thing, getting high. 

She started buying her own drugs, as she went from guy to guy, not every one of them would enjoy her preferred drug.

Ruby fell in with a charming dealer, and they got along so she started seeing him.  She moved in, but their relationship remained altogether casual.

She came home one morning early, from her bartending job at a local dive to find he mother sitting on her couch and her boyfriend’s voice coming from the other room, “We got some really good stuff in this last shipment, totally worth every penny.”  His voice getting closer as Ruby and her mother were caught in a dumbfounded staring contest he says, “However, I will give you a first time customer…oh hey baby welcome home!”

“You’re dating him? This man?”

“Get out.”

“I had hoped for better for you.”

“How could you hope for better?” she spoke firmly holding back a shout, “Get out!”

“You are so smart and sweet and beautiful, you deserve better than a shitty apartment and a drug dealer boyfriend.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is my house and you will not disrespect me like that in it!”  A rage is clearly visible behind the boyfriend’s eyes.

In a small voice, Ruby’s mother apologizes and continues, “Here’s forty dollars, can I have that black tar you were talking about?”

“Take it and get out, find a new dealer,” replies the boyfriend.

As Ruby’s mother is walking out, she whispers to Ruby in passing, “Run now Ruby, run like I know you can.”

To be continued…