Salome

An Expatriate's Lost Love

Almost everyone in this Mediterranean port city referred to him as The American, The Expat.
But today he called... more

by Ed Meredith

Title

Salome

Artist

Ed Meredith

Medium

Mixed Media

Description

An Expatriate's Lost Love

Almost everyone in this Mediterranean port city referred to him as The American, The Expat.
But today he called himself hungover and sad. He sat alone in one of those tree-frocked
alfresco cafes that offers daytime shade and relief from the bright heat of the midday sun.
It was a quiet place to reflect, no music, no TV, no slot machines only birdsongs, church bells and
the soft conversations of other patrons. It was a perfect sanctuary, away from the maddening strip
and the frenetic sensory assault of the smoke filled strobe and neon clubs that he hit the night before.
His goal seemed to be to drink every bit of Jack Daniels in any bar that would let him. He was celebrating
the Fourth of July and feeling nostalgic and lonely for the home to which he could never return.
But that's another story.

Staring at the froth of the cappuccino, he thought of the night before and how he tried kissing a hostess or two
dead on the lips, hoping to get some action back. But all he got was ejected, bounced. He also remembered
patting a few firm asses as he moved through the streets crowded with prostitutes, rent-a-boys,
absinthe-addled addicts, party girls, trannies, and of course, there were the lovers, the curious
and the indecisive's there for cocktails, beer and other spiritual guidance.

He went from bar to bar emptying every bottle he encountered, hitting on every woman in his path of
desperate celebration. He finally ended in a dimly lit place reeking of atmosphere. A small nicotine-patinated
haunt that hadn't changed since it opened back in the 1940's. The place looked like a set from a classic noir film.
He ordered a Jack on the rocks and fantasized that Peter Lorre or a white suited Sydney Greenstreet
would make an entrance. It was an Ideal spot for intimate assignations or the selling of secrets. It was one
of those places where architects, designers, painters and scribblers still met for lively debate in the
chandeliered and mirrored faded decadents of the past.

The bar was named after and established by an intrepid French female exile named Simone whose fading
but elegant photograph hung behind the bar and obviously reincarnated in her bartender granddaughter,
a statuesque young beauty named Salome. His pulse quickened when he saw her, she was the woman
he'd been seeking his entire life, she was the woman of his dreams, his soulmate, his completion.
He had to meet her, know her, marry her, father her children. He stumbled toward her ignoring his alcohol stupor
and lost himself in her haunting green eyes. He moved so close he could feel her breath and at that moment he
wanted to kiss her full red lips and as he leaned in to whisper his proposal of undying love he projectile vomited.
It's the last thing he remembered before he blacked out, but he remembers it all to well and would definitely
like to forget that part.

edmeredith

Uploaded

June 4th, 2014