Delilah and Thompson (Tom)

He wondered about her with suspicion.  Although, she'd been the only one to ever be honest, loyal, and open to showing him the person she was meant to be!  But, oh__no!  He'd seen too many signs, creeping paranoia, consumed his every thought!  He had to have all the explanations.  He did not see himself worthy of such a creative, outspoken, opinionated, and argumentative soul, as Delilah.  Thompson just fretted about the trailer that they Lived in, in Toledo.  Tom would pace in a quiet but aggressive fashion all about their double wide trailer in the Seasons of Mist Trailer community.  He found and Delilah found that Tom had a fascination for the spiders.  He'd make eyes at them every time he'd pass by one.  These patient little spiders all frantic but calm in their meticulously built nests taking no effort to architect.

One day Tom found out.  He finally understood why Dellilah was so steadfast in her syntax and semantics.  She had one hell of a slithering Tongue that would hit her opponent like whiplash in a sudden impact.  Master of both the figurative and literal references in standard spoken conversations.  She'd stipend herself with weapons of mass verbatim, compounds, and theories of little sarcastic dry humor so that she managed in the world.  The world filled with masks and facades...

Both Delilah and Tom were worn thin from the debt they had to pay that they reacted nervously to each other.  Always wondering how much? Just how much was in the others check book.  MMMPH! 

And it wasn't that they didn't love each other__for, they cherished every moment they spent in each others arms and presence.  They were simply also trying to manage this constant economic decay.  

Well, Delilah had stipend herself with the wealth of her antepasados.  The wise ones that kept all the tribes alive.  She found peace she knew where to connect to her spirit self. Except she'd kept it a secret.  She didn't want Tom to know that she had refuge from this INSANE WORLD! So, she kept the secrets of the antepasados in her mind in her place of peace, her ultimate sanctuary.  And this made each one a bit distant than just how close they could have been.

And one day Tom woke up to her secret and marveled at the luminous and eloquent sounds that nourished his insides.  He felt he had a soul for just a tiny little moment as Delilah chanted the calls of the antepasados.  

Delilah had been singing the tribal song of her family's deeply ancient traditions.  

Tom thought to himself "wow, bizarre, this is truly peace" during the pauses which felt like timely and impassioned intersessions between the drum beat and her voice.  

The Music Ended.

"Delilah, wow, that was truly divine!" "I never knew you, you, could sing, like____"

"Like a what? Like an Indian?" replied Delilah as she went off on a tangent:

"Yeah, well, I do have a year long permanent tan, if you haven't already noticed__ What did you think? I would disregard every ounce of my being? My heritage? MY ANCESTRAL AND LUMINOUS POWER?!"

Delilah had finished and found herself upset, disappointed... Becoming, more and more abrasive by the minute.

Tom responded to her immediately as her recognized her distraught nature, instantaneously.  "Wow, D you are responding to me in a very defensive tone, you know?  Delilah reassembled herself and let go of her tears, "Yeah, Tom, I am defending my existence! You bet I am on DEFENSE!"

Tom interrupted: "Delilah, I liked it, I don't know why your doing this? PLEASE, Don't let me be misunderstood?"

as he pleaded with D.

Delilah, gathered herself, deposited her composure and continued:

"Ha! What do you think Tom that I don't get tired of how, awfully, good you really have it?"  "You're white and you're privileged, you didn't grow up like me having to fight to be recognized!"  "I have worked so hard all my life, to be rejected, to wonder from pointless job to pointless job, getting laid off and discontinued in between.  And all you have to do is know one person in computer science and <POOF> you find yourself on full salary with full benefits__making more money than anyone could never imagine paying me, even, EVEN, for the same damn job."     

Tom's jaw dropped because he was so utterly disconnected from Delilah's reality.  A reality that she had struggled for but that never recognized her struggle.  

Delilah had just released her deepest resentments and she had one foot placed on the side of liberation.  The room was stoic and their reality was stark and sharp with full color interpretations of their much denied realities.  Delilah had spent years on trying to find the right way and the right time to tell Tom all that she felt and it never happened. Two years in Toledo and this was the first time Tom could be given a moment of awareness for Delilah altogether.  

Delilah felt disproportionate to Tom but yet she had to always prove she could fly with the words and sentence structures she'd been applying from graduate school and post graduate extended education.  

Delilah felt that it was all so unfair and unnerving.  Sure Tom had his own ridiculous debt that Delilah never accumulated from her own days at the university.  No, Delilah, had made it on grants and scholarships.  It was really Tom who slaved away to pay off his enormous and unparalleled debt.

But despite their positions of economic oppression being one of Tom's limitations and not D's, Tom was joyous and free.  He had nothing to hide and loved his girlfriend because she was so gorgeous and wise. 

Delilah, ironically, always had more money even though Tom made more.  She was a practical wage earner.  She always thought ahead to protect herself with stipends she'd concoct from previous pay checks.  And even when Delilah lost her job she recycled cans and sold beaded jewelry to stay above waters.

Again, quite ironically, Delilah's strange outcry about Tom's livelihood was short lived.  It seemed that her own voice and chanting earlier had put Tom in such a serene and appreciative mood that he simply allowed Delilah to hurl words at him and he felt more wonderful than he had ever.  Every bit of paranoia and suspicion had dissipated after she had sung. 

Delilah on the other hand found herself warped into a dwelling fear and discontent.  She inundated herself with the deep loss and utter sadness and tears she'd carry with her when recalling Native American history.  This history of D's had scampered around Tom for the first time with such a dreaded power and poignancy.  

Native Americans were raped, conquered, bought, sold, killed, gutted, dehumanized, and possibly worst then all atrocities stripped of their cultural customs.  Europeans saw them as inhuman, frankensteinian, and felt they should think of them as disposable monkeys.  They consolidated tribes that never cared for one another to divide and conquer, to watch deteriorate.  To use as subjects for their amusement.

Tom thought to himself, "holy crap, it's so easy to forget history and the pains that certain groups carry within from that historical TRUAMA!"  "It is easy for me to forget because I am WHITE! and I don't think of other groups besides the dominant group during my day to day.  

BREAK THROUGH, WOULDN'T YOU SAY? 




By Deborah Godinez 2012 ©