the James Dean that lived

1

"hiiilda!"
"hiiiiiildaaa!"
"mathilda!"
and I awoke.

a face looked down at me, it was a man's face that I recognized but didn't know. sleepy eyes that were veiled beneath large wire-rimmed glasses that gleamed of warm brass against tan southern california skin, his eyes; they poured bean green over blue. but mostly, they were blue.
"h-how?" I choked out.
"how do you know my name?" I asked him before I had fully awoken.
"we met last night," he said this like it was an obvious fact of life as if I should've known this since birth, or at least since the moment I met him. he smiled down at me. I propped myself up slowly on my elbow. the carpet left a small indent like cottage cheese against my arm. I was in a room with sleeping bodies strewn about the furniture. I sat upright fully.

riv fell back to sit on the dirty glitter covered carpet that sat below me.
"God this must seem so weird. do you know where you are? do you remember who I am?" he asked.
I took in my surroundings. a small student apartment; with the same layout as mine, though this one was filthy, and filled with people.
"this apartment looks like mine, but it's not, and you're river."
"this is Eli," he said as he pointed to him.
"I know Eli," I butted in.
"and this is his home." he said. outstretching the hand he used to point towards my best friend to fit over my own, my hand that sunk into the carpet and drowned among fleas.
"do you really remember me?" he asked again. I nodded my head.
"we met last night. but I was a little drunk. we sat around for awhile and talked and eli says I cried and then we left and came back but I don't remember that." he laughed a bit at the end of his story. a song by the violent femmes played in the background. I looked out the window, the sky was an odd shade of violet.
"what time is it?" I asked. River looked down at his watch.
"4:53,"

we found our way to the kitchen and the violent femmes turned to the damned,

"will you send me pretty flowers while i'm slashing my wrists?" eli laughed a bit to me. he knew that despite my art school sweaters and glasses thicker than reagan's skull i could appreciate some punk. 

"waiting for my fan club," i said softly in his direction. he opened the fridge and poured himself a pepsi. there was a lot of muffled conversation from across the wall, people were having rock banter, talking about celebrities, fashion, art. every time river walked by someone that didn't know he was there he got a small 'woo! rio!' and he smiled and waved politely.

---

it was a friday night, art building kids party with wine and yo-yo ma. but this friday, we had vodka and nirvana. there was a new crowd. some of which were famous, twenty-something musicians/artists/actors/boys with rich parents, most of which were college kids who had nothing better to do. they watched tv, cartoons mostly, they sang along to lewd and crude songs and laughed, and drank. the stars were clouded out with smog and there was no moon, only the cold unforgiving glare of the streetlights on the parts of the sidewalk where the puddles pooled. i slipped twice on my way over there while trying to climb the slope where the sidewalk rose. some kid across the parking lot laughed at my misfortune. when i opened the door, the apartment looked just like my own, the same cheap faux wood furniture, the same ugly white cheap fake granite counter, the same gross wood paneling the school had placed in the hall twenty years prior. smiling faces welcomed me, some of which i knew, most of which i didn't. most of them did not attend the art building, which eased my mind a bit. if i did get drunk and do something stupid, at least i wouldn't have to see the other half of that on campus every day. one of them stood out to me, and he, being my best friend, found me immediately with white blue eyes.

eli was wearing a white t-shirt with the name "anna" in red felt sewn on with what appeared to be dental floss. eli looked like a freak, he was albino, with his long pin straight normally greasy white-blond hair, a constant sunburn, and these beady rabbit eyes that stare into your soul and wrench out your thoughts. he was tall, taller than tall, i went up to his mid arm as an adult woman. he often would get out his pocket knife and clean his nails in odd places, scaring customers at the DMV, scaring customers at shopping malls, scaring people at his own parties. he loved to play quarters, he wasn't the type of guy to get girls in bed, but he would destroy their knuckles. some people say that's how eli fucks, but i really wouldn't know.

he was holding a can, it said "charms" but he crossed out the c so it said "harms".

"mathilda, this is river, river phoenix."

the man with long light brown hair and grandmother glasses held out a large sturdy hand.

"oh weren't you in a couple movies?" i asked him, shaking his hand. he nodded lightly, obviously uncomfortable with where the conversation had turned, but too polite to change the subject.

"my full name is mathilda ellis, though you can call me hilda,"

"mathilda with an h?" he asked, i nodded.

"interesting,"