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2002:February:15
Note: I was walking up the sairs to my apartment (the elevator broken again!) and I found this black notebook on the stairs. This was on the first two pages. It "freaked me the fuck out" to not know this person. I didn't write this but I thought you might like to read it. It's better to get it out there so I won't feel so nasty.
I saw you today. It started around 8. I slammed on the brakes. Last minute decision. I was wrestling in my head. I had the whole town, the roads, the restaurants mapped out. I knew how to get there from here and from here to there. You were joking around with some cancer victim in the non-smoking section about how you didn't need to wear a bra either. I think you said either. You could have, for sure. How there was nothing there to support. She laughed out loud. I thought she was going to blow the oxygen tubes into her french toast. But you seemed prepared. Like you would know what to say to that, too. I wouldn't try. Not out loud anyway. You told me that they could make anything I wanted. So I let it fly and you laughed and all but pinched me on the nose with your knuckles. Silly me. Silly us. I walked out of there in slow motion and I didn't look back.
I saw you again at 845. You were much older and you were wearing an apron. I don't know why I went in there. Probably nostalgia. Like the love of my life was going to sit with me and share the newspaper. I kept it simple. You smiled big and I got what I came for. It was warming in my hand. And it burned my upper lip. Again, I walked out of there in slow motion. I could see my vehicle sitting there. The buildings and traffic seemed to shine and blur all at once. I was surprised when she started. She just started and I thought about cleaning her out at some point in the day. When it was convenient.
And again at 9. Blonde now. Younger much younger. The weight of your occupation was splayed out with all the melodrama of a broadway show on your eyebrows. Your body ached to be bigger than it was. The irony. Somewhere there might have been a patch on you. You smelled like roses but not. Really, you didn't smell like cigarettes and that's like roses. You were being good for now. You treated me like your superior. I was ashamed but I accepted my role and watched you feign excitement when I handed you the coupon for the free coffee.
You gave me that look at 12. I didn't know what to make of it. There was sarcasm in your gaze and cynicism in your haircut. Short, gray, winged on one side. You told me where to go and I went. I buzzed around the place like a pro. I got what I came for and you made a joke about charging me more if I thought the price was too cheap. I laughed the same as I always do when I hear that joke. Ha Ho No Ha. Like that. You told me that you didn't need my license that you knew where to find me. I laughed at that, too but it really kind of freaked me the fuck out. You know. To be found.
I can't tell you what time it was when we last made contact. All I can say is there you were. There we were again. Standing. Surrounded by very real and incomprehensible backdrops. A little music going in the background. We walked another couple of miles bringing that to something like five-thousand now. Five thousand and one five thousand and two. I couldn't laugh anymore. I couldn't talk or be mad or be happy. I was thinking about gardening for food and digging for shelter. Sleeping naked on a rock. Anything. Anything but this birth. MSNBC kept showing the news like we didn't know. Like we didn't have a choice. Right there. I walked home and I stuck my tongue on that spot where I bit it and for a split second I wanted to scream at you and cry goddamnit. But I didn't. I just didn't is all.
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