Janet. Sometimes
Jane. Whetever you called her, she was
mine.
I met her in a Jewish Theme Bar in the small Alpine town of Uphgahaschlagen. I don't know why I went in -- being a dyed in the wool Catholic and all -- but I can't imagine my life now if I hadn't. It would be so much simpler, and so much more empty.
There she was, at the bar, drinking her Matzoh Ball Soup and Gin cocktail and talking to the barkeep with two long curls trailing down the sides of his face. She was all alone, and I swear I caught the faintest hint of a teardrop on her cheek.
I decided to get closer to her. I went up to the bar to order a drink, but they didn't know how to make any of my favorites: Body and Blood of Christ on the Beach, Bailey's Irish Republican Cream, The Father, The Son and Spirits. I finally had to settle for a Nine Commandments and a twist of lime.
I sat there nursing my drink for nearly half an hour before I worked up the courage to talk to her.
We hit it off straight off the bat. I can't remember what we talked about but the conversation started the minute our eyes locked and didn't end until a month and a half later.
When she lost the ability to speak.
The doctors never figured out what it was. It started on her hair, turning it grey, moving to her vocal cord and finally it got to her skin, right before she died.
I held her in my arms as she lay dying, caressing her cool white hands. I could hardly bear to look at them -- their color only seemed to accentuate her beauty, and how
the showed how what she had inside was going away... So charmingly heathen, your skin is like a teardrop on a popsicle -- melting it away, killing it and at the same time, beautiful.