She gave me the best kiss, the best yes.
I'd been drinking the death mix for too long. I'd been waiting on and off throughout the night. I don't enjoy crushes, but I was powerless to dispel them. 30 minutes after midnight she did show up. Boldly, I began to renounce (in my head) the other women. They were lesser, they were unpleasant, just like the dive bar.
She says she'll be right back.
She talks to a group of three fuckheads (who probably aren't really fuckheads, but they were talking to my girl so they are definitely fuckheads) for awhile. They scream in unison and drink on. They cheer the name of their country. By their drinking and reputation and lives historic they earn the credit to say nothing else.
"America!" drinks with his bright eyes open. He faces the dark unknown with erratic dancing, almost constantly. He couldn't stand still if you paid him fifty dollars a minute. Or maybe he just likes dancing. I decide to hate him least of all.
"Uh-marica!" looks liable to fistfight. Other than that harmless.
Murica is the one who brought them there. He's the one solitary Fuckhead with nice facial hair remaining, talking to my girl.
Timidly, but still with hope, I approach the dyad and clumsily insert myself into the conversation.
It is very loud.
Fuckhead makes lame joke about how he and she are, mistakenly, drinking Mexican beers on America's birthday. These Mexican beers must be replaced immediately with American beers. Murica goes to fetch real American beer from the bar. I watch him disappear. Budweiser is owned by the French. No one in Milwaukee drinks PBR. He is mistaken about a lot of things. I look at her.
Collecting that a window has been opened, I move. Let's go for a walk. I had already semi-planned to walk around until someone shoots off a firework at which point I'll kiss her because that's what people do when they see fireworks.
She refuses.
Halfheartedly now, I try to convince her that I am the man of her dreams. Fuckhead returns. "'Murica," Fuckhead states as he hands out the PBRs. Defeated, I clink American beers and walk to the bathroom.
Inside, I was leaving the bathroom and I bumped into a short busboy and spilled rum and coke over my right leg when I looked around and could not find my old friends. I turned to the back where they had been sitting and saw no one familiar so I twisted around to the bar to the same results. I turned and she was standing to my left and she had also been turning, looking so we saw each other and for moments no one walked in between our forcefield of nonverbal communication and then I realized that we just fell in love. We said hello, each to each. We ascended to the second floor and sat at a table and talked until they screamed Last Call and the bright lights were on us.
Outside, it not quite even trying to rain. I had expected it to rain. The forecast said rain. My barber said rain. But there we were, outside the bar, standing apart from the long line of scantily dressed females, under the bright dry moon, in each other's arms.
In her eyes were rubies and quilts. My toe tapped within my shoe. We both smiled, giggled. What we said was of monumental significance. What we said was this:
----I'll see you later.
----yeah
----Yeah?
----Yeah.
The eager question matched with the desired answer. Like telling a child yes, the sun will rise glorious in morning again. I slid my forearms around her back and kissed her. She curled her lips about my own. Longing and there, a big wet smooch.
Twenty minutes later I was in her bedroom. A red shawl over the lamp, it was more silly than romantic. I cupped her skin. We were, oh god, we were so happy.
The next morning (I didn't sleep) she didn't make any promises except with her eyes, her smile and her touch. Standing on either side of her front door frame, our hands swung and detached like metal chains. I didn't give her a kiss goodbye. I felt I didn't need to.
It wasn't just some chick i met at the bar. I figured I'd see this Amber character again. She worked at the airport with a friend of my roommate's in fact, but she was always downtown. I had said the world is small and she said no, there's just so many of us in it. Her art is displayed at the gallery one block from my job. Poetry within rainbows within tears is how she described her style. I promised to check it out.
When I called the phonosounded trune, and the diallobe bemawed, down alone. My friends they weeviouacked aslounding night. Hadn't they seen her? Murmbles and vetty prispers. Slobbin buddies they didn't believe me, grundtapesthowlicks, didn't believe such love. But her? What of her middle name, her siblings, and the camp where she was a counselor for so many years? What about her childhood friend in Turkey, with whom she'd learned to swim. What she told me of her future. The charity and passion for the well being of others, of our society. Her plans. Awed by her ambitions. She took my breath away with the dreams I could never understand.
I never saw her again after that night, which is the saddest thing. She didn't return a single call or text, so I never knew if the things she told me were true. Maybe not even her name would hold weight outside that moment. I recall her beauty bitterly, having learned nothing, but I never care to check the weather anymore.