I was
walking down the road one day in
March heading
downtown to go to my
dishwasher job at the
Thai restaurant. A car
zoomed by and honked its horn at me. I turned and looked at it as it headed the other way. Later that night when I returned home I saw the same car parked in the
driveway of the house.
She held me tenderly in her arms as we sat together in the gloomy twilight. She looked into my eyes and kissed me. I bit her lower lip gently in return. She massaged my back with her left hand and I felt her warm breath on my neck. Holding her right hand in mine I kissed her again with more enthusiasm this time.
I stood on his chest naked from the waist down. His two giant boa constrictors were in their makeshift case, a horizontal grandfather clock cleaned of all of its machinery, to the bed’s left. Other than the bed and the clock and us the room was bare. He asked me to masturbate and come on his chest.
The cell phone rang, I saw it was Barbara again. She calls me all the time now. Sometimes she calls four times a day. Why do I meet these women who always want to talk to me so much, or talk at me, because I’m never really sure if our conversations are anything more than monologues running in parallel.
We climbed the iron girders of the train trestle that spanned the river. We were all as high as kites and being 100 feet above the river made us feel even more like superheroes. Ed was doing his monkey impression. He was always the most adventurous of the group. I followed behind him basking in the glow of the spring time sun.
The room was Spartan with white walls, one window and a pair of yellow Ikea folding chairs. I sat down in one, she in the other and we just stared at each other not knowing what to say. I started by telling her how sorry I was about her loss. She swallowed hard and tried to hold back her tears.
“99 bottles of beer on the wall 99 bottles of beer,” we were on the bus heading to Wrigley Field and everyone seemed to be singing except me. It was the annual teacher’s helper field trip to see the Cubs play. As the yellow Bluebird school bus bumped and grinded its way south on I94 I stared at Sarah.
Mom was screaming at me to clean my room and how shitty and miserable we kids were. She was having one of typical cleaning fits before the guests came over, running around in her underwear and hysterically shouting at her four children. I shut my door and then snuck out the window to avoid her.
The road undulated underneath the wheels of my bicycle as I cycled past farm fields heading north towards Wisconsin. I had already come more than 20 miles today and it was only 10:30 in the morning. The route I was on continued north till beyond the state line before turning back towards the south.
It was 4:20 and a large glass sidecar pipe was circling. When it came to me I inhaled deeply and then passed it on. I began to cough, the smoke rushing back out of me in one gasping fluking burst of cough, smoke and spittle. There was some out there funky Herbie Hancock fusion on the stereo.