Let's go back for a moment, eh? (891)

That doctor's office? It's actually a public health building. I met a man there, once. I met him and we laughed and we chatted and I got his phone number and then.

And then, the next time, we both showed up again at the same time to get our results. I went into the room and came out shaky, but relieved. He came out just shaky. His rictus smile, his watery eyes.

These rooms have windows, and these doctors make jokes about cyanide capsules in their rings, in case you're concerned about anonymity. I never am. Never have been. Never will be, honestly. It’s just not my thing, not when it’s not work related.

I don’t need to worry about negative HIV tests. Poor, poor Charles. What a mess. We did actually meet for breakfast, once after that. Able’s Coney Island, on the corner of Gratiot and Drive-by. He was still grinning, but his skin was tighter.

Isn’t that gross? The way people waste away so quickly once they’re diagnosed. Reality sets about it’s grim business, setting things to a preconceived notion. . .

How boring. How depressing. I mean, better than getting injected with goodness only knows what, right? But still.

How gauche.

Maria, there’s a woman who was never once gauche. Also short, also blonde. Also a smoker, busty, and crazy. “My brother yelled at me today, John,” She said. She said, “He said not to sleep with you, because he likes you and wants to see you around more. He thinks you’re cool.” She has this disbelief way of stating things, other people’s opinions, as if –no matter what—they’re surprising to her. This is going back, too. This is a decade ago. This is winter and crack addict ex boyfriends (hers, not mine) and her laughing and lighting up while we pick at the remains of the Korean food and I warm my hands around the huge cast clay bowl.

. . . where are all these flies coming from? It's so hot inside, you'd think they'd be staying outside, under leaves, in trees, around the grass watering sprinkler systems. Instead, one or two at a time, they buzz around my monitor. They sit on my desk huffing the incense. I guess this is what I get for having no real windows to speak of, eh?

The the thing, too, about road trip stories is that everywhere is a major event waiting to happen. Truck stops, gas stations. The inside of the car, moving or not. All these places are moments of "Ah hah!" Of intrigue. Of danger and revelation.

That off ramp, in arsenal? The one where a local had drunk swerved into the warning sign a few miles back? That was fucking amazing.

"There's no way back on." She said, accusingly.

I laughed, "This is my fault?"

"No, but, you know. What now Mr. I gotta pee?"


"Good question. Keep heading south, I guess."

"Don't we have a map?"

"Yeah, but we need somewhere not side of a road to stop and read it."

"Right."

"Exactly." And with a slight gear grind we were off, into nowhere safe, into every bad start to a worse horror movie. We were obvious outsiders, what with our non-accents and our hand rolled cigarettes. (We were running low on joints and had taken to cutting them with loose tobacco.)

It was five miles before we found a gas station, and the pumps were still analogue and the attendant was toothless and overly friendly to her. She came out quickly, "Look," She said, "Just don't leave me alone and let's not sleep anywhere but in our car, okay?"

I looked at her, an eye brow raised. "Okay?"

"NO, not really."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

She wasn't volunteering and I wasn't prying. We finished pumping the gas quietly, her hand wrapped around the one I had stuffed in a coat pocket.

The gas pump clunked to a stop, and she jumped. "I'll go -" Her look stopped me. "We'll go ask for directions."

"We've got the map, we'll figure it out. We can do that, right?"

"Totally."

"Cool."

And she was in the car just like that. I smiled, mostly to myself and for show, and got in. She locked the doors and pulled out the Atlas. She asked, "Where are we again? What state is this?"

And I told her, and she was flicking through the pages when the windshield went white with fractures and buck shot. She was swearing, the engine over clicking, not starting and me screaming: The clutch! The fucking clutch! Go go go go go go!

And in and reverse and stall out

Round two collapsed the glass in on us, and she shrieked but the reverse worked and she peeled out with a thump.

A thump?

There was someone behind us, under us, in front of us and we one eighty'd and were back on the road, wind bullying us into our seats and she's just swearing swearing swearing as I hand her a pair of sunglasses.

First not vulgar words she says to me, "Thank-you."

And I can't help myself. I ask her: "Were you thinking what I was thinking?"

"Holy shit holy shit holy shit we're gonna die! Holy shit holy shit holy shit?"

And we're laughing our way into the woods. . .

This waitress, let me tell you of her. 303

Irrational fear of heights. Mile high club member, because she lived in Seattle for a year, and it happened just as she was leaving, and yes, she had wanted it to. Of course she was asking for it.

Transsexual escorts are a dime a dozen in the almost west coast of a democratic America. (This is the future, even if it doesn't want me to tell you about it. Inevitability is a bitch like that, right? Right. [Write])

My problem with "The Postal Service" is that the songs go fucking nowhere, and they end five seconds before or after you're bored and about to hit the 'next' button anyway. What a mess. That isn't genius, by the way. It's bad sex.

I don't know if she still fears heights. Probably not: she dated a lot of tall men for a while, way back when, in Kentucky.

Her name? I can't fucking remember it. Not shadow, not ella. Something old, like Ella. Grace! her name was Grace. Fitting, actually, with the way she moved, and not just her hips, though: those too.

"All my boyfriends are convinced I'm going to go back to my ex," She told me once, over coffee. "They all hate you, though! You've been around for ever." And I smile and I nod and I continue. "They tell me I always talk about them so nostalgically. But that's just how I am. It doesn't mean I *still* love those guys, it doesn't lessen what I feel for *them*, *now* but they don't see it. To them it's doomed.

"And so here I am!" She waves her hands around, "Imitating crazy for myself in a late night diner. And ya know? I don't really want to talk to myself anymore." She smiles into the ashtray, putting out her smoking cigarette filter.