Sink

She's putting on her make up, adjusting her halter top, she turns to me, plants her lips on my forehead and it's autonomic: I smile.

"Us." she takes my jaw in both her hands, brushing our lips together as she breathes the word.

A Holiday Interlude

Her red lips, her bright hair. We're laying in bed, in a motel somewhere. We're naked and there's a show about a doctor on the television. We out lasted whoever we share a wall with. We sat and smoked a slow joint. Well, she curled around me, fingers teasing the welted out scratches she carved. Fingers playing, the quiet snap of electricity passing between us too.

"How warm is it supposed to be tomorrow?"

"Don't know."

"Warm?"

"Probably."

"S'good."

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.

Consumerism

Just bought these on my lunch break:



They should arrive next week. Now, to buy some more dress pants.

Dancing

Is this once a week? Biweekly? Who knows. . .

I went salsa dancing last night. Well, I went to a salsa class last night. I think most of my 'fun money' next month is going to go to salsa dancing. Monday night, Thursday night, maybe Saturday evening / nights, too.

We'll see.

I went with a young woman who messaged me on a personal's site and we got along quite well. We ate dinner in a park and I had horrendous gas, due to having drank (drunk?) some coffee earlier in the day, and having eaten Indian food the night before.

I'm hoping my flatulence has blown itself out by this evening, when I have a card(s) tournament. ( We shall see, eh?)

Back to the park bench, the chatting, mostly about food and politics, which is fine for a first date. The walk to the dance hall was pleasant enough, discussing the difference between L.A. (mostly gang related) and Detroit (desperation) violence.

The salsa classes were, in point of fact, not salsa classes at all, but instead Ruida, which is functionally Latino square dancing in a circle. It's not line dancing though, there's everything right with line dancing too, just less touching than Ruida/Salsa.

Anyhow, That was an hour and a half or so of salsa, then maybe another half hour of free dancing; we stayed and watched the level 4, 5, and 6 classes, which were interesting, but not particularly hard looking, either. That said, I need to learn hand transitions like woa.

It's not even funny how little I actually know. I'm a high (haha, no) beginner. So, Thursdays is an intermediate lesson at the firefly club. Fortunately, I dropped my Thursday night class, and will now be salsa'ing instead -Much better for my soul.

So, we watch the upper level cats for a while, then walk back to her bike, and spend a fair few minutes saying good bye and good night and this that and the other.

She calls me as I'm on my way home, "So. I have your chocolate."

"Oh! Well, share it with your housemates."

"All of it?"

"Sure."

"You don't want any? I'd feel bad," She says. "I mean. I think I should bring it to you tomorrow."

I smile in the dark. I say: "Sure." We discuss secret agent handoffs, before I tell her where my office is, and she agrees to give me a call, to check that I'm in my office when she plans on dropping it off.

"Not all of it, though, just half. The other half you should share with your housemates." I make her count the pieces and there're eight, "So bring me four," I tell her.

"Yeah?"

"Yes, please!"

We laugh and I tell her where I work. We say our goodnights again and I laugh all round the round-about.

Great and Terrible Secrets: I

I.
She laughed, turned away and he smiled into her hair his hands on her hips, fingers finding belt loops.

Pulse, umph, umph umph, pulse.

(((My lips are bleeding, cracked from the cold evening, having them licked under a mostly waned out moon.

In England, when you're stumbling drunk, wasted on whatever kamikaze chemical cocktail you downed --do you know what they call that? "Detroit'ed." They call it Detroit'ed. )))

He says to the man, "I'm . . ." He looses the word, replaces it (((quick, quick))) with another, "Tipsy."

"Can I buy you a beer?"

"Cranberry Vodka Beer?"

"Cranberry Vodka, got it!" And he's away from the boy, who hot foots impishly in place for a moment then follows, the crowd parting for him (((like it always does.)))

Chapter Names

Previously: Summer Sex.

Currently: Great and Terrible Secrets.

"Emily Dear" or "This one's for you" or "Saturday"

The first poem I performed was written by a woman, a friend. She asked me to read it, then moved a thousand miles away. It dealt with love. It dealt with loss. It was a good poem, right? (Right.) I read it wearing eye-liner. My long hair. My young boy goatee.

The MC for the poetry contest tried inviting me back to his place; failed. He invited me to another poetry group. "For teens like you!" he said.

The MC read a poem about cold spunk splashing onto hot skin in a orange Louisiana night.

All in all, it was a good first poetry reading to go to.


I don't write poetry any more. I can't get the rhythms down.

Swimming, though: I can swim for miles, just my arms; just my legs, whatever, really.

Right now I'm practicing swimming freestyle with my arms, and not smashing my head into the water when I breathe. I know when I'm doing it right, because when I do it wrong my ego crumples against the water and it feels like I've stopped up short.


I have a cane because of swimming. Ironic, because I love boobs so much, right(? Right...) that the breast stroke is what's doing my knees in. All sorts of pulling things in the wrong direction. All sorts of bad torque.

So I have this cane: clear plastic-looks-like-glass and sometimes, for fancy dress parties or bars in Flint where strangers give me drugs for free and then I laugh and smile and forget their name; sometimes I take my cane with me, even on good knee nights like this. So it's me in a light pinstripe suit, with my cane, and a disposable eye patch with a big red X sharpie'd on, with people asking me what I did. "It's not nearly as hard core as you'd think," I tell them. Or I tell them I sneezed while putting in a contact lens. I always laugh: my eyes are thus far mostly fine.


Before that bar, I contemplated staying in, finishing one of the Narnia books. Or finishing "The Invisibles" volume six. Having a quiet beer and some loud food.

Two Beautiful Women, one photograph.

There's this picture, of a woman, -young- it's a half face shot, and to casual eyes she's got string hanging out her mouth. But those who know her, know she's (albeit roughly) sewn her mouth shut.

. . . It's such a plain sight secret.

. . . In the picture, she looks like my best female friend. I hadn't seen it until this picture, but must've recognized it at some point: I dated both of them, off and on for a few years (*not concurrently.)

0001

"You should ride with me," he said. We were sat, drinking coffee, and he was regaling us three with stories from the mid nineties and his early cab driving exploits, "When I didn't give as much (of a fuck, was implied but not stated) whatever."

"They were that pretend nice, you know? They got in and were like: we've got some errands to run." He chuckled. "They were loading guns up and we went to a few different neighborhoods. And I look in the rear view mirror and one of them has a shotgun on his lap and the talking guy is like: He's gonna stay in the car, we'll be right back. I focused on not having an accident, opposed to not having an embolism, and at the end of the night they gave me three hundred dollars and asked for my cellphone number."

"You're good luck."

"Something like that."

"So whose number did you give them?" We all laughed.

The conversation drifted around, we paid, left. But as we're walking, he turned to me, the other two were chatting, and he said, "If you want to ride sometime, lemme know. Also, we're hiring right now. Probably do the training in August, get ready for school. It's A hundred a night usually. Weekends."

"Do you have to know the area?"

"Na, we've got GPS units in all the cabs now. Sometimes they won't enter it right, but that's on them, ya know? They'll eff up the address and you'll just stop in the middle of Detroit -Woodward and Michigan, right?- and they can pay more fare and get the right address, or they can get out and walk."

I smiled. "I'll be in touch. Definitely. Cheers," I said.