Round One (scene 1 of 3)

I found her sobbing, stuffed between two locals who had just cashed their checks down on K Street. She was dark. Dressed with emotion. Black hair, black clothes, tears carrying black makeup from her eyes down into the corners of her mouth. And she tried her best to hide this. Muffling the hydraulic heaves of breath, wiping the tears with the sleeves of her shirt rolled around her wrist and tucked into her thumb. Surrounded by people, she was alone and I couldn't stand it. It perplexed me. Why should I care? It's none of my business and prodding will surely make it worse for her. The embarrassment I may cause, the confrontation that may ensue. I felt her too deeply to ignore though. She churned inside of me, sending twitches from my stomach to my toes, causing my palms to sweat. Anxiety was taking over. If I didn't do something I too, may soon find myself in tears.

The bus stopped in front a Chinese restaurant. The men who sat around her exited and abandoned her. Bastards. She placed her hands on the worn and brown plastic seats beside her, straightening her shoulders, trying to compose herself and ward off intruders simultaneously. The bus moved on. Still she sobbed, intermittently checking her cell phone, waiting for a call, maybe just passing time. She could feel me staring at her. She purposely looked in every direction except mine. I didn't know what this meant. Still she sobbed though. More infrequently now, but on the inside I knew she was collapsing. I somehow felt it, her pain, not just in a way that made me understand, because I still didn't, but in a way that physically affected me. My throat, closed with a bubble, the backside of my ribs beaten by convulsions of my lungs. My eyes, red and on the verge of breaking open. I needed to know her. I needed to comfort her. This desire had never consumed me before. Not for friends or family or church acquaintances who lost their mothers. I was inept at consoling others. I didn't understand how. I felt awkward standing next to the sad, and paralyzed when the happy wanted to share. Everything was so indifferent until I saw her tears, and heard her sobs, and yearned to be her tissue and deep breaths.

As we approached the next stop I could see a large crowd had gathered under the awning of a bus bench. It was raining out. The sun had gone away and night was here, ushered in on the tips of black and gray clouds soaked through and dripping. She'd be consumed. Taken away by these wet and careless people and we, her and I, may be forced apart for an eternity or longer and this couldn't be. Quickly, and to the discomfort of aged nylon legs, and black jean knees, I moved across the bus, finding my place at her side. I came right out with it:

"What's wrong?"

She looked at me, twisting her head and stretching her shirt, giving way to a shoulder that made me shudder. It was beautiful. Round. Prominent. Revealing of the rest of her. Smooth, unblemished, tight. A tear of hers fell onto my hand. "Sorry," she said. And she rolled her sleeve around her wrist and wiped from side to side leaving behind a red line that masked her face.

"What's wrong?"

Straight forward she said, "I just found out three of my friends died in a car accident." I didn't know what to say in response. I didn't feel sad, it didn't affect me in the least. I didn't feel pity for her and I didn't feel bad about this either. She wasn't looking for that stuff. She wasn't looking for consolation or reprieve. She simply wanted to hurt, to cry, to feel what she felt without judgment or answer and now, I saw this clearly. I nodded my head and positioned my lips halfway between a smile and frown.

"What's your name?"

She told me it was Jennifer. She was magnificent. Slim and touchable, natural. Her skin, consistent, shaved, lotioned. Her voice, her neck and breasts and stomach and laugh. Her humor. She spoke, and it meant something. She listened and was willing to hear what it was I said. So selfless she was at such an early stage, removed from her friends, removed from her feelings, sitting with a smile listening to me talking about something so insignificant I'd not be able to remember it once it left me. The bus stopped and we both got out. Her peeling off one way and me the other. We said quick good-byes and left it at that. I saw her randomly throughout the rest of the weekend, before I left town and assumed she stayed, but we only shared quick pleasantries in passing. I ended the trip without finding her.

A heaviness overtook me on the drive home while packed into a van with other conference members. Their noises converged, their laughs became screams, the wind sneaking through the windows ripped at my ears, the road below trembling me with its ferocity and inside all of this, very small, very white and fleeting, was a prayer that she'd think about me.

It'd be another year before we met again. My intentions by this time were faded and indirect, careless in a way. But in a double take, when I saw that it was her, this feeling of knowing her and needing her rushed back into me with such force I nearly fell. Her appearance had changed. She was no longer dark. She'd healed and she was beautiful. Bright blond hair, glimmering blue eyes that spoke. They told stories I feigned for. She was the most intriguing and interesting creature I had ever seen and I needed her body and her being and her acceptance. I needed her to look at me as I looked at her. I needed her to play up my complexes. I needed her long and desiring arms around me, and my undeveloped ones around her.

We embraced each other and she said, "I've been thinking about you," and I crumbled. Love at first sight possibly, but that's not quite right. This was bigger, more permanent than just some infatuation. This was life at first sight, it was love until the last breath. It was here, with no experience or research or crystal ball, I knew that she was for me, and I for her. I could ask for no more, she could expect no less.

A beautiful year ensued.

Walt’s Ride (two of two)

It was massive. Straight lined, sure of itself, beastly in its presence. I quivered beside it, rubbing the back of my hand along its flawless navy blue paint. Not a spec of dust distorted it. Not a single bubble or orange peel in the paint, no rust on any of the thousands of little chrome pieces, everything just perfect. Better than the showroom floor. Something about this car was unique. It was one off, it was Bill's, but it was more than Bill's. "Well hop on in," Bill said. The top was down, folded back behind the rear seat like melting mocha taffy. I placed my palm on the door and locked my arm at the elbow. I was ready to hop in but in my wind up Bill hollered, "Hey! No, no, no. This isn't any ol’ junker. You treat this car like you'd treat a lady. Open her with only the most delicate hands. Respect her. Know that she needs to familiarize herself with you, as you need to do with her. You can't just go jumping her bones. That's rape. Automobile rape." He winked at me to ease the embarrassment but I couldn't help turning red. The wine was sitting just below the surface and all of my adrenaline was rushing through my body, pushing it out into my skin and clogging my pores with its purple-red toxins.

I opened the passenger side door. I held the entire handle in my hand, my fingers barely came back around to meet with my palm as I clasped it and slowly pushed my thumb down to release the latch. The door popped open and sat obediently inside its mold awaiting my signal to continue falling outwards. I stepped aside and allowed it. What a courteous car. Bred for a king. On the floor was thick and long haired carpet. It wasn't like the synthetic stuff that was coming in most the cars these days, it was real. Nicer than the carpet in our den. I ran my fingers through it, and then touched the cherry wood dashboard above. I took my shoes off before getting in. Bill said I didn't have to, but I needed to. I sat erect in the seat as I imagined a business man would. Its thick rolls of buttermilk leather churned under my back and bum. Parts of my body were suspended in mid air while the others delicately distributed themselves over pleats and piping. Bill snuffed out his cigar on the sidewalk and stepped inside. "A real beauty," he said. "Walt loved this car. When he passed it on to me I staggered with surprise... I think I saw that same stagger in you."

I ran my hand along the remainder of the dash. Hovering it just slightly above the glossy wood finish, feeling the electricity of life buzzing between my clammy palm and this rigid and king-like beast of a car. "Open up the glove box," Bill instructed. I couldn't. It needed a key. "Keys are in your pocket, boy. I swear..." I dug for them, pressing my toes into the floorboard and arching my back like some circus freak. When did these jeans become so restricting? I fumbled with them, even the smallest things about this car were massive and proud. The key's heads so perfectly square and confident, their teeth, shark-like and hungry. I dangled the smallest one from my forefinger and thumb and pushed it into the hole using my other hand as a guide. The heavy ivory and wood door dropped down onto my knees and inside, shining gold in the sun was a placard. "Read that to me, boy." I covered its corners with cupped hands to block out the glare and started: Walter Elias Disney.

I was star struck. Mr. Disney, an icon, and me sitting idle with my 17 year old body in a seat I don't deserve. "The car's yours now, son. I trust you'll take care of it." I'd do more than care for it, I'd worship it. I'd succumb to it. I'd allow it to make an honest man out of me. I'd bare children with it if I could, but for now, I'll drive it, not in vain, I'll drive it with a purpose. I leaned over the console and hugged Uncle Bill. He laughed and pushed me away, got out, re-lit his cigar and walked across the street to Aunt Marianne inside her idling car. I waved to her, and she lowered her chin to me. They drove off and I felt unsure, like they left me with a bigger responsibility than I could handle. What do I do with something this extravagant? Should I wash it? Should I find a garage to park it in? Should I take it for a drive? Yes. I should take it for a drive. The wine has surely worn off by now. A sissy drink anyways. Surely it wouldn't have the gull to stick around for more than an hour.

I ran inside and put on my nicest shirt and jacket. I slicked my hair back and slipped the comb into my back pocket. I tied my shoelaces extra tight and galloped back to the Cadillac. The driver’s seat felt me up. It patted my back and rubbed my shoulders and sent vibrations through the underside of my thighs. It knew how to treat a man. I started her up. She fired in one crank and rocked side to side like a ship in a placid ocean harbor as she warmed up. I hit the gas pedal twice. Her core tore left and then ride. What a beautiful beast. I dropped the shifter three slots and felt the car jump forward. It was ready to roll. I kept it at an idle down the street hoping neighbors and their guests would see me and stare. "That boy must be a celebrity," they'd think. "Surely someone of wealth. Did his father come back? Did he bring with him the riches of the Arabian sand?" I'd smile and answer yes to all of their inquiries. Yes I am famous. Yes I am wealthy. Why, yes of course this is Walt's ride, he gifted it to me for simply being brilliant.

I floated out into the North Hollywood traffic, commanding the entire width of the lane and most times hovering over the centerline. Pride, wine, anxiety and embarrassment pulled at my lips and distorted them into somewhat of a smile. I wasn't sure how to cruise in this beast. I knew I didn't deserve it but nobody else did. Why couldn't I pull this off? I drove down towards Hollywood Blvd. I needed to be with those of my own caliber. Out on the Blvd. cars almost as nice as mine floated by with people wealthier or more professionalized in their fantasy than I. Fur collars, pearled cufflinks, bright blond curls and jet black hair remaining unmoved as convertible tops dropped and drivers drove everywhere with nowhere to go. I pulled up outside of Hollywood High. It was the weekend and the only people there were using the field for ball practice. Still, someone to impress. I idled through the teacher's lot and back through the service road that ran along side the field. I parked on an angle and the sun beamed off of my perfect blue paint and sent golden glares out into the field. The players couldn't help but look. That's right. Gawk at me. Goggle at my marvelous car that I built from scratch. Yes it has 800 horsepower. Yes, Hearst tried to buy it off me. Never. I'd never sell this car. I revved it. Shook it pretty good and everyone was looking now. Well, they've had enough. Didn't want to make them too jealous. I put it in gear and slammed down the gas pedal. The tires squealed and the rear whipped around like a fish - no, a shark - out of water and I couldn't control it. It slapped me in the face, its gills and razor sharp teeth slashed my skin. It looked me in the eyes and said, "Don't look me in the eyes!" and I didn't, I closed them. The beast fought me, and took me for a ride and before I could talk some sense into her or I, the beast was struck. Hit from the outside by a goopy yellow pole that left its flesh across the rear quarter panel of my perfect and glorious and desirable car.

I heard the players hooting and hollering. I couldn't look up. I couldn't even get out to asses the damage. For all they knew I meant to do it. I clasped my teeth harder than I had ever clasped them before. Small little flakes of molars chipped off and were swallowed upon acceleration. I sped down the service road, back the through the parking lot and out onto Sunset. I could feel a small, but hard ball growing inside of my stomach. Mom called them ulcers. My whole body itched. My eyes wouldn't stay focused, I could feel the hair atop my head beginning to die and fall out of line. What was happening to me? Mr. Disney, why have you forsaken me? Is it wrong to lust? Is it wrong to love a beast? Why won't you allow me to be myself? This is what I deserve, this is how I desire to live. I held the wounded beast at bay with both hands. I yearned for the top to come up above me and hide my shame, but I didn't want to stop. In the canyon I felt the eyes in the houses above watching me. Stars, gazing down and bidding me adieu. Bon Voyage. Laurel Canyon crumbled behind me. One way out, no way back in. Walt's ride was at fault.

Back in North Hollywood I pulled up behind Sittton's. There was a group of guys from school, guys who really knew about cars and really built their own, leaning over into the bay of one of their Mercs. I didn't know what year it was. Somewhere in the 50's but it looked rugged, and mean, and lower-middle class. I didn't want to stop, but they jumped in front of me and begged to take a look. They talked to me as if I knew their language. "Big block or small block? Three on the tree? Delux edition? Custom tuck and roll? Did you varnish the cherry wood yourself?" I just bobbed my head. Not smiling, not frowning, simply indifferent and exhausted of trying to be anything else. Jokingly, the Merc's owner rattled off, "Don't suppose you'd want to trade for that piece of junk over there." He and his buddies laughed. I looked at the beast, savage and nomadic. It couldn't be contained. Not by someone like me. Uncle Bill had made a mistake handing over this fully developed woman to a boy. What was I to do? Turn her knobs? Honk her horn? Disgrace her body with my inabilities? I looked at the Merc. It was humble, unassuming, it looked like it had been ignored and forced to care for itself. I found it to be strong and resilient, respectable and a creature I could relate to. I couldn't see my reflection in its paint, and that was my favorite part. I dangled Walt's keys from my middle finger and without a word tossed them to the kid.

I drove home in the Merc. Nobody shot me a second glance as I cruised down the road. I fit in, I was a motorist and not an attraction. I was accepted, I was mobile. White smoke was climbing up from beneath the hood when I finally got home. You could smell oil falling onto the engine and then burning off. Before I shut it down, it backfired and shuttered. My brother came jogging out and I could tell he was jealous. I felt good about this.

Walt’s Ride (one of two)

Mom told me to stay home because Uncle Bill was coming over with some big news. Uncle Bill never came over, he briefly dropped by, but never actually came in, not since Mom and Aunt Marianne stopped talking, but it wasn't a farce, Uncle Bill was on his way. Nervous as I was, the prospect of being handed down a few bucks elicited a much more poignant and noticeable feeling of joy. Uncle Bill was a rich man. He had his own booth at Musso & Franks, he was friends with all of Hollywood’s top dogs and most memorably, something I have always been envious of, he drove the nicest, most extravagant cars I had seen in real life or on the big screen.

I was 17 and had been driving since 12, but I never had a car of my own. I was going to school across town now. Got kicked out of Milliken for fighting and when mom found out I'd been hitching over to Fairfax she nearly fainted. "Oh what kind of mother am I, subjecting my little boy to the rash of the road? What will the other mothers think of me?" It was always about her. I heard her on the phone with Aunt Marianne later in the day. After a few frustrated and spiteful words she demanded to speak with Bill. When bill got on the phone her tone changed. As a man, I knew he knew she wanted something, and I hoped for our sake he was gracious enough to give it. As always, times were tough, but we got by the best we could without dad. Mom had a few different callers and Jeff and I both held par time jobs. Uncle Bill provided us with breaks from time to time. Certain mornings we'd wake up and hanging in the mail slot would be an unmarked envelope that smelled like cigars. Mom would cry whenever she saw it and I would wiggle my toes around in my rotten old shoes, anxious for a new pair. Mom spoke softly into the phone, "He's a good boy Bill. He works hard and is kindhearted. If there's anything you could do for him, I know he'd be eternally grateful." Mom and Aunt Marianne were twins, and a stranger would have thought that Bill just had the hots for mom, but it wasn't the case. He more so had the desire to keep the family together, and with feuding sisters and no cousins to bridge the gap, he kept us in touch with his kind deeds.

Time was passing excruciatingly slow. Bill worked over at Warner Brothers and didn't really have a set schedule. If he said he'd be by after work it could be ten in the morning or midnight. I felt trapped inside the house. No matter what, good bad or indifferent, if someone tells me to do something, I immediately want to do the opposite. It takes major internal coercion for me to be a team player, no matter how advantageous the game.

Mom didn't drink. She swears she never has. Not even a sip. But every holiday people would send her bottles of wine. She kept them in a cabinet above the stove. I never touched the stuff. Tom and Jeff said that only queers drank it. But no one was around and now, I wasn't concerned with what they thought. More pressing was this block of time that was holding me in place like a vice. Red or white? I couldn't decide. White seemed too frilly. Not serious enough. Probably wouldn't even get me buzzed. I opted for red. I had to use a toolbox to get it open, spent the better part of an hour chiseling out the cork and when I finally poured it, cork-bits floating in it like wounded battle ships in a sea of blood, my hard work was rewarded by an unexpected sour and rotten taste. It must have gone bad I thought. It had been sitting up there for years. Surely no drink could intentionally taste this way. My heart raced as I remembered stories of men going blind from alcohol that had fermented to the point of poison. I rubbed them and things became a bit blurry. I blinked profusely and tried to focus on small objects across the room. A crack in the wall. The gold lettering on mom's dictionary, the country of Italy on the globe near the fireplace. After extensive evaluation of my sight, I concluded the wine was fine to drink. As awful as it was, as bad as it burned in my chest while going down, I took swigs of it, as big as I'd swig from a cold glass of water, and sat on the couch, slouching further into it with each tip of the bottle.

I went through the first bottle pretty quick, the second went down much smoother. It was just grape juice. Nothing more. No wonder sissies fancied it. I finished off the second in another hour. I was floating now. My head sat atop my shoulders and would have flown away if it weren’t for my neck. My fucking neck. I laughed at it and strangled it and scratched at it sides, but then I apologized because I was just messing around. The globe looked pretty fun to spin. I wonder why we don't get dizzy when the world spins. Maybe there's little people on the globe that I can't see. I'm gunna spin them like the tilt-a-whirl spins me and hopefully they'll vomit too so I’m not alone. I’m so alone. No one is here. HELLO. Stupid echo. Don't scare me again, I'll kick your ass. Mom! Oh right, she's not here. Bill! Uncle Bill! Where are you, you fatty? You tub of lard. You rich man with your rich belly tucked behind shiny belt buckles and pearly buttons. Whatever. I don't need you. - I sat down and closed my eyes.

The couch had turned magnetic, and me the magnet it refused to let go of. Everything spun. All I needed to do was stand up straight and regain my balance, but the ride never slowed enough. The force threw me against the cushion and wouldn’t let me up. I was pinned here, desperate for a life raft, but it never came by, so I closed my eyes and sank into the spin.

"Boy? Wake up boy. I've got a surprise for you outside." Above me stood a man who blocked the sun. He looked like Uncle Bill except smeared. It was as if God had faltered on his brush stroke while painting him. "What happened to your face Bill?" I reached out to touch it. "Boy! Straighten up. Now let's go before I change my mind." I took his hand and he peeled me from the magnetic couch. I rested on his shoulder and dragged my feet, nearly my knees, on the ground beside him. "Get it together boy. Have you gone mad?" he asked. "No Uncle Bill. Sorry. I just haven't been feeling good. Guess I caught a cold." He held me by the shoulders and stepped back to take a look at me. "What's that smell? Cough syrup?" he asked with a sly grin on his face. "Oh well, no harm in a few sips of the finer things in life. But, my boy, it may not taste so sweet, if after all your waiting, it only makes you wait some more." Before we stepped outside he drew a single cigar case from his pocket. He uncorked it and lifted the thick brown roll of tobacco out, running it under my nose and prompting me to take it in. "Learn to appreciate these things Boy. They're glorious and temporary and because of this, they need to be held in the highest regard." He held my arm by the wrist and instructed me to open my hand. "It's ok Uncle Bill, I don't smoke." "I'm not trying to give you a smoke, boy. Now open your damn hand. I swear I don't know why I'm going through with this now." I opened my hand. "Now close your eyes." He put something in them. They were sharp and cold. I rolled them around in my hand and could gage that they were keys. "Now keep your eyes closed." He pushed me from the back out into the street and towards the neighbor’s house. "Go ahead boy. Open them." In front of me was something I wouldn't appreciate for two days after (1 to sober up, 1 to stay in bed), but even now, my insides drowning in purple sissy liquid that was sure to make me blind, I could tell something fantastically oversized and dark blue, was being given to me.

Pissing In The Wind

Upon turning 18 I had had enough of living with my family, so I moved into the garage. It was a long and laborious process of shoveling rat shit and cat piss soggy boxes out of my new bedroom, but once it was done, freedom was achieved. It was 20x20 feet with cracked, unfinished concrete floors, topped with an awkwardly placed bed, a roll top desk and a sofa that should have been left in the alley where I found it. Life was good.

Life was good until the first night I came home drunk and found myself locked out of the house separated from the toilet that had been there for me so many times before. So that's how it is. I turn my back on you and you lock your doors on me? Fine. In my stupor, I trampled into the flower bed that lined the front porch and let it ride. Vomit coating soft-petaled flowers and tainting them forevermore. I went to bed that night hungry and enthralled with the possibilities that lay ahead.

When I awoke in the early afternoon, my swollen and pulsating bladder was scratching at my gut like a puppy left in the cold. Dazed, but in remembrance of last nights revelations, I stumbled into the front yard, turned my back to the street and pissed all over the same flowers I befriended before sunrise. What a relief. A glorious and purposeful relief that cleansed my insides and the petals that had now been eaten away by bile and acid-laced bean dip. I shook the last bit of boyhood out and proclaimed to my parents, gawking at me through the window, "Lock me out again and I'll shit in the pool. I'm a man."

At the time I wasn’t sure why I added the last part, about me being a man, it just seemed natural. Carnal almost, to mark my territory and then assure onlookers of my masculinity. I am a man, I am an American and I piss in front yards, sleep in garages and ask my mom to fold my laundry.

Good Luck

It was a stale night and neither of us had a buck we were willing to part with for anything less than a martini. So we headed to Harry's. They pour doubles for the price of a single and we liked it here because it felt classic. Something that was missing in our lives. Tradition, grounding, steel fabrication and hard work. We weren't mad at each other, it was just too forced and both of us knew it, but we saw the night through. The rain didn't help either. I felt it seeping through my hair and running down my scalp, and even though she was bored to death she wasn't up for any excitement. The rain was just bothersome. It had been here long enough.

She ordered them under her breath and I knew the barkeep wouldn't make them right. I let it play though. "Watch," I said "she won’t make them dirty." She scowled at me. "Well I said 'dirty'. Did I need to specify something else?" She was missing the point. She didn't say anything wrong, she just didn't say it right. The drinks were served ad I could see straight through them. "Told you." She had to take a sip just to be sure. Her face twisted and the veins in her neck tightened and raised. "Oh god. That's just straight vodka," she said while looking at me through soured eyes. I got the bartenders attention. She was pregnant and in the weeds so I was as casual as possible. "Could we have a shot glass of olive juice?"

They went down smoother now and the night seemed to be smoothing out too. We were talking. Smiling. We let our knees bump each other under the bar top. We looked through the opening in the bar's wall, convinced it wasn't a mirror, and made fun of the old-timers sitting on the other side. "What if looking into that mirror was like seeing your future," she laughed. "It's not a mirror," I said. "Oh shut up. You know what I mean," she nudged me in the gut. "Like, see that fat old man?" she said that a little loud, "How crazy would it be, if that fat old man was you?" She laughed and shook her head at how funny it would be, half drunk half serious. I took a better look at the guy. "Eh, I think he looks more like you." Before she could say anything I was off to the bathroom.

We ordered another round and an appetizer that suited only my needs. She was trying this whole vegetarian thing, but chili-fries sounded too good to pass up. She was ok with it, she's ok with everything when she's a little drunk. Half way through my second round, (they were doubles, so that puts us at three) I called it a wrap and just sucked on some water. I needed to drive and I could already tell she wouldn't be able to. I hadn’t seen her like this in a while. "Jur done drinking?" she asked. "Vell then lemme get the rest of it!" she excitedly said, oblivious to the consequence. She finished up and held herself surprising well. She even walked to the bathroom without falter. I saw her through the hole in the wall and she stood behind the old man that was supposed to be me, pretending to hump him.

It was still raining when we got out of there. We exited in each other's arms and it wasn't just the booze. Sometimes we just get too wrapped up in ourselves and forget how to unwind for the other. We ran past my favorite book store on the way to her car and I thought about what I wanted to buy. The weather got jealous of my wandering thoughts though and shocked me back in line. The frozen rain came down and saturated our cotton sweatshirts, leaving us in a heap of hot and steamy cloth and skin. We were in the car now. Her teeth chattered and she laughed about how much she had had to drink. "I'm not sure I've ever been this drunk." Yes she had. "What about that time you couldn't find your way out of the bedroom? You kept walking into the mirror on the wall like it was some kind of portal." We laughed. "Take me to the beach!" she demanded. "But it's raining." "I don't care! Take me to the beach." I started driving without telling her where we were headed. I went north and hopped on the freeway. I'd take her to the beach, but not to the sand. We exited near the airport and looped around and under the bridge that lead into campus. "Where are you taking me?" she asked a little less sure of her abilities. "To the pier. No one'll be out there tonight. It'll be so crazy to stand above the ocean in this storm." She seemed apprehensive, but when I told her there was a bathroom at the foot of it, she jumped right out.

The rain came off and on. We could feel the salt in it stick to our hair as its vessel dripped away. It was empty out here, lit sparsely by overhead bulbs hung every 100 feet. Before the end we heard the pier creaking and in our drunkenness, mistook it for the call of a seal. "We gotta find them!" she said with excitement and terror in her eyes. "Ok, ok. Follow me. There’s a staircase that leads under the pier just a little further up.” Hand in hand, we ran. Our palms, the only thing dry. Our hearts raced and the adrenaline surged through our bodies and turned both of us on. Here we were now, awake. Under the pier on a catwalk where the waves came and crashed into pylons below. Bait from the day had collected down here. Sardines and some other fish I didn't know, but knew Andrew would. We held onto the rails and pushed our toes out above the ocean. She wasn't scared and neither was I. We sat there, my head coming over the back of her shoulder and resting on her cheek, while the fog horns blew and the wind ushered in more rounds of raindrops.  Chilled, she turned around into my arms, kissed my neck and pretended to push me off the catwalk. I didn't flinch, I would have taken her with me, and she laughed. She nuzzled into my chest and then backed away with a mischievous look in her eye. I was game and so was she. "Wait... Somebody’s coming!" Nobody was coming, I was just paranoid. "Why would you let me do that?!" she said half serious. "I bet this is where you took all the other girls you've been with," but it wasn't vicious. She always talked me up like that, always made it seem like I've had so much more than what the truth was. We laughed about it and straightened ourselves up.

When we climbed back up the stairs we held each other around the waist and pushed ourselves into the pier's railing. We stood there, pulsating, looking at the moon breaking away the white clouds. My heart was racing and I could feel her stomach buzzing like this was something new. And this is one of the things that makes me love her so much, her ability to make me fall in love with her in a new way, everyday. The boredom never lasts, what's repetitive is necessary, she is fresh and I couldn't ask for anything more because she provides everything else.

We skip-walked back to the car in anticipation of the night ahead. Passion was bursting out of us and caused our limbs to shake and our teeth to chatter. Her hair was wet and I could smell her shampoo as I helped her into the car and I think we were both ready to go right there, but too many people were around. "Drive faster!" she demanded. We floated down the soggy freeway, the front of her car sliding back and forth like the nose of a speedboat on a lake. She rolled down her window. "You ok over there?" She didn't answer. She stuck her head out into the rain, water pelting her in the eyes and up the nose. "I think I need to vomit." I looked at her, still hanging out of the window. "No you don't. You'll be ok. I'll get off the freeway. You're probably just carsick." She wasn't just car sick. I thought back to what she had eaten throughout the day. A salad for lunch and nothing more. "Shit! You didn't eat dinner. You took down four and a half martinis on an empty stomach!" "I know," she said, turning green. "Why didn't you stop me?" Truth be told, I thought it was funny. I pulled over in a puddle that was more like a lake. "Careful getting out," I said. But she just jumped straight into the water and trudged through it to the back bumper of the car. She let it go and I heard it fall and mix with the puddle-lake below. I only smiled. We were past all those types of getting-to-know-you barriers. "I'm all better now. Sometimes that’s all I need to do." She was still drunk. She kept telling me she was better. "It's ok," I said, and we both knew what I meant. She put her head on my shoulder and it felt good, but I told her to sit up straight until we were out of the car. "You don't want the spins."

She spent most the night in the bathroom and then the rest of it passed out in her clothes on the couch. I watched her sleep until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and crawled into her empty bed. I squeezed her pillows and breathed in her scent. I stretched the blankets with my toes and sprawled out on my stomach to put pressure in all the right places. I got to sleep, comfortable in her bed, listening to her breath, knowing we didn't need to touch to be connected.

Swimming In Our Clothes

The first drops of rain began to fall on concrete streets that had been broken down into gravel years before she left. As soothing as it was for him, to watch the sky finally release itself after a day, maybe two days of build up and anguish, the black taking over the blue, it's bittersweet when the rain falls and moves tiny rocks as her feet did on quiet nights coming home. There's something inside of his stomach that jumps at these sounds and even though sleepless nights have finally subsided and given promise of rest, his body can not simply ignore the water-drop footsteps outside the window.

It's late now and the neighbors and roommates are sleeping, but he throws back the curtains to look into the dark. The gray clouds glow white from behind a sheet of suspended moisture and as outdoor meets indoor on opposing sides of glass, a fog barrier arises to keep them separate. He writes her name on the condensation tablet, but before finished, drops of water rush over the letters, smearing them together and causing them to bleed to the windowsill below. It's too familiar to him, it was how things ended. Him wanting to float, her wanting to stay grounded, and in frustration he wiped it all away. She was gone again, and the rain was only rain and the gravel only gravel. And he used the curtains as towels before whipping them shut.

The wind came in from the sea and pushed sloppy raindrops against ignored windows, angry with him for shutting them out, but he didn't move. He stayed under the covers, clothed, filling the cotton cave with warm breaths and a fever. His eyes burned and he held them shut to gather water from the backsides, but the fever, his heat that he left under the blankets, dried them before they fully opened again.  It had been this way for some time now. This weak and boiling feeling behind his eyes and in his throat. His insides felt like a wind-burned face. And the rain came harder. He exhaled through his nose and felt it scrape the soft spot behind the roof of his mouth upon departure.

It's heavy now. The water could only stay out in the cold for so long. Gravel footsteps came raping at the windows and soon, were walking inside. Mold came alive, carpet dampened and went flat, clothes became unwearable weight and all of this, he breathed in. It's toxic, and he knew this, but it was what he could afford and what he didn't have to work for. Settled, he burned inside the melting ice cube, wishing he could stay trapped forever, fearing escape.

Hey Buddy

Peter looked down at his shoes and with scientific precision exclaimed, "Dude, this guy’s not homeless. Homeless people don't wear shiny leather shoes." And I thought deeply about his assumptions, looking to my own, flattened and road-worn shoes whose laces refused to remain tied, and I thought he might be right. "All I’m asking for is a dollar. I assure you, it'll be used for food. I'm no junkie, just a fellow looking for a helping hand." Peter gave me the let's-go eye and I could hear the impatience growing within his gut. "Sir, if you will, can you tell me where you got those shoes?" I felt foolish for asking him. "What is this, an interrogation? If you don't have a dollar that's fine. I'm just a hungry man, I'm not a criminal or a thief or a liar or whatever other sin-riddled creature you and your pal are making me out to be." Peter got in his face. "Listen to me. Are you listening old man? Just calm down. No need to be an asshole. My friend was only asking you a simple question. We were kind enough to answer yours, now it's your turn to answer ours." The man shook his head at the ground. He lifted his ball cap and wiped his face with a rag he drew from his back pocket. He looked through Peter and stared into my chest knowing that my guilt ridden insides were burning red underneath thin skin that hasn't known a hardship past self-inflicted emotional distress. "They're from a better time," he said with only half a breath. "Now to be fair," he straightened up, "you boys never did give me an answer. Can you spare a dollar for some food?" Peter told him he didn't have it and patted him on the shoulder as he walked away. It was endearing and enthralling to watch him flip from ravenous beast to sympathetic humanist as effortlessly as a happy man falls asleep. I had two singles. They were crumbled and balled up and had gone through the wash once or twice and were only in there because their decomposition had allowed them to hide in the deepest triangles of my pocket. What a luxury it was to find money in this way. How fortunate I was to not have died in their absence.

I stepped towards him and saw my weary face in the tips of his shiny leather shoes. I held the soft and crumbled bills in my hand and pushed them inside a closed fist, towards the man. He looked up at me, and I looked down at him and we entered vertigo, spinning in a sickly rotation of privilege and torment, connections and solitude, luck and loss and like the last drink of the night I damned my choice to bring the nausea upon myself. "Here sir, please take this. It's not much, but I can get you more if you need. I'm sorry." Peter called for me from two driveways down. "No need to be sorry, my friend," he said with an indistinguishable familiarity behind it. My friend. A common term, but when it left his mouth it stuck to me as if it knew me, and I knew it. And it didn't impose, it was collected and distant but it hung to my ears and crawled inside my head and brought back the scents of incense and dried meat. "I know you," I said. And his eyes lit up a bit. I was certain. I knew him, yet behind this layer of despair and neglect he was so unrecognizable, but when he said it, "Yes!" with a slight V sound before the Y, I was certain it was him. He laughed, "You used to give me money all of the time, my friend. Times a little tough?"

He was right. At least 5 nights a week I'd walk into his corner store and purchase luxuries. Bottles of coke, bottles of beer, burritos and instant coffee. I tried to smile but expired conversations about a new owner, the possibility of him being moved to a new store, the hope he had of investing in Argentinean land with his Moroccan wife, pulled down on my lips, paralyzing them in a way I was ashamed to let him see. "Dude! Let's go. I've gotta be at work by two," I heard Peter say. "So, my friend, you still living over on Victoria?" I couldn't answer him, I couldn't look up. I handed him the money and pretended he was still sitting reclined atop a bar stool on the other side of a cash register, humming along to smooth Jazz radio and tapping his shiny leather shoes along with the rhythm. I turned and sprinted towards Peter as if the sidewalk were made of lukewarm molasses and, in the struggle, heard his voice once more, "OK my friend, thank you and have a nice day."