sometimes i remember the moisture in the air and nothing else...
i traveled three thousand miles to see her. she would never have done the same for me, but i was fresh to the world and foolish, and i wanted to believe in the chaos of possibility, the fleeting myth of trust and loyalty, i wanted to believe it was as beyond her to betray me as it was for me to tell her no. it's embarrassing now, thinking of how i doted on her, sacrificed for her, let her stand so heavily on my back. i allowed anything. there was no intrusion too unbearable, no cruelty too humiliating. i submited and adored, knowing the whole time i was going too far.it was nearing the end of southern summer, the first month of tornado season. yellow, orange, red glow of dull reflection and shadow, sheltered in the great forever blue of cloudless sky. a landscape of leaves, of brown brick and of ancient glass in freshly painted wooden frames. underneath is the parking garage where i carried him to the bus stop, to catch the last bus, where he lit the wrong end of the cigarette and we laughed and i wondered what it was that they shared and i could not touch. past the lot where they eventually built the new school, a wailing monstrosity of concrete and pipe without ghosts or windows with fish in them, without walls that had been lived in for a hundred years. into the park, patch of green in the dark industrial city with it's cynical eyes and perpetual insistance on beauty. the park, hours spent avoiding anything at all, legs spread on the concrete and a cigarette in one hand, look up and the sky is framed in the architecture of another century. the fountain where in other summers we let ourselves be drowned. the library, looking up the history of strangers in the dusty archives and dreaming of growing up someone else. the torch, where we lit our cigarettes, and where i realized that even S. was alone in the world, and later when she tried to die i was still surprised. through the winding alleys that lead downtown, and off to the sides wig shops and medicine shops and places where you can get lemonade and kiss strangers, and also there are wrought iron fences that hide blue and green gardens and marble statues of saints. past here is the bus stop, and here we bought cigarettes, three dollars a pack, from the machine, and also here the snow piled so high they stopped the buses for three days and families waited asleep in the corners dressed for travel or home. in the same building fast food and the booth where i sat with A., who blew smoke and thought it was sexy, and T., who believed in things for the hell of it and bought veggie sandwiches cheap. farther is the promenade and a donut shop upstairs where i spent various hours with various someones sitting close in artificial darkness and drinking coffee, while L. talked of depression, while C. talked of family, while B. talked of dragons and he talked of love-of J.-of her- and again i wondered what it was i couldn't touch. downtown is never open but everywhwere are the local crazies and bums and streetwalkers, and also families, the people who live downtown and are dark and old, like the city itself, and belong here. another fountain, the controversial fountain, an ice cream parlor, a church where R. broke his wrist when the police threw him down the stairs, and also in this church you can sleep at night if you are too high to go home, and on the left there is the thrift shop where i put a dress on hold and never bought it, and the health food store that sold me the bread i went with M. to get and later we fed it to the pigeons and watched them copulate with the intention the documentaries tell me isn't there. but past this is a small chinese market on a corner where we got lychees, and down the street the apartment where T. moved and became a whore and a terrible painter but still had interesting shoes, and keep going to the gas station where they may or may not sell you cigarettes which are less than the machine but not always available without id, and the man who works there likes the young girls. keep going, here is the amish church i went to with B. and we loved it, it was meditating, whispering, shouting, and even there were books that were fun and not too heavy. the statue C. made us write about, we all thought it was evil and maybe it was. the freeway, finally, but still walking. in the distance the new suburban dream world. city fades.
i must have walked thirty miles to get to vulcan state park that day. i had never been there, it was almost invisible from my small, curtained room in the city. and when i did arrive, i had only thirty minutes to rest my feet and gaze at the cityscape before a ranger asked me to leave. "tornado damage" she mumbled "park's closed". but i left something in that park, the burden of her, the weight of her blue eyes on my passive bones, the sting of her voice in my ears. i sat there, completely alone, for thirty minutes and had a last love affair with her memory.
i've lost her and maybe there is no turning back. i think of her now, the tight curls falling accross her face, the hollow eyes looking forever away, and i feel a trembling wave of ice rush through my body. this must be my reward.
fin
- for B, who still remembers and cares
- copyrightsking11/00
more coffee