I stayed up until 3 with Gunmetal; when I arrived he was with date. She was poised and pretty and as I went to the bathroom I shut the door and sang a tune to myself- it was about someones plenty, I was trying to remember the song "when you're gone" by the cranberries. I heard him repeating the lines through the door. I opened it and lit his toothbrush with paste. He began to pee and with foaming mouth hurriedly asked me hushed to tell him immediately of any impressions I had of the Date.
"I know she may seem just pretty, and that's why I asked her out because I just saw pretty, but now I know she's actually smart, and you can throw a ball at her, if you throw a ball at her she'll quietly hold it, she'll subtly toss it around in her hands and then she'll fling it back. So you can do that. So you should, and it's important to me what you think, as a girl too, as the only girl in new york who's most like me." He finished pissing and brushing and I thanked him for the complement. I told him I didn't have enough information left...
He made her a cd which he held out on over dinner, uncertain if she was worthy or not. He ended up giving it to her, along with a bar of chocolate wrapped in white tissue paper. I said, okay mom, and am not sure if he was wise. I suppose now, though, we'll find out on which side she stands. Afraid much? Don't let in on him.
After awhile I tended to feel my head heavy; my eyes dried up in my skull as the contacts hadn't been taken out in a day. I didn't sleep at home the night before, and in fact avoided the place for a day. But only because I knew all I'd see was remnants of good times past. On the coffee table there still sits tobacco flakes and spilt wine etcetera from a thursday weeks ago, the last thursday of some certain loves. And the beginnings of others. Soda left back to Tucson and the glass-eyed cowboy turned a little to dust. And cups with ancient lemon slices sitting in their bottoms, from the night of white horse when K bellowed my name, face inside the toilet bowl... I need you! I didn't want to come home to these pretty filthy little memories and to the cat Mexico, the only person on whom I can depend. I hate that I have to call the cat a person now, and that when I arrive or awaken it's there, white and with a mew, and I say, oh hi, Mexico, oh hi baby kitty, how are you. And then I kiss it and tell it I love it. Go to work and people accuse me of kissing white fur as it's decorating my face and lips. Pathetic! So I stayed away for a night, the night previous, and, eyes dried, head hanging, back in pain, wanting a massage. So Gray grabs me and feels my spine and accuses me of having scoliosis, which parannoys me.
How can you tell? I ask him. He says, imagine how many women I've slept with. Imagine how well I know the curve of each spine. My first girlfriend had intense scoliosis. I used to have to tighten the screws on her brace. I interject that this conversation is really making me uncomfortable. That I have to go peel my eyeballs from my head. He begins to dance, telling me that this particular song on is "so yours." I can't dance and he hugs me and gives me a kiss on the mouth and I leave soothed, wondering. Are best friends in a future for me.
The night before I went out when work finished. A boy in particular I was to walk home. He said to me, I would invite you up but it would be a bad idea.
I said okay, and we walked and there was his house. We looked at one another for ten seconds. He said again, I would invite you up but it is a bad idea.
I said, okay, well if you do I am going to accept.
He said okay.
He apologized that his spotless room was a mess. Labradors on bedsheets. He said, this is awkward.
No, we're just going to sleep. We got into bed, his arm around me. After a few minutes he said he thought maybe we should take our pants off, dreams ensued.
In the morning the sun shown down intently. I was in a sweat and was greeted with nervous breaths and corner eye looks. This was a bad idea we shouldn't have done this, he of course said. He left the room and I said aloud to give us breaks. I dressed and he stood in the doorway. He started a conversation while silently urging me to leave as I put on my socks. I sat there after trying my shoes and we stared for longer. I got up and he asked me for a phonenumber which somehow punctuated a patheticness that was to immediately radiate through me.
That day I camped out in ft. greene. I watched four episodes of sex & the city at Dave's. They were about threesomes, blow jobs, and finally, pregnancy. I got a little tearyeyed, on the inside of course, during the last episode. And vowed to myself to never again watch such heartbreaking trash.
I refuse to have the guilt complexes and fearfulnesses of all the others radiate into my little existence. I am still regretless, as best I can, and am pleased to make the avoidance of these disconcerting little neuroses. True I'm all too eager to acquaint myself with these awkwardly delicious human beings, feeling and feeling and feeling again, and a tearing at a face to smile later.
