Chapter 35

35

Once I regain control of my spiraling thoughts I pop another fifty cents into the pay phone and redial John's number.

I convince him to meet me here at the bookstore in half an hour for coffee and conversation.

"If you don't believe me after that, I won't bother you again."

With time to kill I enter the bookstore, consciously avoiding the store clerk I manhandled yesterday. Making my way over to the fiction section I begin scanning through the B's. After all this time I'll be surprised to find my books shelved, waiting for that lonely college student to absently thumb through their pages.

Barthelme, Becket, Bukowski...sandwiched among these greats, to my surprise, I find five novels, a collection of poetry and a volume of short stories packed quite nicely into three anthologies covering over fifteen years of my work. Perhaps, during those twenty-five years, I was more alive than recently thought.

He walks into the bookstore, that lonely college student from before, passing time between classes, searching for some sort of enlightenment.

He is an aspiring writer, a young, attractive man of twenty who has tired of the classics. He has an interesting approach to finding new authors to read. Caring not for classmate recommendations, he randomly selects a book from the shelves and flips it over, reading over the summary quotes, looking for inspiration.

The author of this particular novel is compared to another author of the same generation and his treasure hunt begins. By pointing him in a general direction, the sharpie marked X is laid out before him and he wanders in search of the second author.

He continues on in this way for some time, allowing the books themselves to guide his attention. Based on comparison, all roads are leading him to me.

Selecting one of my anthologies from the shelf, he flips it over to read the back, expecting this book to lead him to Kerouac. Yet, he finds no praises, no laudatory comments espousing the greatness of my novel. All I've left for him is a cover page doused in red with the white lettering of the word, "Mayonnaise."

A year or so ago this young man, during a fit of desperation, penned this poem into a pink, spiral bound notebook.

When I Die
Do Not Bury Me Like My Ancestors Before Me
I Do Not Wish To Be Set In Suit
Preserved In Death, Mimicking Life

Do Not Allow A Ceremony To Take Place
For Those Few Who Would Attend
Would Not Need A Eulogy
To Remember Me By

Do Not Allow Mourners To Pass By My Grave
In Order to Preserve Their Flowers,
For My Children's Children
Who Would Love To Lay Among Them

All I Ask For When I Die
Is A Lovely Finished Jar Of Mayonnaise
With An Inscription Written With A Felt Tip Pen
Reading, "He Came, He Saw, He Ate."

And we've connected. Through our written word, from beyond breath and life, he understands me, and I him. Suddenly, holding my published work of fiction, I understand what I've done all this creating for.

Chapter 34

34

Saturday Morning: 10:30.

Jamie is at a hair appointment; I am recovering from a mild case of hangover. In nothing more than a pair of boxers, I sit on the couch drinking a cup for poorly made coffee.

There is a knock on the door. I make a move to answer it then relax back into the couch. I'm not expecting a visitor today and to open the door world require putting on a pair of pants, and that my friend, would disrupt the flow of my morning.

So I sip my coffee.

And the knock comes again, this time a little more frantic, punctuated with annoyed superiority.

Seconds pass and the rapping recedes. Whomever it was much have gotten the message.

The front page of the sports section gives a forecast of this weekend's Super Bowl. Cincinnati is favored over San Francisco by a touchdown and a half. I'm not sure who gave Brian Westburger the authority to make that call. The 49ers are clearly the better team. That's the nice thing about sports predictions. The clairvoyant is never held responsible for miscalculations.

I look up from the paper to sip from my mug and notice a round shadow bobbing behind the curtains of the living room window. Whoever was at the door is now leering outside.

Over on the mantle is my 22. I grab it, eager to see the look on this trespassers face when the barrel is at point blank range.

Throwing open the curtains I believe I'm more shocked at the outcome. There, desperately trying to peer into my home is a strikingly attractive woman somewhere around her early 40s.

Startled by the shotgun, but not deterred, the woman summons the ability to form the words, "Is Jamie here?"

When Jamie was in high school her mother passed away, suffering from what the doctors diagnosed as lung cancer. Three and a half years later her father married Susan who now happens to be staring through the window at my all but naked body.

Formalities aside, I invite her in, throwing on a pair of blue jeans and a t-shirt while she helps herself to the door. I pour her some coffee, she takes a seat on the couch, and our conversation begins in the -usual, “I’m your age but am having sex with your twenty-something stepdaughter” sort of way.

“I didn’t realize you were so…” she pauses.
“Old?” I reply.
“Seasoned.” She returns with a tiny fissure of a smile.

The morning is pleasant. I enjoy her company and we talk about trivial matters to thin the ice. Finally, settling in, she asks me about writing.

“Well, it passes the time.”
“You make it sound like knitting.”
“Yeah, well, it sort of is.”

As our conversation lengthens she begins to open up. Two days ago, Jamie’s father, who suffers from angry alcoholism, held Susan against a wall and hocked whiskey flavored spit into her eyes while accusing her of sleeping with another man. She snuck away in the night, hopped on a train, and came to the only person she could think of who might understand.

“I hope it’s ok that I barged in like this. I just don’t have anywhere else to go.”

I’m not used to visitors, but this was oddly all right with me.

“I don’t have an extra bed or anything, but there’s a fairly comfortable couch in my office you can have.”

She thanks me with a kiss on the cheek and I excuse myself to clean up the room. My office is my haven, and in other words, an embarrassment for all to behold.

While I’m tossing crumpled paper and bottle caps into a black plastic bag Jamie returns. I pause as the door closes, eavesdropping in on their conversation.

“What are you doing here?”
“Your father is away on business so I thought I’d get out of town and pay you a visit.”
“Bullshit. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s at home. We got into a pretty bad argument the other night and…”
“Well, you can’t stay here.”
“But Richard said…”
“Fuck what Richard said. You can’t stay here.”
“Your father’s been drinking again Jamie. He hit me a couple of…”
“I’m sure you deserved it.”
“No one deserves…”
“You do, Susan.”

“I thought you might be more accommodating knowing that your mother…”
“Shut up! You shut the fuck up. Don’t ever fucking mention my mother again. Do you hear me?”
“Ok. I hear you, Jamie. I’m not welcome here.”
“You’re goddamn right you’re not.”
“Well, then. I guess I should go."
“That’d be nice.”
“Tell Richard, ‘thank you’ for the coffee for me. I'll pass it along to your father that his precious daughter misses him.”
“Fuck you.”

And with the slam of a door it is over and Jamie continues on with her day. When I finally leave my office she is making a sandwich, probably turkey.

“What was that all about?” I ask.
“Just some unwelcome company, do you want one of these?”
“She seemed nice enough to me.”
“She’s a whore. Do you want a sandwich or what?”
“No. I’m not hungry. Maybe you should have been a little more compassionate, Jamie. She came to you in need.”
“Maybe you should have given her a sympathy fuck, Richard.”
“Maybe.”

Taking the hint I leave the kitchen and head over to my seat on the couch. I notice, tucked in with a throw pillow, two blue knitting needles and a ball of gray and green yarn. Susan must have left it behind in her haste. She’s working on some sort of garment, some article of clothing that will never be worn. I pick up the needles, examine the string, and understand what she has been fiddling on. Bitch’s step mom is making hats.

Chapter 33

33

What a time to become completely disconnected from myself.

My thoughts are at war with one another, a civil war, my left lobe against my right. Brothers fall from their brother's arms and cannon shots decimate the infrastructure.

I hear a thought rustle behind me, calling to me amidst the chaos. I turn to see her face, a face I've all but forgotten.

She speaks to me slowly, cautiously, warning me of impending danger. Her breath rises with the words, chilled with the afternoon air.

"I loved you so much," she fires at me. "But I could never compete with these thoughts. I could never defeat your soldiers of negativity."

And within these words I see an alternate ending, a Tennessee Williams drama rewritten for mass consumption. The first act opens and I am destroying myself systematically, the clacking of a typewriter slowly tapering off. She enters, stage left, through the office door. She wears a soft blue robe, her hair still wet from the shower.

No words pass between us as my siren makes her way across the room. I am mesmerized by her beauty, unable to move, so she takes my hand, gently, and pulls me from my chair.

*Curtain*

Act Two. The sun has made its way behind the mountains and night falls quickly. There is no dialogue as we walk through the house turning off every light. No conversation emerges as she strikes a match and begins to burn the mantle candle. The smell of sulfur dissipates into the audience.

In a pile lying center stage are my novels, hardback tombs that case my soul. With a snap of her fingers they ignite, and, noticing the look of horror on my face, she softly says to me, "You don't need those anymore, Richard."

She is right.

With every page that burns, a weight is lifted from my shoulders. The burden eases with every ashy ember.

*Curtain*

Act Three. She has led me outside where the full moon against the snow makes the evening resemble mid-morning. This is the re-write as snow begins to fall from a cloudless sky. This is what she wanted me to see, but I refused to leave the books to burn. I chose dying words over a living love and it destroyed me.

The thought, standing among the corpses of all that came before her, turns, leaving her brunette hair to follow behind. And as she begins to walk away, leaving a broken man to smolder the fire, I hear the sound of reality coming down upon her like a shell fired from a canon. As the explosion subsides and the dust settles, I wonder if she was ever really there at all.

Chapter 32

32

Silence.

No clock ticking, no heart beating, not a sound from a smoker's lungs inhaling or exhaling air.

In an all but empty room, lit by an unknown source, a tree stands alone. It's branches sprawl across the ceiling and I sit in a simple blue recliner beneath them.

There are no doors and no windows to speak of, yet a slight chill of a breeze makes its way through the room, silently rustling the leaves above me. A leaf dislodges itself from its branch and tumbles down onto my shoulder. I look up to see if more will follow.

That's when I notice that I am not alone.

Thousands of cocoons line the tree branches, mixed in with the leaves, and as the wind brushes past them they quietly begin to open.

I try to stand but cannot raise my legs. I try to speak, but find no voice. I relent and watch as wings begin to sprout from each casing.

The thick oak tree becomes a cacophony of colors, a rainbow of reds, blues, yellows and greens. Pastels burst forth, thousands of soon to be beating canvases, no two alike in any way.

And as I sit, a calm warms my bones. I can relax in this recliner as the butterflies race around the room, eagerly trying out their glorious new wings.

They swirl around me, passing so close to my face that I can smell lavender. One lands on my nose but I don't seem to flinch. I am completely absorbed in this whirlwind of colors.

I am serenity, bound to this chair, as this dimly lit room explodes into a tie-died nirvana.

This is perfection, and I wish you were here.

Chapter 31

31

John answers his phone on the third ring.

- Hello. Olson Construction.

- Um, John?

- Speaking.

- John, this is Richard.

- Ok...Well, Richard, what can I do for you today?

- I'm afraid you're my only hope right now, John. You said to use your phone number if I needed anything. Well, I need shower, John, a hot meal, and maybe a place to stay for a few...

- Oh, yes I remember now. We met outside of the Barnes and Noble. I'm sorry we didn't exchange names soo...

- But it's me, John. We didn't recognize each other immediately after so many years, but it's me Richard...

- So you said.

- It's Richard...Richard Brau...

The pause was like jumping off of a mountain.

- Listen, I don't know what the hell you want from me but Richard's been...

- No, John. It's really me.

- Fuck you, buddy. Richard's been...

- I know it's be a hell of a long time...twenty something years or so.

- Twenty-two to be exact.

- Jesus, twenty-two years? Is that really how long I've been...

- Listen, I would have gladly helped you out, sir, but you seem to have caught me at a...

- John, please. I really need your help.

- I'm not akin to helping liars, sir.

- I...I'm not lying, John. It's really me, Richard.

- You can't be.

- But I am.

- No. You can't be.

- Why not?

- Because Richard died in 1983. And if you think...

My ears go deaf as if a gun has been discharged just behind my lobe. A sickness overwhelms me and I fall to my knees, dropping the receiver and spitting vomit into my mouth. Choking on my tongue I pick up my revolver, pull the trigger, and release three shells into my office clock, stopping both hands on the midnight hour. Slumping down, cowering from the sun, I turn the gun upon myself. I am too tired to cry, too worn out for remorse.

It shouldn't have to end like this, but then again, was there any other way?

Chapter 30

30

Standing knee deep in a creek, I am tripping on acid.

John is too. He bought it from a friend named Peter.

Our fishing trip was proving to be a fruitless adventure. By noon we had been on the creek for three hours and neither of us had landed a single trout. The heat of the day was burning itself into our cheeks, a scaring reminder of our ineptitude.

John produces a bag of sugar cubes.

"Eat some."
"Ok."

I grab three and shove them into my mouth, chewing, not sucking the blocks of cane. He puts the same amount into his system and we both resume fishing.

"Did I ever tell you about the salamanders?"

Suddenly I have lost my pole and with it, my desire to fish.

John has lost his pants and is wading into the creek in only his boxer shorts.

"Legend has it that Salamanders have a history that dates back to the first king and queen of the first civilization of Atlantis."

As he talks I begin wading into the creek, but forget to remove my pants. They've become dirty with the day and could use to be washed.

"Tell me more," I say, dipping my hands into the water and then running my fingers through my hair. "It's so fucking hot out."

"The first king of Atlantis was a horrible man by the name of King Jasper. Ironically enough he forced his kingdom to call him King Jasper the Benevolent, yet gracious the king was not and his constituency referred to him as King Jasper the Gorged.

Now, his wife, Queen Michelle, was a beauty fit for a king. She had long brunette hair and a face that would befit a porcelain doll and unlike his rule, behind closed doors, she was his everything."

As John continued his story he began picking up rocks from he bottom of the creek, examining them closely and then tossing them back into the water. The rocks split the surface and sent ripples throughout my body. "One day, the king, growing bored with his feast of butter, sent his servants to find the greatest magician in the land. Hour later they returned. With them was a peasant.

'I commanded a great magician and your brought me a pauper?' exclaimed the king.

'Sire, if you please, my name is Venice and I am indeed a great magician. If you would be so kind as to allow me a platform I will bring you anything your kingly heart desires.'

'Well Venice, if you speak the truth, there is little a king of my power and accomplishment desires that has not already been granted. However, there is one thing I have always wanted that you may be able to procure.' 'Yes sire, what is it?'

'I have always thought that if I had the Sun I would truly be in complete control of my people. It would be necessary to worship me to live.'

'Oh, my lord,' said Venice, 'you know not of what you speak. I can very well get you the Sun, but within it lies a great and awesome power that will destroy you and all that you hold dear. The Sun is meant to roam free providing for all mankind. Please, take heed and ask for something else.'

'No. I have commanded and so I shall receive. Bring me the Sun or lose your life.'

Venice shook his head, yet had no choice but to comply. So out of his rag of a coat he pulled a golden rope, which he fashioned into a lariat. With a great heave he flung the rope into the sky and lassoed the Sun. Handing the rope to the king Venice gave one last warning and then vanished into thin air.

Weeks passed without incident. The people of Atlantis brought the kind great gifts and he in turn gave them sunlight. But the king soon felt a compulsion and began hording the sun all to himself. Soon he was spending every moment of his day huddling around its warmth. No matter what gifts and gold were left at his door he continued to withhold it. His kingdom and people lived in constant dark.

Queen Michelle also became addicted, spending all day with her husband, clutching too at the sunlight.

A horrible change began to take place the longer the king and queen spent with the Sun. Their skin became tougher, almost like leather, a scaly substance appearing to protect them from the Sun's harmful rays. They began shrinking from the heat and after months of devotion the couple could fit in the palm of your hand. Their eyes became cloudy, devoid of color and whenever they laid them on the Sun a piercing pain shot through their bodies.

The king, finally using kingly judgment, decided to release the Sun to the people of Atlantis who returned it to its proper place in the sky.

However, the damage had been done and King Jasper and Queen Michelle spent the rest of their days hiding from the sunlight."

"Their offspring suffer from the same predicament," John finished. Holding a rock in his hands he flipped it over to reveal a fat little salamander clutching for dear life to the bottom of the creek.

Chapter 29

29

As the sun slowly starts to rise I begin to pen my first words in what seems like decades.

The words don't flow onto a pad of paper in ink mind you, but in the spiral bound notebook of my mind. A simple word, "she" develops friendships with others like her, forming a sentence that ends with the word "sleep". That sentence comprises a paragraph, which I follow with a grouping of asterisks.

Thirty years pass with those asterisks replacing a catalogue of births, deaths, wars and plagues, yet she is unaware of this lapse in time. During her slumber, she is left undisturbed.

Three decades of human advancement has left the world worse for wear. Cars and humans are being built to be bigger, stronger and hungrier while farmlands and oil reserves are becoming smaller. Everyone she knows has left her tiny Texas town in search of more extravagance. All roads lead to urban excess while suburban hellholes explode with the population.

Her quiet community used to be surrounded by acres of farms and ranches that had been passed down for generations. But between two paragraphs that land has been sold by ungrateful grandsons and purchased by real estate developers who then cut those acres into smaller and much more inept pieces of futility. Overpaid actors then spend millions to buy this small plot of land in order to "get away" from the hustle of Hollywood. Raising cattle is simply another role between movie sets.

Between the paragraphs, lying deep within the asterisks is a dependency. It's a dependency she had not heard of when sleep overcame her. The world has become a medicated place, a place in which the reality of a person's current condition can be assuaged by a single pill, a spending spree at a shopping mall, or an hour with their favorite shrink.

Advancements have been made, and yes, she has missed them all. She doesn't understand the need for a cellular telephone or a hybrid automobile. She's never owned a computer and doesn't understand the Internet. She is particularly confused as to why, given advanced communicative technology, people are more withdrawn than ever. She openly wonders why, after thirty years, why people aren't asking more questions.

The only thing she does know, really, is that sometime during those asterisks the world fell asleep while she, in turn, woke up.

Chapter 28

28

I'm not really sure why I'm pushing away anymore. There seems to be some things I can't recall. Some sort of hurt planted deeply in the past, a seed that continues to sprout every time I get too near. We can have the most wonderful day, playing in the woods, and then, and then I shut myself up inside...and say things I never mean.

I don't want to go away without you knowing this: You're becoming my very best of friends.

I wrote this to her on a chilly Sunday in January.

Chapter 27

27

Sometime during the evening the snow subsides.

Three of us are huddled together under an overpass. The man on my right begins coughing uncontrollably but doesn't wake. I nudge him with my arm.

"What?"
"It's stopped snowing."

Our bodies have begun to smell so bad, nestled together, that I have become somewhat light headed, like breathing in too much vinegar. I am having a horrible time trying to sleep, my mind is aching, and the lack of light under this highway is helping me hallucinate.

I see myself, hazy as it is, on the phone.

The conversation is not going well.

Half a bottle of whisky is next to my typewriter; the cap is nowhere to be found.

In a rage I pick the bottle up and hurl it across the room. Millions of tiny drops of whisky fall from the tumbling bottle until it finds its destination on the office wall.

The receiver finds its way back onto the cradle and I light a cigarette.

The match finds its way to a large pool of whisky or the whisky finds its way to a still ignited match.

Either way, the room is set aflame and I continue to sit, staring at the typewriter as the fire licks at the ceiling.

Chapter 26

26

July 4th, 1946.

She is in the kitchen making a breakfast consisting of biscuits, gravy and orange juice when the doorbell rings.

The months have been lean as of late. Nightly I can hear my mother complaining about my "no good father" and his inability to hold down a job or to support his son. If mother knew I was listening she would never be saying such things. However, I easily fit underneath an end table sandwiched between the couch and the reclining chair and listen in on her conversations with friends when I can't sleep at night.

I spend a lot of time under that end table, dreaming.

On this particular morning, as my mother prepares breakfast, I am leading an army of men into battle against another army of savages. These savages, call them Indians, call them Africans, call them the antithesis of the western white mindset, have settled down at the base of a mountain that is allegedly filled with gold. Armed with rifles, we are heading on horseback to their camp. Things are tense between my men, many fearful and untrained. I have no choice but to lead these men to victory.

Just before we reach the top of the ridge overlooking their camp, the doorbell rings and mother stops stirring to answer it. She passes through the battlefield, a bullet barely missing the hem of her dress, landing instead into the calve of First Lieutenant Richardson, dropping him to the ground.

He screams in pain as my mother opens the door. These savages have obviously overtaken another army, taking their rifles and ammunition and have opened fire first. I give the signal to advance as two men in white enter our house and shake hands with mother. Their conversation is impossible to hear over the rumbling gallop of the horses.

She points at me and suddenly I am no longer entrenched in a war. I am a mere boy, discovered by strangers, hiding under a table.

The fight continues on as the two men approach. Our meager army should retreat, but I am not there to command them. My legs are being grabbed at, the table is being lifted to reveal my presence underneath.

"Richard, your mother wants you to come with us."

I shake my head no. My men need me.

"Please Richard, go with these two nice men. They're going to help you."

How? How can they help me? They can't see what I see. They can't hear what I hear. They're just two men dressed in white, neither of them would last a second in a war.

I feel a tug at my leg and in a gut reaction I begin to kick at the hands, hairy monstrosities whose finger nails have been unevenly chewed. The other man, a mousier version of the other, grabs both of my arms.

My men are being slaughtered. I try to wiggle free but only tire, my strength no match for theirs.

Against my will I surrender and the two men carry me out the door and into a large white vehicle devoid of any lettering. Firmly seated in the back, one man holds me in my seat white the other closes the back doors. Screens block the windows but through the hundreds of diamonds I can see my mother standing on the porch. She doesn't wave as the car pulls away but merely stares, vacant of all emotion.

It will be years before we ever see each other again.

As the space between us separates I wiggle free of the mousy one's grasp. I am being carted away from a mother who doesn't want her misunderstood child.

Neither of us sheds a tear as the last soldier falls at the base of that gold filled mountain.

Chapter 25

25

Around 6:30 in the evening I ask to use the store's courtesy phone.

"I'm sorry, sir, but our phones are for business use only."

I explain my situation to the young clerk, a speckled, spectacled man in his early twenties. He nods in mock understanding, dismissing my plight while desperatley looking for someone with more authority than he.

"I'm really sorry, sir."

I, usually a soft-spoken, passive individual, find myself frantically raising my voice as I repeat my previous explanation. Exhaustion and circumstance clouds my calm. Why can't I just use the phone, for five minutes, so I can arrange a place to sleep tonight? Five minutes and then I'm gone, out of his hair for good. Five minutes and I won't freeze to death tonight as the steady rain chills to snow.

Then, for emphasis but without properly thinking out the consequences, I grab his arm.

The redhead with the bad complexion starts yelling like someone is beating him with a baseball bat. This makes me wish that I were.

Customers all over the store begin staring and a few point their fingers accusingly at me. I quickly notice that the banshee's nametag promotes the boy's name as "Customer Service Representative Steve".

"Look, Steve, I don't want any trouble, I just really need to use the phone. Please stop yelling for Christ's sake."

But its too late. Two men, neither much bigger than me but have power in numbers, now have me by the arms and are pulling me away from Steve. Like a bad scene in a Western I am the washed up outlaw tossed from the local saloon into the dusty road and warned never to return again.

In my scene however, the road is firmly made of concrete and I have yet to begin drinking.

Desperation makes anyone a little crazy and I don't blame myself for my actions. Steve must just be a high-strung individual. How was I to know? I look around the parking lot as the sun begins to sneak away. Walking towards me is a woman on her phone.

Should I even bother?

Yes, but she doesn't even acknowledge me sitting on the pavement, doesn't make eye contact, doesn't stop talking. Fight the urge to reach out to her Richard, that would inevitably be a disaster. Just remain sitting here, waiting for some simple miracle to happen. That's what you've been reduced to here in this aged world, a beggar holding on to a quick change in fortune, a simple, random act of kindness.

Suddenly, fortune shines through the impending downpour. A quarter has found its way out of someone's pocket and lies discarded at the foot of the nearest trashcan. I hurry myself to my feet and pick it up. The trashcan smells of fried chicken.

Pulling John's card out of my pocket I head over to the solitary payphone. I slide the quarter into the slot, but before I can push all the digits a cold, distant, metallic voice explains that an additional twenty-five cents is needed to place the call.

I'm a very long way from fifty cents.

Holding the receiver in my right hand I am defeated. Apparently I shouldn't have had that second cup of coffee with Jamie.

"Well," I say out loud, my voice sounding just as hollow and metallic as the operator's. "I guess there's always tomorrow."

Chapter 24

24

I am in Portland.

She approaches me like all he others, dropping a copy of the new book in front of me. I look up and slowly eye a thirty-somethingish blonde who a) is wearing a bit too much make up and b) has opened her blouse just low enough to expose the rounds of her beautifully accentuated breasts.

Biting her lower lip she also slips a folded piece of paper into my hand.

"You're my favorite author," she says in a breathy Marilyn Monroe sort of way.

I open the note.

Penned in all capitol letters, this sentence screams up from the page:
I want to make love to you.

Like an aging actor who has grown tired of the stage, I recite my lines according to the yellowing script. A pre-programmed response that has taken another piece of me with it.

"Sure," I reply, placing my pen upon the page. "Stick around and I'll see what can be done about that."

She is beautiful, elegant, charming and wise in her ways. But she is not heart stopping. She is not Jamie. Yet, I will wind up in bed with her, pounding away, her over-directed moans just loud enough to drown out my conscience.

This Off-Broadway play raised it's curtain hours ago.

I am staying in the nicest suite this particular hotel has to offer. The sheets have been turned down, our pillows properly fluffed.

We stagger into the bedroom, groping our way to the light switch, I flip it on, she in turn flips it off. "I like it better in the dark."

Don't we all?

I begin where she left off, unbuttoning the remaining few buttons on her blouse and removing her bra. She takes a seat on the bed, and fumbles to find my belt. In the dark we are amateurs, high school kids experimenting on prom night, our better judgment hazy with the addition of a stolen bottle of champagne. In the dark we are nameless, we have no one to answer to but ourselves.

My initial reaction turns to nausea, a basic need to purge my system of this toxic energy. I tell her that I will be right back and I stagger towards the bathroom.

I flip on the bathroom light and as my eyes adjust to the halogens I catch sight on an old man in the mirror. His eyes are bloodshot with drink and his cheeks stained pink from her rouge.

Shouldn't I know better than this?
Am I not better than this?

Cool water hits my face and I rub my circled eyes. This baptism will not save me, I am a soul lost at sea.

"Richard, I'm waiting."

She says this with a candy-covered shell, a coating created to help the medicine go down. Heaving a chest full of air I open the bathroom door and take a longing gaze towards the complementary bar before I head to the bed.

In the bathroom light, which I absently left on, I can see the outline of her aging body. Floral patterns enwrap her arms and legs; her nipples are hard with anticipation.

"Say something wonderful."

I'm sorry sweetheart, I can't. My pen has dried, withered and limp is my mind. I remain silent as I remove my clothes and slide into bed with her.

She beings by touching me, caressing me, upon which, I feel no reaction. The blood in my veins has grown cold. Her mouth tastes of cigarettes and whisky.

I don't belong here.

There is no connection, no rise in temperature. The room around us freezes as my mind wanders home to Jamie.

She's made herself dinner, a simple meal of pasta, and is now settling down to write some poetry. It is uninspired, habitual verse. It means nothing more than another wasted piece of paper, but it keeps her company and reminds her of me.

Three glasses of merlot later she has fallen asleep on the couch, her hair lies upon the pillow like scattered leaves on grass. My first published piece of literature falls from her chest and lands on the floor properly, completely, and forever shut.

I lose her more each day and all I have to show for it is a flaccid penis and a name I'll never know.

Chapter 23

23

Whenever she leaves me I go numb.

Cold, hard, distant. I draw away because I know I can never have her.

Not really.

Not in the way that I really need to want her.

She stands up from the table and closes her book. I raise both of my eyes to say goodbye.

She nods, I nod, and the world continues spinning.

I think she moves me more than I can admit.

And there lie the pieces of another broken typewriter.

Chapter 22

22

I'm nearing the end of my novel, completely engrossed in the placement of the word "remorse." I do not hear the door open as Jamie sneaks into my office.

Words are speeding down from my mind onto the page; punctuations and phrases explode upon impact. I am dizzy with creation, drunk on completion. In rare form, I am racing to the finish line.

She makes no noise as she heads towards my desk.

All plots have ended, each character absolved. Nothing remains but the bow on this meticulously wrapped package, which still needs to be tied. I pause momentarily to gather my breath.

When I inhale, I smell her.

She is a mixture of vanilla and spice. Sometime after Christmas, but weeks before a spring, she reminds me of Main Street in Disneyland where they pump out aromas through vents hidden in the ground. I look up from the typewriter and dead on into her eyes.

"I'm almost finished."

She smiles at me, tucking the hair on both sides of her head behind her tiny little ears.

"I know. You can feel its completion throughout the house. The energy in this room is amazing."

She punctuates her own poetry by pressing her fingers into the thick of my hair. She strokes me for a moment; gently rolling my splitting ends between her fingertips. Moistening her lips, she kisses my temple.

"What are you going to call it?"
"So The Wind Won't Blow It All Away."

Her gaze intensifies as she folds herself into my lap, letting her hands fall from the back of my head to the back of my neck. Nose to nose, eye to eye, she begins to kiss my lips.

The upper lip is sticky-sweet, the bottom, soft and tender. A peppermint she ate after lunch still lingers on her breath reacting negatively with the coffee residue on mine. We ignore this fact as our pace quickens.

Her left hand finds its way down to my chest where the pulsing of my heart beckons her to unbutton my shirt. Her right hand takes notice and in pursuit, weaves its way under the cotton and begins to caress my nipple. Our breath continues to heat from the proximity as her tongue darts in and out of my mouth.

She slides to her knees onto the floor, kissing, caressing, unbuttoning, unzipping. She frees me from the confines of my seat and I have no choice but to moan. Slowly she takes all of me into her mouth and I gasp as I notice the truth.

The word "remorse" has yet to find its home.

Chapter 21

21

She is quietly self-assured, calm in her own skin. The world is much smaller to her because she is much smaller than the world. She sits across the circular coffee table from me, an honest picture of quiet awareness. Her spirit boils these words underneath my skin.

Perfect from the ground up she catches my gaze and smiles from the side of her mouth before quickly darting her eyes back to a page. Page three hundred and sixty-five of Anna Karenina. Without word we've agreed to sit here this way, knowing of each other's presence, but unquestioning the situation.

She sighs softly as she turns the page.

Three hundred and sixty-six.

There is a small murmur of conversation buzzing around us, but the voices do not permeate our secluded bubble. Safe, warm, complete, we sit alone among the many, absorbed in mutual trust.

Her nose is a gentle slope, her eyes a watery blue. Her brown hair sits on her shoulders softly as she pulls it behind her ear. With painted fingernails she taps her coffee cup, pondering.

Pondering.
Pondering.

And I sit, pondering. My unpainted, gnawed nails tapping my bearded chin. She couldn't know the words she fills my mind with, the love letter I pen under my breath.

We were happy here, once. This is how we should have stayed. But everything evolves like a reptile. Everything beautiful eventually sheds its skin.

I've guzzled my coffee down to the sludge, the sugary substance passes my lips and slowly, methodically, makes it's way to the back of my throat.

Control. I let go. My breath sticks in my nostrils as I exhale. I slide my right foot forward just a touch, just a bit closer to her.

My mind is a maze of misinformation. I've never been here before, with her, sipping sludge from an insulate cup. But I have, haven't I? My mind, my memories, they can't lie to me when I need them the most. I have nothing but them to rely upon.

She, like her mother, is breathtaking.

Chapter 20

20

This is plane number four today. On again, off again, up and then back down. I put my luggage on in Boston and I won't see it again until I land in Miami. It's not like I have anything of value in my suitcase, just my favorite pair of jeans, but fear of losing what's mine haunts me at every airport claim.

It's getting close to nine in the evening; the plane calmly drifts along, a giant bird passing through the clouds. We go unnoticed, unheard, quietly looking down upon a sea of city lights.

The day is ending and I still have yet to call Jamie.

Yesterday morning, when the taxi had arrived and we kissed goodbye, I felt relief. That relief might turn to joy if this plane began to plummet from the sky.

I'm growing weary of this life.

Now, halfway through my forties and rocketing towards half a century on this earth, I feel my mind slowing, releasing freshly sprouted thoughts before they've chance to ripen. I rarely see a sentence bloom to it's full potential, and I, the constant gardener, am saddened by these events.

Upon departure, as Boston below begins to shrink, contemplation consumes me. The futility of life is so overwhelming at twenty thousand feet.

I write this now as I sit in the exit row, ignoring my obligations as steward of the escape route. I am randomly entrusted with the lives of everyone on this plane, as ironic as that may be. If they knew the inner workings of my mind I'd be in cargo with the luggage.

A jovial fat man crams himself into the seat next to me, coughing, inhaling his gut, laughing as he wriggles in between the arm rests. He's tried to talk to me twice since take off, unaware of my distain for pointless banter.

"Where ya headed?"
"Same place you are."
"Where ya from?"
"No place in particular."
"Ya married?"

Fuck you fat man. I hope your heart explodes when we lose cabin pressure.

Chapter 19

19

I am absently fingering the corners of Jon's business card, nervously anticipating a phone call and a conversation. I find myself pondering the idea of my existence over a cup of coffee in this cold and uninspiring bookstore. I've selected the newest issue of the "New Yorker", the date of which reads December 19th, 2005. Some guy named Jackson has managed to remake "King Kong". I have yet to read a single word of the article.

Somewhere in my mind I've come to grips with my current reality. The last New Yorker I remember reading through was dated in the early 80's; 1983 to be entirely correct. I find myself now, twenty-two years into the future, sipping on a "mocha" and unable to piece together a past. I see my last memory in a blue armchair. I hear the ticking of a clock. I feel a nervous anticipation in my chest. A searing thought enters my mind. I should be dead by now. She'd be better off without me.

I smell her perfume. I hear her voice.

I stop my mind and look up. She is standing there, smiling down at me.

"Hey, I thought that might be you."

A broken typewriter lies scattered in the doorway. She kicks the key I use for "R" as she takes a step closer to me.

"Can I sit down?"
"Sure." The audible word is followed by an unspoken truth.

But I won't be here for long.

Chapter 18

18

She has broken something of value.

I hear the crash, the shattering of glass, the tears and the thud of her knees connecting with the floor. I sit, listening to her sobs as they begin to subside.

I don't ask if she's ok. I already know the answer.

The door to our bedroom opens and she emerges, hair slightly messed, saline stains line her face. She doesn't look at me and heads to the end table where her purse is waiting.

She rummages. I turn the pages of a New Yorker. I hear the rattle of her keys as she pulls them from the bag.

"I need to go to the store." Her voice is raspy, exasperated, fed up with my shit. "There's nothing to eat around here."

She's right. We haven't been eating much at home lately.

I can feel her looking at me now, begging for recognition, but I can't pull my eyes away from an article about Joan Baez.

After she leaves I put the magazine down and head to the bedroom, curious to see the damage I've done. Broken, still scattered where it fell, is a picture frame.

Several months ago we took an outing to a sculpture garden. The day, like Jamie, was gorgeous in its poetic simplicity. The sun warmed us as we walked hand in hand, commenting on the sculptor's artistry.

I had been there, numerous times with numerous women. None of them laughed like Jamie.

Located in the center of the garden was a statue of Icarus falling from the sky, wings tattered, wax warming from the sun. Her eyes lit when she saw it, like my heart when I saw her.

"This is hauntingly beautiful."

I was a poet once, carefully molding my words, filing down their features, timing my words perfectly like a gentle breeze in June.

"Let's take a picture together in front of it." She says to me. "I want to remember this forever."

I agree and we have a man who looks like a college professor come over to snap it.

Now, that picture lies face down on the floor, surrounded by broken glass, wet from Jamie's tears.

She will never see that statue the same way again. We will forever be in free fall, two poetic souls reaching too high for the sun. I begin to pick up the broken pieces, placing the glass in my hand. I cut my finger. My blood covers Jamie's tears. I realize that she will be better off without me.

Chapter 17

17

By noon a cold snap has come rolling into town, graying the sky and angering the air. My toes may be close to frostbitten but I have managed to panhandle seven dollars and some change from holiday shoppers coming into and going out of some giant bookstore called Barnes and Noble.

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like Mark Twain?" a woman enclosed by a black fur coat asks me.

"Yes they have, mam. Could you spare any change?"

She shakes her head, "no", and begins to walk away. Tis the season. Tis the season.

I've started opening the door for people as they enter and exit. I figure if I'm going to be a beggar I should at least be doing some kind of service.

I wish I had time to explain my situation to the passersby. I need them to know that I simply woke up one morning, lost, alone and confused without a penny in my pocket. I've found myself in the middle of a city twenty years older, twenty years more foreign, and twenty years more cold.

I've never asked for anything in my life, maybe borrowed, but always returned. I feel a little more than pathetic now, standing outside of this store, bothering people for their loose change. Some look at me with pity, others, disdain.

When I reach ten dollars I'm heading into this bookstore and buying a cup of coffee. I'd be a rich man with ten dollars, or at least a little more than a pauper.

I can smell the coffee every time I open the door. The aroma swims in my nose and warms me just slightly. This time I ask a bald man for money, and this time, the man looks me in the eye.

He is short, stout and strong, with a brilliantly white moustache covering his upper lip. He reminds me of a man I used to know many years ago.

Mr. Olson was the father of my best friend in high school, a man who rarely spoke, but who carried an assortment of faces. Some nights he would be inviting, offering Jon and I slugs from his favorite bottle of whisky. Other nights he would be withdrawn, silently pondering something inside while watching World War II documentaries on television. He'd offer me no hand; no glance of recognition, but his pipe would be churning out steam, like the locomotive of his mind.

I'd often sit with Jon on the family sofa and stare at his father. He was a powerful force in my life, yet I hardly knew him.

"How mucha need, son?"

I am old enough to be this man's brother.

"Whatever you can spare, sir."

A gust of frigid air comes hurtling at us, a force powerful enough to rob the wind from your lungs. My teeth chatter and he hands me a dollar.

"You take this now, and you use this later." Folded up with the dollar bill, he has given me his business card. He extends his hand, we shake, and the bald man whistles as he walks away.

I pocket the dollar and examine the card. His name is Jon Olson and he looks just like his dad.

Chapter 16

16

I haven't been able to write a decent sentence in months, but there she sits at my desk, penning a five-page letter to her friend who is currently living in Germany.

If she can write, why can't I?

She is sitting across the table from me, silently eating a pork chop that is slightly overdone. I've lost my appetite and have barely touched mine.

If she can eat, why can't I?

Conversations, like decent fiction, have become scarce. I'm getting too old to forcibly extract either, so here we sit, listening to the sound of her fork scrape across the plate. I hear her breathing heavily, a slow, metered sigh.

If she can breathe, why can't I?

She exits the bathroom wearing nothing but a faded blue towel. The size of her breasts does not excite me anymore. Her eyes stop in ascension and then finally arrive at their destination. She looks so lonely as she stares at me, a tiny drop of water falls from a bang onto her forehead.

She walks slowly over to the phonograph and restarts Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, then takes a seat on my worn pullout couch. My mind withdraws into the heavy bass notes of "So What", withdraws into a smoke filled jazz bar, withdraws into a crowded room, alive with the energy of simply being one of the masses. Midway through the first number, she sneezes.

I need to tell her some things.

She sneezes again.

I grapple with the words, writing and erasing sentences in my head. I can hear the wind pound against the windows, desperate to come inside.

She looks so lonely.

I can hear the telephone ringing in the kitchen, but neither of us make a move to answer it. I count the number of rings and get to eight before it stops.

She has shifted from the pork chop to her green beans. She stabs at them with intention and malice.

The trumpet crescendos, the wind is moaning at the door. I need to tell her some things. "Jamie?" She puts down her fork.

"Yes?"
"I'm not in love with you."
"I know."

The words fall from her mouth and onto her plate, scattering the remaining beans. She stands up, still holding her fork, and exits the room smiling.

If she can smile, why can't I?

Chapter 15

15

As the sun begins to bear down on me, I start to wake, slowly raising myself up onto my elbows. The ghosts from the night before still linger in my mind like the mucus that has dried into the corners of my eyes. I wipe them both away and exhale a cough from my lungs.

The cough echoes throughout the park, startling me into self-awareness. There are no other sounds except the reverberation of my hack against the trees. I can hear no passing vehicles or whistles from a nesting bird. I am alone and this eerie silence gives me the feeling of being in a morgue.

My bowels are moving, and this awkward position I'm sitting in is putting undue pressure upon my bladder. I stand from the park bench and head towards the nearest tree to relieve myself. My piss smells strongly, although I've had nothing to drink.

The mystery of my arrival here, pissing on this tree, crawls out from the back of my skull and imbeds itself into the left side of my brain. I wince as it begins to throb.

I'd like some breakfast.

Eggs, bacon, maybe ten or so cups of coffee. Cream, sugar...my spoon moving in a clockwise motion, creating a whirlpool of bittersweet. A middle-aged waitress brings these things to me and I smile faintly before looking back down at today's crossword.

12-Across is fucking with me. What is an eight-letter word for and upholstered chair insert?

Or better yet, what is a sixteen-letter word for a man pissing on his shoe?

I look down and notice the answer is me.

Chapter 14

14

On my first morning without Jamie, Winter decided to knock on my door, loudly, rapping his cracked knuckles three times and then, after realizing I would not be answering the door, decided to let himself in.

He makes his way into the kitchen, rummaging the shelves, looking for my last remaining cup of Ovaltine. He turns the canister over the sink and the flakes fall like a chocolate Christmas. He does the same with the rest of my box of Cheerios and a steak I was saving for dinner.

Winter can be a real bastard sometimes.

His feet are wet and unusually covered in motor-oil. He wipes his feet off on my ottoman, leaving a stain I'll never bother to clean. He sits in my favorite chair and lights a cigarette, careful to put the match out on the seat cushion.

Taking my only bestseller off of the shelf, he begins to thumb through the pages, landing, finally, somewhere inside of my favorite chapter. He rips out the page on which I had penned my favorite sentence:

"The rain turned the streets inward, like drowned lungs, upon themselves and I was hurrying to work, meeting swollen gutters at the intersections."

That was a damned good sentence and I'm going to miss it. Winter balls it up and tosses it into a corner. Winter is dressed like a gravedigger.

The son of a bitch finds himself at the foot of my bed, picking his teeth with a bit of chewed fingernail. He spits it out onto the floor before lifting the sheets.

My toes go numb, my lips start to crack. I feel the cold of his touch as he slides in next to me. His leg brushes against mine and causes the hairs on my neck to stand at attention. I start to shiver, he starts to laugh.

His laugh is insidious, mocking, waking me from sleep, daring me to look him in the eye. I do and he laughs. His gaze chills my spine.

I am in bed with December, the longest month of the year.

Chapter 13

13

She comes to me in the night, whispering my name. I am slumped, but still upright, sleeping on a wooden park bench.

Richard...I need you to forgive me. I had no idea.

A burning, some sort of indigestion, rises in my belly. She stares at me with those burdensome blue eyes. Forgive her? Does she think me invincible?

The wind picks up and the ruffles of her blue dress sway like the ocean tide. Her spray lands upon my cheek. I can taste the salt in the air.

Once, a long, long time ago, she was forgiven. But I could never tell her that. It hurts the grieved too much to believe she has never received forgiveness for her transgressions. She'll take that denial to her grave, and I'll lay flowers against her headstone.

I forgive you mother. I forgive you for the hospitalization, for the therapy, for the treatments. I forgive you for your years of absence and never sending birthday wishes. I forgive you now that I'm spending this evening alone on a park bench. I forgive you if it starts to rain...

And it does. And she is gone. She never said goodbye and I in turn never forgave. Until now. Until the rain.

Jamie left me half a pack of cigarettes before she headed home with her roommate. Before she said goodnight. Before she lent me her jacket. Jamie looks nothing like the rain. She reminds me nothing of the sea.

Chapter 12

12

November 15, 1982.

Jamie's 25th birthday.

I'm drunk in my hotel room when the telephone rings.

Indianapolis, Indiana. Book tour/poetry reading. My publicist wanted me to meet an up-and-coming writer, some guy named Tom, or Tim, or Tum. She made reservations for three at some horribly gaudy restaurant owned by some unpronounceably named chef. I showed up a half an hour late, staggering.

Knowing my propensity to miss these kinds of networking schmooze fests, the two had already finished their starters and their meals were on the way. It's ok. I wouldn't have eaten anyway. I order vodka, rocks, and an olive to assuage the hunger until tomorrow morning.

"Did you forget what day it is?" Jamie asks on the other end of the line.
"No, I didn't. It's your birthday." I must have failed in my attempt to control my slurs.
"Richard, it's 7:15. Are you drunk already?"
"I don't see why it should matter, but yes, I had an early dinner."
"When were you going to call?"
"Eventually."

I've grown weary of writerly conversation. This eager young man sitting across the table from me is yet another reason why. I could say he reminds me of a younger me, bright eyed, ready for international publishing fame, but then I'd be lying to you. His mouth is moving but I'm not listening to a word he's saying. I've heard it all before; allow me to recap.

Said writer is gratefully surprised at his fortune. His first novel has critics raving, although he thinks they all miss it's intention. His next novel will be more challenging, more focused, more determined in its purpose. Since his debut, he's read so-and-so, met what's-his-face, and been to here-and-there. Yippie. Then the inevitable questions fly at me. He wants writerly chitchat. He's a big fan of mine and has been for years. Do I ever feel under appreciated? Why do I think my last novel was such a bomb? What am I currently working on? I don't have the heart to tell him that I am currently working on burning all of my books in the middle of my living room and then sending a beautiful bullet into my skull.

"I'll be back on Tuesday," I reply. "We'll celebrate then."
"Promise me?"
"Sure, Jamie."

I need to go to the bathroom. The polite thing to do, of course, is to wait for a lull in the conversation and then graciously excuse myself from the table. I am rarely gracious anymore.

Alone in front of the urinal, I get the urge to run. I do not want to finish this horrific conversation, although my unfinished glass of vodka is reason enough to return. I'd hate to leave it there, treading water, alone at the table.

By the time the telephone rings I am back in my hotel room, finishing another glass of vodka.

"How's the novel coming along?"
"Just like all the rest."
"I miss you, Hun."
"Happy birthday, Jamie."

Hearing the click of disconnection, I let the receiver fall from my hand. It lands graciously on the bed. I don't bother to pick it up as the pulsating sounds of the dial tone slowly sing me to sleep.

Chapter 11

11

Memories are a curious thing.

I exhale the smoke through my nostrils, an inkling of a cough suppressed in my lungs, and notice the young woman has been curiously looking at me for some time.

"You look really familiar to me," she says once her eyes meet mine.

I ponder her statement, flicking the end of the cigarette, sending ash willowing through the air. Familiarity is also a curious thing. The curve of my nose could conjure a recollection of an uncle, my unkempt hair that of her boyfriend's father. Add up all the features of anyone she's ever met and I'm sure, somehow, it could possibly total up to a "me".

I am also a curious thing.

"I was thinking earlier, on the bus, that you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago," I responded. "Really?" Her spirit visibly rises. "What was her name?"

"I...I don't know. I can't seem to remember all that much right now."

"Oh. That's ok. Well, what's your name? Can you remember that?"

"It's Richard," I reply, extending my right hand. "At least I can remember some things. What's yours?"

"Jamie." She takes my hand, shakes, releases, and pulls out her pack of cigarettes again. She draws two from the bunch and gestures them to me. "Do you want another one? I always chain smoke when I'm nervous."

Her name hits me like an obituary. A friend you haven't heard from for years suddenly winds up sending her car over a cliff and this is how you find out about it. Black, white, words...empty, but haunting. I reel from the discomfort, like pieces of a broken typewriter lying scattered on a hardwood floor.

Chapter 10

10

I've been having trouble writing lately.

The keys of my typewriter clack out of time, the rhythm of my words is slightly off the beat, laying back like a drummer not completely sure of his signature.

My day is spent unsatisfied with my own ability to create, questioning the phrases I use for articulation. Failure is my one true fear, and it stifles me until I can barely breathe. Has my open invitation into the literary realm been revoked?

It's the fear that brings the bottle to my lips, a coping mechanism in which the struggle for words is eased by the consumption of alcohol. While drunk I have an excuse for my ineptitude, a refuge from my inner perfectionist. His articulate accusations are quieted by the intoxication.

If I can no longer write, I am no longer a writer. If I am no longer a writer, then I hardly exist at all. My body is just a vessel for the words, and simply nothing more. If my spirit is gone, so am I. What more is left to be said?

I stand, wobbly from drink, and make my way to the kitchen. I should eat. I haven't in days, but like Old Mother Hubbard, I have no bone in my cupboard, but plenty of booze to get drunk again. My life is a Modern Greek tragedy.

Or a fucked up nursery rhyme.

I can't tell the difference anymore.

Jamie loved my words, not my habits. She's gone because I've lost control of both.

Without my words, I am nothing. Just an empty shell in a revolver.

The air in here is stale. I wish someone would open a window.

Chapter 9

9

Something shifts within me as soon as my lungs take in the smoke.

Scattered memories of a cigarette nesting in an antique glass ashtray, pulsating thoughts of a bullet filled clock hanging from the wall in a dismal living room scene.

Unopened letters from various addresses lie damaged on the floor. I've tracked in mud from gathering wood and have used some of the postmarks to unsuccessfully clean my boots.

She is squatting in the doorway to my office, picking up the bits and pieces of my recently smashed typewriter.

In a rage I begin yelling at her, but the words are muted, as if my head were underwater. She mimes back, her index finger accusing and cold. There is an intense pressure in my chest.

I count the steps, fourteen, from the living room to the kitchen, kicking the muddied envelopes and mussing their random placement. Fourteen steps and I won't hear her garbled voice anymore.

Fourteen.
Steps.
Until the vodka coats the back of my throat.

Fourteen.
Steps.
Until her voice becomes audible again. Accusing me. Judging me. She thinks I'm better than this. She hasn't known me very long.

Chapter 8

8

Jamie moved in on September 21st, 1982. For some asinine reason she brought her cat along with her. Squat, fat and black, it went by its given name, Pinetree, but I always referred to it as Meatball. He, she, it, not that I ever noticed, would wake me each morning by scratching and mercilessly crying at my bedroom door. If Jamie had already left for the day I'd hurl the nearest bedside object at it, hoping to shut the beast up for good. If Jamie was still lying next to me I'd simply ask:

"Would you mind too terribly if I murdered Meatball?"

She'd look at me with those gorgeous brown eyes of hers and reply, "Richard, if you're referring to Pinetree then yes, I would mind."

Cats are an unfortunate waste of time. Much like a soon to be aborted relationship, they take and they take, but do they ever give back? Feed me, water me, and when you get a minute, clean up my shit from that plastic box of neon colored sand. But will I come when you call? No. Go fuck yourself. Can you take me on walks? No. Go fuck yourself. Will I cry at your door at 8:00 A.M. for no reason at all? Yes. Now go fuck yourself. So it went, month after month, my hate-hate relationship with Meatball. I fantasized about its death; wondering when my patience would snap and I'd place my rifle against its fat little skull.

My days were spent hating Meatball while my nights were spent growing bored with Jamie. She was great in small doses, but after prolonged use, like a bag of shitty coke, she began to give me migraines.

I don't want to blame it on her age. I've been with women younger than her who didn't stale like a box of doughnuts. I believe the problem stems from one of life's true constants: Never sleep with someone who is more enamored with you than you are with them.

We began, over time, to bruise like a basket of fruit. Yet, in comparing our relationship to apples and oranges, we must assume that at one point, Jamie and I were perfectly ripened.

The day she moved in was a breath of fresh air. Suddenly my mountain hideaway was penetrated, the breech of personal space well received. Windows were suddenly opened, the breeze blowing through the house, lifting my spirits immensely. I had been so consumed by work, tinkering, plotting and devising my written word that I had let the place delve into shambles. I was rarely leaving my typewriter, stepping from my dump of an office once or twice a day to piss, shit and eat. Bottles of vodka, packs of cigarettes and half written pages not worthy of completion lay scattered on the floor, reminding me constantly of characters and story ideas lost among my sea of addiction.

Jamie showed up, her meager belongings in hand, close to the end of that 21st day. Sedated by drink and completed ambition, I opened my door and invited her to stay. She explained her circumstance. Mike, finding a poem I had written for her, finally connected the dots as to why he was spending so many nights alone.

"He hit me," she explained, although it was a lie brought upon by desperation. A fear that I would reject her intrusion without hesitation.

"I need a place to stay, Richard. I need a place where the wind won't blow it all away."

As she took off her clothes and readied for bed, she opened the windows and let the breeze blow through her hair.

Chapter 7

7

It feels like waking up after a four-day binge of drinking alone. The disorientation, the scattered thoughts, the teetering of reality. A de-ja-vu gathered in the pit of your stomach, alcohol pulsating throughout the veins, vomit collecting in the back of the throat, dehydration sticking the tongue to the roof of the mouth. Pitifully I gasp for air as the familiar surroundings swirl through my head. This is the point in which I would normally prop myself against the kitchen counter, struggling to put on a pot of coffee. But I am not in my kitchen; I am not stumbling through my house. I am not in hospitable surroundings.

Yet, I have been here before. Something filters through the confusion just long enough to incite recollection and then is gone again, like recalling your childhood through olfactory hues. But I haven't been here before have I? This parking lot isn't familiar, nor the row of similar looking buildings with giant, screaming, florescent signs proclaiming autonomy.

The ambulance's sirens have quieted now. The paramedics have made their way onto the bus, collecting the body onto the gurney, covering the old woman's face with a sheet, and are now in the process of rolling her decrepit body away. The young woman is standing ten steps away from me. I can still smell her perfume as we silently watch in disbelief.

She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a small, silver contraption. She pushes the buttons on the face of the mechanism and then places it up to her ear. A conversation begins; there is a familiarity in her hello. Her words dull as the sirens awake, announcing the paramedics’ departure. Her conversation is drowning like my peace of mind.

I have been here before, but not here. This is not a familiarity as much as a gut feeling. It is as if I were returning to my hometown after a twenty-year absence only to find that the house I had grown up in has been demolished and replaced with a gas station. I might be able to locate the spot where I buried my favorite childhood toy, but unfortunately it is now covered with pavement. The tree that I used to climb now resembles a billboard and the air I used to breathe now smells of petroleum.

Her voice trails off to a goodbye and the phone goes back into her pocket. She looks at me, looking at her. We stand in silence.

She too is familiar, like the landscape behind this shopping complex. My eyes trace the contours of her lips, which are slightly parted, gripping the remnants of her conversations. I feel as if I've felt, tasted, tongued those lips before, but once again, I remain unsure. She turns away from my stare.

Her hand dips back into her jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She takes one, lights it, inhales and exhales the smoke. I realize, once the smell hits my nose, that I haven't had a cigarette in what seems like years. I quickly fill my lungs with the second hand pleasure, and I crave, yearn, for the nicotine. I feel myself speaking out, breeching my inner monologue.

"May I have one of those?" I quietly plead.

"Sure," she replies, faintly smiling while digging back into her pocket.

Chapter 6

6

I met Jamie at one of my poetry readings here in town a little over a year ago. It's my admittedly shallow way of picking up women of the younger variety. It's sort of like being a rock star; impressionable young 20-somethings are extremely easy to pick off when you're a published and respected American writer. I locate my target while reading and follow up during the subsequent meet and greet book signing. I simply ask the young woman to accompany me for dinner. To this day I have never been turned down, regardless of the woman's relationship status. My charisma is usually at an all time high, and poetry has a tendency to dribble from my mouth. It's impossible to feel self-doubt when a room full of adoring fans are hanging on your every word.

Jamie is small and slender, a brunette with beautifully engaging brown eyes. I notice her from the podium; she is sitting in the second row, dead center. Like a bull’s-eye on a dartboard I make my mark directly, meeting eyes with her for a split second, watching her face light up. The rest is child's play.

We have dinner at a corner cafe close to the reading. She's a dancer with a local ballet company, fresh out of college with aspirations of dancing in New York. She has a boyfriend; some kid named Mike who is an aspiring writer. Mike's a huge fan of mine who introduced Jamie to my work when they first started dating two years ago. Unfortunately for Mike, he had to work this evening and couldn't come to the reading. Fortunately for me, Jamie decided to go it alone.

She orders a salad, I, the club. "I'd really like to see some of your unpublished work," she tells me between bites of salad and pointless, driveling banter. This is going to be too easy.

Back at my apartment she is in awe. "Look at all these books! I can't believe I'm actually here in your apartment! Mike will be so jealous," she says as she runs her fingers down the spines of my novels. I offer her a glass of Boudreaux, she accepts while telling me that she's not much of a drinker.

Two hours, twenty three stories and twelve books of unquestionably distasteful, unpublished, poetry later I have my right hand down the front of her pants, fingering the delicate outside of her freshly shaved vagina. She moans, pushing herself up against my hand and demands to see my bedroom.

"Are you sure?" I ask, clearing my conscious of any wrongdoing and in the process making this her decision to be seduced into bed by a man twice her age. She nods breathlessly and I lead her to my room.

The rest is hardly poetic, hardly a scene you'd find in a completely ridiculous bargain bin romance novel. My pulsating shaft did breech her haven of quivering flesh; her moans did turn to whispers as I slowed to a climax. But all in all, pre-fabricated plot lines aside, we adulterously fucked, me taking full advantage of a younger woman who was star struck with her boyfriend's favorite writer.

When we finished I rolled over and lit a cigarette while she continued to stroke me, trying to get a repeated rise. By the time I'd hit the filter I was ready to go again.

Three months later, she moved in with me. For this, I am a horrible person.

Chapter 5

5

Someone's mother died on the bus today. Seven rows ahead of "Elizabeth Browning" and I, Mrs. Silvia Henderson passed away on someone's coat. The bus made a routine stop and he and his brown, corduroy coat wanted off. He tugged but she wouldn't budge. That's how we all found out.

The media always proclaims it as such a tragedy when the elderly pass away in such a manner, alone, on a bus, headed to no-where. But, I don't see those headlines. I can't find the story.

At this point she's simply a body, empty discarded baggage. No one frets when a pair of sunglasses are left behind. Yet, someone living and breathing is missing them.

And that's really the tragedy in the situation, isn't it? People have been left behind to deal with the deceased aftermath. Her daughter is left behind to mourn, dropping by the house on weekends to separate the nick-knacks from the keepsakes. Her grandchildren mourn with no more Thanksgivings with Grammy, no more presents from her at Christmas time. Her widowed husband must either learn to fend for himself, preparing the dinner and separating the whites, or be relegated to the nearest (and cheapest) retirement home. And the poor jerk and his corduroy jacket? What is to become of them? He'll be late to work now that the bust must be stopped, the authorities called. And his favorite corduroy jacket will never been worn again for he can never forget that an old woman's carcass was sitting on the sleeve.

Those are the tragedies. Those are your headlines, yet, the old lady's body, her excess baggage, will make the 10 o'clock news. But the woman won't be there to watch it or to put the newspaper clippings into her scrapbook.

Do not mourn for the woman who is in a far better place than the faux leather seat she died in. Mourn for me and the beautifully trite poet, for it is we who must exit the bus before we've reached our destination. The old woman reached hers. The old woman is at peace now.

Chapter 4

4

The morning could have started off much worse.

After the alarm went off we went our separate ways. She to the bathroom for a shower, me, upstairs to grab my pack of cigarettes. I step outside into the morning mountain air. I fill my lungs with its crispness, then light the smoke.

This morning calm, this solitude, this is why I proceed from day to day. My mind is afire with imagination. I'll write fifteen to twenty pages before I even sit down in front of my typewriter. The sentences piece themselves together, forming at such a rate that my memory can't keep pace. I've lost volumes of work between the spaces in my mind. They'd have to invent a brain recorder to get it all down.

The coffee has finished brewing and I'm halfway into my second cigarette when she steps outside to give me the news.

"Richard, I have something to tell you."

I take a long, pondersome draw from the cigarette. Chewing on the inside of my cheek I prolong the exhale. Then I raise my chin for whatever uppercut she's about to land.

"Richard...Richard, I'm leaving you."

She's said my name three times. She's clicked her heels together.

"Well," I reply, "At least you're not pregnant."

Chapter 3

3

She sits next to me on a bus, writing trite poetry in a spiral bound notebook:

"If only
You would open your heart to me
Could we then be free"

She does not notice me looking over her shoulder and continues to scribe:

"I could love you
Till the end of time
If you'd only let me"

The words are bullshit, meaningless, hollow. Her voice is pre-pubescent, her crush hovers on the outskirts of his perception. A love unrequited, yet she continues to ink as the bus continues to bounce upon these empty streets.

However banal her words may be, she is beautiful. Short brunette hair sits on the nape of her neck. Her large pondersome green eyes contain just a hint of sadness, like a man who’s spent his last dime. I judge her words, but not her heart, which is too young to be this damaged.

But we're all the same aren't we? Our past disappointments seem so miniscule, faded with time, filed under the heading, "Oh Well". During the loss however, during the heartbreak, comes the clawing. The digging of your fingernails deep within the earth as some pompous son of a bitch grabs your ankles and pulls you away. Your dream was within reach, merely fingertips away, and you watch helplessly as the distance between lengthens. But that's the odd thing about dreams. As soon as one dims, another illuminates and waits for your chase.

Do I continue to chase? Somehow I've found my way onto this bus, procuring the $2.25 bus fare by waiting on the corner until the streets populated, until I had gathered enough quarters from passersby for the fare. Last I remember, a seat on the bus was much cheaper, but what do I know? I've never been on this bus. I've never been in this town. Yet, here I sit, next to this beautifully simple girl, young enough to be my daughter, almost young enough to preface that with grand.

The L.E.D. said, "Local", whatever the hell that means. What's local to me may not exactly be local to you. We're stopped twice but she's yet to make a move. She hasn't needed to make a departure. Perhaps she's just along for the ride today, lost in her poetry, trapped in her sorrow. If so, perhaps we have something in common after all.

I'll get off when she does. Her stop is just as good as any. Until then we'll just bounce along writing our trite poetry.

Chapter 2

2

She wakes me with her breathing, heavy and metered. She stirs...her eyes flutter. Lost in deep sleep she is dreaming, but not of me. It is too romantic to allow the notion that we dream of those lying next to us. No one is that happy with his or her current situation.

For example, last night we made love twice before cuddling into each other, preparing our bodies for sleep, yet my thoughts while dreaming were focused on the abstract. I was swimming in the ocean alone, the sea itself warm and serene. The sand on the beach, combed by the surf, was untouched by human hands. No footprints or sandcastles...only one distant house, withered with age, faded by neglect.

I begin to swim toward the shore, but, after several strokes in the same direction, the shore falls further and further away. I paddle a bit more until the shore is completely out of view. Good. Better to accelerate the inevitable than prolong it. Now I am all alone at sea, bobbing like a buoy with the waves gently falling upon my shoulders.

The sky begins to gray. Dark ominous clouds surround me and the breeze begins to pick up considerably. I am being pushed into the growing waves, doused by spray, covered in salt. There is no hope for me now. I will succumb to the surf eventually; the sea will swallow me whole.

My arms grow weak, my body temperature drops with the atmosphere's. I stare into the sky, imagining what lies beyond the cumulous. Will heaven or hell await? In mere seconds I will know for sure.

My head submerges and then surfaces again, bobbing like a buoy with the waves thunderously crashing upon my shoulders. The sky opens up, briefly revealing a giant red orb of a sun. Not the Earth's sun, but some sun, staring down at me, mocking its loftiness.

In the distance a funnel descends from the clouds. My imagination conjures Dorothy, Toto, Kansas and ruby slippers. I smile at the notion that my savior is heading towards me. I gurgle and spit the tossing waves.

And then I wake. The savior in the dream never arrives, yet I never seem to drown. The dream could have carried on for days and I would never receive the fate that awaits. My mouth tastes of salt, my toes are numb with fear. Still, I hear her breathing, heavy and metered like that of a ticking clock or dripping faucet.

She doesn't dream of me. Life is never that romantic. She dreams of dancing.

Chapter 1

1

I wake abruptly.

I may look disheveled and half-asleep, lost in a hazy realm between dream and day, but the truth of the matter is completely opposite. The brain is awake even before I am, contouring thoughts and dreaming of fiction before I rise from slumber. The processing of images, colors, smells and sounds ignite in my mind with the rising of the sun. My head is cleared of the previous day's concerns and what flows from my mind's eye can only be attributed as art. I am the sun. Slowly my consciousness rises throughout the day, only to hit its apex, where my mind begins to dull with the mundaity of life. Mundaity...did I make that word up?

Like Shakespeare, am I making up words that will one day be added to the dictionary? Doubtful. The English language is already overpopulated with homeless words and impoverished phrases. So as my mind continues to wake, I'll stick to those middle class words that everyone uses to get their collective points across. Those words that drive their cars to work each morning to simply stare off into space, collecting pensions, occupying our atmosphere. I am no better than these words, but I digress.

I can't remember how I woke today. I can assume the sun rose, warming my body until the sweat from my brow collected in the sockets of my eyes, but the very first thing I remember is this. Standing on the corner of this street. What is it? 5th? 5th and Spruce, I believe. Confusion sets in. How did I get to 5th and Spruce anyway?

Try to remember last night Richard. Just to put things into perspective. Were you drunk again? Most definitely. Yet, can you really be sure? Is it only because you've been self medicating so much recently, trying to keep from thinking, rationalizing, analyzing your meager existence, that you believe you were drunk again? Can you actually remember placing the bottle to your lips?

No. It's hazy, yet completely unlike this morning, because at least you can remember some things. You were alone, drifting along in that blue chair of yours that's been relegated to the corner of your study. You were staring at the broken clock on the wall, the one you opened fire on in a drunken, rageful evening last March. You put a bullet into the midnight hour. The clock whimpered and proceeded to die, headed into that abyss in which you're more than ready to go.

Look around these desolate streets. Someone must have seen you walk here. Here, to the corner of 5th and Spruce. A pile of leaves, a discarded bag of Cheetoes, cigarette butts, some graffiti on the wall of the corner high rise. People have been here, but not for some time. I woke with the sun while others went to bed with it. No one is around to answer my call:

"How did I get here?"