side orders

it's raining. i haven't owned a car for five years but still whenever it rains i immediately wonder if i've remembered to roll up the windows.

i would like a refreshing drink, something orange maybe. something light and crisp but so cold. it should feel like swimming in a rushing river in the rain. that's refreshment.

once when i was a teenager i left my car parked at a friend's house. we had gone in his car to the mall. there were passing thunderstorms, summer ones that drench the city and then move off to the east as fast as they came. we got back to his house and i'd left my windows down. the car was soaked inside and filled with leaves that had blown free from a nearby oak. my friend's stepfather and step-sister were sitting on the porch watching me curse my poor luck. "yeah," the stepfather said. "we were wondering who the unlucky owner of that car was." thanks for rolling up my windows, you two.

of course i can laugh about it now. the car has long since died, it's axle snapping as i made a hard right turn early one morning on the way to the airport. i got to new york city and my father called and told me the car was no more. and there, in the span of the hour long flight, one chapter of life closes and another begins.

it was raining one evening as we walked home down irving street. i was showing her the city for the first time. she clutched my arm and seemed nervous. we were quite drunk. 'don't be nervous,' i said, and i started pointing out landmarks to calm her down. 'there's where the one armed delivery man works,' i told her, pointing to a shuttered cafe. 'there's where the japanese girl with the very old jack russell terrier lives. she always puts a small pink shawl on the poor old thing.' a car slows down behind us and i worry that despite my trying to allay her fears, we might actually be in a sketchy situation in a minute. the car kills its headlights and keeps cruising slowly behind us. i can hear muffled bass from inside. we are mid block, about 50 yards from the next intersection. the streetlights are mostly obscured by the leafy canopies of the trees. 'caroline,' i begin, about to tell her to dip into the next alleyway, but the car suddenly drives off into the night, blowing past us in a darkened blur. she has been oblivious, her head nestled into my shoulder.

she is gone now too, i can't even remember a defining point when it ended. gradually things fell apart and one day i awoke and she was out of my equation. sometimes i take an old sweater out of the back of the closet and there near the collar a stray long blondish-brown hair, one of hers, a reminder. one afternoon in fall i send all of the clothes in the back of the closet to the dry cleaners.

the rain falls with no direction, no purpose. nothing like the powerful and determined rains of summer. nothing like the cruel and punishing rains of december. just rain, pouring down with no intent, indiscriminate.

catch phrases

it's a wonderfully bright afternoon in the conference room, the white wall shining even brighter next to the window with a slight green tint from the reflection of the leaves directly outside. i can see specks of bright blue sky peeking from behind the swaying branches. i'd like to be outside right now, but honestly i don't know what i'd be doing. the beach? can you go to the beach or do you need a permit? honest question. i haven't been to the beach since i was a kid.

a popular rapper is sitting at the table, across from me. he is very upset. his last single was titled "gun 'em down" but here his eyes are welling up and he keeps avoiding eye contact to look at the floor. we are dropping him from the label. it's just slashing our budget, it has nothing to do with his rap. i personally think his rap is pretty invigorating.

he is pleading now and talking about his wife and son. it is sort of surreal to see this man who is an idol to millions of sulking, intimidating teenagers trying to act hard--the kids you see out in Torrance at the mall and shit--to see him sitting here in his crisp polo and madras shorts and expensive jewelry and groveling for his job. it makes me uneasy, as if there is a foundation i expected to be sturdy slowly coming loose.

i look to carol chang and scott alcott for help, who are both sitting as far away as possible with embarrassed looks on their faces. they are pissed at me for waiting until the last minute to do this. i did put it off. they are right to be angry. i am not good at confrontation. but they are a couple of fucking cowards since technically A&R is their job and i should not have to drop this on the artist unexpectedly. this is like firing a fucking guy from carl's junior. it should not be like this.

i take the rapper aside, over by the green tinted wall and the soft bright window. i put my hand on his shoulder. "listen, you are a talented motherfucker," i tell him. "we wouldn't have signed you if we didn't think so. the truth is... we are fools for letting you go. but it's not my decision. you're gonna get picked up by another label almost instantly. you can even go direct distribution with koch. seven dollars a record." he looks at me blankly. this is all bullshit. record labels don't make money anymore. we're selling typewriters in the computer age. he's screwed and so am i. we look at each other and that's that.

with the sun on the 405 at this particular shade of dark orange, and the brake lights all snaking around the curve in inglewood, i feel like i'm riding some sort of exotic amazon snake towards south america, some giant mythical snake slithering over the huge cities of the west trying to find his cave back in the jungle. my blackberry chimes with an alarm.

hthr at lax

that's where i'm going, but i always set reminders just in case. i silence the alarm and the traffic comes to a halt.

at the airport i am trying to convince my lovely and long-suffering girlfriend to stay here in expansive los angeles, to cope with it via me, to forget georgia and where we grew up and where all her friends and family are. her bitchy sister keeps rolling her eyes at me when i plead with her so i take heather aside by an empty baggage carousel.

i pull out my big guns, those which i was going to save until things were really last minute, like 'we-board-now-the-plane-is-waiting' last minute, but screw it. this is last minute. it's all or nothing. i pull her close and whisper the key things i know will hit her hardest. she starts sobbing and i am choking up and i look at her and her mascara is running as she gazes at me and cries. i press her face into my suit lapel, holding her tight, and i see her sister glowering at us a few feet away.

she gets on the plane anyways. we were together for 12 years.

i am sitting in night time traffic heading back to downtown. passing overhead lights reveal my crisp john varvatos shirt is smeared with dark streaks of makeup. i am feeling pretty numb.

i wonder if the snake got home. life is not a series of battles, i realize. the battles are already fought, high in the sky, above the planes, far off over the horizon, past where the lights end. life is just a series of dealing with the inevitable defeats.

five thousand ones

part of me wants to go to sleep right here on the concrete. part of me wants to drive clumsily the four miles back to houlihan's and ask that waitress out and possibly punch that smug bartender in the face.

part of me wants to go to sleep inside, shades drawn, for months. i'd wake up in fall and it would be a new season and everything would be different. leaves would be falling, the world would be going to sleep earlier.

part of me wants to go inside and chug from the handle until everything is spinning. then i'll jump in the car. i love the smell of a hot car interior as you jump quickly in and roll the windows down as fast as possible. the cloth has been baking and the steering wheel is painful to the touch, in a good way. the car chimes on and i go driving the freeways for hours as fast as i can, radio blaring.

part of me wants to do like shane and i did that summer in augusta, getting fried and tempting red lights until we eventually get t-boned by some friendly and hard-working immigrant family in a minivan. fuck, people like us belong in prison.

a cloud floats over the subdivision. i feel pretty clean. i wish it would rain. it's strange, i tell myself; you wait for winter to melt away and relish the first warm day. then it gets warm for three days and you're back to your old boredom, those old feelings sink back in like jeans broke in after a wash.

some kids drive by blasting gangster rap. i sigh the loudest in the whole city.

untitled

It’s Friday afternoon, the sky is clear blue, the sun that certain bright margarine that precedes the golden burst of sunset. Traffic is light; most of the cars darting about in this predominately commercial section of office parks and strip malls are white-collar employees returning from extended lunches. He stands at the driver’s side door of his small gray sedan and surveys the main road some 50 yards away: a passing truck advertising Dorito’s, a wiry black man on a bicycle pedaling furiously towards Chapel Hill, blurs of minivans and compact cars. He removes his jacket and places it in the backseat.

This is the routine now, every three weeks. He worked out an arrangement with his boss. Dwight Hurley was a tall, slender man of about 50 with a ubiquitous grin and a soft way of addressing even the most pressing of issues. He had played baseball in college and whenever talk of the Braves or even the minor league Bulls came up, a certain dancing in his eyes took forth, noticeable to any and all. He had settled down in a tidy McMansion off Falls of the Neuse with his wife, pert and blonde and always eager to host company. They had adopted a Chinese boy three years ago. He was four now and obsessed with Vikings. Dwight appreciated the life he had been given, and so when one of his employees had come to ask for a special arrangement every few weeks to leave early and drive north to see his girlfriend, he had without hesitation given his approval. Love was an important element of existence to him, and he believed strongly that certain rules could be bent or discarded altogether in its service.

With each Monday that followed such a weekend, Dwight would ask his employee how his trip up north had been, how his girlfriend was doing. With each affirmative response, he would feel his own love for his wife, feel its security and its weathered strength. It was a little reassurance every three weeks, his own unspoken part of the bargain.

The deal went so: every three weeks the employee would work an extra hour Monday through Wednesday. On Friday he would leave at 2pm to make the five hour drive to suburban Washington, D.C. He had become used to this routine, staying up late on Thursdays to pack his clothes. The office was barely impacted by his early leave; he had a tendency to complete his work before deadline, and none of the clients had so much as uttered a complaint before.

And so the employee left the company parking lot that afternoon, sun beating down into a blinding reflection from the car’s hood. He was serene. He couldn’t wait to see her.

They had been dating for a year and four months. Only the first six months of their relationship had been in the same town, until she had completed her internship at the university’s hospital. From then it was a matter of trial and error, seeing how often he could make the drive to Maryland or she could take the Greyhound or Amtrak south (she didn’t own a car). The latter proved exorbitantly expensive and so, with his $40,000 per annum salary he felt it his obligation to make the trip. He had always been a wandering spirit of sorts, and the trips north helped him balance his solitary life in North Carolina, saved him from the tedium he might otherwise sink into.

This is not to say the distance hadn’t worn into the fabric of their togetherness. Their biggest fight to date had come not from a single catalyst but rather the stress of so constantly being apart. Little jealousies from both parties spilled forth in caustic comments borne from exasperation and left unanswered they piled up silently, the bits of dust here and there swept into the corner until one night the ugly pile of dirt was too much to ignore.

They were doing the dishes at her sink, one side piled high with reddish tinted plates from the pasta they’d cooked together hours earlier. The long fluorescent bulb above them flickered spastically, wavering the flat porcelain light shining down on them. He stood drying a large blue plate with a dishtowel.

“So DorkBoy was in my office again today,” she began. DorkBoy was a coworker of hers at the NIEHS who frequently paid her unannounced visits and usually overstayed his welcome. He knew nothing about the man save what she chose to tell him; not a thing about his appearance or way of speaking, or even his background. He could walk past DorkBoy on the street and be none the wiser. But there was something in the way she spoke of him, something that always bothered him. It was the tone of her voice, how she described his constant intrusions and annoyances. It was as if secretly she cherished them.

“Oh yeah?” He replied, feigning struggle with a stubborn bit of dried pasta sauce. “What was it this time?”

She took her time, rearranging the dishes in the drying rack carefully.

“The same old stuff, he just wanted to talk.”

Silence. The sink was turned on and off, the light above buzzed quietly. Outside the kitchen window the adjacent buildings of the apartment complex sat squat, bathed in orange streetlight.

“What did he want to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what he wanted to talk about? This was today, right?”

To this she looked at him. He could see her gaze in his periphery, see her stone-blue eyes searching his cheekbones.

“What difference does it make?”

From there things had escalated. She had accused him of being far too insecure, a weakness she knew caused him great embarrassment. She had pulled out the heavy weaponry early and it shocked him, alarmed him into thinking that perhaps there was something to this whole DorkBoy thing, of course, it was puppy love in textbook form, the faux animosity, how could he have not seen it from the beginning?

They stood in opposite rooms, her turning on the living room stereo and popping in the Broadway score to Sweeny Todd, just one of the many CDs she cherished and he despised and yet another small weapon in her arsenal of passive aggression. He remained in the kitchen, staring at the empty sink, wishing for alcohol, for a six pack of a good beer and a place to drink it, somewhere in this unfamiliar state where he could sit back and just get three sheets without having to think about her or DorkBoy or anyone.

She finally entered the kitchen, eyes moist but defiant. Her arms were crossed and her hair had come undone from its casual ponytail, strands hanging now in wisps before her ears and brow.

“If you want me to fuck off, just say so,” she muttered.

He took a second to consider this before turning to face her.

“Fuck off,” he said, walking briskly to the dining table and retrieving his keys before exiting the apartment and shutting the door quietly behind him.

He had driven into the District, parked the car in the lot of a large shopping center and ridden the Metro to Adams-Morgan. In a loud bar packed with Hill interns and GW students he had sat and downed pint after pint of Hoegaarden until a bubble wrap-like warmth and invincibility had surrounded him. His cell phone sat silently in his pocket, switched off, and despite his repeated attempts to chat up single-looking girls whom he thought had made eyes, his mind always continued to wander to her and whether she had called. He ended up sleeping in his car until early the next morning, when the sound of Saturday shoppers and the frenzy of passing traffic had woken him. Within an hour he was at her house, in her arms, reconciliation. They spent the remainder of the weekend having sex and eating delivered pizza, and come Monday when Dwight asked for his regular update on the happenings up north, he had been relieved to be able to honestly reply with contentment.

Things had been calm in the months since. They had had a long and open talk about jealousy and realized that one of the strengths in their relationship was the ability to candidly discuss their shortcomings. This epiphany bolstered them, and by the end of their discussion they approached giddiness with the newfound solidity of their situation. The recent months had brought a new intensity to their appreciation of each other, with more “I Love You” and longer, tighter embraces at every opportunity. She had felt secure for the first time in her life, a tremendous accomplishment that she hesitated explaining to him for fear of suffocating his love. He finally felt calm in the thought that things were finally stable, a long distance love could work and would now free his time in North Carolina to more artistic pursuits such as painting or sculpture, hobbies he’d always harbored an interest in.

The interstate was half a mile from his office park, and it was common that he would forgo returning to his apartment and simply merge into the northbound entrance ramp, settling in for the long drive. This morning he had run out of bread, however, and instead of packing a small lunch he opted to stop at Wendy’s for a cheap and greasy combo meal.

Sitting in the fast food restaurant’s parking lot eating his chicken sandwich, he found himself devoid of any particular thought. The first leg of the drive was always the most tedious, a narrow chute of blacktop between the walls of pine trees straight north to Petersburg. At that sleepy and scarred industrial town he would merge onto 95 and continue through the patched-together tidiness of Richmond and from there it was almost always a slow crawl north until the HOV lanes of 395 and the full semblance of Northern Virginia suburbia. Barring especially horrid traffic, he would continue onto the Beltway, looping around the western side of the District and into Maryland before swooping down onto Connecticut Avenue and coasting a mile south to her offices. She would always be waiting at her desk, surfing the internet listlessly when he arrived. Her glance up and that familiar smile would fill him with warmth and almost instantly it was as if the previous five hours spent sitting in place and shifting were mere minutes.

He smiled, thinking about this now, chicken sandwich finished and the last sips of soda reluctantly trickling between the ice cubes. Removing his tie he found a strand of her amber hair and this too made him beam, for it was one of life’s little pleasures, to be 250 miles away from her yet to have a physical reminder with him even weeks after they’d last embraced. All in all, he was in a particularly good mood, and with a sense of calm and contentment he looked forward to the familiar escape that the weekend would bring. He felt that quite possibly, he could do this for years.

For one reason or another, finding the strand in his tie stirred memories that had been buried for some time, and soon he was sitting there in the car, meal finished, recalling the first weeks she had returned to Maryland, her anxiety at their being apart, their nightly phone calls that would last deep into the morning hours, sometimes with no words said for entire stretches where they simply listened to each other’s light breaths. There had been the night when a drunk frat boy had scaled the flagpole of her apartment complex, fallen the 20 feet to the concrete plaza and cracked his skull open. He had listened to her amazed play by play of the situation as the medevac helicopter whirred in the background.

And then there was one Saturday, in the depths of summer, July, he thought. They were speaking thrice daily now on the telephone, but it would be another two weeks before he could make the drive up to see her. In the morning she had explained that some girls from her old dormitory had invited her to a backyard barbecue in Bethesda, something of a celebratory party for one of the girls’ acceptance into Wharton. She had expressed anxiety about the whole affair, yet he had reassured her that she’d have fun. Socializing was not her strongpoint; she had had only a couple of friends in high school—one an immigrant girl from Colombia who shared her bookish ways and the other a boy two years her junior, thin and bespectacled from what he’d seen of the photos she’d shared. They had spent their late teenage years much like any bored suburban youth: driving around aimlessly, hours passed in finished basements, Friday nights driving into the city to see a foreign film or a rock concert. He admired her solemnity, it was attractive to him and he felt a tinge of sexual arousal at it as well—that she was his, that she needed him to open her—that caused him the slightest amount of shame.

He had spent the Saturday with friends, drinking cold cans of cheap beer and playing NHL ’98 on the Sega. By nightfall he had driven drunk back to his apartment and come midnight he was wondering why she hadn’t called. He debated calling her but ultimately chose against it, deciding in an alcoholic glaze that he didn’t want to come off as the controlling type, that this would be a demonstration of his ability to trust.

Around one she finally rang him. The vibration of his cell phone on his chest woke him as he napped on the sofa in soft lamplight. The rest of the apartment sat in darkness.

“Hey,” he slurred.

She sounded sad as she explained she’d just returned home.

“What’s wrong, why was it bad?” he asked.

“Oh, it was terrible. All these girls and they’re just so awful. So—I’m not a bad person for saying this right?”

“Of course not.”

“So… stupid! They’re so stupid. So shallow. All I got were questions about where I planned to go to grad school and have I seen such and such show and who do I think will win The Bachelorette. I mean, really…”

“That sounds terrible, for sure.”

“Oh, it was miserable. I just stood there with a drink for hours, in that backyard. The house was fantastic, that was the only thing I was impressed by. You know, those old money type of homes in Bethesda, off Bradley?”

He nodded before realizing the futility of this.

“Yeah, those are nice.”

“It was gorgeous. But what a waste. I couldn’t even get drunk to dull the pain because I had to drive home.”

“You could have called a cab,” he offered, with immediate regret.

“No, you don’t see…” She replied. “It wouldn’t have been worth it. It was just a terrible Saturday. Awful.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Gosh… Just awful. How was your day?”

And that had been that. She became far more reluctant to venture forth socially afterwards. He noticed this as the months went on, and deep in a corner of his mind it worried him, her new dependence on him for a social life. If it weren’t for me, he reasoned, she’d be a shut-in.

He bunched the foil wrapper of the sandwich up and stuffed it into the grease-stained paper bag. Five hours to go, he thought, with a slight shake of his head as he put the car into reverse. Backing out of the parking spot the sun glinted in his rearview and for a moment light the color of her hair shimmered in his gaze as he tapped lightly on the accelerator.

I am lucky, he thought. Things are just fine. She is my girlfriend, we have a connection. We are working with what we have towards a longevity of some sorts. I want to share her life. How could they be so mean, the rest of them? How could they leave her there, standing in her dress in a sunlit corner of a green backyard in Maryland one Saturday afternoon. Don’t they see her youth? Don’t they see her beauty and her love to give? She has so much love to give. I will try and accept it all. He smiled.

The breeze shifted, blowing through the cracked driver's side window. The light changed to green.

blonde dinner

i keep repeating 'look at the lights, what a night on the town' over and over, in my best kool keith impression. at first it elicits giggles from her but eventually she hits my arm in that 'god, shut up' type of way that i secretly like. we sit in silence and i merge onto periferico, heading north towards polanco.

the valet looks like a mexican version of my old college roommate but just as suave and confident. the same waves in the side of the hair, the same smile that shows only the top row of teeth but not in an awkward way. my spanish is still tricky when people speak fast, so i don't catch what he says to me as i hand him the keys. it's something something rubia. rubia is blonde. she's blonde. ok i get it, whatever. i'm starving, who gives a fuck?

we're sitting eating chips and salsa under the gaze of the towering hotels along reforma. they're a barrier of sorts between the stout villas and parisian side streets of the neighborhood and the vastness of unknown poverty and working class tenements that seems to stretch all the way to the damn guatemala border. just look at all those lights stretching south, south, south.

so now in that sort of neon blue that comes just before the inky darkness fully descends, the hotel nikko is standing there above our street, impossibly high up, not very spectacularly lit--none of the buildings here are--just sort of reaffirming its presence alongside its brothers and sisters the W, Intercontinental, Sheraton... fuck what a snooty, touristy street.

we joke about that a lot, that the only reason we drive to this neighborhood is because this restaurant is one of the few places to get a good basket of chips and salsa. can you believe that? all of mexico city and you have to single one place out for good chips and salsa. and it's a 45 minute drive when traffic is good.

we're talking, sitting out on the sidewalk tables, enjoying the night air. it's a bit cool, sweater weather, and there's a scent in the air that along with the darkened little puffs of cloud high above signal a rain coming soon. the tables around us are mostly locals, rich Spaniard looking mexicans in their late 20s and early 30s, all crisply dressed, all smoking, both sexes speaking urgently into mobile phones. i signal the waiter and we get our fifth round of negro modelo.

it's an alright wednesday night.

the valet brings the car around and i give him 40 pesos tip. he seems like a nice kid, i don't think he was saying anything slick earlier. he seems grateful but in a good way, not in the overly exuberant way that some waiters and such exhibit, which is somewhat embarrassing. it was a weird thing at first here, the issues of tipping and giving to the panhandlers. but i remember what my dad said when we sat at this same restaurant one night years back; "as long as i can buy a four dollar beer, fuck it."

i guess that's just how i'll go as well.

we start back towards the freeway but i cut a right down tennyson; i want to see if this house is still on the market. it's a beauty, fits right in with the other houses and apartment blocks on the shady, darkened street. art deco style, a curved glass front room and a white-painted stone balcony on the 2nd floor with rounded metal railings like the deck of some old cruise ship. we pull up to it and i cut the headlights and we just sit for a minute. on the radio some new english rock band is playing, i get them all confused these days.

"i wonder why no one's bought it," i say. she doesn't respond. i look over and she's laying back in her seat, hand over her forehead. alcohol really messes her up. more than two drinks and she's wasted.

"maybe someone got murdered in it," she finally replies. i consider this, as the breeze picks up and the leaves above start swaying in front of the orange streetlight.

"i don't think i could live in a house where someone got murdered." i turn the headlights back on and we coast down to the stoplight. she mumbles something about going home.

"how fucked up would that be, to scour the newspapers for murders," i say, turning slowly on the green signal. "and then later to inform the new tenants about what happened in their homes?"

but she's asleep by now. so i think about it to myself, driving along avenida horacio, under the vast darkened sky about to split at the seams with rain. it's cool and breezy.

haters

i was driving on 66 west, around nutley street, where the traffic always comes to a halt after slowly coursing silently through arlington like metal cells in the suburbs' great aorta. it was one of those early autumn afternoons in northern virginia, where the sun peeks between dense gangs of slate gray cloud occasionally, casting a golden light over the shaded treetops just beginning to change color. all around the boulevards and highways zip cars and minivans, office workers leaving early and high school kids leaving the crowded parking lots, turning too quickly into traffic or hesitating too long at stop signs. the area is full of life, you can feel it, you can feel the electricity of the friday afternoon as Suburbia prepares for a long weekend doing god only knows what.

it's a feeling, or a combination of feelings, that i only sense in the washington area. it was one of the reasons i insisted we stay, although i didn't put it to you in such terms.

you texted me as the nutley street exit approached slowly. i had been zoning out; not too interested in what was on all things considered, more talk about the war that really just all blurs together at this point. i have no real conception of who petraeus is, or what the surge entails, or where basra is strategically or otherwise. these have all become sort of buzz words. they can be strung together in infinite combinations but they all simply recall contrived mental images of dusty shootouts and explosions.

i like to believe i keep up on the war and policy. it is a necessary aspect of being a washingtonian, i suppose. but it's all just a foreign concept to me, as remote as black holes in space or geo-thermal energy alternatives. interesting to say but empty in thought, as thin as rice paper in the hands of my mind.

'meet me at home dpt on 50' read your text. at the time it didn't strike me as odd to find you there, despite the fact that we both live in the city, on the other side of the river, far from here, and there's no way you'd have known i was in virginia this particular afternoon. as far as you'd know, i would be in my office in spring valley, sitting across from max and will, feet up on my desk and killing time waiting for five o'clock. in fact, sending me any message to meet on route 50 may very well have caused me to head to the maryland side of the highway, heading towards annapolis. but none of this occurred to me; it all seemed to make sense as i veered the car into the exit lane. why did it all make sense?

the lot for the shopping center was incredibly crowded and i circled for a good five minutes to find a space, all the while looking out for your car. i never saw it but again instinct kicked in and i walked towards the store's entrance. expecting another text telling me where specifically to meet you, i decided to browse some to kill time. i know very little about home repair but it seemed a fittingly masculine thing to do to peruse the power tools, all secured to the display table with thick ropes of nylon wire.

after a few minutes or so i moved on to the lumber shelves, checking my watch and my phone. i hadn't missed your text. the oddity of the situation was beginning to sink in when there you were, walking quickly towards me from down the aisle, a nervous look on your face. you came to within an inch of my face but your arms stayed at your side.

"what's the matter," i asked, and with those words came the rush of unsteadiness that accompanied the rendezvous. just what the hell were we doing out here, in suburbia, in a home depot, on a friday afternoon? well, i knew why i was out here in the first place--and i couldn't tell you--but why were you?

do you know that feeling, when you're standing on the shore, and the waves recede, pulling little grains of sand around your feet, and you can feel the rush of all of them at once, being moved in unison?

you took me over to another aisle, leading by the hand. your fingers were cool, your palm was sweaty, you seemed determined but scared. i noticed you looked pale, your hair seemed darker; maybe it was those flourescent bulbs way up there on the high metal ceilings. maybe it was because this all felt like a dream, and dreams are blurry sometimes, like those thoughts of the war, of what the words really mean.

as we walked down the new aisle side by side, i felt compelled to regain a sense of normalcy. i kissed you. you took it but seemed distracted. you held onto my arm with one hand, gripping strongly. 'let's be a normal couple,' i pleaded inside. 'let's not fret about in this home depot like restless zombies. it's friday afternoon.' i should have said these thoughts aloud. i'm not sure why i didn't.

you finally looked me square in the eye.

"i hit a man on a road this afternoon. i think he's--i think i killed a person today. i have to leave."

i nodded to show my understanding of the situation. a family was walking by, a young wife and husband and their pre-school aged son. you continued to look at me with frightened, impatiently serious eyes.

the boy trailed behind his parents listlessly. upon looking up at us, he waved a juice box from left to right. "i have a drink!" he exclaimed proudly.

i watched him but didn't reply. forcing a tight smile i nodded. you continued looking in my eyes. i kissed you again.

'we are a normal couple. it is a normal friday afternoon.' again in my head.

there were questions that i should have asked you.

fake summer nights of december

it was in a bank on sixth avenue and 14th street that an older man told me his philosophy about living out your youth.

"you need to stay in one place only in four-year increments. just like college. it compartmentalizes your life. it's easier to remember the times you spent that way. they won't blend together like they would otherwise."

i nodded with interest while filling out a withdrawal slip.

"plus you don't need to stay in one place for more than four years. you need to move around. when you get married, when you have kids, you'll have your whole life to live in one place."

i smiled and thanked him. he nodded but seemed lost in his own thoughts, pleased with his improvised lesson. i left the bank and met my friend for lunch. we both expressed surprise at the idea of living past 28.

in a week i had sublet my apartment and sold away most of my things. it had been four years since i parked in manhattan and moved my computer and mini-fridge into a sixth floor walkup. it had been four years since i left my college campus, taking pictures with strangers and patting the communications building's brick wall one last time for good luck.

it was time to leave. the old man was right.

friends had regaled me with adventurous tales of driving cross-country, but there was no blossoming romance with these united states. there were stifling backups in thunderstorms across the midwest, detours due to snow around the rockies, a seemingly endless drive through the desert with incessant talk shows on the AM dial. i arrived in san diego california mid-afternoon on a sunday. it was dead. i felt slightly cheated, completely devoid of any victorious arrival.

things still felt like they did back east. one of my favorite little pleasures in life is the feeling you get those first few minutes in a new city. i had it at 25, driving into dallas in the rush hour traffic one friday afternoon in spring, surrounded by all the office workers heading to happy hour. there i was in my rented ford sedan, texas license plates, one of them but secretly an outsider. there was an awesome excitement about it all as i studied my map, crawling between freeway exits.

here i was, though, walking into a sears to buy some towels. my first act as a californian. the air felt normal, no electricity. the people looked familiar, new yorkers in less flashy clothes, quieter, less harried. i felt my heart sinking slowly.

parking the car at my new apartment complex, i threw the towels in the empty living room and shut the door. i had my fill of driving and sitting, that's for sure. i left to go for a walk around the new neighborhood. the sun had sunk low enough to only light the tops of the trees and patches here and there of unobstructed grass. the bungalow-type buildings sat squat in folds of darkness as here and there yellowed windows appeared like stars in the blackening sky.

walking down the boulevard i finally came upon a light rail station slapped by the roadside. the sky was thoroughly indigo by now, save for some threads of light blue on the far horizon. it would still be light in hawaii, i thought. a couple of hours of sunday afternoon would be left for them. there would be a blue sky above the open expanse of the pacific, and in asia they'd be just waking up to a new day. this day is gone for me, though, and i stared across the tracks to the large shopping center lit with multi-colored neon storefronts. i heard a train whistle and looked left to see an orange metal tube gliding towards us in the distance.

standing on the platform i recall only silence as the train approached, and i don't recall any shouts or screams or even loud voices as the man stepped forward from behind a large aluminum pylon. i think we all watched in shocked silence as he stepped down into the rail bed and simply sat there, hunched away from the oncoming locomotive, arms around his knees like an attentive child watching a teacher reading aloud. i turned when the actual impact occurred, a sickening twisting feeling sinking in me from chest to legs.

when i turned around finally he was prostrate, surrounded by onlookers. the train had stopped several feet after him and was sitting there, four cars long, humming slightly, its windows lit with passengers standing trying to get a look at what had happened. i thought about the train's driver, how this calm, empty sunday had now made its mark on him for good.

i flipped open my phone and dialed 911. a terse white male voice answered with "What?"

"there's been a suicide at the light rail station"

"which one? what is the address?"

i scanned around for a street sign.

"i see mission gorge road."

"that's no surprise." the line went dead.

i spent a long time walking home that night, careful with my steps. i don't recall looking up at that dark sky, i don't recall looking around me at my new surroundings. i walked the sidewalks slowly, past the low bushes and the driveways and the stone pathways. i spent a long time thinking.