money be damned ...

I’m not going to work today. Money be damned. I have some laid aside. It’s a shame about the numerous rents I need to pay. People will suffer. I used to be reliable.

I had this girlfriend once… more like a fiancee… absolutely stunning. The first time I saw her I was, IMMEDIATELY, in love with her. Smitten.

I looked out the peephole and thought, my my my, that is the most beautiful person I have ever seen.

She sent me a message in the evening. ‘Can I ask you a strange question?’

Yes, by all means.

Do you want to go on a road trip to California with me? You have family there, right?

I did not. But I pretended.

I was the proud owner of at least two shirts… identical in their gray

In a white Nissan Sentra with a very small dog that really loved attention we went. The dog wouldn’t sit still. A mouth licker. I just wanted to grab it and shake it.

She chainsmoked all the way to Crescent City. I couldn’t stop touching her face. God, I loved her.

Remember that girl from the Noxzema commercials during your childhood? She looked just like that. But better.

In Crescent City we booked a hotel. We went out to dinner at a ‘fashionable’ restaurant along the promenade…. There were antlers on the wall. She got the Mac and cheese. I just watched her eat.

Spiderman was on when we got back to the hotel room. You like Tobey Maguire? Neither do I.

Then we started kissing. The dog was yipping. I gave her a tub of yogurt. Problem solved.

The next day was just as good. We’d taken the 1.

Oh, this is what Mendocino looks like… Can you hear the waves crash? Those rocks don’t stand a chance.

In San Francisco it was the motel 6. In the tenderloin. This whole trip, it turned out, to see a friend and her husband renew their wedding vows beneath Chinese lanterns that neither of them seemed to know how to use.

I should have asked her to me marry me right then. It would have been perfect. I would have meant it. She’d have agreed. But I just looked on.

We did drugs in the motel 6 later. Copious amounts. Her friend, whom we’d come to see, was talking to some other friend and she, mine, started to feel neglected. We went into the bathroom and kissed for awhile.

I don’t even know what we’re doing here… she said.

At a motel 6? In the tenderloin? In San Fran?

Experiencing something, aren’t we.

No one can ever take this from us. Isn’t it lovely.

If you went outside without me right now… you’d probably be raped… this place is fucking scary. I’m personally terrified.

Your friend? In the other room. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even remember your name. Her husband? He just handed out pills and pills and pills and you can’t trust a guy like that.

You and me in the bathroom… Best place to hide. You’re a really good kisser. I love you.

Your body, the best thing I’ve ever felt.

She had a picture in her wallet of the 4 sisters….She was the tiniest of the bunch… growing up in Pasadena wearing sundresses and living in a big house. Her mother bought Skippy and her dad was a red in the face drunk. He’d embarrassed her from time to time.

i haven’t talked to him in years, she said.

Not since college. Not since she (under his red faced and belligerent tutelage) had received a full ride to an Ivy League School to play soccer…. Quitting after her freshman year… mono and an addiction to adderal… derailing their dreams of scholastic glory. She’d dated the Varsity quarterback. It was intimidating.

I loved (feared) her immediately.

Perfect…. this one. And earlier in the day when you got up on your tippy toes, she knew exactly what you were doing. This…. If ever there is a ‘one’ … this is it.

I loved those commercials. That girl was perfect.

Let’s go outside. It’ll be an adventure. What’s the worst they can do?

We’d handled ourselves well… in the wild san Francisco night…she told a joke to a stranger. I genuinely laughed when the punchline came. So did he. She grew in my estimation.

We didn’t sleep until 5 or 6. The hotel staff woke us up. But we kept dreaming.

In she moved. The little blue house at 5th and James.

All fairy dust and magic. She took over the second room. Staying up days on end. No one to answer to.

We went to a party and I found her doing cocaine with some guy in a 3rd story bedroom. It only made me love her more.

Who knows where she is now. …