The doorbell rings and I hear the pitter patter of drumming against my door. Albie plays the drums. He plays them everywhere. Right now he’s playing the door. Also, he’s got this story, he wants me to believe that he drummed a girl. Well, not drummed her. That would just mean he hit her a bunch of times with two sticks. No, he used the drumstick to, you know. Nevermind. I don’t fully believe him anyway, mostly just because I don’t want to. I go to the door and let him in.

“Hey, Flight of the Heron, how goes it?” he says, going directly for the kitchen and the fading smell of toast. “You already ate it all, didn’t you? Damn. Why are you still in your pajamas? It’s noon, man. You are getting really lazy.”

“Thanks. I already know that. Not working for three months will do that to a guy.”

“Don’t be like dad, okay? He’s a great guy, but you know what he—”

“Yeah, I know. I’m not. Didn’t you check my status? I applied to 5 jobs yesterday.”

“I’m sure you did. So what’s up?” he changes the subject.

“Well, a friend from work is coming over tonight and we’re gonna watch some movies.”

“Hot. Girl or boy?” He grins, before turning to the refrigerator to raid its humble innards.

“Boy, but does it matter?”

“For you? No. For me? Yes. If it was a girl, I’d want to know a hell of a lot more, so I could think about it later,” he says, tossing cheese and tortillas on the counter.

“That’s creepy. Thanks. I’ll remember that. Anyway, I don’t think this is like that.”

“Why not? Isn’t everyone an opportunity? I bet you can convince him otherwise.”

“What? And if you are making quesadillas, make me one too,” I say.

Albie takes out a skillet and rubs it down with the open end of a butter stick. “So what you’ve gotta do is get some Pop Rocks.”

“Pop Rocks? What the hell for? Am I gonna take him back to his childhood with candy?”

“Of course not,” he says, flipping over a quesadilla. “You put them in your mouth and give him head.”

“What the fuck?” I meant to pause for a second before I said that, but ‘what the fuck’ just came to mind so fast, and I really need to know what he means. I walk right up to him and ask, “Where on Earth did you get that from?”

“I learn things. I hear things. I’m just saying, you know how make your mouth all tingly? Well, just trust me, Morgen.”

“Shall I assume you had a good date last night?” I take a plate from the cupboard and hold it near him. He glares at me and shuffles the quesadilla onto my plate.

“That one wasn’t for you, you know that right?” he says. I just smile and cut my toasty, gooey, cheesy lunch into quarters. I can’t really shake the Pop Rocks though. I imagine coming back from a Halloween party and dumping out a bag of candy on my bed. Out falls condoms and Pop Rocks and Toshi with his bass guitar.

We sit around and eat quesadillas as he drums on the kitchen counter and embellishes his sexy evening. He tells me how Aja is even better look with nothing, but a smile and her friend Olga is the most beautiful he’s ever seen with a hideous name. Of course, he claims to have had a threesome with the models. Who wouldn’t? I can’t imagine a guy on the planet who wouldn’t at least have lied to himself, to believe that he had a threesome with two gorgeous underwear models. He goes on to claim that they tied him up and blindfolded him. “So how do you know you actually had a threesome? One of them could have just watched, or left the room entirely.”

“You just know.”

“No, I don’t think you have any idea.”

“But if you had to choose a truth, which one would you have gone with?” he says. He has a point so I go on listening. It gets sillier, involving frozen fruit, a pull up bar and the Pop Rocks. After I finish my quesadilla, I just sit there, plain faced. It’s almost as though he’s making it up as he goes along. “And this whole time, you can’t see a thing?” I ask.

“Not a thing.”

“Well, that is quite a story. It makes me believe the drumstick story, at any rate.”

“I’m telling you.” He takes the final bite of his quesadilla, and cheese runs down his chin. “You can’t make this shit up.” Albie rinses off his dishes and pats me on the back. “I’ll see you later. Back to work. Remember, Pop Rocks and he’s yours.”

Chapter I: Eternity

When you lift up your hair before your eyes to check for split ends, you can see the world blur past your vision. Everything is there and alive, but you don’t notice… can’t notice it beyond your focus. I think this is the problem with everything. I think this is the source of every conflict that has ever existed in the history of humanity.

My bangs are too long and I need more conditioner.

I was sitting back waiting for my hair to dry nearly an hour ago, and that’s when he called. Marcus is one of those names I don’t run into often, so I never bothered entering a last name for him in my phonebook. He called wanting to know what was up. That was a lie. No one calls for that. People call to find out if you have time for them. That is the source of every call that has ever been made. Even telemarketers just want a moment of your time. Your brother just needs to talk to you for a minute. He got dumped again, so won’t you listen? Your best friend wants to see if you are busy first before asking if she can swing by. People never just want to know what’s up. This is a misnomer. Never let it trick you again.

Marcus called and didn’t ask me if I was free. I told him nothing was happening. This was his golden ticket, if you will. He completed the awkward purpose of his call by asking me to go to the movies. This is what people call cliché. So I told him I would go once my hair was dry and I’d meet him there. Finally, my hair is dry. I can see all the dead ends nodded and twisted together. I can see the way they turn sharp corners, becoming so much lighter, right at the thinnest spot. I close one eye, focus in on one and go for it. I miss it the first few times with my forefinger and thumb in the dreaded tweeze position. Once I grab hold, it plucks off of the main strand as if hardly attached to begin with. This is just bad hair.

My phone rumbas across the kitchen counter. That is what my phone does when it receives text messages. Apparently they excite her and she likes to dance. I pick up the phone to see a message from Marcus asking if I’m leaving soon and one missed text message as well. It’s from Mima.

I love u. I hate u. Good bi. You suck. *sad*

This is a cry for attention. It is blatant and without shame. This is the sort of behavior you see from children and people who have fallen so deeply into the empty chasm of ignored passive aggressive tendencies that they must crawl, belly to the thorny ground, out again and plead for your love and affection. Mima is one of these people and she makes me sad. Well, she used to, when we were close. When we were close, she was the world to me. But people are the largest, most titanic of disappointments you will ever come across in your beautiful life. Nothing else will ever matter. Even the rain over the Macy’s day parade cannot compare to the realization, that frigid moment, when you discover someone you held so highly in your graces has never deserved to be anywhere near that pedestal. I like to call it the Man Behind the Curtain Effect. This text is a glimpse at the man behind Mima’s curtain.

I call Marcus to let him know that I’m now too lazy to drive. I actually love driving. What I’m really saying to Marcus is ‘I am low on cash and I just realized that putting extra gas in my car to see you is not a priority.’ I’m that important, so he agrees to drive the extra ten minutes out of his way to see me. This is the place where I get in trouble. The extra attention. The wanting to see me. I’m going to go ahead and assume our little Marcus has a thing for me. I’m going to assume it, because these are the signs I was taught to look for. But I’m not going to let things get to me. Trust me. I’m neutral on this Marcus character. I play life cooler than a cucumber, whatever that means.

I run a comb through my hair. It’s been growing and over growing since I lost my job. Haircuts cost money and I don’t trust any of my friends, family, or self with a pair of scissors as far as I could throw a pair of scissors. (I have just received an award for successfully using that loose expression in such a way that it made sense to me in a sentence.) My hair is at that stage where it no longer looks like a haircut. My hair looks like I’m either growing it out or I have given up hope. I zero in on the whatnot drawer. Inside, there are scissors. A fresh pair of scissors suitable for cutting. Thankfully, my mind has already made up that it wants to wear a hat. It may rain today anyway… dry hair and all that. I’m not trying to impress anyone today.

Marcus is not really special. His hair is brown. His eyes are brown, his skin is tan. His build is average. His height is average. He is the sort of guy that can easily be the extra in every movie ever made, every photo ever shot, and every dream ever imagined. He is not amazingly gorgeous. He is not amazingly anything. Lela was amazingly gorgeous. Lela was breathtaking. She worked at a shoe store, when I first saw her. I walked in with a few friends. ‘Are you hiring, by any chance?’ came out of one of their mouths as I stared. She stood behind the counter, elevated atop its platform. Her clothes were bright neon splashes against black and silver lining. Her hair was long, black cherry Sunday sherbet. Her bangs were perfectly snipped parallel to her eyebrows, perfectly shaped to her face. Her eyes beamed through, under rockstar pink cotton candy eye shadow. Her lips looked so soft, slight shine under the florescent lights. When she spoke, her words were so gentle and kind. ‘I’m sorry. We aren’t hiring right now.’ One of my companions said something to her, most likely a thank you. I watched her as we turned to leave. She walked around the front counter to fix some shoe display. I felt a tap on my shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’ Apparently, I was making an ass of myself. So we left. But some girls like that. Some girls like a guy that is sheepish and makes an ass of themselves around them. It gave her all the power. It made her a goddess in our small world. And when I went back to see her, I bought shoes.

Personality. I forgot to mention that. A quick look in the mirror to apply a little SPF lotion to my face reminded me that I’m not totally shallow. He’s dull. Marcus is a little dull. He’s fun sometimes, don’t get me wrong. I’m not pitty-friending him, because I’ve nothing better to do. I’m not going to the movies, just because he’s paying for it and I’m broke and haven’t felt the warmth of a large, red theater seat cushion against my ass in months. That’s just not true. A couple weeks ago, we met up at the park. I suggested the park, because it’s free and I can walk there from home. He said he just wanted to get out of the house, which ended up being crap. He really just needed an ear to listen to some of his problems. Things were getting bad between him and his father. Stress on finding a career, growing up, you know the sort. I didn’t mind, but I can only walk around the park for so long before I need something to do. We ended up walking down to the boulevard to some smoothie shop where I accosted a Strawberry Mango Tango for my trouble. ‘Taste this!’ I said. He drank from the straw with the drink still in my hand. Safe to say, that was awkward. ‘It’s awesome sauce!’ he replied. He actually said awesome sauce. ‘See. Remember the bright side of life.’ Sometimes I’m not the most witty person, but what else was I going to say? It made him smile and he thanked me. He thanked me in one of those deep and meaningful, stop the car, we need to talk, I love you, thank yous. I’ve never been good with those moments. I only have two possible reactions. My reaction? I punched him. Not too hard. More like a ‘go get ‘em tiger’ punch. Half the time, my brain puts me into the state of mind of a little league coach when someone is emotional. This has gotten me into trouble because little league can be a scary place if your coach is punching you and things have gotten intimate enough to be emotional.

I purchased a pair of hot pink, patent leather, knee-high, black zip up, Dr. Marten boots. I spend one hundred and twenty dollars plus tax on them. She smiled. She liked my style. My over the top sort of ridiculous and less you are in a band or a diva why the fuck would you wear that sense of style. She asked where I was planning on wearing the boots. I told her anywhere. I said that I might wear them to get some coffee later if she’d like to see them in action. She smiled again. It worked. It actually worked. She said yes. She gave me her number. That is what success looks like. We met up after her shift at four. I spent over an hour preparing an outfit around those god awful boots. I remember wearing black jeans, a yellow rocker tee with a vest, and a silver belt. I went through a third of my wardrobe to find something cool and fabulously tacky. You’d think me vain, but I seriously never spend that much time in front of the mirror. Once the clock struck four, I was already sitting there waiting. She walked in and it was slow motion like a bad teen comedy in my head where people our age play sixteen. (At that point, I had already graduated from college.) She walked in and sat down across from me. That was a moment where playing it cool was the only wise option.

My phone does another shimmy across the kitchen counter. It’s just Marcus letting me know that he’s on his way. An unnecessary text, since I just spoke to him five minutes ago. He texts a lot. I’ve noticed that he doesn’t call much, but texts so very much. It’s obnoxious at times. I don’t really like texts. Small sentence fragments whizzing to me at the speed of light, letting me know something unimportant. ‘What up?’ I get that one the most. In texting, ‘what up’ also does not mean ‘what up?’ It sometimes is that hidden ‘spend time on me.’ But at other times, it is pointless. It comes down to a small reaching out to make sure the other person isn’t dead. Of course, this isn’t a dire worry or need to hear from them. If it were, people would call. But no, people send the shortest fragmented couple of words they can casually think of to people they haven’t talked to in months. ‘I miss you,’ from a person you haven’t seen in months means about as much as ‘pass me the salt’ from anyone else. This is a major waste of time. Cell phone companies make billions off of this magical little invention. Not from the senders. No. They are already addicts, subjecting the world to their word pollution. The money comes from the innocent people that simply bought a phone for the simple purpose of calling people. Simply. When the addicts send texts to these innocents without plans, those texts cost money. Quite a bit of money once you add them up. Eventually this causes the innocents to purchase texting plans since their friends and loved ones are horrible people who cannot respect the phone wishes of the innocent simple phone users. They get the cheapest plan. But their ‘friends’ and ‘loved-ones’ aren’t satisfied. They text them more than ever until they run over the cheapest plan’s meager limit. Eventually this snowballs and our poor, innocent simple phone user is now trapped in a loveless affair with an unlimited texting plan they never intended on purchasing. This is the cycle. Marcus is an addict.

I choose a beanie with a small bill. It’s turquoise and matches somewhat with my blue sneakers. I put on jeans and a thermal with a light jacket for today, as I said earlier. It may rain. But this is California. More than that, it’s Southern California. When I say it might rain, I mean there is a chance that it could sprinkle. And when it does sprinkle, you will see umbrellas outside. There will be girls in rain boots. People will run into buildings in fear of getting misty. On the streets and freeways, drivers will decrease their speed a good 10 miles per hour. You must decrease your speed in the rain. In the actual rain. This is not rain. Southern Californian’s cannot drive. Water only is allowed to exist on the beach and in water bottles. We do not understand cold weather. We thrive in a coastal desert that attracts fire like the whores and wannabe movie starlets Hollywood. These cities fear the one thing they need to stay fire free. Thank god if it actually rains today. I toss my light jacket on my bed and grab a thicker one instead. I’m preparing for the best.   

I’ve never enjoyed waiting. That’s a bit of an odd statement. What I mean is I’ve always hated waiting. I get anxious and antsy all over. The anticipation burrows through my skull and I start to go mad. A sort of cabin fever-like sickness comes over me and every passing car is my ride. Every metal clinking is the jingle of keys at my door. I’d bite my nails if that were my bad habit. That suits my feeling better than yelling into an empty apartment. Yelling into an empty apartment just sounds crazy. But maybe the jury’s still out on that one.

I shut all the windows in my apartment. Standing next to door, I flip open my phone. Nothing. Not a peep, nor a saucy tango. As I said, I hate waiting. The anticipation feels like duck tape tearing slowly away at my skin. Once he gets here, it’ll be a quick and painless rip as I jump into the car and say something bitchy at him for revenge. I live a small life. I scroll through old photos on my phone to pass the time and Lela’s there. It’s a picture of her, wrapped in a rainbow scarf. The angle is close up and poorly taken. She took it herself for me. She did that a lot. She’d take my phone when I was asleep and leave albums of her beauty on the hard drive. Personality. Lela has personality.

Once we got to talking regularly, I found out she was the girl everyone wanted to know. She’d been to the most amazing places and done beautiful things. None of the cliché bullshit about riding a gondola in Venice or walking across the Great Wall, no. She’d met Alice Cooper at a guitar shop in Chicago, while passing through to visit her granny. She bought him a beer and listened to him play a song on a thousand dollar guitar. Lela found a hundred dollars in a gutter and bought a plan ticket to San Francisco for that weekend. Sure she’d been to Paris, but she went to the top of the Eiffel Tower in nothing but a trench coat and streaked her way down. They nearly deported her. Her trip back would have been free. Lela had a Polaroid camera. Her bedroom walls were filled with those white framed squares. Notes and dates were scribbled in marker on most of them. She never forgot a moment. She had a million stories.

Lela took me to her favorite place one summer evening. It was this think slab of concrete lined up at an angle at the edge of the bay. It was so out of place. It looked as though they were planning on building a pier, but never quite got there. Just below it was a hollowed out area, barely a foot above the tide. ‘This is my view of the horizon,’ she said to me. It was so dark, but I could imagine the sun setting, lighting the red in her hair. She smiled, she could tell I was thinking too much. That was the first time. I still don’t know how we fit in that small dent in the concrete, but we did.

Marcus is nice, but he’s boring. He’s been to Denver. He had an omelet.
 

The vibration of the phone tickles my hand as I receive yet another text. It’s Marcus again. He’s running late, filling his tank.

Running late. Filling tank. Can u check movie time? –m.c.

I close my phone and walk to my laptop. My email is sitting open. No new mail. No new nothing. It’s sort of amazing how many new ways technology has provided us just in the last ten years to be ignored and feel lonely. I type the name of the theater into the search bar and look up the website. The movies out today are listed in the middle of the screen. Most of them are crap: cartoons, family movies, romantic comedies, and action movies lacking plot. Two o’clock. We have about an hour to go before we are successfully late. The next showing after two is 3:15. Personally, I’m not that excited to see the movie to justify waiting around for an extra hour and fifteen minutes. The movie we are going to see is the newest blockbuster. Blockbusters are big budget compilations of all the popular movie genres. They are action, drama, and comedy all wrapped into one. They are entertainment. I wouldn’t give them anymore or any less credit than that. They are always better in the theater. If you have money to waste or know someone who likes to waste money, see them for fun. If not, find a hobby.

My phone rings. It plays “Music” by Madonna. It’s Mima. That’s her song. Phones just can’t ring nowadays. Not only do we need to know who people are before we answer the phone, but now we have to personalize their identities, immortalize them in thirty second snippets. I made the mistake of personalizing a ringtone for Lela and Mima heard it. For about a month, from time to time, she pestered me constantly for her own ringtone. ‘I want Madonna,’ she’d say. ‘Give me Madonna.’ I ignored her at first. This proved useless in her unrelenting struggle for love and attention. She started calling me when we were together. When the standard ringtone sounded, she’d say in this grading voice ‘I wonder who that could be?’ It was easy to see that I only had two options. I could continue to deal with her shit and eventually yell at her until she cried or I could appease her. My first inclination was toward yelling at Mima. I told her to stop calling me when she was sitting a foot away and that I’d block her number before blessing her with her own ringtone. A proper punishment for behaving like a five year old, I thought. This didn’t work out, however. Thankfully I left the room before she got emotional. Neither of my two reactions to deep emotionality would have been appropriate. Neither.

I answer the phone reluctantly. “Hey, Mima. What’d you need?”

“You’re horrible! How can you answer the phone like that?”

“Because you usually need something. I’m going out in a bit, so I can’t talk.”

She ignores me. “Did you get my text?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?”

“Well what? Was I supposed to respond to kinder garden rhetoric? I’m not going to give you the satisfaction.” I didn’t give her the satisfaction.

“Fine! All I was going to say was I’m having this dinner and it’s important to me and there will be people from work and school and it’s like a big deal and shit and I wanted you to be there.”

“Will it cost me money?”

“Morgie! Come on! It’s a free dinner at my professor’s house. You just need a sport coat and be on your best behavior.”

“Okay,” I say. I hear her squeal and mumble something to someone. “I’ll go. I have to go now though. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Thank you so much. I love you again!”

“Sure.” I hang up and spin the phone around in circles on the kitchen counter. I remember the expression ‘the friends you keep…,’ but I can’t finish the sentence. I mull over it silently in my head until the frustration starts to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I start to repeat it over and over out loud. The things we do when we are alone. You know everyone is crazy when they are alone. Have you ever happened upon a child in the middle of playing with toys by themselves? They talk. To no one. Out loud. Have you ever caught yourself thinking through a sticky situation, getting lost from bad directions, talking to yourself alone in the car? You even turn down the radio so that you can hear yourself be crazy. This is a natural human phenomenon. All people are mad.

That expression means that the friends you surround yourself with ultimately say something about you. Was it ‘the company you keep…,’ I think to myself. The words are lost and they are going to stay lost, because the effort it would take to type and Google search it is beyond me now. I leave my phone on the counter and walk over to the couch. I take a seat and stare at the wall. It’s a wall. It’s been a wall since they built this place. This is boredom at its finest. I never got to decorating the walls of my apartment. I had planned on it, but losing your job, therefore your steady source of income, puts a cramp on interior design. The wall is just blank and boring. It says nothing about me. White wash. A year ago, I wouldn’t be allowed to live in such an empty shell. It would be an abomination. Lela would force me to live in my home. Really live. She believed in surrounding yourself with all the things you loved, wanted, and aspired to be. She’d always say, ‘remember where you are and where you are going.’ Lela was the one who would find twenty dollars on the street. Her eyes were open to opportunity. She saw possibility. ‘Today, I sell shoes. Tomorrow, I’ll be designing them.’ She kept sketchbooks filled with designs and binders filled with swatches. She had a dressform standing in the corner of her bedroom draped in red flapper dress and a short, brown bob wig named Maria. Maria was her muse and her model for women’s fashion, she’d joke. Somehow, Lela had even convinced some people that Maria was a real person.

After her birthday party last year, we came back up to her room. She was drunk, not sloppy drunk, just loose drunk. She started stripping. I thought it was just for me, but then my lap dance was being performed for Maria instead. She even called out her dressform’s name later on. I can’t say I didn’t mind, but to this day she doesn’t believe me.

That was our little joke. ‘Oh, Maria!’

My phone does a little foxtrot, so I check the latest message. It’s Marcus. He’s here. I take a deep breath. Time to go. Time to finally go to the movie. I almost thought it would never come. At times like these, I wish I didn’t answer my phone.

National Novel Writing Month

[01 NOV 2009, 12:52 AM]

When you lift up your hair before your eyes to check for split ends, you can see the world blur past your vision. Everything is there and alive, but you don’t notice. Can’t notice it beyond your focus. I think this is the problem with everything. I think this is the source of every conflict that has ever existed in the history of humanity.

My bangs are too long and I need more conditioner.

I was sitting back waiting for my hair to dry nearly an hour ago, and that’s when he called. Marcus is one of those names I don’t run into often, so I never bothered entering a last name for him in my phonebook. He called wanting to know what was up. That was a lie. No one calls for that. People call to find out if you have time for them. That is the source of every call that has ever been made. Even telemarketers just want a moment of your time. Your brother just needs to take to you for a minute. He got dumped again, so won’t you listen? Your best friend wants to see if you are busy first before asking if she can swing by. People never just want to know what’s up. This is a misnomer. Never let it trick you again.

Marcus called and didn’t ask me if I was free. I told him nothing was happening. This was his golden ticket, if you will. He completed the awkward purpose of his call by asking me to go to the movies. This is what people call cliché. So I told him I would go once my hair was dry and I’d meet him there. But finally my hair is dry. I can see all the dead ends nodded and twisted together. I can see the way they turn sharp corners, becoming so much lighter, right at the thinnest spot. I close one eye, focus in on one and go for it. I miss it the first few times with my forefinger and thumb in the dreaded tweeze position. Once I grab it, it plucks off of the main strand as if hardly attached to begin with. This is just bad hair, I think to myself.

My phone rumbas across the kitchen counter. That is what my phone does when it receives text messages. Apparently they excite her and she likes to dance. I pick up the phone to see a message from Marcus asking if I’m leaving soon and one missed text message as well. It’s from Mima.

I love you. I hate you. Good bi. You suck. *sad*

This is a call for attention. It is blatant and without shame. This is the sort of behavior you see from children and people who have fallen so deeply into the empty chasm of ignored passive aggressive tendencies that they must crawl, belly to the thorny ground, out again. Mima is one of these people and she makes me sad. Well she used to. When we were close. When we were close, she was the world to me. But people are the largest, most titanic of disappointments you will ever come across in your beautiful life. Nothing else will ever matter. Even the rain over the Macy’s day parade cannot compare to the realization, that frigid moment when you discover someone you held so high up in your graces has never deserved to be anywhere near that pedestal. I like to call it Man Behind the Curtain Syndrome. This text is a glimpse at the man behind Mima’s curtain.

I call Marcus to let him know that I’m now too lazy to drive. I actually love driving. What I’m really saying to Marcus is that I am low on cash and I just realized that putting extra gas in my car to see you is not a priority. I’m that important, so he agrees to drive the extra ten minutes out of his way to see me. This is the place where I get in trouble. The extra attention. The wanted to see me. I’m going to go ahead and assume our little Marcus has a thing for me. I’m going to assume it, because these are the signs I was taught to look for. But I’m not going to let things get to me. Trust me. I’m neutral on this Marcus character. I play life cooler than a cucumber, whatever that means.

I run the comb through my hair. It’s been growing and over growing since I lost my job. Haircuts cost money and I don’t trust any of my friends, family, or self with a pair of scissors as far as I would throw a pair of scissors. (I have just received an award for successfully using that loose expression in such a way that it made sense in a sentence.) My hair is at that stage where it no longer looks like a haircut. My hair looks like I’m either growing it out or I have given up hope. My eyes zero in on the whatnot drawer. Inside, there are scissors. A fresh pair of scissors suitable for cutting. Thankfully, my mind has already made up that it wants to wear a hat. It may rain today anyway… dry hair and all that. I’m not trying to impress anyone today. Marcus.

Marcus is not really special. His hair is brown. His eyes are brown, his skin is tan. His build is average. His height is average. He is the sort of guy that can easily be the extra in every movie ever made, every photo ever shot and every dream ever imagined. He is not amazingly gorgeous. He is not amazingly anything. Lela was amazingly gorgeous. Lela was breathtaking. She worked at a shoe store, when I first saw her. I walked in with a few friends. We needed jobs. ‘Are you hiring, by any chance?’ It came out of one of their mouths as I stared. She stood behind the counter, elevated atop its platform. Her clothes were bright neon splashes against black and silver lining. Her hair was long, black cherry Sunday sherbet with strands of blue and purple. Her bangs were perfectly snipped parallel to her eyebrows, perfectly shaped to her face. Her eyes beamed through, under rockstar pink cotton eye shadow. Her lips looked so soft, slight shine under the florescent lights. When she spoke, her words were so gentle and kind. ‘I’m sorry. We aren’t hiring right now.’ One of my companions said something to her, most likely a thank you. I watched her as we turned to leave. She walked around the front counter to fix some shoe display. I felt a tap on my shoulder. ‘Let’s go.’ Apparently, I was making an ass of myself. So we left. Some girls like that though. Some girls like a guy that is sheepish and makes an ass of themselves around them. It gave her all the power. It made her a goddess in our small world. And when I went back to see her, I bought shoes.

[01 NOV 2009, 11:21 AM]

I purchased a pair of hot pink, patent leather, knee-high, black zip up, Dr. Marten boots. I spend one hundred and twenty dollars plus tax on them. She smiled. She liked my style. My over the top sort of ridiculous and less you are in a band or a diva why the fuck would you wear that sense of style. She asked where I was planning on wearing the boots. I told her anywhere. I said that I might wear them to go get some coffee later if she’d like to see them in action. She smiled again. It worked. It actually worked. She said yes. She gave me her number. That is what success looks like. We met up after her shift at four. I spent over an hour preparing an outfit around those god awful boots. I remember wearing black jeans and a yellow rocker tee with a vest. I went through a third of my wardrobe to find something cool and fabulously tacky. You’d think me vain, but I seriously never spend that much time in front of the mirror. Once the clock struck four, I was already sitting there waiting. She walked in and it was slow motion like a bad teen comedy in my head where people our age play sixteen. (At that point, I had already graduated from college.) She walked in and sat down across from me. That was a moment where playing it cool was the only wise option.

My phone does another shimmy across the kitchen counter. It’s just Marcus letting me know that he’s on his way. An unnecessary text, since I just spoke to him five minutes ago. He texts a lot. I’ve noticed that he doesn’t call much, but texts so very much. It’s obnoxious at times. I don’t really like texts. Small sentence fragments whizzing to me at the speed of light, letting me know something unimportant. ‘What up?’ I get that one the most. In texting, ‘what up’ also does not mean how are things? It sometimes is that hidden ‘spend time on me.’ But at other times it is pointless. It comes down to a small reaching out to make sure the other person isn’t dead. Of course, this isn’t a dire worry or need to hear from them. If it were, people would call. But no, people send the shortest fragmented couple of words they can casually think of to people they haven’t talked to in months. ‘I miss you,’ from a person you haven’t seen in months means about as much as pass me the salt from anyone else. This is a major waste of time. Cell phone companies make billions off of this magical little invention. Not from the senders. No. They are already addicts, subjecting the world to their word pollution. The money comes from the innocent people that simply bought a phone for the simple purpose of calling people. Simply. When the addicts send texts to innocents without plans, those texts cost money. Quite a bit of money once you add them up. Eventually this causes the innocents to purchase texting plans since their friends and loved one are horrible people who cannot respect the phone wishes of the innocent simple phone users. They get the cheapest plan. But their ‘friends’ and ‘loved-ones’ aren’t satisfied. They text them more than ever until they run over the cheapest plan’s meager limit. Eventually this snowballs and our poor, innocent simple phone user is now trapped in a loveless affair with an unlimited texting plan they never intended on purchasing. This is the cycle. Marcus is an addict.

I choose a beanie with a small bill. It’s turquoise and matches somewhat with my blue sneakers. Jeans and a thermal with a light jacket for today, as I said earlier. It may rain. But this is California. More than that, it’s Southern California. When I say it might rain, I mean there is a chance that it could sprinkle. And when it does sprinkle, you will see umbrellas outside. There will be girls in rain boots. People will run into buildings in fear of getting misty. On the streets and freeways, drivers will decrease their speed a good 10 miles per hour. You must decrease your speed in the rain. In the actual rain. This is not rain. Southern Californian’s cannot drive. Water only is allowed to exist on the beach and in water bottles. We do not understand cold weather. We thrive in a coastal desert that attracts fire like the whores and wannabe movie starlets. These cities fear the one thing they need to stay fire free. Water. Thank god if it actually rains today. I toss my light jacket on my bed and grab a thicker one instead. I’m preparing for the best.   

[exactly 2,000 words including the title]

Title:	Full Case, Whole Milk [uber rough and unfinished...
Date:	2009-10-24 @ 14:49
Security:	public
Location:	room
Music:	"Say It Ain't So" by Weezer
Mood:	bored

Full Case, Whole Milk

Michael Moody

She sat down in front of me and poured a large glass of milk from the carton for herself. I judged her immediately because the milk she was pouring was low fat. Right there on the label was her dirty dirty secret and I wasn’t going to have any part of it.

“Would you like some?” Lindsey offered. She wiggled an empty glass at me with her left hand. Her right hand held the open carton of that vile white liquid. How dare she even assume, let alone imagine me drinking milk thinned town and diluted so horrendously.

“No thanks,” I said, standing my ground. I will not cave in to your low fat milk, lady, I thought. She closed the carton and put it back in the refrigerator door. Still standing in the way of the open door, Lindsey asked, “Anything I can get you then? Juice? Soda?” Apparently, she thought I was that easy. She just stood there staring blankly. She stood hunched over with her head barely clearing the freezer. Her hair hung down over her shoulders, hung down swinging freely. Her top also hung as she lunged forward. If she turned just a few inches, I would have the perfect view.

“Um, no thanks. I’m fine. Do you know when your brother will be here?”

“He should be home from work pretty quick. His schedule is right here.” She pointed to the calendar attached to the freezer. “Says he got off 20 minutes ago.” She grabbed her glass of ‘milk’ from the breakfast bar and drank it. She actually drank such a thing in front of me. In this house, the people here willingly purchase and drink milk-water.

“So… how do you know my brother?” Lindsey took a seat next to me at the bar. She was now close enough and low enough for a near bird’s eye view of her cleavage.

“What? Your brother is a friend of mine.”

“Right. I sort of figured that.”

“Oh! You meant… right. We were in the same fitness class at the community college.”

“Oh cool.” She took a drink. “I’m taking that class right now. It’s like a bio-P.E. class… so boring. Kyle’s into that sort of stuff, so it works for him. I’d rather just sit on the couch and eat chips.” She giggled. She giggled through that sad joke of a lie. Low fat milk… eat chips… you are bullshit, woman. But as she giggled, her body moved up and down, so slightly. Just enough. I imagined her proclaiming the milk to be foul and tossing the glass again the wall. She would run to the fridge and reveal a tall glass of whole milk and begin downing it heavily. I would run to her and she would poor some the refreshing milk into my mouth, then poor the rest all over herself. And of course, I would be there to clean her off.

“Hey, Kyle,” she said, as my friend walked in, dropping his work apron on the counter. “I’ve just been sitting here with Trent.” He smiled and asked me something about my day, but I wasn’t really listening.

“I had an okay day.”

Lindsey stood up to rinse out her empty glass. “Hey, I gotta hit the books. It was really nice meeting you, Trent.” I could swear that she winked at Kyle. A miniature me in my head gave me a thumbs up and victory jogged around my brain. I was in. She turned around and walked away. She walked away slowly, or maybe I just saw her walk away slowly, but her hair was long and it swayed with her hips. And her shorts were so short for the summer. And they were even shorter because they are of the sort you only wear inside the house. They stopped right where her legs started. I was sure that if I could come up with a reason to fall, I would find myself at the perfect worm’s eye view to see everything. By the time I’d conjured up that plan, Lindsey had already disappeared upstairs.

“Shall we?” Kyle said, motioning toward the hallway his beautiful sister had just left us through. I stood up and pushed my stool back under the lip in the breakfast bar. When I looked back at Kyle to lead the way, I saw his face trapped in horror and shock. Then the least expected sound came bursting out of his face. Laughter. Explosive laughter. He pointed at me. He pointed down, just below my waist.

Shame. I took off my jacket and tied it around my waist. “I hate you.” He just kept laughing. Chucking on as he led me up to his room. I’d never been there before, and I wsan’t expecting his room to be so decorated. The walls were painted deep maroon and the carpet and ceiling were white. There were black and white photographs tacked up all over the walls from top to bottom. They were plain photos of places and things and people. All were the sort of thing you would find in a posh coffee table book or a pretentious idiot’s art collection. “Did you take all these?”

“Most of them, yeah.” He sat down at the edge of his bed, which doubled as the seat for his keyboard. He flexed his fingers. He played something cool. Nothing amazing, just cool. Under the sound, I could hear some random rhythm playing in the background. He stopped playing.

“You hear that too?”

“Yeah, it’s fucking Lindsey.” He banged his fist again the wall. “Hey! Turn it down!” This new information made me realize that she was just next door. Her bedroom was right next to where I was standing. She was in private. She could easily be naked… right now! “So you ready?”

“Ready for what?” I asked. I moved closer and plopped down on his bed. I placed my hand on a bare spot on the wall between me and Lindsey. “Why do you have low fat milk in your fridge?”

“What? That’s just what we buy. I don’t know. You said you wanted to write a song or something, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. What should it be about?”

“It’s your song.” He turned around and looked at me. He seemed annoyed. “There is always one easy answer though.”

“And what’s that?” I leaned back against that wall.

“Love.” He smiled. “Have you ever been in love?”

“Probably. I mean… I don’t know.”

“Did you know over eighty percent of all songs nowadays are about love?” He turned away from the keyboard and sat next to me, leaning against the wall.

[incomplete]

Title:	Dry Heat, Humidity
Date:	2009-09-07 @ 17:09
Security:	public
Music:	SID - Ajisai
Mood:	melancholy

Humidity; I feel it along my sweaty forehead. It’s been too hot to go out. It’s been too hot to stay in. The water in the faucet runs warm, then cold. The water heater rests this season. I’ve never left on the fan all night long, but now it stands pointed directly at my face as I sleep.

Coward, I say to myself out loud. The room is quiet. Only small, ambient noises occupy the space. The wind leaks in from the window through the blinds. It rattles like a snake, but I am not alarmed, nor do I turn around. The breeze that creeps in is cold. This is novel. I haven’t felt such a cool breeze in weeks. I take off my shirt and feel the air hit my back. It feels slick and smooth against my back. I reach around to touch the skin. I can feel where my sweat has settled and collected dirt. The sticky, noxious feeling comes off onto my fingertips. Another shower is in order, but I won’t take a shower. I will take a bath and stare at the ceiling. I will examine the corners where daddy longlegs builds his home. I will examine the wall just above the showerhead where the paint is chipping from that shower I took without the fan.

The wind pushes harder through the window and the blinds rattle louder as though screaming for mercy. They kick up and the thick, heavy curtains lift. This is the sun’s chance, and it beams in hard, landing on my back. The burn is almost instant. It’s clear cut and I can feel exactly where it stops and starts. The discomfort causes me to put back on my shirt. It’s not unbearable. I don’t move from my place sitting up on the bed. I look to my right and see that no one is next to me. Melancholy sets in and I once again remember the shower that I have no intention of taking. 

Pomegranate, she answers. She wants me to spell it, but instead I ignore her words and smell it in her hair. It’s intoxicating, which is cliché. The wind whistles and kicks about between the houses. It sounds like what I imagine tornados must sound like. The way the movies have taught me they sound like, and I learn from them. I also learned from them that she wants this moment. She’s invited me in because she wants this moment. What this moment is may be in question, but I’m sure she has something in mind.

I haven’t listened to a word she’s said since the answer to my question. ‘What is that scent?’ I asked her. She smiles as I rest my nose in the nape of her neck and breathe in every ounce as though I am starving for air. She plays with my hair as she speaks. She says something more and I don’t hear. I search back for more lessons in my head, but all that comes to mind is coffee. Would you like to come in for coffee? – The best romantic cliché of all. But it isn’t evening. This isn’t in for coffee. She just wants my company. Reality takes me back. I have no guidelines. If she were a man, I’d know what to do. I’ve been there before. But here, on this white sofa, staring into strawberry blonde hair that smells like pomegranates… this is a foreign film.

 Flirt, he calls me. I take his hat from him and put it on my head. It’s a baseball cap. I never wear them. I adjust my hair and smile. I look cute in it. He wants it back, I can tell. He reaches; I duck. He grabs; I weave. The hat is mine, but I am not satisfied. He stands and takes the fan away. The fan was on the highest setting and still only made the room bearable to be in. The dry heat seeps in and that bad taste looms in my mouth. I become parched and the temperature rises incredibly.

I call to him, whining. Please, I cry. This is to no avail. He wants his hat. I want him. Secondarily, I want the fan returned. The humidity rises at that very moment. I shout at him to return my fan. He stands a ways away, outside of my line of sight, somewhere in the hallway. I lie sprawled out on the bed. I shout again and moan. He remains just far enough away, laughing. This is the moment where I give up. I give up once again. My moment has passed, if it were a moment at all. The roadmap was flawed. I had a feeling it would be. He comes back and sets down the fan. I remove the hat and place it slowly on his head. I’m close enough now. ‘You smell amazing. What is that?’ He says it’s nothing. ‘Even better. It’s just you.’

Pizza, I eat it again for breakfast. The sun hasn’t gotten to that critical point yet and I still have an hour left before hot food is out of the question. I burn my tongue with the first bite. I yell ‘god damn it’ to an empty kitchen and an even emptier apartment. I could cry, I could scream, I could be in dire straits and there would be no answer. I imagine myself falling on the pizza cutter. It would roll along my abdomen and reveal my innards. I would call out in agony. The only answer would be the rattling of the wind through the blinds. My consciousness would fade soon after that, blinking in and out when the sun bore through, under the wind propped curtains. My eyes would open in response. My hope would build. I’d dream of firefighters and EMT’s rushing in to save me. There would be nothing, but a blinding glare. This would be my final hour.

I finish off the last of my pizza and rinse off my plate. Knives and forks set smiling at me, sharp and germ filled on the left side of the sink.

Flexible, she says, giggling softly. I show her this accidently, as I reach behind myself to scratch my back. My arm moves across as though it were meant to go that far. She stares amazed, the way you do when you watch a cat or dog scratch an itch. The way you almost wish you could do that too, but of course you don’t really, because such an ability is nearly useless and mildly disturbing. She smiles, but stops watching. The disgust has set in.

I stop and take a drink of the pink lemonade she set out for us. She sliced real lemons and twisted them over the edge of the glasses the way they do in restaurants. She even topped them with mint leaves. Not only this, but she used bendy straws, the expensive kind. This is her bait. This is her lure for me: fancy lemonade on a hot day. I am near insult. I am near offense. But then I remember her apartment has air conditioning. And then I remember how close she lets me get. So I drink her lemonade. I let it run down my throat. She coos with joy, watching me take pleasure in her pink lemonade. She thinks she’s won, her bait successful. And I’ll let her think that as I lie naked on her bed, under the ceiling fan.

Doorbell goes off and I answer it. It’s him and he’s got on his hat. I want to wear it, but I need the fan. Today is a record breaker and I’m sweating through my tank. He looks at me and pauses with his mouth agape. I remember that I didn’t put on pants. I ask if he’d like me to change, if boxers aren’t enough. He says it’s fine. We sit in front of the fan. We don’t move. He takes off his hat.

She calls me. She’s excited. She wants me to visit. My memory loads a quick whiff of pomegranates to ruminate on. I tell her I’m busy. He looks at me like I’m crazy. He gets up to leave. I tell her I’ll call her back. I hang up. I grab his arm urgently. I can’t think of any movies. No lessons. Not one. He tells me to call her back. I tell him I won’t. I need to talk to him now. I need to tell him everything. I try to grab his hat. I get too close. I catch his scent. He feels me close. He backs up. You smell amazing. But first, ‘I need to tell you something….’ And this is the most important part.

Multiplying in the upper register of our ears was the clinking of glasses from across the room. At the head of the dance floor sat the wedding court, cheering and hooting at the best man to stand up for his precedented speech. Thankfully, he hadn’t had one too many. Actually, he hadn’t had a drink at all. The poor best man was just sweated tremendous bullets. You see, his number one fear was of public speaking. It would be a riot.

He stood up and smiled something horrid. The only similarities of his lips to an actual smile were the turned up edges of the mouth. His lips were convulsing, pleading for a glass of water to occupy them. His tongue stroked them repetitively in a hurried attempted to pacify their profound worry. The maid of honor nudged him in the side with one arm, while handing him the microphone with the other. She’d be going up after him, killing the crowd was not in her best interest. However, this best man wouldn’t be knocking them dead either. Good act to follow.

The best man picked up a napkin and dabbed his head clean of sweat. “H-hi,” he screeched into the microphone. “Beautiful, ah, ceremony. Beautiful couple. Beautiful cake. Ah, well, they’ll bring it out in a bit, but you should see that thing. It’s pretty awesome.” His voice trailed off for what must have seemed an eternity for him. His eyes grew abnormally wide and his smile wider than that. With the wedding party nearing panic, the maid of honor snatched the microphone from his sweaty hand.

“Indeed. Roger here is just a bit nervous. Nervous ‘cause him and Doug have been so close for so long, he can’t stand to see him leave even for the honeymoon. What a bromance!” The audience chuckled. “But we still need someone to speak on Roger’s behalf. We’ve gotta fill up the time. We booked this room for 3 hours and we aren’t wasting any of it. Um….” She paused, scanning the room with her eyes sharp for a target. “How about you Dr. Leach? Come on! Stand up and say a few words!”

The room suddenly exploded with the ear-piercing sound of butter-knives crashing against faux-crystal champagne glasses. Those who knew me stared my way, whispering Leach randomly, until they found the unifying voice. Those who did not know me searched for those who did and followed their gaze. The whole reception hall had me pinned out as the charming maid of honor beckoned me from the ivory banquet table.

Finally, I stood and made my way across the dance floor, my dress shoes clicking along, harmonizing with the obnoxious applause. The maid of honor kissed my cheek and handed me the microphone. Before letting it go completely, she covered the receiver and said, “Sorry about this. Just fill up a few minutes. The cake is late and we need this extra time.” I nodded and took the mike.

“Hello. This is quite unexpected. I’ll try not to say anything too trite and cheesy. Bare with me though, this speech is completely on the fly. First off, let me introduce myself. I’m Dr. David Leach. I work as a couples counselor, specializing in preventative couples relations. Basically, I work with couple before they have ‘problems.’ That’s how I know Doug and Tiffany. They came to see me a while back. Tiffany found a card somewhere and figured ‘why not.’ They were still early on and didn’t foresee anything going wrong. Ever. At all. They would be different. A lot of people would say that’s foolish. It’ll get hard, you’ll hate it. Life will go downhill. But not them. And I thought that was beautiful. I meet few couples like them that believe that things can and will stay beautiful. Just like Roger said, ‘beautiful.’ So we talked. Talked about the ways they talked. Talked about what was good, what wasn’t so good, and what they could work on. And they did. And now I’m standing here before you at their wedding. I’m speaking to you about how beautiful all this is. But I don’t think you need my opinion or approval. You’re not on my couch. Not that I actually have a couch in my office, but you get the imagery. Anyway, you can see the beauty yourselves. Congratulations Doug and Tiffany. You are that different couple.”

The crowd applauded. Doug and Tiffany hugged and kissed me. I walked back to my table. I needed a drink. I was ready to go the fuck home.

***

“You know what it is, Doctor?” said Patient E.

“No, what is it?” I said.

“I think she just wants to have that storybook life, regardless of who the prince is. As long as he’s got the horse and the castle. You know?”

“What?!” screamed Patient P.

“Just hold on a second. Really hear out Eddie’s concerns here. If you don’t hear him out you won’t even know all the reasons why you might be mad. Continue,” I said.

“She only seems concerned about my life when it deals with me going to work or paying for something. Two weeks ago I was sick. The first thing that comes out of her mouth is ‘what about work?’ What’s that about?”

“Alright, now Paula. What are you hearing Eddie say?” I said.

“He’s saying that I only care about him making me money. Like that’s all that’s important to me!”

“Okay, now respond and Eddie, don’t say a word,” I said.

“When you complain about how you can’t pay your bills or that you’re behind in everything… I mean I offer to help you financially, but you always say no. So I don’t know what to do. When you are sick, I worry that you can’t go to work to make up for all the things you say you can’t pay for. I don’t know where you are getting this storybook life stuff. I’m going to school. I don’t know what you want me to do.”

“Okay. Maybe this is the issue,” I said. “Maybe Eddie you feel extra stress on money since neither of you have extra money to deal with extra debt. Also you feel the pressure to provide for Paula even though you can’t at the moment. You are displacing that frustration on Paula. As for Paula, you want to fix his problems with money, but you can’t really take care of him there since he doesn’t want the help. However, you still try to help, in your mind, by offering advice or pushing him to make decisions you believe will help him out financially. This isn’t the most helpful. The compassion is being lost and you are coming off to him as though you are focusing on money and critiquing his shortcomings. How about this? Remember. In your head, you have an intention. That intention is known only by you. You attempt to express that intention in some way. That expression is not the same thing as your intention. That expression is interpreted by your partner, who has a totally different mindset than you. If the intension doesn’t match the Interpretation… that is a communication error. This is going to happen. The trick is to remember the separation between these parts and think about how you express yourself more thoroughly.”

They nod. I’m right again.

***

His smile was beaming, for the lack of a better word. It was all the clichés of being excited about something. He began to blush. Any time now was my perfect opportunity.

“So how are things?” I said, resting my head on my knuckles, looking fabulously interested in whatever he was about to say.

“Things are actually really, really good.”

“Me too. You know these past few weeks have been a lot of fun. I was almost sorry we hadn’t gotten to know each other better.”

“I know! Thankfully, I didn’t get transferred, so I’ll be around for quite a while.”

“Yeah, I’ve been meaning to ask you…” I paused.

“Uh oh, this sounds serious.” He joked and stirred his coffee.

“Well, since both of us seem to be enjoying ourselves so much… I was thinking you and me going to dinner this Friday night. Nothing too fancy, but dress nice. All on me and—”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” I asked.

“This guy I was interested in just asked me out the other day.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. When?” I asked, biting my lip.

“Yesterday.”

“Oh. I see.” I said, taking a breath.

“I am so sorry. You have no idea—“

“No, it’s fine. Master Relationship Guru here. Seriously, it’s fine. It’s not like I made reservations or anything.”

“Oh my god, did you?”

“No, I’m kidding. Really, it’s no big deal.

  ***

The air was heavy around the table. Two friends sat across from me, one sat to my right. They’d closed me into the booth. I felt like I was on suicide watch.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“No,” said Jack, in the aisle seat across from me, “this man needs a drink.”

“Vodka,” said Ashley to my right.

“Why Vodka? How about a beer?”

“Not strong enough. He looks like shit. He needs a cranberry vodka.”

“You’re an alcoholic,” said Josh to Ashley.

“Fuck you. It’s not my fault he looks like hell.”

“Yeah, you did tell him to go for it, Josh.”

“And you’re just a dick,” said Josh to Jack.