Relationships: A Guide

PERSON A: [laughs]

PERSON B: It's not funny.

PERSON A: It's a little funny.

Full Stop

The traffic, tires, late night talking, late night horns. Trying to work, get work done, the city's trying to stop me. A couple fights, another, there is screech after screech. And usually it's guidance, or fuel, or both. A shatter outside breaks something in me and then it all flows out. And then the work is done, but not tonight.

Silence, stars, the in and out of sleeping animals. That's my own heartbeat, that's the only noise. Everything has come full stop. No voices, no inspiration, only whatever's left in me. And I am only one of many in a thunderous void, I am alone and so are you. The work will not come. It's blank, and stays blank. It lies somewhere from silence to noise. Too little thinking is bad, but too much, that can be worse.

Sal

I called the number on the stall because why not. This person, this "Sal," probably wouldn't answer, probably had the number disconnected long ago. But what if "Sal" picked up? What if "Sal" gave me a good time? What if "Sal" wrote that number down and has been waiting patiently for untold time and no one, not ever, has called.

I called. Busy signal. I waited and called again. Busy. A rapping on the door, "You gonna be much longer pal?" I didn't answer. I called again.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, pal. Buddy!"

"This is Sal."

"This ain't your executive washroom."

"Hello?"

"Hey, pal!"

If I hadn't already gone I would be too scared to go. Sal was there, a disgruntled stranger, what was the good time, were there no other stalls, should I hang up, could I wait it out, eventually one of us will tire of this and that will end it. So I sat. I tried not to breathe. I didn't pull up my pants. I looked back and for between the phone and the wall.

"Hello?"

"Hey!"

"Hello?"

"Hey!"

"Hello?"

And still I didn't move. I had nowhere to be. A good time might be worth the wait. And I'll wait out an uncomfortable one any day. I heard breathing on the other end, breathing on the other side, I heard breathing echoes. We were all waiting, patiently, together.

Gotcha

He laughs because he sees me cross a line. I see the line, too, I know where my foot is. I have a good assumption you do, too, but I don't know what cards to play. Any word could be met with a simple no, this is too complicated to discuss. No, I think the better thing would be to trick you. Guile you into some scenario, when I can let loose the lights and cameras, as it were, and capture a moment for all to see. Or, at least, for me. To know that, yes, I cross a line to meet you somewhere, that we even switch places, and it is the world that's crazy and not me.

Chapters and Gears

She wanted me to take my time but didn't want to give me any. Time, to her, like energy, was finite, and couldn't be made or given away. I was to carve nooks and crannies within the hours and place her there, or rather, the opposite. Time with a book or repairing my bicycle was now to be spent with her. And I would tend to the chapters and gears as I could. And for a time it maybe even worked out well. But I'm no longer well-read, and riding doesn't come as easy to me as it once did.

Suddenly

She says hey and she says hey but it's loud so I can ignore her. And suddenly I'm the last one there and I don't know where anybody's gone and she comes out of the bathroom. Just in times, she says, and know what she means. This party's dead anyway.

She's tall and young and I'm neither of those things but for a little bit I feel a bit of both. But she brings me back to where her roommate is sleeping and her other roommate is still awake and it's hot and dirty and suddenly I am back to being old. And then we're in her room and it's got some semblance of maturity and she has interesting taste in trinkets and it looks as though she makes jewelry. There's lace. She is a fan of lace.

She asks me if I want coffee or tea in the morning and I say no I've got to go. She doesn't walk me to the door and doesn't say goodbye. There are eggs and toast and juice and that coffee and they all have her attention. I stand by the door waiting for something and I don't know what but it's never taken me so long to put on shoes.

The Playground

"I'm nice to you," she says, "you're mean to me. You're mean to me, I'm mean to you back. You started it." I want to ask when I started it exactly. I can't remember. It seems accurate. I can't argue with her. I could, as a joke, as usual, but the logic's too sound.

"You're right," I say. She's surprised by my sincerity. "When you're right, you're right. And you're right."

She squints her eyes at me, like someone trying to focus on a blurry word. I could tell her what that word is, but I don't dare.

"I know," I say. "Don't get used to it."

"You're not gonna fight me on this?" she asks.

"I mean, I thought it would be nice to give you at least one win." The smile returns and so does mine. We're all just kicking shins until we die.

Otter

And she said hold my hand so you don't slip away in the night. I thought it was strange and lovely and I took her hand in mine. She smiled and turned away, held it tighter, fell asleep. And I have to admit that I did alip away, but came back to her in the morning. I'll always come back come morning.

Frenchie

She was French, too, same height as you. Your favorite band started playing when she told me these things. I've never been one to listen to the universe because I've never been one to think it was speaking. But even I have to admit...

And I thought it was you from across the room. Darker complexion, dirtier hair; I thought to myself, what are the odds. And still from then they shrunk, as the universe told me, Pretty good, kid, pretty good.

Good Place

"Why don't you date her?" my mother asked.

"She has a boyfriend," I said.

"So? She's not married."

"That's not really how it works now."

"Well," she protested, "all I know is that I was married when your father told me how he felt. And if he hadn't I don't know where any of us would be." I looked around. I was in a pretty good place. And really, there's too little honesty in this world.

A Word for Coward

I had time and I waited. I had curiosity and sheer passion and let them be canceled out by hesitation. I watched as others came and went, tempers soared and love proclaimed. I had time to bide my time, time to think of it as it passed, time to count the seconds in between the seconds. I am a perfectionist. It is another word for coward.

So I packed up my bag, packed it full of shirts and scarves and boots and things I'd need, and I left. Left it all behind, as they say. Roads reached out in all directions, north and south and east and west and all the directions in between. There was sky above, earth underneath, there were endless amounts of other people. But when you leave, and leave suddenly, you have time. Endless amounts of it. And so I waited.

I find most places are the same. I find people eerily similar. I find that good stays good and bad gets worse. I've decided there is very little I can do. There is life and excitement in me, there are endless possibilities. Some men build bridges or write tomes on love. There are men who are conquerers, lovers, lords. I have a bag of things, which I think I might well hock to buy a timepiece with a golden chain so I may smile slightly as its beauty as the seconds tick away.

A Hundred Breaths

In an envelope in a box in a closet I keep the old balloons, deflated and sticky, the ones you used to decorate my room. Happy birthday, you surprised me. Filled with your breath, the openings tinged pink with the faintness of your lipstick. There must've been a hundred, and every one of them tinged.

We kissed and we went to dinner and we fought and then you left. I stayed in bed, calling you, keeping on the phone. A slow-motion speed-through and they all lost their air, one by one they fizzled and died as I lost you. And one by one you breathed a hundred breaths and then were gone.

Sure I Guess

Yeah and he sits there being loud smacking his teeth up and down his sandwich with his tongue hanging out of his head. Everything's gotta be an opinion he just has to keep on talking. Did you see the highlights from you should read the latest did you know what have you heard. And all you can do is smile and nod and say yes and yes and agree and hope that it all stops there but it never does. Air is meant to breathe not fill with alphabet after alphabet but what would those words mean to him. Sure he's nice enough and sure he'll help you out in a pinch but between all those pinches and all those helping hands he'll be talking talking talking and sure as sure you'll be listening because what the hell else is there to do.

Turning a Page

It said it was ninety-nine degrees and just after six. Everyone moved though the streets like they were being held back. It was nice being on the same page, sticky as it was. The time where it turns between work and home and everyone's mind is of one thought: Just get me there. Creases formed on mens' shirts, women looked lovely as ever, everyone was happy and in pain. The weekend would bring sleep, alcohol, sex, sand. Soon these streets would be filled with people, people would be everywhere, people would have energy, everything would be different. But for now it was ninety-nine degrees, and just after six, and the seconds were caught right in front of us.

Broke Open

I swear the earth, it broke. I heard noise with the flash, a noise before the thunder crack, the fizzle of electricity. Everything lit up and then went dark again, everything shook with madness. Heaven opened, hell opened. And everything returned to exactly how it was but the damage had been done. You could look over and down for forever, because that's the thing about darkness. There's an endless supply of it. It goes on for forever.

Do I Dare

He told me he kind of liked the bigger chick in the black shirt, the one with the friend. He raised his eyebrows like he wanted encouragement, how about that, do you dare me, do I dare. I said I had to go to the bathroom and I did. I went outside and got a cab. I took it home. "Long night," the driver said, and I didn't really know what he meant. "You get lucky?" I told him no. He said there was always options, always tomorrow. He told me he met his wife in a bar, that he knew it was a bad idea but that he couldn't help himself. I said that was a beautiful story and we kept quiet the rest of the time. I slept alone that night, nestled snugly in the groove on the west side of my bed.

Mysterious Fragments

He wore a small fedora and shorts, old casual shoes with socks pulled up half-calf. It wasn't a bowling shirt but it was close. There was a patch of hair on his chin. He was probably in a ska band at some point, and if not, then he definitely wanted to be. Trombone. Bass, maybe.

His car was dark green and fifteen years old, there were spots of rust around the tire wells. He'd manually roll down the window to flick out cigarette butts when the ashtray got too stuffed. There were two doors and he'd have to fold a front seat forward to let you in the back, and once you were there you were surrounded by receipts, wrappings, jewel case plastic, the odd empty cup. Sand lived in the cushion crevices, bits of old chocolate and mysterious fragments. You could hear it hurting before it was even on.

When he got home he'd open up a cheap beer, maybe read a comic book, sit back in his recliner and recline. Dinner was frozen lasagna cooked in the microwave, garlic bread cooked in the oven, salad in absentia. Maybe a few chocolate chip cookies afterward, but definitely another beer. He watched movies like Predator and The Matrix over and over and knew them by heart. They got better with each showing. Nothing could ever top them.

His days he filled with substitute teaching and working at a record store, the kind that has a keg in the basement. He made suggestions and helped people, though he expanded few horizons. Minds were never really changed. This was not for lack of enthusiasm. You could have called him many things, but you could never say he didn't care.

Four

You stop at my corner and I open the door. Don't get out, I tell myself, say it, say it now. I find meager ways to extend the end of our conversation but your responses get smaller and smaller; seven words, six words, five words, four. Silences grow in their awkwardness, they settle in and really come into themselves. Eventually I have to leave, the door open for minutes now. And I get out and walk, shut the door, walk down the block, away from everything. Ten houses down never seemed so far, the moon never was this dim, and if I never turn around you might be watching me the entire time.

Don't Lift Me Up

I do not want your bearded, beanied nonsense strumming lovesick medleys on your old acoustic. I don't want homemade organic whole wheat pancakes, filled with corner berries and stuffed with chia. Leave your goddamn bike at the door and every word about it. I don't care that you're doing your part because it's pronounced beyond measure.

Don't tell me to love. Don't tell me how much I should love. Don't lift me up and tell me I can do whatever I want, don't say the world is mine. I can't, and it isn't. You woodworking, farmers market, lazy, happy, progressive, tiresome, cigarette-rolling, dreadful, dreadlocked faker. I've seen your kind and I have your number. You only care about caring. And you care about so much, don't you? I bet you can hardly stand it.

Latch and Lock

There are a lot of lamps and a lot of drapes. Enough folds for enough villains, enough reasons to keep the many lights on. Scraping my toenails along the bottom of my foot, ice melting in the bucket, reflections in the window seem to come from outside. I could call down to reception for more locks but they'd only give me silence. I could go down to the lobby and that's what I decide to do, but there are even more lamps, more drapes, there are doors and halls and things to hide behind. So I go back to my room, latch and lock, turn on every light, and crawl into the bath. It's always listed as a hiding place during a disaster, but I've got no escape when they come. If they come. And it seems strange to me that it's the only place where I can fall asleep.

Wet or Cold

If the weather is so bad that we can't even start, that I can't even look at you, we can go inside where I will yell at you proper. I will draw the blinds so we can see the outside world (if there's going to be a storm I want to see it, but I'd like to keep my hair out of my face), and then we can get good and to it. Sit on the couch if you like. Or if we can stay outside we can sit on the grass, and wonder if we're getting wet or merely colder. That's something I've realized over the years. I never know when I am getting colder. It seems, at once, that suddenly I'm cold.

Sundance

I'll go if you ask me to stay. I'm weird that way. I'd like to be enfolded in your arms forever but put one finger on me and I'm off. I'd like to share a room with you, make a life, but get out the swatches and a puff of smoke is all I'll be. A wisp, an idea, and you'll feel silly and I'll have nightmares. But there's loveliness in wanting. Hope and expectation, our best selves, our best us. So let me be here with you for a while, let me love you. And tell me I can stick around and watch me run.

Magic Eye

He sat and stared at the pieces of his life. Went over the whole picture in his mind. It was chaos, it looked that way. But he knew if he looked, if he kept looking, that something, meaning and purpose, would pop out at him. If he stared at the forest he'd begin to see the trees, and even their leaves, and all the little birds' nests. He'd see a Pegasus soaring straight for him, ready to take him away. There would be a number. A pattern, there would be sense in all of this. If he looked, and looked hard, and kept looking.

Confidant

I opened up to a person I didn't know and it was OK. We met through a friend and then she left, got called away, so there we were with cappuccinos. And this other girl, she asked me how I was and I let her know. Honestly? I made sure she wanted honesty. And honestly she did so honesty is what I gave her. And she gave it back, and we talked about parents and church and death and rape and drugs and food and children and gods and monsters and all the things you never should. Maybe because we knew we'd never see each other again. What was left to tell? How could we continue confiding? We knew too much already. But after then we'd have stories about each other and one story about us, and one story about us is all any of us really need.

Note

Barefoot Greek

Mimosa

Hallway sex

Don't cutting out

John Mayer

Pellegrino

Chinese art

Giant rat

Carpool alone

Friend

Doner kebob

Nonstop sweater

Baptism

Three cycles

Thank you for

Classical Spanish guitar

Dollar bill

Tuna, beef

The mints

Skyscraper

Concierge, maid, barkeep

Undecided

Plane

Better

The Ghost

She was gone and I asked around if anyone had seen her. Tall, dark hair, blue dress, at least I thought it was blue, it might have been green, or purple, or another color entirely. Fair skin, like sunlight, and everyone said no. I was dealing with an Irish ghost. I walked up to people I'd never spoken to and said please, please, you must have seen this girl, she was the only girl I saw. And one by one each answered no, asked me how much I'd had to drink, wondered how I was getting home. But what was there? Busted pipes and a mattress on the floor, there was nothing at home for me.

The dress went black, it inverted with her skin, she became a negative. What had we talked about, let's see, let's see: politics, weather, motorcycles, second grade teachers. Nothing that told me why she was there, who she knew, who she was. Were there people out in the world, I thought, that wondered this of me? Alien skin sketched in their minds, something they only see when staring at a blank wall? Am I somebody's ghost?

Everyone left, everyone left but I stayed. Seated on a broken couch, resting my arm on its broken side, sinking into flaking pleather. It sucked the energy from the room and me along with it. Nobody said goodbye, nobody thought to look. And it seemed to me a haunted house, a place filled with ghosts, and that maybe it was I, and I alone, who did not belong.

Two Masters

Two zen masters sat on a couch watching television. The captions were on, as they were both hard of hearing. There was an advertisement about breakfast cereal. The caption mistakenly read, "Whole Grin Rats." One zen master said to the other, "What do you think that means?" The other pointed to the television set, just as the commercial changed. "Just answer the damn question," said the first.

Small Towns

I tripped over some kid's bike and fell on the asphalt. The street was blocked off, the crowd was breathing. Short fireworks cracked behind a nearby tree and I climbed to my feet. They were still held from view.

There were no oohs, no ahs, no collective sigh of wonder. Narration came from behind in the form of a father to his small son. I sipped bourbon from a flask and rubbed my knee, scraped and lightly bloody under my jeans. How many people did the same when I was younger? How many people are doing it now?

The finale is bigger, better than anything I've seen. Small towns do it right. The light of this one silhouettes the smoke from that. I stay afterward, finish the flask, whatever cops are there are understanding. I am quiet, alone, and of interest to no one. I make my way against the crowd, up the stairs, waiting and sweating on the train platform. You'd think with the thousands that are here, more than a few would be headed my way.

Earn the Keys

I get home and you're on the couch and I have two options. We either have this discussion now, or I feign a fiercer form of drunkenness and we postpone 'til morning.

The art to playing drunk is trying not to be drunk. You must convince them you are sober, you must earn your keys. Slur plus over-enunciation equals the sweet spot.

You get into bed a few minutes after me. I was hoping to be asleep before then.

Cat and Dog

A cat walks in and hardly anyone notices.

A dog walks in and people lose their minds.

You can be left alone, or you can be happy.

You can be particular, or you can be loved.

If I jumped up on you, what would you say to me? Would it be more than if I curled up by your lap?

We all look out the window and ask to be let out. And after, we all ask to be let back in. That is the important part.

Encounter

So I kept walking down the hallway even though she kept yelling after me. "Adrian! Adrian!" But not in the reverse Rocky way that used to be ours. Items flew past me, mostly shoes, one hit me in the back, the head. Was this our last encounter? Some spoiled words and a barrage of footwear? It was too late to care, and truth was we stopped caring long ago. But that didn't mean she was crying, and that didn't mean I wasn't holding back tears.