23. A million awful blues songs could have been wrapped around her neck like an albatross. She thinks everyone is in love with her, I see right through her though; her eyes have no color.
22. I walk in and look for you across the room. Who knows if you even remember what I look like? Who knows if you have ever seen me? You ignored me again yesterday. You took advantage of your eyes and looked at me for a half a second today though. You took advantage of me. No phone number. No little note stuck on my car windshield. Another day you don’t know I exist goes by. I go home and look forward to you, and you go home and wonder why nobody talks to you.
21. My only real memory of her now is her tongue. Her only memory of me is my saying “no, bad idea” The last time I saw her I was this close to her. “This close” I said to myself. Leaving her in the bushes behind a hamburger joint would have been a good idea. Her friends would have killed me though. I remember her lovely tongue though. How funny the same tongue that spewed so much garbage was responsible for an enjoyable late night meeting such as that one. I sometimes wish I had wings to fly away from girls like that. Quickly fly away.
19. I turned out the lights for the fifth time and opened the drapes an inch. That prostitute was still out there on the balcony. I think she saw me. Beautiful black woman. I waited for her to walk by the room again. She walked by looking around at windows. It looked like she looked right at me, she looked right through me though. I heard her cough walking down the balcony and back towards me. Just as she was about to walk by my room, I opened the door and made believe I was going to get something out of my car. We exchanged hellos and she asked me where I was from. I invited her in to smoke a joint. We put the television on, and lay on my bed while Charles Mingus plucked away in the background. She wasn’t a prostitute. She was a dancer from across the street, she was supposed to meet a friend there, and ended up stoned on my bed, not thinking anything about money. I told her I enjoyed her city, and was surprised there weren’t more cowboy hats around. I was pretty stoned when I told her she could stay in the room for as long as she wanted; I was a night owl. She responded with a kiss on my cheek, and left.
18. The ones I am truly in love with. I never think about them much, they are just sitting there in the back of my head for good.
17. It took him three or four tries, but he finally asked out that girl from accounting. She made him feel like jelly when he caught little glimpses of her. She made him develop a stutter in front of xerox machines. She couldn’t look at him, so he thought she was “probably a bitch”. He finally took her out though. One evening in the fall he took her to dinner, and for a ride in his car. They talked about music and boyfriends and girlfriends. He realized one thing. She was better off a ghost. She was better off as a mystery. Shrouded in manilla folders and paperwork, and paper clips and water coolers. The best thing about his date was that walk of hers. She had this walk about her that was one of the main selling points about her. Some sort of perfect balance of confidence and insecurity wrapped up in some mysterious costume of short skirts and dark eye liner. Walking to his car he realized he was in love with how she walked. She did this cute little strut. That was all he wanted. He didn’t want to kiss her. He didn’t want to see her naked. He didn’t want to know about her experience living in the city with roommates from hell. He didn’t want to take off his clothes in front of her. He wanted to watch her walk.
16. So I guess I was fooled then. I guess I was fooled, but in a fun polite kind of way. You sort of knew what you were doing. Holding this fresh orange carrot in front of my face, only to reveal a yam. Holding a stack of hundred dollar bills in front of my face. Holding yourself hostage for me would be the best thing you could do. I think the bus will go by that route. I think we can pick you up when ever you get yourself ready. So before we do get this bus in third gear, what is it exactly that you needed to tell me? Why should I believe you are who you say you are? For all I know, you could be the enemy. Your hair color is incorrect. You’re taking a look to see me and I see you every couple of days. With a quick brush of your hand you could probably knock me over I feel so fucking light around you. You could easily take the steering wheel and drive us to Vegas to put all the money down on one game. One game of chance we would play together. Split the money immediately, so as not to cause any future friction. Take out some sort of insurance policy for my life so you don’t shoot me in the temple. Now that I think about it, there is no need for me to date women who are taller than me.
15. Hey hey mama, gonna make you throw up. Hey hey mama, gonna make you burn gonna make you throw up.
14. She ain’t really the devil, she just talks like that. I look into her eyes, and I see big dark red valleys. Fire and blood, and red and steam and demons and fire and red and blood and valleys full of demons and steam and smoke and fire and red and her eyes and blood and the valley the demons the red blood in the valley the smoke coming out of the demon. She comes to me every night. She comes to me and tells me which of my hands is the “devil hand”. I am to not use this hand until I am instructed to do so. I will obey her and her army of demons.
13. Your favorite Van Halen songs
12. Sloped on the stiff motel bed I flipped through five horrible local television channels and turned the sound off. It took me about ten minutes, but I did it: I dialed her number. I knew it was a bad idea. I knew a big reason why the trip was such a success. I needed to get away, and I needed to be away from her, for her benefit more than mine. I had given her a letter before I left, written in my favorite font and everything. I should have left it alone though, but I called her. The conversation was as lonely as the parking lot of the motel I was in. I looked at the map and checked off when I would be able to call her again. Halfway between Knoxville and Chapel Hill.
10. Big fat Debbie dancing with a Michelob bottle in a garage lip-synching the AC/DC song “You Shook Me All Night Long”
9. Her and I woke up one morning and decided to make breakfast. I hadn’t cooked for her in quite a while. I loved Sunday mornings with her. The winter mornings, looking out at the back yard, and the snow and trees and bare clothesline. She came over to me as I inhaled the steam coming off the hot coffee, and put her arms around my neck. The next Sunday I was in my own bed until three in the afternoon, while she fed the birds with a new pair of shoes.
8. I was a shithead to her husband back when we were young and dumb and teenaged. Years later, in my 40’s his wife is sending me pictures of her body parts and plans to meet up for coffee in the afternoon while he's off at work. Wow they all do lie don’t they?
7. I only hired her so I could look at her all day.
6. She wanted to be like her mother. She told herself that alcoholism, and addictive personality was hereditary. What she failed to realize was that she was just weak. She didn’t learn any lessons from watching mommy crying in the kitchen all night. Remember those nights lying in bed listening to the faint sounds of your mother crying in the kitchen? They would get louder and louder. Your little ten year old sister didn’t know what was wrong with mommy. Your father did the right thing, tried to get her help once. It didn’t work once, so he left. Smart man. You can’t count on the alcoholics. It’s a disease or something like that. If mommy gets it, you get it. You watched what it did to mommy in the kitchen. Now you sit in some dark bar waiting for that one guy to take you home and fill you up like the daddy you never had.
5. She held me down with her arms and kissed me like nobody had ever kissed me before. The worst kiss of my life. The worst lay of my life, she. I can picture her face right now. Way too interested. Please, don’t say my name when I do this to you, I want to get home in time for Letterman, and I don’t need anymore guilt than I already have.
4. I emerge from the lake and walk up the sand and dirt. I walk towards the cabin we rented. They are all in there, the three other couples. Playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. It’s noon on a Sunday. The cabin is filled with crazies. The crazies laugh and joke. My date is sitting on the couch with some sort of exotic drink between her legs. I walk over and tell her that we need to go out to the lake. I found something in the lake. She says she will join me later in the afternoon. I make my way back out to the lake and float around on a raft. I fall asleep and wake up on the other side of the lake. There is a cabin that looks similar to the one I was staying at. There are people inside playing cards, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beer. It’s one in the afternoon on a Sunday. There is a woman sitting on the couch with an exotic drink between her legs. I tell her she should join me in the lake. We go to the lake and I show her what I found. Solitude. I show her this, and tell her to go back to her mediocre life in the cabin.
3. I am not going to entertain any of the ideas she throws at me. She wasted me. Years ago I met her in a subway station. I am not taking her drugs she offers. The drugs she offers are lips and knowledge of Swedish films that ruins any amount of pride I may have in my open mind.
2. The last eleven waitresses I have had
1. Dreams and nightmares are not occupied with her and her amazing hair anymore.
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