A Blessed Samhain...
to one and all.

---

"things that go bump..."

"What are we doing?"
I wasn't expecting an answer. I wasn't even sure she was still awake. I reached across her form in the pitch and felt around for my cigarettes and lighter on the nightstand. After groping around, I found them, rolled back, threw back the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed. I felt the flat of her cold hand on my back...
"Where are you going?"
"Out on the back porch to have a smoke. Want one?"
"No, thanks. What do you mean, 'what are we doing'?"
"What are we doing? What are we doing, here, now? For the past four months?"
"I don't know what you mean. What do you want me to say?"
"Probably nothing. I was talking to the dark, really. Go to sleep."

Winter was over, Spring had a heart attack and Summer was dancing at the funeral. It was hot inside, outside, day and night. Even the breeze off the mountains to the East, pulled to the sea by the night, was too warm to be enjoyed. I sat on the porch floor, my back against the outside of the kitchen wall and cupped my hands around my lighter, lit a smoke and dragged in hard. Nothing like a stale cigarette at a quarter past too late in the evening. I exhaled and the smoke just hung there like some specter until it faded away into the dark and became part of the atmosphere, rising into space. I rested my head against the wall and stared out into the glow of the city in the distance when the kitchen light snapped on, casting a yellow counterpane across the weather worn boards of the porch and the railing that was in dire need of some attention and some paint. Through the open window I could hear her filling the coffee pot and setting it down on the burner of the range. I didn't hear the cabinet door open, nor the coffee and mugs being taken down, but I heard it being shut. Not a slam, but not just being closed, either.
"That was a pretty deliberate closing...", I said to myself, the dark and no one else in particular. The screen door opened and she came out, wrapped in a blanket. She leaned, standing, against the wall. Silence was not to be golden that night... nor silver. Lead, maybe.
"What the fuck? What are we doing? What kind of a question is that? It sounds like you're looking for a way out. You found the back door ok, you could just keep on going..."
She wasn't really speaking. More like whispering. Like she was afraid of waking someone or something up.
Oh, god. I rubbed my eyes with the fingertips of my free hand. It was a bad habit of mine, I always rubbed my eyes when things got confrontational. Reflex action.
"Look, I didn't really mean anything by it. I think I was talking to myself. I thought you were sleeping".
"Well, I wasn't and I don't know what we're doing. I don't care what we're doing. Don't do this to me."
"I'm not doing anything. And this is as far out your damned door that I'm interested in going right now."
Nothing. Not a word.

I remember once when I was about five or six years old, my father took me fishing for flounder, off a ramshackle pier in one of the ramshackle towns that hung like a partly peeled off scab on the edge of the bay not too far from where we lived. It was always cold by that water. The bay was fed by a flat land river that forced it's way into it and the Atlantic waters that forced their way into it, around the huge spit of land that jutted out to form the Northern edge of the bay, tempered it even more. Perfect for flat fish. Not so much for not so hardy anglers, or their summer clad kids. I said that he took me fishing. He took me for company. He fished. I wished. This day, however, he handed me one of his short casting rods and taught me how to play out enough line to cast, how to hold it to the bottom of the reel with my index finger, how to two hand cast into the green waters. He held the rod with me the first few time until I got the feel of it, then said, "Go ahead..."
I did everything he told me to do and I cast that baited hook and sinker with all my soul. Along with the rod. Got good distance, too. It arced through the morning misty air and dissapeared into the drink a good ten or fifteen yards out. I just stood there, blinking in disbelief. After a few seconds I looked up and over at my old man, expecting the worst and he was smiling and shaking a Chesterfield short out of the pack he had stashed in his t-shirt pocket.
"Well, you got the motion down pretty good. Next time, hang onto the damned pole, ok?"
I just wanted to walk off the end of the pier and nestle down with the flatties on the bottom and just fade away.
"I'm sorry, Dad..."
"Well, just step back a bit and watch out," was all he said. And I did.
He lit his smoke, picked up his big surf rod, played out some line and cast it out in the general direction of where my rod landed. He slowly reeled it back in, cleaned off some kelp from the hook and tried again. And again. And again. Three or four cigarettes later, I was getting the sense that this was starting to end in a not so good way, when he reeled his line in one more time and just damn, he had snagged my line and rod and brought it up, all dripping and glistening and prettier than any damned flounder I'd ever seen.
"And that's how you do it, Bud."
That was the end of fishing for that day. I sure as hell held onto my rod like my life depended on it from then on. I still do. And I sure as hell realize now that that was a damned lucky cast of his, but that day, it was a fishing miracle.

She pushed herself off the wall, gathered her blanket tighter around her and turned to go back inside. Pausing, with her hand on the door knob, she turned to me and said/whispered/rasped,
"I'm having some coffee," and went inside, letting the door slam shut behind her.
I took the last few pulls on my smoke, flicked it over the railing into the parking lot below and pushed myself up to standing. Fuck me. I'll never learn.
I went inside, got a mug full and sat down across the kitchen table from her. She reached up over her shoulder and flicked the wall switch, turning the kitchen from day to night, light to dark, filled with us, to empty with me. No matter who you're with, how close they are, in the dark, you're alone.
I could hear her breathing. She took in an extra long breath, held it a few seconds and exhaled, "Ask me again..."

"Ok. What are we doing?"

"We're running around in the dark, with scissors... OK?"

Things that go bump. Things that go bump in the night.









"That's how you do it, Bud."

---

"black and white..."
"Your ability to state the obvious is nothing short of astounding..."

"Oh, my god, is it really Sunday morning?"
She looked at me over the top of the newspaper and shook her head.
"Afternoon, actually. You seemed to have enjoyed yourself last night. Do you remember anything, or shall I recount the events of the evening to you?"
"I'm not so sure I really need to know. I remember something about it, I think. Was there alcohol involved?"
"Oh, yeah. For someone who doesn't drink, you were quite resolute in your quest to down as much as possible in the shortest time allowed. Do you remember you and Jake having a 'who can puke first' contest?"
"Uh, no... who won?"
"Neither. Your friend Oliver beat you both. I think he's still passed out in his van in the parking lot. Are you ok? You look sort of... green. And wavery. You're definitely wavering."
"I need coffee."
"The pot's on the stove. Be careful"
She turned her attention back to the Sunday LA Times and I fought my way uphill to the kitchen and wrestled the cabinet over the stove for a mug, poured some lukewarm coffee and walked on pillows and broken glass back into the living room. I sat, fell, moved in a gravity induced direction onto the couch next to her, put my head back and wondered why the few pictures and decorations she had on her walls weren't flying off in all directions, with the room gyrating like it was.
"Did I do anything to piss you off?"
"Yep"
"Oh, god, what?"
"You embarrassed the crap out of me, if you want to know."
I wasn't so sure I wanted to hear about this. I only made her mad once before, it was something stupid and she was over it immediately, but making her angry was not high on my list of things I ever wanted to do. There were people that I'd go out of my way to tweak, and it really didn't matter, but with her, it mattered. A lot.
"Ok, you know I'm sorry for what ever it was, but I'd really like to know what I did."
She folded the paper over, put it and the pencil she was using to fill in the Sunday crossword puzzle on the table next to her and she shifted herself sideways to face me. She was wearing her usual nothing. Her famous black hair was wild, hanging all over the place and in her face, and the whites around those dark brown eyes were a bit blood shot, apparently she had more than a few herself last night. I steeled myself for what I thought was to come by putting my cup down, turning to her and taking her hands in mine.
"Ok, what did I do?"
She stared at me so hard it made the back of my numbed head hurt.
"Well, you were holding court at the kitchen table, slamming down shots of tequila and smoking one of those cheap cigars that Jake sells, when someone brought up the subject of sex and you sat there and told everyone that I get the same look on my face when I'm pissed off that I do when I'm having an orgasm... and that sometimes you didn't know which was which. Can you tell which is which right now?"
The radio in the kitchen was on, tuned to a Mexican AM station, as it usually was on Sunday mornings. Cielito Lindo, performed by a Mariachi band, heavy on the brass, was playing, the vocals performed by a woman who sounded like she might have been at the party last night, too many tequilas and too many smokes. I dropped my eyes from hers and stared at her belly button. There was a brand new hickey next to it. I hoped I did that, but I didn't remember for the life of me if I did.
"Right now, yeah, I can. I'm sorry. Really."
I looked back up and she was holding back a laugh.
"You're such a dick. Really."
"Well, it's the truth. You do that squinty eyed, stuck out bottom lip thing. Sometimes I think all I'm doing in bed is pissing you off..."
She draped her arms over my shoulders and looked right into my eyes.
"Maybe you are. Maybe sometime I'll tell you the truth. Right now, you need a shower and some more coffee. You go take a shower and I'll put on a fresh pot, ok?"
"Yeah"

I felt a bit better after standing in the scaling water for a while. Man, I wish there was a window in that bathroom, it was like being is a steam room. I got as dry as I could, put on my steam dampened clothes and walked out into the hallway to be greeted by the aroma of some strong, fresh brew. I pulled another mug full and padded out into the livingroom, where she was back at the crossword. I eased myself back down next to her and blew across the coffee.
"Feel better?"
"Yeah, a bit. Thanks for the coffee."
"Sure. Hey, what's a six letter word for 'regret'?"
"Uh... 'regret'?"
"You are such a dick..."

---

"One, two..."
"Buckle my shoe..."

"It's only five days, I'll be back before you know it. And it's my father's birthday, I haven't seen him since I moved out here, it's been almost a year."
"Are you going to tell him about me? About us?"
"Probably. It depends. I'll see how it goes."
"I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. But you do what you think is best..."
"I've had boyfriends before, you know."
"I'm sure."

It's been two days since I saw her off, staring at her through the goodbye window of the Greyhound bus as it pulled out of the 13th Street station, watching it wiggle into the early morning traffic, Southbound to 94, then head for Interstate 8. I got on the next local for Coronado and sat in the last seat in the back, put my head back and closed my eyes, trying to reckon where I was by the turns the bus was making. There weren't many stops between the depot and the bridge out of San Diego that spanned the entrance to the harbor, tall enough for the Navy ships to pass under it, tall enough to offer a view of the entire island when you crested the midway point and start down the long, curved decline. I felt sick to my stomach and the whining of the bus engine and the heat from the mid-morning light coming through the back window was making it worse. I got up and walked to the front and told the driver to let me off at Avenue D, which was met with a protest that it wasn't one of the regular stops, but I persuaded him it would be better to let me off there then have to clean up six or seven cups of regurgitated coffee from the floor of his bus and his better sense prevailed. He pulled over just past the light and I swung out the door and waved thanks over my shoulder and he pulled away and left me standing in a cloud of exhaust that was the final catalyst... I bent over and relieved my stomach of a morning's worth of coffee and angst and missing her. A well dressed young woman and an old man, her father, perhaps, stared and watched me from across the intersection, shaking their heads and exchanging words between themselves, probably thought I was coming home from an all night drunk. I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and stared back at them and tried to smile, but another wave hit me and what little that was left in my gut came rushing out and I made a sound that was not unlike a wounded seal announcing ruin and they hurried away and didn't look back.
I sat down on the corner of someones lawn. I knew the house, but not the people who lived there. It was a tidy little Spanish style bungalow, cream color with a faded Terra cotta tiled roof. I passed it every once in a while on my trek from the place where I rented a room a few blocks from where I sat, passed it on my way to the West side of the island, passed it on my way to the cafe and to her. I rolled over to my hands and knees and pulled myself up to some semblance of standing and trudged East toward my place. I needed to check for mail and get some clothes and supplies for the days I'd be spending at her place over the cafe. This was not good. No, not good at all. We'd been together, seriously together, for only a few months, but this was the first time I'd watched her go away...
"Well, asshole," I said out loud to myself, "You've done it again, haven't you? This wasn't supposed to be a repeat of that last one back in New Jersey, but it is, and do you think she's as upset as you are right now? Probably not. You asshole."

It's just twilight now and I'm sitting on her back porch, over the back of the cafe, staring into the growing glow of the city across the bay, smoking another cigarette and drinking some awful white wine that tastes like bad cheese and smells like the inside of a work boot. But it's doing the job. I may have to get a bottle of Scotch tomorrow or the next day, I think I'll need it when she gets home. I have no idea how I'm going to react when I see her. Maybe I should just leave a note for her on the kitchen table and just fade away. I can play the coward. I've done it before. Just make a clean break of it without having to face her. Or myself. Or, I can spend the next few days sitting here, booze soaked and wait it out, I guess.

"Hey."
I jumped up out of my chair and almost fell over the railing. It was Jake from the cafe.
"Jesus, man, you scared the crap out of me. I didn't even hear you come up the stairs."
"Sorry. I wasn't sure you were here, but now that you are, I talked to Karen a little while ago. She said to see if you were here and if you were, to tell you she said "hi" and to make sure you were OK. She sounded worried about you."
"I'm fine, thanks. If she calls again, tell her I'm fine."
"OK. Gotta finish closing up. You want some coffee? Or some food? I got some stuff left over, you can come down and get some food."
"I'm good. Thanks, though. Maybe I'll stop in for breakfast tomorrow."
"OK. Have a good one. Later"
He disappeared down the stairs into the dark of the back parking lot, and I take up my vigil once again, watching over the city and listening to the muffled sound of the waves from across the street for another hour or so, then I go inside and fall face first on her bed and drift away.

"Three, four, shut the door..."

---

I've been pretty busy the past week or so, leading up to this...



Walking my daughter down the aisle last Saturday...

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