Hush and Be Still

I was told that returning to the place that you are from is a bad idea, and since returning I have been inclined to agree with that piece of sensibility. While things have changed, the people have not and that is where the majority of my disappointment has come from. Perhaps, within personal perspective, things have not changed so much here as I have changed. I am far from the person I was when I left this city and I am grateful.

It's so strange to see people completely content to stand in the rain while waiting for a bus or taxi. While before I moved it would not have even phased me, as I sit in the Powell's Bookstore cafe I become amazed at myself and those others getting wet. I am amazed at their seeming oblivion to rain, and my shock to it. I am from here, I should understand, I think. I'm going to cut out the fluff-- it's unnecessary.

I'm reading Precious. It's a trite piece of uninspiring inner-city preggo-girl literature, but I find it amusing so I keep reading. Easy read, except when she says shit like 'I ain't neva ax muver fo nothin. she git welfare for MY chile!' What is that? It's like reading A Million Little Pieces, but in Ebonics. Meh.

Suddenly he's there, sitting across from me. Just like that. A little late, as warned, but right there. Oh, good! I put Precious down and he smiles. Brilliant teeth, love those teeth.

Hey, hi, small talk. Let's fast forward through the shitty-shit now-- We are at Wimpy's. I like this bar, I think he likes it, too; he requested it in his polite and non-aggressive way. Service is bad in here tonight, though. What the fuck? Who is the loud-mouthed twenty-something hipster bitch behind the bar? Never seen her before. She's wearing a shiny vintage sweater with the sleeves hiked up to her elbows and a pair of white horn-rimmed glasses. Mean bitch eyes glaring at me from behind those glasses. I don't like her accusing glares disguised as non-impressed and careless. I know she'd rather continue serving Pabst to the four people sitting at the bar, chit-chatting her and carrying on while watching the TV mounted above the bar. She knows them, doesn't know us, would rather we piss off.

Of course, I don't piss off. I never piss off, really, especially when I feel confronted. I push back, so we sat and talked for ten minutes or so until it became obvious that Bitch Bartender wasn't going to serve us shit unless we walked up to her and asked for it. Hmph! Fine.

"I.D.'s please,"

...

"'Kay, what you gonna have?"

We order Gin and Tonics, sit down and begin our discussions. Pleasant talk. Intelligent talk. I love talking to him; I enjoyed it the first time we got together. I make him laugh as much as I can because I like to see that piano-key smile and his laugh is disarming and I feel like engaging and impressing so I go for it. I'm a natural comic so this is good, easy. I feel good.

Bitch Bartender talks loud and her patrons/friends' conversations cut through ours at times. He speaks quietly, so I strain to hear him. I wish it was like before when there were only a few people in the bar and there was no horn-rimmed glasses hipster Bar Bitch to neglect us and let the tumbler glasses accumulate on the table like a pile of guilt. When we step out to have a cigarette we stand underneath my jacket and smoke. He shivers against me sometimes and I like it.

While we are out people put more glasses on our table as they leave. My jacket and bag are still in the booth, though perhaps not visible due to the poor lighting. Whatever. I'm creating my own magic tonight so I will let the little things go, I say to myself, in my head.

More drinks. I'm not drunk even though I didn't have anything to eat all day except for a little bag of gummy bears. I know it must be the bartender, or perhaps I'm alighting on something more mentally powerful than the booze and I neglect to get intoxicated by it. Well, maybe other Long Island Iced Tea will do it. It only hurts my liver to try.


"How about you get the wine, and I'll get the smokes," I say as we peruse the wine isles of a convenient store. Done deal. Paid, out the door and in search of a cab. I get us a cab because my iPhone knows all and the Radio Cab lady knows who I am due to the various corners I call her from. I laugh at this, in spite of myself. Getting picked up on corners? Irony! I laugh in spite of myself because it's funny and I'm funny and this feels good.

Soon we are at his house and in his room and I like it. Books, everywhere. Scattered on the floor, in bags, boxes, shoved into cavities along the wall and on top of various surfaces. I can smell their ages. We pour wine, drink from mismatched glasses and talk and talk and talk. I feel the wine a bit, but not as much as I usually would and we talk some more. So much talking-- more than I've talked in a very long time and I am comfortable and so I let go. I let go quickly and effortlessly and he listens to me as my lips for words of explanation and sorrow and depression and pure emotion. There are times when I feel that I should stop myself, to protect myself from something that could easily hurt me now. But, when I think of stopping and closing up a wave of depression swells in me and I know I must continue, so I do. The good, the bad, my past, present and future. I ask questions at times, but it's mostly me and he listens. I try to look at the concrete floor with the books, the shelves with the books, the chair with the books and not meet his gaze because he smiles and I get soft and watery, my tongue begins to melt and I want to tell him everything so I chance an occasional gaze when I need courage. I am opening more to him than I have to anybody else in my life. It is a little exhausting but I am getting wild with the wine and a love that is hatching in me.

He told me that in antiquity people would describe their emotions as being held in their core, their stomach and bowels, but I feel it in that slow pulsing behind my eyes and in the nerves of my skin and my scalp tingles now because of it. I want to touch him and I tell him so. I tell him that he is precious to me and I feel a bit undeserving and he dissuades me with his genuine grin and reaches out, takes my hand and begins to feel me. I burn and look at his fingers tracing paths along my veins and his alabaster skin against my peach-colored pink-fringed hue. I start to cry a little because he is touching me so gently and with great care. I feel precious and laden with emotion. I am also crying because I am loving for all the right reasons and I feel he is loving me too.

I close my eyes and minutes, hours, eons pass. There is nakedness on the couch, tender kisses and exploring ligaments. There is nakedness in the bed. Smiles, laughing. I want to play piano on his teeth, those gorgeous teeth. Little sighs and laughs, every emotion I've ever managed to feel sweeps over me and morning comes and goes, and in the afternoon I awaken to painlessness for the first time in a very long time.

It's late now as I write this and I desperately want to go back to those feelings that are more powerful than any drug, but I must wait a few more hours. Until then, while the apartment is silent and I am alone with my own thoughts and the cats' purring I put my face in my hands and tell myself to hush, and be still.