JPF Home Page Forums Creative Arts Forums Creative Writing Forum "Baby, Get To Me"

13. MONDAY MORNING ALARM; Buy-in's Remorse.

The alarm clock beeps three times before I reach and shut it off! It's seven o'clock.

I vaguely remember her coming around the bed before the alarm went off at six, standing there, smelling... delicious.

I asked her, "What... was this... about?"

"What?" she asked, as if she hadn't understood the question. I groggily asked again,

"What was this... sleeping in my bed... about?"

She giggled, sat on the bed, touched my throat, "I wanted to see if I could... sleep with someone. I never... slept with anyone before. My brother when we were kids. Girls when we had a sleepover. My Mom and Dad. But... never with... somebody."

I was 'content' with that, didn't ask any more questions, fell asleep again.

The first thought in my consciousness, now, seven o'clock, is, 'What in the hell am I doing?'

I meet a girl on the street, who gives me hell for every word I say. Next thing I know she's a 'whole woman in my house' and I ain't had much o' nothin' in my mouse! Well, biscuits and gravy.
We've lain together on a couch, like we're familiar... like lovers. And now, I'm giving her pajamas to sleep... sleep... in my bed.

She's a cop! A cop! It's a different mind that becomes a cop! A cop is laying on my couch, sleeping in my bed, taking a shower in my bathroom! Putting on a uniform and leaving for work, from my house! I ain't 'hittin' that'. We're not on a third date basis.

Wait a minute.

Are we? That's just it, dim ass! You don't know where you are! I don't know what this is! I'm... did I do this, lure her in? Or did she do this, reel me in? She's so damned good lookin' all my... judgment goes out the window!

What in the hillbilly hell am I doing? What... in the... hillbilly hell... am I doing?

She's... she's the one that... Let's see. She told me to put my guitar in her trunk. That was the first... aggressive move to... friendliness. Can you aggressively move to friendliness? Then she's the one who asked to sleep on the couch. What? I'm gonna tell 'that', 'No! Sorry! You can't stretch out all that... beautiful... stuff... on my couch! What do you take me for? A... a... I can't think of what she might take me for, any... negative thing. It... it seemed... okay. It seemed like... a friend... comes and... wants to stay instead of going home. So you just... you just... fix them a bed, leave them to make themselves at home. But... we're not... friends. She's suddenly friendly! It's her! She's reeling me in! I...I like... being reeled in... by her. She's a... great lookin' little fisherperson!

I sit up on the side of the bed, staring out at the bathroom door. She left the light on. There's a paper on the floor. I get up, go in; it's a tampon wrapper! The thought that she's a fertile... nubile... fecund... Damn!

She could get pregnant! She makes eggs! I make... fertilizer!

I come back to the bedside stand, open the drawer. Plenty of condoms! If we... if I... ever need them. But... we're not just playing around with casual sex, hit it and quit it, wink in the grocery store later sex. She wants a relationship and... well... I want a relationship too but... Is this reasonable? Is this rational? I think I want a relationship. But we're already deep into... some kind of relationship and... I still don't know her last name! She's a cop! A uniformed cop. She's a cop.

I've met her Mom and Dad! I've gone to church! I never go to church. We sat at a table and ate biscuits and crazy! We watched football while her parents fell asleep. We stayed up all night, talking last night... no... Saturday night... Sunday morning. I'm still tired. We went to bed early, and I slept through the night. I don't have any trouble sleeping with someone, apparently. Not... her... anyway.

I don't know what freakin' day it is! It's Monday. Is this normal? This ain't normal! Am I addled? Is disruption of sleep making me make low-quality decisions? I mean... she's fine... but I'm not... I'm... I don't know how we got this... involved. I've gotta slow this down. What? I'm gonna tell her that?

"Hello, darlin', we have to slow this down," I speak aloud.

Or speed up. 'You cain't kiss me and lay in my bed and tell me to go to sleep!'

I... bought in to this... this scenario... and we're practically old friends now. How in the hillbilly hell...?

I go, get in the shower. The hot water has the effect of stopping my crazy. I step out, dry off, shave, brush my teeth, do salt water lavage, draw saltwater up each nostril, and blow, mouth wash with hydrogen peroxide. The 'routine' makes me feel more... stable.

Damn! I'm 'un-stable!'

Downstairs I just look around the room and go out the door. I need to get to work. Normal. Everyday routines. Everything's normal. Monday morning normal. I look at my watch. I'm early. I don't want to go in that place any sooner than I have to.

I drive over by the river, to the Court Street Landing. The Ohio River is new, every day! It's a vast area of natural space, good for the mind to be there. There's always something! I spot an Eagle flying upstream along the Kentucky shore. You can't miss that white head. They get 'bald' with white head feathers when they're five years old. It flies into an open area over there, that looks like maybe someone cleared the trees some time back. I spot two dark-feathered birds on the ground there. Perhaps younger eagles. I come to a stop and watch the slow, steady flow of the river. You can't perceive the flow when your car is moving. I love that... natural motion, the flow, or the movement of clouds on the wind, the wind in the leaves of the trees. It... soothes my mind... I think.

A bunch of turkey vultures is down on the concrete apron where folks launch boats, probably munching a dead fish someone's left there. Two great blue heron I hadn't seen until they... lift up, great graceful wings, effortlessly fly downstream, just feet above the edge of the water. The Sun is up behind me. Little steam snakes are rising all over the water surface. It... promises... to be a beautiful day.

I cruise down to Alexandria Point, the mouth of the Big Scioto River, see a great blue wading in the shallow water over at Popcorn Beach, a sandbar that builds up on the other side. It darts its head into the water, takes a couple steps, darts again, steps, darts and comes up with a shiny minnow, flips it, swallows, stalks anew. I get my binoculars, watch it a while longer. About every third lunge i comes up with a shiny fish. Out of the corner of my left eye I see a large bird flying over that direction. I calculate it will come right into my view through the binoculars. It does! A bald eagle! It flies high up in a tree. They like to hunt from a perch.

Suddenly I'm aware of another large bird in the air. It seems to have come from the direction of the Carl Perkins Bridge which crosses the Ohio from Kentucky. The great bird begins circling, circling, folds its wings! Dives into the water! Splash! Comes right back out, flies up, starts circling, circling! Folds its wings and dives right in! Splash! Up a second time, circling, circling, and a third time, dives, splashes, and comes up with a substantial fish! I think it's an osprey, a.k.a. 'fish eagle'. It flies off up the Scioto, likely to get away from the eagle. They fight and take prey away from each other. It turns the fish head first for aerodynamics. Poor fish is alive, looking at a scene it never imagined. I... know how it feels! LOL!

I go to work. Routines, normal, problems, cussing, good to be distracted, solve the problem, next problem. Lunch. Jim Dandy; Big Mo, Coke, Fries, $4.99. Working pains. Arrggh! Quittin' time!

I stop off at the grocery store. All the girls who look good look like I could reasonably expect to start a relationship with them! What makes me think... I can smell them, at a distance, as they walk by, as I walk where they were a moment ago. I'm picking up apples and stuff, not looking at what I'm shopping, handling. I get a grip, pay attention, get my sh-stuff so I can get out of here. The checkout girl is telling a story to the customer in front of me about the car wash refusing to wash her car because it is so 'raggedy' with rust holes and fender bender damages that would tear up their whirling scrubber brushes. When I get to her I ask what kind of car she has? She says, "It's a 2006 Fallinapart!" Beautiful golden blonde hair. Nice face. I could have a relationship with her. We could have hit-it-and-quit-it. I could make a list of places to bite her. I get out of there before I get myself in trouble. I'm... disturbed.

I walk down the parking lot to my car and... the cops are here! It's Ileace! She registers a little surprise, smiles... beautifully.

"Hi," she says enthusiastically, turning to look at my car. "I'm trained to notice cars! I keep missing yours. She turns, leads the way, walks with me to my car. I set my groceries in the front passenger floorboard. Trunk's full o' junk.

"Just getting off?" I say. She says she is. She looks delicious! Except for the uniform. Then... except for her face. It's that troubled look, like the night I first met her, something... defensive... offensive.

She crosses her arms over her belly, leans on the right front fender. "I've... I've been..."

She stands up, right hand on her gun, well... on her hip, just above her gun, left hand searching the air for a word, I think... finds,

"I've been... freaking out... all day!"

She laughs, nervous laugh. She looks me in the eye. "What are we doing? How did this happen? Did you seduce me? Did I seduce you? We're... kind of in a relationship! Already! I've never been in a relationship... gotten into a relationship this... this... way... this... fast... in my life! Not that I've been in a lot of relationships but... This has been quick, like from... 'Nice to meet ya!' to 'Set the alarm for him!' How... did this happen?" She laughs, a little more relaxed, funny laugh.

I laugh, not 'Ha! Ha!' That's funny!' but 'Oh! My! God!'. I try to play it cool.

"Yeah, I was... wondering about that today... all day... myself," I tell her. "I think one or more of us must be crazy!"

We both point and say, "It's you!" That really makes us laugh. Genuinely, laugh. Hers is a treble chuckle, so cute, just three quick, spontaneous giggles. I... love... like it.

"I wanna see you," she says. "Meet me somewhere."

"Alexandria Point," I say. She gives me a thumbs up, says 'Okay!'. Beautiful grin. I... like it.

"About an hour?" she asks. "I gotta get Mom some groceries, go home and change."

"I have to take groceries home," I say. About an hour, hour and a half. No rush. We'll see the Sun go down."

"Sounds good!" she says. Good grin. We look at each other. She's half turned to leave, stands there. She looks around the parking lot, makes me look too, people on foot, in cars, all around us. "I want your kiss," she says, stands there. I want her kiss. I reach for her. She comes to me. We kiss, not a 'Luv ya! Bye' kiss; a sensual, sexual, in a relationship kiss. I like it. I can't help liking it. This is madness! I throw her down on the hood of my car and... She's walking away. She looks good in that uniform too. She looks back, catches me looking, grins. I go.

On the way home a theory comes to me; we're conceptualizing the relationship we think we could have. We're both imagining so anything that happens... if it seems to fit the scheme of our fantasy, we go with it, act on it, so it seems to make perfect sense... in the moment.

It doesn't make perfect sense.

Or does it?

Or is that how things happen? I'm no more clear headed later when I come out to go meet her than I've been all day. 'Love is blind'? It would be irrational to think this is love. Love has to be rational. Does love have to be rational? 'Love at first sight'? No. Bogus. Lust maybe; love has to be... has to have a more established... basis. You don't just... I... Damn it! Maybe... love is; it just 'is'.

I've been playing with it; trying to say flirtatious things, trying to be clever and charming. That... established a pattern for... how I respond to her... how I present myself to her. She... responded to that, came off what seemed a sullen, challenging attitude, softened up. It was too quick. She... wanted to be softer, wanted... a friend. I wanted her, to bite. Well, I wanted a friend too. Not just hit/quit. Although...

I think we fit our mental... health... our fantasy of reality... together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Is that... good? Bad? Ugly? Most of the time it seemed... logical, rational, just... what you do, playing with a stranger, feeling your way into someone. What was happening was some semblance of what we wanted... I wanted... to happen. I wanted to bite those shoulders! Maybe I already mentioned that! LOL. Damn, she looked good in that black top-thingie.

To do that, I had to let the shoulders in, keep the shoulders around. Suddenly she was asking to... come in... 'Can I come in?'... to stay around. But... last night. That was... irrational. No sane woman... no sane man... lays in bed with a... stranger, sleeps... You know what I mean.

I'm early. It's only been forty-five minutes. I'm coming down Front Street, close to the floodwall so I can see over, see the river, the Kentucky hills. I 'round the corner onto Scioto Street. She's here! There's her fancy-smancy car. I park at the only open space, which is away from hers. Where is she? I see her. Blue jeans. Man! Oh! Man! Can she wear some blue jeans. Short tank top. Bare mmmm arms. Bare belly. Bite! Bite! Bite! How's a man supposed to not go crazy?

I'm so... confused... my head is spinning like that little pukey girl in that devil movie. How is it that we're both freaking out at the same time? We... teamed up to get where we are, and now... we both have remorse about buying into our own... delusions. This confirms to me that one or both of us are nuts. She's pretty. But... Uncle Lonnie's philosophy, "Just remember, no matter how pretty they are, somewhere there's someone who's had enough of their crap!" Note to self; don't tell her that. It works both ways.

Conversely, maybe I'm the one who's crazy and she's the hapless victim of my madness, like in a dozen movies. People can be crazy and not know they're crazy. Mom says, "If you find yourself all the time telling people you're not stupid or not crazy, you just might be!"

I don't know whether to tell her... in detail... how I'm freaking or wait and see if she can come to some conclusion for herself. We both have to figure this out for ourselves. If I let her tell me how I'm thinking or I try to define for her how she's thinking... Maybe she'll say we need to cool it. I'll go back to... I don't want to go back to... Maybe she'll have a... a rational plan... for going forward with caution. Maybe diamonds will fall out of the sky and we'll get rich and not give a crap.

"Hey!" I say.

"Hey, yourself," she says, lovely smile. She takes my hand in both of hers. "I'm sorry about earlier. I kind of dumped my crazy on you! I... when I'm away from you I get confused about what I'm doing... with... you. When I'm with you I have what I think is clarity. Then, I'm away from you and... it comes apart. Is that crazy?"

"Yes," I tell her. "Doctor Flegleman can see you at two on Tuesday!" She laughs, that cute treble giggle, spontaneous. She gets my joke. I take a deep breath.

"Let's go down by the river," she says, leans closer and in a confidential tone, "It's too people-y up here." We step up, go down the steps to 'the point', where the Scioto flows into the Ohio. She lets go of my hand. We're walking in the fine dust, silt that floodwaters left behind, down to the river's edge. She finds some dead alligator gar. They're about two feet long, long ten inch snouts of needle sharp teeth. I don't know if fishermen just kill them instead of putting them back in the river or if they're afraid to get close to those teeth to get their hooks back so they cut the line and put them up on the bank to die. She toes at the desiccated carcasses. They've been laying here a while. She bends down, hands on her knees, looks closely at the teeth. It's not a pleasant place to be. She looks at me. I turn, throw my head back up to the road. She comes. We start walking down the road, upriver. It's warm, comfortable. There's usually a nice breeze here, and is today.

"I was thinking about..."

Tell her? Don't tell her? "what you said. I..."

Tell her. "I had some of the same 'Buy-In Remorse' thoughts today." Don't tell her the alarm clock didn't get a fourth beep before you started having doubts, you fool! "We have... rushed in, haven't we?" I ask her. "Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread!"

"I wish we were angels instead of fools," she says.

I'm trying to untangle that to comprehend practical application but it does not compute. She's looking at the road at our feet, smiling.

"I'm settled down a little now," she says. "As long as I was busy today I was fine. When I got idle it kicked in. What are we doing?" she asks. "How did we start doing it so fast? It's my fault. I... I should never have asked to sleep on your couch. And you, ya big dummy! I might have been a crazy lunatic who would kill you in your sleep! Why did you let me stay in your house? Don't let strangers in your house!"

Having considered that possibility numerous times that night, I tell her, "I took a chance. I... wanted to believe in you... pretty badly... wanted to be reassured you weren't a crazy lady who would... jump off the train somewhere!" I laugh. She doesn't. "You asked, like it was... normal... like we were old friends and... like it made sense. What? I'm going to tell... someone like you... 'No! You're young and beautiful! You have to go!" I gesture in exaggerated dramatic fashion with my right arm, a long sweep out up the river.

"I thought, 'If that's what the girl needs to do I should help her do it. Just... the human thing to do."

I don't recall much thinking, actually, at that time. I just... wanted her... to stay... in my life.

"I think I am crazy," she says. "Sometimes I scream in the car, on the way home," adds, "or the way to work. Any time I'm alone and it all seems too tangled to..." she doesn't finish the sentence, long enough for me to,

"Untangle?" I offer.

"...to think. Just to slow down and think. The alarm goes off; I jump up and get ready and go. I get to work and I have to think fast immediately, and all day, make a lot of decisions, in a hurry, people waiting, people moving, people talking! Yammer! Yammer! Yammer! I drive down here sometimes, on a break, or after work... but I hurry that too! Gotta get on to the next thing. I wish it was longer; the road down here. I need a... a country drive to untangle my brain from the day's... madness. I'm dealing with people who have intense problems, and cops and lawyers and judges who can be problem people too! I'm busy! I don't have time for their... Sometimes I call Mom and go get her and we... she calls it 'Chase the sundown'... we drive down Route 52 or go over and down Route 10 in Kentucky, until the sun goes down below the hills. Then we just turn around and come back. It's... just a... a break in the routine... for us both."

"I used to have a psychological... thing... I'd do, leaving work in the Air Force," I tell her, remembering. "There was a gate where I came out onto the base, from the work area, the flightline where the planes were, to the living area, heading to the barracks, and I started going 'Ping' as I passed through that gate, out loud if there was no one around, to myself if there was."

"Ping?" she asks.

"And that was my signal to leave the day's... abuses and aggravations behind and head for 'home', the barracks, where I could just chill. It got to be like any day-job. Do your job. Don't let the bastards grind you down. Go home and do you."

"And that worked? Hell, I'll try it! Ping!" She tilts her head back, raises her voice, yells to the air, "You bastards don't exist!"

I laugh, tell her, "Next time with less anger!" She laughs. She resumes rationality, saying,

"That's my thing. I keep thinking about papers and people after I leave work. What was aggravating today. Things I gotta fix tomorrow, when there will be a whole new workload of people and paper. And then thinking about my home life, Mom. Dad, myself. It's hard to separate the... work stuff that shouldn't matter, and... the realities... of your life; my life."

"Most genuine people care about the work they do, take it to heart, want to do the best they can," I philosophize. "You... you seem... like a genuine person."

"Genuine?" she ponders.

"Authentic," I say, searching for words for... my feelings... about her, this... philosophy of her. "I think you mean what you say, say what you mean. If... if you're fooling me into thinking you're something you aren't... you're doing a hell of a job. I'm almost happy to find out you're a little bit... off balance in this crazy world. I don't think anyone 'handles' life well all the time. People who aren't a little... disturbed... aren't paying attention, to the world, or to their own life. Sometimes... I think sometimes the best of us get knocked for a loop, suddenly, or gradually start... losing our grippers! We... we don't like how things are going, worklife, personal life, world life, but there's not much we can do about it. Suddenly or gradually we find ourselves very... unhappy. We can get... locked into that mindset and find it hard to break out."

"Oh!" she says, looking ahead. "Let's go back. There are people up there too." There are trailers and cars at the boat docks. "I know those people."

I don't know them but I know the Sheriff's Department maintains that boat dock.

She turns, takes off up the hill, through the weeds. That's not 'back', I'm thinking. Who cares? I follow. I don't think about it, don't try to call her back; I follow. I don't care where she's going. I'm going with her. She goes up the hill, comes out on top of the low floodwall along Front Street that was built after the 1913 Flood.

When I get there, she's looking down at Front Street, about four feet below. I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to jump. "This way," I tell her, and walk down the floodwall to a place where an old, broken concrete step gives a way down. I step down, turn and offer my hand. She takes it, comes down, and hugs me. Just a brief hug, a little longer than a 'necessary' hug to get her footing. It's... affection. She lets go, heads east, up Front Street where the murals are. I follow. She's ahead of me, just walking, steady pace. I... like the view. She turns, keeps walking, backwards.

"Do you feel like walking?" she asks, tosses her head as she turns to walk forward again.

"I do," I say, and just follow. She keeps walking, doesn't wait for me to catch up. We're walking, no talking. We come through the Front Street Gate in the big floodwall, built after the 1937 Flood, into the city. She's looking at people's flowers, flowerbeds at the houses there, across at the murals, at cars as they go by.

"Arizona," she says. Another car goes by;

"Virginia," she says. I realize she's reading license plates. I see her eyeing them, going on and on. We're walking fast, like we're in a hurry. It's okay. At the end of the murals she turns up an alley. I'm following. It's fine. I like being with her without having to sustain a conversation. She's toeing at the bricks in the alley. I notice they're thin, thinner than any brick street or alley I've seen. I can't resist telling her a story. She stops, comes back to me, takes my hand when I start.

"You see the floodwall buried in the levee over there?" I'm pointing. She's looking. Doesn't need to answer. "One time I was walking on that sidewalk and I saw a man coming who I had been told was a Veteran. He had a bedroll tied diagonally across his back, no hat. He was deeply tanned. Whoever told me about him... We saw him walking along the road, the highway up in Sciotoville... they said he walks to Huntington, West Virginia to the Veterans hospital there, by choice. Well, he bent down and picked something up. When he got close enough to speak he said, "I'll be glad when they quit making those. They quit making them a long, long time ago, but I keep finding them, and every time I do I think I've found a diamond ring!"

"In his thick brown fingers was a pull tab, like for an aluminum can. But it was round, with two little...points, like a diamond ring would have to hold the diamond, you know. It was the original design, and it came completely off the can when you pulled it, pulling off the closure part off the hole you drink out of. People would throw them down, litter, or play with bending the two segments, the ring and the tab, back and forth until the metal fatigued and broke and then they'd litter both pieces. He was still finding them on the ground in his hikes. Somewhere I see one when I'm walking, a relic from last century, embedded in the tar on a road. I forget where.

With no... segue... no pause...," I go on, "between the 'pop-tab' story and the next one, he said, "When a bass first hits your minnow, you don't jerk your rod. He's scaling the minnow. When he hits your rod a second time he's flipping it around to swallow it! That's when you jerk your rod!"

And then, again, no... pause, he pointed at that wall," I point, "buried in the bottom of the levee, and said, "My father told me that in 1937 the water flowed over that wall just like Niag'na Falls!"

"And, with that, he went on by me. I never saw him again. I didn't get a chance to say a word!"

She laughs, just that little treble chuckle I'm learning to like, turns, goes on up the alley. Under a tree there, she stops, turns, waits for me.

"I want your kiss," she says. "Can we?" I don't answer, just kiss her. It's not a passionate kiss; just a kiss. It seems to be all she wants. She takes my left hand, grins at me, starts walking.

"Aren't you afraid someone will see you kissing me out here in public? A girlfriend? Your wife?" she asks.

"Hell no!" I say. "I hope someone who knows me sees us and asks me about it! And tells other people! 'I saw Gary kissing the prettiest girl!' And my girlfriend and my wife better be home with the kids!"

"I'm not crazy," she declares. "You're not crazy. Maybe this is how people fall in love. Just... serendipity. No... plan. Just... it just happens."

"This is exactly how people fall in love," I tell her. "Then they end up trying to explain it in court to a Judge who looks at them like they're crazy!" Now she's laughing.

"I'm in, Gary," she says, looks at me, and away, down at the skinny bricks. "I've decided I want to explore... this... whatever we're doing. If... if you don't want to... all you have to do is tell me. I know it's... irrational. But... I'm not... afraid of it. I"m... not afraid of where it can go. Unless I... unless you tell me you're not interested. If you're not it's okay. I understand."

I don't get a chance to process that before she says,

"I don't want to go up that way," and she points to her right. "I work there in the City Building. I don't even like to drive by when I'm not working. Ya think I'm in the wrong job?" she asks. Treble chuckle! LOL "No," she says. "I like my job. It's just sometimes... when my private life gets... annoying... I start to hate everybody and everything."

She laughs. "But I'm NOT crazy!" she says, treble chuckles. "Or am I?"

She leads me across the street, on up the alley. They're building a new residential hotel there, on the corner of Washington and Second. She keeps going, turns on Third Street, then up Washington. At Fifth she crosses Washington... I'm just letting her lead me, following now a few steps behind, and we go up to Chillicothe. She turns north up Chillicothe, stops,takes my hand, points out the building across the street that will be the new Municipal Building. "I don't know if we're moving our operations up here or what," she says. "Some people say we will. Some say we won't. I ask them who told them that and they don't know. It's just talk. I hope it's a well-organized, you know, floor plan. I hope they put in more windows! I hope there's a place to park."

She lets go my hand and walks ahead. I follow. It's comfortable, walking, not talking. It's a hike. She slows to look at big pictures in the Marting's building windows, a last-century scene of the building and the street at this location. She stops at the corner, lets traffic go by. I notice she's holding her right hand on her stomach, remember the tampon paper.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

She says, "I have... poison ivy." She grins, but there's a pained look about her. "I'm on my period," she confides. "Sometimes I get cramps." We cross the intersection of Sixth and Chillicothe diagonally.

"You may not experience that if you get a mineral supplement with calcium," I tell her.

"Really?" she says. "How do you know all this stuff?"

"I know everything!" I tell her. "Wanna know the annual rainfall in Rio de Janeiro?" She laughs. We keep walking. "Let's go in the drug store there and see if they have a mineral supplement." They do. They have one for men; one for women. I buy it for her. Coming out she turns and starts back down Chillicothe, takes my hand and turns on Seventh, lets go my hand, starts walking a little faster ahead of me. I follow. It's comfortable. I like being with her. She zig zags down Washington, to Sixth, to Court, to Fifth, to Market, to Fourth, on to Third and Second. West on Second and soon we're standing by her car. I'm worn out! LOL

"I'm going home," she says. "I need to lay down." I give her the minerals.

"Take one right away. They're not magic. It takes time to get into the system and start doing you some good. Put one in a glass of water and see if it dissolves," I advise her. "I read about a nurse who noticed white spots on an x-ray and the woman told her she had taken two calcium caplets earlier. They were down in her digestive tract but hadn't dissolved yet. And people say vitamin caplets go right through you the same way. So, unless they're water soluble they may not be doing you any good."

"You really do know everything, don't you?" she grins, steps to me, offers her mouth to kiss, and I kiss it. "I... wanna see you. Can we get together this week, again, sometime? I think I'm okay with... you and me. I... want there to be a you and me. Sometimes I come out of my house and... mentally look across the... world, and know... there is no house where I can go, where I want to go, where I will be welcome." It's a profound comment.

"I think we can get together," I tell her. "Do you have a day in mind?"

"I don't know," she says. "I'll be getting over this... poison ivy... so I won't be very good company. I'm surprised I haven't been mean to you!" Treble chuckle! We kiss. It's sexual. It's sensual. It's desire. Mine. Her desire. She looks in my eyes. She's not relaxed, comfortable. She turns away. I turn to go to my car as she opens her car door.

"Hey!" she yells. I turn. "My Mother says..." and I find myself apprehensive about sentences that begin with 'My Mother says...', "you wanna go church-shopping Sunday! Any truth to that rumor?" I come back a few steps.

"What do you think?" I ask her. "I think that church..." I search for a word... find one... "Sucks! Preacher can't preach! She just likes being there! Maybe she'd be even happier if the preacher had something to say!"

"I like the way you think, man!" she says, pointing at me with her left hand holding the keys, grinning, grimaces, touches her stomach, a little wave. Bye.

I'm in a daze. I find myself backing in at the apartment without remembering driving there. In. Eat soup. No crackers. Jam. Bed. Alarm. Work. Routine. I feel... good about where my life is headed, if it's headed anywhere. It's... nebulous. It's... unplanned, unorganized, uncertain. It's... a world of new possibilities, a new world of possibilities. There's... somebody.