me: i will NEVER forget that moment in space and time. it was the MOMENT i didn't do it, i DID NOT make THE DECISION and thus RUINED my life forever. how was i to know? i was but a stupid 20-year-old college kid who thought he knew what the world was. i recovered from one nervous breakdown, i could do anything now. i was a sophomore now, i could handle it. i thought i had more time, you always think you have more time, but you NEVER have more time, you have to make that decision NOW. five more minutes and it's already too late...
LeBron: ...
me: no, LeBron, this is my story. i love you.
i am at Ned's Bookstore in Berkeley. with tears welling up in my ducts. my eyes are beet red as i wave in and out of consciousness, my body is apart from space-time, i can see the results of all the threads of decisions i've made and didn't make, purple strands against a grey cyclone of dust, and i am eternally sad. it's the last day before the summer semester starts, everyone is excited, everyone is planning to get the fuck off campus and backpack through Europe. nobody's thinking this is the end. whatever friends forged in this brief three-month period, you'll see them again, right?!!! everybody's distracted packing, packing in their heads, thinking about their itineraries. everyone's running to and fro through the textiled text aisles getting to supplies. to and fro through the waxed halls of the student union. you don't have to.........oh i don't know.........get her PHONE NUMBER or anything...
in the middle of the bookshop i stare into Jennifer Pizarro's ocean-blue eyes, not red, blue. encircling us are piles and piles of books stacked high to the dotted ceiling. the stairs are staring at is. everyone is staring at us, all the students and the teaching assistants and the registrars, we're in a trance tornado holding hands and never letting go of those hands. a stiff wind runs through the both of us, through our rippling skins. i'm holding onto Jen by a thread, the only thing keeping me near her is my thumb on a slip of paper she holds with her thumb, too.
me: it's the stupidest thing in the world.
Jen P: it's the simplest thing in the world.
me: all i had to do was get your phone number on this slip of paper. all i had to do was get my soul mate's number on this slip of paper. and then it's Grill Mates all summer. is that so hard? so i could, you know, call you during the summer, see how you're doing. i just realized you never told me where you lived this semester. you know, so we don't immediately lose contact over the summer.
Jen: do you feel me slipping away? do you feel me giving you the slip?
me: it HAS to be different this time.
Jen: this ONE TIME you had to make the decision.
me: but if i have to lose you forever.........again.........let me leave you with this Kahlil Gibran quote...
Jen: no, not that, anything but that, anything but another Kahlil Gibran quote...
me: i shall leave you with this, i shall put it thusly:
"if you're meant to love someone, let them go. if they return, it was meant to be. if she never comes back, she was never yours to begin with..."
the tornado lessens its velocity and the overhead lights come back on, book pages strewn everywhere. in between the slats of the gated spiral staircase of orange stairs the chopped-up pages stick and hook to the carpeted corners.
Jen: come on, stop crying, i hate seeing you cry. here, take this box of baby wipes and dry your eyes.
me, dabbing my ducts: ...
Jen: really LOOK at that box i gave you.
me, *blushing*: you mean?...
Jen rubbing her belly: one can dream. one can only hope. one can only dream. we'll see how the summer treats us.
with that i am CALM. i am CALM after that. i check my body, no more summer shivers. and i blow my nose on Jen's dress.
i sally over to the lady registrar at the cash register. after 5 hours of line.
me: hey isn't that girl in our drama class?
Jen: oh yeah, i think her name is Jen, too.
Lindy Lenz carrying a heavy backpack twice her tallness: i think i went to Juilliard with that girl.
me: i need help with my textbooks here.
registrar: go to Moe's Books. it's not worth it here.
me: oh yes it is.
registrar: the textbooks here are all ripped, torn, they're only 1 dollar less than the student store. want a Dakine surfer backpack? we're REALLY trying to unload this merchandise before the big day.
Luke Russert: ...
Jen: hey look at this cute cloudy-grey Ned's Bookstore thermos!!! with the Ned's logo of the anthropomorphic book winking as he gives you a raspberry under your taint. and this cute 1949 University of California Santa Monica thermos!!!
me: for some reason the Santa Monica one reminds me of my mom.
Jen: i'm gonna snag the Ned's thermos, it seems like a souvenir we should have for later...
Jen: come on, let's get out of this stuffy school. let's go to my bungalow on the water.
with those breezy precious words coming from those breezy precious chapped lips, i breeze out of Ned's glass outside into my future on a soft wind.
Greykid: yeah Fulga isn't a flake, he's just camera-shy, that cat looks like Trinity. you can use the other two cats, it doesn't always have to be me. where'd Mlem and Blep go?...
Fulga plays the Cat Fugue on the harpsichord.
Mlem: to have...
Blep: ...is to save.
Giannis: my basketball career started at Taco Bell...
Fuerza: my favorite band is Groove Coverage...
Cotard: let's go see Liz Phair!!!
Codrus: why would I see Liz Phair?
Cotard: cos, brother, it's at The Masonic in San Francisco...
Senku: i'm always sticking my pinkie finger in my ear to exhume earwax from my earhole. i do this CONSTANTLY. the wax in my ear is HARD IN THERE, this earwax has hardened, it has fossilized, i listened to too much They Might Be Giants with my headphones on in science class.
Super Beta Prostate: we help you pee!!!.........and do better in the bedroom...
groovy VW electric microbus: Shaggy's pot is organic now...
Shaggy watching TV on the internet: Tubi Tubi Doo, i love you...
French Open: it's not called the French Open anymore, it's called Roland Garros 2023...
Montana Fouts: if you don't have a home, you got nothing in life. if you're not a softball pitcher with a dirty curve, you better like motels. you'll be cleaning motels soon. my home is Montana. i live in Montana, not Alabama...
fundis: butt
Lord Birthday drinking a glass of Monday Milk: i'm China, IL in real life, oak on those nuggins, nuns on ripple.
at the FA Cup.
Prince William: it's odd that i'm at the FA Cup presenting the winners' trophy cos my brother Prince Harry is down there on the pitch in the aqua-blue Aqua Velvet jersey playing for Manchester City...
family: a universal human thing, not just a Southern thing...
Joon: you know you're doing well in life when your house has a dock...
Sam from Benny & Joon: Joon, your house is more iconic than Gone with the Wind's Tara...
The Mars Volta: justice. finally. now i wonder if we'll transform more into a Rage-Against-the-Machine-type band...
Rafa Nadal: imagine if i had Andy Roddick's serve. clay is REAL TENNIS, you can't just blitz your serve in there on your way to a win. clay is tennis, serving is NOT TENNIS. i'll be back in 5 years...
Beth Howland: yeah i played Iola Boylen on Mama's Family...
Abe Lincoln: the greatest album of all time, Queensryche's Promised Land, was recorded right here in Seattle at Big Log Studio...
Cary Elwes: i play for the Yankees now?
Mardith: my husband Daniel Dae Kim goes from being on the BIGGEST TV SHOW OF ALL TIME Lost to doing CAR COMMERCIALS?!!! seriously? come on, TV, give my daddy a chance. Dan Dae would be GREAT in a comedy as the Asian Jerry Seinfeld...
Beau from Welcome Back, Kotter: yeah i went to New York. from New Orleans. i talked with a guy who told me about choking the alligator. i told him about a pregnant alligator...
pocket coalition: Alanis Morissette joining with Switzerland.
American Ninja Warrior: American Gladiators without the American Gladiators...
Roger Federer: i didn't know what i was gonna do with my life. what i wanted my life to be. i was thinking i'd be an oil-painter. then i saw Gemini on American Gladiators up there on that lined boxed Tron stage shooting the fuck outta that tennis-ball cannon, and my future was determined, my fate was sealed...
Skate or Die: that arcade cabinet of 720 was so cool, so mysterious, so mystical. there were always rumors of it on the St. Cyril's playground. but we all first saw it, first caught a glimpse of it, at Michael Jackson's birthday party at Magic Castle in Sherman Oaks. but it turns out 720 is a TERRIBLE GAME. Skate or Die is a CLASSIC skateboarding video game that's actually FUN...
Melbourne: Formula 1, the only profession where you LITERALLY EVERY WEEK decide between money or your life...
Mission: Impossible for the NES: the only video game where you're trying to escape FROM Switzerland...
Roger Federer: ...
Roger Federer: that's like getting a cease-and-desist order from your musical hero...
Jaclyn Dunn: bulky, baby.
the trip takes 1 hour on the highways and fjords but to me it lasts until the end of time. we arrive at Jen's bungalow on the outskirts of the city of Berkeley. the Berkeley Bay. by boat. Jen parks her speedboat Screamer into her cute little brown dock. slats of brown. brownboard. by her yellow Bumblebee car parked on the sandbar's tip. the car has a wetsuit dangling over the edge of its driver's window. the splash of the one aqua-blue wave overcomes both of us, i am soaked. Jen remains with her long thick blonde hair flowing in the wind and glistening in the sun always looking shampoo'd.
Jen: even tho my hair has never been shampoo'd, it's au naturel like the rest of me.
Jen bends down to throw the anchor at the sandbar with one of her patented strong thrusts. the anchor is made of champagne glass. Jen's butt is big and fat and hugged in tight booty jean shorts with many blue threads fraying at the edge of her upper thighs bouncing with each heave.
me: nice pier you have here.
Jen: it's more of a dock. care to slip into my dock?
me: don't tease me with my everlasting dreams.
me: the Benny & Joon bungalow, nice. it's so nice, it's so nice here. i've never been here before. i'm so glad i hate summer vacation.
Jen: remove your bulky wood block sandals, hon, this is a place to walk barefoot until you pierce the palm of your heel on a rusty nail.
me: sore heels heal in salty water.
Greykid is inside Jen's house pawing at the mini-glass-chandelier wind-chime outside on the wood balcony.
me: why do you immediately start scratching Jen's rattan chairs after Jen and i went through the painstaking labor of cutting your nails? don't you like to have soft paws when you sleep on a pile of pillows and blankets? don't you like walking again and it doesn't hurt on Jen's '70s kitchen linoleum?
Greykid: what's the big deal? just use peanut butter.
Justin Timberlake on Jen's poster on her bedroom wall: Janet Jackson's tits here cupped by these hands on this poster? these are NOT my hands...
i look at Jen's brown Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman landline phone in the kitchen. the little slip of plastic below the push-button block reads:
555-5555
me: you have GOT to be fucking kidding me. that's one for the time wizard.
i hear the faint strains of Janet Jackson's "Enjoy" coming from upstairs in Jen's bedroom. suddenly Jen's FACE is right up against my face, she's smiling that big fat toothy goofy grin of hers, her smile of reassurance.
Jen: do the dishes for me, hon.
i check out the cabinet wood drawer. all 12 spoons are spooning with each other all nested together on one side to one side, sleeping. i look back at Jen. Jen is on the other side of the living room. Jen takes my hand.
Jen: come on, let's go upstairs, i got some BIG PILLOWS on my bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment