Posted by marko on 12/29/2006, 8:27 am i’m too old to start over. yes, i am that old. but i’m too scene 68 it’s supposed to be a secret but i’m telling you because we’re scene 69 it’s a temporary situation. yet it feels like one of those tv the ashtray was filled with some generic brand. i forget it’s not as if i’m talking in different voices or anything scene 72 i’m lost in the details. i thought i left an explanation in my there never was much distance between us. some people
65.167.39.170
scene 67
young to lay down & die. you might call it a predicament.
you might say i’m at a critical juncture. you might say i’m
entering a new phase of my life. you might say i’m in a
fix. you might say i’m under the circumstances & can’t
dig my way out. you might say any of these & be partly
right. i came so close i could taste it. more than once in fact.
like medicine that didn’t go all the way down. a sudden breeze
that feels just right, but you can’t figure out which direction
it’s coming from. warm, open arms waiting twenty minutes
away, & you keep driving long past that, but you never
make it there. a broken ferris wheel & you’re stuck at
the top. you can see it all from up there. it’s beautiful &
exciting, but there’s no one to tell. you have to wait until
it’s repaired. you sit there swaying as the lights shut down
in perfect streaming rows. but by the time you get back
down to earth it’s all been forgotten.
so close & i trust you. you trust me don’t you? i mean if
you had a secret you wouldn’t hesitate to confide in me, right?
i’ll get to it. but you didn’t answer me. you skirted right around
it. well, that’s how it sounded to me. i thought it was phrased
as a question. wait a minute. i want to talk this out first. i
have every intention of telling you. if i didn’t, i wouldn’t
have brought it up in the first place. it’s hard to trust somebody
if you know they don’t trust you. i saw your windshield. i
stopped by the next day—remember? the cops said it was
definitely a .45. i don’t own a .45. you know that. why
bring that up now? what’s this stuff all over the table? my
arms keep sticking to it. no, there wasn’t anything on my arms.
shit, i’m late for work. we’ll talk about it tomorrow. i can’t
chance a pink slip. there isn’t time to explain.
shows that they never put a lid on. leave everyone hanging
when it goes off the air. then they have the balls to start
rerunning it a couple years later. & every episode you watch,
you can’t help feeling—why bother. there’s no way out of
it. it feels like they’re just going through the motions. there’s
no drama. no reason to care what happens. the first time
you’re tensed on the edge of your seat. feeling sympathetic
when the tears start. joining in with the laugh track when
it turns a corner. you know it’s canned. you know you’re
being manipulated. but you don’t think about it if it’s well
done. that night i drove an hour & a half to see you. you
cracked the door a couple inches but didn’t take the chain off.
i could see it in the way you smiled at me. you were embarrassed
& guilty & happy all at the same time. then you acted pissed
off that i didn’t call first. said i took you for granted. i walked
away because i knew where it was going, though i couldn’t
be sure where it would end. but i didn’t want to spend the
weekend in jail. i knew if i stayed cool, there was at least a
chance you’d open the door next time. that it would turn out
differently. that it would seem new. like we had no history.
scene 70
the name. but i knew that no matter how high they jacked
the price up she wouldn’t switch to an off brand. i stood
there. it felt like a long time. just listening without knowing
what i was listening for. then i began to hear a conversation,
though there was no one there. my name was mentioned more
than once. i knew if i stuck around too long that she might
return. the door frame was splintered. it would take more
than a new lock to fix it. she wouldn’t let me explain. she’d
head right for the phone. but she’d get no dial tone since
i’d yanked it out of the wall. then she’d make a mad dash
for the door. if i was in her way she’d tear into me. i’d
deserve it of course. so i couldn’t take that chance. she’d
know it was me anyway, but there’d be no proof. i’d be
brought in for questioning. but i’d know every question
before it was asked. it’s not like they’d trip me up. not like
they’d get a confession out of me. not like they’d ever get
me to admit how much i loved you.
scene 71
crazy like that. i’m sorting things out in my mind. if i
say it out loud it carries more weight. it makes more sense.
it helps to hear the words, the way i’d say them to whoever
i was going to talk to later. like a dress rehearsal. & if it’s
a problem that needs fixed i can run through different
solutions. i understand myself better that way. i can see
the results more clearly. of course some unforeseen event
can send it off spinning in a completely different direction,
but i take that into consideration also. we never know
when a likelihood might become a liability. when something
insignificant worms its way under the infrastructure. they’re
all me. it didn’t sound like someone else did it? i didn’t
realize you were in the other room. why are you looking
at me like that?
pocket. but it must have been another pair. that threw me.
i should give up trying to organize my mind. the world
never cooperates anyway. in fact, i think sometimes it
deliberately throws a wrench in there. i hear something
rattling around. but it could be spare change. i’ve never
heard of the town that’s circled. but it’s all i have to go
on. there’s a phone number at the bottom of the page. i
tried calling it a few times but never got an answer. i think
i felt more relieved than frustrated. that’s strange, isn’t it?
it’s right on the border. i don’t see any rivers. not familiar
with any of the nearby towns either. i’ve considered the
fact it could be a setup. it could be the very same ones
who stole those memories. but i’m heading down there
anyway. i don’t know if i’m ready. but then i never will.
scene 73
would probably guess we were one & the same. those that
didn’t know us well. who were never close to the situation.
it’s not so much our physical appearance. not to me. but
i’m the last one who’d see that. i think it’s the way we take
things & twist them around until they look like something
different. the way we tackle circumstances & don’t let it up
until we’ve made our point. it could be the way we phrase
things. our accents are similar. from the same part of the
country. it could be the way we don’t let the ink dry. we
keep running with it until it’s bold-faced, but streaked,
& not about to turn around & change anything about it.
the opposite of the way we speak, which is laconic, that
drawl stretches words so they sound like we’re saying more
than we really are. you’re not he first person to tell me that.
i’ve heard it dozens of times. he says that no one’s ever
mentioned it to him. i find that hard to believe. he says he
can’t see it at all.
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