After two hours and no sign from her,
not even one of those stupid text messages,
I put my cigarette out and went inside
to find her and get us to the bus station on time.

We had an eleven o’clock bus tapping its foot like bad gambler.
It was supposed to take us out of here
and straight on into some town she knew
of that was just outside of Chicago.

Or Phoenix.
I could never remember.

Even to the best of my knowledge,
my short-term memory ain’t what it used to be.

Eleven o’clock,
very little to pack,
one way with a flawless sidestep around Hell on earth
and just a couple of errands to run beforehand.

She wanted to say goodbye to some
of the scumbags she hardly ever talked about.
I just wanted to disappear and let those bastards
figure it out on their own.

But I was used to letting her have her way.
That’s what had us walking up to that old hotel.
The one where Friday night once swallowed up two years
of her life and didn’t even have the courtesy to smile
like an aging Cheshire cat with a bunch of broken teeth.

That’s how I always looked at it.
She never really seemed to hold a grudge.

I let her go in alone,
and that was probably where I went wrong.

Two hours go by.
I see more than my fair share
of sickly scarecrows bouncing off the sidewalk
and grave diggers trying to negotiate
with junkyard landlords for breathing room.

I lose my temper
and head inside to find her.

The elevator is empty
but manages to still sound crowded,
so I opt for sixteen crumbling flights of stairs.

I think about her smile
and the way she’s able to laugh
at even my worst jokes.

I hear the eighth floor collapsing
right when I make it up to nine.
I barely survive the fire
that suddenly runs over ten like a madman
who’s more lucky than good.

Old women threw rocks at me.
One-time athletes offered cheap beer and stories.

It must have taken me an hour
just to get to the room
she told me he was living in.

The guy who answered the door
was everything I thought he would be.

Out-of-shape,
cruel as hell when he could find
the time to get out of his recliner
and quite a talker when he could pull
the dog chain out of the hole in his throat.

I knew his kind almost as well as she did,
and I didn’t waste any time asking
if she was there.

He pulled out a cardboard shotgun
and told me that it would be better
for everyone involved if I just turned
and walked away like a broken man.

He slammed the door in my face,
and I was so enraged by that
I almost dislocated my shoulder
trying to break that door down.

I eventually managed to.
I charged in to stand face-to-face
with a room that had been empty for years.

Rats packed the inside of TV set like a busy subway train.
Armageddon-shaped holes along the ceiling.
The floor in the living room was warped in the middle.
The walls were burnt and utterly hopeless.

She was gone.

Wherever she was,
I was just going to have to be content
with that time her hands finally found
a place to relax in mine.

I left that building without a word of prayer.

It’s common wisdom,
but I still believe that any story that really hurts
just means you had a really good time at some point.

I guess I can take solace in knowing that.
I guess insight will have to count for something.

She sure was something to take in.
I can’t possibly ever say that enough.

01/30/2010

Posted on 01/30/2010
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