(no subject)
May 3rd. Emblazon the date in yr memory. [kerouac]
Robyn lay on my stomach this morning. She was naked from the waist down. And she was crying.
I gently patted her hair-- usually thin strands, but this morning matted in thick clumps and wet.
===
I am sitting in a plush purple armchair in Starbucks.
The dim light is more orange than white and falls thinly and unevenly across the room.
The walls are earth tones- light browns, ochres, greys- and I am glancing, every once in a while, at a girl- maybe a woman, but I can't discern her age, of course, and such distinctions as 'woman' and 'girl' are very subtle anyway.
I would sleep with her. I would give the entire matter, beforehand, little to no consideration whatsoever.
The funny thing about it, though, is that every man I have seen walk by has shot her a glance.
The eternal once-over. Every single man has glanced. From collegiates my age to old men. The old men are the worst. Their glances are furtive. Clandestine. Kinky.
That's where my stomach comes in. Churning.
Seeing her studying here, at this Starbucks, makes me think-- who studies at such a place? What kind of a person overpays at least five dollars for a cup of coffee, if not for the status symbol? Is she paying for the ambiance? Is she taken in by all this new age postmodernistic tripe on the walls- the minimalism of the seating apparati?
I keep fiddling with the top button of my shirt. It really is too highly placed to be anything less than awkward when buttoned, but the chest hair exposure, if left unbuttoned, is too powerful of a risk to bear.
She may be in high school.
Ruchit, earlier today, driving in the Austin sunlight, in the Texan heat, told me how he flirted with a girl he suspected of having been born too recently.
'Dude, I swear she's in high school,' said his Asian friend Nam, all muscles and gelled hair. 'Go ahead. Talk about college.'
And so Ruchit spoke of our shared collegiate experiences-- the lateness of papers, the anger of TAs, the midnight querulous rumblings of roommates in their bunks above you and the paranoia of it all, the classes and the assholes occupying seats around you and the borishness of professors-- and she balked.
She wouldn't know about all that.
She's still in high school.
But she's a senior.
--and Ruchit balked.
Amid the rush of road and thick block of highway sounds trying to force their way into the car cabin, I tell Ruchit, sparkles of sweat beading on his nose like he's been eating spicy Chinese: 'Ruchit. We have a saying amongst the greasy uncles of my family. 'If an eighteen-year-old girl wants to see the world: You show her.' '
And he laughed a throaty, loud laugh that crescendoed sharply as I told him my maxim.
===
There is a thin boned girl, of medium height and petite build, with black tousled hair pulled up into a bun high atop her head, who reminds me of Brittney Elko.
Brittney also had such tousled hair and would wear it in the same fashion. Brittney, however, had small, dark black eyes that turned upwards and got smaller when she smiled. Her eyes were set deep against her thin, almost gaunt, face. Her round head sat atop a very thin, almost unnaturally thin, neck, giving her a birdlike appearance from the shoulders up. Brittney was petite when first I knew her, when she was dating my brash lover of a brother, Gerald.
===
Gerald, I think sometimes, must surely be one-- or several-- of the more colorful characters of literature, lustful for further adventures and women, reborn to pursue those ends.
He is tall for a Latin man but short by most other standards. He has accumulated enough weight, though, to give his frame the appearance of squat. Also his fingers are fatter than the hands they're attached to. But other than these two things, the fingers and the squat frame, his body is well-proportioned.
===
She isn't for me.
It is simple as that.
She is for a football player of a man. He is home now, in the early evening, from practice. He feels refreshed after a shower, and he is having a beer with some friends and one of them, or perhaps all of them, are thinking about lighting a joint. Marijuana is not far.
Or he is with his current girlfriend, with her firm breasts, and he is sloppily kissing on her neck, hopeful, always, for sex.
Or he is fighting, or thinking about soon fighting with, a boy of similar size, disposition, and social standing-- whose parents know his own, who shares his common interests, such that they are, and whom he would otherwise be friends with, save for the utterance of a slightly offensive-- but overblown-- comment said to a friend of a friend.
And he will be a state representative one day, voted to office by other ex-football players. He will represent his football constituency with pride, and meet and marry this girl I am looking at, in this Starbucks. But that is perhaps ten years away.
===
And she gets up in her tight sweaters and her budding, tight breasts and knowledge of how I want to ruin her for everyone else, ever, in bed-- and she walks towards me.
I curse myself for not having an extra pen or a pencil, which I assume she is giong to ask for, when she does something entirely unexpected.
She asks if I'm a writer.
Yes, and she has soft, soft red lips that curve so evenly around her words and light strands of brown hair around her head, around her neck, her shoulders-- beautiful brown hair everywhere and an upturned eyebrown of interest for me, in me, I am.
My voice sounds shrill and nasal and weak against hers. And just to pound the contrast home, she speaks again, in her womanhood.
She asks what sort of things I write.
Great things. Silence. Amazing things. I am man. I am of the line of Moses. Of Mohammad. Of Cassius Clay. Of Elvis and Samuel L. Jackson.
'Fiction?' she asks.
'Yeah,' I answer her. 'Mostly fiction.' The meek shall inherit the earth.
She has a strong jaw that I only see, now, for the first time, looking up at her.
She prefaces whats to come by saying she doesn't usually do this, and smiling a toothy smile. I know before she even smiles, but when she does, I see that her teeth are gleamingly white, perfect.
She asks me if I want her phone number, to give her a call sometime.
And time stops.
Thoughts fill the void--
of dating, all late night movies and wine tasting parties and outings with mutual friends, and tea with her parents- golf with her dad ('Call me Chuck'), scrapbooking with her mother- a job, enormous and frightful enough, but portrait of her on my desk, in my cubicle, and marriage and congratulations, covert looks from every man, every boy who has ever masturbated, even Uncle Mikey, womanzing sleaze-bag of a life form, Uncle Mikey, and dancing to a song by Sting at the reception, blue light flooding the space all around us, as if the excitement and fear and nervousness and titlation all mixed together coalesced into a thick sunset sky blue fog--
and I think of the footballer and his constituency and his weed, and I can't take her away from from him.
And I think of my freedom, and my writing, but most of all sweet, precious freedom, and
No. I don't want your number. But thank you.
Robyn lay on my stomach this morning. She was naked from the waist down. And she was crying.
I gently patted her hair-- usually thin strands, but this morning matted in thick clumps and wet.
===
I am sitting in a plush purple armchair in Starbucks.
The dim light is more orange than white and falls thinly and unevenly across the room.
The walls are earth tones- light browns, ochres, greys- and I am glancing, every once in a while, at a girl- maybe a woman, but I can't discern her age, of course, and such distinctions as 'woman' and 'girl' are very subtle anyway.
I would sleep with her. I would give the entire matter, beforehand, little to no consideration whatsoever.
The funny thing about it, though, is that every man I have seen walk by has shot her a glance.
The eternal once-over. Every single man has glanced. From collegiates my age to old men. The old men are the worst. Their glances are furtive. Clandestine. Kinky.
That's where my stomach comes in. Churning.
Seeing her studying here, at this Starbucks, makes me think-- who studies at such a place? What kind of a person overpays at least five dollars for a cup of coffee, if not for the status symbol? Is she paying for the ambiance? Is she taken in by all this new age postmodernistic tripe on the walls- the minimalism of the seating apparati?
I keep fiddling with the top button of my shirt. It really is too highly placed to be anything less than awkward when buttoned, but the chest hair exposure, if left unbuttoned, is too powerful of a risk to bear.
She may be in high school.
Ruchit, earlier today, driving in the Austin sunlight, in the Texan heat, told me how he flirted with a girl he suspected of having been born too recently.
'Dude, I swear she's in high school,' said his Asian friend Nam, all muscles and gelled hair. 'Go ahead. Talk about college.'
And so Ruchit spoke of our shared collegiate experiences-- the lateness of papers, the anger of TAs, the midnight querulous rumblings of roommates in their bunks above you and the paranoia of it all, the classes and the assholes occupying seats around you and the borishness of professors-- and she balked.
She wouldn't know about all that.
She's still in high school.
But she's a senior.
--and Ruchit balked.
Amid the rush of road and thick block of highway sounds trying to force their way into the car cabin, I tell Ruchit, sparkles of sweat beading on his nose like he's been eating spicy Chinese: 'Ruchit. We have a saying amongst the greasy uncles of my family. 'If an eighteen-year-old girl wants to see the world: You show her.' '
And he laughed a throaty, loud laugh that crescendoed sharply as I told him my maxim.
===
There is a thin boned girl, of medium height and petite build, with black tousled hair pulled up into a bun high atop her head, who reminds me of Brittney Elko.
Brittney also had such tousled hair and would wear it in the same fashion. Brittney, however, had small, dark black eyes that turned upwards and got smaller when she smiled. Her eyes were set deep against her thin, almost gaunt, face. Her round head sat atop a very thin, almost unnaturally thin, neck, giving her a birdlike appearance from the shoulders up. Brittney was petite when first I knew her, when she was dating my brash lover of a brother, Gerald.
===
Gerald, I think sometimes, must surely be one-- or several-- of the more colorful characters of literature, lustful for further adventures and women, reborn to pursue those ends.
He is tall for a Latin man but short by most other standards. He has accumulated enough weight, though, to give his frame the appearance of squat. Also his fingers are fatter than the hands they're attached to. But other than these two things, the fingers and the squat frame, his body is well-proportioned.
===
She isn't for me.
It is simple as that.
She is for a football player of a man. He is home now, in the early evening, from practice. He feels refreshed after a shower, and he is having a beer with some friends and one of them, or perhaps all of them, are thinking about lighting a joint. Marijuana is not far.
Or he is with his current girlfriend, with her firm breasts, and he is sloppily kissing on her neck, hopeful, always, for sex.
Or he is fighting, or thinking about soon fighting with, a boy of similar size, disposition, and social standing-- whose parents know his own, who shares his common interests, such that they are, and whom he would otherwise be friends with, save for the utterance of a slightly offensive-- but overblown-- comment said to a friend of a friend.
And he will be a state representative one day, voted to office by other ex-football players. He will represent his football constituency with pride, and meet and marry this girl I am looking at, in this Starbucks. But that is perhaps ten years away.
===
And she gets up in her tight sweaters and her budding, tight breasts and knowledge of how I want to ruin her for everyone else, ever, in bed-- and she walks towards me.
I curse myself for not having an extra pen or a pencil, which I assume she is giong to ask for, when she does something entirely unexpected.
She asks if I'm a writer.
Yes, and she has soft, soft red lips that curve so evenly around her words and light strands of brown hair around her head, around her neck, her shoulders-- beautiful brown hair everywhere and an upturned eyebrown of interest for me, in me, I am.
My voice sounds shrill and nasal and weak against hers. And just to pound the contrast home, she speaks again, in her womanhood.
She asks what sort of things I write.
Great things. Silence. Amazing things. I am man. I am of the line of Moses. Of Mohammad. Of Cassius Clay. Of Elvis and Samuel L. Jackson.
'Fiction?' she asks.
'Yeah,' I answer her. 'Mostly fiction.' The meek shall inherit the earth.
She has a strong jaw that I only see, now, for the first time, looking up at her.
She prefaces whats to come by saying she doesn't usually do this, and smiling a toothy smile. I know before she even smiles, but when she does, I see that her teeth are gleamingly white, perfect.
She asks me if I want her phone number, to give her a call sometime.
And time stops.
Thoughts fill the void--
of dating, all late night movies and wine tasting parties and outings with mutual friends, and tea with her parents- golf with her dad ('Call me Chuck'), scrapbooking with her mother- a job, enormous and frightful enough, but portrait of her on my desk, in my cubicle, and marriage and congratulations, covert looks from every man, every boy who has ever masturbated, even Uncle Mikey, womanzing sleaze-bag of a life form, Uncle Mikey, and dancing to a song by Sting at the reception, blue light flooding the space all around us, as if the excitement and fear and nervousness and titlation all mixed together coalesced into a thick sunset sky blue fog--
and I think of the footballer and his constituency and his weed, and I can't take her away from from him.
And I think of my freedom, and my writing, but most of all sweet, precious freedom, and
No. I don't want your number. But thank you.