rinue | Friday

[I wanted to post this as a wav, because it really ought to be heard aloud. Hell, it really ought to be seen in person, but that is highly impractical. Instead, I decided to just post it as text so that it would still be something approaching breaking news. The actual recitation took place on Saturday evening -- or rather, early Monday morning -- for Chad, Ciro, and Valancy, after a poetry open mic at which we were all brilliant. (It was later repeated in an abridged form for Patrick.)]

I showed up at 8:20 in rolled up jeans and a white lace shirt that bares my arms and the small of my back. He answered the door, which I wasn't expecting, and I probably looked as stunned as he did.

"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, only he said it "hey."

"I didn't have your phone number," I blurted. The truth is I could have gotten it easily from one of a number of friends but I hate talking on the phone, especially when it counts. I'm a visual person, and I have to be able to see how people are reacting to what I say; I never call people unless I already know them well enough to guess their expressions. I didn't say all that, just "I didn't have your phone number." What can I say; I was nervous.

"Oh," he said, staring down at me. He's tall, if I haven't mentioned. Really tall. Really really tall so I don't even come to his shoulder and I'm left at eye level with the hollow of his throat. I blither onward.

"Have you ever had a song stuck in your head?" I asked. "I mean really stuck up there so it's all you think about even when you're thinking of something else because you're thinking in rhythm. And of course we all know that the way to get a song out of your head is to sing it start to finish, only you don't know the words and so it's just going to stay there forever. And you don't even know if you like the damn song because you don't know the words. I've had to deal with that for the past two weeks or longer . . . only with you. Do you . . . want to go get some coffee?" [heartwrenching pause]

"I can't," he says, impossibly tall and black-haired and blue-eyed and looking at his shoes, the tree, anywhere but where I'm standing, except in glimpses so brief that I'd miss them if I wasn't staring. "I'm about to go out with my brother's friends, and I can't. I'm sorry."

"No," I swallow, "it's okay. I put you on the spot. It's my fault." I don't say that it's been two months, not two weeks, and that I expect to run into him everywhere, am terrified that I will.

"You didn't call," he says.

"I know," I say. "I'm sorry."

"It's just that I already have plans."

"I get that."

"I am sorry."

"No, really, it's my fault."

"I mean, they're inside and everything."

"It's all right; don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry," he says.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"Yeah," he says.

"Yeah," I say.

I cannot tell which of us is more terrified by the other.

We stand together awkwardly, watching the lighning bugs take their fifteen minutes. Somebody tries to open the door from the inside to see what's keeping him; he slams it closed with the heel of his shoe, unsure whether to pass it off as dramatic or nonchalant.

"Really," he says, "I'm sorry; it's just that I'm going out with my brother's friends. . ."

"It's okay; I didn't call."

"No; I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"Let me. . . Do you have a pen and paper?"

"Paper," I say, the weakest trine of Roshambo, and he's running inside to get a pen while I'm standing on the porch with a joker in my back pocket, a wild card that stands for the two of hearts. He returns, writes down ten numbers, and flies back indoors with a "call me sometime next week" and a final "sorry." [pause]

So basically I'm going to have to reprise this ordeal later, over the phone.

I hate making phone calls.