rinue | Translucent Skin

[This entry is in much the same vein as the last one. In other words, I am falling into the journalist's snare of infatuating, (and I use that as a verb). "Look at the bright side," says Chad. "It makes for good entries, and it's what your readers want to hear about. Besides, it's the primary focus of your life right now and to deny that would be dishonest."

Shut up, Chad.

In any case, here is the entry.]

He is even harder to reach on the phone than I am, which is saying something. I must call seven times that day, and the phone just rings, rings, rings.

The seventh time, he picks up.

"It's Romie," I say, "the chick who ambushed you on your porch a few days ago. Do you want to get some sidewalk chalk and sit on the curb telling stories about the people in the phone book?"

"Okay," he says, and I show up an hour later with bubble solution in hand.

"My God," he says. "You were serious."

"You got a better Idea?" I challenge. "This is Richardson."

He sighs. "I need a drink," he says.

I agree. Strenuously.

We wind up at Denny's.

I have been boycotting Denny's since the late 80s, not out of any objection to the franchise but because their commercials began to annoy me. The "Lenny's?" campaign shall forever live in infamy; with the proper venue, I can go on rants that last an hour or more.

Somehow, I no longer mind so much.

For the next two hours, we chat about nothing, shot through with moments of intense self-loathing -- his, not mine; he does most of the talking. If you watch his magician's hands flicker across the table, you miss how exhausted he looks behind them.

If you let me, I want to say, I could be the best thing that ever happened to you. I could lean against you in the early morning, brush my lips across your slim wrists, and ride in your car without flinching. I could eat salad and cook you veal; I could smile when you are silent; I could fight off the wolves that run through your dreams.

I could love you enough for the both of us.

Instead, I eat another french fry.