I could not find a comfortable position for my neck and I do not think that she slept much either. We got off her wine-stained mattress four minutes after the alarm went off, stumbling over the jackets and paperbacks on the floor. I would have thrown that fucking phone 55 meters into the neighbor’s yard, but I saw that she had already blown out the candles. The shadow by the door disarmed me. I might as well follow her.
“Do you have a lighter?” I ask, aiming to balance out the damage from last night.
She hands me a steel zippo from her weathered canvas bag.
It is still dark outside but I hear the dispassionate cars and their defeated drivers turning south on i-95. Nobody lowers their window on their way to the morning shift but I imagine the radio’s volume increasing. There would be a little coffee thermos rattling in the center cup holder as the desperation to clock in meets the desire to swerve into a streetlamp.
We sit on the doorstep, ignoring the imbalance of electrolytes in our blood systems. Apparently, the morning breeze took a day off because our hair does not move at all. Instead, the static humidity melts our faces in place. I fidget with the spark wheel and smile at the pack of raw papers in my left jean pocket.
“We should go to the beach,” she says. “I haven’t been this week.”
“I’m down”
She stands up and I smile at her. Without the sun in my eyes there is no need to squint. I see her jaw loosen a bit. She seems relaxed, or just tired. I tell a stupid joke, she half laughs, and we get into her car.
It takes me two deep breaths to remember where I am. I lay my head back and recline the passenger seat. She jams a Janis Joplin CD into the little slot. The British motor groans. She rips into the first corner and I lose all the progress I made in restoring my vestibular sense.
Dizzy as fuck, I reach into the back seat and grab our shoes and my gray Jansport. For some reason it is legal to drive barefoot in this country. I take out my mason jar and grinder. The sun will be up soon so I have to roll in transit. There are some cops on patrol but they are too busy harassing landscape workers at this hour. I grind up the bud and roll using her iPhone 12 as a tray. If I focus on this hard enough maybe the day will turn out alright. 4 songs later and we are at the parking lot. My hand shakes a little but after seven flicks the lighter starts.
We catch the sunrise as we walk onto the sand. Only the naked wellness mothers and half-marathon junkies arrived before us. We walk and pass the J up to the rocks by the pier. She climbs on the first one and steps over each crack and crab hole with certainty. I want another hit so I set my stuff down and continue after her. Each rock is still a bit cold and the moss makes my feet feel like they are slipping on semen. In my head I was following her through la plage de sainte-adresse.
After enough American Ninja Warrior, I stop to think about how I have to leave tomorrow regardless of whether we got to have our final argument. It is not in the Google Calendar or anything, but I know that at some point she will yell at me.
On the final boulder she jumps into the ocean. It was more of a front flip but I do not want to make her sound like superman either. The little waves push her back towards the shore.
I dive in after some time and try to touch the sand. The pressure builds up in my ears and my lungs flatten before I push up to the surface. The water wakes us up and we swim for a little. This bigass ocean becomes more like a fish bowl. We swim away from each other but are pulled back together by a need to not offend.
Back on the rocks, we lay down and go back to our topics of conversation. Did you see the new pope? That reminds me of when…! Everyone hates that…
Even today, when I am sure that I love her, it does not really matter what we say. The chat does not achieve much. She is unimpressed but considerate. I am a bit high. We are two fingers on the skinny left hand of a kid who got a piano for his birthday. He presses one key and slams on another. The sounds make no sense but they are motivated to find each other. Every note is a fantasy.
I should have stayed on that rock and let the water erode me into sediment. I would be remembered much more fondly. Anyways, I have to go. I write in the culture section of a newspaper. It is as oxyfuckingmornic as it sounds. However, the ability to not have the ‘Open to Work’ banner on my LinkedIn keeps me punctual. I am Sorry.
“Dominick is on my dick about the art heist piece. I’m sorry, I gotta go,” I tell her
“No one reads that shit,” she says
“Well”
“Just come to Bouffer tonight. There’ll be music and we’re hosting the after,”
“Bet. I need the distraction”
“I am not a fucking distraction”
I believe that she is right. I laugh a little and go back to the sand where my stuff is. The comfort of a proper morning wears off and everything seems more hostile. The discarded cigarette ends and Dorito bags mark the path back to the road. The condos look like paramilitary watchtowers and my hair is sweaty as fuck.
I call someone who I knew would also be running late.
“Yo can I get a ride”
“Where are you?”
“The Beach”
“I’ll let you know when I’m 5 minutes out”
“bet”
This guy shows up in his blue Ford with paper plates. I get into the passenger seat and we kind of just laugh while he takes us to the office. He works on the business side of the newspaper which means that his job is to make sure that dead people continue renewing their subscriptions. He also decides the placement of the boner pill ads on the website.
I do not believe in what I do. That is why I do it well. We walk into our little office and open our respective computers. There is nothing happening in my email and the Heat lost last night. Every source is either unwilling to comment or twelve years old. I think about yesterday and this morning and our lack of sleep. After a little, some words come together and a little article with it. At least I’m not getting fired on my last day.
The working day’s 3 pitch meetings and 800 words of mediocrity pass. I feel guilty about coasting but I just want to leave. It is late and I have to cross the city to meet her.
I walk out of the office and stare at the metro above my head. People walk by and I try not to judge them. No jokes will be made about the amount of white button-up and Veja shoe combos out there. Tonight, I will be a little less of a dickhead.
For the first time ever, the metro was there on time. I get in and make eye contact with a sad chef or restaurant guy. He sweat through his shirt and his black pants still have flour on them. His burned right hand scrolls on his phone while his left hand lightly grips the pole. I walk past him and never think about him again. Everyday I see a different chef or restaurant guy.
I get off the metro and walk to the bus stop to get to the bar she told me about. The breeze reminds me of two days ago. We were driving through an intersection with the windows down and the car perpendicular forgot to follow the conventions of a red light. My family would have gotten a fantastic life insurance payment if we were not going twenty miles over the speed limit and therefore, out of the trajectory of mr.colourblind. The whole day was lighter after that near miss. Every joke was funnier and neither of us complained about the weather.
The bus is taking a while so I rewrite this memory for a little longer. I add details about my clothing and what she said to me so that the night seemed more interesting. Then, the bus and its charming exhaust arrives.
Inside of the bus I start to regret meeting her. I could be working or sleeping. The foggy windows conceal the skyline. My favorite building is out there and nobody in here can see it. Tonight and there are no moves for me. What else can I do?
It is a fuzzy fucking feeling walking into a jazz bar an hour after wrestling with the thought of slicing someone open with an old machete. I walk through the outdoor seating and wave at her friends. They censor their conversations around me, but fair enough.
She had saved me a spot on the couch to the left of the piano. They put molly on the charcuterie board and everyone does a line. 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine is uncommon in this city but we do it to remind people that we have other friends. She grabs my arm and I close my eyes again. The old musicians yell to plug in the small amp. It is too late. I cannot tell what song is playing but my eyes crack open.
I did not tell her how pretty she looked until it did not matter much. Someone’s ten thousand ships crash into the waves around us and we get up to dance. Everybody wants to read about tan lines or chipped red nails. My hands tremble even though the music does not sound that good anymore. She laughs about how much we change around each other. I am so happy to hear her. All we could do was drink the Titos-based concoctions that remind us of being 15 and ingest the microplastics from the dissolving solo cups. She is tired of looking at me.
It was time for a period of serious drinking. Everybody wants to buy another bottle or bite down a fireball shooter while cartons of Marlboro Golds rip open.
From the time of 12:45 pm to 3:34 am our presence is unaccounted for. After whatever the fuck happened then, I know that we left together and went to Vale’s house to see her pool. The Honduran Uber driver asks me where the best place to watch the fireworks on the fourth of July would be. I hope that I gave him the right directions.
Naturally, none of us make it inside the pool. With all the adverse effects of pretending to be Keith Moon showering over me, I end up hunched over some hedges. I expel around a liter of fluids and bile. The skin on my forehead turns into a concrete sheet and my skull drops like a Minecraft anvil against it. My esophagus is now the barrel of an M20 rocket launcher. I am so focused on this moment that I do not hear the vicious sounds. None of this hurt. For the three minutes that I was on the wrong side of life, nothing was bothering me. For how faded we all were, it was quite chill.
She rubs my back as I regain my vision. We giggle at my condition. She starts to joke about how long of a day it has been and where things went left. I wish that I had the vocabulary to say something smart or endearing but I was glad to see that we were alright. Naturally, the adrenaline wore off and her biology caught up. We switched positions and she starts heaving. I hold her hair back and copy her lines. Three minutes later, I guess that we are even.
Without a calorie left to expend, we do not have the energy to do much except sit the fuck down. Maybe the time on that grass, two feet from the puddle of our vomit mélange, was the opportunity I needed to change my mind. But, I think we both knew that this was not a cosmic sign. A bit later, she grabbed onto my shoulder and our bones fused together for a second.
My life slows down. With a heart at 30 beats per minute I start to think about how she will look in the morning. Neither of us will have slept well and she will get out of bed before me. I see her purple sweater disappear as she blows out the candles and all the tension in my neck releases.
“I need to talk to you,” she says.
“Yeah, let me grab us a cup of water”
I wish I would have gotten her that cup. If I would have held on for a second more, we would be on those rocks by now. Instead, I walk through the patio glass door, grab my bag from the dining room table, and bail through the front door before she has the chance to raise her voice. In that glittering moment, I knew I could not stay. I order a Lyft to the gas station at the end of the street and walk over.
There would not be a final argument nor an Oasis comeback tour. I had to get away even if it was to nowhere better. With severe inhibitions to my autonomic nervous systems, I get in the black Lexus and put on my headphones. I try to pick songs that are not romantic but she is in every fucking chorus.
Then, I walk into the loneliest goddamn airport terminal. Nobody makes eye contact and all I do is hold my forehead until the steel ship arrives. I was the sailor praying for storms so that I would never reach the shore. The morning fog outside of the window makes it difficult to see the ocean below. Thirty-five thousand feet below, she walks onto the sand as water crashes into the naked pier.