Girl of My Latest Life

Told the gal at the pizza place "you're an extremely nice person, so if you are smart you will not get involved with me. I will fuck your world up." She was sitting in a parking lot, resting her eyes. She had just hung up her cell phone. One of the heartbeats of California's semiconductor industry, still engineered on the West Coast and made overseas.

"Why do you talk to me that way, if you are so fucking nice" she said.

I said "Because its true. Not the way you might think, I will never hurt you, just run you crazy. It's the fucking truth."

"Really?"

She looked over at me and then away. This was a nice girl, very nice. So I said "All I am good for is fucking. I do it with whores, I do it with anyone who says okay. Okay?" She starts crying like a Les Paul, and says "You are so mean to me."

"How? I am warning you. You just don't want to get involved."

"Involved? Involved? I just got out of a 13-year-long relationship with a guy who just couldn't get it together. He had the attention span of a fly. Then I meet you. I thought about you, how you usually are, you are nice and then you come up to me while I'm out here in this damn parking lot, and you haven't shut up since I said 'Hi". You really come on too strong."

"Too strong?" I said. "Shit, baby."

She said "I already did. Was the first time I had the chance to sit down all damn day."

I said "I really thought we had a chance for something...someday." She got this blank look and says "You are crazy, do you know that? You know, I ought to go out with you. Except I got to go to a wedding this weekend, then help my daughter with color charts."

"And where does that leave me? I'm spending this weekend the way I spend every night. Drunk. But you won't be there for me and so there's no reason for me to act like an idiot."

"Is that what you do on dates? Act like an idiot?"

"I'm good at it". And I have been a good friend to you, or tried to. Forget it. But there's no reason for you to get out with me, no reason to miss the show. No reason for me to act the fool because there is not an audience."

She got out a cigarette, and we sat on a curb, hoping the law doesn't stop us for being out in public without going shopping. More often that happens in Rollywood up the road. The police around here have bigger problems and smaller budgets.

"Baby, you know, there's no place to run, no where to hide your tampons, because you have a life. I don't have what you'd call a life, but I survive and like the way I do that, so therefore you should not be hassled while you live and do your job. It's your livelihood and you do it well. I realize you can't seem to separate yourself and people around you from trouble. That's fucking life. You gotta do what you gotta do, but it makes more sense than being a nowhere dude."

Looking out at the monoxide sky, beautiful sunset with fantastic hues of magenta and gold, the girl of my latest life bites a nail.

"You are a nice guy. When you come down, when you CALM down, you are a nice guy to be around."

"But? You will go back to that other guy, the one you've been away from for two months or two minutes. Then where will I be?"

"I can't believe you", she said, not looking at me. She did believe me, because it was the truth. I laid down my arms, reaching for half a cigar.

"Well sugar, there is one guy in the immediate area who does believe. I never have anything I want, because I am not horny enough or hard pressed enough or skilled enough. It is not even about the sleeping together."

"My problem is I spend less time listening to my heart than I spend listening to my mouth, or listening to experts on You2b or on a blog explaining how to be an idiot most of the time. I let other people advise me on what I want. When you and I could be sitting on a park bench, enjoying a soft drink and watching someone else's kids enjoy their fleeting childhood."

I only wanted a date. Everyone who is male thinks a date is the world when it's a short term project. Maybe it can turn into more, but let's lie like broccoli, and let the future take care of itself.

We walked back to our car. There was a breeze. She looked at me standing beside her car. My own car was a few feet beside me. She tossed a paper back romance novel into the back seat.

"Get in, she said." I got in. I was not casual about it, I did not act like I would eat her alive. I just opened the door to get in.

"I want us to be friends" the woman said.

"O.K. I said. "Is there anything you want right now?"

It happened..I am so fucking old, and have been kissed so many times, yet that...feeling. It is so damn good, and I feel this sensation all over me. I know. It sounds crazy, or hyper, or silly, or high school, or something. I kissed her back, not hard, just to let her know I meant it. Like I hoped she meant it.

"You should not have done that, but I'm real glad you did."

She put an Altoids in her mouth and gave me one. Then we kissed again.

"Now your life is turned upside down again, isn't it?" She said it like she always knew.

"Fuck you" I said, laying my head against the head rests.

"Stay away from those women up the road, and something else might happen. Something better, and definitely different. Just give me time."

"Do you mean the ones who only stay an hour?"

..

There she goes, I thought, the one with the mind as open as a Wyoming sky. Yeah, this was one for the books, I thought as I watched her drive off. It was near dusk.