It’s a moment etched in the brain. It’s not wanted in there anymore, yet it insists to exist there.
Drinking till stupid didn’t get rid of it. Yelling and screaming at it doesn’t work much either. Writing about it endlessly doesn’t help much, but the pain seems to subside a bit. Talking to others about it just gets perplexed looks and uncomfortably bad advice.
Why this memory is so much more vivid than, say, that great night in Texas or the first time I kissed someone, I have no idea.
Instead, this one stays there. It’s just a short memory, but it’s awful -- me, driving my sister’s SUV. The smell of her dog everywhere. Her, standing there with no emotion on her face at all. Tears running out of me like ants attacking a dropped Push Up. Everything so bright as the late Spring sun is high in the air on Memorial Day in Florida.
I watch her stand there, making sure I’m not going to stop and come back. I watch the entire length of the driveway, finally reaching the road. I put the SUV in drive and go. Soon, the house is gone from view. So is she. The next 12 hours are nothing. I have one vague memory of the drive back to North Carolina. I remember making a phone call or getting one, I don’t remember which it was. My best friend who is an ex-girlfriend calling me or me calling her. I didn’t kill myself that day/night because of that phone call. Although I definitely thought about it.
Funny how that sticks. Two endings meeting up, but not allowing for another end.
Why fucking Dokken brings that one flooding back, I’ll never know. I guess the line “I told you I had to leave, I had my reasons. I said that it’d hurt to stay, the way I’m feeling.”
Eh. Whatever.
I could go grab a beer. Like I did so often when this memory flooded up my mind. Clogged it may be the better descriptor. Other things just don’t exist when that memory is there. Damn, has it really been four and a half years? What the fuck am I still haunted by that ghost for? Normal people don’t do that, do they?
Enough bad writing (including my own) has been dedicated to the longing that won’t leave. The longing that you think is gone when you find someone else, but when that person goes away, it comes right back. I guess I just need to find someone that’ll stay. Is that the key? Is that the solution? Is it really that fucking simple?
Probably.
***
“You fucking listen to this shit?” she said after my jukebox selection of “Dream Warriors” by Dokken started playing.
“I saw them live once,” I replied. “Still the loudest show I’ve ever been too. I couldn’t hear right for three days after. It was even on the local news just how loud the show was.”
“Still, this song. It sucks.”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t remind me of anything.”
“Well, that’s as good a reason as any. My name is Michelle.”
“Michelle, pleasure to meet ya. My name is Randy. Can I buy you a drink?”
“Nah, I’m waiting for my boyfriend.”
“Figures.”
“Why?”
“You’re the first woman to speak to me in three months that I didn’t work with or who wasn’t at a cash register.”
“It’s no wonder.”
“Huh?”
“Shave once in a while.”
“Cheers!”
***
Lights flickered in his eyes. Bright colors all of them. He felt a little heavy on the left side. Every bit of picked up medical knowledge told him he was either having a stroke or a heart attack.
But he had more important things to worry about. Mostly, the 14 hours left in his drive to New Orleans. He was depending on this trip to end some melancholy. She was depending on him to get her there. Basically, it was do or die, and maybe even do and die.
The lights stopped flickering after a couple of hours. The numbness in the arm about an hour after that.
“Survived another one,” he thought to himself as he guzzled some Dr. Pepper and ate a Slim Jim. Yeah, there was no reason to think, at 40, he’d be having those kinds of troubles. Just the mind playing tricks on him.
“Sure. But when the dick stops getting hard, that’s when you might want to get it checked out,” the sensible voice inside his head said.
“Not like I’d know,” he chuckled. Was that out loud, the definitely thought as he looked at her sitting in the seat next to him.
“You say something?” she muttered, digging around in the bag of cds he’d brought.
“Just thinking about my not having sex in a long time,” he thought.
“Nah. Just mumbling to myself.”
“You do that a lot. You know that?”
“Yeah, you live by yourself as long as I have, and you tend to not notice,” he said.
“I’ve lived by myself for most of the last 10 years. I don’t do that.”
“Well, I guess I’m insane. And you’re going to be a car with me for the next 15 hours. Buckle up!”
“Joy.”
I looked at her. Got a hard on.
“Ha. Guess, I don’t have to worry about that yet.”
***
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