mulch pit, chapter 2

I patted Lucy on the back. “Hey, I gotta talk to this one,” I said as she frowned at me.

“Why this one,” Lucy said, emphasis heaving on the this. She’d watched me turn down woman right and left in this place. “Throwin’ that pussy away!” as a friend of mine said to me at my 20^th high school reunion after I’d turned down a parking lot blow job.

It wasn’t the right time to tell Lucy about her. The woman who took out a rusty screwdriver and plunged it into my heart one night. On the phone. I was weeks from somehow finding a way to propose to her, finally taking the step neither one of us had been able to, but wanted to. At least that’s what I thought.

Instead, one night out of the blue she dumped me. And other than two trips to Florida – the first to try and save it, the second to pick up the scraps of a life – I hadn’t seen her since. And she’d made it pretty damn obvious that she didn’t ever want to see me again.

But there she was, standing by my favorite barstool in the world – since the passing of Nick’s on 2400 Tulane Avenue – with that same damn look in her eyes that made me melt way over a decade ago.

“Hi,” she finally said. “Can I sit down?”

I wanted to say “Fuck You!” and turn around. But I knew I wouldn’t do it. She knew I wouldn’t do it.

“Sure.”

As she sat down I noticed how much skinnier she was than the last time I saw her. But hell, I weighed about 60 pounds less than then too. She had taut calf muscles now. Something she never had before. She also had that cucumber smell. She’d left behind a bottle of that soap she used the last time she visited me in North Carolina. I never thought twice about until she was gone for good. Then I used it, very small dabs, every day. Until it was gone. I told myself when I started that I’d be over her when it was done.

That was the first of many things I did that I said to myself when it was over I would be able to move on again.

It all ended with me masturbating naked in front of a mirror with a gun in my mouth. I was even using a cookie monster hand puppet to stroke with. I’d say that was rock bottom.

More so than when I called my mom with four bottles of pills emptied out on my coffee table/foot locker. More than when I was sitting at a truck stop on the side of I-10 wondering if what was west was better than what was east. Way more than when I told my therapist that I hated the fact that all redheads reminded me of her. They still do.

But now, she’s in front of me. Smiling.

“You look good,” I say with no confidence at all.

“Thank you. You too,” she replies. But I know other than the weight, it’s not true. My hair is gone on my head, growing out of every other spot on my body now. I have early signs of diabetes and my muscles have all but disappeared from living a mostly sedentary life now.

I take a swig of my now warm beer. I figured she’d be the one talking, but she’s not. I order two Shiners, handing one to her.

“Thanks,” she says, drawing on it. “You remembered.”

Ha. I remembered. Every damn time I drink one of these things, I remember. I don’t even like the taste of Shiner. It has a soapy aftertaste that always bothered me. Until it was a way to feel connected, no matter how sad that was.

“Yeah. It’s my brand now too,” I said.

I watched her sit there. She was nervous. And I didn’t understand why. I was nervous, but I’d been building up this encounter for years now. More years than we were actually together at this point. Way more.

My calculations told me this would happen in Virginia. Either on the streets outside where she works – which of course I knew, but not because I sought it out, but because a friend of my best friend worked with her – or at some random place in the Washington, D.C. area. Hell, many times while driving by Arlington Cemetery I thought about stopping at her father’s grave. That went all the way back to when I was going to propose. I took a photo of us there, placed it on his grave and asked for his permission. I left the photo and always wondered if anyone took it away. If she did. Hell, I sometimes doubt she ever went back. Career in hand and all. All she ever wanted, I think.

I looked over a Lucy. She was staring at this redhead. I wondered what Lucy thought of her. I wanted to feel what she was probably feeling. Hatred. But I never could, and certainly couldn’t at this moment.

Finally, I leaned closer to her and looked her straight in the eyes.

“Why are you here?” It was the question that had to be asked. And surprisingly, I didn’t have a clue what I wanted her to say.

“It’s about us,” she said before taking a very long and deep breath. She exhaled and just as she was about to speak again, a loud crash sounded out behind us at the front door.

I couldn’t help but wonder what it was, but my eyes were glued to her. But her eyes were not on me anymore. They were petrified. And looking straight at the door.

I turned around, and didn’t want to believe what I saw.

St. Patrick's Day

“What are you doing for St. Patrick’s Day?” she asked with a smile.

“Working, like always,” I replied.

When I chose to be a journalist, back in the glamour days of the early 1990s (Ha!), the thought of never having holidays off, being dirt poor and single never crossed my mind.

Some days I wish it had, others not so much.

But hindsight is a bitch and life is for living. Every day I try to remember that. Keep plodding forward instead of looking backward. It’s tough, and many times needs the help of an alcoholic beverage. Except on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s been a long, long time since I had one of those off – except for the year of unemployment, when I actually had two.

There was this girl I dated, she liked to think she was Irish. She wasn’t. Yeah, she had red hair and pale skin and was full of sass. But what she wasn’t was Irish. She was German.

I do miss that gal, though. She was the world to me. Until the day she decided I didn’t try hard enough. Or she didn’t care enough. Whichever. See, there I go, following the downward staircase instead of taking the elevator up.

I watch the girl who asked me about St. Patty’s Day walk away. A few months ago she was 30 pounds heavier and unhappy with her life. Now she’s sexy, and I believe still unhappy with her life. You can shed the pounds, tone the muscles, get a higher paying job, but those things don’t fill the void. That’s up to you, my friend.

The pollen covered my car as I got ready to leave for work. My allergies are funny. They don’t bother me too much outside. But inside they’re a bear. It’s probably the mold that this place has. And the fact I don’t dust. I saw my stereo today before playing some music to get me out of my mind funk and it was slathered in dust and God knows what else. I wiped it off with a pair of dirty underwear that was lying on the carpet and put in a CD. The notes and words and beats just keep me going. For someone who is tone deaf and completely too lazy to learn how to play an instrument, music really keeps me going.

I was lucky enough to go to Ireland last year. My best friend and his wife paid for me to tag along with them. It was a bit of a strange trip, but I fell in love with the place. Much better than the UK, for sure.

If I could be anywhere today, it would be there. Out in the middle of nowhere in a country I am not from, surrounded by people I can understand when they talk. I didn’t see too many redheads while I was there, which disappointed me, but was told simply I was in the “wrong part” of the country.

Maybe one day I’ll have the money to go back. It’s sad that I have to be saddled by that problem. It’s self-created, so I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’ve never done enough to pay off the mountain that I have. I’ve made small gains every so often, then I get a woman in my life and I forget what I was doing for a while.

The stink of the morning is a funny thing, too. I like it when it’s cold. Hate it when it’s warm. I’m the complete opposite about the actual weather, though. Give me a hot, sweaty, sticky day over a cool, breezy and damp day any time.

“You sure you don’t want to play hooky with me?” the girl asked me after we bumped into each other again.

“Darling, I’d love to, but duty, as always, calls me …” I trail off a bit at the end.

“You’re in the military? I thought they didn’t allow facial hair like that?”

“They don’t. And I’m not,” I replied stroking my soon-to-be-shaved beard of about 10 inches in length.

We smiled at each other and she kept walking away. It’s a different perspective. It seems I’m always the one driving or walking away at the end. Looking in the rearview mirror at what I’m leaving behind. It’s enough to get you down if you let it. And I have let it.

I know one thing, I will have a beer before St. Patrick’s Day is over tonight. It may be hellishly awful to go to the bar later. Everyone will have had their “drink on” for the entire day and I’ll be just off the road. But damn, sometimes you just have to do the right thing…