9:05 p.m.
I found her in the back of the crowded bar, sitting with a man I’d
never met. The music was a gasoline lake—stagnant and dull like
muskrat piss. Customers stood three rows deep at the bar, passing
beers over their heads to cover orders made from behind them.
7:04 p.m.
The moon shone over the walnut trees and the stars popped like
bubble wrap. I sat outside listening to the hawks chasing rabbits. I
drank coffee and smoked a Tatuaji. The smoke drifted off in swirls,
swishing into nothing, seeking the vulnerable defect of lunar incandescence.
I hoped we were the same, she and I, separated just like
stars—or perhaps because of the stars—inside, ready to dance the
dance of indignation and embrace the incalculable options it offered.
9:09 p.m.
“Who’s this?” I asked, motioning to the man at the table. There
are people in the world who aren’t afraid to get in a cage with a wild
animal. They go in and they don’t take whips or chairs or any protection,
they just go in. I tried to act like one of them.
“Whatever happened to hello?” said Claudia.
“Hello,” I said, “who’s this?”
The man sitting at our table stared away at the crowd of people,
oblivious and uninterested. He had the words “High Times” tattooed
on his left forearm and each “I” was indicated by a drawing of a joint,
but they looked more like tampons.
“It’s a busy place, people have to sit somewhere.”
“I thought we were going to talk.”
“So talk,” she said. “I’m right here.”
“How are you?”
“The night is young. It’s too early to tell,” she said.
