Tuesday, September 20, 2011


I said goodbye to him a few times and even kicked him out.


At the top of the apartment stair where my bare feet stuck to old linoleum he yelled, I have friends around here.


Who? Then go there, I answered.


The front door banged and I sat down, feeling lighter and hopeful and I poured a drink.


Hours later I smeared tears off my face and caught my profile in the mirror. I didn't look like someone who was going to be yelled at anymore.


I edged through dancers writhing with booze and loud music and saw him at the bar. Concerned now and feeling guilty, I went to talk to E. and he turned away.


A day later I was with a friend and said we split. We're done. I didn't think I could but I did and it's done. The words are already out.


Oh, he said.


I went to my bar, also E's bar, and saw him at the jukebox and he was looking at me.


Long night on Dave's couch, I asked.


I wouldn't do it to you, he said.


That was the first split, but I didn't kick him out anymore. One night he woke up caught in a coma of Johnny Walker and soda and peed on the mirror. I cleaned it up and shoved him in bed. In the morning he poured cream in his coffee and asked if I wanted to ride out to the flea market.


His eyes looked bad, tired and old and his hair sat flat on one side where the sun slapped harsh light against his boozy face.


Why did you pee on the mirror, I asked?


his aunt died and left her house to him and he still lingered in my apartment with his recliner and the TV, not budging without me. Around him were dents in the rug where his sofa had been and a TV stand. Everyday something disappeared while I was at work. The closets were full of hangars and grit. The bathroom shelves bare down to their rusty bottoms.


I stepped across the living room and looked at E with his remote and low volume, and not looking back at me.


E. Are you waiting for me to come with you?


I guess.


I am staying here.


Visits to his house after that were awful, except for one morning that is the coldest day I can remember. Starting up the Celica was tough and sunlight skipped across fresh snow so frigid its flakes were a white, flat powder under a deceiving sky filled with a buttery sun. Wind pushed a fine mist of snowy grains in the air and I looked at his bedroom window but didn't see his face.


At work M called me. Sobbing, she said, your boyfriend just hit me. He reached in the car and smacked me.


M? Why, what happened?


I guess I was late!


She sold him his fix, and most of his paychecks went to her. I never realized how bad his habit was, or how dependent he had become on the small plastic bag with white powder trapped and tied in the corner. But I knew he didn't like waiting.


Just leave there M. Don't talk to him again. Don't answer his calls.


He threw me around his living room one afternoon in the spring and I was done for good. This one isn't on you, he said. It's on me.


At a benefit party a few years later he told me he was sorry, but I think he knew a different kind of end was coming. I couldn't feel it, a few days before Halloween with a drink in my hand, but he saw dark shapes that waited for him in the shadows.


Cancer took him a few years later and last summer I got a message that E had died. I looked for his obituary, never expecting to see that he was really gone. Across a field of uneven stones and a mausoleum under repairs I found his name etched on a plate that was set in the grass between his father and brother. Goodbye E.


For some reason, the past is on my mind lately.


As summer lets go of the air and an early fall brightens the asters and goldenrod, I march through a field chasing my dog. Looking at my past I realize I couldn't see here from there, or even imagine it.


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