The first time is when we meet in the bar by the power station where you can hear them buzzing during a smoke. The gravestones sit in the dark lot across the highway and the jazz is terrible. Inside it’s people in their thirties ready to give up, and then further along to the ones who worry about comfortable living. The fog rolls into hills of this phantom zone between San Francisco and who knows what the hell down there. He sees me alone, my mistake. When he offers himself like a boy raised on gruel I politely accept. He kisses my shoulder after the jazzies are gone and we’re sliding on a wet fender. He fucks like five years ago. It feels good in that kind of way.
When it’s supposed to be a memory he finds me again. I work the customer service counter at Ross a month or more after that. Again, my mistake. He grins and I don’t know. He tells me hello and I still don’t, I need help. It’s not busy and I wish and pray for a tracksuit with a pleather purse to come my way. You’re someone I know, but he uses my name. Name remembering frightens me. He tells me he didn’t get my number when I didn’t give it. It’s, I don’t. Here. He says okay, me. Nice to see you again. He says nice. I don’t. It’s over quickly and it’s more dead than before him. I go home and suck a pipe until it feels less dead even if it’s not. Then it’s coffee at a special bookstore he told me to drive to. Special for a Barnes and Noble might mean two floors.
We ride the escalators together. He never asks me if I like books even if I do. He likes The Catcher in Rye. I think it’s horrible and really childish. Polls don’t support me but I tell him it’s in my opinion. It’s a debate he wants. I don’t want to. He moves hair behind my ear and now I know this it. This poor person. He’s too deep in everything. The last time is when we’re sitting on this wooden bench at the mall next to the Barnes and Noble. He’s unhappy when I tell him. He doesn’t even try to keep himself inflated. He stares at the water and the tall potted palms on the four corners of the tile pool. The waxy floor is a kind of vinyl they can lay out like carpet. It’s white and beige spotted with little black streaks that will never come out. The sun is hanging down in strips. This is a life I could do without while he keeps his sad face at the pool. I tell him it’s just pennies in a well.