I need to get going. My car needs to get dropped off at the transmission shop. I need to do it. I gotta go. But let me—just let me talk about this girl I saw yesterday. It was sort of warm. I was south on El Camino looking for a place that sells fresh plums. And rubber necking all over. Headed south, right. I’m driving and, brother, shoot an arrow through my heart. Fuckin’ kill me ‘cause I wanna die with this as the last thing in my head. I see this girl, right. I mean, goddamn. Just kill me. I see this girl riding her bike—old Schwinn, purple or blue—she’s riding but sort of stopped. She’s riding in some sort of figure eight. She’s looking southways through a honkin’ big pair of sunglasses. Forehead to nose sort of thing. She’s not close but I can see she’s got one of those nice noses and mouths. She’s got her lips colored some sort of red. Not real red, but like an orange-red. Goddamn, they were dick- sucking lips if I’ve ever seen them. Thirty feet away I’d say. Her hair was flat and limp-like, like at the beach. Whole thing was like being at the boardwalk when I was a teenager. This girl’s tanned as milk and coffee. Dark hair’s streaming along behind her back and she’s got on not much of anything. Black straps-type thing up top and shorts as short as the tops of her legs. Kind of girl you might say’s got bird legs and she’d get angry over it. So she’s in her figure eight and pedaling in this dreamlike way and looking so damn pretty that I got all twisted up and like nothing would be good again unless I had her. I turn around at the closest U-turn and she was gone. For one last look, you know. I get to my motel and call a girl over for a couple of hours. Still thinking of bird legs and lips. The girl I called shows up and she’s nice, but I stand up and she puts her purse down. I give her the money and she asks right here and I’m nodding, yes, here. She smiles in that fake sort of way so I close my eyes and then I’m back on the street with bird legs and it’s just us. She’s got her big sunglasses on. The sun’s shining off her shoulders and her thighs. It’s all so bright that I block out the shine and I’m just feeling the warmth of her mouth. I’m letting her come at me but then my hands are in her hair. It’s like the man is gone or something. I just want to feel all the way inside so I’m going at bird legs harder and her eyes tear up through her glasses somehow until she pushes me away to catch a breath. She’s got those shorts that she takes off but I just tell her to stay where she is. And those dick-sucking lips, brother, they shine brighter than anything when I put myself back inside and hold her flat beach hair until there’s nothing left of me but sounds I can’t conjure up outside being there with her. I think of her riding home on her bike and tell the nice girl I called that she can go. I give her more before she leaves. Anyway, I really gotta take my car to the transmission shop. I’ll see ya ‘round.