between here & the cold beer & wine store

* the church *

july second is my best friend’s twenty-second birthday. i’m walking downtown past the shops & historical landmarks that interrupt the streets between home & the reynolds cold beer & wine store, lookin in all the holiday long dark windows, closed for the weekend.

lloyd, sitting idle on a concrete bench outside the church, hails me to say a thing or two ‘bout his girlfriend:
she’s forty-five & she wears
her shorts too tight. but that’s alright
by lloyd.

barb’s got legs! he says.
when he says “legs” he draws it in this weird combination of excitement and reverence, like laaayeggs!
have you ever checked out those legs?
i have, but it seems like creepy thing to do, checking out middle-aged body parts. so i just raise my eyebrows a little, as if to say are you kidding me?
(it’s not an outright lie, only
a sleight of the eye)

barb’s growing indifference has got him constantly sinking into a drink. she takes good care of him and all, she just isn’t all tangled up anymore.
she used to sneak out of bed in the morning to brush her teeth, and then sneak back in to knock on my morning wood. –
i look at him and cringe, but when his cup runs over he starts to spill.
- i thought it was real cute, y’know. now she doesn’t brush’em ‘till she’s on her way out the door. stank breath all morning long. jesus, that woman’s got a foul mouth!

i imagine climbing onto lloyds swollen tongue, and sitting in a pink cave while the fermented tide rises higher and higher. his tongue swells thicker and thicker ‘till i’m crushed against the roof of his mouth with a lung full of pilsner.
my therapist used to say that my suicide fantasies were dangerously unrealistic.
i don’t really know what that’s supposed to mean.

outside of lloyds mouth
i listen to the carpet of empty cans
chiming at our feet.
i turn my face to the highway across the river. this town is so small. the mountains are like walls in a round house. there are only four ways out: highways 12, 97, and 99.
or the river.
all lloyd wants out of life is to be as close to barb as he possibly can, so the smallness suits him fine. if he could move mountains, he would call them together until it was just him & barb pressed on all sides & nearly suffocating as they exchange bad breath. maybe if i had someone to suffocate with i wouldn’t want out so badly. i think about telling lloyd this. but he hands me a twenty & says he’s thirsty. can i bring him something on my way back.
you’re alright, gurl. his words pat my back as i’m walking away.

i don’t really know what that means.

* the reynolds hotel: cookhouse restaurant *

in the cookhouse window
facing main st., he was looking up just
as i was passing the glass & that
was that.

it was one of those moments. y’know, the overdone moment that appears in every-other movie, novel, & love song:
point-five seconds of pure chance when a glance
is just a glance, but it feels
all explosive & cosmic & shit.

meanwhile, he’s probably just sitting there thinking that i’m a creepy local, peering into restaurant windows, & prowling for tourists. that’s the thing about communicating in glances, it’s hard to tell if it really translates.
so i blush, dust
myself off,
& continue on. past the restaurant & the pub, to the hotel lobby/beer & wine store.

* the reynolds hotel: cold beer and wine store *

the double wooden doors are pretty heavy. i heave the left one open & slip into the air conditioning.
barb shoots me a smile from behind the counter. her mouth is full of brilliant white bullets. i think, poor lloyd.
i cross my arms & lean on the low counter-top. my ass is projecting out rudely behind me. i settle in, a good listener with no advice to give.

the liquor store is bored, & barb
has a story ‘bout her boyfriend:
he drinks in the middle
of the day & talks to strangers passing
the cement bench where he parks his ass
all afternoon,
just so he can drive her
home after work.
(better wear your seatbelt baby,
i’ve been drinking about you all day long)

i hand her the twenty. he wants a refill
she thanks me, rolls her eyes, & wrestles the cash into the back pocket of those tight shorts i told you about.

hey chance, she calls as i’m pushing open the door, you’re alright.

* the reynolds hotel: re-cookhouse restaurant *

swinging a brown paper bag
extension of my right arm

& in the window facing
main st. he
is reflecting back
stepping out & wiping some mayo from his face

when his shirt becomes the sleeve
on my bare arm
& my calicoloured skirt
paints shy on his leg ,
my hand is a band-stand
& the rum comes undone.
the sidewalk sucks the busted bottle dry.

he bends / i bend & we smack our heads. he exhales a stifled grunt / i inhale my own surprise & the leftover taste of his french fries.
he retrieves my bag full of broken pieces.
you alright? he asks, & sticks out his hand.
we cut ourselves on the static, and the mountains start closing in . . .