"On meee way ." she texted to me after my third bourbon.
The bars on the windows reflected back the tits constantly displayed on the television above the bar. Young people with bad tattoos and shabby clothes shuffled in, throwing down crumpled dollar bills and taking off bike helmets to run cold water through the hair. The east side of the city was a good reminder of why it is dumb to have hopes and dreams.
Stay positive, I reminded myself.
Be Zen. I said, swallowing bourbon.
I was on the back patio and I could see my bike. I had left the tail light on. It was already close to dead. I watched the red wink at me across the dark street until my drink was gone and I decided to finally turn it off. As I walked out I nodded to the bouncer and I approached my bike just as she arrived in a black and red dress, shinning like a million bike lights riding towards the sun.
The bouncer waved us through as we walked back inside and I bought her a drink. We went out back to the peer through the iron bars into the street where we could see our bikes and talk about ourselves.
She had biked across the country in the opposite direction which I had driven years before. Maybe we had passed each other, one headed east the other west. She was having adventures and solving problems. I was running from problems and looking for adventures. I had come up empty once I arrived in Oregon.
She had wanted to go home in Chicago.
We both persevered, and ended up on the same softball team one summer.
"Tell me a story." She said.
I only know sad stories. Terrible stories. Stories where the hero ends up with his head on a stick, or the two lovers both die without even holding hands. Real life was never a happy ending--everyone ended up buried, but it was the wit that mattered. It was the story.
I'm pretty sure I told her about how I passed every drug test I had ever taken.
But it was probably something closer to the lines of a seeing eye dog slowly going blind.
I look in at her as she tells me about her job during college. I try to dive into those eyes like the from the roof into my apartment pool. I'm pretty positive both with cripple me, if not leave me dead.
I lie and tell her I have written twice as many books as I actually have.
When we play foosball, we lose the first game but win our last. It is a sweet victory beating two drunk fools. We hug afterwards, and I hold onto it--an exhausted swimmer grasping the edge of a boat in a sea of alcohol. A sea in which I have drowned so many times.
We move on to another place that has bars on the windows. When we sit outside at a table, she decides to sit next to me. Our legs brush, and I can see every individual strand of hair on her firm arms and every smile on her lips. Right before I kiss her, a woman comes over and talks to her as though they had loved each other at some point, and I understand.
She kisses me back. After she takes a sip of water, I take the cup from her mouth and replace it with my lips. We are the shameless fools sucking face in the middle of a public place. We are chapter 1 in another story I will know, and I hope that it does not end sadly or les jeux sont faits or with the two lovers dying not even ever holding hands.
One of Shakespeare's best lines is, "I cried to dream again." But dreaming is only worthwhile when reality bites.
On the walk back to our bikes, we hold hands. My head swims pleasantly, and I probably say something that reveals how much I want every minute. That I want her whole life.
We kiss again once she unlocks her bike. She calls me a gentleman. She calls me handsome. I tell her to let me know if she is bored the next day. Maybe we can go outside and play. It sounds foolish coming out, and sounds even dumber floating in the air. She smiles, and rides away with her black and red dress flowing behind her like the wake of the ocean, leaving me vulnerable in the street as I try to get my light to work before I ride home.
