Looking Out His Dining Room Window

He asked for a back rub.

She was hesitant, but she gave him one. 

He leaned forward and she sat behind.

The late autumn light was gentle, golden and then rosy, as it set across the marshes behind his house.

He began to cry.

She could feel it through his thin ribcage.

He had always been on the skinny side, but now he seemed only made of bones. And lies.

His back seemed like the surface of a delicately designed drum; each sob reverberated.

She let him cry it out slowly.

Hiding it from her.

Finally letting go, and for too long.

She would remember that for the rest of her life.

She let him cry too long before putting her arms around him.

She loved him too. From the beginning, from the legend, from the arrogant man she could never master. And the clever adversary.  Her partner on stage.

Happily ever now.

She stroked his hair. Thin and balding. 

Like the reeds in the marshes outside the window.

As they held each other, they remembered everything.

And through the night, they did not let go.

Chasing That Old Dragon Down

He woke up, hungover, staring at his windshield. Which was covered, on closer inspection, by throw up.

He had vaguely remembered the night before, standing over his engine, banging on it with a wrench, literally.  The gig last night was terrible, lonely on stage, lonely in the audience. A gay bar, where nobody even showed interest in him.

He missed her.

She had an uncanny knack for giggling when confronted by signs of trouble.  They had been driving through a downgraded hurricane. Endless rain, bad visibility, hydroplaning. And then a flat tire. They stood by the side of the road, laughing at the lack of a doughnut, of a spare tire.  As if they were at a comedy fest.

Last night, he was depressed, drunk, and unable to escape in his broken car. Unable to figure it out. He seemed to remember having the door open and the transition into a more secure space by closing the door. It may or may not have been at the same moment of the man who got sick.  Mercifully, that moment was part of the black out.

He saw a pay phone and scrambled for a quarter, which in his car was impossibly difficult to discover.  He got her voicemail and begged her to show up at his house when he got home next Tuesday. Which was still an optimistic prediction.

The words of love and honesty that she always wanted came too. After the quarter dropped. Always too late.

She didn't show.  It was part of one of many times that she had stopped contact with him. One of his many lies or infidelities. He was gripped by a longing for company. And his mind kept going to her.  And he was willing to make up from whatever last fight they had had.