Echo

Everyone Loves a Dirty Sanchez…

Brian handed me his rent check a few days ago and said, “I went easy on you this month.”

I looked at the check and under “For,” he wrote, “September Rent and Dirty Sanchez.”

I laughed. “How is that going easy on me?”

Brian says, “They won’t know what it is. And if they do, they’re a dirty mutherfucker.”

**************
So usually I don’t care because I deposit his checks at the ATM. But I had to pay back my cash reserve this month so I had to see the teller. When I walked in, it was like deja vu (see Wed June 23rd Post ). So there’s the cute college boy teller that I always flirt with, and he’s smiling and shyly waving, and I’ve got a check in my hand that says it’s for a Dirty Sanchez. And I have a pretty good idea this kid will know what it is, and he looks like a good kid, too, a mama’s boy (my favorite type) who’s gonna think I’m a big, fat whore. So I’m sweating it out, contemplating waving the person behind me through if his window gets free first, but I don’t want him to think that I’m purposely avoiding him, and I’m so pissed at Brian and I wish I had anticipated this and deposited the check at the ATM and just come back some other time to pay back my reserve. Dammit. I was lucky enough to get the other teller while I chatted over the partition with college boy. But honestly, Brian. You’re killing me.

Oh I forgot about one detail. I was depositing a check for a Dirty Sanchez and $800 in cash (from Vegas). That’s why I thought this all looked really, really, really bad.

Women…It Is NOT Okay to Socialize in the Restroom!!!!!

There’s an Asian girl who works in the office across from mine. She’s in the same office as Hot English Guy Who’s At Least 10 Years Older Than Me (See 5th Post from Friday Jan 30th ) . So I’ve become wary of her because every time we see each other in the women’s room, she chats with me. I don’t mean a simple, “Hi. How are you?” as we go into the stalls. I mean, she’ll lean against the sink, and chat while you’re in the stall. Now I come from the school of thought that if I don’t know you, you should only be speaking to me in a public restroom if: a. You need toilet paper; b. You need a pad or tampon; or c. you’ve set your hair on fire and you need me to open the door so you can dunk your head in the toilet. You do not, however, stand outside my door and ask me things like, “So where are you from?” “How do you like working at your office?” “How do you think Kerry’s gonna do in the election?” GOOD GOD. LEAVE ME ALONE.

So I’ve taken to a defensive strategy. If I happen to glance out the window and see her heading to or from the bathroom, I go to the bathroom after she’s done. If I walk out the door and see her on her way to the bathroom, I hurry back into my office and hide until I see her walk back to her office. This has been a successful strategy for over 4 months. But today, I ran right into her coming out of the bathroom. Her face lights up and she says, “Oh! I haven’t seen you in here for a while! I thought maybe you’d quit your job or something!”

I’m embarrassed and scared because I’m worried that she’s gonna stick around and follow me in.

I tell her, “Oh…you know, it’s been SOOOOOOOOOO busy and I just don’t have time to go to the bathroom.”

She looks concerned.

So I continue: “Yeah…usually I just hold it all morning and go at lunchtime when I head over to the mall, or I just wait til I get home. Usually I just forget I have to go. You know…you try not to…think about it too much.”

She’s looking very concerned. “You have to be careful. That can’t be good for your body.”

I say: “Yeah but, you know, when you’re busy, you just forget to do things. In fact, I just remembered that I haven’t eaten all day!”

I’m starting to get creeped out because I worry that we’re heading towards a conversation about the health of my bladder, so I excuse myself as she’s in mid-response and luckily, she doesn’t follow me in. Yeah, I know. Maybe I’m being mean. Maybe she just likes me because I’m Asian too and she wants to be pee buddies. But please, woman. I don’t know you. Don’t talk to me in the bathroom. It’s creepy.

(An excerpt from my mystery writing project. not to be confused with my supernatural mystery script. it’s just a project i’m not telling anyone the details about. 5 particular people, on one particular day)

i can see you through the wall. you are small and curved and fit well in the palm of my hand. but i would never try to trap you like that. i would only breathe in your scent and let you wander through your own mess that you’ve made, tantalized by your willingness to make the same mistakes. tonight i went through all the old clothes in my closet and tossed out anything that looked like something you might wear. because it was too much that i may be turning into you. but please, enough about me. what about you? where has life taken you in the time since you ceased to live with the dying? you think you’ve risen to a new place that erases all memory of a past? well, don’t think twice. because i’m coming for you. and by the time i get there, you will have forgotten what it was that you thought you had.

**************
seventeen days before the end. and i can’t stop drinking coffee. you would think i would be able to rest but this whole maelstrom of mental activity makes me want to vomit and piss at the same time, to get as much of my insides out onto flat surfaces for me to examine. don’t throw up on the carpet, she said. it’s a bitch to clean up. but i’ve done it already; she just hasn’t found it yet. saturday morning will have me on a bus back to newport but it’s still friday early morning so i have time yet to set right all that’s fallen through the cracks and rotted. yes, the morning depends on me getting past the night. today it’s a little gunshy and the blackness feels resilient. true true. but there’s enough for a person to do in the dark when he’s spent his lifetime digging a bottomless tunnel.

***************
I’ve never found a single thing to believe in and here I am, sitting in line, waiting for a visit into that back of the hall examination room and I think in one morning, this morning, my life will fall apart even though some shell of me will continue seamlessly. I have not left anything but it is all leaving me. Dying is just a tunnel. Falling. And when you realize there’s no bottom, that’s when it’s time to panic. The smell of morning usually refreshes me but today it makes me sick. Today something in me will die and today, I will be the one who killed it. But it should have known. It should never have tried to seek the support of someone who’s been dying since the moment she was born.

****************
Fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. fuck you fuck you fuck you and all your fucking friends who blow out snot in the bathroom showers and piss all over the rim. Fuck you for not looking me in the eye because you think I’m a motherfucking faggot when I know what you want and I know who you are and don’t try to hide it from me because I know it’s all there. you think you’re better than me but at least I admit to what I am and you walk around pretending that you’re something else when you know that you’re as black as me on the inside. I AM black. You’ll feel me one day and you’ll know you should have never fucked with me. FUCK. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK.

***************
I walk into the empty hallway and see that someone has already wiped up the mess that the cops left. An investigation is almost always messier than the crime, but I’m just elated that the crowd is gone. I never liked crowds. And the echo of silence has always carried me through the time it takes to get to the ending of a new beginning.

this is not an angry poem (seriously)

on the first
of october i will mail
you what’s left of me after you
walked out six years to the day some
hair a few teeth the ashes of pictures long since deceased
and a whole lot of grievances
that don’t come cheap that i’ve
collected for you into something
familiar like a sixty pound
(leadhearted)
rubber band ball