in process... still needs work...

This guy calls me up & convinces me to leave my house on a Friday night. This is super rare because this is my favorite introvert night of the week. It’s practically sacred. But I said ok- it was almost like I was getting revenge on my loneliness.

It’s nearly Cinco De Mayo so downtown is lively & we end up at Cinnabar. It was filled with sharks fans, teal & black. I am horrified as I realize I am wearing teal & black. I have entered something I didn’t sign up for.

A man draws his legs between mine, constantly touching me closer, touching my thighs… I don’t even notice. I literally brush it off like a mosquito trying to land. Sensation registers, but something essential is missing. I have a compliment from this man, another from that man, another from that whose words trail after me to the bathroom & his eyes bear down the door long after that. I lock myself in hoping pupils aren’t laser beams & believing that comic books are lies- Superman does not exist so I am safe in here. That’s the bullshit I tell myself when I’m a shot of vodka & one & a half blue moons into a Friday nite.

As I walk out a skinny very good looking mod hipster shakes my hand “I’m Will.” He smiles. “What’s your name, Doll?” I miss being called Doll. I miss it so bad I wonder if I should just give him my card on the spot which I never do. But another man stares me down & grabs my waist & my gut and mind are left suspended over the pool table & I am off on a walking adventure.

“Now that you are full of alcohol, what would you like to do”? Id like to curl up in a hermit crab shell and be safe I think, thank you very much. I’d like to hide in that pool table pocket until 3am when the people have gone home & the cops have finally arrested every last Mexico Flagged vehicle on S. First Street.

I sigh.

I link arms & I say “I need to walk or eat”.

Why not? It's a Friday night- I really should play along. Let’s be honest, it’s that or a DUI. I think San Jose cops get paid commission per ticket the week of Cinco De Mayo.

I’m quickly cold, quickly annoyed that I must exchange sexual innuendo for bodily warmth. Where is my shell? Is it hiding in the gutter drain? Is it hiding in a burrito?

I pass Azucar. They’re playing banta. I stare at the awkward steps which don’t speak to courtship as much to a certain determination to prove something.

“Yes, this is the step. Yes, I dance like THIS.”

No you don’t, I want to say.

I am curious about their drive to prove something, but I don’t think tonight’s THAT night to ask questions. I don’t really understand why people celebrate Cinco de Mayo in America & for that reason, it’s usually best to just shut up until I can go home & google or phone a friend. In each step I see people trying to be something they’re not for someone else who’s not in the room. I see stern bouncers protecting something that looks & sounds silly but sacred.

Greek dances are silly too. Celtic riverdance take the cake. I’m not even sure the Norwegians dance. I am hodgepodge of territories screaming from one side of my blue veins to the other side of the red ones.

Maybe that’s why people dance the way they do at clubs here- just rub up against each other- get to the point. Someone has work in the morning.

“Everything ok?” he asks. He doesn’t really want to know. I sigh. I’ve done it again- lost in thoughts that I need to dumb down.

“I’m freezing. My body feels so cold!!!”

“Awh, you fragile thing”. If only he knew.

“Let’s just eat something” I say, dodging.

So we eat quesadillas. I don’t give a shit about any of it. Even though his legs are directly against mine & I feel that he is trying to be good & control the uncontrollable, I am his gate keeper. He thinks he holds the control but I know better. I just happen to not give a shit. Game over dude, sorry. Apathy wins again.

He walks me to my truck despite my best maneuvering abilities, mostly because there is a sea of fat people waiting to pay their parking tickets. I don’t know what it is about the really obese- especially about several of them waiting to pay parking tickets.

I can tell he wants me. I know at least 3 other guys want to screw me tonight too. It’s comical that they think something so intimate is detachable- lies. All I feel is the cold air & I want to go home to my hermit shell & take my apathy where it doesn’t affect others.

When your heart has found the other half of its heartbeat it’s hard to convince it otherwise. I’m too old to lie to myself- too tired of swimming upstream.

Perhaps happiness is paid for with the purgatory of the doldrums.

Pink

I hear it shatter & its smell slams against my nose standing in the long bathroom line before I see it:

A broken bottle of bright pink opi nail polish on the bathroom floor

The door opens to me & I feel like I’ve won the golden ticket.

Apologies spill out of the stall, heels tiptoe around neon glass.

I stare & stare & stare at the bright pink gloss splattered over microbes, dirt, bacteria, tile, urine.

Beautiful.

I don’t want to leave the stall. I stay longer than I should- there’s an understanding about how long a girl can stay in a public stall if she’s not changing clothes.

I want to take the floor with me but it’s not mine.

I unlatch the lock & give the next gal in the bathroom line a giant smile.

She wrinkles her nose at the pungent smell, then her eyebrows wrinkle at me.

I smile again. “Look!”

I hope she sees. I hope I’m not the only one- it’s lonely.

I close my eyes to freeze time. This is the smell. This is pink.