It was about noon and the sun was alone in the sky. I’d just moved back to town. I walked through the gate to Amy's yard and her dog, Lou, walked around the side of the house to greet me. We shook hands and said hello and agreed it had been too long since we'd seen each other last. Lou loved all of his friends and all of his friends loved him, I was no exception. He was wearing baby booties on all four paws. On a later occasion, I'd asked Amy about it and she said she had broken some bottles in the yard and she didn't want him cutting his feet. Easier than picking up the glass I guess. I wouldn't have even bothered, I'd have just let him stay inside and shit where he'd like. Everything's better at your own leisure anyways.
"I need a damp washcloth, it's too goddamn hot," I told Amy as I walked across the lawn. I had a cigarette in one hand and a Seattle Weekly in the other. She was standing, with a smile on her face, in the doorway of her old, mustard duplex.
"Jesus Christ... you're a haggard bastard… a skinny, haggard sloth... it's incredible." She'd always talked loudly and she constantly apologized for it. She said it was from years of studying theatre.
"I know—I can't help it. Don't think I enjoy myself." I was somewhat out of breath. "I need your bike. I can't walk everywhere. I'm just not cut out for it."
She said I could have it and we walked into the house. She told me she had a rack and saddlebags, but that I'd have to put them on the bicycle myself. She knew I probably wouldn't actually put them on the bike. And she knew I probably wouldn't even ride the bike. I just wanted to be able to get around while I was fucked up. It was good in theory I guess.
I followed her through the kitchen and into the living room. Her house was small and decorated with cheap antiques and friends' artwork. I sat down on her couch and surveyed the living room. She had torn up all the carpet and painted the hardwood floor red with gold stars. She had dilapidated plastic dolls lying around everywhere and a bowl of some sort of fake blood she'd concocted was sitting on the coffee table.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I asked her.
"I buried these in the flower bed awhile back and I dug them up this morning." She paused as she bent over and sorted through a stack of pictures. "I've been photographing murder scenes with them. Here’s a murder suicide." She handed me a polaroid of two dolls, both missing their head and one missing its legs, both with fake blood oozing from their wounds, lying beside a doll-sized bathtub, wishing they were back sleeping in the flower bed. I picked up a doll head that was sitting on the couch cushion to my left. I told the doll head, Amy’s from Texas, some small town in the eastern half of the state, but I have forgotten where exactly. I told the doll head, I’m as scared as you are and if I run for the door I’ll bring you with me. The doll head said, I feel more comfortable with you around, and I told her, I love you but you better not count on me.
"Jesus, you're fucking crazy," I said.
"You don't like it?"
"You're sadistic."
Amy laughed as she exited to the kitchen. I'd missed her laugh while I was away. She had a hoarse, communicable laugh. I hoped when we became the next people we'd become that she'd remember me making her laugh. I wished we weren't fated to become these next people at all, but we were young and you live and you learn and adapt and move on and hopefully you remember.
She came back in with two glasses of warm whiskey, I'd guess it was Old Crow, but I can't be certain. I can be certain they had no ice. We agreed that we hated the ice clanging against our teeth—we'd sacrifice coldness for accessibility. We drank and smoked and laughed and acted like I’d never left. She played me albums her friends' had made and I told her who they sounded like. If she disagreed with one of my references I would act like I was going to burn her with my cigarette and howl, “Don’t refute me, bitch!” She would squirm and I would laugh.
Around 4 o'clock we got in her car and drove off. She’d wanted to show me an antique barn she’d recently discovered. We headed north on I-5, driving several miles, passing green, rolling fields and small farmhouses, behind a compact car from the early 90's. Its driver wanted to eat local vegetables and free Tibet, among many other great things I can't be certain of. I told the driver, ok, fine, yes, we think you're great. But you still believe in God, don't you?
When we arrived, Amy and I got out of our car and I started to whistle the theme from Papa John’s pizza commercials. We walked on the dry, yellow grass toward a large barn we had seen from the freeway. The long side of the rectangular barn that faced the freeway read: TULIPS, ANTIQUES, & ALPACAS. Adjacent to the barn were alpaca pens. I’m sure tulips were also around. We entered the barn to shop.
“I wish that I wore glasses,” I said, as I looked through a basket of old eyeglasses.
“Why don’t you?”
“I have 20/20 vision,” I replied. “It’s a goddamn burden.”
“Just get some non-prescription lens.”
“I’d never wear them.”
We left the barn without buying anything. We leaned on the fence and watched the alpacas. We didn’t say much, just watched the animals. One of the alpacas came up to the fence and I fed him straw. I told him, I’m going to take you to the ocean and the ocean will make us feel stupid and dull and feeble. But I think your genius all of the time. And god loves you, of that I can be certain. He walked away from the fence.
“Will you take my picture?” I asked Amy.
At the farm there had been a wooden stand with a family of alpacas painted on its front and holes cut out where the alpacas’ heads would have been, for tourists to take pictures as alpacas. I stuck my head in one of the holes and became an alpaca.
“What a cute alpaca,” she said and snapped a picture. She handed me the polaroid and we drove back home.
Back at Amy’s, we sat on her porch, drinking and smoking and gazing out into her garden. She had fountains and sculptures and doll heads sticking up between flowers. My favorite was a quiet catholic nun. She had a cross hanging from her neck and a bible—in which Amy wrote fuck—in her hands. I asked the nun, do you think it was a mistake? Or did he just flip heads instead of tails? Can you tell me? I need someone to tell me. I can’t ever be certain on my own.
Curtains, I'm certain these musics are somethin', Better than brick-batter, bric-a-brac, maudlin, Thus, fine amigo, here's APpreciation, for letters/notes, guitar chords, slight elevation.
