In his dream

The writer sits across the table from him in Rae & Jerry's and talks. He listens. He tries to play along. He's a bit in awe, but not to the point that you'd say he's totally out of his league. He's having to work hard though. A little out of breath. There are a few combinations that catch him off-guard, but mostly he spars well.

The boxing metaphor comes to him even though he's only seen it in movies, or read it in a few short stories. He knows that Hemingway did it, so when he wrote it, it made good sense. You could feel it. This guy's actually been in the ring. Actually swung and hit. Actually taken one on the chin. Maybe after a jab. Maybe the shot was hard enough to lay him out. Maybe it would have been enough to end the match.

But he hangs in there. Even tells one of his own stories. A genuine one. About his own family and the weird way his mom died. The weird way his family reacted to it. How it was a hard time for him, with a new job, a new wife (relatively), a new child. Still he had to host the extended family as they shuffled through his apartment, through his new and vivid life. As they spent their days in the hospital praying, and he watched them, detached and angry. Why couldn't they just let her lie in peace. Die in peace. His mother. Here they were when she was really sick, but otherwise they never came around. This was a real story, about how he'd come to hate what they'd done, how it had taken him some time to let go of the hate. Why he'd seen that hate wasn't much help for living. That's his story. That's what he believes. Still mostly he listens, and drinks, and eats the french fries - wondering why he'd ordered them at 11 at night.

The whole night hits another level when she walks in and stops by the table. She's a writer too. The two of them recognize one another and things get strange. Personal. Insider trading, and he's left without information. She's with a friend. She says she's her partner. She says she's taking a break from being a mom, a wife. She says they're just out for drinks. She says she has to get over the bastard. Out of the crappy place he'd brought her to. Out of those things with men. She's already drunk. She's already high. She doesn't know what she's saying. That's what he thinks. He's going to give her that. She knows what she says, but she doesn't measure it.

This is a rough patch for me, she says. I need time away. I could do without humans for about a month. Except for you of course, she says, turning to her friend.

In the parking lot they all stand and smoke. They glow in the Spring dusk. It's picturesque there, just East of the rails, the shopping mall squatting on the other side. They're talking to one another in knowing ways, so he's outside of it now. In total. Still, he smiles, standing there on the East side of the tracks, cigarette glowing suns setting, falling to the asphalt.

You're easy to talk to, the writer says to him as they turn to their cars and say good-bye, each getting in and closing the other out, to motor home down the avenue. The engines hum smooth. He follows a mini-van off of the lot and turns left toward the heart of the city.

Ride report:

in: -24'C wind 15 ks NW

out: -26'C wind calm