Just an illustration of. . . I don't know. It's never a party until you see the pooper. You can quote me.
I had an up and down day. I don't know if I can make it interesting, though. Should I just report in chronological order or should I try to be clever? I don't feel very clever this morning. I didn't sleep well. When I got back to my mother's house yesterday, the a.c. wasn't working. Piss, shit, fuck, goddamn. It was the same problem as always--clogged drain lines. I thought I had found the solution to that--bacterial cleansing. Turns out not to be the silver bullet for which I was hoping. I did a few things and eventually the drain pan emptied enough to let the float switch come back on and we got a little air. For a bit. Then not. Then it came back on. It was possibly the hottest day of the year, so I get it. By bedtime, though, the a.c. seemed to be working enough. Still, I was anxious all night and kept waking to see if it was on. Later this morning, I will go to the Home Depot and buy a shop vac. I will try to do what the a.c. repair guys do and suction out the gunk. I have some other plans for clearing the lines as well. I'm not good at this stuff, though, so. . . .
But that was the down side of life, and the middle since my mother didn't want to go to my house to sleep. I think the a.c. will work until it gets hotter today.
Yesterday, though, I was to have lunch with my pal, Red. She had taken a room at the hotel on The Boulevard owned by one of the women you've seen in my photos of France. But when I got up yesterday, I had a text from Red--3:49 a.m. Oh, my. She was sitting on the balcony drinking wine. O.K. I texted her mid-morning. She was going back to bed. I told her I'd text later in the afternoon to see if she was up.
I got my mother set, then went to my house to take a walk. I went on the shorter walk not down The Boulevard, but in the opposite direction through the 'hoods. I am not home so much and haven't done that walk for awhile, so on my stroll I saw a number of people I know who I haven't seen for a long time. People are nice. They smile and wave and say hello and maybe wonder how you are doing. I saw a woman who used to be best friends with my ex-wife. I hadn't seen her for a few years, so we stopped and chatted in the shade of a giant oak tree. Life goes on. I don't know how close she is to my ex-wife now. It didn't come up. But she used to be a chubby thing. Now she is slender as a vine, and I hardly wonder if she is doing peptides. Everybody is in this town. The collective loss of body fat could fill a stadium. I may be the only fatty left. I work out every day, but I still look like Robert De Niro.
Q said, "Maybe he works out every day, too."
So it goes.
Red was finally mobile around 1:30. I found a parking spot and limped on a few blocks to the old hotel, struggled up the stairs, and knocked on her door. I had my camera ready when she opened it. She wasn't quite ready, though, just out of the shower, hair in a towel. I poured a glass of wine and began listening to her tale. Apparently, I wasn't the only one she stayed in town to see. We had to get moving, though, for I had only a window of time.
As we walked down The Boulevard, she took my arm. Isn't that something? She said sweet things and didn't mention Rober De Niro at all. I don't know if I have mentioned this to you or not, but I have become a little touch averse in the last few isolated years like those Greek babies in the orphanage I saw in an old documentary black and white film so long ago. I can't find the one I remember that was the follow-up to this one, but if you are interested:
The Symptoms: The footage explicitly documents the physical and emotional decline of babies deprived of human touch. It shows infants who completely waste away, drop drastically in weight and height percentiles, and become entirely "touch-averse"—withdrawing into corners, avoiding eye contact, and showing rigid, unreactive body language.
I am sure this is what has happened to me. But Red was sweet and kind and we wandered to the end of The Boulevard to sit at the bar of a busy restaurant. The bartender was a card and the time passed too quickly. Oh, Red has tales to tell, and I tried, but my voice was hoarse and gruff from not speaking so very much anymore. By the time we left the bar, though, it seemed to be working again fine. I think some of my social skills were returning, too, as I joked with the barman and later with a very attractive shopkeeper in a store selling tallow products.
But here's the thing. Earlier in the day when I was on my walk, in the distance, I saw a tall woman in a long, attractive dress putting out Open House signs in a front yard. I tried to pick up my pace so I could see her before she went inside. I know, I know. . . creepy. . . but I was walking uphill and can't increase my pace any longer anyway. And here's the curious thing. She seemed to be stalling. She was placing the last sign in the soil and it just kept disappointing her and she would move it, look at it, and I swear I think she was waiting to see me, too. As I approached her, she looked up and smiled. Down, really, for she was what my father used to call a tall drink of water, and she was young and lovely. Her eyes sparkled blue, and she had a tiny hoop in one nostril. "Hello," she said as I walked by, and I swear I could not meet her gaze. I managed to say, "Hot," and she stopped and began talking about the heat, but I couldn't believe she was really interested in talking to me, a fat, limping, sweaty man, so I kept walking and held my hand up goodbye.
I felt the same with Red. I didn't want her to look at me, but she did, and she told me I looked good and last night she wrote "How could I almost forget how beautiful your eyes are?" I told her she was a flatterer and worse than A.I. But that's Red, always my pal.
She told me a story about her parents at lunch. They were professional bowlers for a time, Fred and Ethyl, and they were friends with a couple who were older and had no children, and when Red was young, she used to go to their house to hang with them. When she was home just now, they found the woman's number and called her. She is 93 years old now and her husband is dead. Having no children, she lives in her house alone. Her friends have all died.
"It is sad," said Red.
"Uh. . . I won't live that long, but that will be me."
"No it won't. I'll take care of you."
I'm not sure if she meant she would put me down, but either way. . . .
I left her on the Boulevard as she went for a coffee after three martinis. I returned to the a.c. tragedy at mom's.
Now I must attend to breakfast and get to the Home Depot. My mountain buddy is going to come over and help me with suctioning the a.c. Fun times.
Remember that country song I posted the other day? It has a video that goes with it. Damn, I think this girl is trying out for a Taylor Sheridan series. It is quite a video.
No comments:
Post a Comment