She took me by the collar of my T and pulled me forward and pushed the Mobil shirt down my arms.
-I don"t care.
I lifted my arms and let her pull the T off.
-And, you know, all joking aside, my b.a.l.l.s still really hurt.
She tossed the T over her shoulder and it landed on top of her dress.
-I"ll be gentle.
She reached for my belt.
So.
She wanted to f.u.c.k. And get it over with. Who was I to say no?
A very little later, while she was on top of me, not being gentle at all, the earth moved. It was only a small earthquake, but it made us both laugh. And, finally, I reached up and took the sungla.s.ses off her face, and I could see her eyes, so very red from all the crying.
And a little later after that, she had them back on.
-He hated my smoking.
I held the lit cigarette for her as she pulled her leggings up.
-He smoked like a chimney when I was a kid.
She picked up the Mobil shirt from the floor and put it on and took the smoke from me.
-Thanks.
She put it in her mouth and started b.u.t.toning the shirt.
-But he stopped and was one of those cla.s.sic ex-smokers. A pain in the a.s.s.
She found one of her shoes and sat back on the edge of the bed.
-I mean, I don"t even smoke that much. And when I smoke at the house I only do it on the deck or in my room.
She put her right foot in the shoe and started lacing it up.
-Anyway, I was there, this was during a Christmas break when I was in college, a few years back, four or five. Before I graduated and didn"t know what the h.e.l.l to do with a degree in art history and moved back home.
She bent and looked for the other shoe.
-There it is.
She pulled it from beneath the bed and put it on.
-So I was at home, on break, and we"d stayed up together watching It"s a Wonderful Life It"s a Wonderful Life or something, and I"d been smoking a lot because we were having some Christmas cheer together. I was standing with the door to the deck open, blowing smoke outside. After he went to bed, I stayed up to watch something else. or something, and I"d been smoking a lot because we were having some Christmas cheer together. I was standing with the door to the deck open, blowing smoke outside. After he went to bed, I stayed up to watch something else. White Christmas"? White Christmas"? I don"t know. But I cheated and snuck a cigarette inside. Didn"t finish it though. I don"t know. But I cheated and snuck a cigarette inside. Didn"t finish it though.
She turned, facing me, left foot tucked under her right thigh.
-And I was a little loaded so I forgot to put the ashtray back out on the deck. And in the morning.
She leaned and snagged her jacket from the back of the chair and reached into an inside pocket and came out with a small journal.
-In the morning I came down and found this.
She opened the journal and flipped some pages and pulled out and unfolded a deeply creased sheet of notepaper.
She handed it to me.
FROM THE DESK OF WESTIN NYE.
WESTLINE FREIGHT FORWARDING AND TRADEWhen I was smoking (in the 1970s) I learned that when returning to a partially smoked cigarette, you should put it to your lips (before lighting it) and blow your breath out and through it-thus removing most of the foultasting residue that you would otherwise be drawing into your mouth on your first "drag" after lighting up.With love, your father I handed it back, and found my T on the floor and pulled it on.
-Did you crawl into a closet and bang your head against the wall?
She stood and went to the door to the bathroom.
-No. I laughed. He didn"t mean it to be funny. Which made it funnier. Which was kind of his style.
She fiddled with one of the b.u.t.tons on the old blue gas station shirt that hung to tops of her thighs.
-I keep thinking there"s a good laugh in his suicide somewhere. But I haven"t found it yet.
She ducked into the bathroom, the taps ran, she came out with her cigarette doused and pitched it in the overflowing wastebasket by the desk.
-I think I need to go.
-OK. Let me get my s.h.i.t together and I"ll give you a ride.
I started looking in the blankets for my jeans and underwear.
She shook her head.
-No. I want to walk a little.
I found my BVDs and pulled them on, taking particular care as I snugged them into place.
-Pretty long walk to Malibu.
She looked out the window, balled her dress tightly and stuffed it into one of the large outer pockets of her jacket.
-I can catch the bus in Sherman Oaks and over the hills and out to Santa Monica. The coast bus from there. I"m not, as you may have noticed, in a hurry to be home.
I sat with my jeans in my lap.
-Sure, but the bus sucks.
She shrugged.
-I like the bus. I like to watch the sides of the road.
I looked at the floor, trying to keep a lid on something that didn"t seem to want to cooperate at that moment of exhaustion and postcoital confusion.
-I don"t like buses.
-Don"t like riding them?
That was a tricky question.
-No. I mean, yeah. I don"t like riding them. But I also just kind of don"t like them.
-Have you always felt this hostility toward public transportation?
-Not public transportation. I"m fine with light rail or trams. Subways. Just buses I don"t like.
-Forever?
I thought about that. But I didn"t need to, really, I knew it wasn"t forever.
-Um, no, no, not forever. I used to ride them quite a bit.
-When you were a kid?
-No. I mean, yeah, but.
Words just kept occurring to me, kept finding ways to put themselves together. While I was trying to corral one bunch, another slipped out. These were the next ones.
-Yeah, come to think of it, it is kind of a new thing. Not liking buses. Hating them, really.
She took a step over.
-Web, you"re killing me. Are you serious? Are you trying to cheer me up? Because I hate that. If you"re making this up to cheer me up I will be so f.u.c.king p.i.s.sed at you.
Again, I tried to get things under control, knowing where this conversation ended. Not wanting to go there. Ever again.
But things, they have a way of going out of your control sometimes. Have you noticed that?
And I kept talking.
-Yeah. h.e.l.l yeah. I mean, no. I mean, really, I can"t stand the things. Make me crazy.
-Why?
She folded her arms.
-I want to know why. You better not just be trying to get me to hang around longer.
I laughed.
-Well, they"re loud and they smell. They get in the way. And they"re really kind of ugly.
She smiled.
I took this as encouragement and kept talking, something that"s rarely gone well for me in my life.
-And they"re haunted.
She raised her eyebrows.
I raised a hand.
-No, no. Really. This is so strange. I don"t know. Just this thing. Kind of started. Something happened and I started not liking them.
She laughed. Sort of.
-Because they"re haunted?
I rubbed the spot between my eyes and squinted.
-Yeah, OK. Um, let me think.
-You"re lying. You"re so trying to sucker me.
-No, I"m not.
-You totally are. You"re trying to think of something funny to say. You are f.u.c.king with me and you are so busted.
I laughed again.
-No. It"s just that it"s complicated and I sometimes, I don"t know, forget exactly how.
I looked up at the sky outside the window.
A piece of it snapped off and dropped and hit me on the head.
And it was all there again, the whole thing, back in my head, one picture, entire. No longer broken into the little fragments I liked to keep it scattered in. Fragments hidden on ghost buses cruising LA. Freighters of lost things. But not of me.
I looked at Soledad, who"d just helped me to put it all together again.
And I thought, How kind of her. How kind of her.
-No, I got it! Yeah, huh, it"s funny. You know. Because, it"s not like I forgot. It"s more like I think about it all the time. So I kind of forget it"s there. Like white noise?
She tilted her head.