3.4.97

Spanky's

It occurs to me that 'nothing' can be momentous.

I think this as I see Nina at the door. The thought and the woman have nothing in common. I'm not sure why I thought that. My hands are nearly frozen from the brief walk from Anchors down the block. Nina grabs them and stuffs them under her shirt. -- You're so cold! she says. She pulls my head against her chest. Against my will, I realize that the 20 year old little waist I once knew is no longer there. This is why she allowed that "client" of hers to buy the new gigantic breast job -- or so I see it. Her new girlfriend is sitting next to her as she does this. She looks at me.

Upstairs Dante, Chris, Martina and I talk and pretend to shoot pool.
Dante has spent the last year and a half getting over a woman who plays him like a cheap fiddle. I am getting over Shannon. Chris is getting over his jet lag. Martina is getting quiet. We are all getting drunk.

Dante and I bartend together. For him that job supplements his day business which is failing -- mostly due to his psychotic obsession with that woman. He has a friend I met the other night who owns a couple of very successful upscale restaurants in Park City. I thought the guy was a pompous asshole. Dante says he just likes to snowmobile with him. Between shots and musings as to whether we are solids or stripes, Dante and I have a conversation relating to this man.

-- He knows I'm failing, Dante says. He called bullshit on it last night.

--Bullshit how? I say.

-- He looked at me straight in the eye and said, Dante, what are you planning for the future?

Dante seems a bit lost and frazzled as he says this. When his eyes rise to mine I feel as if I need to give some piece of advice. I have none. He's already accomplished more with his life than I probably ever will with mine.

-- I have more important things to think about than the future, I say.

Martina hears that and turns her head toward the jukebox. Chris lines up a shot. I head to the bar and grab a Guinnes and a shot of Bushmills.

I took home a woman named Kerrie the other night. I suppose I could say "I had sex with a woman ..." but it was a bit more than that.
She is taller than me and beautiful and she insisted on wearing a shirt to hide her tiny chest while we made love. We talked and drank for about 12 hrs before I even touched her. We did the emotional dance, bobbed and weaved amongst each others wounds and weaknesses.
We did not watch the sun rise but noticed the brightness behind the blinds in my room. We shared things we are both normally uncomfortable sharing and that will be awkward when we get together again later. It was peace, it was comfort, it was warm and after I dropped her off the next evening at her father's trailer during a tremendous blizzard, I missed Shannon even more.

Minutes ago my dog was sitting at my feet chewing on a bone. He has been alone and ignored much lately. He brought that bone closer and closer to my chair until he actually caught the rear right wheel in mid-chomp and broke it off. Without warning, I lept up and grabbed him, screaming, threw all 130 lbs of him up onto the bed. He could not even yelp. I was about to remove one hand to smack his head when I stopped and froze.

"It's nothing," I tell him, stroking his ears apologetically. "It's nothing, you did nothing wrong. It's just me. It's nothing, just me. Nothing."

wwood