Filed under: self indulgence
I count the aches in my body as the weekend’s funeral procession crawls along the overpass. Still groggy from the sort of night’s sleep that happens in an unfamiliar bed, I roll my right shoulder back, trying to work out the persistent kink between my shoulder blades. I flex my big toe. This guy I used to see said it was probably tendonitis, but a small, nagging voice whispers things like gout and arthritis. I wonder if that woman over there plucking dozens of napkins out of the dispenser has problems with uric acid crystals. Swollen toe joint? Perhaps a bunion. Something. I’m sure of it. Why else would she wear such atrocious shoes?
The parking lot fills up as I stare listlessly out of the glass cafe front. Real estate agents with gaudy earrings, mothers with children in tasteful navy strollers, and retirees and their wives with their oversized taupe purses — people with no where to be at 9am on Monday morning — wander in from their SUVs and squint myopically at the menu over the barista’s shoulder.
Women with voices like hungry chickens sit down at the table next to me. One of them drops with a spectacular flop on the shared bench and it bounces like a teeter totter calling my attention to her presence and the stiffness in my back. I lift the mug to my lips but the last half-inch of liquid has gone cold.
I scoot out from behind the table, grabbing the cup from above in a clumsy, desperate way, and claim the last from the carafe. I give a half-nod to the barista then tap the empty vessel. He flashes me a smile and retrieves it from behind the counter. It’s not the first time we’ve had this exchange today.
When I turn to go back to my table, I see you. Maybe ten yards in front of me. You’re wearing that grey Batman shirt you used to wear weekly — I wonder how it has survived over the years. Your glasses, gait, posture haven’t changed. You look the same even though you’ve shaved your head. The stubble gives away that you’re going bald.
I forget you when I recount past loves. My longest relationship, but the least formative. We were together when I wasn’t yet myself. Still raw. Sore. Fetal. Too young to know that chronic boredom is a death rattle. I became bloated on frustration. Fat. Tired. Melancholy. I still can’t stop myself from blaming you.
I’m forty pounds less sad now and sporting the coiffure of the sexually satisfied. You don’t recognize me as we pass.
I get lost later in the day and turn around in the parking lot of our old apartment — the one in the hills — and regret not saying I’m sorry.
