date
He asks if he can ask me about it. I said sure. He asks if I wasn’t eating or if I was purging. I say the latter. He squeezes my hand twice. I think of showing him the tooth I’m missing or the scars on the knuckles of my right hand. Or the bald spot on the back of my head. But I don’t. I squeezed his hand twice.
I tell him I’m sorry. He says not to be. It was a long time ago. Well that doesn’t mean it isn’t something I can be sorry about. He laughs a little. Passing me the cigarette whose smoke we’re blowing out the window of his step dad’s Nissan. There was some fentanyl in it. He keeps going. And they had to narcan me twice. He says. I squeezed his hand twice.
The bar we’re parked in front of was for billiards and the drunks that can’t play. One woman wearing a wife beater was in the middle of sinking all the stripes when we left. The men around her nodded in admiration every time she landed another ball in the pocket. Before the woman saddled up to the table, a regular brought in his Dobermann. Held to a leash by a silver metal collar. The bartender called him Charles Barkley before walking around to pet him. A few others walked over to scratch behind his ears and pat his ass. With a few spins the dog settled under the chair of his owner. Which was wooden and with legs wide enough for the dog to stretch out.
My fingers rest on the puka bracelet he said he bought in Thailand. Turning the little white shells over and over. A bone in his wrist pokes out making it look broken. I decide it must be the angle and don’t ask about it. My own wrist cracks like gravel, the left one. Anytime I move it. From Joey Randall pushing me off the playground in the first grade. I show him the sound and tell him. Joey told me he’d never marry me before pushing me off which didn’t make sense as I was already married to Raymond White who sat behind me in class and made me a daisy chain ring.
Out the window a man pisses on a dumpster. We kiss to the sound of the stream hitting the tin. Two quick ones, kisses I mean. He leans in for both and I suck his bottom lip. Before I open the door to leave he squeezes my hand twice.