Buckle Up 'Cause I Drive Fuckin' Nuts

“Fuck the rest of them. Fuck ‘em all.”

It was the third of many utterings to follow, but the first I heard completely.

Her faced changed fast enough that the mood was hard to make out.

“A knife to spill guts. Melon on concrete. Let the air in.”

I wanted to kiss her, but that would occupy her mouth. And I liked to watch and listen to the sounds that played, consorting with her eyes that shot through me and shredded most of the facade that got me through ordering a coffee and nodding at strangers between doorways.

I stared.

Like an antenna that was constantly fed wavelengths in no particular order, she threw out, “what’s the name of this band?”

It took a moment to realize the departure from the mundane had asked a question that I might be able answer.

But, I couldn’t.

“It’s Wednesday. We never know. It’s not why we come here,” I said in crowed-not large-music joint voice.

“Ha. Right. But, parts of that last song…not bad”, she half screamed back. “I wanna fuck like we did in Mexico.”

I knew what she meant.

“We are,” I tried.

She playfully rolled her big eyes. Brittany Murphy big. Lips full.

It seemed like a cheat to be attracted to her. She was pretty and hair messed which was not the reason I was locked in, glued, physically unable to detach. It was everything else. But, from the outside she looked like ‘you’ll never experience this up close’. For me, five years later, the sound of her breath half muffled by head deep in morning pillow was the sound that kept me in wonder of the world, bugs that fly, the smell of garlic in hot oil, how a cat’s tail has a mind of its own.

Sitting on a stool, planted after navigating a bar full of misplaced shoulder high pylons unable to hold a drink level while bending like toy birds drinking water…rhythmically bobbing to speak mouth to ear, she had begun her throne light-mystery sage- audience of one, improvised, broken monologue under the bright lights at the bar.

“But us.”

My stalled, not fully formed expression begged her to retrace.

“Fuck them all…but, us.”

She got teen-age-bored, pfft, semi-mocked displeased when I told her or hinted at how lovely I thought she was. But, she was fucking brilliant. The second time I saw her, which was like our first date only in that the previous time, the first we met, I said ‘I’ll be at The Wash next Friday’ and there we stood as close as you can in public and I asked her to go to Mexico with me before we had even kissed. Which we didn’t until Mexico. Which was while we were fucking.

“I have never fucked a stranger in Mexico,” was what she had said as we lay next to each other on a salty air, warm, open window, daylight afternoon, half decent hotel bed.

There are times, outside, early Fall, suddenly cold mornings with an emptiness of noise except that which was here before…those times are as pure as it gets. Like the running beads of water washing clean streams of dirt down your leg…hose source small rivers and you can see the soil driven like aerial view sheepdog working flocks in pastures back to Earth. She was the sound a butterfly doesn’t make, the wind working the underside of leaves, the sun out of the corner of your eye.

And you just want to fuck it slow. Get physical with an atmospheric moment that won’t last.

But, I couldn’t say it out loud. Not to her. That she was Chrissy Hynde guitar, Rip Torn grin, Basquiat. I could only guess that my unflinching interest in the ambience that followed her like a helium ballon tied to wrist of a kid at Disneyland was the thing that said all she needed from me and emotions were left as glances in cars at night and feet touching under covers. ‘I love you’ was leg up on mine, coffee sipping, sitting, table in the nook by the window, waking, melding the place you go when you sleep with this exact, short, ever lasting second.

A few others started to draw closer while she spoke more utterings and smiled and conductor weaved a cigarette in the air.

“You’re fucking sexy,” I mouthed.

“Fuck you.”

“But, us.”

Eyes nod and back to manipulating the free admission that eventually always gathered around her like the one painting in a museum that needed velvet ropes. They never got too close. I could never figure out why, but I suspect there was a strength she possessed that was like a stiff arm, palm forward. I stood back like the end of a rope that could be tugged at a moment’s notice, but I never felt it go taunt.

Not until we were home and the rope was used for other purposes.

Mexico was the start. We lay by the pool during the day and drank on party boats at night. That was the first of impromptu one person shows I witnessed outside of a disjointed circle that usually formed while she danced alone at clubs playing music that only sounded good after a tab of MDMA. She held court. Took breaks to grab on to me and smile. I felt at times like a buoy for someone who liked the white capped swells of open ocean, but needed rest before letting go again.

I was the curiosity of a spirit that needed to be free. Being 11 years older that first fuck in Mexico, for her, was an adventure. For me, it was knowing I had unlocked something that rarely went the distance. I had not really organized all of this, but I somehow knew just leaving food by the door would earn the feral cat’s trust. To say she had daddy issues was a safe bet, but it really came down to being solid, a safe place to land, providing the space that made jumping on my lap her idea.

She’ll leave me one day. In the most honest of ways. I’m not enough for what she is meant to become. But, for now, we have a friendship that goes beyond the obvious. It’s invisible organic matter that stretches and contracts, doesn’t break. And, there’s the fucking.

I’ll know her forever.

But, Mexico will fade, though slowly.