All and nothing girl.

On Thursday I was Alice.

As a child, like so many, I adored those books.
I gobbled them up. I felt a kinship.
All magic, mystery, and fear.
Things that unite.
Untie.

I drove, quite literally, down memory lane.
And it wrecked me.

The appropriate and wretched things happened.
The things that always do to me.
So real, it seems scripted.
Serendipitous, ironic, and surreal.
“Cut!”

And by the time I finally made it back to the place where I was guesting,
Agee’s words were circulating through my mind.

We all know it’s true.
But at some point or another, we all try anyway.

Because it used to be a home.
Because people used to live there.
Because it used to be beautiful.

And then,
I turned the wipers off.

Thumb wrestling through the thought.

She was an awkward woman and I still can’t tell if it’s due to reaction or self creation.

On the river’s edge I smoked a cigarette. As the spiral winds were kicking up my skirt I climbed down the rocks careful to avoid anything with three pointed leaves for fear of contracting poison.

I removed my sandals, held the cigarette in my mouth, and with both hands lifted my skirt high enough to wade through the water. I felt like Goliath with mammoth feet stomping down making the tiny little fishies flee as fast as blown dust. I giggled to myself and repeated, occasionally slipping up and letting out quiet and low roars. I was a giant! I was a slayer! I was Godzilla! The fishes my livers of Lilliput! You will run in fear from me! Your screams will shatter glass! ROAR, motherfucker, ROAR!

I played this way until my cigarette’s ember neared the filter and started to warm my lips, fingers.

Slowly, I placed sandals back on, scaled the rocks, climbing my way back up to the lands where I was the Lilliputian. A heart broken lowercase roar coming out in an exhale, in an explanation.

When I raised my head, there she stood with lopsided breasts and flabby arms. She was an average size with average coloration and average features and carried an average easy to forget always remembered name.

She places her hand out to shake, to greet. I feign a smile and say my name that is spelled incorrectly. I hate shaking hands, just shows how much bigger everything else is.

“I’ve heard all about you from T-. I’m very happy to finally meet you.”

-Finally? I had my first conversation with T- maybe 18 hours ago. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“He told me about your conversation last night.”

Very long pause. I wasn’t sure if she wanted me to comment or elaborate on what was discussed. The pause kept growing in size, but before it became bigger than Andre I decided to reply. “It was entertaining. We talked about quantum physics, philosophy, weather control and time travel. It all led back to general theory and overall education, of course, but it was hilarious nonetheless.”

With a weird twinge of sadness in her voice she said, “Oh. He didn’t mention those parts.”

And insert another dangling silence.

In hopes of bypassing these awkward moments where she just stares at me blankly, I decide to point the conversation to her, desperately hoping she loves to hear her self. “That’s a beautiful necklace. I really enjoy that.” -I didn’t. It was hideous and poorly made.

So she talked about the purple noose for three minutes longer than she should have. But the blessing was that instantly the subject turn to her failing career, growing children, empty nest, and general uneasiness of the future, and inability to paint in certain styles.

I kept blacking out, spacing out, zoning out, adverbing out. The only thing that held my attention was one particular wrinkle of hers.

I lit another cigarette hoping the people that were to join us, would in fact, hurry the fuck up and join us. I kept looking behind me at the industrial stairs hoping that a familiar orange hued person was climbing down them.

She kept talking and my jaw muscle ached from the nice-ing. Why don’t I do heroin? Where could I get some right now? Would it be pure enough to smoke? I really don’t like needles. I guess I could settle for coke, but that may make me dive deeper into the conversation. What about meth? Meth heads love to fold socks. I miss socks, stupid summer. How old is she? 40? That wrinkle makes no sense for her age.

It was the kind of wrinkle that is found on the chests of some women. Either from the scrawny, mean, deeply tanned Grandma types, or from the 30 something women that have let a dozen children suckle from their breasts. She is neither of these things. How can her breasts be stretched like old underwear? Where the fuck does that deep wrinkle come from? Maybe her body stopped producing elasticin at 16. I wonder if Jacks and Button guys run in her family.

Shit…

“I’m sorry, what did you ask? Oh, yes, I used to do that. Haven’t in a few years, but it was a good life while I was living it.”

I wonder if she’s Jewish. Maybe she inherited the crack wrinkle honestly. Maybe all those years of her ancestors sunbathing on New York sidewalks with those reflective things permanently etched her. Fuck, was that racist? Where’s B-? He’d know if that were a racist comment. Racist… Hmm. R-A-C-I-S-T. Why does that make me think of raccoons? Coons. Hah. Fuck, wait. No, now that was racist. Jesus effing Christ I’m going to hell. Will she be in hell? I bet she’d go to hell for masturbating over a mirror. She seems the type to sketch her flapping vagina. Mudflaps. Shit, she’s wearing a skirt and there’s a strong breeze. I wonder if I can hear it. OHMYGOD I’m disgusting, but seriously, I wonder if I could. No, probably not, she wears those big girl panties to keep everything tight.

Then finally, as the woman was tiring of talking and starting to ask me something about myself I heard a voice yell to me from 30 feet above.

Fucking finally!

Yes, I’m ready to go, just please please please, don’t make me sit next to her during the long car ride, especially if the windows are down.

Well, maybe I’ll sit next to her if the windows are down. I wonder if it could sound like a song.

Shit.Godammit.Sumamabitch.

Irony pumps through her blood.

Outwardly, she is a very well put together woman.

So much so, that it seems she may have never been a girl. Maybe at most she was a little woman.

I found it comical that her bra straps were twisted under the straps of her fashionable tank top. I read into this as a translation of her emotional state, which really wasn’t an inaccurate observation.

As she spoke I noticed an odd marriage of old and new in her words. A strange kind of dialect, surely one caught between multiple languages.

And when she cried, it was only her tears asking for help. As if they weren’t sure which way was down and afraid to streak the perfect cheek.

It’s easy to see where she drowns and where her life preservers are. A pill or two here, for pain. A few cocktails, for a different kind of pain. A phone, to vent multiple pains and for discovering new ones.

It’s not that she can’t be happy mind you, it’s just that she gives so much to a far too demanding audience.

From time to time she loses her way and I get called in for the remedy. I’ve never minded, I’ve always liked playing with blocks, and trying to understand oils.

And to end the meeting, I was asked to join in a trip, though not one of adventures to uncharted places. One of saying goodbye to demons in a destination previously traveled through.

And of course, I accepted.

She never stopped trying to unwind her bra straps.

Finally, I helped her and her face went back to the smooth calm with no trace of tears ever ruining it.