Godspeed

We hadn’t talked in a year. Hadn’t seen each other in two. But the world as small as it is held hands with fate and decided to put us in the same room together.
I was alone and didn’t mind. She was alone and seemed indifferent. Then our eyes cut to each other and neither engaged.
What was to be said? Everything comes to an end – nothing lasts forever. That’s why I never got a dog. Just another thing to lose.
The next thing I knew a pack of Camels were being pushed down the bar in front of me and she was in the chair next to me.
“No thanks,” I said.
“I figured you still didn’t smoke,” she said.
“Some things change,” I said.
“Some things don’t,” she shot back, then she hugged me.
There was nothing between us. Nothing from the past, nothing in the future. We were content in just being. Maybe that was worse than anything.
“You didn’t make it to Daniels birthday bash,” she said between blowing smoke at the yellow ceiling.
“When was it,” I asked.
“Tonight.”
“So you missed it too?”
“No, I’m here and there at the same time.”
I used to love her quick wit until it was pointed at me.
I don’t respond as I had learned from many lessons before. Her words can dig a grave, and I learned not to give her a shovel to speed up the process.
“I liked the guy, but not that much,” I said, paying no attention to her response.
She put her cigarette out under the bar and crushed the butt into the ashtray. She always used to do this. Anytime I saw someone with black on the thigh of their jeans I knew she was around. It was also my cue to leave, for fear of letting memories fill me up, only to be deflated shortly after.
After my senses have almost shut down, here she was. Next to me. Lighting another Camel Turkish Gold and drinking Hornsby’s.
“See, some things never change,” I said looking straight ahead and sloshing my drink at her same choice of vices from years ago.
“Good memory,” she says.
I fight everything in me that wants to rehash all the good times. I’ve learned that brain cells cling and divulge positive memories, 99.9 percent more than negative memories. I stop myself and search out the negatives. I take another drink.
“So, how ya been?” I asked her.
“Don’t act like that,” she said.
“Act like What?”
“Act like you care.”
It’s a trap I tell myself. She’s try to make me the bad guy. She’s trying to point everything wrong that ever happened to us at me. I still remember her telling me I didn’t understand her. That was why it was over.
The opposite was true. I cared for her so much that she didn’t get under my skin – she was born there. She had always been apart of me and filled that spot in my rib cage God had broken off to create her. That was His wish. I thought it was mine, but she didn’t believe.
“Sometimes someone just needs to feel wanted,” she told me. “I’m sorry that what we had ended, but that’s all it was. I just needed for someone to want me. To smile at me.”
I got up and walked to the jukebox. I flipped through the albums but the titles and artists were a blur. I put in a dollar and punched in four numbers. Then flipped a few more, then punched in four more. Then flipped more and without thinking I punched in the last four digits of her phone number – 5480.
I can’t believe I still remember.
I walked slowly back to my chair and looked up. She was gone. But her Camels were still there with a piece of paper stuffed in the plastic outer wrapping. I pulled it out and it said:
Tit Milk Emporium.
I cracked a smile. This sounded familiar, but I tried not to care. My days of cat and mouse were over. Especially when this cat turned out to be a lioness with teeth bared.
A song begins to play on the jukebox:

she lifts her skirt up to her knees,
walks through the garden rows with her bare feet, laughing.
i never learned to count my blessings,
i choose instead to dwell in my disasters.
i walk on down a hill,
through grass, grown tall and brown
and still its hard somehow to let go of my pain.
on past the busted back of that old and rusted cadillac
that sinks into this field, collecting rain.
will i always feel this way?
so empty, so estranged

well i looked my demons in the eyes,
laid bare my chest, said do your best, destroy me.
you see, i've been to hell and back so many times,
i must admit you kind of bore me.
there's a lot of things that can kill a man,
there's a lot of ways to die,
listen, some already did that walked beside me.
there's alot of things i don't understand,
why so many people lie.
its the hurt i hide inside that fuels the fire inside me.
will i always feel this way?
so empty, so estranged

Then, all of a sudden I realized what her note meant. I got up and walked to the bathroom. The heavy wooden door seemed locked but I shoved it harder and it slammed open. I walked to the farthest stall and slowly pushed open the door. It’s empty and written in White Out on the black wall above the toilet read: Tit Milk Emporium.
I took a deep breath and exhaled.
“WHY would a mouse run into the lions mouth?” I said out loud to myself.
“Maybe death is warmer and more familiar than life,” said a voice. Then I turned and saw the bait as she slid into view and into the stall. Then she locked the door behind her.
It didn’t take long until everything we were wearing was on the floor. The heat rose and everything went numb. I pushed my hands through my hair and it was drenched. She was still sitting on my lap when she reached down into the pile of clothes and pulled out another pack of cigarettes and lit one. I took it out of her hand and gave it a long pull. Then I turned around and wrote on the wall with the burning ashes: The Milk is never free.

I put on my clothes and walked back into the bar.
Then the bartender asked me if I wanted another drink. I nodded. He handed me a Beam and Coke and ask if I needed anything else.
I closed my eyes and smelled my collar. I could still smell her over the putrid mess from the bathroom floor when my last song came over the jukebox. I wondered to myself what would come from her number. And then it began:

Who's seen jezebel?
She was born to be the woman i would know
And hold like the breeze
Half as tight as both our eyes closed

Who's seen jezebel?
She went walking where the cedars line the road
Her blouse on the ground
Where the dogs were hungry, roaming

Saying, "wait, we swear
We'll love you more and wholly
Jezebel, it's we, we that you are for
Only"

Who's seen jezebel?
She was born to be the woman we could blame
Make me a beast half as brave
I'd be the same

Who's seen jezebel?
She was gone before i ever got to say
"lay here my love
You're the only shape i'll pray to, jezebel"

Who's seen jezebel?
Will the mountain last as long as i can wait
Wait like the dawn
How it aches to meet the day

Who's seen jezebel?
She was certainly the spark for all i've done
The window was wide
She could see the dogs come running

Saying, "wait, we swear
We'll love you more and wholly
Jezebel, it's we, we that you are for
Only"