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We checked her pulse again then threw her onto the bed, put a pillow over her face.
” Fuck” I said.
“Fuck” jane agreed.
” Maybe she’s just sleeping it off”, I suggested.
” I don’t think she’s sleeping.” Jane replied.
” Maybe we should go?” I said.
” We should go” Jane nodded, grabbing his briefcase and coat.
It was 2 am or so and the freeway was nearly empty. Jane drove calmly, puffing on a cigarette, staying a mile or two above/below the speed limit. I don’t know how he stayed so calm when he was spun. Maybe he was one of those people whose brain was fucked up naturally, like missing a chemical or something, and speed just made him normal. Maybe. I on the other hand was severely more affected. My eyes were bloodshot, exhausted, and my back felt like it was having a rootcanal. And then there were the shadow people. After a few days without sleep see, the eyes start to play tricks on you. It takes many moments longer for them to focus on and discern an image. For example: at first glance a few traffic cones may appear to be your old dog, or some shadows on the freeway may appear to be a road block or a swat team, for a moment or so. A generally unfortunate sideaffect, but unavoidable at the moment. I wouldn’t be catching any sleep for awhile. I leaned back and smiled at the moon, hanging real low and yellow just above the road, glowing all over that dark road. Maybe in Barstow, I thought. Maybe we’d sleep in barstow. Not much else to do in Barstow. Of course-
-”ummm…Seth?”
“..yeah?”
” Do you have the shit?”
” what shit?”
” The shit.”
” Jane…Don’t tell me.. You had the shit man.”
” I don’t have it.” he said.
” You HAVE to have it.” I barked.
Jane sighed and lit a cigarette.
” No way. Check your pockets.”
He checked them, pulling them inside-out so I could see. They were empty.
We didn’t say anything for a while. I took a cigarette from Janes pack and stuffed it in my mouth, lit it real good, puffing on it for a few seconds. Something bad was playing on the radio and Jane turned it off. We didn’t have any connects this far north. People were Vegans up here, not Tweakers. Coke heads maybe. Vegan Coke heads. Anyways. we both knew what we had to do. We took the next available exit off the freeway then got back on going the opposite direction. Back the way we’d come.
” Maybe she was sleeping” Jane wondered aloud.
” Maybe. You checked her pulse though. Did it pulse?” I asked.
Jane furrowed his brow, ” I dont think so. Probably not”
” Probably not?” I looked at Jane. His cigarette had gone out.
” Jane, where did you learn to check a pulse?”
” Everyone knows how to check a pulse.”
“…I don’t know how to check a pulse.”
” You just touch the person on their wrist, or their neck or something and see if it thumps. Y’know like,to see if blood is pumping or not”, he said, holding out his own wrist in gesture.
” Oh.” I said.
” Anyways, I was kinda blitzed back there, it was hard to tell. We must’ve smoked half our bag with that chick man. I was hoping at least one of us would get laid.”
” Heh. Maybe she woke up right after we left and smoked it all herself.” I said.
We laughed a moment, then caught ourselves. That wasn’t funny.

A Good friend and a Beautiful Girl

They walk ahead of me
almost holding hands,
a puffy red heart almost suspended
above them in a conjoined dream cloud,
and I almost stab it with my cigarette,
send it sputtering and whining into the night.

Tomorrow while I’m taking out the trash
I imagine each of them will be dictating
love letters to a friend, each planning their ascent
and subsequent colonization of the other:

she’ll teach him to wear deodorant more often,
take off his socks before they go to bed,
while he’ll convince her Hemingway is a saint
and Emily Dickinson is Martha Stewart.

While I’m rinsing off a spoon, running the garbage disposal,
they’ll be on the phone together, waltzing and necking
in the darkness of speech, holding hands, swinging trapeze
on the telephone lines.

They walk ahead of me, each
swirling and swooning, tumbling into
and filling the other without touching.
He is the Atlantic, vast and dark,
she the Pacific, easy and warm.

I am Lake Owens
or Lake Ossipee perhaps.
Perfectly good water,
perfectly land locked.

The Ice is Melting

The Marlboro man is coughing
chunky black melodies
through his respirator, fingering the
Reds in his pocket.
Rabbits are fucking.
Cats bleating, wet and vocal
mingling calico and minx
beneath a streetlight to
a solar system of
piss-dipped dumpsters
and vomiting manholes.

I sit typing, drunk,
sucking my dried-out childhood
to a dwindling roach.
The girls are sex crazed,
fallen asleep for days
at a time.

Life comes upon us all
in the starry night,
a beer-maddened homeless
flailing with gibberish and knife.

Smells like Rain

A day for coats
and scarves
and frogs
and worms.

A day for swinging on swings
if you have someone to swing with,
laying in bed if you have someone
to lay in bed with.

A day for huddling beneath awnings,
smoking cigarettes with strangers,
watching rain tumble and spill
down rooftops like music.

There is a buzz blowing in the wind
like there is a parade today
but there is no parade.

A buzz like you get in your head
when you get excited about something
then forget what it was a moment later.

A buzz like the sky is humming,
tapping it’s foot.