(Greystone porch, Logan Square, around 6 p.m. R is sitting on the right-hand ledge of the front porch, and Pedro is fooling around on the other ledge. He’s wearing plaid pajama pants and canvas slip-ons.)
P: I can climb all the way up to the porch from down here. (Climbing iron fence)
R: Be careful!
P: Why do you keep saying that?
R: Because, UHHH, the fence has big spikes on it, and it’s a long fall, and if you made a mistake and fell you would get hurt and I would get upset…and your mom, and your dad would be upset, and your sister, and Frankie…
P: (Hauling himself over the side of the porch) Frankie would!
R: Yeah, of course he would! Wouldn’t you be upset if Frankie got hurt?
P: (Scooting down ledge, swinging his legs over) I’d be upset with whoever pushed him!
Sometimes
June 17, 2008
I get rewarded for being like I am, all sloppy and lovey-like.
We went to California for my sister-in-law Angel’s high school graduation. Most of the week we also spent with her boyfriend, who seems to spend most days hanging out with A and the family. I like that. My boyfriends were always dragging me off someplace; many of them never met my family.
He came to Ben’s birthday party on the beach. He had his graduation party at the house in conjunction with Angel’s. Most of their time together seems to be spent with the family. He hangs out. He pitches in. He helps. He talks when called upon, and he’s quiet and tranquil, too. He won me over in about the first five minutes and then kept growin’ on me. I told everyone who’d listen, including his girlfriend (kitchen, me: drunk on tequila, middle of the night) how much I thought of him.
I found out he had been nervous to meet me and Ben, and I was actually nervous to meet him, too (me? Nervous to meet an eighteen-year-old boy?). At the graduation party, after knowing him about a week, he thanked me for the card and few dollars me and B had given him. I gave him a hug and told him, without thinking first, “I love you, Omar,” as if I’d known him all my life, and immediately thought, Now, why did you say that? He’s gonna think you’re weird, and that’s ’cause you are!
But he responded, casual-like, without missing a beat: “I love you, too.”
Now, how do you like that?
Resale shop, Roscoe Village
May 4, 2008
[05/04/2008, Saturday afternoon, in dishes & sundry]
MOM: Don’t touch NOTHING, okay?
GIRL: (silent, wanders)
MOM: Sweetie? So what are you gonna touch?
GIRL: (dreamily, reaching towards shelf) Anything…
MOM: NOTHING! Don’t touch NOTHING!
GIRL: (silent)
MOM: So what are you gonna touch?
Overheard in Andersonville a few minutes ago
January 8, 2006
On Clark Street, we passed a woman and her young blonde toddler girl, who was dressed to the nines and gnawing on something. They were apparently in the middle of a conversation, or a lecture maybe. We overheard the woman saying, “It’s a really good thing to learn how to say goodbye without screaming.”
We laughed a lot. B thought the toddler was in a habit of literally screaming, “GOODBYE!” when it comes time to leave. I thought that maybe she threw tantrums when she had to part ways with people and wasn’t ready to. We laughed a whole lot. And then I got very quiet. It is. It is a good thing.
Late at night
October 23, 2005
“God put us on this earth to look at his light, R, not at our own shadows.”
“Did you just think of that? Just now?”
“Ye-ep. I just pulled that one right out of my ass.”
Me and Jesus
October 17, 2005
Me and Jesus were sitting on my back porch the other night
until real late.
Ben had already gone to bed.
I told him that I would be in soon, but I wasn’t.
“Sometimes,” I told him,
“I just want to be free of this world.”
“I do. I do know.”
I put my forehead down on his knee.
He put his hand on the back of my neck
and held it there, firmly.
I cried a little bit
but I’d already cried so much that night
that my eyes just burned.
“I just get so tired sometimes,”
“Oh, baby,” I looked up, and was surprised,
his eyes were full and fixed on mine. “Oh, honey. I know you do.”
“I’m not suicidal,” I said.
He laughed silently.
“Peace.
Be still.”
“Do you really have to leave tomorrow?”
“‘Love makes no sense of space and time,’ remember.”
“Fuck. I love that song so fucking much…what’s the rest of that line…’Space and time will disappear’…I can’t wait until that happens.”
“I would go with you, you know.
I would leave with you now if you asked me to,” I told him.
“I know you would. We made that bargain long ago, remember?”
“What song is that from?”
“Les fucking Miserables, dude. Jean Veljean says it
before he turns himself in.
My point is that it’s already being done,
it’s already done, in a sense.
Rachel, I wish you could see it,
the way your thread weaves in and out of this life.
It’s so fucking majestic.
I can’t wait to show you.”
I shrugged and slumped against the railing,
looking out at the moon.
My eyes hooded,
a muscle in one beat with fatigue, like a heart.
He suddenly took my face in his hands, soft, but said with fierceness,
“Silly. Don’t you know how I need you here?
Don’t you know just a little
how indispensable you are?”
I found a new well of tears and tumbled into it.
I began to speak in a small voice that didn’t seem to come from my body,
“They don’t know…no…I don’t know…I’m not sure…”
“I know. I know.” he said, almost angry.
He let go of my face.
“And besides, you’re wrong.”
He looked at me and shook his head.
He wiped my face with his scarf.
I shuddered a little, although I didn’t really feel cold
and he pulled in me close with one thick arm, my ear into his chest.
hearing his hot blood, warming me. He smelled
like fall leaves and wood smoke.
I felt a little drunk again.
“It’s not going to happen, you know.”
My eyes shot up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,
you’re not going to fuck this up.
He’s not ever going to leave you.”
I sobbed out loud.
“And you’re not going to leave him either. You’re not going to drive him away
or any bullshit like that, so you need to just put that out of your mind.”
“Jesus?
“Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
“Sh. None of that.”
“But-”
“We’ve been over this.
Peace,” he said.
“Peace.
Be still.”
“Jesus?”
“Hm.”
“I kind of want everyone to be in love with me.
That’s kind of nuts, isn’t it.”
He started nodding his head before I finished. “No dude.
I totally know what you mean.”
strangers on a train
June 22, 2005
Last night I went with EZ, GB and E’s friend S to Ravinia to go see the Philip Glass Orchestra. It was rush hour on the Metra and very full (6% concertgoers, 94% commuters), and I plunked my picnic down across from
a man and woman who were sitting together. There were four seats, two and two facing each other, if you understand. I was amped and happy, they demanded a tax. The man said, “She likes chocolate, and I could
use a beer.” “I have both!” I answered. We laughed and chatted a bit, and then I grabbed the woman’s
hand. She had on a spectacular ring, some kind of contemporary brushed-alloy affair wrapped around a rectangular diamond. As I was looking at her ring, she curled her fingers in just a bit, relaxing into the exchange, not stiffening out her fingers. I asked her where she got it, who designed it (like that would mean anything to me), and I told her how lovely and unusual I thought it was. I then left my stuff and went back to join my friends, so excited, and pretty much forgot about the man and woman.
The train stopped and some commuters got off. EZ said that laptops were like the modern weapon, the
brandished sword. We talked about how fun it was to ride the train, and we drank some more champagne from plastic glasses. The woman with the ring passed and smiled goodbye. Some seats opened and I went to get my stuff so I could sit with my friends. The man was alone now, and smiled and told me that it was very kind of me to compliment her ring, that it really meant a lot to her. I shrugged and said, “It’s a gorgeous ring,” then noticed something in his face. “Are you guys friends, or did you just meet on the train?” “Friends,” he said. Quiet. “You didn’t give her that ring, did you?” “No,” he looked right in my eyes, “but I wish I had.”
I wish I would’ve given him that beer.
