Out of my head tonight and I am drawing pictures of clouds and the threshold of heaven.
Keith Richards is on my mind, seriously on my mind all the time these days, as is his guitar.
I’m thinking about you, wanting to get on this kind of manic high with you because I know you’d love it. I really just wanna get fucked up with you, see what that’s like. Mostly I wish we’d drink beer and talk about things that need talking about.
Tapping keys along to the keyboard and bass, but I lose the guitar, the most important set of strings…well, ever.
The problem with this mania is that the high doesn’t last long. You either get really lost in it until you fall asleep or you stay awake, get confused and finally find yourself doing something productive. Which beats the point in being a little hyper.
I call her and say I need to get out. She says sure, come over and let’s hang, all three of us. Didn’t want it to be all three of us. So I say I’m going, but I cancel on her. I head instead to the bar where I know I’ll find him. He’s there, but he’s there with the girl he told me he’d broken up with. She’s had a crisis. She says it’s nice to meet me, that she’s heard so much about me. I tell her I hope it was good, and say that yes, he’s mentioned her name a time or two as well.
Three beers and several badly-sung pop tunes later, they are flirting in a corner, it’s very obvious my friends are coming much later (if at all) and for now I am the third wheel. I pay my tab and walk down the steps. I spin wheels on the gravel because I am jealous and hurt. Two emotions I was almost certain I didn’t have towards him or anything related to him. I drive carefully home, steady between the lines.
I am wrong, because I have every one of those emotions. I feel stupid, a little hurt, mostly stupid and perhaps also a little embarrassed. I’m introduced flatly, impersonally. He grasps her shoulders and spins her toward me, telling her to just turn around and meet me. I heard the whole thing. She knows I did. She looks me up and down and realizes she doesn’t need to feel self-conscious. She is triumphant, but not in a condescending way.
We make it a game to make fun of him, like two insta-pals giving the boyfriend a hard time. He looks uncomfortable and doesn’t know where to give his attention. Here? There? He can’t be in two places at once! What will he do!
We make it easy. We dance and sing along to the songs and hear the call for last call. Gratefully, I sign my bill and fly down the steps out to my car.
Live and learn, right?
Right.
