Cafe News, Volume 9

            When she asked me to leave, I wasn’t surprised.  I wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t sad either.  It was the strangest thing.  She knew it was coming, I knew it was coming, but somehow we still weren’t prepared for it.  So we had to have a fight.  And I always regret that.

            The first thing I remember was the last thing I forgot.  It’s better that way.  Otherwise you might ask me about details.  I don’t want to remember the details.  The details make me lonely.

            It probably would have been better if I hadn’t seen that picture.  I couldn’t see her face, but I knew it was her.  Trust me; you don’t go around imagining a moment that much and then fail to realize it when it’s right there in front of you.  Even life isn’t that cruel.

            Some things that I experience become a part of me.  Perhaps I didn’t want her afterwards, but she was always with me.  It wasn’t like I planned it that way.  Or maybe it was.

            The drink is in me and I’m kinda numb.  I know where I am but I don’t know where I’m going.  I used to know but the memories are so fuzzy that I don’t trust that they are real.  I’m certain I could find my way if I could just remember where to begin.

            They found me in the hall.  It wasn’t the last time.  After awhile the old man told me it was time to move, not in words so much as that he upped the rent in the flat to market and rubbed those two mooching roommates of mine back into a neighborhood more respective of their tax bracket.  Actually, it worked out famously.  I found this wonderful brownstone within walking distance of the café, and the old man had one less thing he could berate me about.

            There’s a lot to be discovered in life.  Most of it comes in little shots of beauty and tall pints of pain.  Often I long for the time when a rocking chair and some sipping whisky are my only friends, but for the moment it seems I’m still naive enough to want to face the music.

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