18% Gray. Zachary Karabashliev
When I came back to meet her after work, she was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a tight, light-blue T-shirt. She had on high-heeled platform sandals and a bag slung across her shoulder. It’s easy to fall in love with a girl who wears everything with such ease.
I had my hands shoved deep in my pockets, most likely.
The regular summertime crowd must have been swarming around us. We walked, I remember, toward the Sea Garden. Somewhere around the Museum of Art, I lose the thread of this memory. I can’t remember what we did between six, when she finished work, and the time it got dark. Did we sit somewhere? Did we just walk? Later, we went into a bar on the corner of First and the street she lived on, a small, dark place called “Impulse.” We sat at one of those little round tables with a black tablecloth pressed under a circle of glass. We drank gin and tonics and munched on peanuts. And started talking. We talked over each other. We talked as if we had been talking forever and someone had just interrupted us. We talked as if we were only pretending we didn’t know each other. We finished each other’s sentences, completed each other’s thoughts, and reminded each other of where we stopped. We talked as if tomorrow we would have to go our separate ways forever.
*
California! I’m saved! There’s the parking lot where I left Stella’s car. I feel like stopping, jumping out, and kissing the pavement.
I stop, jump out, and kiss the pavement. Then I get back in and park the van. I jump into Stella’s car and gun the engine. Then it hits me—I might have killed somebody an hour ago in Mexico. I’ve stolen a van and left a ton of fingerprints. One must think about these things. I get out, open the trunk of Stella’s car and look for something—anything—to wipe down the inside of the van. Nothing. I walk back to the van and open the passenger door. Nothing on the front seats that I can use. I open the back door.
I stifle a yell when I see the prone body and slam the door shut. My heart bangs crazily. I open the door again slowly. I exhale. Not a body. I sigh with relief. A giant plastic bag, stuffed full, slightly bent in the middle. It does look like a corpse. It’s soft to the touch, yet dense, as if packed with straw. I glance around the parking lot, then open the bag up. The pungent smell hits me. I know what it is. I know what I should do. Instead, I pull the bag out of the van, drag it across the parking lot, and spend several risky moments shoving it into the trunk of Stella’s Mercedes.
I get behind the wheel, turn the ignition, buckle up, cross myself, and head north into the bluish daybreak with a trunk-load of marijuana.
*
“. . . what to do with your life . . .”
My exit is just a few miles away. What I want to do more than anything right now is sleep, sleep, sleep. I roll down the window for some fresh air, to keep myself awake these last few minutes. The morning chill laps at my face. Along with it comes the unbearable thought that I am headed toward an empty house.
Who am I kidding? What am I going to do at home without her? Sleep? I already tried that a few hours ago and ended up almost dead in Mexico. No more sleep. I need to decide what to do with my life . . .
In the bag behind me, there are at least seventy pounds of marijuana. I haven’t the slightest idea how many joints that makes and I suspect that if I start calculating right now, I’ll get sick and throw up inside the car. That shitty margarita did me in, I know it. One joint is about five bucks. Ten joints are about fifty. A hundred joints are five hundred. One pound makes . . . there, shit, I’m getting fucking sick to my stomach. Here we go-o-o-o. I’m already in the emergency lane, slowing down, throwing up out the open window. I vomit for some time, painfully, while still driving. I finally stop, get out of the car, and bend over, clutching my stomach. Just when I feel I’ve purged everything, I throw up at the thought of throwing up. Excruciating, bitter, sour convulsions clench my stomach.
Jesus, what a night! What a night.
Back in the car. There, I see the exit to our street. There’s the street sign I’m so sick of, beyond it, the traffic light I’m so sick of. What am I doing? What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing?
I pass the exit sign and press the gas pedal.
Farewell, street sign.
Farewell, traffic light.
Farewell, canyon.
Farewell to you, too, empty house.
*
I thought about her constantly my last few weeks in the military. We saw each other a couple more times before my discharge. When I got off the train with a green army surplus bag slung over my shoulder, instead of going straight home to see Mom and my little sister, I grabbed a cab and gave the driver her address. In the rickety elevator, I pressed number seven and rehearsed my opening lines. I rang the doorbell. She opened the door and smiled. I wondered whether I should hug her or shake hands. I forgot what I was planning to say. She kissed me on the cheek and invited me in. Her room was white, clean, minimalistic. Stereo on the floor, bookshelves with lots of books, some paintings on the walls, low bed, little glass table, a vase with freesias. We sat on the floor sipping gin and tonics. We listened to music all night long. We did it for the first time at dawn, on the carpet in her room. We did nothing, actually. I was so excited, tired, and crazy about her that I lasted only a few seconds. She understood. She understood everything. She passed me the T-shirt she had just taken off to wipe myself, and told me to lay down for a while. Then I saw her open the window and, like a cat, jump up on the windowsill. I leaned back on my elbows, amazed at this sight. She turned to me and calmly sat on the ledge as if there were something beautiful and safe on the other side. It was chilly out. Late September. The last thing I saw before falling asleep was her silhouette against the light-bluish dawn. Hard nipples, the flash of a lighter, a cigarette. Why was this beautiful girl here with me? Wasn’t she afraid of heights?
*
I stop in a surfer town between San Clementino and Los Angeles. I find a shabby beach hotel, check in, and lie down.
The sound of a vacuum next door wakes me up. I look at my watch; I’ve slept for four whole hours. My head is throbbing. I take a shower. I wash off the Tijuana filth, but the hangover clings to me. I look at myself in the mirror. Indigo bruises have started darkening under my eyes. My scalp hurts. I’m missing some hair, but that’s all right—better bald than dead.
I decide to go out, get some fresh air, and do some thinking. I haven’t thought straight for ten days. I go down to the lobby and ask the girl at the front desk about the closest coffee shop. There’s a Starbucks three blocks away. I find it and get in line behind several other customers. Now it’s my turn. At the register, a redhead with a tongue piercing asks me what I’d like. What? I turn around and look toward the door. Why doesn’t Stella just appear right here, right now? Why doesn’t she just come to this little town and have coffee with me like we used to, and we’d talk until . . .
“You waiting for someone?” The redhead with the tongue piercing asks calmly.
“Pardon?”
“Would you like anything, sir?” I don’t respond. Behind my back, an orderly line of men and women has formed. I look at the girl with red-streaked hair but no words form in my throat.
“Sir?”
Stella, Stella, Stella, if you show up at the door right now, I promise:
I will take the garbage out without you reminding me, I will give you massages anytime you want, I will learn not to slam the doors, I will buy you flowers, fields of flowers, I will be quiet when I get up in the middle of the night, I will make the bed on Sundays, I will water the plants, I will vacuum, I will lift the toilet seat before I pee (and put it back down afterward), I will stop being a jerk to your mom, I will take you on a paddleboat ride, I will teach you three guitar cords, I will explain what the F-stops mean on my Nikon without yelling, I will give up drinking two beers at dinner, I will quit being a small fish, I will leave my terrible job and we’ll still have money, money, money, lots of fucking money, we will finally sell this house, we will go to . . . India?
Stella.