room 312. was at the hospital for the twentieth straight day, sitting in a hard chair that was slowly turning my ass into a brick, watching mama slip out. when you’re doing nothing but waiting, shit starts flying through your mind and sticking to the wall. random things, like what’s happened to you, people you’ve known, what might have been, and stuff that didn’t make sense until time started weaving it into something recognizable. the worst part of hospitals was the smell... the feel. you knew when you were walking into a pain zone, buddy. people were hurt and dying up in here and one day you would be too. what was it i read about causality? and then there was hindsight is 20/20. it was easy to second-guess. but futures were foreseeable. they must be, i thought. if you can look back and see how it all connects, after you messed it up nicely, why couldn’t you look forward? it was a matter of having enough pieces to figure it out. the pieces were always there. i couldn’t fit them. apparently no one could in this life. simple.
*** “there’s one thing you should know about me,” nora said. this was on our first date, at ursula’s. we were the only customers in the place. ursula’s was a cut-rate italian restaurant i had been to once before, with robbie and his cousin cort, for a few beers. they served dollar drafts in liter mugs. well worth the trip. i would have come more often if not for the nose-picking cashier. “what do i need to know?” “i don’t bullshit. if i’m thinking something, i’ll say it,” she said. “if that bothers you, you better stand up and walk away now.” “noted...” ursula’s was blasting sinatra so loud i could barely understand the lyrics. and that is plenty loud. i liked sinatra, but he was never meant to be played at VOLUME 10 on a knock-off boom box. except the music didn’t seem to bother nora. i killed my first liter in under fifteen minutes, and by then i didn’t much care either. enjoying the music the way i liked a painful massage or a scalding bath. she and i sat there over our empty plates, staring at each other and the dusty plastic plants. my paycheck was freshly cashed, i finally had a stable place to catch Zs, and a beautiful woman was making eyes at me from across the table. mama’s fall into that hospital bed (312) was an entire eight months away. so i was optimistic about life for the first time since elementary school. the human equivalent of new-car smell. (the canned kind.) one of the cooks poked his head into the dining room, saw us trying to talk, and turned the music down a couple notches. nora jamison had huge hazel eyes and seemed to never blink. when she spoke to me the eye contact was intense. “so erven. what else do you want to know about me?” “i like to play by ear.” she waited, but i didn’t say more. “really?” she said. “eh, people don’t tell the truth about themselves anyway.” “me and my friends, we have this game called ultimate truth, right? me and my girls... and when it’s your turn, you have to honestly answer any question. any question that the rest of us can think up.” “sounds just like truth or dare.” “no dares. dares are for pussies.” “my point...” “you HAVE to answer.” “where’s your questions for me then?” she stuck out her tongue. “i play by ear.” “gotcha.” she rubbed my ankle with her toes. i ducked my head beneath the checked tablecloth like i’d been snakebit and she laughed. i panned up from the floor, taking her in again: high-heel sandals, blue pedal pushers, tight white blouse with the neck unbuttoned and sleeves rolled to her elbows. gold-tinted sunglasses although it was overcast. chipped nail polish and no makeup. looking as if she’d been doing laundry and had run to food lion for fabric softener. the average woman would have looked... well, average. but her? magnifique. the beer was working. i was staring at the way her white gold necklace lay upon her tits. i found her eyes again and kept it there. somehow. “c’mon! most guys would jump at this and be asking me about my favorite position or something.” “yea, i know.” her face got speculative. “okay...” the waitress, or server, or whatever she’d labeled herself, brought more iced tea for nora and another liter for me. she cleared the plates and went away. the rest of ursula’s staff was a handful of androgynous males who could have been italian. then again they could have passed for puerto rican. or bosnian. nora squeezed her rim-hanging lemon, dropped it into the tea. a few lemon drops squirted the heel of her hand. she licked them away with her eyes on mine. “one question, then. are there any guys who’d get pissed if they saw us together?” “so you do have questions!” “didn’t seem like you were gonna let it go.” “let what go?” i swallowed the head off the fresh beer. “you mean—am i already going out with somebody,” she said. “going with, married, dating, fucking...” “if i could find a man worth shit, i’d be with him right now. not with you.” ya little chauvanist, i thought. didn’t answer my question either. the server slid our note on the table before me. i pretended to study the bill with great concentration, digesting the pasta and nora.
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