Straight No Chaser

Anything But This

agreed, i wouldn't mind a baby either. i would love him, anyway, once he got here. and i'd probably think the universe had shifted to create a divine space for his arrival, et cetera. and yes, we'd love each other. i'm constantly talking myself out of making it happen, making him happen.

it turns out krystle's condo is right at the edge of the red light district. we stopped for gas at a station a block from her front gate, and there they were, snaring passersby with long legs and tight pink tops. those particular prostitutes seem to have a uniform of sorts, and from the look of it, their pimp is a chain-smoking androgen with a bad perm and a patch over her eye. i was pretty stunned, having noted the pricey homes all around, but, as krystle pointed out, "rich men have penises too." the sewer lines run under all parts of town. can't remember where i heard that. during some particular low last year, i convinced myself that if nothing else, i could be a prostitute. you might be surprised at how many college students pay for sex. there was a girl in one of my classes freshman year who made a name for herself charging fifty bucks per half hour, then quickly defiled that name by spreading herpes to some significant number of our upwardly mobile young men. i'd like to think i'd be a slightly classier whore, safer, and that i'd enjoy the sex, which she didn't seem to. she always had a long, unhappy face, in class and out, like whatever she was doing, she couldn't wait to just...go to sleep. i knew a lot of the guys who tried her out, and i guess i'd have been depressed too. i would have been more selective with my clientele, raised my rates for the awful ones so that i could at least buy myself a present after a particularly bad night. and then, so this sparkling fantasy goes, i'd forget what loneliness felt like.

i can't imagine a more poignant waste of my upbringing. or, wait, i can. i could use the spoils of my conquests to pay for rich girl drugs, get hooked on blow and destroy my brain, start forgetting to care who i fucked and end up taking whatever i could get, antsy between fixes. meet a john who got off by battering women, and let him mess me up a little. and then eventually kill me. and wonder, at the end, whether it was worth it, whether i'd stumbled on the perfect cure for loneliness.

the baby, on the other hand, wouldn't be ruinous. no reason i couldn't actually do right by him. i've always wondered.

i guess the first friday night was bound to be difficult, and i guess i'm not surprised. i was coasting over the exit ramp when i had the idea for a poem, not about things sucking, but about things being good. about that baby, among other things. and physical togetherness and a condition made ugly by its intensity. i'm going to call it "in," and it's definitely going to win a pulitzer. i can feel it this time.

someone remind me to stop at radio shack for a replacement remote for the tv. if i have to get up one more time i'm going to start spontaneously hurling things at the cinderblock walls.