Mom's asleep in a recliner in the t.v. room. When I got up, she said she slept straight through the night. I guess so. I think she's eaten through her Percocets and muscle relaxers and has thrown in some other things besides. I call an ortho today to make an appointment and to get her more drugs. That is what she hopes.
A neighbor came over yesterday to visit, so while someone was here, I took the opportunity to get out for a walk. I put on my ugly gym outfit and lighted out. My hips and back are killing me, so it was a bit slow, that walk, but I managed to get in some miles. On my way back to my mother's on one of those well travelled suburban trails they've built everywhere, some young kids riding bikes came toward me, jumped the grass median that separates bikers and pedestrians, and were coming fast like screaming Comanches. I know, I know. . . you can't say such things. But just as they got to a tree in front of me, they hit the breaks. A little towhead yelled, "Speed record. We tied. Can I go first this time?"
It is unusual to see kids this age out on their own. Didn't they have parents?
I walked on up the trail, and there were some other kids on bikes stopped in the middle of the bike path looking back. Further ahead, there was a group of women standing around a bike that lay on the ground attached to one of those bike baby carriage things made for two. As I got closer, I could hear one of the women on her phone. She was telling someone where they were and wanted them to come. As I came abreast of them, a tall woman turned toward me and gave me a look. Oh. . . I knew her from long ago. She said hello, came over, and gave me a hug.
"Hi, you."
Yes, I had known her. Biblically. She was the hot, young sushi waitress who lived with the writer, a six foot beauty with some of the first girl tats in town. They were quite a couple, royalty among the hip, and intimates of the fellow who owned the famous clubs where House Music was born. She was a mere girl then, I. . . not so much. Now we stood facing one another, she maybe thirty nine, me in my late ancients. She told me that they had a little incident, that a bike almost ran over her dog (unleashed and bounding around on its own) and there was a bit of an accident.
"Probably those little sonofabitches on their bikes up there," I said indicating the direction from which I had come.
"Yea, well, some of those are mine."
Oops.
She had more tats now, an indication of how her life had progressed. She had married the writer when he got a job writing for a major magazine in NYC. They bought a place in Brooklyn. She attended the famous Culinary Institute where Bourdain had studied. They had a kid. Then she left them both to go live with a former girlfriend she had by chance run into in a Manhattan club. From there, it is a long story. But here she stood in front of me now, her still quite attractive, me looking like a sack of potatoes wearing a goofy gym outfit.
We chatted briefly before she had to turn her attention back to the situation at hand. She told me where she lived now, not far from my mother. Kids. A house in a middle class neighborhood. Hmm. There's a story there.
That is, of course, as I've come to find out, the trouble with having dated women much younger than myself. They are all still relatively young, have experienced success in some ways and are still aspiring in others. And there I stand, knocking on heaven's door so to speak. Well. . . the wages of sin, I guess.
But I still aspire. Sitting in my mother's living room, I look through old photo books I left here the last time I was staying here when I was recovering from the scooter accident. Incident. Two of the books were on Disfarmer (link). I'm a big fan, and as I did with Bellocq, I would like to riff on Disfarmer's portraits. Yesterday, looking at those big lovely images, so strained and strange, it occurred to me what I should do. It was one of those Eureka moments. I will need to grow a set of pumpkins, of course, but it could be really something.
But not for awhile, eh? I will be staying at my mother's house for at least the next two months if not three. You know those plans I was fretting over? I need fret no more. I now know what I'm gonna did for my summer vacation.
No comments:
Post a Comment