The invitation

"Hey all.....
welp, sorry to break a long running tradition but I am not throwing a
Scorpio birthday party this year. However,
for anyone wanting to celebrate the SSsssscorpio season that issss upon
ussss, next tuesday is a holiday
next monday (the 10th) is my bday so I'll be at Liquid monday night gettin
my free drink on!!
anyone interested in celebrating or just drinking some beers and playin
some pool mark it on your caledar!
next monday
Liquid (S and 34th? a couple blocks down from the co-op)
9ish.
and you won't have to wake up early the next day! yay!!"


An email pops in my inbox at work. It makes a metallic sound. It is
from Stella, her birthday soon, at a neighborhood bar in town,
Monday night. I immediately forward it to Larry.

I'm staying at Larry's house a couple of nights per week, only ten
minutes from work, as opposed to one and a half hours from mine.
When I lost my carpool friend to relocation, I put a sign at work.
"Looking to share a room close to work. Willing to pay up to
$200/mo, willing to help around the house. I'm quiet and a non-
smoker". I thought maybe one of the Indian guys. But it turns out to
be hip Larry. I had no idea he had separated from his beautiful
wife, or that he just bought a place so close. I help him move his
furniture in. I love the house empty, my futon in a corner of a room,
his son Nick's room across from mine. I hit it off well from the start
with Nick. He is four years old, bubbly and intelligent, and with a
twinkle in his eyes. Stella too has a Nick of her own. Both
living in similar houses in similar neighborhoods, both having tasted
the green demon's sting. Only natural then for me to introduce,
Larry with his curved African forehead and kind eyes, with his
deep baritone voice and his black iron furniture. Stella with her
slim outline, creamy skin, full lips and thin short-cropped hair.

I imagine briefly the two Nick's together, opposite and
complimentary just like their parents. It strikes a chord of beauty.
But they are cautious, not wanting another mistake, or worse. They
seek comfort in relationships that are predictably breakable.

I am only willing to do a little, bringing Larry to where she works
at the wine bar. James and Manny are there too so the evening is lively
with the pun of pleasure, good food and Tarot cards. Larry is
impressed enough the next night to research his reading and miss the
ever-present basketball game.

Afterwards, at the birthday party, I am early. It is Monday, after
work, and my stomach is all tangled up after the drive and the waste
of the day behind my computer. I almost didn't come. It would have
been so much simpler to walk the ten minutes, curl up with Swann,
and see how Odette de Crecy declares to him "No, I am always
available, will always be for you. At any time of the day or night
when it would suit you to see me, ask for me and I'll be happy to
run." Yes, the opposite of laziness.

Larry, sounding convincing, is supposed to meet me after his
hockey game. The place is almost empty. I sit at the bar and scan the
bottles for the least harmful concoction for my current state. Gentle
beer is out of course due to the binding covenant (for life). A martini
then. The barwoman is in her element. This is her bar and pride of
ownership, or resilience in the face of hardship, or devotion to a work
well done makes for interested conversations, in round robin, one per
patron. There are a girl and two boys already at their nth pitcher. I
sense her glances without looking. I am confident, if not of the
innards, at least of my outward presentation tonight, a little too
dressed perhaps, but not for later, not with Manny and Stella and
James. I am thinking of the buzz, or vibration, or whatever that it is,
somewhere above my diaphragm. Can't I ever be just left alone?
Must energy always be directed towards calming down? Like a child
peering at his navel? A prostitute walks in. The walk gives it away,
not unlike a rider after a long journey. I'm thinking rider is not the
right word, jockey? Horseman? They all allude. How funny! Her
legs are kept apart, upper body swaying from side to side. The two
halves are dressed differently too, brightly colored loose jacket on
top, black and tight at the bottom. There is a general reaction to her
entrance; a willing to ignore that puts her ill at ease. She orders a
shot, drinks it in one swift motion, and drifts back into the night.

I am reminded of my sister. I always try to imagine what she might
be doing at this precise moment. And I draw blank. Huddled at a
doorway to a boarded up office building, a cardboard box, and multi-
layered clothes. She always chose wrong, set in her anti-
establishment crusades, lost in Art, Blues, Booze, and mind prisoner
of misplaced pride. What could lineage possibly matter, far from
family, culture, or reference to what is warm and good, and doesn't
scream, or continuously howl to get in, to get to the bones, or
whatever needs protecting?

How can you sleep at night? I ask myself, knowing full well the
response: I don't. Her condition is precise, mine vague. There is this
vague sensation of being unwell. What she abuses, I cannot enjoy. A
drink, a joint, a flight of fancy.

Lost in reverie, I'm surprised to find James and Manny in front of me.
I'm always running into them in the middle of crowds. We talk of
apartments, outdoor bathrooms, kids, and sex. We talk of when, at
Burning Man, James was telling me "Man, I just tried this new pill, it's
supposed to be like MDMA but a lot milder." "Can you get me
some?" I ask like an automaton. "No man, we just finished them."
That was the first time I met Manny M. They are a beautiful couple.
James, dark, handsome, amused, with an open triangular face
accented by a thin goatee, Manny, pretty, theatrical, exotic and sexy in
the style of Mae West, through her voice and manner. I remember I
liked the spec of her nose ring, subtle and tastefully understated. I
also chuckle when their expressions changed from stoned to panic as
the little pill did its reorganization of what we call reality. It would
have been panic for me but perhaps for them it was something else
disguised, something like intense lust.

We were talking about that night, Manny was saying how her mind
was unfocused when she overheard, in the middle of a conversation,
the word "sex", and how this word took shape and size, and a warm
sweat covered her body. She draws James near and kisses him. "He
keeps me happy!" We are having a good time. "It only gets harder!"
I joke. I tell them about Dee and me. How we fell in love/lust.
How we ran away, how her family disowned her, and how, during
the last twenty years, not once we wished we could go back in time
and change the course of our lives. It's true that we made others pay.
My desire then, as in the young couple in front of me, was palpable.
You could put your hand into it and when you took it back there was
an aura in its palm. Sex and love was the same for us. Every time we
felt threatened, every time under that dark northern sky gloom
seemed inevitable, we lost ourselves in games of domination and
abandon, creating something that must have pleased the gods, for
our road was showered with gifts. I was burning then. White hot.

I also told them how, lately, or at least some time ago, we gave
ourselves more room from each other, our bodies low in secrets, or
unopened gates. What helps now is not proximity but a step back,
just as committed as ever, when time becomes your friend, like after
planting a tree you are surprised at its beauty in spring, and every
spring ever after. How to pass a lifetime of experience to a young
crowd, words dissolving into laughter, and play? It helped to know
that, no matter what; Dee and me were two faces of the same coin.
Every now and then, when I'm away at Larry's, and she is
sleeping alone, for kids don't really count, even if they help, doubt
creeps into Dee's head. "Maybe he is getting tired of my aging
body. Of the white in my hair that refuses to be colored, or my taut
cheekbones?" What she doesn't realize is that I find her ravishing.
Her face contains a sweetness that must come from inside, that time
can only enhance. What she doesn't know is what portion of my
thoughts is directed inwards. If not given up on my Ideals of Muse,
at least I have become sufficiently confident, finally, in my crafty
hands to know that beauty is within my reach to produce at a whim.
The question then becomes "to what end?" In Oryx and Crake,
Jimmy tells Crake "And the works of Art?" Crake responds "There is
a species of frogs that likes to sing to attract the females. The frog
with the loudest, deepest voice, which must come from a healthy and
strong body, is declaring his worth. But smaller and craftier frogs
have learned that they can position themselves next to a pipe to
amplify their voice. Art is that pipe."

Or, reading my "The Trip", my friends want to know what portion is
true and what imaginary. What they don't realize is how I was
laughing the whole time I was writing it. Or how little I have always
thought of my so-called self-gratification.

More and more people enter the bar. It is a festive atmosphere now,
and I recognize faces. Finally Stella appears with a pink feather
boa. She is the same mixture of radiance and something else (doubt?)
that I find so endearing. I am introduced to a man who spent time in
Iran. He is small and intense and not playful enough for my mood.
We talk of poetry and politics. I end up playing pool and Larry
never shows up.

At closing time we all head to Stella's house. Joints are passed
around. Time for me to honor my sensitive body, and, like the
prostitute that I am, disappear into the unending night.