Reservoirs

Walked out of my new house this afternoon with Long December playing.  Strange to listen to it while in California, strange still to see palm trees, to walk outside in late October with the sun hot.  The song means a lot to me.  Like most songs I’ve pinned it to a woman, and in this case two, because I’ve yet to shake my world from the second.  I was walking down my new street toward campus and I realized this place will never reflect my emotions.  It is stagnant, if you can call a blue sky stagnant.  It is defiant.  I suppose that does reflect me at times.

Two nights ago I went out with Chauffeur (one word, goes with his nickname for me) and a girl to a supposed dive downtown.  We had burgers and beer, had a shot to celebrate the girl’s birthday, and went across the street to check out another bar, a little closer to an actual dive.  As we walked in a fellow playing pool turned and put his hand in the air and I high-fived him and shook.  As we waited on our beers he pointed at the three of us and the bartender wouldn’t take our money.   We drank and went out to the back to let Chauffeur smoke and watched this half-pint latina with a lot of metal in her face rap very, very poorly in front of a camera.  (Riverside, side, side, on the mike, mike, mike…ad nauseam.)  We went back in for a while and met Joe, our drunken benefactor, play pool with one hand–his non-dominant.  He’s apparently some sort of drunken savant, because he was sinking shots pretty consistently.  I followed Chauffeur back out for another smoke and we were making fun of the rapper when we realized she was still at it, still saying mike, mike.  We dove behind a brick wall and laughed for a good five minutes.  When we went back in Joe decided to give us a tour of downtown and we followed him directly next door to a gay bar where he bought us more drinks.  We moved on, discussed random things.  Chauffeur and I wandered off briefly to look at a war memorial and I remember telling him that I write because I didn’t serve, and that’s mostly right.  I wouldn’t feel like I have to write if I served.  It was a good night, maybe the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here.

Yesterday I moved everything out of the apartment and into the new house.  I don’t know how to feel about that.  I should feel good to be shut of it, because truly little good happened there.  And this, here, is all new.  As fresh as can be without a bout of amnesia.  But I couldn’t help but feel like I was giving some things up.  Signing off on memories, devaluing them.  I don’t like that.

In the evening the owner of the house, another grad student, took me out to a coffeeshop downtown on the back of his scooter.  I got some writing done.  And today I went back to the apartment to clean it and I was struck again with the knowledge that I am leaving one of two places that I’ve known her.  I stared at that damn futon and at the couch and the pool and the lounge chair as if I could place them more firmly into my memory.  But they’re already relics.  Already cherished in their way.  Walking back home I was taken by the smell of the orange trees and I stood at the intersection of Canyon Crest and MLK, standing in the thin shadow of the lightpole, this song came on:

I watched a woman pull up to the light in a rusted truck, watched her look at me.  She was beautiful, and it was a romantic contrast.  When I crossed I glanced her way again and she locked eyes with me and I passed on and I thought about the few times a woman has touched me out here.  A hand on my shoulder, arm around my waist.  I thought about reservoirs, literal and figurative.  I thought of how quickly my reservoir dries out here, how soon a night like Wednesday can fade.  It’s not a matter of whether or not I can make it.  I know I can.  It’s whether or not I come out the other side having gained ground, rather than lost it.  I haven’t regretted the way I’ve spent my life so far, and I’d hate to start now.