I'm better than apple jacks

First and now :
the air is broke or maybe it isn't. it could be but maybe it's just so hot outside that it doesn't cool down enough. it's no hotel room we are staying in. maybe things don't work that way when it's 100 degree's in the shade. who used to say that? 100 in the shade. who'd say something like that let alone write it?. Things aren't working right.

My house and in it: has my girl and pets and t.v. sets, radios, a refrigerator and other things that break.

we all break.

2nd and then:

I remember I waited all summer for school to start. Fucking high-school and all the shit that goes with it. Girls with tits, for one. Girls with tits for another. But mostly I'd been thinking of this girl that i saw last year. I didn't have the stomach to even say hi to her in the hallway. She had cool new wave hair and I thought that made her somehow off limits to me. She was like Molly Ringwald and I was like farmer Ted. Except not as funny. I never fell into hilarious hi-jinx or built an obscenely beautiful woman in my basement either. No weird science projects, no writing about detentions after school. The coolest thing about me was that I had pair of checkered Vans like Spicoli in Fast Times. Speaking of which, Phoebe Cates......OMG.

The first day of school I am looking all over for her. By 5th hour the news had spread of a girl
who was killed over summer break in a car accident. Yes, you guessed it. Her. My new-wave girl. Even though i never knew her, the news it hit me hard. I mean I had fantasized about this pretend meeting and falling in love for over two months. I was devastated.

At home, I locked my bedroom door , put on a Cure record and laid on top of my bed staring at the ceiling fan spinning for what seemed like hours. I took out my note book and wrote about how shitty my life was. What girl would fall for someone as fucked up and ugly as me? and why was it that every time i have something good does it always get taken from me ??. never mind that I never had her to begin with. just.... you know what i mean.
Then I went and cut her picture out of my 8Th grade year book and taped it to my notebook. next to it I wrote down: Never Was. Should have Been. Will Be Again. Rest in Peace. On the 2nd day of school I wore black and every day after.

lastly: (back to present)
i cut the lawn and after I try to cool down by going inside the house. i don't think the air is working. maybe it is but it's so hot it takes all day to cool off. I'm afraid of the heat to hot and the cool to cold.
i like it somewhere in between here and there.
i sit by the pool and watch the automatic cleaner climb the steps and walls and back. over again.
It's strange that i know this.

That in between here and there is you.

-

Why won't you stay? , why won't you come?

one summer, just before school starts back up. i meet her while working at the Publix grocery store. she was this cute hippie girl with dreads, braids and plastic objects twisted and tied up into her hair.

I was running the front-end of the store. Ordering around bag-boys and calling on cashiers who'd rather block the shelving (moving things from back to front) then to actually be checking at the register.

A 16 year old voice cracking over the store loud-speaker. Mine. I called the girls only by their last names. like in the military. I figured to leave them with the good memories of who they once were. before the rush to lose their daddy's name, the inevitable marriages, babies and bills.

like a drill Sargent I call out the name- TRIPPER check please! or maybe it's BEAN to the front-code blue!. I wondered why the management let kids run the store? I don't know. But i was happy to do it.

The hippie girl with the gum-machine toys hanging from her hair. she drove a CUSTOM VAN. I thought it was more than rad. When I was little I wanted to grow up and drive one. In a way the Honda Element I drive around these days is probably my version of that dream come true.

Her van was a beast with a side cuteness. little heart-shaped bubble windows. Garfield the cat was air brushed on both sides and an angel tire cover on the back. The shaggy carpet and giant captain chair seats. double cassette deck, 5 speakers, and a disco ball. we could park it anywhere, anytime and fool around. She let me drive her too.

we talked about taking trips and camping and leaving our town, school, the job, this life-behind.
But I didn't often jump into things like that. I wait. I keep her waiting. I'm not as free. I'm about the job and money and things should be a certain way. they are supposed to be. dreaming is fun. but....

on the shagged cookie-monster colored carpeting we stared out of the moon roof. The south-florida night sky filled with stars and hope. In the back of the van on our backs, skin touching skin, she would say the strangest things. Out of nowhere- trippy and inspiring. The things we could do, the places we could see. She wanted it together.Me. I couldn't grasp the concept of it. together she kept saying.

I didn't see past the stars, past the moment. I just liked hearing her talk. Touching her skin. Her letting me. her saying it was okay for me to want it anyway I wanted it.

She was a cool girl. She had a Custom van for christ sake. the dreams in her head , they were so much like mine. But I waited to long. made her wait to long. the story of my life she met a guy who was willing to do more than talk about leaving, more than talk about camping around the United States. More about doing. Less about dreaming. They got married.

She sent me post-cards for several years. beautiful sunny, dusty, sandy, mountainy, post-cards from all over. her scrawling handwriting and trippy words. If you can't come, I'll show you. And she wasn't shoving it in my face, she just knew. Knew me. Knew I'd be happy for her. It could have been me. maybe. She told me once that I'd rather pretend to be somewhere then actually be there. I told her - I am here.

She pointed to my head and said.

No, you're here.

photos:4 _selfhaircuts 5-I still love you by _tefa_zozokovich