Twenty - All the Parking Lots in America Part -2

I'm writing this in a thunderstorm you know, i'm not big on thunderstorm anymore, i have this fucking weird paranoid fear that i'm going to be struck by lightning and so all electrical equipment is strictly avoided but once again i'm off the gear and the sauce cuz i have a my yearly date with my physician tomorrow and we all know how that goes, oh yeah we don't cuz i deleted the last post about it last year and was chastised by a certain surfer girl on the west coast who i don't believe frequents these parts much anymore, needless to say i miss her but let's get on with it now shall we...

Backwards to go forwards or forwards to go back or some such non-sense, you see when we last left our hero he was making his way towards the beer store after being given the boot by the girl he thought he loved, of course he would get over it, he always does and we must now fast forward back to the Hippy Queen and the dangled promise of a weekend of hot sex while at her house in western Pennsyltucky... and so i-him-he tossed all my worldly possessions into my flophouse, padlocked the door and after many unanswered phone calls decided it would still be a good idea to 8 hours back in order to get laid, i mean what else would any red-blooded American boy do? the faint promise of new pussy would have me traveling a total of 24 hours here there and everywhere only to end up back at the old whorehouse which anyone in their right mind wouldn't have left in the first place, but ah now the sweet smell of that thick black hair and the curves of the Hippy Queen's body had made more than one man do dumb shit and i didn't want to offend her by not out dumbing the dumbest and so off i went back towards whence i came...

And of course the Hippy Queen never answered her phone, turns out she had went to stay with her aunt and this was before the days of 24/7 communication and i conned my friend into using his daddy's credit card to score me a motel room and we bought a pizza and some malt liquor while his girlfriend huffed and puffed at my tail chasing and we jammed towels under the bathroom door and got high and i could tell he wished he was in my shoes instead of going back to Podunk U. to play house with his future wife, a girl who played the little hippy role perfectly only to turn into a raging yuppie ten minutes after she graduated, and then the sun came up and i was left standing in a motel parking lot with a backpack and maybe 10 bucks in my pocket, i had eight or so hours to kill until the good Doctor would swing into the mall parking lot and pick my sorry ass up, the good Doctor being none to pleased that he had to leave his telly behind so that his 6'4 inch friend could cram himself in the back of his Toyota Tercel loaded with his and the Hassler's possessions...

And so i began to while away the hours, fucking off in the bookstore for awhile but this was before the big sit down and read craze, before there was lounges and coffee shops and in this backwoods mall i stuck out like a sore thumb with my long hair and beat-up Van's and i noticed that the mall guards were having a banner day keeping track of me and i was fucking starving but i knew i had to wait to score some food, wait til i could stand it no longer and then i would head to the Denny's across the parking lot and hopefully loiter away an hour or two over one and toast, a used newspaper and endless cups of coffee, all the while shambling around with half a hard-on thinking of all the fucking i couldashouldawoulda been doing, the best laid plans of mice and men as they say... of course not once did it occur to me that it would have been just as easy to find a nice, warm girl down at the shore, especially early doors when the work was slow and the parties were like x-mas morning as all the kids sized each other up and got drunk and did drugs and fell into bed with any willing and able member of the opposite sex...

And so i waited... and time dragged and i needed to make it until 4pm and around 1 when i couldn't take it any longer i walked out of the mall and into the shitty heat of late spring and made my way towards the yellow and red sign emblazoned with the name Denny's, a name that any Midwest suburban kid knew well, been drunk in, got thrown out of, picked up girls in, possibly worked in for two weeks before getting fired and it was on this walk towards my oasis that out of the corner of my eye i saw this bitchin' Camaro and i thought to myself, it couldn't be, there's no fucking way, and as i made my way towards the entrance the car swung right and then right again and into the lot and there staring open mouthed in disbelief was M1...

She parked the car and got out, she looked absolutely gorgeous, her straight dark hair was longer, her smile was still beautiful, she had on a beige skirt and a flowered blouse and she was coming from a job interview to pick something up at the mall, she said, "i couldn't believe my eyes, that slinking walk and the hat pulled down so i couldn't see your eyes, it couldn't be anyone else but all i could think of was what the hell was is he doing here? walking across the mall parking lot?" 

It had been over a year since i had seen her, over 10 months since my last rambled voice message asking why and what happened? of course then my last year started and i got on with things but it seemed as if she was always there, i had this habit of fucking things up and then wondering what might have been, she was right of course, we were going in two different directions but at the time it didn't make it any easier for me to swallow, and so she got out and i took her in my arms and gave her a big hug, told her i was about to go in and order some food cuz i was starving, she asked if she could join me, asked how much money i had cuz she said i looked like a fucking hobo as she laughed and told me she'd buy me lunch, i laughed and told her i had enough for one egg and toast and she smiled at me as she told me i could get two eggs if i really wanted, it was easy the way we talked, easy like the days at the shore when we'd lay in bed and ramble about all the things that would come into our heads, laying there tangled up in the sheets and each other as we watched the sun beat in or the stars come up, our own little slice of paradise, the waves breaking not 40 yards from my window as the hustle and bustle of Ocean City went on without us...

And so we sat and talked, she asked about my family and the divorce and if i was okay and i told her i was fine and didn't speak to my mom and that my dad had moved into the city with his brother and i asked her about her situation, she smiled and said it was good, that her and the step-dad had come to a truce and that she was in college and doing well, that she was seeing a really good guy who wanted to be a cop and i chuckled and mumbled about how i had changed her taste in men and for a second it could have turned into a fucking Dan Fogelberg song and then i quoted someone or the other with one of those "the heart wants what the heart wants" and i told her i was happy for her, that if anyone deserved a good and happy life it was her and that i had a feeling things would work out for her, she asked about me and i shrugged, i'm just living, i told her, i'm cool though i said, i have this funny way of always landing on my feet and finding a place to lay my head, she shook her head and smiled and we finished our lunch and she told me she had to get going, i told the waitress i was gonna walk her out but that i'd be back for a few more cups of coffee...

As we stood outside we knew it was most likely the last time we'd ever see each other, it's a strange feeling when you look at someone and know that from here on out they'll be just memories and that slowly those memories will fade and without pictures they'll become blurry and fuzzy and just shadows in your dreams, beautiful fucking shadows in the movie of your life, and those days spent in that hot room pouring out our young souls to each other would be forgotten only to be remembered years later walking down the boardwalk with your own kids or seeing a news clip on t.v. and suddenly that fleeting taste of the wine of youth would come trickling across the lips...

But at this moment we just took each other in, i took her hands and told her she was beautiful, she told me that a year ago if she thought she could save me and herself she would have, i told her not to think about it, ain't no one gonna save me but me and as i broke into grin she leaned in and kissed my cheek, then she said, write that book... i'll always be looking for it... and with that she turned and started walking to her car, then she stopped and turned and said, just what the fuck are you doing here? and i rocked back and forth for a second and said it's kinda of a long story and then i said the Hippy Queen's first name and M1 started giggling and said (name deleted) You're a piece of fucking work, and then she got in her car and was gone...

I walked back into Denny's and downed another cup of coffee, in a little less than two hours the good Doctor and the Hassler would pull into the lot and pick my dumb ass up, i was still tingling when they did, we packed ourselves into the Tercel and headed east and south, the summer was just beginning...