neither jars nor willing hands.
the subject of preparation rouses itself in wait of a train which should have arrived eight minutes ago. she is thinking about her day, what of it. it was just another day but she knows he will ask and will not be satisfied to hear it oblique as all the others crowding toward friday. in the getting to know you process they always want to know about your day and know in the way actual listening happens rather than the formation of a sentence and subsequent nodding off into the salad an accumulation of familiarity allows.
oh, how she missed those salad days! the simple ones when much was known, the narratives a morbid stream of candor rather than the fodder set in place for negotiation. who do i want you to think i am? so many sentences to select, stoic appraisal chasing ones slunk beneath the rafters of lackadaisical discourse, syntax strings you had to crawl on your stomach to produce from under the swarm of things you’d rather be saying.
it is wise, she had decided, to start with a day, a small thing like this, one perfect day, not so much that you appear to be gloating rather just by happenstance covered with the young flush of accomplishment, the rogue of swift progress in a direction to which previous progress had also been swift, sure, but not so swift as today.
what have we progressed on then? she glanced into her bag for ideas. there was the screwdriver she had borrowed from benny in plain sight, a jewel resting on the pillow of a gnarled calico winter scarf. rubbish. underneath the scarf was a napkin, which unfolded, hid one sentence: “the butcher down the street is making me wild.” perhaps… no. she refolded the napkin, wedging it under a fort of organic cotton tampons.
one stop separated them.
she began to flip the pages of the notebook she was holding at random. other sentences, that’s what they’re for, that’s why i put them seven or nineteen pages back so that in times of strife i can skim my way to victory. she celebrated this remarkable dexterity for the written word with a brief upturn of the mouth’s eastern corners.
the first sentence settled on read like nausea: “the earthquake comes only minutes after we make love for the first time while our hungry voices lay still peering in on one another, clouds of jagged oxygen.” something more general with the capacity to assuage, rather than maul. she continued to rustle the pages. another: “by the end of august, there were enough boars, he wrote, that he felt it would be wise to stop so they could all begin to enjoy themselves the way god intended.”
well, now that was something. she could always talk about the boars. the boars, of course, by way of the traffic circle.
the sentence came from a vignette written there just last week and referenced an imaginary infestation of boars in the oakland area to which people like the girl and an occasional companion known as Someone discussed while sipping mugs of invisible wormwood in the traffic circle. yes, the boars would be an excellent topic for which they might converse. her perfect day was spent with the boars or rather constructing the boars, their gestation period, affluence, travel from astrakhan to the warehouse in east oakland by way of mister cork (a name which would have to be changed at a later date as mister cork was the butcher, the one driving her wild and for whom she wished to slip a secret copy beneath the bloodbath of his apron once it neared completion). yes, swift progress had been made with the boars, more precisely with the story for which the boars were only a small part, and the story itself, another nuance in the grand scheme of the entity book for which all of this was being constructed, the great one that she had more or less spent her entire life writing and referencing when asked the what on earth are you doing question or in this very awkward uncomfortable part of the process before the salad days.
the key was to begin with just the fact of a story, one small, irresistible story that took the afternoon to be worked on and around. if he were anyone worth an interlude, he’d put the rest in order, the what of it, the connotation of this being a vital attribute to seeing her as a whole girl, the inevitable result of this very special listening he would be doing to her careful, eloquent sentences which would suggest only what they should for the purposes of precise observation.
half a stop.
she took notice of her neighbor only then, a magnificent purse of a woman gay with laughter, the funny papers strewn open across the burgeoning lime of her seamless stockings. she stole a glance toward the hand which held the paper down, the one which might provide a clue to such an unrefined monsoon of variegated racket.
cathy?
surely, her eyes deceived her, the pivotal line askew. it is a fact that it is difficult to follow focus from a distance. after all, an unremarkable angle can leave a great deal to the imagination. no one could be shaking a seat like this over a few frames of cathy.
a quarter of a stop.
the purse looked over, a look with such hungry architecture she felt the strange sensation of sensual pocketing commence upon the decision to meet it.
“hello.” the neighbor whispered, petting the colored squares beneath her jammy fingers. “would you…” she trailed off to a garble, miming the directive.
it was cathy.
she fought the laughter; it was cruel, no way to treat a neighbor. here, the poor woman was positively trembling, the paisley of her blouse in grave danger of giving way to freedom, the mammoth bosoms sailing about the train like a pair of punchdrunk doves. oh, it would be a sight to behold, sure, but at what price?
“i have very little time,” she leveled with her neighbor, separating the cadence into gentle wisps so as not to offend, “less than a quarter of a stop, in fact. hardly enough time to read and summarize that which i have read into one full side of the conversation i would like to have with you. if you would be so kind though, i have a favor of my own to ask. i would like very much to tell you about my day, just one simple day, comprised of a morning and an afternoon and some very swift progress in between. you don’t even need to feel as if you must respond, i’d just like to watch the light your face takes as i go forth with this, if it takes any at all, and that should be plenty. you see, i have a presentation of sorts i’m headed to and i’m rather nervous about whether or not i have my facts straight on this how to make a good impression business.”
all the while she spoke these things she was aware of the quarter shrinking. she could feel it closing in on her almost in perfect synchronicity to the sharp nods of encouragement produced by her neighbor, a nodding which expired as she came up for air, several inconsequential meters beyond the unmistakable hiss and static of yet another voice, a double-crossing, lowdown tone courting passengers throughout the train toward the requisite 40th street disembarkation.
