What I love about you
R says, don’t walk so fast, I can’t keep up – and I say I can’t walk slow – she says when I ask the fourth person which way the parade goes, you are “something” – and I say yes, I am – I want to see the parade – I feel this * close – and then she sees the parade and understands what has compelled me to leave the LaLa and hurry to bring Giovanni to the bustop and call her and tell her to get in the truck and come out to see the doggies – she gets why sitting at home and watching television might not compare – and the understanding is this – here we are in New Orleans and it’s Mardi Gras where a parade of dogs is going by and we can choose not to go – but that means we choose something else – certainly not TV for godsakes – I choose the DreamPugs – the parade – I choose Cosimos – the bar across from where I lived for years – Burgundy and Governor Nichols – I could say it like I could say I want a glass of water – so easily did that address roll off my tongue – and Cosimos where Ken – all 6’8″ of him – my own version of a Nordic god – would perch and wait for me to come home – the Love of my Life – tsk, but he fucked around on me, a lot, toughening up my young tender heart – I was 20 – wow, hard to believe I was ever 20 – he’d wait for me in that bar – they used to have big baskets of peanuts in the shell – he’d sit at the corner of the bar like a prenatural nightstalker observing my comings and goings and with whom – he’d wait till I was inside and then come knock on my shutters and I wouldn’t open them, but I’d speak from behind the slats – Ken? do you not know that you are killing me? that you have ripped my heart out? then what? go away.