a story from anonymous. by admin
The sky gets dark as I leave the estate and I can see her standing in the street. I run the other direction and my feet begin to strike the pavement. I’m sweating by the time I reach the turnoff into the vineyards. Never-ending rows of vines line the narrow gravel alley. I take a left at the end of a row, off the gravel and onto the grass. Autumn’s rain has recently made things green between the vines. The smells are different too. I look up and see stags leap, that large lump of a mountain at the edge of the valley. The birds sing in the trees, forming the border between the different vineyards. The birds sing sweetly and in them I hear her voice. call me.
I run faster but she is with me again. why don’t you just call me, it will be ok. My pace quickens as it is the only way to win.
I can see her standing in the street on that night. He had just asked us for 35 cents and he wished us a happy thanksgiving when I told him with a cool urban sorry we didn’t. She was wearing my fleece, the one from my former fling. She leaned against the car and didn’t seem to understand what I was telling her. Her thin body in that big fleece made her look even smaller. She told me that things were divisible and I knew was otherwise. I knew disengagement is nearly impossible when people break into each other’s private spheres. I knew I was leaving in moments. She tried to give me a weak buck yeah to persuade me it could be ok, but she had violated our unwritten contract. What’s past is past. I told her I loved her, leaned in, and kissed her. My keys out of my pocket, I opened the door and started the car as she stood in front of it. Then she walked towards the sidewalk so I pulled out of my parking spot and onto Mission.
it would be better if you called me
I took Mission to van ness and the 101 North. Only the poor and crazy were out.
It began to rain, and in the rain I could see the woman in the wheelchair rolling across the 101. No traffic in any direction. She stopped in the southbound lane, right in the middle of it and looked up the hill, cigarette in hand. She blew smoke up and away from her little body and looked up the hill. At the empty street. Nothing but me in my car, and her sitting in the street. I wondered if that woman does that every day at 3:30 in the morning, and if I invaded her privacy by being with her under that cold fog? As I drove on the rain began to fall, but by then my eyes were dry so I turned on the wipers. I turned onto the golden gate, the big red towers hidden in the rain and the fog and Sinatra told me about the joys of walking the tightrope of love.
If you call me we can work this out
No, I tell her, I can’t call you now, I’m safe in these vines.
The spongy grass under my feet leads me to the edge of the Napa river, still a stream this early in the wet season. Two days of rain are not enough to make her roar. But she begins to roar in my ears.
it can’t be this way
It can and it has to be, I tell her.
When you fuck your best friend, you’re fucked.
She starts to win me over and I can smell some grapes rotting in my little path through the vines and I can see here standing in the street.
It would be better if you called
The first tear comes down my cheek and flies away because I’m running so fast. I know she is winning. The vines are disappearing now in the dark, I know that these tears are because I want her.
I turn back onto a gravel path and my vision is now blurred but I can still see her in the street.
Please go away I ask her…
Please leave me, I beg. But she won’t, because I left her and when you leave someone on those terms, those unforgiving terms, they are forever with you.
Leave a Comment