Greyhound Terminal Blues

     the door creaked shut and i watcher her brown hair with the long blonde stripe walk away. her backpack jingle jangled the whole way to the entrance. it was getting late, almost midnight, and i didn't trust any of those fucks hanging around outside, so i watched her walk her way into the building. i grabbed my cigarettes because my nerves were shot, my trembling hand reached up and placed it in my mouth, i fumbled around for my lighter, and as i was sparking it, i saw her turn and wave. she then disappeared into the building.
      each time i dropped her off at the Greyhound terminal down on 7th & Alameda it was always the same. we spent what last few hours we had in my bedroom having the most intense sex of my life, then we would talk for a bit, or just sit there quietly entangled in each other's arms starring up at the ceiling. i would try to talk, and she would just shush me and tell me to enjoy the silence. i did.
      i felt nervous for the both of us, the momentum rising with every tick of the clock. it was like being an inmate in prison ready to be transfered to death row. each second was a nervous wreck, but once you were transfered you calmed down and accepted your fate. the inmates had it worse than i, and i knew this, but still my body convulsed with anxiety. i let it do it's thing.
      i drove out of the terminal and onto 7th street up towards the freeway. the cigarettes weren't doing it for me, and i knew that the bars near my house were closed, so i went on a mission to find a place to drink downtown. i hung a left on Hill and then a right on 2nd. i stopped off at a small bar and walked inside. off the cuff i saw a woman dressed in red sitting at the bar, that looked like a good of place as any to settle down. i wasn't looking for a lay, but at least if anything she'd make some conversation to entertain me. the seats were real close together, and as i slid into the stool, i asked her if anyone was sitting there, she replied no with a surprise on her face, we couldn't of been more than six inches apart, the situation was awkward for me, but she handled it well. i dropped a twenty on the bar and ordered a scotch and a beer chaser. the bartender was this cute little Australian job with flowing blond locks. i settled in for the long haul and rested my elbows on the bar, starring off at the bottles and thinking about the woman i just left at the bus terminal. whenever she left i always got the same feeling. desertion laced with unabridged happiness. it was a shitty cocktail to drink, but finished well.
      the band was doing alright, a few guitars, a drummer, a wise cracking singer, and an upright bass player slapping it sometimes when the feeling was right. i gobbled down my first round and ordered a second while i still had a little left in my cups. the bartender eyed me suspiciously and then poured them out. this time the scotch was a heavy pour. it felt right. i grabbed a straw from the bar tools and worked at it with my teeth for a while, folding it over and chomping down to burn out he anxiety that the woman left me. the second round of drinks kicked in and i sat back to enjoy the music.
      i thought to myself for awhile about writing out the story. and i almost did, there, at the bar, on the cocktail napkins with my sharpie, but when i popped the top off and stared scribbling, the woman in red next to me was scribbling as well, into her own notebook. she caught my attention and i watched her causally going through the motions. i set my marker down to see the process happen, and i watched like a hawk. she would write, then look up and to the right side of the bar, roll her eyes, fuck the air, lick her lips, then go back to writing in her little notebook. i loved watching the process of her figuring out just where she wanted to go with whatever it was she had going on in those pages, so i settled in and watched her work. when she was done, i picked up my sharpie and wrote a message for her on one of the cocktail napkins.
"It's tough as nails,
but you've got to keep trying.
i understand."
     as she turned to put her notebook back in her purse, i floated the napkin near her beer without her noticing. she ignored it for a while, but when she finally reached out to take a drink, the black text caught her eye and she read it a couple times. She turned to me and i nodded and sipped on my scotch. she smiled and turned to me. i leaned in close enough to smell her hair, she smelled like apricots on a ripe summer day, and she yelled over the band into my face,
"the hardest thing to understand is clarity"
"Fucking A".
     then she downed her beer and patted my shoulder walking out of the bar into the foggy city. i sat there for a bit and thought some more about my woman on the Greyhound bus. i thought about her scent, her smile, the way the light came in through the blinds and reflected off her face as she was riding me. the way we both understood the world in the same context, how we understood each other, and how we could speak the same language with brutal honesty. that's the hardest thing to do, is be completely honest with somebody without having them become defensive and start crying. i hated that because it made me feel bad for expressing myself, so i thought it better to crawl inside and let it out some other place. but not this woman, i could easily tell her she was being a bitch and call her on it, the same way she called it on me when i was being a dick, and with that, i grew uttermost respect for her above the fucking, above the loving, above anything we had, it was truth and respect for our given space. that my dear friends, you cannot put on a anniversary card and you cannot make that kind of shit up, no matter how awesome you think you are. 
      i drove home and started putting the story together in my head, but i knew that if i started planning before i sat down that it would lose it's interest. i drove straight ahead and landed at the taco truck. i ordered a burrito of tripe and carnitas and sat on my hood eating it. i picked at the radishes i had in a bag drenched with lime and salt and kept thinking about whether or not i wanted to write this out. i cleared my mind and enjoyed the burrito. some people in the car next to me were getting into it, and i could see the steam collecting on the windows, through the back window i could see this girl's head bobbing up and down as the guy laid back with both his arms across the seats. i watched them out of the corner of my eye and wished him luck. i laughed inside at how it would seem normal for me to be watching this, this here, in my frame of mind, but for other people it may seem disgusting or unreal. i had that kind of luck, i got not the shit end of the stick, but more so the interesting end of the stick that was ignited. some people had all the luck, but no life, i had some luck, and some life, i was ahead of the curve.
      when i got home the streets were filled with cars, so i parked a few blocks down and walked. these nights always felt the same, when i left the woman at the terminal, i would feel anxiety, then relaxation and release, then clarity, and finally, when i got home and dropped my keys into their respective bin and bolted the door, i'd sit on the couch with the lights off. i felt empty inside. i felt drained. i felt as if a piece of me took off and i wasn't whole again. somebody hit reset on my controller and i was forced to start over. i would sit there and listen to the night for awhile, and then slowly put myself back together, and once i felt complete again, i would get up and go into the room to write. i'd sit in my chair by the window, with the blinds open, and the cool air coming in. i'd sit there under the lamp, in the silence surrounded by books and start over again. i'd sit there and know that whatever just happened was important, and if someone could get that far into the blockade, than i was still human. i still felt empathy, i still felt sympathy, i still felt courage and fight. i was still alive, and even if the night was cool and silent, the hills burned with fire and the ash collected in the air, at least in my eyes to go on.