june gloom

i don't eat all day so by the time i go out to lunch with billy and daniel i am starving and i sit and honk to make billy come out of his house, instead of going inside to get him like a polite person would. when he gets in the car he says he didn't know it was urgent and i say i'm starving.

we eat at le paz, or les paz, or la pez, regardless it is el salvadorian food. the restaraunt is authentic, daniel keeps saying so, "this place is authentic." it has a red tile floor, but not nice tiles, tiles like in a high school, or a grocery store. the tables are covered with red and white gingham table clothes and doilies, there is plastic over them as well. "its real authentic looking," he says, "i wonder if they have cervezas."

"its two o'clock," i say.

I order huevos rancheros and the guys get pupusas. their's come with sodas, and billy gets a sunkist orange and i am reminded of the soda machine at the kester place and how when you got a soda is would come out all hot.

the waitress is pregnant, but still small. she is beautiful. she looks healthy and glows, after she takes our order she sits by the counter and eats tortilla chips and drinks milk. billy agrees that she is beautiful and i can imagine billy and his latina wife, their relationship unfolds in front of me, the birthday parties at the park, billy always having beans to eat, him making her laugh as he tries to speak spanish.

my huevos come with sourcream that looks like it has been run through the wash with a new red towel, just a tinge of pink, and that mexican cheese that looks and crumbles like feta but doesn't smell that feet. it also come with a quarter of avacado and rice and beans. i eat it fast and take bites of daniels pupusas as well. we talk about going to double features.

two white guys come in while we are eating and while ordering they ask the waitress loudly,"what are frijoles? frijoles?" she lookes at them like she is sad, and i can see her searching for the word. "beans," she whispers.

i am still thinking about the sourcream and the avacado when i go out to the valley for a birthday party. it is a at a bar in studio city. the bar is so dark i trip over the japanese style tables. i sit there for an hour and no one i know shows up. i don't drink but i watch person after person come in off the bright street and stick there hands out into the dark, feeling there way into the crowded bar. i leave around nine thirty and drive around. i end up back at the old kester place. i go buy a bottle of wine at the liquor store down the street. the guy there remembers me, "you weren't just going to sneak in without saying hello?"

"i was going to say hello," i say. "i'm buying some wine."

he rings me up and i feel compelled to tell him i don't live here anymore. "i haven't been here in a while," i say. "i moved out of the valley."

"yeah, people do that and then they just disappear. we never see them again."

i smile and take the wine and walk out of the store. "nice seeing you," i say as i turn and push through the door. it chimes as i exit.

i go back to the kester place. i still have my keys and i open the gate. i go to the apartment and ring the door bell three times. i press my ear against the door. then i use my key. the place is empty, not yet cleaned. there are still the remnants of us on the carpet, the walls. little pieces of paper, our dirt, small pieces of food from our meals, they are all over the carpet. it hasn't been repainted or even vacuumed.

i go out to the balcony and sit down. the ground is dirty and the bars of the railing rise around me. i open the wine. i got a kind with a twist top knowing that i would be without a corkscrew. i go to light a cigarette but i can't find any matches. i look around the balcony and see a box in the corner. the mathes are nice, wooden and long, with white head from some restaurant in malibu and i wonder who they belong to, or belonged to.

next to me is a pot with a dead plant in it. the bulb is dry, like a rotten onion. i look at it and again wonder who i belongs to. i feel like such a stranger. why are there things in this apartment that i don't recognize? i drink the wine straight from the bottle and i smoke my cigarette and try to remember what it was like to know this place.