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When I Moved from Nevada
Moses and Fredo stacked boxes of books in the U-haul, cussing at the sage-filled lot
adjacent the building. The cat lurched around the emptying apartment as hiding
places -- i.e. under the bed -- dismantled and walked out the door. I shattered the kitchen
chairs by tossing them from the balcony. Mike, Bob, Chris Bennett -- everyone -- drooped their
asses over barstools. When I said goodbye they turned partway and shrugged. I could have
wept like a wife in this divorce. Sunset pinked its way over Crystal Peak and Peavine. Pulling the Jeep the U-haul dragged like a poem: this way and that up the Sierra. Donner Lake and Pass were snowless and tame. From the back seat the cat wailed.
Party
Once, down above the junk, this feeling like I was part of something. Bob had wrapped his
T-shirt round his head in a turban and twirled to the punk rock, the bulges of his stomach and droplets of sweat spinning off. My cigarette mingled with a million others. It was a
protest for cigarettes: here we are, now deal with us. Sharon's anger: eyes like a cat's. This million people danced with their cigarettes without angry girlfriends. Everyone got out of Bob's way, so he could spin uninhibited. Another time I felt almost the same way. That bar -- the Summit Saloon, way out in the dark on Fourth Street -- closed. Afterwards they put up condos.
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