Flick

December 4

Dear Wichita,

Anna showed up fashionably late for coffee at Hock’s yesterday. She was wearing a Gore-tex jacket, her hair hidden under a trendy knitted hat. Her earphones were tucked inside the hat.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“What are you listening to?”

“Joni Mitchell, her Both Sides Now re-issue.”

“Is that the one with the painting of her smoking on the cover?”

“Yea. It’s a good album. Doesn’t feel as old as it should.”

We drank coffee and chatted about random things, music, news, the weather. Of course we talked about the weather.

She has bright, busy eyes. They flick around, watching people for split seconds and then moving off again. I found it kind of distracting at first, but she always looked me in the eye when I was saying something.

Her job was okay, her commute was decent, and the people she worked with didn’t play too many games. She wanted to know more about Kansas, why I was way out west instead of, as she smilingly said it, “at home driving a combine.”

“Not every one from Kansas drives a combine you know. Does everyone from Seattle listen to Nirvana?”

“I know I know.”

“Sheesh. No I came out west for a change of scenery. I wasn’t feeling like I fit it so well anymore. In Wichita I mean.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, um. Well I wanted to get more into the arts scene, especially photography, and Wichita is a little red-neckish when it comes to that kinda thing.” I think my eyes flicked.

She nodded, looking at me intently.

I shifted in my seat, looked out the window.

Hock's Cafe II

December 3

Dear Wichita,

I'm writing you from Hock's Cafe where I'm letting my mug of java cool off, steam swirling into the air. You have to be patient for some things in this world.

I spent this morning in a used CD store, a hole in the wall that was playing Woody Guthrie on the fuzzed out speakers. I wandered the bumpy aisles, nosing through the collection of discs for about an hour or so. I can't go into a store like this and be out again in less than an hour, it seems.

Mitch was running the till. He looked to be about 37 or so and probably had dropped his share of acid in days gone by. He nodded as I came through the door and then went back to staring at the wall, lost in Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads.

I bought a couple of old Tom Waits albums, one of which I think I may have owned and lost previously. I paid Mitch, who nodded again and told me to "have a good one."

I don't think he meant it.

Anna is supposed to meet me here for coffee in a half hour or so. I'm early on purpose.

A small smile

December 2

Dear Wichita,

My insomnia is back, the fitful sleep and the unwelcome sunrise seeming to mock me and my futile attempts to rest. I don't know if you knew I was a periodic insomniac. I didn't sleep last night after I got home and I'm wide awake after my shift at the bar. It's like I'm on speed again, just waiting for the crash to come. It will. Speed or insomnia, the crash is remarkably similar, but you won't hear the feds tell you that in their war on drugs. Say no.

Anna came to the bar again tonight, she seems to be a weekend regular. We chatted a bit on my break, she seems to have her act together. I like to think I am a good judge of character. That's not to say I always hung out with the cleanest crowd around, but I always seem able to judge what kind of character a person has, good or bad.

Anna seems decent, certainly not hard to look at. She has bright eyes that dominate her face, pools of inky blue. Blond and short, the total opposite of Mary.

Shit. I can't even think about another girl without Mary floating through my head.

Anna works at an accounting firm, as an account administrator, whatever the hell that is. Probably looks better on a business card than my credentials would. She says it is "an okay job, for now."

I think I am starting to realize just how impermanent our modern lives are. No one stays at a job for forty years anymore. No one has a ten year old car anymore, unless you are poor or a college student. Always looking for something better. Maybe that's why I'm looking at Anna-Marie. Anna.

"Where you from?"

"What makes you think I'm not from Seattle?"

"Your accent, it isn't west coast, its middle America. Plains. The land of railroads and wheat."

"Kansas. Good job Detective Anna. Gold Star."

A small smile.

The One AM Bus

December 1

Dear Wichita,

I am writing this on the bus ride home from the bookstore, where I worked the late shift and where Amy's ex showed up, causing her to cry, contemplate, cry, and finally decide to get back together with him. He looks like a decent guy, I dunno why he wants to be with a headcase like Amy. Maybe she's good in bed. Whatever.

Anyway, it is just past 100am on the #43 bus route and there is only me and some homeless guy riding the bus. He looks pretty disheveled, even for a homeless guy. His clothes are held together by prayers and tape, his grey hair is snaking out from under his grimy white snowhat, and there is a noticeable odour coming from his direction. He is staring hard at the grooved floor of the bus and his head bounces like he is fighting off sleep.

The saving grace about my bus route is that it doesn't pass any college or high schools, so I am saved the agony of listening to girls gossip about one another and guys telling each other lies. I get a semi-professional crowd, middle management types, with the odd blue collar worker thrown in for good mix. Mind you, I only see these types on my way to work. Not too many secretaries riding the bus at 100am. Just the homeless and the twitchy drug addicts. And me. I travel in good company.

I lock into my headphones and my book when I ride the bus. It keeps the conversations to a minimum. I don't want people to think that I am looking for social contact, I get enough of that at work. I always sit on the aisle seat near a drafty door or window, my backpack in the seat against the window. No one asks you to move, they only ask you to move your bag. And I never make eye contact. Nobody makes eye contact anyway, everyone is lost in the grooves or wearing a distant stare, the passing buildings blurring unseen.

I watch people though, as we all ride the bus to our little responsibilities. I watch the forty-something lady who has too much makeup on try to talk to the balding forty-something guy who smashed into the glass ceiling a few years back and has simply accepted his fate. I watch the professional with hungry eyes scope out a pretty little secretary who is ten years younger than his wife. I watch the tradesmen take a swig from his flask. I watch them all because each one has a story to tell of how they ended up on this very bus at this very time. Ever since the trial I have become rather obsessed with coincidences and chance, the idea of being at the right place at the wrong time. Or vice versa.

I am becoming quite good at being alone in a crowd.

Daniel.

Anna-Marie

November 30

Dear Wichita,

I woke into a bad mood today, a fighting mood if I wasn't so hungover from trying to erase memories. I went in to work, at the bar, and didn't say much of anything to anyone, including the customers. You want a beer, you got a beer, no small talk.

"You in a bad mood today D, or what?" asked the boss, a woman named Cheryl who had spent too much time in smoky bars. Her skin was lined, her eyes weary. She was on the downside of 40 but hanging on to youth with every treatment known to man.

"Yea."

"Mind me asking why?"

"Yea."

"Fine, I don't care. Look just don't be a prick to the customers ok? That's all I ask."

"Yea."

Cheryl was mad now but she would get over it. I wasn't important enough in her life, a life of social events and casual encounters, to matter. She walked back into the kitchen and I turned to face the crowd waiting for their soma.

"I'll have a Bud," said a jock-looking guy. He had a jarhead haircut and not a whole lot of neck. I figured he had butted his way to the front of the line.

I looked at the pretty girl standing next to him. She was wearing a tight black tank top and wore her dyed hair in a flexible way. It was done up bar-style tonight, a Friday night.

"Hey I said I want a Bud," the jock said, his jaw clenching slightly. I looked at him with a rather withering stare, just brief enough to let him know I truly didn't care what he wanted.

"What can I get you?" I asked the pretty girl. I figured that she wasn't with him, she seemed smarter than that.

"Hey, what the fuck man? I was here first," stammered the jock.

"Dude, ladies first, have you no class?"

Silence.

"Plus she's better looking than you."

His buddies howled at that one. He even smiled a little. I enjoy calling a musclehead ugly and not getting my ass kicked. Definitely not in Kansas anymore.

"I'll have a rye 'n' ginger," she said, smiling slightly, her brown eyes dropping to the floor.

I poured her a generous one. "That'll be $3.25."

She handed it over, a small tip included.

"Thanks."

"Thanks."

"Hey," I stuttered, suddenly awkward, "What's your name?" Awkward.

I wasn't supposed to 'fraternize' with the paying customer, but Cheryl was in the kitchen, probably berating Julio, the illegal immigrant who we called a cook. Poor Julio, but Cheryl would make it up to him later. So said the rumor mill. Fuck it then. I asked.

"Anna-Marie. Most people call me Anna."

Jesus.

Marie.

"Nice to meet you Anna. I'm Dan."

"Nice to meet you Dan."

Best,

Daniel.

Amy vs. Dan, Part 1

November 29, Part II

Dear Wichita,

Amy the English Lit-chick asked me what I thought about Bush listening to our phone conversations.

"I suppose it would matter if we had anything at all worth saying."

"It matters you know." She was mildly indignant.

"Yea, I'm sure it does. My world is shaken."

"If you don't pay attention you can't complain."

"Can I still complain about you?"

"Fuck off Dan."

A Little History

November 29

Dear Wichita,

I can't help but think of Mary lately, especially after paying for that girl's bagel. The promise of youth, yet to run the gauntlet of risks that life entails, so ignorant of the game of life, a game of chance.

You know Mary didn't mean to hit those kids right? I know, I know she was drunk and high and probably couldn't find her way out of an empty room. I was amazed that throughout the whole trial no one ever wondered who started the car in the first place. I guess it wasn't a big deal, the end result was the same. Who knows, maybe Mary managed to start the car herself. I doubt it, but then again.

It is that fragility of youth, that shattered persona in a crowded bagel shop, that can go either way, into the abyss of meth or the ivory towers of college. Even so, I don't think anyone suspected Mary's downfall. Girls like her aren't supposed to end up serving time and carrying guilt. They're supposed to marry and have two point five kids and a minivan to go to soccer games and PTA meetings.

I knew that she was into it pretty good, we all were. All those weekends that slipped into Wednesdays. Maybe that's your fault Wichita, not giving us options but giving us unrestricted college freedom. It still feels better to blame someone else. That's how my generation is, you know.

I still have flashbacks, old pictures of Mary that run through my head even though it has been over a year since the trial. Mary swimming naked in the river, laughing in the moonlight. Mary sweet talking the cops, getting herself or someone else out of a jam. Mary studying, her blond hair falling about her face, her brown framed glasses reflecting sunlight onto her tanned arm. Mary standing in that fake-wood docket, her blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, eyes wet from tears. Looking pale as the victim impact statements were read aloud. All five of them.

Mary being led away by the bailiff, the sacrificial lamb for our hedonistic ways. The brief second of eye contact we shared, holding a moment in time where we knew we were over, everything was over and would never be the same again.

Mary on the front page of the newspapers, looking destroyed.

I thought about Mary yesterday as I watched that girl carry her bagel to a corner table.

I wondered what path her life would take, what kind of friends she hung out with, what kinds of pressures she was under and how she would cope with them. I wondered if she would have to move to a different city to find space and a sense of anonymity. Or if she would be ok, a picture on her mother's mantle.

I looked in the mirror last night, not for any sense of fashion or togetherness, but for my soul. I wondered what kind of boyfriend let's his girl go driving when she isn't even wearing shoes. I wondered what kind of guy shifts himself into the shadows while his supposed love is bathed in the harsh light of tv cameras. I wondered what kind of college dropout stands idly by as his girl takes all the blame. The same kind of guy that rides a three AM bus out of town, wearing a low hat.

I looked away. There aren't too many of us that can stare ourselves down in a mirror, but I guess I'm one of them.

The sky outside is dark and misty, casting odd grey light into my apartment. I'm laying on my twin sized bed, staring up at the ceiling, through the ceiling, a thousand yard stare. A siren in the distance sends a little shiver down my back.

If you can, Wichita, tell Mary I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the whole fucking thing.

Tell her I'll write her sometime.

Christ. I shouldn't have gone here tonight.

Daniel.

$5

November 28

Dear Wichita,

Patience isn't much of a virtue in a big city where people are consistently wet and drink too much coffee.

I was waiting in line for my bagel, en route to the bus stop, and there was a girl, maybe 13 or 14 ahead of me in line. Her bagel was sitting on the counter, ready to go. She was digging through her purse, looking for money. The search became more frantic and soon it was obvious to all of us in line behind her that she didn't have enough money.

She wasn't street kid or nothing like that. She looked middle class, probably just spent one too many dollars on the latest fad sweeping through her junior high. Her face was growing red with embarassment. The man behind the counter, sporting a thick black moustache better suited to a bad 70s sitcom than modern day life, watched the girl with a dark look of humour.

"C'mon honey, pay up. People are waiting."

"I know, I know," she stammered. Her voice sounded little, a glimpse of the fragility of youth.

I could hear people muttering behind me.

She kept digging.

The mouth under the moustache frowned. "Next!" he yelled, startling the girl, who dropped her purse, its contents spilling out onto the floor. Someone snickered.

I was next. "What will it be?"

I just put a five dollar bill on the counter, took the girls bagel and handed it to her. Her eyes were watery.

"Thanks," she mumbled, eyes falling to the floor.

"Don't mention it."

Best,

Daniel.