A muse

I rotated my eyes like the roving cameras in the far corner of a Seven Eleven. It wasn’t a extensive repositioning, not Kafkaesque—transforming into a bugging eye--nor CIA in your underpants, under your dress, spelling it out in your alphabet soup intrusiveness. What it was…what I really fucking saw…if you must fucking know, (digital replay in my synaptic centers) was her. Spelled m-u-s-e? Spelled out in the same green ink of the vine tattoos that twisted around her hips, where soon like Tarzan I would swing with my eyes and later my arms.

On the sidewalk, at a table, half finished pints of Guinness and her hand on mine…she went through my cell phone and looked at the names of the women there. “You won’t be needing these any more,” she said and I believed her. I pressed delete and it felt so much lighter in my hand. I curled my cell phone up in a ball and tucked it far away in my coat. “Where have I been all your life?” She said. I reacted cause commitment is a accelerant and my brain is a forest fire. “I drink a lot,” I said. “So?” she said, “we can drink a lot together.” “But I spend a lot of time alone. I write,” I said. “I write a lot too. We can spend time alone together,” she said. And that smile, the smile I just started to know and I knew for once it was a smile that I could trust at the very least for a day, a smile that wouldn’t fade when the booze broke down, when the sunlight came up and the bird shit sizzled in its heat and peeled the paint of my Oldsmobuick.

She said, “Alls daddy ever needed was a muse.” “Daddy?” I said, “I’m a little older but I’m not old enough to have a 29 year old daughter.” “Just finish that fucking book. That’s all you ever need to do,” she said and I believed her. “A muse you say?” I said, “It’s that fucking simple?” “It’s that fucking simple,” she said and I believed her. “Waitress,” I said. “What?” the waitress said. “Another round of Guinness for me and my muse,” I said. “Fucking weirdo,” the waitress said under her breath. “And waitress,” I said. “What now?” the waitress said. “I love you,” I said and threw my half finished Guinness in her face.