8:00 a.m. - 2005-07-08
La Vida Rick Rant
We sat on the balcony in the night, watching the unpredicted rain fall upon the pool lit green. We ate my famous "scud burritos". I strutted and vamped to Madonna. Life was wild and startling. One eerie night he phoned from the theater, instructing me in hushed tones to meet him at once. Nervously I drove to the dangerous neighborhood. Together in the midnight we watched Silence of the Lambs, there in the empty theater. Giggling at each noise we imagined we heard from the rows of vacant red chairs. Upstairs he opened the safe and counted the weekends take. Half kidding, he suggested we relocate to Kauai and none would be the wiser. I declined and he laughed a chilling soulless laugh. One summer night, he got drunk on a Reggae boat cruise. Strangers warned me not to get in the car with him. Strangers offered to drive me home. Strangers wished me luck when I finally took my seat beside him in his rusty heap. Who would have guessed that old Buick could reach 100 mph? But it did, at Rick's gin fueled command. I was appropriately terrified. "Where's your Jesus now?", he slurred. Sometimes I thought he was the devil himself. Sometimes I thought he was God. There was just no in-between where Rick was concerned. He lived in the extreme margins of the page. I told him I had to pee and he stopped at a Denny's somewhere in Long Beach. The waitress said she'd seen her share of drunks and advised me to wait there until morning, not to get back in the car. I asked Rick for the keys. He became more beligerent, but finally acquiesed. All the way home, I appeased him, silently praying that he would not grab the wheel and kill us both. Appeasing was second nature to me. I did it without trying. Arriving home, I determined never to see him again. Relieved, I watched him drive off into the night. Come morning, a florist delivered a white bear clutching a heart that said "I love you". The note attached to the small bouquet read, "Let's not lose what we have". And he was back. Just like that. Crooked teeth and Alfred E. Neuman face and faded lime eyes and tenderness and arrogance and Tangueray and all. Back. One afternoon, I returned from work to find a scribbled note taped to a chair, perched right in front of the door. "Whatever you do, don't go in the bedroom". So, of course, I did. There were ants everywhere. Ants on the walls and ants on the beige carpet. Ants on the bed and ants in the closet. A room made of ants. And there was Rick with a can of something and a rag made of ants. "I've been trying all day," he offered. And I picked up an old crumpled t-shirt and started to help. We laughed and laughed and eventually got the best of the ants. Life was like that, there on Burbank Boulevard. You never really knew what to expect. And that was the thrill that trumped even my illusive independence. There was nothing quite like being with Rick. Nothing. He was the fizzy tonic to my colorless gin. The catalyst to my heady potential. I could not imagine life without him. And then one day like any other, he brought home a thin young man with long dark hair. An intern from the theater. He smiled a kind of sneery smile and admired my artwork. I started to make him a drink and discovered that Rick had replaced the frozen ice trays empty. We all laughed about careless Rick. A shared joke among the three of us. And then Rick and his new friend took off into the dark night, leaving one of me. Barely one of me. Barely one.
�
�
