i am the bachelor
Tonight my friend Dreadlock canceled plans to get a beer after my last class, so I found myself at 8:00 driving toward K's with nothing to do. If I had a home of my own, I would relish the thought of a nice evening alone. I would've gone home and cooked because I was hungry, maybe put on a movie or played my guitar. Maybe drawn a bath and read a book.
Instead I stopped at Taco Bell and ordered two cruncy tacos with beans and no meat and one carmel apple empanada. I parked under a street light and ate in my car, too embarassed to take such junky food back to K's uber-healthy household, and also relishing some aspect of the depravity I sense in the act of hiding out in my car eating bad food. Almost a self-pity trip: look at me, poor homeless me. I mean, self-pity has it's place.
I sat there eating my tacos staring out at the blinking sign of one of Interstate's several seedy motels. I thought about my parents' divorce from a purely practical standpoint. I remember going to visit my dad in the apartment he moved into right after my mom left him. By "left" I guess I mean "kicked him out," because I remember that mom and I stayed in the house. So I wondered, as I ate my taco, how could mom afford to pay the rent after she kicked daddy out? (By the way, it is perfectly appropriate in the south to continue to say "daddy" instead of "dad" well into adulthood. So don't go thinking I've got some infantile complex or that I'm using "daddy" as some kind of pejorative.) Did he continue to pay the rent? Mom was working at McDonald's, but where was *he* working? I can't remember.
Did they wonder and worry about each other during that liminal time between being together and being completely, officially apart? Did mom think of him in his apartment all alone? Did she worry he would shoot himself again, this time with real bullets? Did she wonder what he was eating and if he was sleeping ok? What I'm wondering, I guess, is did she feel guilty at all for leaving? For being strong and taking care of herself? Because I feel guilty for leaving. (Daddy and CB both, to be technical about it.) I think about her and worry and wonder. Not as much as I used to, but still.
I sat in my car eating my tacos and wondered what she would think of me, sitting there eating tacos. If she would feel sad for me. If she would want to bring me inside and make me a meal. And now I'm just indulging in utter fantasy, because she did not mother me in that way. I felt more inclined to mother, though neither of us were equipped to receive that kind of attention gracefully. I actually wondered if she would roll her eyes and judge me for eating fast food in my car. Then I stopped thinking about it.
Instead I stopped at Taco Bell and ordered two cruncy tacos with beans and no meat and one carmel apple empanada. I parked under a street light and ate in my car, too embarassed to take such junky food back to K's uber-healthy household, and also relishing some aspect of the depravity I sense in the act of hiding out in my car eating bad food. Almost a self-pity trip: look at me, poor homeless me. I mean, self-pity has it's place.
I sat there eating my tacos staring out at the blinking sign of one of Interstate's several seedy motels. I thought about my parents' divorce from a purely practical standpoint. I remember going to visit my dad in the apartment he moved into right after my mom left him. By "left" I guess I mean "kicked him out," because I remember that mom and I stayed in the house. So I wondered, as I ate my taco, how could mom afford to pay the rent after she kicked daddy out? (By the way, it is perfectly appropriate in the south to continue to say "daddy" instead of "dad" well into adulthood. So don't go thinking I've got some infantile complex or that I'm using "daddy" as some kind of pejorative.) Did he continue to pay the rent? Mom was working at McDonald's, but where was *he* working? I can't remember.
Did they wonder and worry about each other during that liminal time between being together and being completely, officially apart? Did mom think of him in his apartment all alone? Did she worry he would shoot himself again, this time with real bullets? Did she wonder what he was eating and if he was sleeping ok? What I'm wondering, I guess, is did she feel guilty at all for leaving? For being strong and taking care of herself? Because I feel guilty for leaving. (Daddy and CB both, to be technical about it.) I think about her and worry and wonder. Not as much as I used to, but still.
I sat in my car eating my tacos and wondered what she would think of me, sitting there eating tacos. If she would feel sad for me. If she would want to bring me inside and make me a meal. And now I'm just indulging in utter fantasy, because she did not mother me in that way. I felt more inclined to mother, though neither of us were equipped to receive that kind of attention gracefully. I actually wondered if she would roll her eyes and judge me for eating fast food in my car. Then I stopped thinking about it.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 9:23 PM
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