shots in the dark (greg&diandra)

 

Only, he had known her name was Diandra. 

He watched her now as he sat across from her 

“Do they really serve coffee here?” Diandra Pim looked doubtful as she observed the length of the very bar-like counter where a friendly group were loudly talking while doing shots of something.

“You doubt my claim they have great coffee?”

His expression as he said this made her nervous as his eyes, although shadowed in the dim lighting, bore into her.

She glanced away and then back at him,

“Im just an American, what do I know? you English say you’re having tea but it turns out that actually means you’re having a major meal, what is that? I don’t get it—it’s like —eating lunch—or is it supper—what is supper anyway—is there also lunch? or no, that’s dinner, isn’t it so then what —like elevenzies?—I guess, anyway…. yeah, so, why not be drinking coffee out of shot glasses?—a nice americano with a peel of lemon, add an umbrella for some style,” and as she said this there was a loud hoot from the crowd at the bar as somebody chugged something down 

“You still do that,” Greg said watching her

“What?”

But somebody showed up to take their order 

But she forgot to repeat the question after he walked away 

She was tapping her fingers on the table top when he reached across the table to stop her by covering her hand. Her eyes were alarmed when she looked up at him. Her eyes. They were just as he remembered them. How quickly they became wild like a trapped deer. Which is why he said,

“I lied to you.” His hand was still there. 

“What?” she wasn’t sure she heard that right and …. he was still looking at her in that intense way. The same way he always had like ….the very first time she saw him in the school hallway. It made her shudder. Now too…. How could she forget ….that memory; boy-man that he was.

“I knew you would be back for Jo’s wedding,” he said and now there was an intentional glint of mischief in his eyes 

Sometimes there are people you know that if you never saw them for fifty years you know you’d pick up right where you left as soon as you were in each other’s presence.

Diandra at this moment was subject to such a phenomena. And she forgot herself. In that moment she did not feel worried or nervous because ….it was as if their last conversation by the swings was only last week. And it was their separate peace because nobody ….could know….but it was Greg who had, even then, made the move

Diandra had a moment to realize now why out of nowhere Jo’s invite came. They had lost touch ages ago. And Diandra had moved so many times since Jo knew her that there was a real bewilderment over why Jo took the trouble to find her. They had not really been that close; just two student teachers who started at the same school. Sometimes they went out drinking after a day student teaching at the school or Jo would set up a double date but—no, they were never that close. She wound up staying with the school and became a teacher there while Diandra never looked back, changing fields, she became a social worker back in the states, focusing on troubled teens. But switched fields again and became a publishing editor believing it was a way in to becoming a published author, but so overworked, there was never any time to write. 

“So it was you,” she said looking back up at him 

He just watched her with a slight smile 

“You told her to invite me—yes, now it makes sense —you know, I mean—I couldn’t imagine she’d ….”

But now Diandra drew her brows together, as a thought occurred to her

“Did you tell her?”

At first Greg only looked at her. Then slowly he smiled again,

“no….” 

it won’t be written or spoken about in the news media because nobody wants to acknowledge the looming, dreading feeling on the horizon no matter what is the outcome of the US election. I cannot pretend to not be aware of the tinder stick ready to burst into flames. civil war—2;did I suggest that? but it feels likely.there will be dispute and the polarities are so flammable.it is hard to imagine what safe plans there are to make as we see other countries crumble I think we are not immune to this.my mood has been, by this, less able dream because I fear for the nightmare….it has been hard to know what to write; avoiding the approaching horizon of this and as well, I guess, my own icky horizon as the years catch up

go there into that dark canyon, go there with all that is you within that feels and breathes and jump full force within its fires 

do you feel it burn at your most valuable heartbreaks ~ and sets alight the flame that casts your soul alive 

burn one’s soul alive. that solely soul that is the Celf full of cells of celves to…..just burn into the sky; a comet; a retina stain 

echoes

voices

historical memories

blown down an archeological time capsule forgotten long after by man.kind

aide-moi à passer cette nui

I resolve to be better at acceptance 

I forget to remember.

isnt that interesting?

what was that?

chatter ley

 

what’s not spoken aloud

we are all contradictions…. the clock ticks quietly on the dresser as the wet of tears feel now cooled by a light passing draft.it seems from the start he understood intrinsically. even things never imagined were there.

“I’m sorry,” he says to me.his arms still around me.then releases the bondage.and no, I do not say that I did feel his own tears too down my neck;I pretend I did not notice;but I feel it inside.i feel him inside me.i feel all of his soul and even the broken pieces

exploring the dark corners

years ago, when I first got to bard college at the age of 17, my first year I lived at South Hall. I got to be very good friends with the black community who were many who lived there, besides three celebrity kids. no name dropping here. I was terrified and overwhelmed to be new in the middle of the winter new semester. I started from high school and a few weeks later I was a college student. in a country that I learned quick —was dangerous after the sheltered life of the Netherlands. 

I spent lots of time on my own. Mostly reading my philosophy books and walking to the Hudson River. The campass, I’d place among is the most beautiful places in New York. It was a religious seminary college for priests originally; no women allowed. It’s just on the edge of ivy legue. A room dedicated to Hannah Arent for obvious reasons. even now there’s Neil Gaimen to add to its history.

It’s intimidating to walk those grounds. I was always getting lost my first year. And the winters were brutal getting to classes, running across compass over icy paths and steep snowy hills. But I made a friend my first year. He was from the Bronx and yes, he was black. We got to be close. We shared our childhood stories about abuse by a parent. He was studying to be a psychologist. So we talked with great depth about all this. He told me that if I ever needed protection from anyone at school, he was my body guard. I found his tough New York accent interesting. But he was kind and respectful to me. 

Across the parking lot from South Hall there was a gym. I believe it is still there. That was where the basketball team practiced. Bard basketball teams are a big deal and he was the star player. 

I liked to go to the gym because they had a universal. Always a fitness neurotic, even then. I’d go and work out and watch them practice. Those were really nice days. I really liked those easy days when we were friends. But, you see, this was the friend who raped me. One day out of nowhere he banged on my door and —tortured me until I died as he raped me. 

I am such a complicated and rather fucked up person.and was at “go”— that family alone; incest and abuse behind a fake happy house. 

and he knew that. we were that close; so, it’s weird and very fucked up how it happened. why should I let anyone near me anymore—you know? we weren’t friends anymore after that. obviously. and for years I was too stunned and traumatized to leave the house .

years. 

do you know? I have felt sorry for him. to have the guilt of this on him. and I thought this as it occurred —I am not in the mood to write about the death experience; meeting God—but, I can safely say that his guilt is noted regardless if I never blew the whistle 

the purpose I write this —is to say something about facing any monster 

why did he do it to me if we were friends? they say rape is nothing to do with sex. Bullshit. 

my complexities are as such that I have risen from the grave from horror but risen from many other things.i think he did it because he believed he was not good enough for me. Even as he never showed interest towards me this way beyond mild flirtation. For him I represented a repression and he decided to take out on me. His repressed sexual thoughts of me turned to rage. And because my mother’s husband paid him to do favors for him, this was another kind of repression. 

The beauty of all this is that I’m the wrong focus. I’m the last person he should feel any rage for. 

It blows my mind how he turned to the Hulk from the kind body guard I knew. 

My thoughts on S and M? 

Non consensual consensual

?

violence to women ?I believe there are things people need to work out;but, dudes: Women’s Lives Matter and fuck you if you think yours matter more or that you’ve the natural right to decide what is good for everybody; fuck that —but I’m not afraid of anyone’s madness (how can I be when I myself am mad?)….if they are willing to work ….through the darkness. I’d be the one holding the light even with all the thrashing because it would lead the way back to the self 

****

and of that college ex friend?

you may wonder, would I forgive him?

if he could look me in the eye and say “I’m sorry” and know contrition 

yes

edge of wall to head

in my favorite fantasies, I imagine myself played by Vanessa Redgrave. isn’t that funny? i guess i was about twelve when Dutch tv showed Camelot.  i do not know where this ease of trust first emerged. I think it was Mr.Page; he bowed to me and laid out the red carpet. I was between cotton wool and my literature ~in the dark rooom—development . if broken , return to manufacturer …..shall a kiss not kill a kingdom for me;chains & barbed wire calls 

stories high

I used to laugh at my mother; on Sundays her favorite sport was taking her mother of pearl antique opera glasses and go to the window. She’d step between the drape and look across at the apartments across from our Amsterdam flat. She knew what everyone was up to, it was really shamelessly shocking of her. But she told me, anyway, about the man and his lover and how they drank coffee naked together. Then there was the woman who dragged out the entire contents of her flat onto the balcony. And all day she would beat out rugs over the railing. 

If you look out from her opera glassses there were more than a hundred or so stories there.