rivercrow

“Oh, yeah, hi phone.”

I’d gone to that happy inner space; the loud ringing of my cell phone registered only after several repeats of “Scotland the Brave” and a number of glares from the other patrons at Borders. I answered automatically.

“Phone?”

“Um. Yeah. This is Phone. Who’s this?”

“You don’t know?”

Male voice, higher pitched, fast. I searched my memory. “Could this be Stewie?”

“Hey, pretty good! After only ten years of knowing each other!” Stewie laughed. He knew me pretty well. “You were spacing out, weren’t you?”

I chuckled. “Doug made me start writing again.”

“Oh yeah? More salad porno?”

“Not if I can help it. What can I do for you?” I clicked close my pen and started packing up. I heard brakes screech from the phone. “You okay?”

“Yeah, just ran off the road. No big deal. Hey, you wanna go to the Saucer tonight?”

I shrugged, then remembered I was on the phone. “Sounds good. See you around 5? Anyone else going?”

“The usual suspects, I think. Sure. Later.”

“Yup.” I hung up. Five. That gave me six or so hours to get something sent off to Doug so he’d stop pestering me for a day. Or two. Slavedriver. No wonder I kept him around.

I dumped the trash and dirty plates in the proper places, left the stack of unbought books, and wandered outside. The early summer sun had cleared the buildings around me, but much of the park across the street was still in shadow. A few blocks down the street was a library branch with free wi-fi. I decided to grab my laptop from the car, transcribe my story parts, and ship it off to Doug.

The easiness of this decision struck me later, when I’d emailed the bits to him. My usual habit was to write the whole thing, agonize over it, then show it to someone after a month or so of twiddling. This time, I just dove in, scrawled the thing, and tossed it off. I knew it wasn’t polished or honed. When I thought about the words I’d used, I cringed at the repetition. I thought the mood and action was okay, though. No doubt he’d point out some really obvious omission and I’d have to agree helplessly that he was right. Again. No matter.

Four fifteen. Huh. I turned off the machine, packed up, and left for the Saucer, cheap pints, and girls in short skirts and knee-highs.

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