Love Is A Fucking River

Love Is A Fucking River Part 1 of 2

            I'm crying when the call comes in that changes my life. Crying on the inside, that is, because I am after all, a man. I suppose this little surge of emotion is a good thing, because I'd been pretty sure my heart was dead for the past couple days. On Monday, Vanessa packed up the last of her dainty girl things from my place, not that she lived there but you know, practically, and the apartment just felt really totally fucking empty without her panties and makeup scattered around. Felt like I was living inside the heart of the loneliest person in the world, and that was me. Then I just felt nothing, and that was even worse. So I picked up an extra driving shift and there I am, sitting outside my own building actually, and sniffling slightly, when they call me for a pickup around the corner.

I wipe my eyes, because sometimes when you cry on the inside a little bit gets out, and start heading over. There's this song on the radio, it's what got me all up in my feelings actually. It's a bachata track that's pretty hot these days, some messy ass love story, whatever, but there's a part where he tells his guitar to cry for him, llora guitarra, llora, he says and every time they play it on la mega, which is like every ten seconds of course, it reminds me of this time when Vanessa came over all upset because this piece of shit named Devin she used to deal with finally offed himself and she just bawled in my arms for what seemed like hours and that little frail body of hers kept shuddering and heaving and I thought she might just crumble like a little crispy leaf at any second, but she seemed so strong to me in that very moment right then too, in a way, because what man, for all our strength and awesomeness, can really be that vulnerable, really? You know? What man can really be strong enough to fall apart? It touched me, it really did. When she was done crying she fell asleep, which is probably just as well because otherwise I might've tried to get some and that probably would've tipped off a fight and it really wasn't the time for all that.

Anyway, that song's playing, but I turn it off as I roll up on the pickup spot and there's this fine, fine black lady standing next to a fat old guy. She is, I mean, when I say fine, I mean truly a sudden and unflinching gift to a man's eyes. This man anyway. She's wearing a short trench coat and has a cap on, like a slick little cap tilted to the side but it seems like she was born with it tilted like that, it fits so just right, and it's inconceivable that she put any thought whatsoever into angling it correctly, because her whole way of being is just too smooth for all of that. The fat guy, on the other hand, is kind of a rumbling disaster and when he gets in I actually worry that my car will need some realignment work. I'm not trying to be offensive or nothing, but the guy is immense. Very the fuck like a whale.

I put an arm across the top of the seat and crane my head back to them, trying not to swallow the girl whole with my hungry hungry eyes, and I ask 'em where they're going. I say it in English, because I don't like to assume any one speaks Spanish. They turn to each other and seem to have a whole conversation just in the tiniest creases of their faces, which gives me a second to take in ol' girl in her entirety and let me tell you: yes.

Then she looks at me and I quickly meet her eyes and she says: "Te necesitamos por la noche entera" which, if fatso wasn't sitting there I might've taken to be a come on. She doesn't smile when she says it, her face reveals nothing in fact, but anytime someone tells you they need you for the entirety of the night, well...I wrestle down all the snarky, flirtatious things I want to say back and just nod as smoothly as I can. Hecho.

Then the big guy gives me an address in the Stuy and says it's stop number one; they have to pick up someone before they go where they're going. They confer quietly in the back the whole way and I do everything in my power not to keep looking in the rearview to see if maybe, maybe she's looking at me. She's not though; she's either fully concentrating on whatever secretness she's got with the big guy or she's looking out the window with an expression of either sorrow, dread or longing. Who can really tell? She's not happy. I want to ask what's wrong but I don't. I want to tell her about all my dogs – I have five actually, and they're all small and they do drive me crazy with their bullshit but I love the little motherfuckers too and it's a cold hearted chick that isn't impressed by a muscular man like myself who also loves his dogs. Not that that's why I have them at all, I really really do love all five of them, except possibly Ediberto who really can be a fucking asshole sometimes with his whining, but really, I love them all.