les paradis artificiels

a week passed. friday evening. i sat, smoking under the eaves of the deck and watched the terra-cotta clouds play hopscotch in the violet shadows. i noticed her number in my phone but didn't remember how it happened to find its way there. i couldn't call. instead, i made plans with my friends. this person had a friend in from new york, that person was going there, we're going here, you know the drill. mayu, ryan, temple, and i decided to meet ben and his friend at a pub. this particular pub is a friendly, no-attitude joint with a workin' man's boot hanging above the bar, adorning the walls are communist posters of thick-boned russian and chinese chicks hitting things with hammers and assembling tanks, and there's wild conversations between the homeless intelligentsia and the intelligentsia who happened to live in homes.

i called a cab.

i stepped outside and the wide expanse of the night cracked, a single snowflake fell, covering the city. it was winter, alright. i walked down to the corner of the street in my jeans, flannel shirt and boots feeling like something of a lumberjack bopping under the stars and city lights.

"beautiful night, isn't it?" asked a panhandler.

"poetry."

*dollar floated into cup*

we all met at the pub and struck up a game of darts. ben's friend was a pretty girl with a nice body. (it doesn't take long to notice such things.) ben introduced all of us, and we began talking. the girl's name was carmen and she knew ben from their undergrad days at dartmouth. she was from iowa, currently living in brooklyn.

there was some shop-talk, dart throwing, and a madman with a potato sack for pants was carrying on about something. everyone seemed to like him, and i watched his antics for a bit. i then turned to carmen and we chatted briefly, exchanging the usual preliminaries. i turned to the bar to grab more beers and watched everyone on their stools, everyone waiting for their saving angel to swoop down and rescue them, erecting, in their sadness, worlds of madness in place of onelove, and also i thought of the independent, creative-types, the rebels with a vitality that can't be satiated, but gets filled with whiskey, the ones with a disease of the soul, a disease of the night (and doesn't that make them more beautiful?), i thought of them, too.

the bar was getting crowded, and it was becoming difficult to hear. i was standing next to carmen when i put my face close to hers to talk about books, and she put her face close to mine, and it felt like an ocean of richness, so many melting things.

ryan had already gone back to meet his girlfriend and some other friends at his apartment, and we were to meet them there. so, before closing time we headed out and took a cab back to his place. from the street, the christmas lights on the deck cast perhaps pleasant reflections, and perhaps ineluctable visualties on the snow, and ryan and ava could be seen drinking from a bottle of wine. music played.

the night turned into the night turned into the night, and i was losing my mind egomaniacally on some beers. i whispered something about watching a movie into carmen's ear, and we went upstairs. the music could be heard and i took carmen's hand, she pressed herself against me, and we moved slowly.

"you know i can't be this close to know you and not kiss you." i said.

spinning in the middle of the room, we kissed. for an instant, i thought of violet, our one chance encounter, but isn't it true that you never really know how much space you occupy in someone's life? so we danced. we danced into the strange ecstasy of lust in the night, the room whirling, drunk, dancing, and in the dark, dancing, so much the, and then warm arms around the neck and then warm arms around the waist, spilling, splash – kiss – onto the bed, into the night, breathless, exciting, eager, young, and in the morning the vague anticipation of not knowing, and that’s not caring, and it’s not caring.

that's the night; that's what it will do to you.