i n

F

BIGGER

SMALLER

COURIER

GEORGIA

TIMES

VERDANA

COMIC

l

RECENT

POPULAR

e

u

 ^{(it's beta!)}

Grease fire seems imminent; stained tank top, flip the eggs tired, don't remember the order if it could even be called an order; hands brought to eyes wiping away tears and crust and the air conditioner clicks over. Hair is terrible, a girl lets herself up, she finds denim jeans, new and cheap, able to tell because of a glossy finish that keeps her hands near in place; she thinks of a newly varnished coffee table and smiles. Hands around the waist of the tank top, a struggle, not really, just early confusion and a loneliness hard to get rid of, and now aware, and now appreciative of the attention, the eggs are let go for a tired display of afterglow affection.

A few books lie on the counter between the kitchen and the living area, mostly American besides Sillitoe and Rushdie, mostly beats, mostly young white male novels and poesy, mostly books that mattered too long ago to be applicable and too soon for their time. The girl, trying to be supportive, says she loves Corso; is greeted with a grunt and a hack, pan sizzles, well only elegiac feelings she says she means, his early stuff is just masturbation. Pan sizzles more as grated cheddar is sprinkled over the eggs. Someone sighs and it's hard to tell in this light.

Time out of mind, this place hosts posters for Amnesty International and also the Black Panthers and also the Boeremag and the Creativity Movement. Every year these change, almost always in the same place, almost always by young men, almost always full of meaning and power and division. A girl stares at the wall where posters and flags hang, full of nails and coated in chipping paint, and she asks who John Rechy is. The young man this time says he doesn't know, sits two plates of eggs on the table before her, sits beside her, kisses her neck, says it's been here since I moved in, says it's been a while and I guess I like it, she says I think I do too, eggs get eaten.

Windows line the outer wall across the decorated wall, windows divided into fours each, two windows. Outside is a rustic old town permeated by bad piping; turn of the century construction, maybe earlier, different colored plaques stuck in the bricks of the surviving homes from the earlier times, survivors of war and life, not allowed to be struck down to preserve memories held only by the dead, the living trying to honor those dead, the buildings, like their dead, incapable of decision, left to the will of those with noble ideals who have majority and sentiment.

The girl lies on her back, covered in blankets, listening to the shower and its low water pressure. Underneath heaven, and a roof once shelled, she thinks about how her boyfriend never speaks the right words, how her ex always did, and how for all the pain he brought, he made her happy. The boy knows this, tries but cannot, bullet holes lace the bricks, he lies beside her, kisses her; this earth is for the passionate, he says, quoting someone dead, or someone forgotten enough to might as well be. The girl kisses him, smiles, thinks about leaving and how the brick streets are hell barefoot.