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1983 Toyota Dolphin – Part 4

herocious

by Michael Davidson

There are some songs that make me feel sexy, and I don’t like using that word, sexy, to describe any part of me. Maybe I should’ve said feline, there are some songs that make me feel feline. As You can see, my vocabulary is limited.  My choices are either sexy or feline, not necessarily synonyms.  Although some cats can be quite sexy.  Enough of this digressing.

It is nighttime. I wear earbuds and listen to Zero 7, a band who makes me feel sexy. I remember the past, as has become my habit, and begin to mope. Why is the past always a sore subject with me? It isn’t that way for everyone, right? No matter, for me the past is lined with painful memories. This is because not much has gone my way.

I wish I could skip ahead to that part of my life where I catch a break.

Get this: The sound of the alarm woke me today at 5 AM. Normally I have nothing to do with this hour of the day, but that’s not what anyone would think if they saw how quickly I got out of bed, threw on running shorts, and jogged to Sunset Cliffs.

I stopped where the shale drops down to the crashing waves of the Pacific. There I waited for her. Please understand, Dear Lord, that if I remembered her name I’d have recorded it here, but my mind has been quick to expel any artifacts she left in my emotional matrix.

The sun hadn’t risen yet in San Diego. My limbs were bone cold, especially at the extremities. I waited for her until the sun was safely in the sky. By then my blood had warmed and I could feel the ground I stood on. If only I had my notebook, but what would that have allowed me to accomplish apart from recording for posterity another reason to mope?

On my way back home I stopped at the library to check my email. The librarian was shelving books on a cart that made far too much racket. Next to me was a vagrant I had seen around the area. He wore a neon green cap at an angle on his head. I left without saying goodbye to anyone, bought a big beer at the convenient store across the street, and came home to do a crossword puzzle.

Dinner followed: a one-course, dysfunctional meal.

That brings me back to Zero 7. Believe me, Dear Lord, it was not my intention to fill my story with depressing words. To go from the magic of bioluminescence to the humdrum of the quotidian, that is the inevitable path of all autobiographical stories. There will be my big break, though. I know it is right around the corner.

Some people say that Your presence is always lurking, you just have to open up your heart. Put that way, maybe the knock on my door and the entrance of Locust and Rob is godsend. Must that be the first step to success, namely, realizing that You can only work in small and seemingly unimportant ways?

We were supposed to go running together, her and I, but she never showed up even though she claimed to be an avid runner.

You want to go to Catalina and play shuffleboard?

That’s Locust giving me the option to either stay at home and wallow or walk to the Cat and be with friends. I put my sweatshirt on and lock the door behind me.

December 21, 2008 2:15 am

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