All week I’ve jumped up and down, thinking, “The first New C. of C. meeting was perfect, it was perfect!”
Then this afternoon, driving west on Armitage, I got distracted and skipped a beat and the next thing I knew, doubt crept in, changing the refrain to: “How do you know it was perfect? What if it wasn’t?” In front of me was a low-riding station wagon with half a jacket hanging from the trunk. One sleeve was dragging on the ground and the back kept filling with air, forming half a torso and then deflating as the car slowed down. Was the first meeting of the New College of Complexes really perfect? Or really a waste? This billowing worry thrummed through me: perfect, waste; perfect, waste. . . *
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Louie Duvall swore on his mother’s grave that the business with my flour, mealy moths two weeks in a row, was an honest mistake. He threw an arm around me and slipped me an uncovered CD. “All original, man.” Louie by night is a blues singer. He yelled into an intercom and a muscle-bound teenager dollied in three 50-pound bags. Louie slit each bag and we leaned over the stuff together to make sure it wasn’t infested. Louie’s tiny teeth gleamed and the edges of his round little stick-out ears turned translucent. The teenager loaded the bags in my car. Louie pumped my hand and slapped my back and said my next two orders were on the house. The whole visit took less than ten minutes. Driving back, though, I had to roll down the windows. An intense flowery fragrance enveloped me. Louie must wear an intense cologne. Because even after work, after a bowl of chili, an orange, and two light beers, I was still conscious of his scent. And then twice last night as I started to drift off, my body twitched awake, my heart pounding a sudden alarm at the smell of a young girl in bed with me.
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