*14*
Bob called Denise. "My plane arrives at
11:00 a.m. - can you pick me up at the airport?"
"Yeah, sure ... how's your Mom doing?"
"Oh, I guess okay. She's still in shock, really. Um, flight 37."
A pause.
"Okay."
Bob hung up the phone.
He spotted Denise as he came off the plane. They quietly headed toward the luggage. Her silence felt resolute - she had made up her mind about something. They stood separately by the carrousel, waiting for his bag. After he picked up his bag, they walked over to her car. They drove for a while in solitude.
"I think it's time we broke up." Denise said.
Bob sat silent. Under the weight and preponderance of life and death, Denise's statement didn't strike him as of too great importance.
"I'm just letting you know," she said.
"Okay." Bob acknowledged that he had heard her. As they weren't really linked any longer by love, Bob felt indifferent anyway. His chest began to hurt; he relaxed and forced himself to meditate. I need more exercise.
Bob pulled out his pocket pad. He gave himself a wry smile. It was actually both sad and funny, he thought, that now, with nothing in the world, (just an old car and some old clothes and a bicycle in storage, some old books) that all he really carried around with him were his car keys and his pad. In a way, it was liberating. Living on love and luck alone. Just his word, his looks, and his ability to charm and please.
He jotted down some notes with the stylus, pushed save. There was a certain Zen to the nothingness of it. The ability to survive by pad alone. What should he do next? Look at the pad, get the to-do list, do one of the items. Life clarified to eating, sleeping, sex when possible, and one of the items on the to-do list. Geesh, in a modern city, and with the help of a few friends, one didn't really have to do a hell of a lot to survive. As long as you dropped the pretense of meeting people's expectations. Who cares what your clothes look like, what car you drive, whether you've got the latest computer? Bob needed to go to the bathroom. Shit occasionally, too. Sleep, sex, and shit. Of course, it helps if you take a shower once in a while, just to keep your friends. And the key is really grooming. A shave. Shave, shit, shower, sleep, and sex. Bob pursed his lips.
But right now, his immediate concern was where to take a crap. I guess that is one of the problems of virtually being homeless. Vanity clashing with physical requirements. I can't just stoop in the front bushes of someone's yard somewhere and take a shit. Although, physically, it could be a perfectly normal thing for a human-being-animal to do. And he felt dirty. Geesh, I could use a shower. Shower, sleep, shave, sex and shit. Bob pursed his lips, amazed by his predicament. Finally, up ahead, a McDonalds with a public bathroom. He would be forever grateful.
