Lovely People

tonight i sat at a bar with an old friend and a new one. We sat together and drank whiskey and smoked cigarettes and reminisced. As is often the case, certain friends came up. After having ordered a few well whiskeys (Canadian Mist) the new friend ask if I ever got bored with that drink. Though it was treating me well, I was, in fact, becoming 'bored' with the drink. Still, I hated the way she asked me; not so much because of the qualities of Canadian Mist, but more so because this person could not keep from yawning, and because i worried that someone who is so comfortable with the term might throw it around later in regards to the present company. I could not help but think that this girl must read Kerouac or something like it. Regardless, her statement got me to thinking, and looking up at the shelf of liquor behind the bar, my eyes rested on a nice, tan and green ceramic jug. I asked for two and came back to my seat. I gave Neil his drink, and after a treatment, he asked me what we were drinking. "We're drinking to Ben tonight," I said. Neil, in an unimaginably cool fashion said, "good night for Dew." I looked over at our new friend, and saw that she was drinking from my glass (She had done this earlier, after seeing me shudder while drinking a big sip, trying, I assume, to show both me and Neil something of her metal). This time around there was no hiding; her face puckered, and wincing she set the drink down. "What is that?" she said. "It's Tullamore Dew," I said, vindicated. "it's got a bit of a bite to it," She said. Neil and I said, "It does."

The point of all this is that there are people out there who elicit a particular and profound love. Some of these lovely people have since moved away from Santa Cruz. They are talked about often. Most times at bars or in living rooms after drinks. Even in their absence they bring us together. Occasionally, the philosophical will question the existence of such persons, worrying that the time we spent with them was honest proof of a deceiver. Other, more reasonable people, simply talk about the times spent. "You remember that time when he told us about the month he spent in a Jamaican Prison?!" or " remember that time when she drank from a whiskey bottle for 15 seconds?!" we might say.

Tonight, Neil and I drank to one of these people. Tonight we drank Tullamore Dew like old men, and smoked Chi's hand-me-down cigarettes, which had been ingeniously wrapped in a plastic zip-lock bag. "Do you just like toting around plastic bags of cigarettes or are you preparing for rain?" our new friend asked, and as Neil explained that our friend, Chi, had left a bundle of cigarettes behind for us, I could not help but think that there was the makings of a future story here; that maybe one night in a bar, or in a living room after drinks, someone would be telling this story, becoming closer, more loved; it made me think of new stories to come.

Now, after nearly nine months away, one of them is coming back. She is going to be here soon, and thinking on this, I can't help but wish that we were all here under one roof. Mostly, though, the prospect makes me happy.