I could never quite explain it, coming or going.

She had some bizarre vibe going on — a hybrid of drum majorette and back-alley abortionist. Dancing at a funeral. Her smile was a poster pasted over her brick face. She had no future and no past in her. She was immediate, and all her wants and mine were in the present and that’s that. I don’t even know hold old she was, and never thought of asking, either. We never asked each other anything anyway. It was always jarring when she revealed herself to you and there wasn’t a mark on her, perfectly pink, an unknown to the sun. She was like a giant, obscene infant.

I was no better. I wished I was much worse, but she was all I could muster in that department. She brought out all the ‘paying for drinks with the toll change, and driving home the long way’ that I had in me, and used it all up, too. She was my nemesis and my abbess. I fought her and submitted to her. Prayed to her and cursed her.

If she turned up dead and the cops showed up at my door I’d ride the lightning for a dead cert. I wouldn’t be able to tell them anything about me and her that another person could knit into a likely story. How to explain a woman that would open the door for you wordlessly at three AM, whether you had a bouquet or a rattlesnake in your hand?