in the rot and welter of unmade loves

I asked her to call and she never did. So I said the hell with it, I don't wait for nobody.

Then on my way to buy a call card something happened. I was from down the school basement of this university looking for this friend the school wanted to hang and not finding her among the trees, I went across the road over at Marco Polo to get a book from another friend doing a conference there. First thing that greeted me before I could walk into the hotel was this tall lean white woman standing askance in the driveway, in her ruggedly rolled up blue shirt zipped up to the neck and her rumpled cropped head, an arm across her chest, her other hand holding a cig. Her head turned toward me and she looked me up as I approached.

Then she smiled, rather sourly, sucking her cig in between her teeth as she fixed her gaze at me with a look so hard that...Godalmighty, was I sexually aroused? I cocked my head and mocked a yell, my voice a crack hysterical. Hey! you're looking at me! She chuckled, pink tongue wetting her cracked lips, her eyes dancing wolves in the cold frost. I reached the door weak in the knee and when I looked back at her as I gave myself to the lady guard who groped my sides and my front for anything incendiary in my person, she was still watching me, smoke swirling about her face.