Auf Wiedersehen

Hot humid sun perched in the apex of the blistering sky, it made the long black end of the asphalt look like gin settling to the bottom of the glass, a thick syrupy bitter swirl. He spoke to me while we reconnected and my eyes focused on the few stray hairs his razor missed on his neck this morning. And the faint smell of his aftershave. It has been a long, long, time since I was the girl that he knew. Our tribe disbanded - not that we wanted what fate wanted - but we went gently like dust across a late summer prairie nonetheless. John asked me to come shoot with them one midnight shift, after I had been laid off, and in his omnipotent almost cocky way he told me you never know where we will be in a year.

He killed a man, not two months later. As I took the phone call from a lonely hotel room in Nevada. And I think about that view, sometimes. The sprawling effluent of our society in its decline. Neon cowboys and all. That moment of the three of us in the dank and wonderful range, encased like an orb of amber, for always.

That is how death should be, whether it is of a man or an identity or a memory or a love. Let the bones be laid to bleach under the furnace of a thousand suns, let the pieces that remain be cleansed in fire.

The few stray hairs on his neck made all of those memories come violently back. And how when he speaks to me I stand with my back to my new tribe, but can still feel their heat on my calves, my shoulder blades. I am not that girl anymore.

We got engaged and we will be married in September. For the first time in my life I am not afraid of changing my name, I don't feel like the loss of it will be a priceless sacrifice on my part. His father was George, as was my grandfather, and it makes me grateful to think that his name will be given to me and that I can do right by it. As simple of a desire as that is. A year and a half later and there is still that wild stir within me when he comes home, when I hear his voice. When I see the flecks of brown buried deep within his blue eyes and wonder if George is happy for his son, if he approves.

I got a text one night, several months back, it may have even been last year. From the phone of the man with the stray and rebellious neck hair. And I did not remember it until we were gathered under that oppressive sun seeking shelter in the memories of a time that we will never be able to get back to, bittersweet and just, simply, gone. He said would you like to talk to me, and, I, thought, I would put her on the phone, but I don't know where she's gone to.