Fiction: All Hail Domestication

Mary needs me every night. I take the J home, slurp down a plate of
spaghetti, watch 10 minutes of Sportscenter and 5 minutes of That 70s
Show, then brush my teeth, slick on new deodarant, run the frying pan
under some hot water, grab my bag and head on out. I grew up alone,
lonely, an only child in a tract home just south of Trenton, with an
Latino mother and heartattack father, me and them and the suburbs and
denial. Mom worked in The City, I would visit once a week and buy
music, listening to my new CDs on the train ride home and dreaming of
rock and roll glory. But I had more basic needs that weren't being
met-- needs for comfort, needs for security, needs for someone to talk
to, someone to hold my hand. I was in and out of hospitals on
anti-depressants, but managed to cobble together a hardcore band or
two, but it was not enough. Nothing was enough.

Now I'm in Albuquerque working a customer service job, working in the
back room of a tackle shop (who the fuck fishes in New Mexico),
masturbating under the desk and thinking of Mary. She was in a
Starbucks on Center when I made a rare piut-stop for a rare shot of
thier not-very-rare espresso. One gasoline black gulp later, I'm
setting the tiny ceramic shot glass on a napkin and gazing out at frat
boys and skate punks and anarchists and cheerleaders stomping by in the
waning Southwestern sun.

She doesn't so much nudge me as bump into me. I look up, she looks
down, and then I just know that I have a reason to be New Mexico after
all. My roommates balk, declaring her unworthy qualities and urging me
to continue with the dream of having a band, even if they aren't
contributing in the slightest. But she is nice to me, she needs me, she
is a warm fuzz-filled black hole, a rollercoaster drop into an abyss of
passion, the most terrifying and the most liberating person I've ever
encountered.

She never asks me about the band, nor asks me to do anything with my
life. The tacklebox job is fine, she's a marketing rep and can buy all
the food I don't put on my credit card. I buy her duplicates of all the
DVDs I own, just so we can stay on the same page when we talk movies.
She has a small cottage by the river her uncle lets her stay in, picket
fence and everything. I take the M bus, passing through downtown, past
the Launchpad where in a former life I dreamed of one day playing
guitar inside.

But now I am a moth, and she is a candle, and I move through sand-blown
avenues to get closer and closer to the flames she emits. I may stink,
I may hurt, but she envelopes me and makes it all better, makes it all
comfortable, makes it all just fucking great.

And all I have to do is show up.