For Stacey

[Do you ever think back to some random fling you had back in the summer
2003 and what would have happened had things gone differently? Me
neither.]

That night at the bar I wasn't Paul, I was rock star called Mr.
Nihilistic Alternative Newspaper Editor, and you were a willing fan, a
knockout blonde standing an inch taller than me, deeply impressed at my
many life experiences. It was our newspaper's 1-year anniversary, and
every friend I ever knew in the city was in that tiny bar built of
bricks. You with your Polish face and fishnet top, tight jeans and
high-heels-- we sat on the covered-up pool table and I continued to
impress, disbelieving a woman this attractive could be this smart AND
so seemingly caring. You were married, but that was ending soon. I had
a mullet, but that would be fixed in due time. A back room to the bar
beckoned as people began emptying out front. I got you down to your
black french cuts when the owner barged through, hauling trash. He got
a full view of your perfect breasts.

We emailed over the next week, met for coffee and watched Donnie Darko.
My roommates bit their hands you were so hot. I would hold that night
you and I made out watching the Glyllenhall kid build his career over
their heads for months. You were going to technical school, living on
your sister's couch, dating two other guys but seemed to have room in
your heart for me. I was the willing sucker.

We went to a martini bar the next weekend, that's where we dry-humped
on the patio while asian University of Buffalo students walked by and
laughed at us. We made love in my dirty thin-walled bedroom, your
screams lit up the night sky like so many sirens and one very loud,
pink-lipped megaphone. My roommates did not wake. 18 positions later,
we were exhausted, and you woke up with bronchitis.

The dust in my room, the money missing from my bank account, the fact I
wasn't doing much with my life, these eased your decision. It was time
to be a one-man woman (besides the husband), and that man was not to be
me. I wrote email after email in protest, but you sadly declined my
last-ditch advances. We met for one more beer, you had on white jeans.
I kissed your cheek in the rain, you thanked me for being a great
person to talk to. (Why not just call me gay?).

Half a year and half a continent's worth of travel later, I saw you
once again in that same bar where we first met. You had a huge leather
coat on, your hair was died black, and you had to look over your
shoulder before you could hug me for fear your meathead boyfriend (the
one who was "going somewhere" with his dull blue-collar provincial
home-owning lifestyle) would catch you and beat the shit out of you,
presumably. I hugged you again and my glasses broke against your face,
the tiny screw fell on the floor and out of view forever. I made a
nasty comment to you an hour later down the street -- "have fun with
your meathead, bitch!" -- and that was it.

That was it, that was it, that was it.