Book of Muses

  

                        

For reasons I can't put into words I call the airport. The light in September seems to stretch into elongated planks of gold.  I get into the Buick my parents bought me as a graduation present, the vehicle I have been driving around all summer. I fire up a cigarette. I have a cup of coffee in the cup holder next to like a scepter.

A copy of Leaves of Grass is in the passenger seat next to me. I blast the radio. It is Pearl Jam. I have four-hundred dollars in my pocket.

I arrive at the airport and talk with the lady at the United terminal, perhaps it is the same lady I talked to on the phone only earlier. It seems almost presumptuous that I am banking on the fact that Megan will be in town that weekend since I haven't verified the dates with her in advance. It being six weeks away.

The lady asks me where my destination is. I tell her that I need a round trip ticket from O'Hare to Appleton, Wisconsin.

She asks me if I am going up there to go see a Packers game.

 

For some reason it never occurs to me to contact Megan and verify if  is free that weekend.

 

She bends her head as if she is praying as the sound of keys being pelted together in a tapping fashion is heard. I tell her that I desire to go in the middle of October, the weekend of the 18^th.

She tells me that my flight will be boarded in O'hare at 3:30pm and that I am scheduled to arrive in what I can only imagine is the bucolic autumnal nest of Appleton. The lady behind the counter inquired if I am going to perhaps visit family

Brazenly I inform her that I am chasing the love of my life.

The lady behind the counter looks at me weird when I hand her the wad of cash as if I am cashing it in for chips at a poker tournament before telling me that she will need to go to the back room to make change.

I haven't even told my parents yet that I am going. I have not thought about Kitty Pekowski since the first week of classes, staring out at my reflection on the bridge at ICC. Last summer seems like another lifetime ago.

I write Megan a letter. I tell her that I think about her all the time.

 

 

                                

 

Driving home from ICC and it autumn and Walt Whitman is next to me in the passenger side of the passengers side of the dilapidated BUICK and I am driving fast, the translucent infinitesimal  blue of the over autumnal sky is like some sort of chandelier, a ceiling, a bulb that the more I drive the more I somehow find myself one with, continuing to drive, continuing to think about Walt whitman and Coleman Barks reading Jelauddin Rumi and how the it is the prologue to the 19^th autumn I am about to witness, thinking about the women I have been writing poems for the last six months, the women whose hair is the  sylvan color of trees in mid October, thinking about how I have spontaneously just decided to go out and somehow find her once again. Thinking about the late night conversation centering about enlightenment in my room (which is adorned by angels, which always reminds me of a college dorm room somehow) the desk with the picture of Bob Dylan above the quote by Carl Sandburg stating that he (Dylan) certainly looks like an intense young man. Lost in the overhead pluriverse of eternity thinking about how I will somehow find her again, thinking about how I made flight reservations to fly out of O’hare, thinking that somehow I will find her again, thinking that somehow in five weeks she will be cradled in whatever architecture the ache of my arms avails.

 

 

 

***

           

 

“Hold on,” Says Megan’s giggling friend who speaks very loud.

 

 

 

                                                ***

 

“Hi,” I say.  Megan voice responds. The drama from the previous week is over.

 

            “Hi,” she says, there is still more giggling in the background in lieu of white noise.

 

            “Where were you?” For reasons unknown I feel compelled to ask. There is a long silence.

 

            “I was just saying goodbye to someone.” Megan adds, very softly. More giggling in the background.

 

            “Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that I picked up the tickets at the airport this afternoon so that I’m looking forward to seeing you in I guess about a month. I mean, that’s cool right?”

 

            Megan affirms that it is cool. Somehow she seems less elated talking to me now than she did a week earlier, when we bartered mutual apologies, when she sexily told me in the scribed missive to “stop being an asshole,”  and to be with her if I wanted to be with her.

 

            “I mean, you’ve talked to your folks right? There cool with me jetting up there, right.”

 

            More giggles in the background. It sounds like one of the girls is referring to me simply as “he” and saying that she cannot believe that “he” is actually coming up here, just to be with you.

 

            “Those dates work fine.” She says, reticent.

 

            “I honestly can’t wait.” I tell her, oceans of enthusiasm echoing from my lips.  “I honestly can’t wait to see you again.”

 

            More silence. More giggles. Finally a response.

 

            “Yes,” Megan says, “It’ll be real good to see you too.”

 

             

 

                                                            ***

 

The letter is sloppily written. There is no hearts or stars. I open it up and read it on the back porch. I have not called Megan back up since it took her forever to answer the phone, since she was (pause) saying goodbye to someone.

 

IN the letter she tells me that she is excited about seeing me. She then tells me that she thinks she might have mentioned it before but she wanted me to know that she has a boyfriend and that she hopes I can accept it and not come to see her with full flung romantic ambitions in mind. The inky post-marked planetary oval patched over the postage stamps in the right hand corner is dated OCT 1, 1996. I have already purchased the tickets.

Mentally I have decided to do whatever it takes to win her back 

 

*

 

            October first is Kitty Pekowski's birthday. She will be seventeen years old. Days earlier,  I picked up a card for her at the bookstore in the mall where Kyle worked and sent it with no return address on the cover of the envelope. On her birthday, I call her up and wish her a happy birthday even though in the presence of all of her friends I am pejoratively referred to as quote, “public enemy number one”. Her mother, Rose answers the phone and after a slight pause yells out her daughter’s name. On the opposite end I can see Rose placing her palm over the receiving end of the phone like she is shutting a young child up, before Kristina enters the room, Rose mouths my name and then, as if passing a relay track baton underwater, hesitantly grapples the receiver and says hello.

 

            “Kitty?,” I say. There is a pause. Kristina Rock is very good at brushing up against a permeable realm of silence.

 

            “This is David, you-know, from back in the day, David.” More pause. I can hear her breathing. The sound of her breath breezing through the phone indicates that she is apprehensive. She responds back to me, in the affirmative.

 

            “Yes,” She says.

 

            “I’d just thought I’d call and see how life’s been treating you these days. You know, big time senior year and everything.”

 

            Kitty’s breath still serves as a plosive anchor.

 

            “Fine,” Kitty says. “Everything is going fine.”

 

“And band,” I inquire. “Is life in the marching Falcons treating you well? How’s the trumpet playing going?”

 

            Once again, as if on cue, Kitty answers in the affirmative.

 

“Well,” I say. “I’ll keep this brief. I know we didn’t end on the best of terms or anything, but I just wanted to call and wish you a Happy Birthday and everything.”

 

            Once again, Kitty says thank you.

           

            “Listen, Kris,” I say, imitating one of her long-gasped exhalations. “I’ll keep this brief. I know you have probably a million plus things you’d much rather be doing right now than listening to my dumb ass rant on about sunsets and romantic pining and all that blather, I just wanted to call and say, for what it’s worth, sorry. I took advantage of you this past summer. You are a beautiful, divine creation and I did things over the past summer months that I’m just not proud of. I just wanted to call and to tell you that I am sorry and, for what it’s worth, thank you for prom and for your unreciprocated benevolence and best of luck in all of your future endeavors. I think you’re a beautiful human being. Everything you touch turns to gold.”

 

            Kitty says what sounds like the words okay.

 

            “If the old adage heeds true, and for reasons beyond my utmost comprehension I fear that it may, what goes around comes around and I’m in sort of a relationship right now of that caliber. I just want to apologize to you Kris. I’m sorry for all the shit I pulled. It just wasn’t cool.”

 

            Kitty remains silent on the opposite end of the phone.

 

            “Sorry,” I say.

 

            “Okay,” She says, caring less for my apology. Her voice is moist dew on rose pedals. To play here-comes-the airplane with my own curiosity, and to verify that she is able to form a complete sentence on her own volition, I decide to throw a few personal questions out on the table.

 

            “So,” I say. “Are you seeing anyone?”

 

“I don’t know. I mean, the person I really like, I’m not sure that he really likes me as I do him.”
 

            “Maybe you should just reel him in as you did me. I mean, I don’t know what bait you put on your hook, but you literally reeled me in faster than any other girl I’ve ever known.”

 

“David,” She says my full name for the first time ever. “You nibble at everything you see. It matters not what the bait is-you’ll still insist that you get a nibble in first.”

             

            “You’re right. I say.” Another pause. “Well, I’m sorry. Happy birthday. If ever you need someone to harangue, you know you can just call me anytime.”

 

            Once again Kitty Pekowski says okay. I say goodbye and hang-up, not listening to the other side, not hearing if her voice ever so much as bade me faretheewell, wondering, what will happen these coming weeks, with Megan Snow. Wondering, deep down inside, if she will be the one to save me.