Hawaii Interstate Highway

"I've already told you: the only way to a woman's heart is along the path of torment. I know none other as sure." ---Marquis de Sade

Stop shaking your head. Gimme a chance to explain...

I like stealing stuff. I case every woman who catches my eye trying to see what they're hiding. You can't give your phone number without giving something of yourself. Every little hair on a woman, even the peach fuzz, is a fuse.

I watch some guys staring at their girls like kids staring at a candy store window. Which gets me wondering, along with the girl in most cases, is he making that sweet expression at *her* or to himself in the reflection? So the girl looks over at me and sees the crowbar in my eyes. I can't hide it. Fortunately it's not WHAT you do but WHO you do it with. I find my markets.

But every time it feels the same when it sticks with somebody. I pick the lock and break into their life and instead of trying to steal everything, I end up wanting to move in.

I'm in full-on burglary-mode when all of a sudden I find myself liking the way you crookedly hang that painting, the way your bookshelves lean, where you dogeared pages or underlined stuff, your pajamas, that you're a packrat for every letter ex's sent you, sticker books and photo albums, you kept a lock of your hair from when you were six and now your hair's a different color, you had a street portrait artist embellish your likeness when you were going through an ugly phase and everybody pretended you were that pretty, you were entirely frigid with one boy and put out on the first date with another and you don't know why the difference, you want a dad and your cute little boy at the same time out of a husband---oh yeah---AND the guy you'd risk all that for to cheat with, you want to have your blueprints for the rest of your life approved of, you want your history to be a rumor that YOU spread, you want me to cast my net at you swinging over and over and never get more than half your butterflies, you want to be my private petting zoo, I want a muse who fucks like a whore, you want to be able to hurt me and build me up, you want me to trudge through your sewers and step out onto your penthouse balconies, you want to take your top down in conversation and and have my breeze run through your hair, you want me to contemplate every guy who ever wanted to get into your pants, you want jealousy, you want me to be loyal but only because you're amused that I'm a born serial-cheater, you want our sex life to be a cookie jar (actually that's projection, I admit it), you want to get our plans on wheels, you want somebody with no plans, you want Monopoly on weeknights and Risk on weekends, you want somebody who can fight but also listen, a caveman with a rather daunting reading list, you want every smart person you know to feel castrated next to goofy imaginative things we've come up with, you want me to be fucked-up but fairly lucid, you want relativity here and there but stuff that comparison can't touch other places, you want love letters and suicide notes, you want your melody to feel like a symphony, you want to be my God and have me as your bible at dinner parties, you want me to accept that you have an abiding, unadulterated crush on Adrian Brody despite the fact that both our mothers are Hungarian, you want to be my fire escape---more architecture than utility---and you can still fall in love 10,000 times but it has to be with ME, over and over, like some karma that slums it on spin cycle, and we can be off-key, and every soliloquy can be one long stutter, and why the hell am I inventorying all this shit, oh yeah it's Thanksgiving, so do we have a deal?

Deal.

I got a phone call last week that fucked around with my weekend even though I didn't do much besides reread Cannery Row and some Kafka diary entries and move over some pavement percolating some new stories and talk on the phone to S. It threw a phantom weekend in of what MIGHT have happened. But no dice.

Long distance relationships open like pop-up books, hers is in Manhattan. I like my pop-up book.

"What are you doing this weekend? I'll come out and see you," she said. You cheat on every girl you were ever with hearing a Cuban accent. It puts out over the phone.

But hesitation shuts the whole fucker down.

"You don't sound excited. Is it because of the..."

"Yes, guapa."

"Then I go to Miami."

"I'm sorry."

"Change the subject."

"To what?"

"I have to go."

"That's not changing the subject."

"Jes eet eez."

Click.