Needs

She tried taking me to the hospital. But that didn’t work out too well. I jumped out of the car at a red light. Which was funny because I was the one driving. Don’t worry though. I put it in park before I left. And that’s how I ended up with no car.

Anna Lisa Kristina. The love of my life. My best friend. The woman who begins all my good dreams. Th woman who breaks my heart every time we talk about her newest boyfriend. The woman, the reason, why no other girl on the face of the planet will ever matter to me. Anna Lisa Kristina. Someone I love so much I hate just as strong. Since those feelings are the same thing.

“Love and hate. Same thing.” Said Yas in his beer gruff voice, finishing his sixth beer in the first hour. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” I cheers-ed. “Yeah. Makes sense.”

She made me feel whole even when I wasn’t talking to her. Even when we got into fights. Even when I left her in my own car on the way to the hospital to see my unconscious father. Even when she called her boyfriend to pick her up at Roscoe and Woodman after giving my keys to some random homeless dude.

“So what’re you driving now?” Yas asked. “How’d you get here?”

“My dad’s car. He won’t be driving it for a while. He’s bed ridden.” I said, finishing my beer. “Let’s order a few more rounds.”

“Want some liquor?” Yas asked, knowing the answer, eyeballing the waitress until she nodded.

“Sure.” I said.

My dad had an aneurysm. When it happened, I was out of state, doing a show, performing some theatre shit with a theatre group called The Grains of Rice Theatre Company. I took time off of work so I could jump from state to state on some sort of friggin’ bohemian artistic road trip, supposedly getting in touch with my spirit and soul and the spirit and soul of the earth and the heavens. Then my dad had an aneurysm. And shit didn’t seem to spiritual and soulful anymore.

“Say, you still working at that strip club?” Yas asked, twirling his empty glass on the paper table cloth of the booth we sat in.

“Naw. I quit.” I said. “They didn’t like that I took a whole week off to tour. Then when I told them I’d need another week off to take care of my dad they said I couldn’t. So I said ‘fuck you’ and walked out. I’m picking up my last paychekc on Monday.”

“So what’re you gonna do for money?” Asked Yas.

“I dunno. Probably do some construction. Maybe break into houses again. I’ll find something.” I said just as our regular whiskeys arrived. “Thanks Sarah.”

“Don’t mention it buckaroo!” said Sarah, the blonde, our regular waitress, on Monday nights, every week, every Monday. And she skipped away.

“Every woman should be like Sarah.” said Yas, raising his glass.”Cheers.”

“Cheers.” I said raising mine and gulping down enough to burn my eyes. “Agreed.”

Sarah was funny. A drop of gold in an otherwise empty, grayed-out, hollow, of a bar, in Downtown LA. Corner of 1st and Central, a spot away from the dark, after midnight, dried up freeway veins of the 10, the 110, the 101, the 5. A flip from Union Station, where only the tourists and non-residents rode trains. Sarah sweetened all of these, all of us, sour things.

“So you gonna talk to her again?” asked Yas, eyeballing me like I was gonna say the wrong thing.

Of course I was. I needed her. She was half my life. She was the reason I wrote anything. She was the reason why I believed in love. She was the reason I was born. Or something like that. I knew it. Even though I couldn’t figure out why.

It was just what it was. It was just the way it was and was always going to be. Never a second thought. I would always love and be in love with her no matter what.

And that’s why I wrote. And that’s why I drank. And that’s why I was at a bar in Downtown LA drinking with Yas instead of taking care of my father at his apartment where I left good old Corn.

“That guy Corn,” I said, smiling, guilty, drinking, “he’s a really good friend.”

“Sure is.” Yas agreed. “He taking care of your dad?”

“Kind of.” I said. “He’s watching over the care giver. She’s a girl. A young one. Fresh out of the academy or the clinic or wherever care-givers come from.”

“She cute?” Yas asked.

“Yeah.” I said. “I already fucked her.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers…”

We drank, slammed the glasses on the table and ordered another round.

“He gonna get any?” asked Yas.

“I don’t think so.” I said, sighing. “Things like that don’t happen to Corn much. In fact, things like that NEVER Happen to Corn. Double in fact, the exact opposite usually happens to Corn.”

“What you mean?”

“Like, he’s probably already written her a love poem about how beautiful she is and how he’d love to spend eternity with her and shit. He’ll probably give it to her expecting a magical wedding to happen, but then she’ll probably laugh at him and then quit leaving him to have to take care of my dad all by himself.” I said, immediately getting worried. “Speaking of which. I should get back to my dad’s pad. Make sure he hasn’t burned the place down with his one-sided love.”

“That’s funny.” said Yas. “I’m gonna stay here a little longer.”

Cool.” I said getting up, dropping a hundred dollar bill on the table. “Last of the strip club money.”

“That’s cool. The drinks are free anyway. And I plan on getting into a fight. So that’ll about cover everything.”

I gave him a nod, he gave a nod back and I walked to the parking lot. Lit a cigarette, hopped into my dad’s car, and drove to the nearest payphone. Picked it up, dialed a familiar phone number and got her answering machine.I waited for the beep.

“Okay. I’m gonna come over. I need to talk to you. I have to apologize. I’m an idiot. I’ve been acting like an idiot. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I need help figuring this out. A lot of shit has been happening and I don’t know why. I need to know why. I need you to help me figure it out. So I’m gonna come over. I don’t care if what’s-his-name is there either. He can listen, too. I just need to talk, Kris. Bye.”

Then I called Corn to tell him that I wouldn’t be back until the next day. He said it was cool. And that the care-giver was still there. And that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life. And that he was almost done with his magical poem.

I sighed. And drove off  in the night.