Needs v1.2

Anna Lisa Kristina. The love of my life. My best friend. The woman who began all my good dreams. Th woman who broke my heart every time we talked about her newest boyfriend. The woman, the reason, why no other girl on the face of the planet would ever matter to me. Anna Lisa Kristina. Someone I loved so much I hated just as strong.

“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 she’d call her boyfriend in front of me. Even when she avoided my stares. Even when she didn’t say ‘I love you’ back.

“Let’s order a few more rounds.” I said, finishing my beer.

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

“Sure.” I said.

It’d been a week since my dad came back from the hospital and a month since he had his aneurysm. Somewhere in the middle of all that, I snuck off to Seattle to meet with poets and writers from across the country. Nice bohemian, artistic, drug-induced,  road trip. Got in touch with my spirit and soul and the earth and the heavens.  Came back, and realized, my dad was still fucked. Shit didn’t seem too 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.

“Yeah. It helps with the tips.” I said, nodding at all the empty beer glasses, just as our whiskeys arrived. “Thanks Sarah.”

“Don’t mention it buckaroo!” said Sarah, the blonde waitress, as 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. 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. “Anna Lisa Kristina?”

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 while you’re here drinking it up.”

“Yeah. I just had to get away, man.” I said. “And I needed him to watch the new care-giver. Shannon, I think is her name. A young one. 21 or some shit. 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. Just kidding.”

“Cheers.”

“Cheers…”

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

“Ya think he’s doing anything with her?” 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 and told him that I wouldn’t be back until the next day. He said it was cool. He also mentioned that the care-giver was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in his life and planned on writing her the most lovely poem ever written by humans. And that by me getting back the following day, was destiny enough that he should give her the magical poem.

I sighed. And drove off  into the night, towards the one woman who ever meant anything to me. And her boyfriend.