now i've done it. or just like you see on tv.

when we left town my heart was racing. you were lying in the back seat of the car and i really wasn't sure if you were alive anymore or not. or how you got that way. or where the hell i thought i was going to go.

earlier in the evening i'd met you in a diner. you were wearing an old paisley dress in an off brownish-green kind of colour and had a matching red purse. it was small and i could see a copy of white light, white heat sticking out of it. this was all a badly written character piece, and i understood fully what i was supposed to do next. i saw the way you were looking at me and tried to hold my ground and avoid looking like a complete amateur. but you obviously knew what you were doing, and with a few quick and deliberate maneuvers i realised you had me eating straight out of your hand. which only excited me more.

you hitched a ride and i had no idea where i was taking you, but you told me i'd have to drive faster if i wanted to lose them. i looked in the rearview to see no one behind me and wondered who the hell you thought you were talking about. it was silent in the car, and i enjoyed the ambiance of the engine, the road, and my own paranoia kicking around in my head. i swear there was an echo.

driving through the woods i turned on my brights and it looked like i might be on the bottom of the ocean. you grabbed the back of my neck, i felt the muscles in my wrist tense and my fingers wrapped around the wheel. i turned and looked at you and thought for the first time in my life that i'd never been where i was before. it was a little electrical charge, the first teasing hit of amphetamine that promises to accelerate your head until you break. i just kept thinking about the hairs on the back of my neck as i sped into the turns.

i saw something by the side of the road and suddenly pulled over to take a look. it was a neat little stack of books, handwritten. the outside binding had cracks and it was clear that they had been well used. i ran my fingers along the edges and then left them, back to the car.

and later (this part's a blur), in the suburbs, some big house, crashed party, the police showed up. helped you get your dress off. scattered into the back yard. i found you on the floor in the bathroom and got the hell out. your head was bleeding but i think it was just a small cut that you picked up on your way to the ground.

and i realised definitively that i didn't know what the fuck i was doing.

it's not like they tell you it is, or like you see it on tv. you don't break down and cry and you don't persevere against the odds and the cops just see your out of state plates and set the dogs loose. i just sit there not feeling any regret or excitement or anything in particular but the hum of the car and the idea that maybe there should be some kind of feeling where there is not.

but that kind of thinking never gets you anywhere.

god knows how i got out of there, but i'm pretty sure i did. my memory about that is pretty patchy at this point. so i smoked a cigarette and grabbed a cup of coffee at the first gas station i saw after i decided i'd lost them. if they were ever following me to begin with. i hoped i had enough cash to make it to the gulf. i figured i could be standing on the beach by nine a.m. if i drove fast enough.

when you came around i was listening to the velvet underground.

yet another true story that really happened.

woke up in some strange living room on a couch. my throat was swollen, eyes dry, head aching.

the fun part is trying to put together how you got there to begin with, or at least that's what i think. i was interrupted, though. someone was staring at me from across the living room. he looked about fifty and not in any way pleased with my presence on what i presumed to be his couch.

i rolled back over and hoped i hadn't drooled on his pillows too much.

soon i woke up to the sound of someone shuffling around. i looked up and saw that a vacuum cleaner had been placed in the doorway. i took note of it and went back to sleep again.

the third time i woke up it was to the sound of very loud vacuuming near my head. i think someone was trying to tell me something. i got up and found my shoes (near the front door) and headed out into the blinding sun.

i sat down on the sidewalk for a minute. my head was throbbing with my pulse. all that sunlight would do me no good at all. fumbled in my pocket for a cigarette and tried to reorient myself...

only to realise that i was not anywhere that i recongnised. this was doubly irritating because i know literally every street in my hometown. the street read HARRISON. i wondered idly whether it was in reference to the president of the same name.

my throat actually tightened even further when i realised where i was. chicago. and my car was nowhere in sight. i considered going back to the house to ask how i'd gotten there but thought better of it. as i thought about it more, i realised i no longer had any idea which house i'd come out of.

it was a good thing i had nearly a full pack of cigarettes.

i can't even make mistakes right.

i'd gotten a room a bit too far up broadway in kansas city, drank a little bit too much, and smashed a bottle of wine on the floor.

for a minute i just stared down at this pool of shattered glass and spilled wine, sort of oddly amazed that i had done such a ridiculous thing. i recognised that i was quite drunk, but resolved not to get out of bed on that side in the morning.

i remembered sitting in my kitchen at the table late one night. a girl came home to me, wasted with her heels full of broken glass, staring right into my eyes like a frightened animal. i would have asked why, but i'd learned well enough by then that those sorts of questions were far more trouble than they're worth when she was concerned.

the whole thing was mostly surreal, but slightly repulsive as well. when i took her to bed with me that night, i kind of hated myself for it, and i kind of still do.

and the next day was just business as usual, but

back in kansas city, i realised i'd do better not to dwell. it's one of those things which i'm constantly reassuring myself of. i could spend all day thinking about my (many) mistakes but still be too foolish to avoid repeating them.

i've said many times that the best kinds of mistakes are the ones you only need to make once, but i'm afraid i don't have nearly enough of those. maybe i'm just a glutton for punishment.