Rest Stop
It�s funny to suddenly understand how people can care � when you finally have an enemy. It�s a mark of honour, one that even when left unsettled, is as honourable as one that is settled. The rules of engagement preclude one from shooting another in the dark; a duel consists of two people, engaged face to face. I had just drifted away into the morass that was my own life and forgetting that their were other people who required something of me. It was the reminder of an enemy that set me back on to the right track. One did not mourn after things that couldn�t be � one kept what one had, and kept up with a straight face. Traitor, he says. Burn in hell, he says. Even with two beautiful women on both sides of me, he can say that to my face. My enemy has balls. His conviction runs deep, as does mine. My rejoinder: what�s done is done. I�m sorry. I chose it how I wanted it. A rather twisted way into fiery confrontation. It was interesting � he had lavished time, attention, and yes, money, on me. I had been his friend, his competitor, his brother. And yet something was missing. Perhaps it was my fundamental dislike of the nature of the other people he chose to surround himself with, or maybe it was a fear of what this might turn into that led me to break our pact on the most solemn of days, when I was to pledge a solemn allegiance to his brand of fiery hell. Bid Day, a day into which infamy will forever reside. But it was strange, my decision, for I had come to the one place where the outside gathered but the inside refused to recognize. Not cool, the imaginary sign would say. Cool, said the rest of Philadelphia. And thus, I joined sides, the city against the campus, the libertines against the il-liberated. �No morals!,� he would thunder. I would keep silent then, for it was my own private embarrassment that I would dig up to counter him on this charge.
It was over a thumping bass that I met this one. We weren�t sharing the moment; she had her rhythm, I had mine. It was only her legs which I first saw � quite a draw: long, lithe, beautiful. And then the rest of her. A sight to behold; for the plebeian in me, a gift that came once and never again, for she smiled. In this direction. State of mind was an exquisite agony; romantic action a ride over hot coals. Done at the right speed, safety � but at the wrong speed? Catastrophe, scarring burns, a slow, painful death. A cigarette, a whisky, and a Neptunes beat. There was nothing in this small space to hold me back, only to propel me forward and thus into the arms of destiny. My name is Margaret, she said, in her own British twang. Like the prime minister. Like the penultimate sister of the good Elizabeth, she murmured softly into my ear, smelling faintly of a sweet lilac and a distant perfume-y aroma on top of the cigarettes. Bobby, was all I said. And that was what it took to get from waiting to moving, from moving to sliding and grappling and feeling the motions of my new Aphrodite; magnificent in her furrows and gracious in her favors. Her movements were polar to mine: her lips too. A win. An hour distant, a slow tug on her arm pulled her away from mine arms for eternity. It was an anger at the unwanted stranger, who announced that they were leaving, and would Margey get going? Another light breath in my ear. Look me up, lover boy. And a web site address. Behind her, my enemy � still my friend � smirking. �I seen her too. She real fine.� The romantic to the practical � I had shared a tremulous love� with the purveyor of worlds. Shame.
And thus an enemy, whose supporters would rally around him, but whose presence conjured up a like assortment around my person. Fuel against fuel, rage against rage. It�s unfair, some saw, and added their considerable power to this side, or that side, and inevitably, the showdown would begin anew. It was care, all right. From adversity comes strength.