dani and i were inseparable. i usually saw him downstairs, at the ballet store his shorty typed sales on, like she were writing a novel, from behind a register . talia had his five year old, who would grow up to keep her delicate head on the side, her thin hand oozing attitude on her narrow hip, and her brown blonde curls falling to the ground. her spunk was purely her moms. she got dani's emerald eyes and soft features. but her words were thin and sharp, like the kitchen knives that talia went through to cut yucca, when i'd be over with my shorty, just so i could get a break from her and hang with dani.
my shorty kept a circus tightrope around my throat, and when i refused to believe i was tied to anything, that the tether was just my imagination, and she was just poker-facing, she'd crack the bottle of absolut in her hand, the one she drank like coconut water, while listening to razia sultan and pakeezah and hindi songs from the amitab era, and slit her arms, working her way to her wrists.
talia didn't exactly do the same to dani, but i could tell their relationship was mixed martial war. they'd been together since the 5th grade and they were in their mid-twenties...which would be cool, except she had her arm crossed and carried a scroll of complaints that she listed off to anyone who came to look at leotards and ballerina skirts at the store, and dani would play houdini, disappearing for months at a time, into the marines, and then off into a cruise ship cleaning elevators, when he was awol. he'd tell me of his odyssey as soon as he returned for a a week, and giggle. i laughed too, hysterical, glad to be reunited with him..
we don't have any plastic plates, talia complained. meaning: go get some disposables cause i don't feel like washing, cleaning, and participating in other un-american activities.
we stole moments to pretend to pick up soda and plates and missing items for dinner.
on gerard ave, we hooked a left and walked towards yankee stadium, stopping below the 4 and D and talking revolution and poems and the change of weather, and the fresh coat he had, and the dope kicks i had. bronx businessmen walked with stories of time shuffling their feet. the 4 train snaked overhead and popped bottles on the tracks that it cut through, curt and conspicuous like a tank in the sand.
lets go downtown, dani said, falling into the underground D staicase, after a half hour passed and we still didn't pick up anything.
what about talia and moni?
they'll forgive us.
dani was right, i thought, admiring his stealthy decisions, as i watched him by two 40's - one for him one for me - to drown in before we got to 40 deuce.
and these two bags of doritos, dani said, holding up the 50 cent bags.
we were set for our journey to the city, and medicine was dani, cause i needed the drown, and escape, and splurge on the arcades we spent our dinner money on. it was cool though, worth it. we rambo'd up behind the screens, and shot enough cops and soldiers, to make us feel accomplished.
here's a star and stripe, dani said, ripping off a pretend badge from his broad shoulder and sticking it on my army jacket.
twentysomething was escaping, leaving this body for drown, for leaping into bottles and good times. even back then i was leaving my body...then it was to descend into the heaven of party-and-bullshit...
dani knew how to have a good time. or he used to. the last time he called me, he was in texas somewhere, told me, but, all i know about texas is the goblets they give you at bbq's.
dani told me that he was done having a good time in that way, said he didn't know if he was going to make it. none of us did.
none of us made it. none of the fragmented pieces of crew i belonged to. most of them stood on the ledges of roof's and wrote their alter-egos names on the impossible walls between subway tracks and highrises and air and death, hoping to be re-united with a soul mate in the concrete, 20 stories below. dani was one of them.
i write dani's name everywhere i go, like he were a missing link to a puzzle i'm trying to solve.
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