I brought a raincoat. Long and military green, rolled tight and stuffed into my messenger bag among the notebooks, pens, empty pill bottles, condoms, empty water bottle, two lime White Claw Surge tallboys, and god knows what else. Twice I had tried to walk during the day. Nearly eighty degrees and oscillating between overcast and bright. Twice it had begun to rain just as I would leave the house.
Parked downtown as the evening crept closer. Filled the water bottle with one of the tallboys, buried the empty in my bag to throw out later. Headphones in. No songs that remind me of you. Lock the car, and down the sidewalk.
The sky a still but rolling mass of greys and whites and further out swathes of nearly black and deep blue. Staring up at the tops of buildings and their outlines against the clouds as my heels struggled to find some background comfort in new shoes. I wasn't going anywhere in particular. I never needed to. Only walking. Letting the air touch my skin and fill my lungs. Being in the world and letting the world be in me.
A drink from the water bottle. A drag from the vape.
I hoped I wouldn't run into
anyone
but there was a chance.
Pass the old job, holding moments. Pass the alley, holding moments. Pass the bar, holding moments. All of these places filled with ghosts and weight and once they had been so many things and now all only graves. The entire city a cemetary.
Around a corner, down another sidewalk, around another corner, and toward the waterfront, where I always end up. A few folks, spread far from each other, sitting on the long concrete benches. Some walking. Most by the fence above the water. Fishing. Taking photos. Talking. Holding hands. Hugging. Push the thought from my head and sit under a tree. The ground is wet but I'm already there so I try to ignore that too. Finish the water bottle, fill it again. Take my headphones out. Close my eyes.
The soft hum of a hundred conversations. Birds somewhere to the left. Cars in the streets. A breeze lazily wandering through the tree. Inhale.
Exhale.
Am I on your mind?
Push the thought out.
Near me I watch two city bus drivers walk past. They are holding hands and smilng and happy and I decide to keep moving. Stand, wipe whatever detritus off my ass, adjust my bag. Drink. Drag. Walk.
Away from the populated area and down a worn path running along the edge of the water. A couple holding each other against the fence, near a plywood sign where I once wrote a single word in sharpie as a clue. I don't make eye contact, but I look for my clue as I pass. It's still there. They're all over town. These clues. Left over the course of years on signs and walls and mirrors and wherever I think you might see. Pieces of me. Pieces of you. A puzzle only one person could ever solve. A puzzle that they never will.
Passing an abandoned building, rippling with the branches of dead ivy, the path opens to a full parking lot. The light from the day is draining slowly and I make my way to the bench. My bench. Situated almost invisible near a parking garage and off in the overgrown grass and weeds. A bench where I have sat a thousand times. Stared out at the water and the park across the river. The headlights on the road and the sun slowly consumed by trees. Where I've written, and cried, and begged for help, and laughed, and kissed, and sat silently for hours. My bench.
I sit, take out my notebook, a drink and a drag, and I write. Only a small note of being there. Recording the memory, and a comparison of others, for later. How this moment reflects others. Sentimental data points. Water hits my skin.
Then again.
Again.
I look up from my notebook and the clouds are all a deep grey and their edges all faded and undefined. The storm is here. The rain. The surface of the river now a chaotic landscape of small explosions and broken rippling.
A month ago we had been standing across town in a Goodwill. You asked me to hold a small wardrobe's worth of clothes. I was excited to show you what I'd found. Grey jeans, my size. A long military green raincoat. I held your clothes and you dug more out. I sat in the changing room with you as you undressed and dressed, undressed and dressed. The store was closing and I said nothing. I felt the death even then. This is how it had happened the first time, too. At a Goodwill. Always these patterns when it comes to you. Endlessly.
It's how I know it's pointless.
The rain ruins the page and I close the notebook. Drink, drag. Take the long military green raincoat out from the bag, stand and unroll it. Pull it on. I had stood in your yard wearing it the night I bought it, while you were in the dark and sometimes under the yellow light. You said it creeped you out. I thought it was fun.
Pull the hood up and throw my bag over my shoulder. Begin the walk back down the path. Toward the waterfront, toward my car.
I had my raincoat. Everything would be okay.
