It Was a Crime - Kate Bueler

It was not a crime to walk way from him at the corner of Guerrero and 16th right before the strike of new day. He sat there- more like stood there-with his appropriate uniform of bartender-but he was off tonight- the tattoos that clung and danced up his arm kept company by his tightish button down plaid shirt sleeves traveling up his arm. His ears had spaces growing for what I could never figure out- it just looks so very painful. Metal circles pushed the space between his ears to what he has created. Talking non-stop, talking from the happenstance of standing next to him at the bar. At the bar earlier in the evening. It isn't a crime to talk to someone at a bar, of course not. Its the common ground church of the 20 and 30 somethings. The rotary club of our generation. The school of life. Where we put on our best dress-sometimes- and stand together as we befriend each other sprayed in our choices of denial, or release or freedom or poison or just the need to play some trivia on a Tuesday night. The light of a bar the next day always awakens the reality of what happened there in the dark could never with the lights falling down with the sun shining in.

Not a crime to speak to someone I didn't know. For I always do. Its one of my favorite pastime other than making out. Its half the eating up of time and space. But the other half is sometimes a conversation breaths air into my lungs. As soon as this man began talking I knew something was wrong with him. I just didn't know what. See I spent the last 10 hours figuring out what was wrong with others. At my jobs. I didn't want to figure this guy out. This reader of problems and hopes and dreams even deserves a night off. His language quick and fast sprinter like but there was not end to the 100 meter dash. Just going again and again the energizer bunny of linguistics. He reminded me of myself upon too many coffee cups swigged down my throat. A Carl Lewis of sorts. But the finish line forgotten. I begin to look around the room. For my friends at the bar.

It was not a crime to have him join our trivia team. Our group small against the other big. He was a good team player. Sometimes. In and out. Outside. For a smoke. And back. To the bathroom. And back. The quick fire quick and the movements of the hands jerky. It is not a crime to see a man falling into pieces in front of you on a Tuesday night. But it might have been a crime for me to do something. To try and pick him up and super glue- I think I got some in my back pocket- and say how can I help you. He fell apart little by little I watched as he fell to the sticky bar ground. Just watching. So when his word of me and my beauty. Came. And his love for my last name. Everyone does love it. His desire to find a woman who bears the strength to keep her name. My beauty. He was a lapsed Catholic. You can't leave- we need more drinks. High five, we won. You are so beautiful. I would love to kiss you or have sex with you. You aren’t leaving. You say you will come back. I want to leave with you. Are you hungry?

He trails behind me as I exit from the wooden picture of the city corner canvas. Walking through. Don't leave your friend, I say. Don't worry she won't leave. She owes me a bag of coke. Do you guys want some? I got to give it to a guy who would share in the world of the drug of choice of secrecy. I decline and say I am trying to quit- the standard line for these type of situations even if the truth is my nose does not travel across white lines. It wasn't a crime to walk away from him on that street corner still talking and swaying and moving and begging and falling and complimenting- it would have been a crime to do any more.