Robert Colpitts

“Don’t change my hair color,” she says.

“I won’t,” I say.

“Don’t do it,” she repeats.

“I already said–”

She interrupts me:  “I’m just saying.”

Such insubstantial stuff comes when you are rushed for time.

I mumble:  “I don’t even know your hair color.”

This morning, I am reflecting upon last evening, but I haven’t the time to do it properly.

I say to Faith, “There are two things that make me magnetically center on sanity.  Something, and being with the ghost.”

Faith:  “If you called me a ghost, I would clock you buster.”  She makes a move for a fly swatter and turns toward me.  “Scat!  Get outta’ here you pumpkin peddler!”

I trail off into sing-songy something or other.  To go help people.  La la la la la la la do do do de de de.

Oh, the time time, oh the wine wine, oh the day day, oh the what the where am I why am I where the what the how the day the once.

Yes, once upon a time there was a woman named Faith.  She was a perfect woman, but she was a *&^*# when she was a teenager.  Later, she turned into an interesting pile of &#%!.  Wow, that period looks interesting next to that exclamation.  Point.

Did you know that if you stare at a woman long enough, she turns into a meatball?  Literally.  You see her hair change color, and then her feet turn into beef, and she says, “What the FUCK!?” and starts running in circles.  You are aware, of course, that meatballs are spheres, and running in circles eventually causes her body to turn into a parabola-esque wobbly blobbly that falls down, but with the momentum of the circle running, starts rolling, and then, there before you, is a sphere, all because you stared at the woman long enough.  If you are lucky, she’ll ask you to hold her purse for her before she starts running, and most of the time a woman carries pasta sauce in her purse, so you can heat her up with the sauce, and freeze her for later, because fresh, stared-at, woman meatball in sauce is a little ratty if you don’t pull out the rats and the freezing helps with that.

Whew!  Did you catch all that?  Faith, as I was saying, lived a long time ago.  She loved this immortal black man named Puma.  Puma was a master of his domain.  A poet.  Once he wrote:

Detailed scum
That makes
Agaraga
Shakee-poo

Puma loved Faith, and Faith loved Puma.  Puma’s arms were like, you know, perfect, and he liked to work out on whatever scaffolding was available to him.  One time he crawled up a building and did PUSH UPS SIDEWAYS ON THE BUILDING.  Everyone wonders why he did not fall when he pushed away during the push-ups.  He told me that he used the massive musculature of the tiny muscles on the palm of his hand to grip the bricks while pushing away, but quickly reinforced that what should amaze us is how he used his mind to change the flow of gravity to push him sideways against the wall so he could use the massive musculature of the tiny muscles on the palm of his hand to then alter gravity and on and and on for the 7000 sideways on the side of a building push ups that he did that fateful day.

I can kind of see why Faith loved Puma.

Sadly, though, Puma died.  It wasn’t a painful death, but it was shameful.  Puma, as it turns out, liked fluffy things A LITTLE TOO MUCH.  Once he had a hamster.  He cuddled the hamster so much that the hamster died of happiness.  Puma, by nature, was a gentle soul.  So don’t think that just because he has arms the size of buckets that he would ever crush a hamster.  He once loved a cat that way too.  The cat died purring.  No joke.  Happy cat dies in arms of sweet man. 

So, Faith loved this guy.  When Puma killed his third fluffy cuddle bun, Puma recorded a video, uploaded it to the INTERNET, and then died.  In the video, Puma is naked (all boys and girls get hot and then feel sad while watching), and says:

Puma
Fluffy
Happy
I tried to love
I only killed
Such is it to
Have the arms
Of a black man

You know, it strikes me that black men might be so unhappy all the time because black women expect them to be man the man and get a job and support a family and all that, but we live in a racist world, and the last person in the world that anyone is going to make things easy for is a black man.  It can be very sad for these women to have such high expectations of you, and the black men should say to the black women why don’t you get a freaking job, you know how hard it is being black and all, so why don’t you. But this is speculation.  Puma was also a–or would have been, had he and Faith had time to, you know–good man.

Do people say, you are a good man, anymore?  I mean, I’m tired of quotation marks, so who’s to say that people are not tired of saying, you’re a good man.  I mean, seriously.  But, Puma, Puma was a good man. 

So, Faith and I.  I think that was when we became friends.  She was mourning Puma, and I was trying to be a good man like him, thinking all the while that trying to be like him was a little sick, since he just died, and Faith might think that I was trying to move in on his girl, which I was, but I didn’t know that at the time, because who am I to know things like that for sure at a such a confusing time.

So, I just became friends with Faith.  I thought I’d be a good replacement for Puma, but, you know, once you have that thought, you are done for, because, really, it is offensive to say the least, that thought about replacing a dead boyfriend as a boyfriend, ick. 

So, where was I?  The point is, the point of all this, and all these, is that Faith is something you believe in, not because it is something you own, but because it is something you want to love you back.  And I, I mean I, I really wanted Faith to love me back.

Faith seemed concerned about something.  I couldn’t tell what it was, but it was something for sure.  For sure.  So, I did what I thought I should, I sat in a corner and read, and waited for just the right opportunity to make myself useful like a poignant, studied eagle.

This was some years before she told me that she was leaving this planet in search of new life.  However, even early on in our tempestuous romance, I could tell that something was up.  I’ve already told you something was on her mind.  What I didn’t tell you is that there was an alien sitting on her desk whispering in her ear.  Actually, now that I think about it, the alien was nibbling on her ear.  Hell, memory, you astound me:  he was inserting his two tongues into her ear. 

You know that sound you hear when someone sticks their tongue in your ear?  If I were to give aliens any advice right now, it would be this:  when licking ears with your two tongues, avoid making that sound at all costs.  Lick AROUND the suction zone.  Because when making that suction noise in the ear of the recipient, you undoubtedly make a suction sound that can be heard by the guy sitting in the chair next to you, and while waiting for that business to finish he might get a little bit horny and/or angry, and/or write and tell people how you have a beer gut and bad breath.

Sometimes when sitting and waiting for something to finish, I become a bit delusional, but in a good way.  You see, within a few moments the alien was no longer licking Faith’s ear, but not because he wasn’t licking Faith’s ear, but because I was having a delusion that he was not.  You might identify that as self-protective:  if I don’t believe it is actually happening, it cannot hurt me, right?  I would identify it as personal artistic expression, minus the whole buying of products and stuff.  And stuff. 

As I hallucinated things out of the room, I noticed that there were flowers on Faith’s desk, and she was fingering them while the alien was definitely not licking her ear nor stroking her hair, nor removing her shirt, nor anything like that, and, moreover, while this all was not going on, she was really hypnotized by those flowers, and I wondered if the flowers were actually alien flowers with magic powers, because the Faith I know would never accept so passively what is not happening.

“Robert.”  And suddenly, I’m there again, but now the alien is–wait no, I’m not ready to admit that, so I just force myself to remember only that Faith continued with, “All I really want in life is flowers and someone to change my tires.”

I do remember that.  In fact, all that business with the alien, and what or who he changed or did not change into is unimportant, she said, “All I really want in life is flowers is someone to change my tires,” and that is what is important to convey.

“You see, flowers are dead, and someone changing your tires means you are doing what exactly?” is something that Faith would normally say, not the warbly sick little sentence that I was dragged to repeat.  I mean, the alien changed her tire.  What kind of genius does it take to change tires? Most aliens have SPACESHIPS.  Any reasonable HUMAN has a spare tire in the trunk of their car; how hard is it to print out a ‘how to change a tire’ web page, and include that and the tools you need to change a tire in the trunk with your tire?  An alien should be able to change WARP DRIVES.  Besides, what the hell are you doing while watching your tire get changed by a pathetic alien?  Dying is what I say.  Dying.  The passive death.  The death of self-sufficiency.  The death of self-respect. 

Alright, forget it, I told you about how out of control my memory and imagination are.  They are fucking on the desk.  The alien and Faith.  Fucking flowers and tires.  And I couldn’t do anything about it, because what do you say to people who are fucking on a desk when you are sitting in a room?  They already think you don’t exist.  You aren’t going to change their minds by interrupting them.

Wait.  I mean it.  Flowers and tires?  I mean, I was sitting there READING.

“Ok,” I say to Faith who is tied to a chair in the corner of the room.  “You want to see what I can do?  You want to see the kind of man I am?  Always the kind to require your death before my life.  Always the kind that cannot imagine his way out of his own living room.  Always the kind that repeats always the kind always the kind always the kind always the kind before 10 sentences, all begging you to say something, anything at all.”

Faith stares at me through the duct tape that covers every inch of her face except her left eye and her nostrils.  Somehow I can see that she is not angry; she thinks my will will seep into the flexy-mexy-sugar-puff cushion that keeps my tushy comfy and my back crooked.

“And if I did, Faith?  If I did?  Wha-wha-wha-what then?”  I ask.

As I turn my head, I imagine I will walk over to her and demand her love.  I try to imagine her face as surprised, but it keeps changing to contempt.  I say to myself that she will accept my embrace, dive into my dying kiss, and give her body to me, but what I see is her hand telling me I’m a boy.  Head arcs are interesting. 

Spit like rage fills my ears.  The chair detailed in it’s emptiness, has been, and will be empty; Faith is not there.  I close my eyes and see if I can conjure her back, but naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay; the chair is my lover.  I pretend that her legs are in front of me, and I bend forward and kiss the air where they would have been.

And had I not retreated into myself, what I would have been.

And had the moment itself not responded to that retreat, what the moment would have been.

And how what would have been would have made me another man.

“It lingers, Faith.  It lingers, that wish.  In the next life, in the next life, in the next life, in the next life, in the next life…”

A pair of lips on my face.  A full five fingers in my hair.  Arms surrounding me and weight on my back.  Rough lace pressed against my legs.

Faith, if only that skin…or rather…

“A lioness.”

“So, Faith,” I say, “What do you think of the latest news?”

Faith laughs:  “She’s a charming woman.  She said some interesting things, didn’t she?”

“Yep.  She did.  You know what, though?” I asked.

Faith knows, and plays my game:  “You love slightly weathered women, whose minds and souls reflect the sun.”

“Yes.  And who have a well developed sense of the complexity of the social order and the ability to love things like, dare I say, people.”

Faith smiles, “That sounds like a campaign speech.”

Suddenly I am on top of my desk staring at my naked feet, wondering why I let myself disappear so completely at exactly the moment when I needed my juice cup full. 

Faith reads from a novel that I have not yet written:  “And so it was that he respected her.  And so it was that he slept with her.  He deemed her worthy of his lust.  He deemed her worthy of his disappearance.  He deemed her worthy of his devotion.  But only because she was not a marshmallow or a demon.”

“But she is a demon,” I say.

Faith remarks coldly:  “You wrote the book.”

“I must have written it before I knew.”

Faith starts tying my shoe.  “Did you remember your backpack?”

I carry a backpack.  The same backpack I’ve had since I got it.  I don’t know where it came from.  A joyous experience. 

I have, in my life time, healed 3 back injuries by listening to my back, 20 throat injuries by listening to my throat, 16 diabetes injuries by listening to my blood, and 25 sexual injuries by not fucking someone.

“Faith turns and says something,” I say.

Faith is watering a watering can.  Interesting.

I disappear
Wondering
Who she is
Why now?
Why now?

The coarse
Wind-torn
Skin
Oh
That
Beauteous
Age

A
Lovely
Thing
To
Kiss

Never
Soften

I am
Home

I read to Faith from “The Brothers Karamazov.”  I wanted to know what face she would make reading something that a jumbled, drunk character had said that I partly respected, and partly disliked.  So I read, “My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other.  Only, one must know how to find it, that’s the point!  That’s the talent!  To my mind there are no ugly women.  The very fact that she is a woman is half the battle…but how could you understand that?  Even in vieilles filles, even in them you may discover something that makes you simply wonder that men have been such fools as to let them grow old without noticing them. Bare-footed girls or unattractive ones, you must take by surprise.  Didn’t you know that?  You must astound them till they’re fascinated, upset, ashamed that such a gentleman should fall in love with such a little slut.  It’s a jolly good thing that there always are and will be masters and slaves in the world, so there always will be a little maid-of-all-work and her master, and you know, that’s all that’s needed for happiness.”

Faith looked at me as if I had spit something at her.  She did not kiss me, nor did she turn away.  She seemed to wonder why in this moment I had decided it was necessary to read something that was not entirely clear, and presented something good at the same time as something bad.  I did not open my mouth in response, for she had not spoken, and I was not entirely certain that my deduction was accurate. 

I wonder how Faith will leave this story?