Nine Years Gone

I say, I wrote this nine years ago, but you probably haven’t read it. The sheet of paper I hand you is a bit crinkled and has something that looks like a coffee stain on it. The font’s Times New Roman—12 pt, you think.

There’s never enough. At first, the sweat seems like enough. You’d rather not sweat, but you will if you have to. Then you get used to sweating, and it’s not enough. You know you can cry if you must, but you’d really rather not. But then crying, like sweating, is part of it, and the tears and sweat are not enough. You know there’s blood. God knows, there’s blood, but you really don’t want to dip into that. Where do you go after that? But you do dip, and then there’s blood. And still, it’s not enough. So then there’s the marrow …

You look up from the page then unconsciously steady it as it starts to bend. Then you ask, Is this a horror story?

I grin with my thin lips and say, Would you like it to be?

Then we both chuckle.

I wanna kiss you now. If you want that too, then we kiss. If you don’t, I just keep smiling, brush my hair back behind my ear, and politely look away.

Jazz plays in the background. The record is Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. It's just started so it's the opening cut, “So What.”

Now, don’t get confused. Be brave. This is a new scene for you. You haven’t been to my house before, so you might be wondering how you got there, how we got there, and things like that. Don’t. Or do, but let your mind relax and take in the scene. Then, when you’re done reading it, it will be in your memory and will function just fine, quite naturally, as a memory, like any other. But if you’re constantly wrestling with each new scenario and trying to understand how it’s going to fit together or to predict what will come next, you’re going to spoil our fun. So just, chill. Listen to Miles and Coltrane and wait for me to make us dinner.

So, as I was saying …

You’re looking at my bookcases at the various titles there as well as the tchotchkes and statues and pictures and things. I’m in the kitchen making our dinner.

One of the pictures catches your eye:

You tap it with your finger and ask, Who’s this?

I peek my head out of the kitchen and squint, then roll my eyes and duck back in.

From the kitchen, I say, That’s Karin and me and John. That’s from, like, nine years ago. It’s not a very representative picture of John. He’s much goofier looking that that and doesn’t usually have a goatee.

You can’t explain it, but you feel something from the picture that makes you uneasy. So you say something like, Is there a story there?

I go, Ohhhh yeah. Definitely. Didn’t end well, though, so I don’t really like thinking about it.

Then you add, But you keep a picture of them on your bookcase?

I say, Yeah, well … I’m a weirdo.

You look back at the picture again, and your mind starts to tell the story. Since it’s just your imagination, you know it isn’t correct; that it’s not what really happened. But you’re waiting for me to finish dinner and your mind is intent upon entertaining you.

The sweet looking woman smiles at us as we approach.

Okay, so we changed scenes again. You got that, yes? And do you remember this woman from yesterday’s story? If you need to go back and reread it, that’s okay. She appears at the very end, third paragraph from the bottom. This is that same person. We’re picking up from that point we were at yesterday.

Here we go …

“Hey guys,” she says, pulling a hand from her coat and waving, then tucking it back. “I’m Shere.”

It sounds like Cherie or Sherry. People get confused about how to pronounce names, then get one set in their mind and get real dogmatic and forceful about it. Pisses me off.

You glance sidelong at me.

Did I say that out loud?

Shere giggles and waves for us to follow her.

We do, and I can’t help but notice how long her legs are. It’s not like she’s super tall or anything. She’s not any taller than I am, but she just has really long legs. Maybe I’m focused on it because my legs are kind of short, you know, relative to the rest of me. I dress around that to conceal that fact, but. It’s there.

Your legs are fine, you say softly to me, which I appreciate.

Shere leads us to a waterfall maybe twenty feet high. I can feel the cold air from it, what with it being November and all.

“I thought maybe here?” she says.

I look at you, and you shrug and say, I’m just along for the ride. Which is classic you. Leave all the decision-making up to me.

Shere giggles again and pushes back some hair the wind blew into her face. “You guys are funny.”

It’ll be fine, I say, then you and I move closer to the waterfall. There are rocks around the plunge pool, clearly landscaped for the purpose of posing and sitting on.

Shere pulls out her camera and starts fiddling with it the way photographers do.

You’re sitting there, hands in your pockets, looking happy in a bored-cos-I’m-waiting kind of way.

I’m wondering over the origin of her name—which I know to be Sheretnebty because I read it on her website.

“It’s Egyptian,” she says, then looks through the camera at me.

I ask if she’s Egyptian.

“No, my parents are just weirdos,” Shere says.

We are too, I say, gesturing between us.

Speak for yourself, you say—unless you think that’s too mean, in which case you just smile.

The guy with dark hair. I don’t know him. But you do. You guys are friends, however it is that you know each other. His name is Cade.

Okay, so you can probably see what I am doing now, but just in case you can’t, this is the guy from yesterday’s story—mentioned in the same sentence as the sweet looking woman (who we now know is named Shere) and the cool looking person with razor cut hair that we haven’t met yet. So that’s where we are.

Here we go …

We leave the park together, walk over to his car that’s street parked nearby. It’s an American muscle car, black, which, you know, I’m into.

I think y’all are gonna stuff me in the back seat, but you climb in back there, and I ride up front with him.

The engine roars to life, and the stereo pops on:

We tear ass through the city streets. We’re headed out of town, I can tell.

The person with the razor cut hair, smiles and says their name is Emery. I know that already from their profile, but you know. Introductions and all that.

I say, Hey, I’m Teresa, and you introduce yourself.

You’ve got this at this point, right? You know Emery is the cool looking person with razor cut hair from yesterday’s story, right? Goodness I hope so, but if not, that’s who this is.

And here we go …

The three of us walk deeper into the park proper and find a nice place to sit down under a tree.

I have a blanket in my bag, and you marvel at how I’m able to fit so much shit in there. Or you don’t care; whichever.

We sit down on the blanket.

Emery asks, “Is it cool if I do a cig?”

I say sure. You feel however you feel about it and agree that they can smoke it.

If you like cloves, it’s a clove cigarette, and they let you luxuriate in its fragrance, even have a drag if you want one. I know I want one, and take one despite my better judgement.

If you’re one of those folks that thinks cloves smells like soap or you just otherwise don’t like the smell of them, then it’s just a normal tobacco cig with no distinguishing features beyond that.

This is going kind of well, I say and smile at you.

You feel however you feel.

“I think so, too,” Emery says, then pulls a book out of their pocket.

Now, if you don’t want to read every part of this book, that’s okay. It won’t hurt my feelings, and remember it’s about spending time together and enjoying each other, not completionism. Unless that’s your kink, in which case, I’m down, bae.

So skim the parts you are losing interest in, and move on to another section. You can use the map, too. Look at the map to recall which storylines you’re interested in this time, and read those sections.

If you’re not sure, or you’re, like, a super-early adopter and the map is still being built-out and all that, then just hang with me. Talk with me. Tell me what you like, what you want me to do for you. I want to please you. Or at least please myself while you watch.

We walk through the arch in the park together, and it leads us to a solitary garden.

From here, I say, we can go anywhere we want. You can go one way, and I can go another. Or we can go there together. We can do anything we want.

You say you don’t understand—unless you do. If you do, see you there.

If you don’t, I gently hold your hand and say, Relax. Take a breath. Loosen up. It’s just me. It’s just you. You’re safe with me. We’re here together in this place, however you want to be. That’s all it is. That’s all it means or has to mean.

That was going to be it for the day, but then you take my hand and say, Wait …

I say, Yeah?

And you ask, Why is it called Nine Years Gone? Is it because it opened with something your wrote nine years ago? Is it an allusion to the Nine Years’ War?

I smile and say, I think it sounds cool. Kind of like a song lyric.

Day 3 of National Novel Writing Month 2022 and The Teresa Van Santāna Literary-Somatic Experience