(no subject)

[vaneramos]

The border guard inquired how I had met my host in Atlanta. I visualized a passionate struggle, two men wrestling naked in a Montreal hotel room. "We met three years ago at a choir festival," I said.

"How frequently have you visited?"

"I've never been to Atlanta before." That isn't completely true. My family used to pass through when we would drive to Florida in March of odd-numbered years. The city sprawls through a glimpsing memory. Is the image real, or just concocted to satisfy my knowledge of having travelled there as a child?

"Head south," said the border guard. I never would have dreamt of doing so during an intense heat wave, but here goes. I tunneled between hills and lush belts of trees isolating the lanes of I-90 running west through New York. All afternoon, thunderclouds paraded the horizon, statuesque invaders from a Constable landscape. South from Erie, Pennsylvania, the atmosphere grew heavier and heavier. Finally a smattering of raindrops splotched the windshield.

The sun re-emerged in a sweaty evening glow as I drove into Pittsburgh. Recreational boats sent up white froth from the wide river, as yet nameless to me. Bridges arch back and forth, and neighbourhoods of pastel houses sprout from steep hillsides.

The deck of Ziggy's third-floor apartment overlooks one of these hillsides, and the valley beyond. We posed there in perfect light, before descending to stroll through dusky streets. We ordered spinach calzone, then went and met Erik, standing in a shadowy front hallway.

Later we sat at her tiny kitchen table under a pall of sound from air conditioner and fan, getting high and talking about things we had done wrong. Ziggy and I initially grew close on LiveJournal because our minds seemed to be on the same radio frequency. Our dreams would finish one another's sentences. We would write about cicadas at the same moment, finding out later. In person our conversations are measured, and deeply personal.

I slept well under the white noise of a summer night. Waking this morning in my sleeping bag, I glanced toward Ziggy's bed. It looked empty so I thought, "Oh my goodness, she's gone." But she was there, so tiny she barely makes a wrinkle under the blanket.

We are both leaving for Atlanta, like two halves of a brain going the same direction without planning it. I leave this morning to embrace a lover, she tomorrow with her parents and son, to visit a sister.

Comments

[blue-by-you.livejournal.com]

You write so beautifully, Van. You made Ziggy even more alive and real for me.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Well thanks. Zig is an easy person to write about. She is so alive, just hanging out with her fires my inspiration.

[e-compass-rosa.livejournal.com]

When I lived in Pittsburgh, I loved the summers. That's not true for me in many other places, not where I grew up, not where I live now. But there always seemed to be something magical about Pittsburgh summers... I wonder if it was the actual city itself, or the time in my life that I was there, but this little vignette brought that feeling back for me.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I'm glad it brought that to life for you. I could fall for Pittsburgh. I want to spend more time there.