Live Rust

I'm not sure if it's the revisions on the novel, the increase of caffeine (which is now up to roughly 8 cups of Mexican Organic coffee per day-- minimum) or some other undefined something, but I've been thinking about people I haven't thought of in years.

I remember sitting up half the night with Amanda McCoy, smoking cigarettes and making love. We took a break to watch Mike Patton and Faith No More play Saturday Night Live. I want to talk to Patton just because I remember the night as being nearly perfect. I wonder what he did after the show. I know what I did.

She dropped out of school at the end of the semester. I never saw her after Christmas and spent almost a year trying to drink her away.

I remember a 20 year-old redhead named Rachel I barely knew, who walked out of a crowded room upset after she heard I was getting married. We'd been co-workers at a rotten job neither of us liked. She was pretty, but had a tough life. She didn't love her boyfriend, felt trapped and I held her during a cigarette break while she cried. She left in tears.

I think she wanted me save her. I couldn't even save myself at the time.

I remember a kid named Jason, who was my first friend when I moved to Pearisburg, Virginia. I remember how horrible it felt when he moved away less than a year later.

I remember my cousin Johnny from Michigan, whom I only met once. My uncle Jack and my grandparents had some sort of a long term spat that centered around him. Jack didn't come to the house that one week I hung out with Johnny, but would drop Johnny off at the golf course across the road. Johnny and I hit golf balls with a beat up club and he told me every dirty joke he knew. He was afraid to swear.

It probably means nothing, but it's felt like the moments they were in my life weren't twenty or twenty-five years ago, but a week ago. It's a strange distraction.