This is NOT Over
Here is a life in desperate need of a rimshotMay 16, 2012
Friday May 11 through Wed May
16, 1990 Margaret Without Sleeves
Lots of sad and dull shit
happened as the semester ended and shit crawled toward summer. Note stopped over early Friday to say he
wouldn’t be coming back to NIU. He gave
me a book to give to Megs. It was
Longstreet’s Chicago book, full of portraits of the famous and the infamous. Note said she was always flipping through the
book at his place and he wanted her to have it.
I asked him, “Why did things
end with you two?”
He answered me with this
question, “Have you seen Margaret without sleeves?”
My folks were so helpful and
understanding with all the stuff I claimed I had to do and why I’d only be home
for the weekend. They helped me move the
shit out of 516 and we actually had a fun weekend together in Lockport. My dad and I ate Archie’s pizza and fried
chicken, drank tons of beer and didn’t argue about politics once. I don’t know where my sister was. Maybe her school is going a bit longer.
Returned to DK after the
weekend with virtually no stuff and crashed with Danny. Megs came up on Tuesday and treated us to a
big dinner. She must’ve done ok on the
Derby. Steaks and Brandy Alexanders at
Matthew Boones until all of us felt like puking.
We picked up where we left
off early on Wednesday. Rum and cokes
with lunch and for the rest of the day.
Sometime after 11pm I realized we were out of cigarettes. I volunteered to go down to the Get ‘n Go or
whatever it is called to get some more.
When I returned Megs and Danny were screaming at each other.
Megs stopped screaming when
she heard me close the door. She asked,
“Did you get cigarettes?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’re leaving,” and she
hustled out the door and down the stairs.
I shrugged at Danny and he
said, “Seriously, don’t let her go by herself.
She’s in bad shape. You saw her
all day.”
Megs was slumped on the
sidewalk in front of the apartment. I
handed her a cigarette and asked, “Are you ok?”
“I want to go home,” Megs
said. I lit her smoke. She breathed in, exhaled and mumbled. “I
can’t be out here tonight.”
I couldn’t let he go by
herself. We got in the Shitlomat and sat
there for as long as it took for Megs to fumble with her sister’s keys and get
them in the ignition. I wondered if this
might be my last ride out of town.
Megs set the car in motion at
a clip of 20mph or less heading west on 38.
I didn’t want to tell her we were going the wrong way. It might break her concentration.
We matriculated through
campus on our drunken drive. We headed
west, toward Malta and she slowed down even more. “I can’t see anything but stars out here,”
she said.
“The road is somewhere below
all that,” I said, lighting another cigarette with the Shitlomat’s bent and hot
and unnecessarily large cigarette lighter.
posted by edP # 10:01 AM 
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