the night will do crazy things

how it all suddenly breaks apart

well it, i learned all sorts of stuff on friday night, how to miss my train, hanging out at a the phoenix bar happy hour, meeting some people and following them, don’t you have a train to catch no forget it i’ve still got time, following them to big easy is all i remember and then out to some other part of the city and finding even more people, more students everywhere and everyone fascinated that i am not french, that i don’t speak a word of french that everyone can practice their english on me and then, at the end, lila, i want to say of course but of course not because nobody was expecting this, not her, not me, not the train i missed not the friday night where i had to say i’ve missed my train and have no place to stay…well, i could find a place, i could afford it even if it was not in my budget but i didn’t want lila to know that…i wanted her to help me solve a housing problem when it was two or three or even four in the morning and we had been out drinking with her mates all night, a rucuous loop of females and a male or two scattered in …all that dark hair cut into a sharp, slightely uneven bob that she said she did herself with kitchen scissors over the bathroom sink and this was precisely the image that made me like her, not just her face, her actions, her mind…

no delicate polite laugh either, a sudden throaty bark that ended in a cough sometimes because she too rolled her own cigarettes just like me. i watched her all night, not just when she talked to me but when she talked to her friends, fluctuating between an intense, intimidating stare that she seemed to always hold one beat too long as if she was making sure you weren’t full of shit or believing that she was…and how sometimes that same face settled into a bored, intellectual mask before a sudden warmth warmed me, whenever an idea excited her, something somebody said or something she thought…no makeup of course, not that kind of girl, maybe a bit of dark eyeliner but probably not, could be a bruise for all i know or knew and adding to it all was the intoxication part, not just the beer but the sensation, the random chaos of meeting and there we were, walking somewhere i had no idea i’d offered to walk her home and of course, well…of course nothing…i’d been pretending all along that i had not chosen to miss my train…that this was all part of the preprogrammed agenda, getting drunk and wild…

and now i’m dripping with lila soft on my skin, perfume and soap aroma in my nostrils, stuck in there even after i leave and i wake up now here i have my bag, it is what day? saturday morning it must be, right, if i missed my train and i was due to go back friday night to brussels and i am still in lyon, what does it mean, what happens? it is saturday is what it means so i will gauge the lila weather, would i stay another day? did we have that much fun? when she wakes…well, i’m pacing, smoking, wondering can you smoke indoors, if i go outside will i lock myself out but i think i remember we were smoking and drinking and yes, i found an overflowing nashtray so we are all good…a girl like lila is not going to worry about secondhand smoke and smokes herself if i remember all our dirty kisses but now she’s woken up and instead of lying there weakly and calling my name that she probably doesn’t remember because here is what happens: i fall for someone so fast that i remember her name then inevitably she will wonder who the fuck is smoking in her kitchen and here she comes shuffling out in panties and a tank top, i gander appreciatively she is sleepy and appears to remember me, vaguely.

“still here?” she mentions, rooting around for coffee and finding a jar of instant puts the kettle on…

“i didn’t want to leave without…”

“oui, oui, je comprends…”

I don’t know what that means but she says it anyway…what language did we speak last night? surely english because i know no french or very little bonjour, croissant…

“café?” she is smiling at least as she pours hot water into a mug she pulls out of the sink and i do want it but…

“how about we go to a real café?”

“i’m not leaving like this..”

“like what?”

she stops and looks at me like i’m mad…

“like this, my head, my hair…”

i want her again but we don’t have the drunken darkness to hide within so i don’t know what to do or how to do it. offer to leave, offer to stay?

“you are leaving?”

“i dunno, i have to check the trains, buy another ticket…”

“you can stay here if you want but i’m going back to sleep…” she leaves the coffee, hers and mine that was never made, and heads back into her room. am i supposed to follow?