jonberger

I’ve been thinking about it
making estimates, guesstimates
and general assumptions.
I think I know
based on prior examples
where she’ll be tonight
and I’ve got a good idea
what sort of mood she’ll be in.

Still, I won’t know the results
until I catalyze the procedure.
If she smiles
upon my arrival
it means it’ll be a good day
and probably a good week.
If she doesn’t notice my presence,
I’ll likely spend many subsequent hours
under blankets.

I’ve done the math:
the odds are against me
(they usually are)
but I must test out these hypotheses
to know for sure.

Soon
I’ll have practiced these calculations
enough to understand
the results before I start.
Then I’ll be able to know
as science
the probability of joy
versus the likelihood of despair.

If you happen to have been looking out your window
around eleven twenty last night,
perhaps because you haven’t yet
gotten over your relationship with Pall Mall
despite what you’ve claimed to your room-mate,
then you might have noticed
a naked man running up and down the avenue
who might have had
the faintest resemblance to me.

I can imagine how
you might jump to some certain conclusions,
had you seen such a figure
near the Witching Hour yesterday,
but I would like
at this time
to take the opportunity
to remind you
how the simplest explanation
is not always the likeliest
and that jumping to conclusions
is almost definitely
what got the cat killed.

In any case
I feel it’s incumbent upon me
to mention
that I was in phone contact
with your room-mate
somewhere around that time
and that’s how I know
you might have wondered
if it was I
circling your neighborhood
so close to midnight.
But I was calling your room-mate
from very very far away
and was nowhere near
the scene of the non-crime.

And it’s not a crime to be naked
on the street
in the middle of the night,
is it?
I mean, what possible charge – oh.
Well, regardless…

I was not anywhere
even in the vicinity
of your window,
unclothed,
trying to figure out
if your little room-mate
was cheating on me
with any of the guys
from that band

or any other.
I can’t put together
any reason
why you’d assume it was me.

And even if it was
don’t you think
there might be
a very
very very
veryveryvery good explanation
for what went down?

Yes, I’ll be happy
to share an explanation
any minute now.

Whatever storms may come,
however great the distance
the danger and the damage,
I will get there,
wherever “there” may be.
I will find you.

I am no Odysseus
and my trek not near as extensive,
expansive or artistically expressed,
but I swear
I will end this evening with you
and no train delay
or overnight stoppage
or frog attacks
will keep me from this goal.

Challenges? Feh.
Crises? Whatever.
I am focused.
I am weathered.
I am prepared for all eventualities
and willing to suffer whatever consequences come.
I am on course
and heading to you
even if I don’t know
exactly where or how.

I just know it will happen.
It has to.
Being near you
is that important.

Late, we decided to part
but not before exchanging basic information.
After providing me the eleven digits
she watched me put the information
onto my offsite memory receptacle.
Then I dialed her number
as she wondered what game I was playing.

“Why isn’t it ringing?”
she asked, quizzically staring at her phone.
I had no answer,
just a growing concern
that I had mistyped her data,
mistyped her number,
misunderstood the dynamic
at which we both played.

I glanced at my phone
to check just what
I was calling
only to see that the time
was one forty two
in the morning.
I was calling some number
at this ungodly hour
and prayed to that very nonexistent deity
that a stranger would not pick up.

I found myself
unable to breathe
as I checked the number
fearing the wrath of the furious cop
whom I had just awoken
after a three-day stakeout.
The imagined officer
would know of star sixty nine
and find me
and explaining that I had misdialed the cute girl’s number
would not in any way save me.

But the call was simply delayed
and her phone rang
and I hung up
before so picked up
and we had successfully discovered
each other’s personal information.

What else we would discover
remained to be seen
until some future point.

She read about the Waffle House
poetically, her right foot twisting
methodically considering the state
of the magic of the south.
There is something sadly beautiful
about a girl opining about a store chain
from a part of the world
her audience knows nothing about.

We have IHOPs here
not Waffle Houses
but now we have someone
who knows the difference
and will teach us
as she sees fit.

She thinks the Waffle House
is god’s gift to the world.
She is very wrong, of course,
but young and pretty
so I’ll forgive her willful ignorance
and listen contentedly
as she recalls a white trash world
and her gleeful part in it.

He was hurting her
and she tried to make it better,
to calm him,
make him complacent.
“It’s cool; let’s go,”
she said in the wake of his rage,
a snow cone in the furnace.

He would have none of it,
seeking only to hurl vitriol,
invective and violence
like some sprinkler on wide blast.
He wanted others to hurt
like he had

and she did
feel pain
but not like his.
She hurt
but in a different way.
Empathetic. And,
while he sought to share his hate,
she hoped only to heal.

They both got what they wanted
for a little while.

At Arby’s* they have a bell
that you can ring
to show your appreciation
and satisfaction with the experience.

At my college they have a bell
that you can ring
when you have completed your coursework
and are soon to graduate.

I have rung one of those bells
but not the other.

Only one bell
was truly ever earned

(someday,
I hope to do a better job
on my senior thesis).

* Arby’s has provided no goods nor services in exchange for this product placement.
For future sponsorship opportunities, please contact willwhoreforfood@jonberger.com.

So it didn’t work out
quite as planned.
Don’t be sad or darkened,
or decimated, devastated,
depressed,
driven down to some dumb crumb.
No, she didn’t come to you
like you hoped she would,
but not every Jenny arrives
exactly when you might wish.

Whatever.
It’s not the end of the world
or even the end of the night.
There’s always another Jenny.
There are, in fact, quite a very many.
You can find a Jenny under every rock.
There’s one who likes Bones
and one who likes Spock.
No doubt, there’s a few set aside for Kirk,
but for honest and true,
there has to be at least one more
for you.

Keep looking
for the thing that will satisfy you,
be she a Jenny,
a Jenn or even two Jennifers.
In this world
there are infinite possibilities available
if you keep your eyes open.

Keep your heart open, too
for calloused and ripped
as your organ may be,
if what you seek is someone to join you,
then someone will need to get in.
Only in that way
will you have your very own Jenny.
For real.

In an instant
the plan came together.

I was so excited
at how easily the pieces
became placed:
Go to the bodega
to buy two dozen roses
for ten dollars
because they’re unaware
of the occasion
so they don’t know
to jack up the price
for all the people
who’d want to celebrate
this very special day.

Get the address of your office
including a digital stare at the location
to know where I’m going.
Verify the floor
to really know where I’m going.

This is where the plan
gets a bit tricky.
Possibly a little sticky
but stay with me
for a moment:
convince a delivery person
down some alley
where I subdue him
and take his credentials
into the Deliveryman’s Union
so I can
– oh? No special ID required?
All the better.
Back on track.

From here
I go to your office
flowers in hand
and bring to your little cubicle
as surprise, so
on this little day
you’ll have someone
who made the effort
to celebrate the day
as deserved

except I see now
that you’ve taken the day off
because your friends got you a cruise
to… that can’t be right.
A cruise to Mars?
Twenty eighth century Mars?

Your friends make good plans.
Maybe they can help
me figure out
what to do with there flowers?

The men’s room here
used to have
a much lower barricade
so that
while taking a crap
you were somehow in the middle
of an awkward social scene.

That changed sometime back
probably because enough folks
complained about the lack of privacy
and maybe a decrease in hard drugs
needing to be monitored.
Anyhow, now
the order of the day
is shitting in peace.

But in the wake of this change
the men’s room experience
has become far lonelier
and it is far easier
to suffer in isolation
while emptying out all the insides.

Even as we do
what all men sometimes do
we do it ourselves
alone in shame.
In some ways
this is progress
but not in all.