December 20, 2002:
Tall man steps from an ancient blue Volkswagen bus with no bumpers and rust holes in the roof. He's about 30, needs a shave, wears a big gold hoop in one ear. Mess of jet black hair. Petite blonde woman with him, tan, freckles, cheerful; she's twenty-five but looks fourteen. A stranger with a clipboard approaches them as they pay for their gas. "Excuse me, are you registered to vote?" Tall man shakes his head no. Petite woman looks up from under perky blond bangs and says, deadpan, "I'm too young to vote." Stranger with clipboard looks disgustedly at tall man, as if to imply, "You degenerate." Tall man still laughs fondly at this memory fifteen years later.
She loved me, but I never took her seriously. I thought she was just a girl who wanted to hang.
Examples:
- She bought me flowers, I gave them to the maids. Somehow the fact that she bought them didn't reach me. I thought they'd been left by a guest or something. Her body language made me understand: slumped, disappointed, hurt.
- I talked all the time of my infatuations over other women.
- I took a week-long vacation with another woman.
We were together a couple of years. In the end we broke up when I became impatient with her petty mooching.