My short lived Frida Kahlo

They say the first sentence is what gets you. Well, here it is:

    I fell in love with her while I was into my first month of being engaged to be married. I was fairly depressed in San Antonio.  Depression in a city like that, is tantamount to dragging a 80lb. weight with your cock all day long. Also, it didn't help that I was new to the city so I was still getting a firm footing on anything I could find that made me feel like I fit in. So everyday, after work, I would put on my civvies and wander through a city that I knew absolutely nothing about. This basically meant moving from coffehouse to bar to museum. Wash, rinse, repeat.

   I finally settled at place called Zoe's. It was so reminiscent of me failing to succeed in Austin that I loved it. It was an old building that was wood, and wood, and more wood. It creaked, and smelled like roasting beans and cigarettes. The shingled roof was falling apart, and you could taste old San Antonio rain on the porch, even in the middle of a cloudless day. The interior was dark, brown, and filled with books. Did I mention Cynthia? Oh yeah, she worked there, and she was amazing.

   She was the artist in me. Does that make sense? After leaving Austin the "artist" friends I had became exactly that, the friends I had. Hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

   Back in the 90's there were these events that became very popular at coffeehouses across the nation. they wee called Poetry Slams. It was like a poetry competition for aging twenty-somethings that were trying to hold on to some semblance of popularity that their writing had given them in high school. I, of course, was one of those people. So, after a couple weeks of drinking myself drunk on coffee, inhaling more cigarettes than a young person should, eating so many scones I probably supported a portion of France by proxy, and gawking awkwardly at Cynthia every-damn-day, I entered Zoe's inaugural poetry slam. I also, kicked its ass. I won the shit out of it. Two people came up to me afterwards to thank me for entering, and they were crying. Pussies.

   I go out back to smoke, and laugh into the $75 I just won.

   "You're good", she slyly whispered from directly behind me.

   "Hahahahahaha, I wish. If I was good I wouldn't be winning poetry slams in coffeehouses", trying to be quick and nonchalant.

   "That's the truth. Can I give you some advice?" I have to admit, she was kind of being a bitch, and I liked it.

   "Absolutely", my head was begging that the advice involve some form of us making out right now.

   "Use that money to pay your tab, that way I can get out of here. Hahahaha. Also, do you want to go get a drink?"  YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

   "Sounds good", and it starts.

   Quick, frame of reference for this story. I am 20 years old at this point, so I am freaking out because the only places I can drink, know me as a machinist. I also, don't know how old she is. So, this whole fiasco could be finished before it even starts. Luckily, she didn't give a shit about my age. Take-out Chinese food, two bottles of wine, and this is what started my three-week love affair.

   It was the kind of affair that has you laying on your back, on a downtown porch, staring at the night sky, and talking about Mexican folk lores till 4am. The kind of love affair where Tom Waits plays in the background while you go down on her for what seems like an eternity, and when she tries to return the favor you find yourself so satisfied you hush her and lay there feeling her smile. We walked around the city at midnight taking photographs, and if you have ever been to San Antonio, you know, midnight is a dark time to be downtown.

   She was gifted. She made these incredibly intricate shrines to dead artists. She wrote, she cooked, she made me a better painter. In three weeks she helped form my opinions on Albert Camus. She taught me to understand that making tortillas was not only fun, it was my a birthright. She loved my anger. She prodded me to get in arguments with her pretentious friends. She loved that I carried a shotgun in my truck and that I kissed like every kiss was my last. She made me forget my fiance.

MY FIANCE!!!!!

FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!!

   Yes, my fiance. Who I had forgotten, but she had not forgotten me. I realized this when I drove home one night and there she was. My mother had already filled her in on the particulars, so there was really no need to fill her in on the details. In fact, the honest truth, had it not been for my mother actually going out of her way to call her, the engagemnet probably would have just fizzled. No pop. It was a back and forth battle. I don't remember any tears. I don't remember any anger. I just remember a rock, and someone slowly chiseling away at it. The fiance already knew where Cynthia worked. She already had plans. She already had decided "no" was not the correct answer. I sat there with my head in my hands, as she drove away.

   Two hours later.

   "You are not going to see her again."

   "Ok"

   "Do you even want to know what she said?"

   "Not really"

   "She said, 'He's an amazing man. He's unbelievably talented and he might even be a genius. He should be with someone that can deal with an artist.' Do you want to know what I told her?"

   "Not really."

   "Well, he's with me."