staircases

AGAIN THAT TABLE, worn and soft to the touch, coming into view in the dim light of wherever this was. A bar, restaurant, a speakeasy tavern. The table was long, wide, thick. Two familiar friends sat down next to me, maybe one of them was Matti, a semi-famous, experimental writer, and he said to an approaching waitress in a white blouse, “Get this man a glass of the …” I didn’t hear the rest, but when it arrived, there was a near bowl of something that looked like pinot noir or valpolicella. I pushed the glass back on the table and announced, “For the very last time, Matti, I told you that I don’t drink anymore!” Then, gesturing to the kind waitress in the blouse, I affected a more diplomatic tone and said, “But I will have an espresso, thanks.” “Very good,” she said, and there was some turning and clicking of the heels. Matti, who was dressed all in black, guzzled my wine. His bald head was impressive, emerging from his neck like a boulder on Everest, or the corpse of a mountaineer who had fallen there.

I became aware that there were others around the table, including Violette who was waiting patiently for me. I began to reach for the fabric of her dress and brushed against her chest, ever so slightly, hoping that if I made her blush enough, she would unsheathe one for me. Just a few more pats around the breast and soon I would have one in my mouth, if I could only just lay back, like this? The espresso arrived on a silver tray and I took it and drank. It was hot and frothy, splashing around like waves in the Great Western Ocean. Then I announced to all, that I needed to use the bathroom. I headed for one downstairs, but Violette called after me, “No!”

It wasn’t there anymore, in fact everything had changed. The walls had been retiled, there were boxes of construction materials. I came up to the main floor again and Violette was standing there in her dress. She said, “My company acquired the building and there is no toilet anymore, except one for the management on the top floor, but you can’t go up there.” I made another play for her breasts. What did they look like under there? She had some kind of checker print material on, she reminded me of a tablecloth. Picnic baskets, summer, delicious. She just sort of swatted me away, but there was a happy little grin in there, beneath the hair.

“Nonsense,” I told her. “I’m going to find it. But first, I need my journal.” I took my journal from my bag and began climbing the steps to the off-limits upper floors. These had been demolished too and replaced with a swaying, unstable temporary metal staircase. All around me there were cranes and men in white shirts and hardhats conducting the lifting of materials and scaffolding. They were talking into headset microphones and giving orders and wore sunglasses. The staircase only swayed more and I remembered that I was terrified of heights.

I looked down and Violette was shaking her head, each one of those breasts still locked away, like fresh rolls behind bakery glass. “I told you,” she said. I looked down and saw there was a pool below me, a new pool for the company management who were developing the building. I decided to leap into the pool — I had lost all my desire to find a toilet — and kept the journal aloft as I came down feet first into the warm water. Unfortunately, the corner of this most precious book became wet in the fall. I held it up as I swam back to the restaurant. Violette helped me out. “It will dry,” I told her. “Even the wettest journals can be dried and read again.” Then, noticing Violette’s chest through the dress’s material, I said, “Let’s go sit down together.”