Missed Opportunities

:::cue bongos and upright bass playing a walking jazz line:::

It's rainy nights like these when I feel the most alone. Lounging by the fire place; surrounded by my books and records and films that I've collected over the past 42 years. My love for culture has dwindled down to nothing and our once fiery relationship is now more for companionship.

It's rainy nights like these when I break out the good booze. The expensive whiskey that will make you reminisce but not wallow in those memories. As the fire rages on and the rain continues to pound on the roof I put down my Bukowski book and take a sip from my ice cold tumbler.

I remember a girl. A beautiful girl with light red hair. I only saw her for less than a minute but her big blue eyes are still engraved in my mind after 15 years. I can still hear her yelling “Fuck you, you piece of shit. I knew I smelled her pussy on you last night” as she threw her lit cigarette at her boyfriend's speeding away car. I was pumping gas and just taking it all in. She sat down on the curb and lit another cigarette then started to cry. I wish I would have went up to her. I wish I would have offered her a ride. I could have figured out something to say to gain her trust. Something like “Hey... are you okay? Would you like to ride anywhere” and when she was in the car I would put on something both the cultured and uncultured could enjoy. Perhaps an old Outkast album. Aquemini would do. Philistines will only hear the “dope beats” and tune out the underlying philosophy of Andre's poems. She would bob her head as I point our to her that this verse deals with “the daily struggle endured by blacks growing up in the crack infested ghettos during the Reagan era”. Then I would say “would you like to go back to my house and watch some t.v.... I think a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond is on”

At my house I would let her smoke her menthol cigarettes and ask her what her favorite kind of beer is. She would obviously say “P.B.R.” and I would respond in a non-confrontational way “fuck that shit... Here's a Heineken ” a reference she would surely never get. As we would watch Everybody Loves Raymond, I would have asked her if she is aware of Peter Boyle's early works. “He was amazing in Joe and Where The Buffalo Roam not to mention Young Frankenstein. Did you know that John Lennon was his best man at his wedding?” She may have been amazed by my knowledge and could have done what many poor uncultured women do when a smart gentleman is nice to them. Perform fellatio on them.

I clean myself off then take another sip from my tumbler. With my pants around my ankles I continue to imagine the things that could have been.