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Alone

#MyWorstDate

By Eric TrulesPublished 6 years ago 9 min read
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Alone by Eric Trules

i live alone

it's taken me five years to fill up the closet

since my girlfriend moved out that many years ago

it's a big closet

it's full now

i don't think there's room anymore for anyone else

i get up every morning at 7:30

i think it's a good idea to get up early

especially when you don't have to

you could get lazy

or unproductive

especially in California

where the weather's so seductive

and there's always so many people just sitting around

playing tennis or whatever they feel like

i try to eat breakfast every day by 10 o'clock

brown rice cream mixed with oat bran

bananas, honey, cinnamon, and a little strawberry guava juice

it's really very healthy

and it's delicious

and it's good for my digestion too

i buy about five or six bananas a week

not more

cause they get brown and rotten

and then i have to eat them anyway

cause i don't believe in wasting food

and not less

cause then i won't have enough for breakfast every day

i have to admit though

i like my bananas on the green side

you know

when they're still a little hard

and they have that taste that's...

perfect

more like teenage bananas

than a kid banana or a grown up

i run my business out of my home

a small mail order business

i sell Hollywood personnel directories

who's working where at which company in TV and film

it's a very lucrative business

people keep getting fired by one company

and rehired by another one

i do everything myself

research, xeroxing, collating

binding, mailing

and even the advertising

i don't like telling people how to do something for me

when i can do it better myself

i try to keep everything nearby

within a one block radius

i do my billing and receiving out of American mail box

about 11 houses away on one corner

and then i go to the bank

about a block and a half in the other direction

basically my business is collecting checks on one corner

and depositing them on the other

after the bank i do my xeroxing at marvin's print shop

the cheapest place in town

and then if i'm out of milk or butter or bananas or anything

i can just go across the street to the lucky's

it's a great place if you ask me

although i was sorry when they started closing at midnight again

after they tried staying open 24 hours

i guess it didn't pay

and you have to keep up with the competition

even in my business

©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©©

so the other day i'm at home

which is where i usually am

and a friend comes by and knocks on the door about… 4:36

she was in the neighborhood and just stopped by

i was surprised she hadn't called first

i mean you're supposed to do that in LA

but i have to admit

i was glad to see her anyway

she wasn't my girlfriend or anything

i told you i haven't had one of those in five

no...almost six years

but Brenda was pretty

and that's my bottom line for visitors

anyway she just knocked on my door

and i had to stop what i was doing

i was a little disoriented at first

but after we were talking through the screen door for about five minutes

i realized i should invite her in

so i did

after about another 25 minutes of small talk

i told her i had to get back to work

but she said

“i have a free pass to a movie

do you want to go?”

“what movie?” i said

she said, “little dorrit.”

“what's that?” i said

she said it was an obscure Charles Dickens book made into a six hour film

“oh nooo, that's too long.”

“come on, you old stick in the mud

we don't have to stay for the whole thing

we can just go to part one”

"stick in the mud?"

well

i must have agreed by default

because before i knew it

i had my coat on and was out the door

i got as far as the sidewalk

before i realized i hadn't put on my answering machine

i ran back in

and met her at her car

a very nice brown Toyota Cressida

“37 miles a gallon”

and we took off to the west side pavilion

we got there in plenty of time

almost half an hour early

Brenda went up to get the tickets

but when she came back she didn't look too happy

“they said this was a special screening

and that my passes weren't any good.”

i wasn't too happy either but

i reached for my wallet to dig up the mandatory six bucks

oh shit

it wasn't there

i reached around in all my other pockets

slapping myself everywhere

“ohhhh no

i left it on the kitchen table

under that huge pile of phone messages”

Brenda said “don’t worry, be happy

i’ll pay for you”

“no, no, i’ll write you a check”

but then i realized i hadn’t brought my checkbook either

which was in my bag on the chair right near the font door

“wait a minute,” i said

running down the escalator

“i’ll get some cash from an ATM machine across the street

“we still have seven minutes

i’ll be right back”

i ran down the street like a madman

there was a security pacific right where i was positive there was a B of A

I bolted into a cash/video/check cashing drug store

but i guess i scared the guy

because he said he couldn’t help me without proper identification

i ran back across the street into the mall

but i ended up in the happy hour of some fancy red and white fish bar

i looked around and smelled all the fresh fish cooking

and saw the biggest jumbo shrimp I’d ever seen in my life

i realized i hadn’t eaten dinner

and with my hypoglycemia

i might pass put during even the first part of little dorrit

i ran back up the escalator

bumping into a couple of teenagers holding hands

i could overhear them making a snide comment about the way i was dressed

i looked at my watch

it was 7:02

and there was Brenda waiting at theatre 12 for me

waving the two tickets at me and telling me to “hurry up”

i said I was hurrying

but maybe it was too late

because “i really hate missing the beginning of movies and the title sequence”

“they’re still showing coming attractions and i already saved us two seats”

she was right and we went in and sat down

i was ok for a minute until i realized

i didn’t have my popcorn

and i started worry about passing out again

but just then Brenda reached over

and deposited a medium size popcorn in my lap

with salt, napkins and extra butter

i almost smiled

Brenda was ok

the movie started out pretty good for Dickens

but after about 20 minutes i started to doze off

you see i think i have a bad case of narcolepsy

as soon as i relax anywhere that's not work

i fall asleep

they say it's stress related

anyway i lost track of the plot

and when i woke up

i couldn't recognize any of the characters from before

it was the way Dickens wrote

got paid by the word

too many characters

pretty soon i was in agony

i kept falling asleep and waking up

the movie never ended

i thought i was there for days

it was torture

Brenda was all curled up in her seat like Christmas morning

i think i could of had a heart attack and she wouldn't have noticed

finally i couldn't take it anymore

i picked up my coat and walked out of the theater

the clock in the lobby said it was only 8:10

and the movie was on 'til 9:30

was this the two-parted double feature, or what?

i tried walking around the mall

but it was no good

window shopping makes me sick

i just wanted to go home

but i was trapped

no money

no car

no check book

no ATM card

this was unbelievable

i never left home without it

i never went out of the house without all of these things

i never went anywhere in any one else's car

i drove myself

i took myself everywhere

i even parked my car facing out so i could make a quick getaway

it was her fault

Brenda's fault

she had bamboozled me

caught me in a moment of weakness

got me out of the house without

planning to go out

it was inconceivable

impossible

no....

it was my fault

i had let her take me

never again

this was hell

living hell

i was caught riding up and down

up and down

escalators

fluorescent lighting

piped in Andre Kostolanos Christmas music

i had to get out

but what about Brenda

what would she think?

she would wonder where i was

what was wrong

maybe i was sick in the bathroom

maybe i had a heart attack

she would look for me after the movie

and i better be there

or if i started walking home she’d probably drive right past me

and then i’d get mugged or raped or kidnapped or something really gory

helll

bloody fucking

HELLLLLLLLLLLLL

-------------

uhhhh

i was beat

i rode back up the escalator

and showed my stub to the usher

he smiled politely and said

“theater 12

next show in 15 minutes”

i lurked back into the theater

and took my seat next to Brenda

the movie ended in the same room it began

beckoning us

"and be sure to see Part two

from little dorrit's point of view"

the lights came up

and Brenda had two little tears in the corners of her eyes

i had a raging dragon in my bowels

but it had already been slain

“where did you go?”

“oh, i had to go the bathroom”

ooh, that was fantastic, wasn’t it?”

“listen, Brenda

i'm not feeling so well

i have to go home right way”

“ohhh, that's too bad

‘cause they have a really nice restaurant downstairs

with the biggest jumbo shrimp in LA

“nooo

i don't think so

another time”

“ok

i'll give you a rain check”

“good

can we go home now?”

“sure

just tell me you had a good time

and you're glad i stopped by

and took you out”

“i'm very glad, brenda

we'll have to do it again sometime”

----

Brenda took me home

and when i didn't invite her in

she kissed me goodnight

and wished me a merry Christmas

i watched her drive off

and walked up my front path

wiping her kiss off my face

i opened my front door

and chained myself in

i looked around and spotted my brown, leather wallet

under the pile of phone messages

near my basket of bananas on the kitchen table

i took a deep breath and threw myself on my favorite Queen Anne couch

i stared up at the ceiling

and relished the absolute perfect purr of my space heater wall unit

everything felt right

for the first time in hours

i took another deep breath

and let the air form into a happy hum on the exhale

hmmmmmmm

now this is my idea

of a good time

performance poetry
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About the Creator

Eric Trules

USC Theater Professor, Travel Podcaster, HuffPost Blogger, Fulbright Scholar

Former modern dancer, documentary filmmaker, poet, theater director and producer, solo performer, solo performer, and clown

See more here: http://erictrules.com

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