Right then there is a scattering of soft knocks on the door, no one for me, I'll say no one else is home, promise any message, and they'll go away. I open the door. Oh, it's her. I smooth over my surprise with a greeting. I swing back into the loft to indicate entrance but she just stands there, before the door opened outwards. Her hair, blonde it slips smoothly around her head, the usual frizziness, zest, seems to be my faulty memory; her hair is dirty but so's mine. I extend my arm towards her, unfurl it, whip my hand back in from the elbow, "Well. Hey. Come on it." She obliges, I lock the door behind her and guide us to the kitchen table, slipping a conversation point, "So, how's it going?"

"Oh . . . well. Don't know . . . guess sort of okay. You?"

"Well, I just got up a bit ago, after a long last night."

She thinks that's pretty funny, she laughs, she laughs so much I have to smile and think it wasn't that funny.

She sits at the table, lights a cigarette. I ask her what brings her around these parts at this hour. She says something I think about couldn't sleep last night. She continues, I have difficulty understanding, she's saying something about Kate's glasses, something maybe met Kate at the front door though the chronology doesn't jive, the glasses, that's right, Kate's old glasses, she'd busted hers up a while ago and Kate had mentioned she was welcome to try her old pair, I might know where they are.

"So, do you want the glasses? I'll go find them."

She doesn't answer.

"They're real ugly. I mean, you're certainly welcome to them. Function over form any day."

She chuckles after a pause, breaks into laughter and hides her face in her arms.

I stand, leaning, hands on the table edge supporting my scant weight, waiting for an answer about the glasses, until I begin feeling that I've gotten everything wrong, confused. I sit back opposite her, tender my coffee and light a cigarette.

She sits across from me speechless. My coffee disappears in uncharacteristic gulps. She laughs once to herself. I swing my arms in belated magnanimity, "Well? So? Would you like some coffee? sour milk? Or? Well, beer?" I strive to recall any other beverages. Fuck whoever left the milk out overnight.

"B-b-beer," she sputters, "yea, I th-h-hink so," and she's scooting sideways to the fridge just as I figure out what, I'm ready to tell her in the fridge as she's pulling one out. She pops it, lights a new cigarette. I think about how great it is to have some beer to offer a friend of a Saturday morning, consider joining her but hold out for coffee and Kate's return. A hair of this big dog would be another six-pack sending me back to bed well before the sun went down.

The next thing she says is nothing but a laugh exploding through close lips, spittle flying across the table; she points at the can and chokes out a derisive, "Budweiser!" She laughs about that. I smile, a discordance struck, but of course Bud is borne of desperation. "Yea, from the Shannon Lounge. End of last night." She's not listening, so I'll desist with the usual story of last night.

Finally she speaks again, after a sip, she sets the can down with a dull full clung, staring straight at me, "Pretty early to b-b-be drinking." She wags her head. I try to think what I should say, but I get interrupted by laughter.

My coffee is perilously low. I just put out a cigarette, so the pack I pick up I shuffle around in my hand, sliding the nearest book of matches into the cellophane crackling too loud, I push it all away from me on the table.

The fire escape door is open, but I'm still getting too hot, my armpits feel trickily. I pull off my sweater, careful not to let my t-shirt ride up. Then I open up the window reaching over and brushing against the radiator, it's hot, the steam went off a while ago but I bed down to turn off the valve anyway. I sit back down feeling I've accomplished something. She starts laughing, abruptly stumbles to her feet, skitters around the table, my chair, squats hovered over the radiator valve, gasping, gleefully like a child who's learned a new trick; she opens it back on. The excitement over, she stands, like normal, brushes off her elbows Chaplin after a pratfall or a cat a patch of rumpled fur, sits back down, giggling.

"Yea yea, that was really good!"

I answer her look with a slight smile of bemusement, not patronizingly, though my eyes must radiate perplexity.

She won't talk. When she tries it becomes a laugh, she looks at me and laughs harder. Her eyes become puffy around, glazed with wetness. She manages something again about not being able to sleep last night, which I take to mean she still hasn't slept.

I don't think she has; in fact I'm positive she hasn't.

I light a cigarette, I pet the cat. When my hand hangs in view by the ashtray I feel uncomfortable, the way it shakes and wavers at the end of my arm. It's shitty to be like this on a Saturday early afternoon, but making it a weekly routine verges on the pathetic. My cigarette end tapping against the lip of the ashtray I imagine reverberating the chattering teeth of a scary skeleton, big musical skull. This is my penance for last night, hands like fleshy monstrous butterflies. Aspirin, a multi-vitamin and a B-12 booster before bed just can't quite hide seven last fast beers, three joints and a Percodan. I hide my hand so she won't laugh at it, poor palsied boy, I reach down and rub the cat's ears.

I get up and empty the ashtrays.

I shuffle off into my room then back for no reason.

I end up again, here I am again, taking the step up to the threshold of the fire escape. I stand in the doorway, then take the two steps out then down and I'm holding onto the railing. I sweep my head right, then slowly follow the street to the extreme left. As always I return my gaze to the hotdog man on the corner, an absent stare: same yellow umbrella festooned with red Sabretts, aluminum cart, a crowd of ten to twelve people, some hotdog man's friends--it's also the corner the drunk men hang out all day. God go back inside and be nice.

"So's how's that ol' hotdog man doing?" I think she asks, I catch the hotdog part, "Well," I drawl out, "boy, he's sure doing some bang-up business down there. I guess he catches the after-church crowd, the ones too lazy to walk to the Minute Donut for some minute donuts." Something is outrageously funny, and I'm afraid it has something to do with me. Of course, I forgot it isn't really Sunday, only feels like it, but I'm not sure she even flagged that one down.

Again in my chair, I reach down and pick up the cat, hold her to my chest while I make little cuckling noises to her. Cats feel good, they're soft and warm, they can be stroked and fondled. They don't like to be held involuntarily and will shed hair onto any surface that clutches them. They can be let up on the table to become living conversation pieces.

The cat makes silly licking movements around the tablecloth. This makes her laugh. Good. Our eyes meet. She laughs more. Her hair is really dirty, slick snarled about her head. The seams and creases of her clothes are blackened with filth. She laughs too much, the pitch strikes me ever more eerie. The cat jumps off the table creating another pause.

In a jolt I realize how truly beaten and haggard she looks.

"Is everything okay?"

Her reply is garbled, though I sense sarcasm.

I want to say she looks like she just hopped off a freight from Omaha, but I can't seem to say anything. She grows quiet, except an occasional spit of laughter.

The table is a mess. I clear the old glasses to the sink, empty the ashtrays again. Right to my left is a stray plain sweet roll alone in the plastic bag. I wrap the plastic round and around and toss it vaguely to land on the counter. She's off on another burst of cackling, but it's about something else.

There's a knock on the door and we look at each other startled. I get up to answer: a friend of our roommate, no she's not here, then here, she gives me the keys to the apartment she's subletting to our roommate's boyfriend, in case for whatever whenever either of them get back or whatever something. I lock the door, toss the keys on the table like a punchline before I reclaim my chair. We look at each other matching weird smiles.

She reaches a hand for the keys, casually, her fingers tumble them in the cradle of her palm. Suddenly she's up and towards the door before I can focus. Unbolting and leaving the door swinging wide behind her she's gone with the keys. She's gone with the keys! I get up only when the cats start their crawling formation to dart outside. On the landing she stands by the neighbor's door, the keys dangling gold in her hand. I know what she's going to do, and her eyes reply that she it. She knocks on the door and just stands there, exchanging looks between me and the door. I sense I understand. My eyes glitter wildly with hers, my mouth twists up in a caricature. I snap my head at her. The young lady behind the door, hesitant but no less shrill, "Yes? Who's there? Who is it? Yea? Who's there?" I cock my arm out straight and jerk sweep it inward two repeated strokes. My face reflecting something really exciting going on inside. She believes, or has the afterglow of reason, following me on inside, where I barely shut and bolt before the other door opens.

I watch her weave around the couch past the counter to her chair at the table, muttering, "Yea, yea, that was really great. Great, yea, that was good!"

We face off again. Half the things I do are really funny, she laughs, I smile, she laughs uninterrupted, the back of me begins creeping with the quivery feeling that I'm what she's laughing at. I don't like this, she still laughs, I tell her so with our next eye contact, but she's gone, her eyes are glazed into another dimension rubbing against our elbows. She laughs and laughs so hard she merges into gulps and cries, she buries her head in her hands between her knees, making ambiguous, gut-wrenching sounds. She straightens up, the slope from her eyes to the ridge of the cheekbones, they spread out like a pair of Japanese fans, retrieved from a river, wet, shimmering. The skin around her eyes is puffy, bloated pink, tending to blend into her entire appearance.

At rest, quiet, she breathes in animal fits, spurts of panic, panting quickly gasping. The sound is terrifying, an asthmatic struggling for life, somebody with the breath knocked out of them and someone else in the throes of hyperventilation. Then she swallows simply and calms down.

I wish I had more coffee.

I wish Kate would get home.

Kate reminds me to get up and go to our room. I get the pot and the papers and her old pair of glasses.

I absently crumble the pot, only aware than my fingertips seem big fat and clumsy. She won't talk, she sits silent except for the wheezing whinny she makes when breathing irregularly. She glances over as my graceless fingers sprinkle the shreds into the folded paper, then roll it up and down for tightness.

"So. Rolling a joint I see."

I nod, trace the glue with my tongue, nod and flash a smile back. She giggles to herself. A nice big fat joint for three. I wish Kate would hurry up home, maybe then things will make sense. She bends from the waist resting her head face down on her knees, starting another fit. I want more coffee, if Kate would just get back with more beans, the joint rests expectantly on the table by my cigarettes. She's back up for air, laughing crazily, strikes a match and thrusts it across the table, trembling flicker in her hand. Not much pot, wait for Kate, just a few more minutes. I grin and blow out the match, which makes her cackle even louder. She fumbles with the matchbook and simply strikes another but I'm on my feet and past her, the joint and bag in my hand striding over to the coffee table by the couch for the hemostats and large roach left over from last night, go ahead and smoke that right now.

She's up and following, with the lit match, her laughter boundless, contorting her face, she keeps jabbing the match at me, a dance step, I pirouette away from the flame. The match turns to a black curled crisp with a tiny flicker of blue close to burning her fingers, though she isn't relenting, doesn't drop it or wave it out. I turn uncomfortably back to the table, my back turned, and behind me she tries to put the match in my pocket or down the back of my pants. Her eyes are incomprehensible. I move quickly to my chair. She drops the dead match in the ashtray, telling me how great that was, sits down, no longer laughs. In a minute she grabs her cigarettes, puts on her coat as she rises. I arch my eyebrows at her. She turns without a word and walks to the door, opens it and leaves. I stare at the open door, remember the cats and start over to close it. She re-enters, brushing past me towards the table. I close the door and lock it.

"Think forgot something."

I approach slowly, watching as she scans the table. Cigarettes and coat, nothing else I recall, the table clutter reveals no clues, not unless she actually wants those old glasses, right there in plain sight by the sugar bowl. She slumps back into her chair, laughs at me some more then falls silent.

A key scraping open the lock, Kate's finally home, obscured by twin armloads of brown grocery bags.

"Well hello! What a nice surprise," setting the bags on the counter, "so what are you doing up and around at this early hour?"

She mumbles about not being able to sleep last night, other things unintelligible.

"So you're still out and about from last night, huh?"

She laughs at that, controlled but a little too long.

"Here's your present," plucking out the sack of coffee beans, tossing it to me. Immediately I'm up, opening, putting six scoops in the grinder, filling the kitchen with electric noise.

"You got some big bags there."

"Yea, boy I bought just about everything, want to see?" Kate smiles.

Instead she stays seated, laughing and laughing and laughing, collapsing into her lap again. I return Kate's look with a quick shake of my head, setting the water on to boil while she puts away the groceries.

She stands up finished, wipes her mouth on her sleeve, and bolts to the fridge for another beer. She returns to her chair, takes a few swallows in silence.

"I see you've been introduced to my old glasses--pretty snazzy, huh?" Big cheap clear plastic frames, hinges held with safety pins, stems connected by a long piece of red string.

But she's overtaken again, swept away, laughing at the beer, us, our groceries or something else. "Mmm, yea, that's really," calming, slurping another sip. I clatter clanging the drip pot while Kate folds up the bags, filing them in the collection behind the hot water heater.

She jumps up abruptly, walks quick-paced to the door and is out and gone before anything said. I answer again with a headshake. Kate reaches the door before the cats get there, shoos them away with her foot when they do, looks out into the hall and calls her name as a question. She closes and locks the door, shaking her head. She approaches me by the stove watching for the water to boil.

"Is she okay?"

"How would I know? I couldn't get anything out of her. She just came over, I let her in, and she was just like you saw her the whole time."

Kate steps out on the fire escape and hollers out after her, achieving nothing, gives up and comes back inside where I fill her in on the specifics while pouring the water, " . . . and then, before I could get to the door she came back in, went to the table saying she'd forgotten something. But she hadn't, she sat back down. Then you came home."

"Been up all night. You know, back when acid was first being made it was really strong; the shit on the street these days is nothing like it. Ten years ago it was already mostly garbage."

"Yea, wasn't the original interest in synthesizing schizophrenia under lab conditions? Disregarding the CIA and their hopes for a truth serum--bullheaded idiots through the ages."

"I suppose there's still a few people with the proper equipment and scruples making some up to the old mark, and if you got ahold of some of that without knowing, man you'd be off like a rocket. From what you say, the way she was acting, I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I don't know for sure, but it sounds a whole lot like that."

"Yea, that's pretty much what I'd decided. I mean, she hadn't forgotten anything. This time, though, look," panning my hand towards the table, "she left her cigarettes."

She looks out the fire escape door. "Maybe she'll want them, maybe you should shout and tell her."

I shrug, go out on the fire escape. The sky is overcast but not ominous, not oppressive. The hotdog man is having a real record-busting day, or has a whole lot of friends. One of two unclear things. The day itself is a clear one, despite the cloud cover the air is like clean glass, the view undistorted by heat or filth. I can see all the way up Park Street until the trees do merge together forming the park at Fourth. From First, quite a view. The outside atmosphere does just die inside. Approaching the intersection down a block away, I spot her at first look, her back, that back of her dull rust colored coat. I just watch her, the patch of her back diminishing imperceptibly, she's too far gone, she's walking normal like all the other people scattered up and down the sidewalks alright. Go back inside. The coffee must be ready by now.

+ + +

I sing: Dear Lolo--the string, the red string--your vision is more interesting than my version.