Maya C M

So if we consider Sunday, December 22 2024 as beginning at 12 midnight I was out at Superfolie on Spruce Street having absolutely one glass of their cheapest red wine scratching away at poetry in my notebook broadcasting to everyone with my bruised demeanor and glassy eyeballs that I was s-a-d. 

And it worked! Came back from the bathroom to a coupe of yellowish liquid - sherry, evidently -sitting at my seat free of charge. It was gross and almondy but apparently quite expensive and everyone still at the bar despite its being closed finished the bottle - me and the bartenders and some folks who had just been to the circus. Christmas carols drained from the speakers. I like the religiously fervent kind, I said, Gloria in Excelsis Deo, etc. So they queued up Ave Maria and everyone liked it so much paired with the sherry that we listened three or four times and eventually it made me cry. 

Then, maybe during the second Ave Maria, the stranger I’ve been hung up on texted me where are you and it was like God rewarding me for listening to devotional Christmas music the way He intended. Yes, goodnight everyone, off to meet my maker.

Found a seat at McGlinchey’s towards the back. Rolling rock, shot of whiskey, and a cigarette. Mark sitting next to me said, looks like the perfect pairing and I said sure is. He bought us both another round of the same and I passed him a camel even though he doesn’t smoke much. It’s part of the pairing, Mark, you simply must. Mark is moving to Jacksonville next week to do something in sales which sounds fake. I think that every straight man should experience being a dyke’s best friend for at least one night. I get extra faggy and tenderhearted when I’ve got one held hostage in this sort of arrangement. Does my hair look good, Mark? Perfect, he said, don’t touch it at all. Have you ever been in love, Mark? Yeah, but then she killed herself. Oh Mark I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. 

Finally after almost an hour of wistfully watching the front door I was off - goodnight, Mark, good luck with everything - to join a table of people all relatively indifferent to me. Smoking like it was my job. Dutifully draining the beer passed across the table at last call. Propping my right arm on the back of the booth in case that person decided they were interested in sitting beneath it. Elly calls this emotional masochism, sort of a kink thing. And then the lights came on and it was time to go. 

I made it three blocks down Spruce before it became obvious that I was not in good shape to bike home. I cannot afford to be any dumber or poorer on account of another concussion so into and out of the uber and up the stairs I went into my apartment where all three of the cats were waiting disapprovingly in the living room. Makeup off, teeth brushed, eyebrow piercing cleaned. Despite it all I am devoted to being the one idiot in the world whose eyebrow piercing never gets infected. 

I woke up and thought, shit, today is my Day in Philly. How embarrassing. I called to Ari who was watching tik toks in his room with the sound up. Ari, can you squish me? I’m s-a-d. Yes, I’ll squish you and he climbed on top of me over the covers and lay there smothering while I told him about my night and about how my ex still won’t talk to me and how today is my Day in Philly so I really do need to get up out of bed and do something. Ari said up up and marched me to the shower to wash McGlinchey’s off of my skin. When I was done he had warmed up half a steak and egg sandwich for me to take a bite of and I wondered where on earth he had gotten such an extravagant thing. 

I realized I had done something incredible which was to hang onto a Knockbox punch card for long enough to redeem it for the free coffee drink at the end so that’s what I did next. Charlotte and Ari joined. We can look into conversion therapy for you, or nunneries, Ari suggested. Charlotte gave me that disapproving look that makes me die. Let’s change the topic - what makes a sailboat a sailboat? Sails, we agreed, but then is a pirate ship a sailboat? A sloop? A galleon? Anyway, it was late afternoon now and Ari had to go have dinner on a boat of some kind and Charlotte needed to set up a screen at the Soap Box. And I needed to locate my bike before it got dark. We walked to Baltimore Avenue together, me and Charlotte, sharing a cigarette. What’re you going to do later, she asked. Maybe make some dinner, but what do vegans eat? You can pour some beans out onto a plate, she offered, with the aqua flavor…you mean aquafaba? Oh Maya, if you ever worry that you’re an idiot, remember you’re not as stupid as me ha ha! Oh, Charlotte, there’s the 34! Here, finish the cig. I love you baby, I’ll see you later.

My bike was right where I thought it would be, 19th and Spruce. Nice. Liberated some black eyeliner from CVS along the way since my good pencil had evidentially liberated itself from my purse the night before. Elly called me when I got home and I fumbled with the buttons on my phone to answer, fingers stiff with cold. Oh, you don’t like any of my suggestions for what we could eat for dinner - beer, a spaghetti squash, beer poured into a spaghetti squash and baked?Charlotte said I could feed you some beans on a plate, but I don’t think I even have a can of beans. Phone cradled in my neck, I tied Ari into his pretty cowl-necked halter top with a pink rose on the front. You look beautiful, baby, have fun on the sailboat. Let me see what I have to offer and I’ll be right over.

Elly and I ate what I had to offer – two fig bars and three packets of dried seaweed – at their kitchen table. Along with some beer. Caught up until we got hungry again, which didn’t take long. Placed an order for noodle soup, decided it was cold enough to justify delivery. Ate while their roommate helped us pick out poppers from the extra-strength poppers distributor in the UK. Ah, we need one more bottle to qualify for free shipping. We decided scented ones could be funny, Mojito Madness.

Elly taught me about pink noise and red noise and brown noise while we were sitting cross legged on their bed. It was loud in the hotel room in Middletown where they were working this week, they said, taking school photos for kids. Then they put on some music – a Playlist to Study Like a Medieval Philosopher Having the Truth Revealed by Divine Grace – and told me about a poem they read recently about a person who accidentally resurrects Selena from the dead. You’re talking like you’re on laughing gas, dude. And I’m stalling, kissing you, it’s time for me to go. I’m always running out on Elly on my way out of town – I was visiting my parents in Brooklyn the next day and I still hadn’t packed. You have really pretty eyes, you know. They laughed. That’s what a little kid told me the other day when I was taking their class photo. Ha ha.

I decided to walk down Locust on the way to 49th . Five or six Christmas carolers sang Ave Maria in about as many different keys, standing on somebody’s stoop. It sounded lovely. I guess there are only so many Christmas songs, but it felt circuitous, ordained. I sang along a bit as I walked by, into my scarf.

Ora pro nobis peccatóribus

Ora, ora pro nobis

Ora, ora pro nobis peccatóribus

And no, I didn’t cry. Not this time. I continued home.

Maya is a writer of stories, poems, and museum exhibit labels. He loves his calico cats, reading in dive bars, and biking around his fine city.