"Friday Drift"

People are basically friendly everywhere I go. Even Dallas — where I once had such a good time on Oak Lawn and Cedar Springs Road in a leather bar that I briefly considered never coming back. My heart still belonged to San Francisco then, though, and to a blond then named Paul who’d already escaped back to Texas. He’s more or less the blueprint for Travis Weatherford in Painted People, if I ever finish the thing before I’m ninety.

San Francisco still tugs at me, but if you stay anywhere long enough — even the backwoods of South Carolina — you eventually start liking the place. Your heart adjusts. It’s very adaptable, like a houseplant that refuses to die.

I spent most of today being a tourist. Bought a chunk of turkey breast at I & J Fresh Market. The woman at the counter told me their Bronx store is “complicated and insane,” which is exactly how I remember the Bronx when I almost moved there. Peekskill took me first, and here I am.

I’m reading Five Brothers by Penelope Douglas — a book so wild it makes Jacqueline Susann look like a church pamphlet. I read Susann as a teenager and thought I was learning about adulthood. Turns out I was just learning how dramatic people can be.

Later I walked down shady Requa Street toward the train station and sat by the water watching Canadian geese conduct whatever business geese conduct. A fisherman and his daughter tried their luck. A man with a cart blasted music. More men arrived with boats and launched them into a river that had spilled into the parking lot like it paid rent there.
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A simple Friday. A little chaos, a little nostalgia, and the geese judging everyone.