The Disillusionists. cont'd...

Her voice crackled through the intercom wires like an errant radio signal. "C'mon in." I croaked into the wall. May. Oh my god. Time stood still. She was crazy and soon would be standing in front of me, smelling like sea-salt and cedar trees. I went out into the hall and could hear her coming, her shoes slapping the soles of her feet. It was a small hall and then she was there and I couldn't stop smiling.

"How the hell are ya?" she said, arms open wide.

"Good." I said stupidly as I hugged her and went in for a kiss which she neatly deflected to her cheek. Her hair smelled just the same. She stepped back and slipped the light jacket she was wearing off her shoulders and held it out for him to take. Same thing, uninhibited, nice body, her hair was a lot longer now. We had worked together on a youth assistance program years ago where the government pays part of your wage and then you get fired as soon as the money ran out. I had kept in touch with her for a while as a friend but we never did anything which nobody believed but still, it was probably better that way. May went back to school and we kind of drifted apart although I thought about her all the time but now it seemed like I hadn't thought about her for a long, long time.

The job we had was to assist a publisher with research into a guide to historical buildings in the city. I had lied on my application which apparently the never checked, and was hired on as an assistant. The people there saw straight through me but were decent enough to keep me around to clean the bathroom and take lunch orders and comic relief I guess. May and I struck up an instant friendship because we both started on the same day and were as green as a pool table that's just been cleaned.

"They tore down The Warrant Building, hey?"

"I know," I said, refering to one of our mutual favourite project subject buildings, "Godless bastards..."

"Did you get anything?"

"I got a railing. I think it came from the fourth floor where they had that little mezzanine thing? They didn't bother to melt it down so maybe somebody else had set it aside... There's no market for that kind of thing anymore, now they've pretty well run out of original shit and all the manufacturers jumped all over it so nobody's willing to spend money on the real stuff." I paused for a moment because May was looking at my eyes and then my mouth and back so I like, could feel some wood taking shape. "I uh, think I might use it as a roof-rack if I ever get a car."

She smiled. She had once told me she liked me because I always found a way to utilize things outside of their original design or intention. I just thought it was because I was a cheap motherfucker.

We sat down. When we had met, it had been a more innocent time, the 90's. I couldn't remember the last time we had seen each other and neither could she. Apart from the hair she looked exactly the same. I did a discreet examination of my gut, to see if it was big but it proved nothing. After a moment my brain slowed to a crawl and was soon blocked by the low hum of the refrigerator which was now painfully evident sitting in the living room. The kitchen was more of a hallway actually and I hadn't seemed to mind the set up so much until now.

"So, uh... got anything to drink?" said May, breaking the silence.

I jumped up and fished two beer out of the fridge, taking care not to open the door too wide lest she should see the barren moonscape within. I apologized for being so direct but I had to ask her what she was doing here as I didn't think she had this address, having so recently moved in. May said my old landlord gave it to me and I thought, shit, she's been talking to Jen and then I realized she probably meant the landlord previous that I had in a moment of responsibilty, given this address to so he could forward my cheques. May sipped her beer and said she didn't know why, that she had been thinking of me and thought she'd just drop by to see what I was up to. I don't know why but I suddenly could remember coming out of a movie with her, years ago, and all they could talk about was the locations in the film. Like an old part of me was being re-awakened and then I could see she was waiting for an answer so I blurted out something stupid like, "I don't know, I was thinking of writing a country music song..."

"Ha!" she snorted into her beer, "Ya see? You kill me. That's why I wanted to see you." She continued to laugh which I thought was a bit excessive because I was kind of serious about the song.