6

九日九月

In the morning the train is cold, dark, and I crack my drapes to see giant anthills illuminated between moon and approaching light pollution. They crest palm trees, whose silhouettes are black and texture only hazily suggested. The woman next to me, Hispanic, wakes a half an hour later. We watch L.A. suburbs for longer than what must have been L.A. I’m mildly disappointed I missed the entirety of Arizona during the night. When we reach the station she does not say goodbye, but she does take a photo of her travel companion, be it husband, brother, or otherwise it is unclear, seated next to me. I giggle with uncertainty about whether or not I’m supposed to be posing with him. They joke amongst themselves and show me the photo, in which I’m blurry with movement. I think that they’re entertaining the idea of Google translating what they are saying, which I did for them the night before when trying to offer a rearrangement of seating, so that I might be in on the joke. I wave to them from my seat on the second level as they are already half a car down the platform. It’s only her pink bag that salutes me back.

Much of our approach to L.A. I missed anyway because I was downstairs in the windowless women’s restroom lounge, changing to the extent I was able given my very limited clothing options, washing up and putting on lipstick. All throughout the rest of the day I felt ridiculous with the pigment drying on my lips and inevitably ringing their outer perimeter, exposing me as the poser I was. Somehow colored lips make me look younger, face rounder. As my hair fell flatter throughout the day, and I picked at the zit residing on the sloping horizon of my left eyebrow, and I stenciled my sandals with dirt from our walk through the farm, I felt phony in my spidery lashes and ringed mouth. Before dinner I changed, wiped my lips clean, bunned my hair, and put on my dangling turquoise clip-ons. In this manner I arrive back to myself.

Max and I sleep together. Clarification: Max and I sleep next to each other, sometimes holding each other and occasionally fumbling around with the sheets. We’re both wearing pajamas; my hair is wet. I never wear pajamas. The few times we speak it’s just -- “is it okay if I take off the cover?” and “what time is it?” It’s a voice I can’t make sense of, the one we’re using. It’s not an intimate one, but certainly one that pushes up close. Similarly our bodies push up close but do not make intimate exchanges. I sense the silent purring that is the mossy underside of our situation, which a couple of times through the night I become very still in order to detect. In the morning we’re still using the same voice -- I would have had it shift but it’s him who spoke first and set the tone for the whole departure. As we walk to the train station laden with my bags, I’m aching with an anxiety that cannot interpret our early morning state of affairs. We have enough time to sit down after I buy my ticket. We take a photo, and I give him the money he spent to meet me downtown the day before. Again he speaks with a voice that’s like that after a death: unfettered to go quickly or with any tonal flourish. It’s a voice like rough stone.

The train arrives from the east in a blinding straight-away of light. I board hastily, with Max’s help; he barely makes it off again before the doors close. When we leave Claremont station he holds the gesture of a single wave, like an outward salute.