“We need to go to the liquor store,” she demanded while lighting her last cigarette from the stove. “And we need more cigarettes. It’ll be a long day without some cigarettes.” Which I agreed with, but what was I supposed to do about it? I didn’t have any money. In fact, I was in the middle of sitting on the kitchen floor working on that very dilemma. I had met this guy at the bowling alley who told me he’d pay me 75 dollars if I could fix his clock. We had gotten on the subject of clocks somehow and he was going on about how he had this Cuckoo clock that had been in his family for years, but it hadn’t worked in years and he couldn’t ever find anybody who knew how to work on it. And well, I wasn’t drunk but I had drank enough – and for whatever reason I started running off at the mouth about how I knew everything there was to know about Cuckoo clocks and if we could agree on a price I’d take a look at it. I said 500 dollars, he said 75 and we shook hands and agreed upon 75.

And now here I sit on the kitchen floor with this fucking clock in pieces – couldn’t even begin to figure out how it all goes back together – and if that weren’t enough, I had Audrey ragging me about the store and the smokes. It was starting off to be a rough Wednesday. The kind of reflective morning that makes you stop and think about how it all started – if for no other reason than to just see if it at least made sense back then. We were going on a year and a hard year at that. She used to teach American Literature at a Junior High in the Bronx but got tired of grading papers and waking up early – so she gave it up and was now collecting a slim unemployment check. And I was still parking cars in a rotation of guys, but I was the slowest so I never worked that much. They’d tell me, “Wellington, you gotta quit smoking. Get in shape, you’ll make more money.” And I’d say, “yeah, but if I go and change up my routine, who’s gonna be around to make you jerk-off’s look good? Certainly not yourselves.” Point is, me & Audrey, we were doing our best to get by.

“Come on, come on. You can fuck with that clock later, let’s go.”

“I’d love to, but how?”

“What do you mean how? We’ll take your car.”

“We can’t. They towed it.”

“What? Who?”

“They. Who ever in the hell tows people.”

“Well, don’t you kind of need to know who actually towed it?”

“Why?”

“So that you know who to get it back from, jackass.”

“Oh. I see what you’re saying. Well, I hadn’t gotten that far yet. Really been stuck on this clock, man. If I can’t get this shit to go back to looking at least some what like a clock he’s libel to charge me. I don’t want to look like an idiot.”

“Well, it’s a little late for that. Just throw the stupid thing away and forget about it already.”

“Audrey, the man bowls at my alley. We wear the same size shoe, for Christ’s sake. I’m guaranteed to see the guy again. It’d be like fucking someone over at church – only this is worse.”

“Well, what am I supposed to do? I need something to drink, something to smoke – you really don’t have anymore cigarettes?”

“You’re smoking one right now!”

“Yeah? And what am I supposed to do when it’s done?”

And she had a valid point – with well committed smokers it’s never a matter of what you have right now but rather what you’ll need to have later. I felt for her, I really did. But my hands were tied.

“I’m sorry, honey, I feel for you, I really do. But my hands are tied.”

“You’re pathetic!”

She stomped around in a fit and then threw her over-coat on wrong with her arms in the wrong sleeves but was too proud to admit it. She hopped around the place getting her boots on and then stormed out, slamming the door like the exclamation point at the end of a long vicious sentence. She’d be back. Once she found what she was looking for where ever she might find it, she’d calm down and come back. Besides, she left wearing only her slip, over-coat, and rain boots – how far was she going to get? It was 10 below in Brooklyn and all the snow had been parted from the roads into giant mounds of black chunks of ice. I got myself up from the floor and took a seat at the couch near the window. I could see Audrey – walking further away from the building, slipping on ice and cursing at the world or at me – which to her was often the same thing but so rarely for the good reasons.

Once I felt she was far enough away I reached under the couch cushion for the pack of cigarettes I had hidden there a few days prior. I lit one up and smoked it while I watched her get smaller in the distance until finally out of sight. Where the hell could she be going? Maybe the Korean store around the corner. But she doesn’t have any money. Maybe she’ll walk to The Guy’s house; he’s close enough I suppose. The Guy – with the sideburns and the James Dean playing cards. The Guy that always has the Vicodin, Valium, and Morphine. The Guy – that used to put up with her shit before me. I hate that guy – he’s always gotta put his hands on her when he talks to her, like you can’t just say hello without touching somebody’s elbow. He was an asshole but he had a job as a custodian at the Jewish Clinic in Williamsburg so he always had well stocked medicine cabinets – and that’s what kept her coming back for more.

She’d go to him to convince herself she hated me, but then she’d come back when she remembered she loved me – or at least liked me a good deal. I made the time pass a little easier and finding that in someone else is hard to come by, I guess. But maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was just convenience. Convenience is having someone to share meals with, blankets with, stories with, moments with. Convenience is having someone waiting for you at night on the couch in the soft glow of the television and they’ve kept track of the Jeopardy questions you missed while you were in the bathroom. Convenience is simply having someone to wake up and look at. And love must be something else. When we love our various vices more than one another, then it must be something else.

Love must be never hiding your smokes in the couch or running to the other guy’s house when things aren’t working out. Love must be throwing my coat and boots on and following after her in pursuit of things we can’t even afford. Love must be having something to constantly fix and constantly having an interest in fixing it. We probably weren’t in love – when I stay home to smoke secrets and she runs off into the cold to keep them, then we’re probably not in love. And that’s probably okay. Because I’m home where it’s warm while she’s somewhere pissed off in the cold – and I say better her than me. Because after all, I had a Goddamn clock to fix.

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