Where the fuck have YOU been?

"Where the fuck have you been?" She said as I pulled up. "I've been waiting here for a fucking month it seems."

Or so it seems.

"I've been busy. Film. LA. Hollywood. Important things like that."

She slammed the door after she slipped into the back seat. There were boxes piled in the front seat. They had been there for months and I had no time to move them. I didn't even know what was in them anymore. Maybe John's old clothes. Maybe my mother's dishes.

"Really, what's your excuse for not coming back here sooner? I mean, it's not that far away and it takes, what 15 minutes to get here. You too busy? Too self important?" She lit up a joint, took a long drag and then out of habit tried to pass it to me.

"What?! You crazy?! You know how I get on that shit. Stop it. And back the fuck off!"

I didn't dare tell her why I really hadn't been here for a while. First, I was lazy. Sure, it was true, work was driving me into the ground, and there was the LA trip, but truthfully, I couldn't stand facing the silence followed by all the criticism. Just couldn't do it, not every day. Besides every time I did show up, I felt like it was my first day on a job--didn't seem to know a thing, I didn't get the lingo, I was so insecure I could barely form a sentence.

"So what's happening, anything new with your business idea, that one about the internet thingymabob?" She sat in the middle of the back seat so we could keep eye contact through the rear view mirror. I saw the searching in her eyes, that look for failure, for false promises.

"Haven't had time." I mumbled. "Besides, now's not really the time." I caught a grin on her mouth and before she could say anything I cut her off.

"You don't know shit, so stop your grinning. When's the last time you even held a job you dumbshit. So stop your taunting."

I felt bad after I said it. And we drove down the street in a cloud of smoky cool silence, past the billboards for the next new thing. I wanted that next new thing. Wanted it bad, but couldn't see it. Couldn't taste it. Maybe that's why I hadn't been back here. This isn't the next new thing. It's now. It's here. It's raw. It's history and memories and most of all it's unknown. I wanted certainty, but I wasn't going to get it, not here.