On Cue

There’s a clock on the corner above the building that chimes every hour ’till midnight. There’s an alley behind my apartment where drunk people gather between sets to get stoned. Outside my window is a storefront with a vacant sign; another with colorful pieces of blown glass, bowls mostly, as a squirrel climbs to the limb of a tree staring at me.

It’s dark except for moonlight waxing to fullness and Venus is high in the sky tonight. I take another sip of wine, cheap Chianti, and contemplate whether to join the festivities a few doors down or watch reruns of bad 80′s sitcoms, the ones with recorded laughter in the background set perfectly on cue.

I lean towards the latter, as I hear snip-its of conversation filter through the evening air; the band making tuning noises calling in the crowd. “Hey — you’ve got a cigarette I can bum?” “Yo, dude, Maddi’s wasted!” “After party at my place.. BYOB!” Annoying laughter and the almost beginnings of a fist fight broken up by the high-pitched squealing sound of a girl stepping in to protect her man.

The chaos quiets as someone pukes at my doorstep. 80′s sitcom it is, I decide, and flip on the telly. The phone rings. I know it’s you and don’t pick up. You don’t leave a message and my mind wanders to that place of wondering why you called. Next, a knock on my door. You know I’m home because the light is on. Tonight, I made sure to lock the door. I wait tensely as my phone rings again and then more knocking. I can tell you’re drunk because of the wild rhythms of your knocking, so determined, a little angry.

“I know you’re home. Stop hiding,” I hear from the window as the band revs up the tunes with the muted sound of the crowd cheering ‘em on. “Go away,” my fingers spell back. And you do — a little too easily as always. In the moment Horschak belts out a one-liner and does his famous drone chuckle, my heart stops and then begins again with that anticipated recorded studio laughter. I can go on this way, I think — on again, off again — with one press of the remote control, one text. I can zap you away simply by not answering the phone, not leaving my home, and staying wedged in this dark apartment with my cheap bottle of Chianti, drowning the sorrows with Horshack’s laugh, killing the bottle, resting head on pillow, not yet wet with tomorrow’s tears,  learning how to say goodbye, again and again  — like a rerun that’s right on cue.