I only saw the edges of myself.

Leaning on the wooden bar, waiting for the bartender, I watched two other women walk in. They walked up and asked me to make them a drink. I looked at them. They were snippy about it, “Can you get behind the bar and make us a drink?” I laughed. I told them I wasn’t the bartender. They asked why I was dressed like one then. I looked down at my white shirt, dark pants, and bright red tie. I turned back to the bar without answering and waited. The bartender came out of the back room dressed like me. I tried not to feel stupid. I tried to be easy. I ordered my date’s Manhattan and a whiskey, neat. I walked slowly back to her, sitting there on the couch. She smiled at me. Her drink sloshed a little and dripped onto the table when I set it down. I carefully wiped the edges of her glass for her. “I spill things,” I told her, “I do that.” She smiled at me, “And look how you took care,” she said and waved it away.

We sat and talked. I told her about the women thinking I was the bartender. She ran my tie through her fingers and asked me where I found it. She sighed in this sexy little way that made me feel good. Easy. She calmed me. She smoothed my nerves like the tie between her fingers. I liked her. I couldn’t tell if she was shy or forward. Somehow she was both. Anyway, this isn’t the point. I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. The point is that at that time, in those moments. There were important things happening. Important things that I didn’t recognize. I had no capacity to recognize anything. I wasn’t really there. I wasn’t sitting inside myself. I was this body on the outside, smoothed, dapper, pressed and steamed and this tangled, unrecognizable knot on the inside. And I didn’t know it.


http://bdswain.com/post/57265590878/dearbutch