Rothko's Rolodex

I had no idea Jane was around, still extant, her biker boots on the ground of the sphere we call the world, axis tilting and orbiting the Sun. The Sun is a funny thing for me to mention for a few reasons, the first being that Jane hated sunshine. We went to Jones Beach once, but at night. We ran in the dark clumpy sand. Jane climbed up a lifeguard chair. I worried she would fall. She said Stevie, get the fuck up here already.

I can smell it, see the greasy slate of the Atlantic. The even waves, the slightly fuzzy lights of ships way far out; I see and hear everything. I had all my senses. Just two glasses of Beaujolais something. I drove us there in my Pop’s Town Car, after a dinner at a rustic French place with cold sausage plopped on the table as soon as we sat down. Pop called Jane a chocolate-mousse type. Jane was eating then. He said, take my car, drive her home. Because Jane had to be home. Her parents drew that line.

We rarely slept together like a normal couple, unless we had a gig and Jane lied about her sleeping quarters. Those nights increased the more we gigged. Thank heaven for the Roeblings.

My little roadie, her sloe eyes bleary and smudged with the black Lancome pencil still in my possession; she was able to get in my bed. The best nights of all. Even when the show was rough. Jane made everything, everything better. Even if Jane’s breath shrieked of Binaca spray, the hair around her face a little wet and sticky. By the time she came to bed, the mouthwash clearly worked.

I always bought her the right Scope. She pretty much drove the type she wanted, the deepest green, into my brain.

You could say Jane was right there, occupying my cerebellum, along with the Scope. It needed replenishment often. I needed replenishment often. I never cared for Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke in Yazoo was so much better, but their “Just Can’t Get Enough” was me all over.

And then, of course, the yelling of the other Jane, the secondary replacement. Jane the ersatz. The real Jane threatened her. I thought it was ridiculous. Jane was probably a husk by then, a sliver, maybe even dead. How can a particle of a person, a possible corpse, make anyone insecure?

Oh dear God, please make her be alive. Breathing. Healthy even. I cannot envision her tiny, under the ground.

“That bitch, she’s the Sun to you! You fucking satellite.” I was pathetic, addicted to that cunt of a ghost, unavailable, remote, and did I say pathetic. I agreed.