I wasn't in the mood for philosophy, but went along with it to keep her talking. "I've never thought about creativity as anything other than actually creating something physical... isn't that the definition of creativity? Create? Creation?" I shifted in the springy booth and stared into my almost empty coffee mug.

"Well, I suppose it's more than that," she said. Her eyes had a deep sadness and they seemed to see right through me. It was agonizing to make contact with them, like looking at my own sad soul in a mirror and at the same time, it was so painfully sexy.

The skinny waitress in low-rider sweatpants sauntered up with a pot of coffee, glass with a red-orange plastic mouth and handle. The pot, not the waitress, although her mouth was just as plastic, just as orange. She poured. I grabbed the mug and almost pulled it out from under the steaming hot over-cooked coffee flow. I asked, "is that decaf?"

She shook her head and her mouth made a sort of lazy half-smile. "Broke the regular pot. Had to use this." Her long arm filled Monica's cup. I was jealous of the way Monica watched the waitress' hand as if she wanted to touch its' thin fingers.

"Do you have a dictionary?" Monica asked her.

The waitress left. I noticed the pink top of her butt-floss and looked quickly back to Monica not wanting her to see me staring at another woman's ass. I wanted to know what Monica's behind looked like naked.

She continued. "What about stories, before people had written language, wouldn't that be considered creative? There was the oral tradition, passing on stories and ideas galore, all in an intangible form. So... I guess what I'm wondering is if thoughts, even if they aren't ever expressed, can be considered as creativity."

I wondered if sex was creative, even if no creation of a child would result. It's often called "making" love, after all, alluding that love is created by the act.

"Do you believe in a collective consciousness?" She asked.

I was saved from having to answer by Boney's return to thunk a huge book down on the table. She left without saying anything. Monica reached for it but stopped. It was the yellow pages for the Detroit metropolitan area. We both looked at the phone book, then at each other and laughed.

"I used to waitress," I said, "so I have a lot of sympathy for them, but this one, she must be the worst waitress I've ever seen." I realized Boney still hadn't given me my blueberry pie. "Should we leave without paying, or give her a huge tip as reward for being such a winner."

"I have a better idea," she said.

The letter began with the date, as they all do. I typed “February”, the keys stamping the letters out of the inked ribbon. I typed, “14, 1996”... and stopped.

“Crap,” I muttered, annoyed that I couldn't get used to the turn of the century after four years. My brain is like a computer with the Y2K bug. I slapped the side of my head to get the software to update. On the typewriter, I pressed the backspace key but remembered the correction fluid was somewhere in the house. I hadn't even brought any extra paper out there with me.

Too lazy to go inside and all the way up the stairs to dig through still-packed boxes, I leaned back on the slightly damp grass. I felt the moisture steep into my elbows and realized my ass was probably soaked, though I didn't mind in the already hot and humid late morning. It was not that I wanted to write him a letter on an ancient typewriter - if I had a printer or internet connection, and the gusto to set up my computer, I'd write from that more modern machine. But there was something about using this trusty old contraption that was symbolic of our ancient friendship.

Then it hit me. It ended romantically between us on that exact date eight years ago... that morning he bought me the fattest diamond I'd ever seen and offered it to me over lunch at El Favorito. I laughed aloud in my back yard at the irony of the situation, just like I had in that taqueria, as he glanced nervously toward the young men standing by the counter smoking and talking in Spanish with the cashier.

“I think you ought to try it on.” His brown eyes were pleading. He smoothed his sparse mustache and goatee.

I continued to hold the ring between us, afraid. I couldn't stop thinking about how long he would be making payments on it. How long he expected us to be together.

My arm became tired from the weight of the thing. I slipped it back into the velvet lined ring box, horrified that my hand had automatically plucked it out of that nest to begin with.

“They give refunds right?” was the only thing I could say.

At that moment I knew I hurt his feelings and realized I might be making a huge mistake but since then I've never regretted that day. He was bitter at first but ended up marrying the sales-lady at the jewelers and they've lived happily ever after. And he and I still have our friendship.

I smiled with nostalgia and sat back up on the lawn. Leaning over the typewriter, I tapped the return lever a few notches, and typed, “Dear Michael,”....

“Maybe she's just late,” Nick says in his laidback low voice, with its characteristic drawls like he's from another planet. I used to love the way he talked but now it just made me think of how stoned and stupid he is.

“I doubt it, I don't think she knows,” I say. It sounded like no one told Sin about the show tonight. How fucking unorganized. After this we should fire our piece of shit manager.

Our drummer, Eric, plops down next to Nick on the shoddy old beer and bong water stained sofa and hands him the pipe. Like Nick needs any more. But then, it's not like playing the same two chords on the bass over and over requires any thought, just some strong calloused fingers and impeccable timing. He'd have that even if he went into a coma.

Simulated Death, the opening band, is on. Their Hardcore blasts through the short hall to the backstage room where we sit. They're good, much more progressive than us, but they got a keyboardist and two lead guitarists.

“We should get a keyboard player,” I say. They both nod.

I say, “but if we don't go on tonight, I'm leaving.”

“Don't make empty threats,” Eric says, exhaling a lungful of smoke.

“I'm fucking serious.”

A couple guys come in through the back door. They say “hi” a little shyly and a whole lot nervously and rush out through the hall to the curtain and the audience beyond. Security is off trying to help find Sin.

Nick drawls, “we'll go on. We can play without Sin, we do all the time.”

“In practice,” I say, “but we'll suck without vocals. We're boring.”

“You can sing.”

“Not while playing. Not onstage.”

“You can sing and play alright. You should try. I bet you'll be okay.”

The thought of singing on stage gave me stage fright all over again. I don't have many fears, but that's one of them. I don't want to be “okay”, I want to be awesome.

Simulated Death finished their set and they're lugging their gear backstage and outside. Eric's kit is already set up on stage-right but he has to get it positioned center and make sure the sound guy has the levels. Our amps are already out there. Nick grabs his bass by the neck and turns toward the stage, then turns to me. I haven't moved from the rickety metal folding chair. I can't see it while sitting but I know there's a big black A and circle around it spray painted on the back. My guitar is on my lap, the strap over my shoulder. I realize I'm gripping the neck with one hand and the body with the other like I'm about to make a run for it. Nick says, “come on, it'll be cool.”

I stand up and walk on stage.

I opened my mouth to say something about the call but I put a piece of pie in it instead. I sure didn't feel like doing my job.

“You think it's Tom, don't you?”

“Well I. no, I don't think it's Tom,” I said, saddened. “Was that him on the phone?”

“Yup, it was Tom,” she sighed. “an' I should've jus' let you talk to the bastard. He done it, I know, and he'd prolly admit it if he got talking with the law, 'specially you, Mr. Burrman. But I don't wanna be no go-between.”

“That's good..” I studied the ancient scratches in the red melamine table top. I moved my arm out of the way to see the white wearing through where five decades of elbows have rested. I'm procrastinating.

Shirley fidgeted. “I don't know where he is. I'd tell ya if I did.”

“No, of course you don't,” I finished my pie and pushed the chair back. “I hate to say this, Shirley, but I have to take you in for questioning,” I stood.

“You know it weren't Tom.”

“That's right, Shirley, I know it.” I took a hold of her arm, “let's go.”

“So you wanna play games?” I hollered. I chuckled to myself, weaving. “Come on! Give me a kiss baby!” Either he was some wussy or my looks were in a terrible state. Probably the latter seeing how I had just spent the best part of the afternoon in a dark reeking bar across the river and I have the nasty habit of slouching and messing up my hair when I breached my limit. I was a beast and if he was going to play Beauty I'd play along. It was something I'd always wanted to do: get drunk and obnoxiously heckle a guy to show them  how it felt.

I know that didn't make any sense but I was loaded. Give me a few beers and I'm good, give me eight pints and I'm fucked, and that's what I managed to put down that afternoon. Somehow. And I somehow made it home without causing myself any harm. Or at least not that I can remember, but that's what really matters.

We sat out front Steps of Rome with coffee. Mona had gelato. I was smoking again.

“Why don't you quit?”

“I will when I don't like it anymore.”

“You always say that,” she was going to continue with something along the lines of: “and you know you already don't like it,” but her eyes darted past me then purposefully back, “shit, keep talking.”

I did, “well, I do still like it. And, I can't even sit nearby the Underwood without dying for a fuckin smoke.” I was about to mention driving, if I quit, there was no way I could sit in traffic without getting road rage, but I felt someone squeeze behind my chair and a hand grasped the chair-back beside me.

“May I join you ladies?”

I glanced at the interrupter. A late twenties man with dark brown pony-tail and new leather book bag. He looked pretentious but not crazy.

“Yeah, sure,” I say. I can't respond rudely to a polite request. Mona can, she'll tell them off, but I don't do that.

He forced some of his cheese poetry on us. I politely listened while Mona wrote secretively in her journal. After we couldn't take anymore, I politely excused us and we headed down the street to City Lights for our dose of the master works.

As she set the box down on the floor her right arm hurt. She grabbed it with her left hand and felt a cold wetness on her palm. When she pulled her hand away to look, something fell to the floor. She shrieked. Looking quickly between the wet guts on her palm and the huge brown spider carcass on the carpet, she noticed its size really was incredible, over an inch, though it was hard to be sure with it's smashed abdomen. The shock and fear made her forget for a second the pain of her arm. Horrified she looked. Then had to sit down because under the smear of guts was a red swollen area. Panicked she jumped up again and ran to the phone. There was no dial tone. The phone company shut if off that morning, as she had asked because she thought she would be done with the damn moving by then.

Don't panic, she told herself. If getting bit by a spider was anything like getting a snake bite, panicking would only speed her heart, speeding the poison through her body, or so she heard. She sat down again, nauseous suddenly, she couldn't think of what to do. The nearest neighbor was over a mile away.