walk to the presidio, to an avenue divided by the wilderness. addicts, alcoholics,  patients with brain disorders and therapists dwell there. they think about what they are going to say. i like to be there to listen. i don’t want to lead anyone. i’m not always still. i move when i see someone. i look at them if i have something inside me. they never meet my gaze. she said that we had had the same conversation. she said that she had a name like mine. it was difficult to remember and to say. she asked me for my name. i didn’t give it to her having said it.
do you ever rent movies at the public library, she said.
when i think about you, i said i think about going to the chinese grocery market to get sake and the pacific ocean.
the park is a subjective odor. it is like something that didn’t happen because nothing like it has ever happened. when i first smelled it i thought that my health was in decline. now i think it is the second phase of my adult life. there will be a third phase and possibly a fourth.
have you seen star wars, she said. do you like it.
i like the first two, i said.
you mean the one in 1976, she said. that was not the first one. they came backwards. it was the fourth one. king arthur’s daughter morgan was evil. she wanted to live forever but only king arthur was immortal. when siblings hate each other it’s because the parents had a favorite. my mother was an alcoholic. i was scared. i was going to get the alcoholic gene. i got the cancer gene instead.
how do i know if i like abuse or not when so much about love is suffering for it, i said.
there’s a crazy man in the park killing children. he rapes them. he likes to see them die slowly. he uses a knife. they say he is the catholic church.