If It Didn't Suck....

I had heard she lived a few blocks from where I had moved too. I had left 44th street around April of 1993 and didn't really look back. I was playing phone tag with Maryann from the old neighborhood, who had said she ran into Dora's brother (half brother on her father's side) and he had given her his new number and Dora's as well. While I knew there was nothing to rekindle, I did think it would be cool to talk to her again.

I called her on my cell phone and she told me where she lived, since I was on the phone in my car driving home I drove down her block. She asked where I was and not knowing enough to lie, I said I was outside her apartment. She said to come on up. So I tried to squeeze my 1984 Delta 88 Royale Broughm into a parking spot, which is no small feat if you have ever seen one of those monstrosities.

I guess the decor of her place was post apocalyptic squalor. Empty beer and liquor bottles as well as overflowing ashtrays adorned the table and counter top. It wasn't the worst looking place I had ever been in, actually it wasn't even close, but it was pretty bad considering how I felt about her and what I had wished for her. She told me she was living with some guy she met at a bar who got her into her current profession, no get your mind out of the gutter.

She was a psychic reader on the phone. She did Tarot Cards and Readings at 2 bucks a minute. This was rather interesting because I know she has no innate psychic ability and she admitted as much, she would get a call and talk to the person, (after getting credit info and verification) and try to get a feel for the person and go from there. If she was buzzed or high she said that she would make stuff up as she went along. I hate to admit it but Dora was no Ms Cleo.

As I sat there and waited as she took a client over the phone I surveyed her life. She wasn't the hot and pretty girl I knew, she was now a young woman who looked older than her years, and also a bit unhealthy. With some unhealthy life choices and men choices. I wondered then if she were happy. I wondered what things be like if she had given me a chance back then. And in situations like this I usually project. I envisioned what life could have been like for her, for me, if we had gone that route and in every scenario it seemed better for me, for her, than it was now and instead of being happy that I had reconnected with an old friend I was left saddened by her life and what had become of it, and I hoped that she would get out of her rut and be the young and fiery woman with a thirst for life that I had once known.

After her call we gave one another a perfunctory kiss and promised to keep in touch. It was a promise we both broke. I did not see her again until a decade later.