Mezcal memory

Not that I'm any kind of expert, but mezcal has a distinctive vibe to it. It alters me uniquely. Today, I found myself remembering along a different frequency a photograph of you taken many years ago. You were 19 years old then and we'd known each other for about six months. Plenty long enough for me to have gone crazy. 

You'd moved to the Cape for the summer, found a job in a kind of fancy brick oven pizza place on the main drag, and a room in a rooming house. The owners of the restaurant were a bi-racial couple in their early 30's. He seemed mellow, sensible and even tempered. She was a flame. They were pregnant and planned to have an all natural home birth which turned out to consist of her walking out into a field alone, squatting down and delivering sans assistance. He cooked the placenta in a cast iron frying pan with onions and ate it in order to be an integral part of things. 

There was this photo of you looking out the window of that restaurant taken from outside. You seemed unaware of being photographed. I spent a lot of jealous energy wondering who took that photo that summer. Your face was so beautiful, but when you showed it to me, my heart immediately sank. We were a part of each other by then. In each other's chemistry. But I could see no trace of my presence in your eyes. You were looking out and forward. You seemed hungry and anticipating. Meanwhile, I'd been looking in and backward, toward memories of you. 

I remember a man named David frequently sitting in that place. He wore all his clothes at once. They probably called him a schizophrenic, but to us then he was a sort of holy man. A shaman. I knew he wasn't there for the free coffee and water you gave him. He was there for you, just as I was. He was there to watch you move about the room, doing your work, hoping you'd look our way with your dark Spanish eyes and the gift of your smile. 

He spoke to you gently. His voice was soft and high. 

Jennifer, he'd say. So young. So pretty.

He said it with the same ache.