7:59 a.m. - 2022-05-13
Neptune
It's 6 AM and 28°F in Neptune NJ. I'm standing in the parking lot of The Crystal Inn, a lot the motel shares with a strip club. On the other side of the strip club is a bowling alley. One mile to the east is Asbury Park w/the ancient Atlantic pawing-away, always. In my rented room, a woman I knew (and whose sister I had a crush on) in high school is sleeping. Somehow, through the magic of the internet we've triangulated here and our aging bodies, after a few off-season cocktails on the shore, had make-up sex. Not that we'd ever been in a relationship: we were “making up” for a 35 year old tryst. An episode where lither and suppler versions of our current selves had made a disappointing mess of things. Such is the tragedy of youth.
My otherwise-unremarkable coffee is perfect in context, and the wind has yet to kick up. It's a still, traffic-less Sunday morning. I could live here.
