“ Debbie? Hello?” says Ana, smiling.

“ What?” says Debbie, startled.

“ Wake up girl. You were in dreamland.”

“ Oh, sorry.”

Debbie’ s memories recede like a wave, and like a wave, they will come back again. She cannot stop them.

Somebody, I don’ t know who and where, or where I read it, once wrote that men lead lives of quite desperation. That quote has drilled deep into my head for the simple fact that it is true. Perhaps it has taken a deeper meaning as my waist has grown around me and the hair on my head has started to thin and the ones on my back have increased. It’ s my middle age crisis. There are two antidotes for this malady: divorce the wife and marry a younger broad, or buy a sports car or a motorcycle. I got the Harley but the disease has not abated; instead, I got one more payment book. Anyway, a fancy Harley is way cheaper than a young broad and a divorce.

There is a dullness, an apathy in the things I do, in my relationship with Helen, my wife. A trip to Victoria ’ s Secret won’ t kindle my interest. It’ s something that goes deeper, a tiredness that suffocates me and presses on me like a dark and gloomy day when it feels like you can reach up and touch the bottom of the dark clouds.

It is not her fault, but I don’ t think it is mine either. I, we, have walked in this path for so long to end up at the edge of a desert that offers no comfort, and we stay where we are because there is nothing worth going for anywhere else. We are stranded.

Helen and I sleep in the same bed out of habit but not out of a desire to share our lives. We try to be civil to each other and for the most part succeed at it but now and then the dryness of our relationship rubs hard and we cross words, bitter words spoken softly that hurt more than screams and flung dishes.

I have thought about calling it quits, and I’ m sure that she has had the same thought many a time. Our son, Dorman, calls from college up in Boulder when he’ s broke and when he is going to come home to visit but I’ m sure he can feel the stress between Helen and I, like cold water running unseen under the ice crust of a frozen river. So Dorman stays in Boulder as much as he can, and I don’ t blame him. Who needs this shit?

My Harley rumbles like a machine from hell as I go through the tunnels on Highway 6, riding up the canyon towards Central City. I’ m a speck against the walls of stone on each side of the road where curled up trees hang to life on rocky ledgers defying gravity and the impossible elements. You gotta be tough to make it; you gotta be relentless on your desire to survive. I like riding into old mining towns, walking through their abandoned cemeteries because the misery and hard times of the folks underground make me look like a whiner, me, fat and rich and expecting to live past sixty five, and bitching about nothing. I lay my hands on miners’ tombstones as if expecting to draw their hardness into myself, as if the will to keep on going could come from an old stone and the bones underneath.

I never ride with Helen; she won’ t get on my bike for anything. She hates the damned thing. So I go riding alone and she goes shopping or visits one of her many relatives living around the Front Range. To tell you the truth, I don’ t care what the hell she does. Sometimes I ride with my buddies and those are good times because I get to share small talk with other human beings, and that keeps me grounded. Solitude is a double edged sword; it can do you good but it can also make you insane. It is hard to tell which edge I have against my throat.

Debbie smokes behind the counter, inhaling hard and holding the smoke as long as she can. It’ s her fourth smoke and she has to make it last; she has to get as much nicotine as she can out of each precious drag. The jukebox is playing Pink Floyd’ sThe Great Gig in the Sky.A weird song for a jukebox, thinks Debbie. The female singer’ s voice raises and the vocal chords tickle Debbie’ s spine. The song may be an old one but that powerful voice is timeless. Debbie tries to guess who dropped the quarter for that song. Randy? He was an old hippie. Carl? probably not, he is more of a dead head.

The jukebox stops for a few seconds and a new song starts: Pink Floyd’ s Money.What the hell? Debbie shakes her head and smiles to herself. Somebody is going back in a time machine fueled by alcohol and music. The song goes strong and heads start to bob up and down with the beat. Some of them don’ t even know they are doing it. The old guy by the corner is either high as a kite or he’ s digging into the music, or he’ s both. Debbie would bet money he is the one responsible for the jukebox’ s unusual repertoire.

Charlie shakes his empty glass in front of his face and smiles at Debbie. She fills it up with foamy tap beer.

“ Want some pretzels hon? Here, on the house, ” says Debbie. She places a paper basket full of the salty fare in front of Charlie.

“ Thank you sweety, ” says Charlie. Debbie takes a couple of bills from the pile of small bills and loose coins in front of him, goes to the cash register and makes change. She puts the change back on Charlie’ s pile and he doesn’ t bother to check it. He never does. Nobody does at the Night Owl. They come to drink and to ogle at Debbie, not to worry about her getting them short changed, and if she did, so what? They will leave mostly all the change as her tip at the end of the night anyway. A small price to pay for some pleasant female company and for watching her pretty smile.

Two more Pink Floyd songs go by. Debbie believes that the old guy in the corner is going to have an orgasm. Glyn Preston enters the bar and smiles at Debbie right form the threshold. She reciprocates. Glyn walks to the jukebox and puts a few bills into in and starts pressing the keyboard. Debbie and all the regulars in the bar know what he is up to: blues. His broad back is stooped over the jukebox and its lights make his dark skin shine like a vinyl long play. His ivory teeth framed inside his everlasting smile glow with an electric blue hue as he presses the keys. The Pink Floyd guy is going to get kicked off his cloud when B.B. King starts belching The Thrill is Gone.Glyn is a blues aficionado, a rather dedicated one, and his personal collection holds many old and obscure records, but for a jukebox that plays Pink Floyd, Johnny Cash and Sinatra, B.B. King and Johnny Langare adequate.

Glyn sits at the bar and Debbie serves him his Scotch and soda without him having to ask for it. He will run a tab until closing time. After closing time him and Debbie may or may not got to a motel and have sex. They don’ t know for sure until they are in the parking lot and look at each other. There is no need to say a word. Some nights it feels like the right thing to do and others it doesn’ t.

The odd couple they are, mismatched in size, color, marital status, musical taste and everything else that could be of interest to a match maker but somehow their oddness is their link, knowing that their playful sexual romps cannot be become anything else. They enjoy each others company, have sex and small talk and leave each other in good spirits, without any debts standing, without issues to be solved later, without promises or guarantees.

Tonight they smile to each other in the parking lot and end up in the Lucky You motel. The pink neon lights adorning the edges of the balconies outside make their way into their room through the thin curtains and bathe their naked bodies. Debbie always has to get on top because Glyn is too big to do it the other way around. White on black glowing in pink and Debbie’ s stump ignored by both. After sex they talk for hours about nothing and go at it again. They never go to sleep together and always leave in separate ways when the sex is done with and there is nothing else to talk about.