My Cardboard Balcony

Sharpie Mustache by Belinda Roddie It wasn't an Adolf Hitler approach, nor a vague attempt at an even vaguer Salvador Dalí (we'd need the drooping pocket watch to bring out the full effect, especially with our buddy seeming to melt himself on the hand-me-down couch). It was, merely, a bittersweet attempt at the debonair top hat slouch riding solo in a drunken horseless carriage, the English air billowing between his inked lips, the crooked smile accomplished by the crumbs of combo pizza stuck behind the molars, the nostrils flared from the burn of Tennessee honey still conversing with his small intestine. The black marker goatee was a plus.

We were enemies in elementary school. Enemies in middle school. Apathetic in high school. But by the time we stumbled into each other - me raw from a piss poor college experience, back working at my father's hardware store, her ever glowing from getting a hairstyling license - something changed. We stared at each other across from the pub. She waved. I smiled.