Sometime later

Columbus, Ohio.

In the evening we sit and drink around a glass table on her balcony.
I'm in a place I don't know so that makes me not care and me not caring makes my whole world feel like the cool beer I drink which is smooth and pushes my thoughts into the "sometime later" category of my brain. Or maybe the beer makes me feel that way. Either way, things are calm and I'm calm, and collected, and not thinking about a damn thing that I don't want to think about.
There's five of us. We all turn our eyes to the night sky as a firework of sorts explodes in the sky 20 yards away.
"That was pretty," she says.
And I agree.
She keeps talking and I half listen because at the same time I'm thinking to myself that me not really thinking about anything important is a welcome relief. Usually I think too much about things and that makes me drink. Right now I'm just drinking for drinking's sake and I think that that's alright. She talks. Something about her friend or sister's friend getting hit by a train.
"The bad thing about that is that there are a lot of pieces," he says.
That's kind of morbid, but true.
Pieces are always hard to pick up, I think, and picking up the pieces is always hard.
"It's harder to find all the pieces," he says next.
How incredibly morbid. Searching for something like that. But it's true and I feel I should praise him on his philosophy because the hardest part is finding all the right pieces. And all of a sudden I'm thinking. I drink again. How incredibly paralleling to my life, I think.
"Where are you from?" He asks the girl next to me who is pretty and whom he's been eyeing since we've sat down.
"California."
And next somebody asks me where I'm from but I don't know because I don't think I'm really from anywhere because of all the places I've been and I can't say I'm from Nowhere because that would be wrong, I think, so I settle on the place I was born, but spent little time in.
"California," I say.
And the one from California smiles at me.
We decide to go to a bar and we drive.
We drive passed some rivers. Over some bridges. Down some roads. I have the window open and am staring at the night sky thinking that I wish I wanted to go sky diving because you can really see more of the world from higher places and the rush would be nice to feel and he leans over and asks, smiling, if I know where I am. I'm a tourist. I don't. Crossed too many bridges, passed too many rivers, seen too many things and now I'm lost, I tell him. Lost in Ohio.
I don't like Ohio. The whole place seems so fake. Too perfect. Too many malls and luxury houses and backyard pools and every family living out the American Dream with cookouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'd like Ohio if I had my own Ohio, I think. But Ohio is just a place I visit. Like many things I strive for.
Myphone rings and it's my rommate from back home. I decline the call. He leaves a message saying no one has seen me for last couple of days. It feels good to have disappeared, I think.
We step into a bar in between two others, one called Sugar, the other Spice.
"A lot of things nice." He says, glancing at a girl with a skirt too short. I stare at her and drink.
I finish my bottle. The girl next to me hands me a Corona, while everyone else in the group a Miller. I thank her for the better beer and toast to California and think that I could have thought of a better toast, like to life or friendship or her half-exposed chest or that girl over there's lower body.
The bartender is cute, I'm told. I don't know which one is the topic of conversation so I just nod.
I'm sitting with the three girls and my friend at a table by the bar and they talk about a spicy topic and I start to argue with the one from California and she argues back and we are shouting and I think about smashing my bottle on the table and holding up the jagged edge to force her to see my side, but then...
"Lets just agree to disagree," she says.
"The perfect conclusion. Very PC." I say. "I was just about to say that exact thing." And I think that that's weird, because I would have said that.
We talk more, about the failures of soceity and the failures of life and I think that I need another drink so I start looking for a gap in the crowded bar and she sees my distressed face.
"Wait here." She says. And I wait. And she comes back with another drink and I think that, if all the other women in my life were like her, then I'd probably be living in Ohio.
As we head out of the bar I see a toothless hobo walking up to people. He walks up to me and asks for cash and I hand him the beer I hadn't finished and he thanks me and I keep walking, thinking that alcohol always shut people up. Or makes them talk more.
"You're cute," my friend says to a girl and she doesn't know what to say because he moved in on her so fast.
"My ride's here." she says and she disappears around the corner. He runs after her screaming that he could drive her home.
The emptiness of shadows is always near in the city at night.
Driving back, I think that things would be a lot easier if we all agreed or at least agreed to disagree and let it go.
We drop the three girls in our group off at their apratment as another firework sizzles in the sky.
One of them looks at me.
"I'll never see you again." She says.
"Probably not."
"Will do you leave tomorrow?"
"Yes, for a while."
"I forgot I had to work tomorrow."
"I wish I could forget more."
"Tonight was fun."
"Tonight was fun."
"Well. Sometime later then."
"Sure." I lie.
"Ohio is here." She puts one fist up. "You are here." She puts her other fist under it. "Easy."
"Sure." I lie.
And I leave.