Hard To Explain

Pirmasens soccer stadium.
At the top.
Inside the crowded room I'm warm and the alcohol is partially to blame. I sip.
I'm looking outside, at the grey, hazy day and below, on the field, as the whistle blows and the game starts.
Someone asks me how I got tickets to the VIP suite. I tell her it's hard to explain. That is a good way to let people know that you don't know how to answer their question. Usually that's how you answer when you don't want to talk to someone. I do anyways.
"Where are you from?" She asks.
That is a question that is also hard to explain, I want to tell her, but I don't feel like expalining. Born somewhere, raised somewhere else, definately not what people claim I am, but, rather, something I think I wish I was. I don't really know.
I settle on, "Kentucky."
"I've never been there," she says. "What does it look like?"
At this point I drink and am really only interested in the conversation because she reminds me of Kentucky.
"Beautiful."
"Didn't you invent fried chicken?"
"Not personally." And then I remember that they have Kentucky bourbon at the bar and we go and get a drink and then walk outside to watch the game.
The cold hits my face as soon as I open the door. I think to myself that I'd rather not feel right now. She tells me she hates this place. I think to myself that I could die here and be content.
I'm not really focused on anything as we sit: the game, the cold, my drink, her conversation, her breasts...nothing.
I feel empty.
Rain falls on the field. I'm sipping on my drink a little faster.
She leans close to me, her coat pulled tight because of the cold wind and whispers into my ear. I half listen.
"You want to go back in?" She says.
The other team is mounting a come-back. I watch as they score to tie the game and then get up and head to the clubhouse. Inside I order another drink and she talks to the owner of the club, who doesn't seem to be interested in her at the momment because his team just blew a 2-0 lead. A waitress walks up to me and hands me my drink and asks what I'm doing later and I drink and tell her, "Nothing. I really don't have anything...."
And before I finish she writes down her phone number and slides it over with a wink. I smile a half-hearted smile. And drink.
The rain falls harder and I think to myself that I could stay here a little while longer.
She asks something.
"I go back in a few days," I say.
"How long is the flight?"
"Too long," I say. Gives you time to think about where you're going and what you're doing and how to do that and what people will say and what you will say to them and how they'd react and how much you'd drink based on their reaction.
I settle on the fact that all of that is hard to expalin and don't say it.
I feel useless, talking to her.
We leave when the game is done and head to a bar. Somewhere. Outside a man and a woman are fighting. I focus mostly on their hot breath, coming out of their mouths in a spiral of smoke and disappearing into the night. She shoves him. I cough as we walk past. He looks at me. She is shouting. Hee drops his bottle and it breaks on the ground, the sound shattering the cold night. I look back to see, but they are in the dark.
We walk into the bar and order drinks. The wind outside blows hard, cold.
We talk. The bar is loud around us.
She asks me again and again I say, "In a few days." She's drunk. I'm drunk, too.
"Are you excited?"
"Not really."
"Why."
"A lot of reasons. It's hard to explain."
"If it's as nice as you say it is, I'd be excited."
"There's a lot I didn't say."
"Why leave?"
"Kind of have to."
"Stay a little longer."
"I've stayed long enough," I lie. I cough again.
"Are you sick?"
"No, just...tired."
"It's early. Why are you tired?"
"What are you drinking?"
"It's a juice with...either....vodka, no, something else...I'm not sure what kind of juice. Or if it's even vodka. It's juice and vodka, I guess."