GET OFF MY CLOUD

So we got to see more of Boulder than we otherwise would have. That afternoon Bart and Chris and I had lunch and wandered around the pedestrian mall in the center of town, poking around stores selling nifty Western minerals and kites and mountaineering gear. In a bookstore we saw our publicity photo was on the cover of Rocker, what do you know. I didn’t buy it. We hung out for a little while in the mainstream record shop where Jason worked, shooting the shit. He was looking forward to tonight, and I guess I was, too. The mountains stood like a curtain on one side of us and I found myself kind of orienting to them as we walked around, like knowing where downtown was in New York by the World Trade Center.

We went back to the hotel to change clothes and pick up the guitars before heading over to the hall. I was sorting through T-shirts when Ziggy came to the door of my room. “Hey,” he said, and sat on the bed where I was laying shirts out.

“Hey,” I said, not looking up from my sorting.

He sat quietly for a moment, but only a moment. “I want to apologize for the other night.”

“For what?” Black shirts in one pile, white shirts in the other.

“For picking a fight with you. For acting all bent out of shape about Jonathan. I know it was stupid. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He leaned on one arm, making a dip in the bed as he bent toward me. “So, I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” I said, pulling an oversize white shirt with black letters on it from the pile. I folded it apart from the others and started putting the others back into my duffel bag. I should have discovered this ‘I’m busy’ trick with the laundry before.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him suck his lower lip into his mouth. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you.”

“Mad at you for what? I said apology accepted.” I shrugged and looked into his face so he’d believe me. He didn’t move for a few more moments.

“I feel like you’re slipping away from me,” he said.

No shit, Sherlock, I thought, but didn’t say it. You’re only figuring that out now?

I looked back at the shirts in my hands. We were supposed to have a laundry day in San Francisco that we were going to miss from staying the extra day in Colorado. Hopefully the hotel there could do what we needed. Big city hotels did have their advantages.

He still hadn’t moved. I didn’t want to fight. I wanted to tell him to stop driving me away, but I knew that would turn into a fight. Is this what people mean when they say things in movies like Just give me some space? I need some space?

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, after a while.

It was the advice I was giving myself.