October Memoir and Backstory Challenge - week#2 - relationships

October Memoir and Backstory Challenge -  week#2


The theme is Relationships.
Memories or incidents involving our parents, siblings, friends, romantic interludes, marriages, even our children or grandchildren. 

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Bob


I first meet Bob over the phone
Do you have any books about sex? he asks
Yes. Who are you looking for?
Maybe I am looking for you, he says
Maybe you are, I think.

We meet for dinner at a vegan place
He is twice my age and twice as animated
Life, he says, flows through him,
a gift from Brother Charles

Last summer, he tells me,
he traveled to Virginia,
and not to the cottage,
and stayed with Brother Charles in a trailer park,
with other seekers.
He shows me a photograph and points himself out
I'd never recognize him in the clown makeup
He was spiritually freed there, he says wistfully

One night as I lay in warm water in his downtown apartment bathtub
he challenges me,
Standing over me he demands to know why I follow a dead prophet,
Arms folded he steps back to lean against the wooden door frame.

We have our first ridiculous fight.

In time I note his tolerance does not extend to other drivers in rush hour traffic,
and he despairs,
frequently,
that his beat up old station wagon is a reflection on him
and in spite of all his inner work,
he still wants a new car.