To Be Continued in a hap hazard state.

My guitar was broken. The action seemed to be messed up, but really the neck had been split in the ugliest of ways. I remembered dear Forbes and wrote the unenunciating fool a note. I left it on the door he told me he lived in and it read:

Hello Forbes! My guitar is fucked up! Perhaps you could help me fix it.

Sincerely,

Janel in 2R.

Later that day came a knock at my door. I had already grown too impatient after an hour an decided that I needed to take it to a shop and get a quote on the price to repair it. So when he knocked, I had nothing to offer but myself.

"You can come upstairs to my place if you'd like. My roommate and I are just having a couple of drinks and then heading to a holiday pot luck. You should join us."

"I'll be up in a minute", I said.

And in a minute or two I was climbing the two flights up. I knocked at the door and was met with a ferocious bark. It was the dog.

A Story Can Be Told Many Different Ways (Working Title)

I'm a block away from my apartment as I reach into my pocket and pull out my keys. With my hands I feel around the ring to find which key I'm going to need to get into my building. Around me, sirens whale and malnourished babies scream. Two men are in a scuffle just ahead outside of a bodega. The strange thing about the culture of my neighborhood is that I can never tell if people are actually fighting or just joking around. It's as if every conversation requires a raised voice if it's going to be meaningful.

The steps to my building loom in the distance and the closer I get my pace quickens. I try to look calm but I know fear is radiating off of me so much that if a pack of wild dogs were to run by, I'd be as good as dead. I pretend I am comfortable walking home at this time of night so as not to attract unnecessary attention. Who am I kidding? I'm a 5'4", 108 lb redhead who lives in the ghetto. People notice me.

I climb the stairs and get into my lobby. I'm in the vestibule and see what I believe to be a man behind me. I let out something like a scream but then realize that what I thought was a reflection was actually a man standing on the other side of the glass door, only looking hazy because it hasn't been cleaned in years. He looks up.

"You scared me", I said.

The man just looks at me. He's got curly hair and a guitar on his back. His face is angular and strange looking. He stands tall but something about his body seems to cave inward.

"Have you ever been hitch hiking?", I ask.

Hitch hiking was just one of the many obsessions I have had this winter. I find myself hung up on a subject and then try to find out as much as I possibly can about it. I was in the phase where every stranger I met I would ask if he/she experienced it. Before he was even able to answer, I went into this diatribe about how this summer I planned to go hitch hiking across the country, staying in tents, random houses, and at organic farms through the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (otherwise known as WWOOF) This made him perk up.

"I've done that! Hey, my name is Forbes."

I couldn't understand what he was saying to me.

"What?"

"Forbes."

It sounded like his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth because he had eaten too many sour candies.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Forbes."

"How do you spell it?"

He didn't spell it. Instead he said, "Forbes, like the magazine."

"Ooooooh.... FORBES," I over-enunciated.

"I'm Janel and I should go. See you around the building," I said as I spun on my heel and hurried up the stairs without giving him a chance to say anything more. I think I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to understand him.


-------------------

TO BE CONTINUED