Old Old House... Pt.2

It had been a late night, not for me because I was used to staying up much later than this. I stay up until the the heroic hours the hours that are practically the next day. If you want to be practical about it, I never am, or I never used to be. It was, on the other hand a late night for her, her slight frame scuttling across the parking lot toward her car. It was freezing cold, and there was ice that we narrowly missed on the way in. I had a moment to wait while she unlocked the doors, my hand went into the front pocket of my jeans and found the small square piece of wood in there. I turned it around and around in my hand, feeling the edges, feeling the splinters. A hole that held a nail that held maybe a picture was in the wood. I got in the car and shivered from the cold outside, the heat blaring through the vents. "You know," Suzy said, "I still remember your old phone number, when you lived at that townhouse, before you had a cell phone or anything."
I heard her voice, but the sound of shutters slamming in the wind sort of drowned her out. "old number..townhouse...before..phone."
"its because the last four digits spelled out M-N-K-E, monkey. Get it? so the whole number was 284 monkeys, I just imagined all those monkeys in a cage whenever I had to think of your number."
"yeah, I thought so" I said. Suzy had placed her hand on my thigh at this point and was moving it up and down. "It's funny, you know I dont remember very much about that time in my life, I mean I can remember a lot, but I dont remember feeling anything, except the times when you were around."
wind chimes, I heard wind chimes. I swore there was a wind chime maybe hanging on her rear view mirror swaying in the breeze of the vents, but there wasn't. I felt for a minute that I was in the midst of the wind that blows around in an empty birdhouse when the bird has flown.
I had this feeling suddenly hit me in the stomach. I was in a car, in the cold, in the night with my cousins girlfriend. I was making a mistake. Thats not what was in my stomach, that wasn't the weight that I had felt, the weight wasn't a feeling, I began to think it was an actual object. A tumor? maybe. I think it was suzy here that once told me that her grandmother had a ten pound tumor removed from her stomach and when they took it out, the doctor held it up while a picture was taken of it, thats how you know something was really fucked up with you, when they operate on you, they take a fucking picture of whatever comes out of you. When they took the tumor out, they picked it apart and there was teeth and hair inside of it.
"her evil twin", i thought. Maybe I have an evil twin inside myself too. some half-formed semi-sentient flesh ball that is pissed off that he wasn't the one born and he doesn't have a dick or hands to jack off with at least even if he did, and if he is going to take it out on anyone, its going to be me. I was beginning to postulate that all cancer was the remains of a jealous potential twin that was just extracting it's revenge on its host brother when Suzy spoke up again.
"Do you remember that time when I got ditched by those friends I had, and I walked like, I don't know three miles to your place, you were in that townhouse, I ended up at your back patio door and I knocked forever until you let me in. I remember I was freezing, I was only wearing a hoodie and some short shorts, do you remember? do you remember that?"
"Do you have a picture of yourself on your refrigerator?", I suddenly found myself asking her.
"Do I have... Do I have a what?"
"A picture of yourself. Do you have a picture of yourself on your refrigerator?"
"Well, yeah, but how did you...know I had that old picture on there? I mean its from when my dad and I took a trip to-"
"Will you please take it down from there?"
Suzy had both her hands firmly on the wheel at this point.
"You want me to.. um, ok. fine. yeah I will take the picture down if that's what you want, ok?"
"That would.. mean a lot to me." I said.
I turned straight ahead towards the wet road. I thought I might feel a bit troubled by my sudden rough exchange, but instead I feel sort of comforted. Maybe something rough and ugly had been expelled from me. I face forward and the road is wet, but the sky is clear and the tires hiss on the road like static on a desperate radio.
The rain is streaming on the window now behind her head...