106 1/2

I am officially scared of you.
You: "Do you like my sign?" (holding a large square carefully lettered and peppered with severe looking little crosses)
Me: "Yeah, Clark, it looks nice"
You: "No, do you like my sign"
Me: "Yeah... good job on it."
You: "Well you know God is having a wedding and if you don't go you can't come...."
You kept going, breathless, shaking that sign at us, The "Christ Saves" vibrating with your punctuation. You, with your huge parka in the middle of the balmy afternoon. You with your unblinking colorless eyes. And we stood there, in our mormon and baptist skins long since shed, immobile, mouths agape.
And then you turned on your heels and walked purposefully away, the sign thrust like a shield in front of you.
The model commented that you were a "scary, scary dude.", advising pepper spray.
I hoisted my camera into the trunk and we left.
I did not cry...
until I got home, tonight, when you hollered at me from the landing about having something you "needed to talk to me about", I pretending that I was on the phone with my mother, "sorry".
"I understand" you clenched, grinding your teeth.
I am shaking, even now.
You, thin and grey and the only person who knows when I come and go.
It takes a crazy to recognize you, dear.
An arsenal of various items to burn and shock Crazy You are on its way, courtesy of the internet, and this lonely pit in my stomach. And I hope you start taking your medication again, because when I am curled in my office at a wee hour I weary of hearing you yell and pitch with fervor at the imaginary somebodys that I know are not in your loft.