Sometime in November, he grew some kind of courage to announce,
"you know, the first woman i ever loved was an art teacher!"
"she was the first woman i really looked at in California when we moved there, really beautiful, and alive, she thought about life and told us about how just perfect every small moment could be, you know? just like a fire, you know"
I looked at the ground, not feeling confident, red and blue paint crusted under my finger nails, the smell of cafeteria tacos seeping from my hair.
Leo did not care I don't think.
He is happy. He just nods. Laughs.
He talks in a smooth voice about the photographs on the walls
and smiles if I tell him something that is not positive.
He always asks me where my boyfriend is.
I ask him where his son is, the eight year old with
glasses that sometimes hid with the milk cartons,
asian HIV prevention kits, and
Mexican figurines in the back room.
"Ahh, you." he'd say, and walk away.
I go to see Leo when my coat is feeling particularly
warm, my head particularly heavy, my days particularly
terrible
It's a sanctuary when I need to run from the monotony of a work day, run form the worries of having broken thousands of boundaries that week, by calling the wrong people, painting stripes in the art room corridors, drinking too much orange juice without my name on it from the teacher's lounge, missing home 6 more times then allotted in a day, wearing the same socks twice in a span of four days, yelling at a second grader for being a second grader, or after finding the old church, sneaking behind the alter , laying down, and crying.
Leo doesn't know about any of this. He just gives me free tea. Usually green.
hot and delicious.
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