ghost of you (yes is for first class)

"If you were here, would you calm me down?" I sing to no one.
"That isn't a song lyric of your own."
"I know."
"What if you were still in Tucson?"
"The ghost would still linger."
"You are a plagiarizer."
"I will be in Austin Texas tomorrow. Is that plagiarism?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"Your fingers."
"What?"
"How will you think of me when I'm gone?"
"You aren't making sense."
"Aren't I?"
"Stop."
"Stop what?"
"You're not saving--"
"--what? huh? What am I not saving for you?"
"My sanity."
"Sanity is overrated, I thought you said."
"The ghost of you lingers," I quote a song.
"There you go again--"
"Plagiarizing."
"Plagiarizing," she says.

---

"You might get caught by the cops."
"Why?"
"Because your neighbors will call them."
"Why?"
"Ashley, don't be a jackass."
"No, listen to me," I begin my litigious rhetoric, "I pulled that fan from the sandy banks of the river across they road on their property, so I don't know why pulling something from their property onto their property would be illegal, and I'd use the same persuasive rhetoric with the cops if they did have the wherewithal to call the authorities. Technically," I drive home my point, "it isn't vandalism because I'm only bringing the garbage from their property closer to the house on that same property."
Her political pause and cynical clause indicates a rebuttal of brief silence,
so I continue, "They cannot arrest me for bringing my neighbors belongings closer to the main property, can they?"
"No, I guess they can't, but your moot point will lost to mute neighbors," she cleverly muses.
"Ah, fuck it," I say as I flip the motion light off, and head for the front porch where the junkyard electric fan awaits its toss over the fence.
"What's that Frost poem about good neighbors and bad fences?" I ask myself as I rubber-boot my way across wet grass, and to the fence between us and our rotting neighbors.

---

"What did you do?
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, how did you make them realize--"
"That it wasn't me?"
"Yeah."
"I simply waited for a car."
"A car?"
"Yes, a car."
"But how did you--"
"No more questions. I simply tossed the fan over the fence at just the right time; can we leave it at that?"
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"yes."
"yes, then it's settled, no?"
"No?"
"Yes."
"yes, no, yes?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake, I did it, but you know that already, so can we please go to bed now?"
"Yes."
"YES!"

---

"Are you excited?"
"Yes!"
"Are you leaving soon?"
"Yes."
"It's for your anniversary?"
"Yes."
"You love her?"
"If you weren't in my dream, I'd slap you for stupidity."
"The ghost of her lingers."
"Goddamn you, Freud, I'll...."

"Ashley!! Stop...you're choking me with your fingers."
"Sorry," I wake up with whiskers in my throat.
"We have to get to the airport soon."
"Yes...first class?"

"No, are you plagiarizing priority?"