(photo via) “This is going to be hard to...

(photo via)

“This is going to be hard to explain,” she said. As she moved across the room and turned down the radio, Elton John was singing the line, “Daniel, you’re a star,” It’s interesting because Ellis, who’s Christian name was Elizabeth came to be called Ellis because of a lisp that she had as a child, you know, she would say, Ellissabeth and it just stuck. It’s interesting because I don’t remember turning on the radio, I don’t remember even having a radio so when she turned it off and said “This is going to be hard to explain,” I was really startled. She crossed back to my side of the room and sat on the arm of the couch and gave me a hard look, then a soft look. I tried to smile but she knows that when I fake a smile or try to smile even without really smiling I look funny, like someone who just put a slice of lemon in their mouth. Who begins a sentence with, “this is going to be hard to explain,” I was thinking, I mean you can or you cannot explain something. What’s hard to explain is why I own a radio with an antenna on it? I don’t remember turning it on, I do however remember hearing Elton come on and start with those words about this guy, Daniel who came back from the war and wanted things to be the same but instead they weren’t, so he flys to Spain to like, run away from all of his life, you know? I don’t think Ellis knows these stupid facts about one pop song from the 70’s but as I sit there on the couch and she’s there, on the arm of the couch with her tight black jeans and button up shirt her hair, messy in her eyes, I just want to tell her about all of this but I know that she’s got this thing that she wants to explain to me, and I’ve got this radio that came from somewhere.

I get up and walk into my kitchen and open the fridge and pull out a diet coke and pop the top and I smell the opening of the can, it’s an old habit but when I was a kid I used to think that some foods were poisoned and that you could smell ‘em. I set the coke down, fidget for a second, and then pick it back up and walk over to the radio and turn it back on, and up, and when I do Spirit In The Sky had come on and I love that shuffle drumming but Ellis stood up as I turned back to the couch and she took off her jacket and as I was about to pass her she stopped me with her left hand from passing her by and going into the bedroom. She looked up at me and said, “Josh, I’m moving, I took a job and I’m moving…”

I walked back over to the radio and shut it off, unplugged it and put in up in a cupboard and leaned against the counter below the cupboard and took a log pull off of the coke and looked at her. “When did you decide this?” I asked. Ellis put her jacket back on and gave me another soft look and said, “Yesterday, baby. Yesterday.”

And then I remembered where I got that radio from, a garage sale that I went to with Patty, our roommate, after we made love, while Ellis was visiting her parents house on the other side of town and I was suppose to be at work. That’s where that damn radio came from.