Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the WB, Amy Sherman-Palladino or her and her husbands creation Gilmore Girls.

Spoiler Warning(s): Nothing specific but it's a post Recipes and Raincoats.

Rated: Not rated at the moment but if I had to guess probably PG for a few crass words.

I Think of Ice Cubes

Staring at my shoes as I walk down the street I half know what I'm doing here. I'm wearing blue Jack Purcells the laces going grey in spots, I forgot to put on socks and I spent all my cash on parking and coffee. I feel jittery and the beginning of a blister on my left heal. I keep my eyes forward, conjure a don't-mess-with-me-face and keep moving. I don't apologize when my shoulder collides with somebody else's, I just keep moving through the crowds I always thought were oppressive but today they give off a din that makes me think-- White Noise. I turn a corner and become momentarily lost not allowing myself the luxury of panic. I go back on the numbers I scrawled on the back of my hand, two blocks off five more blocks east-- I'm on my way.

Last night we lost power and had to stifle through part of the night without air conditioning. My mother grumbled her way down to the basement with a Ladybug shaped flashlight to look at the fuse box, turns out the last replacement fuse was in need of replacement. Mom went on a mini rampage put too many ice cubes down her shirt and called Luke, whom I know she'd left only two hours before. I watched them do their banter or exercise in flirtation-- they try their best to hide it. I saw them standing on the basement steps; her one step above, him lecturing her on proper fuse box up keep a look of utter mirth in his eyes. I walked outside to clear my head then decided my car radio and A.C was better than swatting mosquitos and breathing in the humidity. I sat in my car radio on scan A.C on full blast not thinking about the romance going on inside between my touched mother and my-- the closest things to a steadfast father figure in my life, which is wholly bizarre for me to admit even to myself.

I think of ice cubes as I walk down the street getting closer obfuscating my mind with thoughts of ice; lemonade, icy lemonade, distracting me from what I'm about to do or not do. I've turned around twice walked half a block stopped then walked back.

Last night I fell asleep in my car, I woke up to the sound of the side door snicking shut and twigs snapping under somebody's foot. I watched Luke leave my house, the sky dark purple cold conditioned air pushing up my nose. I watched him pass holding his hat in his hands, half asleep I fleetingly thought it was weird to see him holding his hat like some sort of gentlemen caller, now I realize that's exactly what he is.

I hear Usher, Jay. Z, The Gypsy Kings and Los Lobos rivaling in one building their drown-able sounds spilling onto the sidewalk. I hope that's not his building the numbers read right though plain and white in their painted shapes. If only the Two Headed Monster dealt in numbers instead of letters they'd come up on my screen, pull the numbers apart make a new one and sound it out the whole way through, maybe make my life make sense. I feel sweat trickle down my spine and into the waist band of my skirt.

These hot days, is the mad blood stirring. I mumble as I climb the stoop. One of the front doors locks is hanging loose and broken leaving the door prone to anybody, great neighborhood. I pass a row of plain metal mailboxes a door booming Sex and Candy and The Long Black Veil. I smile at the thought of Marcy Playground over powering Johnny Cash. Behind one door I hear a baby crying and a woman screaming in broken English. There's a pile to my knee of the Post stacked by one door an issue of Jugs laying proud on top. The walls have that neglected grey tinge, carpeting lines the floor it's thin and not helping muffle the creaks and groans the floor makes as I pass door after door. The stairs sit at the back of the building, a couple of feet from the bottom a firedoor opens to the back alley, a window shows off the red brick of the neighboring building. I peer through the dirty glass and notice a naked can half full of dead cigarettes sitting on the back step. I can just see him sitting out there absently flicking one of those cigarettes the other hand gripping a book. Holding the cigarette in the corner of his mouth while he turns the pages, I can hear him breathe through his nose when he gets to the good parts.

On autopilot I climb the stairs making my way up four flights. I count off the alphabet down to the 7th door to the right, door F, apartment F.
I stand in front of his door, to my right is another line of mailboxes, J. Mariano handwritten on a slip of paper-- his mailbox. Two other names are written on the card, T. Vorhees and W. Tobias-- roommates. There's music being played behind the door I can hear it through the wood, it's not very loud so I can't tell what it is; not knowing is making me curious enough to raise my hand to knock, but I don't because the door opens just as my knuckles touch down.

Um... Hi? My hand is still up I bring it back to my side. The person standing inside the door is tall, his light brown hair is a mess he looks a little frazzled and well-- annoyed. I step back, fiddle with my watch, push my hair behind my ears.

Does Jess Um I mean... does Jess Mariano live here

He's still looks frazzled. Do you wanna wait for him he's supposed to be back in an hour...? Or something.

I then notice his knees bouncing like he has to go to the bathroom really bad abruptly he turns back into the apartment leaving the door wide open. I watch him rummage around a mattress dressed in mismatched sheets and a clean looking blanket. The music is still playing and I finally recognize it as that Toto song only it's not Toto it's someone covering Toto.

Really you can wait here if you want, better than the stoop or the hall. Frazzled Boy says still bending over what I can only guess is his area. I try not to cringe when I notice a dried up pot of Spaghetti-O's sitting on top of their mini stove.

Uh it's a great offer but um... you don't even know who I am. He looks up at that.

You don't know who I am either but I'm um... okay you're right who are you?

He sits on top of his mattress holding a baseball cap emblemised with what I guess is a restaurant name. I'm still standing in the door, he's all the way across the room.

You can come in. he says.

Thank you, I enter the room I'm a... I don't know what to call myself.

I'm an... old friend of Jess', my name's Rory. I half expect him to tell me to get the hell out but he shows no recognition at the sound of my name.

Okay Rory old friend of Jess', I'm Todd one of the roommates and I'm late for work. At that he gets up from his mattress and walks passed me.

The one to your left is his, help yourself to whatever we have in the fridge, nice meeting you, lock and shut the door.

I hear him jog down the hall and slam down the stairs. I look around the whole of the apartment the door still wide open. There are three locks I leave the chain lose and turn the lock on the doorknob.

The one on the left is his. I say out loud looking at the mattress not four feet from me. It's like Todd's; mismatched sheets, sad looking stack of pillows, clean but ratty blanket there's a couple of piles of books, this is what tells me it's his. Of Human Bondage; My Dark Places, Of Mice and Men, A Farewell to Arms, The Portable Poe, William Shakespeare's King Lear, The Tempest, The Blessing Way, 100 Selected Poems E.E Cummings, A Clock Work Orange, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, On the Road, American Psycho, and surprisingly Reviving Ophelia and Little Women are visible by their spines and covers -- almost every last one is paperback. There's a red spiral notebook lying next to his mattress, college ruled, over a hundred pages, slightly bent, the pages look well turned. I kneel down to pick it up, opening the book I read what's written on the back of the cover Jess Mariano Self Proclaimed Searcher. I've never heard or read something so optimistic about him before and the idiosyncratic thing is that he wrote it himself. I smile dropping slow to my knees, maneuvering onto his mattress I kick off my Jack Purcells and sit Indian Style on top of his blanket. I hesitate when I turn a few pages into the notebook but swallow the feeling and read on.

So I was flipping through this copy of Cold Mountain
and I realized it was yours. Guess if I ever finish
this letter I should send the book along with it. I'm
sorry I left like I did, but I had to. I had to find
out if there's someplace else. Where things are
different, where I am different. I just want something
different.

It is clearly written in blue ink, the month and the year written at the top, May 2003. I shut the notebook and concentrate on the music playing on Todd's stereo. It's a mix CD or tape. Half the songs I don't recognize except when songs like Machine Head and Blister in the Sun come on. I turn the notebook over in my hands there's a couple of separated paragraphs written down on the back.

So much there is to see, but our morning eyes describe a different world than do our afternoon eyes, and surely our wearied evening eyes can report on a weary evening world. And, boulavards or Montreal or my truckdriving honey-colored love New Haven pier crash days with pows of seas, dry muds, spiders, slants, pits, trestles, caves, necktie racks, Swiss, rock, smosh, pot, pone, poll, pall, pill, pell, purl, pash, posh, Tim, Tyler, Tom, Reading the Daily News, Finding the Shrouded Stranger, the desert, the arrow, the rat in the CLIMB(paste that in ya hat)... I'm on the road to heaven. Book of Dreams written underneath the last. The first quote I don't know but the last I think is Jack Kerouac. I skip to the center of the notebook and read a stanza of a poem I think Jess wrote.

I don't want to move on/I just want to move.

Scribbles of sentences follow.

The Office Depot
clipboard comes down on my head the dull corner
cutting. and,

The look of her is familiar, an easy smile with
small white teeth and a tongue and a voice that still
hold shades of childhood.

I skim the pages written in variations of black and blue and pencil.

The sun is rising turning the sky red, orange and
cobalt. I take a few quiet breathes sitting down in
front of the open window I pull the blind over my head
telling myself to think of nothing but the colors.

The notebook is full of beginnings and ends of stories; poems, brainstorms, outlines, observations, lists and letters.

I woke up this morning for the first time in
California, I looked outside at the palm trees and
thought-- what am I doing here? I walked to the beach
and watched the diehard surfers cut the water before
the lifeguards showed up for work. I had pizza with my
father last night, I never thought I'd say that let
alone write it but it's true-- I had pizza with my
father last night and I slept on his floor last night
too. I feel better I think I'm going to be OK, someday
I hope we'll be OK

I feel a heavy feeling welling up in my chest like-- a sob but I catch myself and hold it down. Shutting the notebook I pick up the only hardcover in Jess' collection, flipping it open to a random page I start reading.

Then kiss me, silly. The song's almost over.

So James did it. Arched back, with her face looming over his own, James kissed Rally. It was a good kiss -- not a great one -- with some touching of their tongues, and a hard click of their front teeth. When it ended, Rally stood James on his feet. The dance was over, and James blushed, waiting to find out how he'd done.

Have you... been thinking about me too he said

Rally took James's hand''

The sound of a key turning brings me back I shift at the sound my mind going blank, the buildings noises becoming acute in my ears along with my breath. I sit with his book held in both my hands. He enters. His shoulder taught, keys jingling he's wearing sunglasses, he doesn't see me. Shutting the door with his foot heading straight across the room, he stands in front of the row of windows lining the opposite wall. In a white t-shirt his skin is an easy two shades darker from the last time we saw each other. I watch him bend and adjust Todd's stereo on a slow note and a voice full of gravel I don't know, he removes his sunglasses and rubs his eyes all weary like, breathing in time to the song. If I were writing this, my handwriting would be getting sloppy and big watching his movements-- idiosyncrasies.



He jumps at the sound of my voice; the blare of a emergency vehicle passes under the window as he turns and stares his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

Credits: these hot days, is the mad blood stirring. ACT III, SCENE I. The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare, Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham Copyright 1915(Bantam Classic); My Dark Places By James Ellroy REPRINT COPYRIGHT September 1997 Random House Publishing Inc, Of Mice and Men By John Steinbeck, A Farewell to Arms By Ernest Hemingway, The Portable Poe published by Viking Press in September 1945, King Lear by William Shakespeare, The Tempest By William Shakespeare, The Blessing Way by Tony Hillerman, 100 Selected Poems E.E Cummings Grove Press 1959, A Clock Work Orange by Anthony Burgess W. W. Norton & Company; Reissue edition (November 1986) , A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith Perennial; 1st Perennial Classics ed edition (September 1, 1998) , On the Road by Jack Kerouac, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, Little Women by Louise May Alcot, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Copyright 1997 Atlantic Monthly Press. So much there is to see... - Travels with Charley Copyright 1961, 1962 by the Curtis Publishing Co, Inc, Copyright 1962 by John Steinbeck,boulavards or Montreal... of seas? - Book of Dreams Copyright. 1958 reissued 2001 Jack Kerouac, Then kiss me, silly. The song's almost over. from Telling it all to Otis in Kissing in Manhattan Copyright 2001 David Schickler also Random House, Inc. Every last piece of poetry, fiction, nonfiction or music used or mentioned in this story does not belong to me I use it purely as a tool to further this piece of original fan fiction and I am receiving no profit from their use, please for the love of everything artistic and good do not sue me I own nothing except myself. The Shakespeare is free though I know that much is true.