“See, P, you have always been my only connection. You are the only way I can connect to where I am and what is going on. It was like this when we met. I have never belonged in this world as it is until I met you. From the minute I met you I had a place I could go that made sense.”

“Now see, I don’t know what you’re talking about. You have always seemed normal to me. Oh, you’re a wing nut, but you know. In a good way. You’re a happy freak.”

“Yeah well that’s true. But I don’t understand what’s going on around me and I never have. I’ll give you an example. When I first moved here to the United States I could speak English. But I never did and I didn’t understand the nuance. So we got this house and we were moving in and I looked up at the sign and it said, Blah Blah Drive. Except it was abbreviated. It said D, R, period.”

“Yeah?”

“So I asked my Dad, what is that? What is D, R, period? That means drive, he said. That’s how you write drive. And he didn’t know much English either but he knew that.”

“I see.”

“So anyway, a few days later I saw a can of Dr. Pepper. Except I thought it was Drive Pepper and boy I was fascinated. Drive Pepper. What could that be like? What does that taste like in your mouth? I was daydreaming. I wanted to try one of those so bad. Why would they name it that? Does it drive pepper in your mouth?”

I laughed.

“So anyway, I asked my dad to buy me one but he said no. No Drive Pepper for me. You won’t like it, he said. Stick to Coke.”

I laughed.

“So anyway, P, I went around like that for years. Thinking Dr. Pepper was Drive Pepper and all kinds of things just like that. I was completely messed up. I didn’t understand how the people acted here. I just couldn’t make heads or tails of anything that was going on right up until I met you.”

“Kidding, right? You’re flattering me,” I said.

“No, I’m not flattering you. I don’t flatter people. When is the last time you saw me flatter someone? I’m not flattering, I’m telling you the truth, or trying to. See this whole world and everything in it is Drive Pepper as far as I’m concerned. And it always has been. Everything except for you and except for war. Those are the things I understand and those are the things I love. I love Elsa P and I love to fight and that’s it.”

“How strange,” I said.

“Well it’s not strange to me. These are the only things that have ever made a lick of sense to me and I have never been confused about either one of them which is something I really appreciate by the way. I don’t like to be confused. Who does? So no wonder I found these two things that I really loved and stayed with them all my life. What would you do? What would you have done?”

“Same, I guess. I don’t know. Right now I am trying to understand and I don’t think I can in a way that’s immediate. I can’t merge Drive Pepper and me off the top of my head.”

“Yeah, that’s the point. You make sense. Drive Pepper makes no sense. Fighting makes sense, at least it does to me. The rest of this stuff? I don’t give a flying… about any of it and I’m not kidding. Nothing else is of any consequence to me.”

“Nothing?”

“Well I love my boy. I love that boy and I love my family and I love my friends, but you know what I mean don’t you, P? They have their own lives and their life is not mine. My life is soldiering, my life is you and nothing else but. Everything else they’ve got out there is a total waste of time as far as I’m concerned. I just have no interest at all. But war or Elsa P? Well now you’re talkin’. Give me one of those two things and then you’ll see my blood get pumpin’.”

Venus in Gemini (two loves) sextile Uranus and inconjunct Saturn.