9/2003 His hair fell over his shoulders, masking a tattoo of an old man with a wide-brimmed hat. Stone cold. Twenty three years old and the guy's got a big tattoo on his back of an old man. Weird. Dangerously sexy. He wrote in squares and rectangles, his hands moving over the cardboard as he traced my name onto the back of his painting. Cold and hard...like his tattoo...like his European stare as he looked up into the pool that was teeming with children. Red flashed over his face before he smiled to me. Polish short temper. American refrain from showing concern. Strong accent that blew over the heads of the splashes, silencing them quickly. Stop. Return gaze. Smile again. Firm chest. Red shorts. Sunglasses that you can check your teeth in. Artwork that I could contemplate for years. Who would have known you'd find lust at a dude ranch, filled with backcountry couples and the community of an assisted living home. Paintings of horses and machines stuffed into his backpack, slung over his shoulder, hidden in the mesh of jacket and combat boots and austerity, a "don't touch me" that keeps even God away. Everyone except me, 'cause hah. I got his e-mail address. And you didn't. Nyah nyah. Talk about fairy tales. Talk about non-fiction. Pinegrove, sweet Pinegrove, a world of treasures hidden beneath immigrant smiles and cobwebbed corners. Hard blue eyes that pull away, so lost in a golden forest of hair that there's only one way out through the chlorine-blue water.