Leaning against a wall, glance a sack made of Peking duck skin full of greasy leather bits. The sack shuffles over zombie like to ask for a light. Provide the lady a match burning to foreshadow the consequence of following up on her twenty dollar cover charge -- slip inside and enjoy the ride. Not tonight madam, just catching my breath before pouring myself another block East. Hope to catch the sun before the rise, and convince it to take the day off. There's no need for tomorrow today. She shrugs, "Do whatcha gotta..." -- cough, hack, spit blood, take a drag and finish the thought -- "Gotta feel right." And away she goes, an ambulance creeping behind her expecting to be needed at any second. The paramedics lick their lips in anticipation. They've got trained eyes skilled enough to spot a goner. Tonight they want to watch one die and know it wasn't their fault. Going through the motions for this walking corpse will dull the ache of haunting losses: six year old choked to ghost by asthma; the girl knocked off her longboard, head split open and spilt across LSD; that old man who caught a stray bullet -- pull the loose skin taut to see where he got shot back in Vietnam and lived; the scar right next to the wound that would kill him -- no longer bullet proof. But there by the grace of god goes a sack covered in melanoma polka dots full of overcooked whiskey chicken stumbling on broken heels.
Mutter to myself, "Nostalgie de la boue."
Then get one foot in front of the other. Tonight it's easier than it used to be. After all, there's somewhere to go. Motor groaning, idle at a steady pace three feet closer to the end of the line.
Stop in at the gas station for a quick laugh -- there's always time and a need for one. Slide the credit card in, no receipt thank you very much; pull the nozzle free and select premium, of course, set the mechanism so it keeps pumping hands free; set the nozzle on the ground, light the book of matches on fire, toss them in the air; and run. Tonight is going to be anything but casual.
Still laughing, hair singed shorter, uneven but it'll grow back, sit down inside Delilah. She's a big woman who can hold 120 people at once, every last one nestled in like a return to the womb, if the uterus served three dollar well drinks and blasted rock. Odds are good someone grew a fetus in just such a tank.
"What's got you so giggly?" the bartender asks. Can't remember her name, though I've prayed for her in every sense of the word for -- Cecelia! Cecelia? Cece.
"Just thinking about a man I used to know who told me he was nothing more than a monkey made of porn, alcohol, and cigarettes."
"Sounds like a few fellows I know," Cece says.
I nod, "Me too. Maybe include myself in that line up as well."
"I always figured you for a wolf, darling," sweet Cece says, and I howl... howling at the moon hours later when the only silver left is the light from Lilith's orb. How's about you and me be the Earth's second moon; or we can be a black lunar sphere like an abstract point in space; or better still just be an asteroid making our own way across the celestial void? How's about it? Either way we'll have the scorpion sting ready to pump fools full of poison, and enjoy being alone together outside so-called polite society, a bunch of bores always ready with a kind way of saying, "Sir would you please leave?"
What do you say? Ad majorem Dei gloriam... non serviam... Redemptionis sacramentum... mystery indeed... that a fellow gets home. Glance in the mirror before going to bed, the black eye resurrecting visions of a fistfight -- doesn't matter why because I recall being the winner. Wash the blood off broken knuckles with a grin. Winner, winner chicken dinner! As they used to say back in the glory days when Vegas offered nice meals for only two bucks, win a minimum bet and victory of victories, a winner could buy a chicken dinner. Nowadays there isn't even a sack of whiskey chicken for a winner.
Never did get around to that conversation with the sun. I guess there's always tomorrow.
Mutter to myself, "Nostalgie de la boue."
Then get one foot in front of the other. Tonight it's easier than it used to be. After all, there's somewhere to go. Motor groaning, idle at a steady pace three feet closer to the end of the line.
Stop in at the gas station for a quick laugh -- there's always time and a need for one. Slide the credit card in, no receipt thank you very much; pull the nozzle free and select premium, of course, set the mechanism so it keeps pumping hands free; set the nozzle on the ground, light the book of matches on fire, toss them in the air; and run. Tonight is going to be anything but casual.
Still laughing, hair singed shorter, uneven but it'll grow back, sit down inside Delilah. She's a big woman who can hold 120 people at once, every last one nestled in like a return to the womb, if the uterus served three dollar well drinks and blasted rock. Odds are good someone grew a fetus in just such a tank.
"What's got you so giggly?" the bartender asks. Can't remember her name, though I've prayed for her in every sense of the word for -- Cecelia! Cecelia? Cece.
"Just thinking about a man I used to know who told me he was nothing more than a monkey made of porn, alcohol, and cigarettes."
"Sounds like a few fellows I know," Cece says.
I nod, "Me too. Maybe include myself in that line up as well."
"I always figured you for a wolf, darling," sweet Cece says, and I howl... howling at the moon hours later when the only silver left is the light from Lilith's orb. How's about you and me be the Earth's second moon; or we can be a black lunar sphere like an abstract point in space; or better still just be an asteroid making our own way across the celestial void? How's about it? Either way we'll have the scorpion sting ready to pump fools full of poison, and enjoy being alone together outside so-called polite society, a bunch of bores always ready with a kind way of saying, "Sir would you please leave?"
What do you say? Ad majorem Dei gloriam... non serviam... Redemptionis sacramentum... mystery indeed... that a fellow gets home. Glance in the mirror before going to bed, the black eye resurrecting visions of a fistfight -- doesn't matter why because I recall being the winner. Wash the blood off broken knuckles with a grin. Winner, winner chicken dinner! As they used to say back in the glory days when Vegas offered nice meals for only two bucks, win a minimum bet and victory of victories, a winner could buy a chicken dinner. Nowadays there isn't even a sack of whiskey chicken for a winner.
Never did get around to that conversation with the sun. I guess there's always tomorrow.
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