Nightriding

Woke up late this fine foggy morning...
Well late for me= 6AM.
Was up past bedtime last eve,
driving SE-XWay & McClellan Highway & MA Pike
all wonderous curves in the dark
a myriad of firefly headlights & liquor store windows
& the shoosh of passing traffic.
We're all designated in our own unseen lanes,
inches & minutes from each other & disaster.
I have to take night pics of Eastern Bank.
I have to verify Verizon billboard lights are on.
I am not getting paid for these hours,
but that is part of the gig these days.
If I was wholly doing a night "route"...well, that
would be another story.
And although I make a mental note here & there,
what lights are down or dim.
I am on specialized recon.

I listen to World Cafe on 91.9
& LoveLine on WFNX.
My company & companion.
I talk back, I exclaim...I sing...
I am tired & lonely & there is no one to talk to.
Not even the cat.
Just me out here,
amid thousands of twentysomethings enjoying the fickle summer.
I cut through The North End,
en route to Rte 1A entrance...
a beefy man in a red jersey & waywards cap,
puts his arm around a sweet young thing.
Awww.
There are families & children leaving Italian restaraunts.
There are Monday night drunks.
The tourists & what is this...
a couple women in ceremonial Indian headdress?
What I take for bleached blonde highlights in the instersection distance,
is actually a shimmery wrap.
One woman passes on the sidewalk w/ an Amish-dressed man,
another slits past in the dark parkway.

And I in my refrigerator,
the gigantic empty work van
with just the buckles clacking behind my seat,
after every bump.

Long drive home later,
lot of roadwork on Rte 95.
Torches & tractors lurch alongside,
menacing sci-fi lights & extreme sounds...
I am tired.
This morning too.

We All Saw The Signs

The lack of friends and love interest.
The cell that never rang Saturday afternoon.
The parceling away of belongings,
every CD & DVD collection cannabilized.
The vague, disquieting disinterest,
appearing "above-it-all"--
At the parties.
At the mall.
At the house.
What was he doing down there?
Reading?

The insomnia.
The Harold Budd harmonics of a scooped metal bowl,
reverberating in dull suspended silence
somewhere at the bottom of a mossy well.
The lack of emotion.
The lack of excitement.
The never-being-pleased or in-the-moment.
He was always thinking future-tense...
but we know how disheartening that is now.

The lack of polish
and old clothes...cling-on's from some previous relationship.
Old Christmas presents now demoted,
pants w/ snapped zippers or button-less shirt sleeves.
The madman's hairline
(thank God he cut that!).
The same rote routines & slowly, ever so slowly...
the checkmarked sheet.
This done.
And that.
Only a few more things keeping...

His disappointment.
But what did we care?
His unrest.
Well, that's his bed...let him lie in it.
His moods.
Get over it!

******************************************

Yet I remember those moments in Chicago circa 1993.
The six months of sequential yet taffy Hell.
The rock bottom drama I enacted.
How I hurt.
Crying in the middle of the night,
perched on the hardwood floor like some animal,
crying so hard the tears pooled,
literally pooled on the floor.
That showed her!
And the half-assed attempt...
but scary nonetheless.
Drunk again, coming back from Neo
& filling the tub.
Saying "This is it, now. I've already promised"
(or promoted? in the alumni newsletter)
And blacking out.
Coming to underwater w/ the cold, icy fluid
in my mouth & nose...
couldn't even stay down there.
Some survivor's instinct...
so easy with only an inch 'tween life & peace.
Had I really meant it
there would have been blood.

And putting on a show in the same scrunched bathroom
when Carolyn came over that other night.
Sweeping mirrors & cologne off the counter,
shattering
caterwauling
performing.
"Here is my grief. Here is my despondency. My meglomania."
So melodramatic.
But wasn't she too?
Weren't we all in our twenties?

*******************************************

He was listless.
And he cancelled appointments.
And he had no interests besides The One.
Eating poorly.
Low maintenance of the soul.
He couldn't articulate.
He spent too much time on the internet.
He was aloof & cut us off.
Preparing us...?
He posted cryptic remarks,
and enacted new, more mature fantasies.
He gave everything up but got nowhere.
Truly, if success meant that much to him
he would just move?
It was always all or nothing...
but who saw something?
He feared jail and madness and homelessness
and humilation.
He lost his spark.
He lost his momentum.
He didn't even try.
He failed us.

Dance-A-Thon

En route to the Shindig last night,
passed a sign by the entrance to the old CCD...
"DANCE-A-THON 10AM-10PM".
It was just touching 9 in the evening.
Wow. They still have these?
Some sort of charity or fundraiser?
The only recent reference I have is cover to
Holly Golightly album.
How quaint.
How folksy.
How sepia-tinted.
50's rhubarb pie & pints of iced tonic.
Sweaters & low-hemmed skirts,
whisking to the orchestra & Chubby Checker.

I couldn't imagine being hoe-tied to someone that long...
twelve hours!
What do you say? (or are you conserving strength?)
What if you get an erection?
What if you get irritable with one another?
What if you get disgusted?
Does anyone look & smell & feel that good for so long,
or am I just so not touchy-feely these days?

Last night, many hours later...
I had a lovely chat w/ a very attractive lady
from the Czech Republic.
Not a filmmaker
Not an actress...although she supposedly had long ago.
A student of photo & geography.
She was a professional tour guide getting ready to head West
at the drop of a hat.
Catch some of the Montana or was it Wyoming air?
She had been to Africa and Ireland...
and of course her homeland.
Quincy was just a night out "for fun" w/ her.
She had the most fantastic dress,
sort of this yellow lamenated montage,
like an oily moth's wings.
And she leaned into me as we spoke for nearly 1/2 hour
while her tanked female compatriot drooped
across the dance floor w/ some Quin-say B-Boy wigger type
(not as natty as me w/ that new fedora purchase!)
This lovely lady suggested some foreign films for me to view,
very non-violent ones.
And you know what? Even if I never see her again
(and let's face it, she has my contact info...I don't have hers)
I'll still check 'em out.
Many many many hours later.

Does that represent sustainted contact?
Or is that just another bad analogy,
as I head home alone & again?
To the same house
The same bed
This dreck?
Twelve hours going on _____________

My Life Without Extras

Early Sat 10AM matinee of "The Hangover"...
cashier is also ticket-tearer.
I am 1 of 3 in the Braintree AMC Theatre #2.
The floors are chipped and peeled back,
exposing cement gingivitis & the eternal stickiness
of soda spills.
It is the lonliest place in the world.
Center seat & watching the car commercials
& the TV show previews.
I have a migraine, my sinuses clenched & pulsing
just pushing behind the bridge of my nose & eyes.
Perfect for the movie, right?
Feel as the protagonists feel?
Dizzy & dry-stomached & every source of light
a volcano flaregun.

In the store afterwards,
clothes shopping for the 1st time in months
(big network night tonight-- must look sharp)...
I am a stray amid middle-aged couples,
the wives leading their pot-bellied counterparts
to this belt rack or that dress shirt.
But Bob's Superstores seems strangely desolate.
Kohl's is sinister & air-conditioned w/
only the occassional intercom announcement for
further discounts.
If there are more people here, I don't see them...
I have to urinate
& my head is hurting.
I am disinterested & dull-witted as I stumble
here & there...
ultimately finding a hipster fedora & cheap short-sleeves.

My 1st hour in the Bridgewater coffeehouse,
there is a dead skateboarder on the sunken leather sofa
& me.
No one comes in for some time.
When the skateboarder comes to, revealing pulse &
purpose & visiting friends...I am envious.
For me there is only me.
I am a cheapskate when it comes to friends & acquaintances.
I spend more on the clothes purchase.
There IS a sparse population around me,
but on the periphery of some campfire,
stepping on branches & rustling leaves...
denoting their unseen presence.
But often, more & more often...they are just memories.
Of college.
Of heydays.
Of girlfriends past (oh way way way past, bucko).

I am a cost-efficient 1-man show.
I have limited settings.
And no crowd scenes.
The Filmmakers' Shindig tonight will seem extravagent
& detached.
Bad stock footage inserted incorrectly.
A shoddy cut-and-paste affair in which I must venture,
must break through...
Face those social fears & ice cube frights.
It's fight or flee.
I can do it. I have to.
This detachment is only growing worse,
the mental novacaine is limiting.

Someday I'll have a co-star & supporting players
& character actors & groups of ten to twenty.
Someday there will be battle scenes & chariots
& mounted men.
Parades of support & "we're there for you"...
a birthday toast across the crowded table,
the big budgeted boost.

But for now...I have you.
Anonymous suggested "you".
I am dicatating to the massless.

Oh look at that. The coffeeshop's full now.