... and then my mind drifted back. there's no time to remember things when you've got a green light. you've got to notice things. i tend to notice things that i shouldn't... like how the ditch in the grassy median strip has been iced over. the rain from the night before had collected in the ditch and garbage that had been thrown into it had risen to the top and been frozen into the ice. you've got to notice that there's a green light and step on the gas. you've got be in a hurry and you've got to clock in on time no matter where you're going. you've got to notice that as you get further out of the county, the radio stations start to fade in and fade out from top 40 to adult contemporary. then you can be annoyed by a different genre of music. but really all you need to notice is that the guy in front of you has long slabs of plywood hanging out from the back of his souped-up 4-by-4. they're gonna fall, and you're gonna sue his redneck ass. and you'll probably lose because you happened to be in a hurry that morning and you were caught tailgating.
so i drive and i drive and i drive, and i couldn't tell you what happened to the man in front of me, but he eventually travelled in a different direction. i get to my house. and all the phones have rung and all the messages have been left and there are so many things to do on a saturday night that no one's even thought of. that's not important, though. because i will do something, it's the only thing possible. perhaps i should go to a club. wouldn't that be the way? perhaps i shouldn't go anywhere. perhaps i should stay in all night. perhaps i should rock the night away with vodka, illegal drugs, and blowloons, catering to a strange whim where you can't even imagine having picket fences, tv sitcoms, fire blankets, $7 movie tickets, black and white printers, leather sofas, homewrk, leafblowers, secret crushes on rock stars, or new jeans. all there is are the memory lapses and the stray dogs that were sent out to follow all of the state's escaped convicts around... and they're not barking tonight.
i know... it's alright... like a sweet voice lilting over your ears... but there's not enough vodka in the world to do that to me... the states get larger as you travel further to the west. everything's further away from everything else. here in the east, though, you can seemingly look into the next subdivision or the next city. and it doesn't really matter where you are. all of the stores look the same and there's always a broken 'occupied' sign on the doors at the diners. and you go there. and none of that really matters, because you're there and you need a good cup of joe. so you find yourself talking to the waitress and she's more than obliged. she's tired and she needs the money. stirring up some friendly chatter will get it for her. and you're nice back, because you can't see what's going on in the kitchen and you don't especially want for them to drop something or spit in something or take a taste of something. you don't know a thing about them but you're sure you wouldn't mind too much if you actually did. so you small talk. and you keep going.
if i were to drive to a shopping mall i would be in a minor division of hell, and if i were to go to a club i wouldn't be able to leave. so i do neither, and i don't stay at home, and i don't keep driving, because the radio's lost any touch with any station and there won't be another one for a long time. maybe if i kept driving i'd eventually end up in another state and i'd find another station. but i still wouldn't be able to see the lines on the road, and the asphault would still be slick from the ice and rain and run-off from suburban sprinklers and watering hoses. i can't drive like that. if i could i wouldn't have pulled over into his driveway. he's an old friend, and i'm usually welcome, as was the case tonight, but things were off. his porch light was turned off and the doors were locked, but he still came to the door when i rang the bell. and he tried to hold back his smile, like he was angry with me but he really didn't want to be. he didn't dare to small talk, though. he'd always felt like it was a waste of time. so he invited me right in and asked me if i wanted a drink or something to eat and why i was driving so late at night with such inclement weather. i told him that something was going to happen, no matter where i was, so why not scout out a place besides my house. he told me about a project he'd been working on for his job and told me that he was almost fired. you could tell he really didn't care about any of this- it happened, it's done, there's something else that's more important. his words shook under his breath tensely and i could see him trying to shield back any emotion. any attachment that he could make to anything was strictly off limits. i knew that i couldn't get anything out of him. i wasn't going to attempt to make him explain the expression on his face as he tried not to think about it. he was bored and unsettled with what he was saying. it became small talk. that was enough impetus for me to leave once the rain had stopped. i went home and slept it off.
i don't know how i got here, but i'm in my bed. and it's 9:57 in the morning and i feel like hell. i keep on thinking that i should have stayed. i shouldn't have come home. i shouldn't have slept at all. i should have asked what was wrong with my friend, even if i had to try to pry it out of him. it shouldn't have been that hard to deal with someone that i've known since it mattered to know anything at all. why can't i read him like a book yet? is it because i really have less to do with him than i thought? he's just another person, another acquaintance, but i'm attached to him because he's been so caring towards me.
right here's where i shoot out of bed. when you've been thinking and thinking without any real direction or purpose and you haven't eaten since yesterday morning you tend to experience more shock when you come to an actual discovery than if you'd been in a healthy state of mind. i shouldn't pry. i should let him be, even if he is completely fucked-up. i know that i can't do anything to change him. and something was wrong last night, that's quite apparent. there's nothing i can do to make myself matter in his experience any more than i have already. so i'll just lay off and go get something to eat. i need to stop thinking about him and stop worrying and stop building up my anger towards his withdrawn state because all it can do is make me angrier and more upset and more off-balance and it'll just end up making me cry. because in all truth i know what he was doing and i know what was wrong and it just makes me angry. i don't want to get as upset as i should be. i don't want to waste my energy because i have none as of now anyway. so i should just go and fucking eat.
the it hit me again- why would i cry? why would i even have considered it that morning? it was probably a combination of hunger, little sleep and stress. all i know is that the last thing i need now is thought. i know i need it but i don't want it. it'll drag out too many complexities and demons. right as i went for my bowl of corn pops the phone rang and i answered like everyone else in the u.s. does... "hello?" it was julie and she wanted to know if i was going anywhere tonight. "hopefully. i dunno, maybe if you drive me somewhere." she'd drive me anywhere, i already knew that. everywhere except georgia. but that's a different story completely. "were you planning to go anywhere tonight?" of course she was, she's always out on the town working up a sweat in some little dive, snow or sleet, she's like a mail man. truth was, i didn't really feel like going anywhere unless it was smoke-filled and they had at least a two-drink minimum. maybe some open-mic poetry thing. wherever. just keep me calm. she's gonna pick me up around 6:00, just thought you should know that.
5:45, i jump into julie's car and we head to this little place in god knows where. we sat around, talking quietly and making gestures with our hands. there was this guy, up on the stage. he just ranted and spieled and slammed nonstop because no one else was trying to stop him. it was just a way to make some noise in the relatively subdued atmosphere. i don't remember much of what he said, but i liked it. there was some stuff about buying guns and living with your girlfriend in the bad part of town, all of which he twisted into the most bizarre sequences you could ever imagine. he seemed like he'd been telling it for years, though. like he'd read the book. like the book had been written about him. i talked to him after the owner of the place finally kicked him off the stage. his name's frank and he admitted that he'd never bought a gun nor had the courage to ask a girl to live with him. i feel like i've known him since... i don't know. since last night, i suppose, but it really seemed more complex at the time. we exchanged numbers and i called him as soon as i got home. we talked for hours. i could have fallen for him if i'd let myself...
but it's not that easy for me...
the next morning, i was there to see the sun rise and peel away the night. no sleep, no food- the kind of thing that usually makes you want to take heavy doses of nyquil. but everything that happened last night was better than a dream, more refreshing than any sleep i could have captured by mistake. the kind of stuff that your mother or your obsessive "friends" would fawn over. they'd call it progress. but it wasn't progression, nor was it regression. it was just another occurance.
after i'd revived myself with a bit of food and spirits, i walked down to the corner, caught the bus, and let it drive me around. i let the bus driver call me "honey" repeatedly. i let someone sit behind me and kick my seat and talk about hunting. i let it all pass by me at lightning speed just so that i could appreciate everything else. i stared out of the window, gawking at the city, the old women carrying their groceries home, bums spilling liquor across the sidewalk, business men rushing to get to wherever they had to be five minutes ago. the buildings, the houses, they were all old and broken, bricks withering with every passer by who runs their fingers across them, vines and moss growing out from where spackle used to protect. as i looked overhead a train passed by on the elaborate scheme of spiralling tracks. you don't know where they end, but they go up for numerous levels, semmingly into the sky. they ride away on their finely architectured bridges, not noticing the crooked, uneven asphault roadways which lay beneath them. when the bus pulls to a street where there seems to be something happening, i pull on the alert to get off. i don't know where i am, if i should be there at all, if i shouldn't have been there years before... if i shouldn't have stayed. i went into a store and the cashier started talking to me in a tone that you don't really hear from too many people besides store clerks, professional hustlers. "you look down the street and you can't even count the people who are carrying guns." she said. and then i walked away.
i wandered a few streets further and when i reached an abandoned building that had 'the starlite club' painted on it's sides i knew where i was. i would ask directions to get to the nearest bus stop but all of the buildings are abandoned. plywood and dirty signs, graffittied with tags and police tape. then the bus shoots by me, and no one else. i'm the only one here. the bus doesn't stop on this corner as opposed to the next for that very reason. there's no reason for anyone to be here. god knows i shouldn't be. but i am, or i was... i'm not any more. i'm making a dash for the bus.
i'm back home as i'd expected i would be by now. i check the answering machine for anyone... anyone and anything at all.
"THREE O EIGHT"
"where the FUCK are YOU?"
"THREE FOUR TY TWO"
"you KNOW why i'm fucking calling you. are you too fucking POPULAR for me?"
"FOUR NINE TEEN"
"why do you come over in the middle of the night expecting some fucking PARTY and then..."
so i called him.
"dammit, there's not a fucking thing left here. i'm leaving."
"what are you talki-"
"you're going to fucking DIE. i'm ALREADY fucking DEAD."
click.
redial.
"i've SAID everything. why don't you just fucking go TOO?"
"wha-"
"i'm FUCKING DEAD."
click.
so here i am, in the same place i was two nights ago, driving through wasted water, in a frenzy just to get to his driveway, again. when i got there i ran up the stairs and tugged at the handle on the door, praying for it to give way. i wasn't even going to ring the doorbell unless it was made absolutely necessary, which it wasn't. i walked in cautiously, trying not to make too much noise. i don't think he's here anymore, but i stayed anyway. i walked through his house. he'd left his wallet, along with any other form of validiation of his own existance. "he's probably just out for a walk."
i sat down on his bed. i wrapped myself up in his sheets. they were blue and white striped, they faintly smelled like him. if he'd been around maybe something like that would have been pleasant, but he's not and it's almost discomforting in that respect. i sank deeper into his sheets. i left my body. all that's left is his soul and all i can remember is that the first time i saw him by himself he was dressed in jeans and an atrocious orange t-shirt that he was clutching a soda and some flowers he'd stolen from someone's yard that he was smiling patiently that i didn't think anything of that summer night, old new york, 1987, small diner, flea market, glass blowers, circus music... summer night, south carolina. nine-teen-eighty-seven. 1987... i fell asleep. what else could i do?
day breaks in, his sheets surround me, enclose me, hold me back, don't let me -"who are you? wake up. get up. sam? no, it couldn't be..."- escape from them. a shakey hand -"who are you?"- grabbed at the sheets, digging into my arm, pulling back -"i knew it couldn't be..."- the sheets, ripping away my self-made fortress. maybe -"where is he? who are you? let me see your face."- if i just keep my eyes shut, i won't have to deal with it. -"roll over so i can see your face."- the hand still clutching at me, i try to resist, i try to keep the sounds muffled, the light out, -"oh..."- but i couldn't. the voice becomes clearer, more distinct, familiar even. yes, now i -"c'mon, get up."- know this voice -"we have to find him. do you know where he is?"- maybe i should say something, maybe i should at least just open up my eyes, i know it -"GET UP."- won't help, but maybe it will -"WAKE UP."- trick us into thinking that somehow there's a chance that he'll be back. so i look up and all -"good. c'mon, get out of his bed."- i can see is this pure light, rushing into my eyes and then -"please..."- i make out shapes, colors, lines, edges, and then a face standing over -"i don't have time for this. please, are you trying to kill me, stress me out, what?"- me, terribly gorgeous, but distraught, blurred from its -"where is sam?"- spasmatic trembling, -"do you know anything?" "no."- glossy with tears and smeared makeup. -"then what do we do?"- i dunno. he's gone. he left his stuff. he won't be back. i'm not supposed to tell. i can't. -"oh god."- i sat up and everything came rushing closer, the shaky voice, the shaky face, i pulled it in though, i -"oh god no..."- held it close, i focused in on everything, this face, once gorgeous, became less so, beautiful, pretty, nice, homely, plain, ravaged. i can see everything now, hazel eyes, pale flesh, and i just can't -"he's... so... he's..."- understand, i'm appalled with everything, there's no grace left to it. i pulled it closer still, and then i realised. you just looked so dead.