dmseay

he never was much of a salesman…talked a good game…but when it came right down to it…couldn’t close the deal…

sure…he’d get lucky every once in awhile…sell a product or two a night…just enough to keep his head above water…but never anything substantial…just kind of hovered ’round mediocrity…

just didn’t have that drive…that salesman mentality that’s needed to survive in the buisness…in life really…you gotta sell yourself…people don’t give a fuck about the product…they wanna be charmed…taken care of…admired…by who…by you…the salsman…

and he was not that type of guy…he was good for short stretches…never the long haul…

that’s what killed him…he knew that…never admit it…but he knew it…he knew it…

he just wanted to make enough to survive…that’s all… picked the wrong business…yes he did…the wrong business…

we used to go back there when I was a kid…

back where…

in the woods…along this trail of brown pine needles coverin’ the ground…used to kick pine cones along the way…see how long it would take ‘fore they swerved off the path…playin’ games…kick ’em with our left foot only…

where were you goin’ back in the woods…

different places…it was a deep green forest that became magical in the fall…leaves turnin’ to rusts…reds…yellows…golds…brown…’ventually they’d all turn brown…die ya know…used to crunch under our feet…

see anything back there in the woods…

lots of things…some things…abandoned bikes…couple of old cars…tires…empty whisky bottles…streams…

what’d you do in there…

we played war…take our walkee talkees out there and pretend like we was in Vietnam…like our uncles…our dads…

they were in Vietnam…

yeah…they never talked ’bout it though…kinda kept it quiet…we’d pretend we were Marines…

Marines…

yeah…fighters…soldiers…we’d play for hours…he’d go one direction and I’d take off in another…communicatin’ back and forth on the radio…it was all pretend…

you and who else…

friends from the neighborhood…childhood friends…kids…we built a fort back in the woods…made of old wood we’d found…tarps…

did you camp out there…

yeah…did all the time in summer…’til it got destroyed…

who destroyed it…

don’t know…just went back there one day and it was all torn up…like a bunch of savages ripped it apart…we loved that fort…

what happened after the fort was destroyed…

we stopped pretendin’…toy guns were put away…no longer used walkee talkees…stopped goin’ into the woods…just stopped…wasn’t fun anymore…

no longer fun…

nope…all that was gone…should’ve never built that thing…

why’s that…

just ’cause…just ’cause…

you know who destroyed that fort don’t you…

I gotta good idea…gotta good idea…found wine bottles by it…empty cigarette packs…butts all ’round…

we’re you there when it happened…you were weren’t you…

it was pitch black…we had flash lights…sleep over one night…we snuck out and went to the fort…went inside…the grass was all yellow and wet…smelled in there…

what happened…

heard voices…whispered voices…we got scared…walls started comin’ down…yellin’…screamin’…hateful words…

try to fight them…

too many of ’em…didn’t have a chance…the fort was demolished…we never built it back again…

never…

never…we just left it there…we stopped goin’ in the woods…we just stopped pretendin’…

The tattoo shops were closed on Broadway along with Mexican restaurants and liquor stores as well. It was past midnight and the working girls were out; catering to clients needs in church parking lots, side streets, behind dumpsters, and in abandoned houses. Cop cars cruised by and an occasional ambulance would wail,but, it was just another Monday night.

And the bars let drunks out into the streets. All of ’em trying to weave home by foot to rented rooms, efficiency apartments, tents under bridges, while some would just walk aimlessly ’til the sun would greet the new day. Others camped out in front waiting in the cold for the bar to open a few hours later; the need for drinks, communion, is what they always seek.

This night. How it plays tricks. Thinking you see something that isn’t. Some kind of peace in the quiet neighborhood where streetlights glow and dogs bark down alleys. And Jesus appears in the form of a black man asking for a buck when fifty cents is all you have left to your name. It’ll do my son…it’ll do…

Another Monday night. Morning will come soon.

nothin’ was said ‘tween ’em…sat there in silence as the waitress poured coffee…she twisted her ring on her finger…he just kept lookin’ out the window…watchin’ cars drive by…people walkin’ on sidewalks…a blind man with a dog…

sometimes she’d move her hand through her thick silver hair…clear her throat…go back to movin’ that ring ’round her finger…a wedding band of gold…he had lost his years ago…so he said…might’ve slipped off while he was changin’ oil in the old Ford…could’ve thrown it away when they split up for a brief time…very brief…misery kept ’em together…

she started thumbin’ through her purse…old pictures of when they were younger…he had a full head of jet black hair back then…’fore it all fell out…leavin’ him nearly bald…he was lookin’ older and older everyday…not like in the pictures she kept…old black and whites…arm in arm at Christmas time…throwin’ snowballs at each other…leanin’ ‘gainst a Dodge…

and they never looked at each other…the check would come…he’d lay down a five for a three dollar bill…expected change…

it was silent ‘tween ’em…years had taken their voices away…she kept playin’ with that ring…

it’s so quiet…you can hear cars rollin by… but… that’s ’bout it…every once and awhile you hear a door slam downstairs…old pick up startin’ up…chewin’ up gravel as it backs down the driveway…didn’t bother to see who it was that left…could’ve been her…should’ve been him…many times as he caught her you’d think he’d left a long time ago…you’d think…

heard that door slam ‘fore…never so loud as this time…seemed to have had a purpose…some meaning behind it…must’ve been him that left…that heavy door slammed hard…felt it upstairs…then again…that little lady’s got some force to her as well…she might’ve left…could’ve very easily said the hell with it…been on her way…doubt it though…she never had the guts…too scared to go out there in America and see what’s goin’ on…I don’t think she’s ever left town…there’s always a first…

hear some movement down there…water runnin’…he wouldn’t take a bath…she would…I knew she’d stay…then again it might be a shower…he’d take these long showers in the middle of the afternoon after he got off work…heard the water fallin’ for a good half hour…sometimes you could hear him singin’…old songs by Bob Seger…Bachman Turner Overdrive…some Thin Lizzy…you’d think he was givin’ a concert…but…no singin’ today…and that water’s still goin’…who in the hell left…

water’s stopped…I’ll bet it’s her…it is her…hear her sobbin’ away…that’s definitely her…son of a bitch has done left her…maybe for good this time…sounds like it…she just screwed ’round too many times on him…catch her up at the bar flirtin’ with all kinds of men…gettin ’em to buy her a drink…maybe a joint to share out in the parkin’ lot…she was always lookin’ for some kind of escape…always…

I’ll be damned…done left her…somebody’ll come and pick up the pieces…she’ll be alright…she’ll be alright…have another man in no time…

what was it ’bout gray skies…made you stay inside and look out the window all day…watchin’ leaves fall to the ground…seein’ trash blowin’ in the yard…a swing swingin’ with nobody in it…and those gray skies lookin’ down…putting everything in black and white…like an old time movie…

and I thought ’bout you as I walked from one end of town to the other…no particular place to go…just out wanderin’…thinkin’ ’bout when we’d stay in bed all day…windows open…cool Autumn breeze blowin’ inside the old house…you walked ’round with nothin’ but a blanket wrapped ’round you…cigarette in one hand…glass of scotch nearby…

we stayed inside that house for hours when it was gray…feedin’ each other Moon Pies…you liked the vanilla one’s…we would lay there in bed eatin’ Moon Pies and drinkin’ whiskey…lookin’ out the window at old trucks as they drove past…down the dirt road we lived on…years have gone by…

you said the gray skies were romantic…said they made you feel like makin’ love…that’s what you said…

how I never wished for sun…

wind chapped face…

cheeks red on gossamer…

watery blue eyes laughing in rain…

laughed at me…the fool…

October’s bluster was felt…

dead leaves crunched under feet…

water fountains turned off…

green was gone…

lovers held mitted hands…

another season…

and I held your hand once…

under aqua skies…

kisses were given…sometimes stolen…

walked through Bryant Park…

old men played bacci…

whisky and water…whisky and water…

a sax blew Naima…

Fall did not last long…

snow came too soon…

leaving me behind…

and you…you weren’t mine but for a season…

some noises goin’ off at night…old trains rattlin through town…wooden fence gate creaks and moans in the purple hour’s winds…cars acceleratin’ down Clinton Street…drivin’ to the southside of town where there’s always action at this time of night…shootings…drug deals gone bad…in a church parking lot a whore wants her money…

old pickups drive by on Calhoun…semis backin’ up to drop a load at the bakery…smells of cinamon bread fill the air…under the viaduct a junkie waits on his man to deliver goods that never come fast enough…tattooed skateboarders whiz on by…

dirty rivers roll through town…muddy waters wanting to suck somebody in…a homeless man on Wells Street contemplates his last wishes…swigs on a schnapps bottle…drag of a cigarette…a hard wind blows…a hard wind blows…

the bars down Main and Broadway let out patrons into darkness…street lights out…a girl laughs wildly as newspapers are dropped on corners…headlines stating…, BODY FOUND IN BUSHES…, she never bothers to read…things of the past…things of the past…

and here he sits in his rented room writing it all down…what he’s seen…things he heard…a witness to all on his strolls through town…a witness to all…

his good night will never come…

what was it you were talkin’ ’bout…some kinda strange conversation you had durin’ the night with yourself…I hear ya in the other room…jabberin’ away…senseless talk…then all the sudden you stop…like you been caught or somethin’…like you were doin’ somethin’ wrong…are you aware of this…these conversations you have with yourself…

yes…I know I talk to myself…it’s something I can’t stop…I just get on a roll and I can’t stop til I fall asleep…

dontcha think it’s a little weird…

what…

you talkin’ to yourself…mad talk…it’s always angry…seems like you’re never at peace…just go on and on ’bout death and dyin’…hear ya say things like…,I don’t wanna live no more…,and…,I’m tired of livin’…then I hear ya start snorin’…it’s like a nightly ritual…

yes…yes it is…

think you’ll ever be at peace…

don’t know…don’t know…

he’s been gone a long time…

yeah…

where do ya think he went to…

don’t know…

said he was goin’ up to the store to get a pack of cigarettes…been a couple of hours now…

guess so…

I’ll betcha he didn’t go up to the store…betcha he went somewhere else…

like where…

anywhere…could’ve gone to the tavern out on Nine Mile Road…might’ve gone to the mall and walked ’round for a spell…went for a drive…out in the country…over by the Ohio line…

worried…

little…

he’s a grown boy…a man…shouldn’t worry so much…not good for ya…

remember that time he took off for California…got as far as Nebraska…knew that car was gonna break down on him…we drove all the way out there to fetch him…you were cursin’ the whole time…cursin’ at him the whole way back too…

he had it comin’…

swore to me that night that one day he was gonna take off and we’d never hear from him again…said we’d never expect it…

uh huh…

you think that’s true…

couldn’t tell ya…

he’s your boy…

yeah…still couldn’t tell ya…I just know this time I ain’t gonna save him…spent enough money on that kid…he wants to take off and try to do it better…he can do that…won’t stand in his way…

you don’t mean that…

hell I don’t…we done our job…up to him now…

he ain’t got a pot to piss in…

neither did I…neither did I…

so if he calls ya in the middle of the night…

he won’t…too proud this time…he’ll sink or swim…that’s on him…done our job…we done our job…

he’ll come back at Christmas time…you wait and see…tell us all ’bout his adventures…where he’s been…what he’s seen…

he ain’t comin’ back…

dont say that…

I’m tellin’ ya he ain’t comin’ back…

where ya reckon he went to…

don’t know…

it’s gettin’late…

yeah…

betcha he went to that tavern out on Nine Mile…

probably did…

ya gonna wait up for him…

nope…

I’ll leave the porch light on…

do that…