dmseay

he didn’t know what he wanted…too many choices…the menu shone in a yellow light with the Pepsi emblem in the middle…flies flew ’round it while eggs fried on the griddle…

kept lookin’ at the menu…the black lettering…words like…GARBAGE PLATE…SLIDERS WITH OR WITHOUT CHEESE…BREAKFAST SPECIAL…coffee for a buck…

and there were all these different types of drinks…Orange soda…Mountain Dew…Dr. Pepper…Squirt…he looked at the milk shake selection…still couldn’t decide…chocolate and vanilla…the flies continued swarming the joint…

so he decided on buttered wheat toast and a cup of joe…while others ’round him ate hash browns and ham steaks…sausage patties…omelettes made with real Velvetta cheese…

said a prayer ‘fore he ate his meal…for this we are thankful…

he’d lay awake in bed every night…tossin’ and turnin’…sheets balled up…blankets stretched out on the floor…like a tornado hit…some kinda wild dance with legs movin’ all over the place while sweat poured out of his forehead into a pillow case makin’ it soak and wet with white salt stains linin’ out circles…thoughts kept him awake…

tried readin’ some old papers he’d collected over the years…stacked up in a corner of his rented room…big colorful pictures with headlines above…ANOTHER CHAMPIONSHIP…WAR DECLARED OVER…BODY FOUND IN CHICAGO RIVER…he’d read a little…place ’em back neatly in a pile…go back to tossin’ and turnin’…

started countin’ sheep…that turned into girls he’d known over the years…women that had gotten away durin’ the course of time…blondes…brunettes…a couple of redheads…some of ’em he loved…others he was just along for the ride…

and as the night wore on…he’d fall in and outta sleep…dreamin’ of cross country drives and walks in parks…dreams with sound tracks to ’em…Bill Evans…Miles Davis…Charles Mingus playin’ in his head…poundin’ out notes while his eyelids fluttered…mumblin’ incoherently ’bout nothin’ inparticular….nothin’ at all…

it was all within a night…

they’d talk till all hours of the night…he held onto her every word…listening like it would be her last…

and she liked that someone would listen to her…ex-husband didn’t…nor did former lovers…she did as she was told…never questioned…

he offered something new…intellectual stimulation…they’d talk about books…jazz…old movies…art…he’d tell her ’bout trips to Spain…and nights in Paris…talked of adventures…

she liked what he had to say…took her away from her humdrum life of factory work…tv soap operas…Lifetime movies…she dreamed of a traveling life…going places that she could only dream about…only dream about…

maybe that’s why she kept him ’round…

she’d set-up shots early on her shift…Irish Mist all ’round…downed in an instant by waitresses…a newspaper man…crazy Dave…and a midget from the neighborhood named, Pete…all of ’em drinkin’ to the Sun risin’ another day…and their souls bein’ saved at the crack of noon…

the bells rang out twelve times as they licked their lips and crossed themselves during this holy communion…when two or more are gathered in my name…and crazy Dave ordered another round…

she’d set ’em up again…with short beer chasers in split glasses…ales and whiskey…ales and whiskey…for today we drink…and let us not forget those who have gone before us…may their souls have a short stay in purgatory…may they touch the hem of his garment soon…

and they’d sing out old songs along with the juke box in the corner…quarters clanked…waded-up dollar bills stretched out and placed at the alter…as the Wurlitzer boomed…banged…and scratched…coughin’ and wheezin’ out old Chet Baker tunes…and Coltrane solos…

give us today our daily bread…forgive us of our trespasses as we forgive those who who have trespassed ‘gainst us…

glasses raised in the air…night will be here soon…

Amen…

saw him last night in my room….just standin’ there with a Pepsi in his hand…lookin’ out the window down the street which was lined by a hazy blue light…casting shadows…casting shadows…

he didn’t say a word…just like old times…never talked much…took a seat in the old Lazy-boy recliner and just rocked back and forth…back and forth…cleared his throat a couple of times…looked out the window some more at an old Dodge out in the alley…smiled…could remember nights when he and mom used to go park under elm trees ’round midnight…’fore there was bills…mortgages…mouths to feed…

and I wanted to ask him if he’d gone to heaven…if he’d met Jesus…Vishnu…Buddha…if he and Mohammed had shot pool for dough at some corner pocket on the bad side of paradise…or…had he just been roamin’ the earth all this time lookin’ for mom…spookin’ old neighbors…walked ’round America takin’ notes…wanted to ask if he was at peace…if he was at peace…

we just sat there in silence…just like when he was alive…him drinkin’ a Pepsi…and me…too scared to talk…

wanna call her…

what would you say…

don’t know…been so long…maybe I wouldn’t say anything…just listen to her…listen to what she has to say…

probably get an earful…

probably…got it comin’ to me…didn’t listen to her for the longest time…didn’t hear her when she said things had to change…didn’t respond to that voice…silent voice that says the most important things…so quiet for so long…and I didn’t hear that silence…

what’re you talkin’ ’bout…

when they stop talkin’ that’s when you better listen…they’re screamin’ out…and they got you on a clock…timing you…seein’ how long it takes for a response…seein’ if you catch on…

so it’s a game…

no…just the way they communicate…long hushed tones…and you hear ’em…just ignore it…like it’s not there…but…it’s like an elephant in the room…it’s deafening…so you start goin’ out at night more and more…always comin’ home drunk…passin’ out on the couch…you still hear that silence from down the hallway…at the breakfast table…in the car…you can’t shut it off…she’s waitin’ on you to fold…

so you wanna call her…and listen to silence…you wanna do that…

yeah…I do…

you’re always talkin’ ’bout leavin’…as if it were a theme…a way of livin’…get to one place…stay a spell…’fore you know it you’re back on the road again…takin’ off to some other town…

guess so…

ever gonna settle down…take up some kinda roots…can’t you just accept the fact that you’re gettin’ too old for all this movin’ ’round…hitchhikin’…sleepin’ under bridges…stayin’ in homeless shelters…don’t ya get tired of it…gotta get old after awhile…

yeah…

where would ya go anyway…been almost everywhere…

thinkin’ out West…maybe California…

what’s in California…

ocean…just sit ‘side the ocean for awhile…watch it…feel it…fall asleep on the sand at nightfall…

all romantic bullshit…hell…you’ll get there and you won’t even see the ocean…get swallowed up by poverty…

get swallowed up by poverty anywhere…wanna see the Sunset on the Pacific…

then you’ll come back home…

maybe…might head off to Alaska and work on some fishin’ boat…or be a cowboy out in Montana…I don’t know…I never know…never had a plan…just kinda go wherever the wind takes me…

a free spirit…

free…there ain’t nothin’ free…

appointment cards and old baseball tickets sat on his desk next to an empty bottle of Vraylar…roll of toilet paper…books…and a silver mug to piss in when the bathroom down the hall was occupied lay on the wooden piece of furniture that stood in his dad’s office for years …ever since he could remember…built by Amish in Northern Indiana…passed onto him when his dad died one Christmas morn…

he used the desk to write poems on…short stories…long letters to old friends who no longer stayed in touch…he’d send out flares…they were never answered…

wrote notes to himself and stuck ’em all over the wooden frame…grocery lists…electric bill due dates…don’t forget to water the gardenia…pick up prescriptions at the drug store…poetic lines…quotes from newspapers…never threw any of ’em away…kept everything neatly organized…in rows…like cornfields in the Midwest…

the fat man sat at that desk for hours at a time…thinking of what to write…thinking of a time when he didn’t have a desk…or books…or anything…a free agent able to move at any given moment…just pack and leave…head out to the West coast…or South…might even end up in New Mexico…

now his wonderin’ days were over…had taken in too much stuff…’spose he could just leave it all behind and take off in the middle of the night like in the old days…but…that old wooden desk meant somethin’ to him…it was like hangin’ onto a piece of the past…like his father was in the room with him always…

that desk kept him rooted…

her days off were spent drinkin’…she’d drive to the liquor store come Saturday morn religiously…looked for the best deals…Fireball…Paddy’s whiskey…bottles of cheap vodka…red wines…whatever was on sale… woman was onna mission…

many times she couldn’t wait till she got home to start…placed spirits in plastic sippy cups…the kind she used to give her daughter on long trips to Florida…pictures of Mickey on it…fill it to the top…package of mints in the glove box…

and she drank into the night…sittin’ alone in the dark watchin’ tv shows…marathons of, Law And Order…CSI…with the sound turned down…just pictures of other lives…people solvin’ crimes…unreal reality of murder and mayhem in big cities…clues would pile up…

in her mind she wished she was on that screen…wanted to be a movie star when she was younger…leave her small town and head out West to Hollywood…had dreams of makin’ it big…had to settle for sellin’ insurance and a husband she thought she loved…kids…two cars…a home out on Bluffton Road…some cat named Spike…

thought she was happy for a long time…twenty years of marriage…church on Sundays…Christmas mornings opening packages…Bailey’s and coffee…a cigarette at the kitchen table with her yogurt and granola…a kiss on the lips…,I’ll be late tonight…,he was always late…

years passed by…leading her to a person she didn’t recognize anymore when she caught glimpses of herself in store windows…mirrors…lines had replaced blushed cheeks…her body had more curves…blonde hair turned gray…she didn’t like what she saw…

so…she drank…forgetting her own life for hours on end till she’d pass out ’round midnight inna big old Lazy-boy with a blanket on her and a glass knocked over on the floor…no dreams…just a racing mind that wanted nothing more than to be turned off…erased of all that was inside of it…this was her mission…

and she always fulfilled it…

someone’s following me…

watching every step…

taking notes…

thought I caught her eye a day ago…

’round the corner…

camera in her hand…

snapping my every move…

pictures of me drinking coffee…eating breakfast at a restaurant…getting into a cab…kissing a woman under an elm in the park…

she’s documenting my life…

who is she working for…

an ex-wife…a broken lover…my boss… maybe he wants the goods on me…wondering how I spend my days out of the office…he’s got plans for me…

yes…he’s got plans for me…going to stick me to the coals he is…burn me at the stake…

he wishes to eliminate me…doesn’t want my kind ’round…he sees an opening he does…get rid of the competition…

well…we shall see…we shall see…