dmseay

couldn’t remember last time I saw him…

couldn’t…

no…couldn’t…

was it last fall ‘fore he left to go out East…

might’ve been…

he’s always takin’ off somewhere…

yea…he is…

think he knows where he’s goin’ half the time…

doubt it…he leaves half cocked…mad as hell most the time…never seen him in a good mood…he gets good and mad and just leaves at the drop of a hat…don’t even say goodbye or nothin’…

ain’t that a shame…

makes you wonder…how much anger he’s got in him…

what d’ya mean…

he’ll come back to town sooner or later…lookin’ for another reason to leave…it don’t take much…

you think he’s a lost soul…think he’s lookin’ for somethin’…somethin’ he’ll never be able to find…takin’ off here and there…throwin’ stuff away all the time to lighten his load…he don’t own nothin’ but what he’s got on…

he carries that bag with him…that green book bag…ain’t nobody seen inside it…can’t be carryin’ all that much…maybe some toothpaste…a pair of underwear or two…

heard he likes to read…

heard that…

I did…

‘spose there’s truth to that…I seen him at the library a few times…

seen him there…

where you think he’s gone to…

couldn’t tell ya’…couldn’t tell ya’…

she kept saying…,I’m not here…I’m not here…,whispered it as we spoke on the phone…a 1,000 miles away…asked her what she meant by that…just silence…cold silence…

she talked ’bout this man she had…some driver…used to move cars from one end of america to the other…said she really loved him…said he was the true one…

he’d always call her every night from the road…they spoke in a language only they understood…all mysterious and foriegn to the human ear…made them both long for each other…

this went on for years she said…this affair…could always count on him to come ’round…usually the beginning of the month…’times he’d surprise her and just show up on her door when the Moon was full and the cicadas would be singing up a storm…she’d let him in…

and i wondered if she was telling me the truth…’bout this man who drove back and forth ‘cross america…wondered if she made the whole thing up…when i was a kid she’d tell me stories…made up right on the spot as she held me in her arms…things you remember…

so…one day he stopped calling her…didn’t show up at her door at the first of the month…nor any other time she said…just cut her off completely…didn’t know what happened to him…didn’t know if he was still alive or not…took time…but after awhile she quit caring…said she quit caring…

she kept saying…, I’m not here…I’m not here…,whispered it as we spoke on the phone…a 1,000 miles away…

hello…

hello…

are you o.k. …

always…

are you still at Bellevue Shelter….

no…

where are you sleeping…

under trees in Central Park…benches in The Village…corners of parking garages…abandoned buildings in Washington Heights…

are you scared…

I sleep a few hours during the day…roam the streets at night…wandering ’round the city…looking at people…always looking at people…the masses migrating up and down 8th Avenue…Punjabs parking cabs on Lexington…the shanty Irish telling tales in pubs as i sip on soda water with bitters…and WASPS doing what WASPS do…money…always making money…

do you need money…

i always need money…

how do you live…

working odd jobs…day labor…

do you beg…

never…

I wish you’d come home…

i have no home…

we used to talk of communion in the Southern Church of Christ…a stale white cracker passed from pew to pew followed by tiny cups of grape juice…you’d bow your head ‘fore you’d partake…this be done in rememberance of me…Christ said…my body…my blood…and the white Southerners would pray on that…meditate for a moment…eat from the cracker and drink from the cup…only to be followed by giving from poor pockets to a red cushioned plate with bills and bills and bills laying in it…collected by men in cheap suits of blue and lime green…yellow and white…

and a part of me wanted to take that money…steal it from right under their noses…every bill…every coin…i was in need…and i figured what difference would it make if i was to take from the hand of God…he owed me anyway…for all the sufferin’ in the world…the hunger…the poverty…what difference would it make indeed…

for this is america…, i thought…., our god does not linger in the clouds above…he toils here on earth…in banks…trade houses…courtrooms…department stores…on billboards as your driving down the highway en- route to your Aunt Lucy’s house for a fat turkey on Thanksgiving with all the giblet gravy one could muster…devoured in one sitting at a table divided…a table divided…, that’s what i thought…that’s what i thought…

but she never saw my logic…my thoughts on takin’ the money and runnin’ away with a few dollars in my pocket for once…yes…just once have a few dollars in my pocket …not given to me for my labor…but taken at will…to never be caught with my hand in the till…to go to church every Sunday for the sole purpose of robbing them blind…what a glorious life that would be…

and why just stick with one church…spread myself all over the place…a Church of Christ at the first of the month…then the next Sunday steal from the Baptists…hell…why not stick up a Synagogue as well…it was all the same…the Gentile’s dollar was as good as the Jew’s…all to be spent on a big fat juicy pork chop with onions and sauerkraut…making sure that the loot was not spent in vain…

we used to talk of communion…talk of communion…that’s all we ever do in america is talk of communion…

and i’d spend less and less time in the shelter at night…more time roamin’ ’round the city…rides on the 6 train from Brooklyn to the Bronx…lookin’ out at painted pictures on red brick walls…hearin’ saxophone players wail into the night…preachers preachin’ the gospel on street corners and the constant shuffle of feet in the Port Authority building…where men and women found corners and pockets to sleep in for an hour at a time ‘fore bein’ told to move on by a cop dressed in blue with a gun on his hip and a coffee cup in his hand…

how many nights i’d walk through Washington Square Park…find a bench to sit on…and watch the show…the protesters always under the arch yellin’ ’bout somethin’ they could not change…art students taking shots of ebony nudes in the twilight with a flash…couples walkin’ hand and hand…just like she and i used to do…drunks askin’ for a buck or two…skate boarders crashing into walls…and crazies talking to themselves ’bout the second coming of Christ almighty…communists passing literature…and i just sat and watched…just sat and watched…

i was beginning to know this city…felt comfortable in it’s chaos…slept during the day and walked the nights among the other vagabonds…bearded ladies out on the town…night owls and night hawks…the midnight Moon watchers who howled in Tompkins Square…subway bums askin’ for a pass…and people lined-up for a slice…only a buck…only a buck…

and i’d seen men beaten behind the Post Office…whores applyin’ their trades in alleys and down in garden apartment doorways…saw the chicken-hawks pickin’ up hustlers in adult bookstores…or approach young boys fresh off the buses…all this under neon lights and purple skies…

thank God for the purple skies…

there was always a distrust between us…letters she’d found…written to former lovers…girlfriends throughout the years…explicit talk of times together…weekends spent in hotel beds…making love till checkout time…drunken nights spilling into drunken days…wonderful hangovers poured into a glass and shared by two…she was jealous…did she ever have that kind of love…she did not…she did not…

as far as i knew she only had one love…there was only one man she ever gave herself to…said that was the Christian way…save yourself for the one true love and never give into urges…all i ever did was give into urges…

had a wild streak in me…would take off on drives ‘cross america at strange hours of the night…maybe i got that from the old man…i’d leave Indiana and wind-up in St. Louis…Chicago…go north to Toronto…just drive till i couldn’t go anymore…spendin’ money faster than i got it…sleepin’ in a car…headin’ to the bars and lying in wait for some woman to take me away in the purple hours before Sun-up…women with whiskey on their breath….that was what i fell for…

booze never touched her lips…if she even thought of drinking or fornicating with another man she would cry out for forgiveness of her sins…she was always worried ’bout sinnin’…even though her Protestant beliefs led her down the path of predestination she was always scared of her name not bein’ in the book when her time was up…, And the Lord either has your name in the great book or he don’t have your name in the great book and that is that…, she’d say every time she confronted me with my faults…written out proof that i was not true…

and i told her…, It don’t matter…i’m Hell bound anyway and ain’t no book gonna’ change that…if there even is a book…

with that she’d cry…cry out for another lost sinner in this world…a lost soul that would never know the truth…never know the love of God…ashamed that i took my comfort in worldly pleasures…ashamed of me indeed…

what can i say…

the flesh is weak…

guys had been there for years…hole’d up in a homeless shelter that felt like a prison…an old prison with no improvements made to it over time…just a slow decay of brick and mortar…matresses infested with bedbugs…showers with mildew…and the constant smell of shit…human shit…rat shit…pigeon shit…feces thrown by people at people…vomit never cleaned up…the smell of humanity in a most fowl way…this was the place guys called home…called home…

and it was my home too for a while…i used it as a place to lay my head at night amongst the cockroaches…the midnight howlings of men crying out for their sins…guards picking fights…wild laughter…porn watched on cellphones…messages sent out to other vagabonds in the dark…a blue hue glowing from black…brown…and white hands holding onto the only property they had…no home…no family…no clothes…no jobs…but downloads were had by all…thousands of porn movies packed into a little device…guys coming in silence…lips sealed shut…sealed shut…

i kept my cool…no fights…no arguments…never forced into anything…never approached to commit a sin…when you’re a 300 pound crazy person…people tend to steer clear…keeping to myself was my best option…a constant conversation inside my head…questioning…always questioning how i wound up in a place with other crazies…cut-throats…cons…men down on their luck…addicts of something…we were all addicts of something…

for some it was crack…others it was heroine…porn played a part in all of our lives…whores bought and sold for scratch…a thousand souls in one building and not a single one cleansed…blood spilled for nothing…blood spilled for nothing…

no good deed goes unpunished…

did’ya get the birthday card I sent ya…, she asked…, told her yes…smiled on the other end of the phone…,I thought ya’d like it…just somethin’ kinda’ funny I saw at the drug store…figured I’d pick it up and send it to ya there at the shelter…ya’ move ’round so much…knew I was taken a chance…, she laughed…

where’dya get the idea ’bout clowns…, i asked her…, didn’t ya’ know i always hated clowns…, again she let out a laugh…high pitched…just a short little laugh…, the $20 is gonna’ come in handy…, i told her…, i’ll spend it wisely…

go-on out and get yourself a meal tonight with it…what’ll $20 getcha in New York City…certainly not a steak…,there was an awkward silence…, think we’ll ever see each other again…, again…there was silence…

i don’t know…not countin’ on it…you got your ways ’bout ya’ and i got mine…, told her…, ‘sides…like ya’ said…i never know where i’m gonna’ be from one day to the next…could wind up in Pueblo for all i know…

Pueblo…what would ya’ be doin’ in Pueblo…

just sayin’…just sayin’…

why don’t ya’ get on home and let some people take care of ya’ for a change…seems a shame…ya’ got family…ain’t family ‘spose to take care of one another…

not gonna’ have that conversation…thanks for the card…

you’re welcome…

bye now…

bye…

lookin’ at an ambulance speedin’ down a highway…sirens on…goin’ fast…very fast and i can see the EMT workin’ at keeping the body alive…oxygen is given…some iv’s placed in arms…and i see the driver…cursing at cars… trucks that won’t get out of his way…dodgin’ and swervin’…dodgin’ and swervin’…

i saw bars where the old man used to hang out in till wee hours of the mornin’…drinkin’ and carousin’ with women of all kinds…blondes…redheads…never flirted with the black chicks…never did…he always stuck to his own kind…those were his instructions…stick to your own kind…

the ambulance drove past the church where the family went on Sundays…the old man and his wife in middle pews while the kids gotta’ Sunday school education…lessons ’bout Noah…Jacob…Adam and Eve…how God punished the wicked and was pleased with the good…

and as i watched the ambulance goin’ down the highway…i couldn’t determine if i was good or bad…whether it was wrong of me to think the way i did…or just a phase i was goin’ through…some weird phase where all seemed dark and dreary…not like when i was a kid…all was right with the world…never thought of doin’ myself in back then…

there was this body hoverin’ over the ambulance…floating in mid-air…laid out straight onna’ cloud…the EMTwas workin’ frantically to bring him back down into safety…and the body was resistin’…didn’t want to go back to earth…just wanted to float…just wanted to float…

but God said it wasn’t his time…wasn’t his time…said he was a fool for openin’ that bottle of pills and downin’ ’em…God told him to go on back to the world…he’d come get him some other time…some other time…

so the ghost went back into the body…back to the toils of bein’ alive…but for a brief moment…a brief moment… he was on his way…he was on his way…

looked at old pictures of her…black and whites…a graduate gown…wedding dress…holding onto his hand…his hand…

and i thought to myself…she was so pretty…dark black hair and eyes that danced…a smile on her face…in all her pictures she had a smile on her face…

saw these photos of her and the old man…both of ’em young…rice in their hair…drivin’ off in some old Chevy with tin cans tied to the back bumper…he was kissin’ her on the cheek…

and i wondered what happened to her…this young woman…this woman who in later years smiled less and less…i wondered what turned her inside out…

was it the kids she had…two boys and a girl…was it the harshness of raising them while the old man was out on the road five days a week sellin’ somethn’ to put food on the table…always sellin’ somethin’…

the old man would leave on Monday and not come back till Friday night…he’d come into town late…just after fall football games…pick-up kids afterwards…had a bottle under his seat…she had a Bible in her arms…she always had a Bible in her arms…

and i looked at those pictures…wonderin’ what made her smile like that…all within a year she was outta’ school…married…and with a kid on the way…i’ll betcha those tin cans made a lot noise as they drove on down the road…

the whole time i knew her she was never happy…always complainin’ ’bout somethin’…her sides hurt…she was tired…always eating…she never stopped eating…and she’d cry at night when she thought the kids were in bed…lights turned out…dark…just a blue light from the television shinin’ in the night…

looked at old pictures of her…i looked at old pictures of her…