A thin little plastic breeze pushes a fat, moist heat across my room. The pillow has no more cool sides to turn to. Time to trade my sour mouthful of dust for a loud, chemical mouthwash boing! No haircut is as good the next day, a dab does me and I stare into my black closet for inspiration. A dozen mix and match mall salesperson casual combos don’t help today’s headache. The seat of my pants stuck to my ass on the way home last night but that sweat is surely dried. A quick sniff and check for skids, my ass won’t get close enough to anyone’s face for this to matter. A T-shirt that has yet to live through a bad party tops me off and a cold bagel quells the vile foam.
Still seeing purple ECGs in my field of vision from climbing the stairs, I first look out back to se if any of my dead plants have sprung back to life. Then in front over the door in case the hornets I killed with Windex yesterday before I left have sprung back to life. No live hornets, but plenty of damn sunlight. All the live hornets are in my car. I left my door open last night and my battery is dead.
That dirty, mono-syllabic guy with the fuzzy green tattoos and the Chevelle with the flat tires has cables, he uses them every day. Remind me to never go to this guy’s door again. Dead fish in a pail in the sun smell almost as good as the full catbox in the sweltering foyer. A thick blue cloud says I’m on my way.
Two summers ago I forgot my only plaid flannel shirt at a one-eared photojournalist pal’s mom’s wood-heat shack. That sure would have been useful for getting these hornets out of my car. Maybe I should hit the damn moped instead of trying to avoid it when that hornet stung my bottom lip. With it all swollen up, my receding gums are so obvious.
Look on the bright side. Only one place in town sells truly cheap beer. The first stop, plus a pint of old Mr. Yuck completes the first leg.
I’m ready to go now, wherever. Every time I leave my house I go the same way. Past the rotted houses and farm stands, the closed or never open antique dealers and countless liquor stores. Over the bridge, I’ll fight the wheel and get that shirt. I recall the mom was a thin woman who wore sweaters in the summer and hadn’t accepted a birthday since her 17th in Georgia or one of those places. The miles show, but not from 30 feet away or in the dark.. She’s there, drinking warm whisky through the window, with a sweater. My shirt’s not around, but she gave me a good rag and it was nice to do that with her again. My ass is sticking to my pants but the hornets are gone from my car.
I have a space I used to sit and drink or sleep that I feel like lamenting for the 10th time. It was so nice up there behind the rug store, finding a spot with no broken glass and cursing the sun while I fought off hornets. The city decided to make it a bum-haven by landscaping disrespectfully and putting benches and lights there, up by the tacks over downtown. Many times I would leave and go where I’m going, a bus station bathroom and the fuzzy green tattoo guy’s foyer cannot, combined, smell as much like this, my favorite place. The CD jukebox, wine cooler chalkboard, and the New York jock bartender love the R&B entertainment policy and have dulled the rustic flair, but the times I can’t remember have imbued these walls with an unsinkable nicotine tarred cheer that I can almost smell over the urine odor. There aren’t any hornets here, yet.
My pneumatic self-image says to me my name is heard through the stained glass. Unless inverted stools speak, I err. More urban ruination has taken from me a vomit-soaked stairwell behind the bombed-out government building that was the site of many a favorite warm oilcan and retch-triggering nip. An awful yellow machine stands in the adjacent alley where I got a wet kiss and squeeze on my groin from a young girl I admired. Knee deep in driven snow, the warm hand’s caress was better for its warmth than its caress and the spit-chapped my puffy lips when I repeatedly licked to savor the moment. Like the blueberry schnapps with a comedienne I barely knew in that record store basement when my camoflaged pants held 11 thoroughly shaken Ballantines, I walk heavy and bruise-legged to where I slept before that photo session so many years back. The days where that pneumatic soul got its first fishy pumps.