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Jan. 16, 2007 City Main streets where the parks are back there, and the city lights keep shining. Overpasses, and bilingual universities where the students are know nothing snobs. Ten story apartments, where the cat sits in the walk in closet, by the towels and sheets. Strip clubs, and its dark in the middle of the day. Some of the women wear clothing that shine neon green or orange. Toast, and the morning hovers, waiting for its moments. The underground, and the good clatter of the cars, and the beeping sound when the doors close. Ten Visions In The North American Night. Steps up, and steps down again. Strange people, so cruel and mean, so full of edginess. Movie theatres, and theatres of traffic. Stepping-stones, and pathways. The old men, who sit, and only sit, and do nothing more. The advertisements, and the liquor store. A thousand bottles, a thousand bottles and more. Hedging your bets. Black leather chairs. Laundry. Games people play. Library, so small, just one floor. Back streets, but still busy. You could get a key made. There are the tracks, to walk along, and there are part-time jobs. Shipping areas, and what a drag. Retirement homes, where they cook a hundred meals, and the people are pale, wrinkled, and move like slow ghosts already. The nights are not pregnant with promise, far from it. The nights there are a bore, everyone a secret whore. There is no real group, and no real movement. Sometimes, still, a bird sings a song, and the bird is better off. Dark haired women, with eyes that only see money and nothing else besides. Nobody is game. There was no war, and there was no freedom. Cheese in the park. And the one said to the other it was a strange relationship with cheese, and the other howled in laughter. Talking about Alan Watts for some reason. There are garbage trucks, and there are telephone wires. Crying clouds full of acid rain maybe. People who forgot, all too willingly, how to be good. Tigers and soup and soap and magazine. Pillows. She bought a two or three hundred-dollar bed set. Old mean landladies, they know the score. Wine corks, green forks, and yell out for more. Mean, mean, mean. Lean, lean, and lean. That’s how a city is, no matter what they tell you. That’s why people drink, that’s why people think. Crazy blonde psyche patients, playing guitars and talking about floods in the metropolis, and boarding buses. But the strippers with the neon. Such a thing made it tolerable. They dance there, in the afternoon, and they talk a little talk. What do they care? Salting trucks and shovels. Old women see it their way, looking and looking, but never seeing. A city has its time, and prospers, but then, later, becomes an imitation of itself. Morley Callaghan, in an old interview, talks, about the danger of himself imitating himself. It’s the same all around. Everyone imitates themselves. There was a light, and then it goes, and then the city pretends its still there. But the day passed decades and decades ago. Paint City Noise The phone rang and J answered it. “Yes sir, yes…but I am afraid I’ve no money Duncan, though I’d love to join you…” And then a few moments later, “If you say so, it is good. I’ll have to owe you. Thanks. See you there. I’ll have my nephew with me.” Then J hung up the telephone, and turned to his nephew, nineteen years old, “Duncan is about the only person that could get me out on a Sunday night. He wants to have a drink. I have no money, and I know you don’t have much money junior, but Duncan says its on him, so get ready and lets go. I need to get away from those scallywags and their noise anyhow…” With that, they got ready to go. The scallywags were the paint company across the way that bothered J. He was bothered by the noise that some machinery or air conditioning system made, and had become convinced that the noise was too loud, and must have been against some regulation, somewhere, somehow. He had been determined to find it. They were interrupting his sleep at nights. His nephew knew that J was looking into things a bit too much, as it wasn’t excessively loud, but never said anything. Sometimes J would call the company and leave a message, accusing them of being insensitive and noise polluters and things like that. At the bar, it was good and Duncan arrived shortly after J and his nephew. Duncan sat down and people seemed to listen to his pronouncements. He said that anti-smoking bylaws were anti-life, that the world should smell like the world. He was funny, and rugged, and needed a shave. His big thing, it turned out, was to go to Morocco every year for a few months, and re-read The Odyssey, The Iliad, and the Bible. He turned to J and asked, “Who’s this?” “My nephew. He is a neophyte when it comes to drinking, as are all people his age. They can’t hold their liquor. They can’t even hold beer.” “You gonna teach him the ropes?” “Nope. Nothing to teach. He’ll learn on his own about things.” “I have a son about your age,” said Duncan, “and he drums. He travels around the world smoking a lot of dope, and he drums on a drum, with drumming people. He has not worn shoes in four years. He doesn’t wear shoes.” They were drinking Rickard’s Red, and there was a good atmosphere in the bar. J turned to his nephew for some reason, and out of the blue, laughing like he had realized something right there before him that had been there all along, said, “ There is no God,” and his nephew just laughed. “Of course there is no God.” Then they all continued to talk, and drink, and at the end, they stumbled out of the place, and walked around a bit, and then made their way home. J’s nephew climbed a tree on the way. Duncan had stopped to buy a loaf of bread for some reason. J telephoned the paint company when finally home and said on the answering machine, “ Again it is the middle of the night, and your most incorrigible noise is heard by me. I am a concerned citizen, and you have no right to ignore the request to stop your building from making so much noise. Shame on you. I think you are a bunch of scoundrels and scallywags, and I only wish you the worst of luck. I hope you are happy, because I have not slept in months. Good-bye.” And J’s nephew just sat there, wondering what the hell, and soon fell asleep there, full of beer and dreams and some chicken wings too. ------------ Email Brian Michael Barbeito: Brian1750@Hotmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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