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8 to 89

Stefan V.S. Gibson

    Im drunk. Brain bashed off beer and whiskey backs. Behind the wheel pedal to the floor windshield wipers whipping wet rain every which way vision blurred seven ways to eternity and invincible. I have a vendetta and I aim to crash into it tears mixed with broken glass streaked red with the dark side of every commercial that romanticized my state of being and ended with the perfect punch line: Drink Responsibly. Youre shotgun. No seat belt. Knuckles kneaded into white fear stomach heaved up to your throat forcing the screams out of your ears and the blood from your brain. But its not your time to die. Or mine. Statistically. Way back when before I ever touched any form of liquid that could alter your state of stop and go and send you into hysterics haphazardly singing your silly soul into a stinking microphone voice amped up on short circuit speakers wired wrong into the sound system only making it easier for those that were on the edge of puking to do so while your friends gazed on under ugly green lights and tilted highball to eyeball putting his hand on your girlfriends thigh if refused could be blamed on what the bar man gave him while the other lusty friend waited his turn on the too sticky stage so you could do the same thing while he goes up there: I met a man.
    Hot sun blazing down on hard slabs of concrete pushing the already climbing heat index dangerously up and past full melt down raining merciless heat on me bummed out on a bench. Sweating it out. No reason. Fleeing the great depression of the overused oversold cliché of the fulltime picked apart patricians of office cubicle sprawl headache inducing repetitively bland screen savers muted white light hanging above my head with the menace of the pendulum trudging in the malaise of trying hard to do nothing because the four year degree final exam up all night studying student fees loans near pregnancies and endless doubt chains of fate ending up like your parents dragged kicking and screaming across that stage to smile politely as some bald scholar handed you a diploma knowing his life was no better and should have been screaming at me run! But couldn’t because he had to keep up appearances with peers his age that seethed and hissed behind frozen masks of complacency to do the same thing Bald Man couldn’t because doing what you wanted with your life was not deemed irresponsible so every one just hopped on the same merry-go-round of a life time ahead of self loathing because they ended up the way they didn’t want to because they did everything they were supposed to do staring right back at me reflected through the glass sitting on my desk punching me in the face from that monitor.
    Twenty six stories of constructed slab rocks mortar and steel twenty feet behind me enduring the sun on my collection of fabric from the Mens Warehouse two for three deal heating up my torso while a popcorn kernel came to mind and that’s when he sat next to me. His eyes were clear. The lightest gray I had ever seen. Big ears. Not much hair and what was there was kept neat. Tall. Stocky in a skinny way. Maybe military. Maybe not. Id bet on it. Five minutes passed in dead silence. Shoulder to shoulder on a bench too small to be complaining about it because you sat on it and should have known what you were getting into. A graveyard of decorum. The pigeons could have been buzzards of conversation picking at the spare bones of two people with nothing to say. Blue skies no clouds broiling sun and the air was head stuck in an oven hot when he spoke. “89.” He said. I had half a chug of water snailing down my throat from a designer water company that distributed water that tasted like they got it from a rusty tap somewhere far off in a third world country with dark complexion ethnicities and naked babies playing happily flies leap froging off their baby fat in the dirt in a place where traditions still stood the test of time and nobody gave one thought to the weekend box office totals and people watched in horror through television tubes that transported themselves there and only showed the “savagery” they would never have to endure with their ass plunked happily in Lazy Boy luxury happy not to be there while two blocks over someone took a revolver to the roof of their mouth and blasted big bits of parts of something they used to think with across the family portrait above the fire place where it would eventually be discovered by the wife and kids coming home from a soccer game they almost won but lost and because this water was stuck in my throat I arched a brow.
    “89.” The same epitaph jettising from that bottomless lexicon of word verbiage that represented the entire subliminal neurosis of this born world past the partially parched lips held in form by porcelain teeth yellowed and eroded from decades of coughing up phlegm and sending it projectile two steps ahead of him only to step on its slick soiled mass leaving wetted footprints of partially detectable DNA for at least six steps as he walked on various surfaces of the span of his life adhering to the rules of gravity that held him fixed there under the rules whether he wanted to or not until they day he died and then he continued. “Its what I heard or read somewheres. 89. Statistically. That’s how many a times a drunk driver can get behind the wheel of a car before it all finally takes toll squares away and gets accounted for.” He squared his clear gaze on me. Silent. I gulped. Wiped brow. “I don’t drink.” I remember saying. “Never have.” He rolled his tongue underneath his lip rippling the skin a tidal wave of wrinkled elderly flesh vulgar as anything and I had never been so unaroused. He coughed and nodded. “This aint no pissing contest. Im just stating facts.” Whatever contest it actually was I never found out. My break was over ten minutes before he sat down though I was hoping when I returned to be greeted by an old fashioned midshift firing that would never come so I lingered with the man. “You smoke?” I told him I didn’t. “You got a quarter?” I told him I used plastic for everything. The man winded up his scraggly bones yawned and got up hacked phlegm stopped to itch his crotch then proceeded to just barely side step his phlegm letting it glisten and coagulate under that dead yellow star. He uttered something. A lie or a prophecy Ill never know because I stopped listening just at the point of the hack staring at that mass of him that was no longer in him but out of him. He about faced and started walking away. I kept being hot wondering why I wanted to hold on to that quarter that had been sticking me in the leg sense well before lunch and then opened my mouth and exhaled for the first time since that stranger sat down next to me.
    It’s the opposite of stifling in here. Frozen air flittering full blast from fractured fans forcing furious frost against the windows. Booze goggles at least six packs stacked in six pairs flawing flat faltering vision. Wipers whipping wet and wild fighting a frantic and fabulous hail storm. Cackling laugh kicking out crazy staccato all in effort to keep me alert. Not because Im afraid of what will happen to poor intoxicated me but what would happen to the car. Wrapping warped wrapped steel and wrecking a perfectly good lamppost would be murder. Me alive before 89 and the car totaled would dissolve all intimacy created to this point. Spine ringing roars kicking out of my orifice as I turn to you and ask “What do you know about love?” Hold on. Lets push past this perfectly perched and placid red bulb bucking into the into intersection of our own possible pointless demise.
    Horns blaring. Cars screech and swerve. Tires skidding on slick oil slip sliding and side swiping careening out of the way of my sorrowful sad eyed delusion of self. Is this in the name of love. No wait let me tell you what I know about the big “L”. That word that cant be recognized alone. That we don’t know apart. That we cant feel without touching with something our hands can never grasp. That thing that greets with a seductive soft swooning wet kiss right on the mouth of our naivety and wantonness so helpless to give a God damn thought to the consequences. That notion that makes a man want to dyke out just to grab a bright brief glimpse of what she thought it was before her ten inch tall spiked tipped heels tip toed all over your heartbreak and tap danced away with apart of you forever. That L shaped two inch lacerated blade she sticks in your gut and twists slow and lifts tailing crimson colored trickles of lust and life right to your big bright red blood beater and bats an eye it would take an eternity to forget. That. Yes Im talking about that. Immoveable invulnerable subtle cord she can wrench right out of you and drop in the perfect paper shredder not meant for pulp paste making you wake up and realize what they truly meant by heart strings. That. I loved her. I really loved her. That.
    What day was it? Or was it night. I don’t care it was a nightmare so who cares if my time is right. Soft eyes dark skin and a smile from heaven that sent heat into your heart like it was burning in hell. Everyday I saw her she was right there. I closed my eyes and she was right there. Her voice was a melody and I like when she talked and the sound. She wiped the whole thing away from me fanning dust from our monument to the things leading up to the moment that fissured and quaked crumbling into tiny fragmented pieces of memory that would never come together again the way it had before because at that size and that height things crashed hard. Her hair was pulled back dress plain no shoes barefoot sitting at the foot of my bed me propped against a pillow naked under a sheet behind her waiting for her to turn and look back at me so I could see her face and match it to the face last night when we were one comparing them enabling me to come to a conclusion I demanded but she wouldn’t so I laid there waiting for what was coming to me even though I thought I knew. She sighed when she said it. Going back in time with adamant refusal to do what was right a broken ticking clock as she took toll of all the reasons. One after another of what she had done wrong. Of what I had failed to do right. Of how what held us together no longer did and she was remorseful. No air in the room all gone evaporated now saturated with hate and self loathing breathing in those exhaust fumes choking on bile and resentment and ache and pain blowing gaskets in my soul. I erupted so destructive and sudden and savagely to extremes so quietly within myself eyes wet and mournful charged with impulses of destruction and let her hand rest on my face as I said “I know.” That’s when she looked at me and said what I felt would unwind the chord tightening against my grief but only added uncountable knots to the sadness and she got up and took her coat from a chair and walked out of my life without her shoes.
    I found myself at a bar. Dull brazen lights. Mirrors distorting a place that didn’t need to be distorted unless that distortion came from cigarette smoke that wasn’t allowed anymore because peopled organizations determined everyone should fear dying dismal deaths from something that couldn’t be anymore harmful in the long run that extreme heat and wasn’t allowed. Liquor was new to me and I didn’t know where to start. My dad died in a mysterious way. A note by the side of the bed only he was missing a pulse and the letter half finished made out to some woman that was not my mother and the coroner couldn’t determine for anything what killed him. So I sat there at the bar ordered some drink promoted by some woman that God had smacked in the face with attractiveness she could profit from my money contributing to her pay check in some complex way that only an economic wizard or man with the basic black and white thought of a child could pin down because I couldn’t on the sole fact that by the time I even thought about it I was drunk urinating at a stall urine sprinkling my starched pants ruminating on a pretty girl that popped my binge drinking cherry. I stayed for hours drinks and tips draining a bank account I disavowed all knowledge of and that’s when I thought of that big eared old phlegm hacking gray eyed old man and the number 89.
    I didn’t believe it. I didn’t care. And I didn’t have a thing in the world to live for. Statistically a drunk driver can get behind the wheel of a car 88 times and no harm will come to him but the 89^th time some mortician somewhere would have his hands busy gathering coffin nails. You can take your fate in your big fat fingers ball it up and throw it into the vast vat of the unknown creep under a desk forever jump out a window set yourself on fire and theres a statistic for how long how painful how depressed and how unchanged the world would be after you were gone. So I took shot after shot point blank and fast dumping it on my digestive system unaccustomed to it from a lifetime of sobriety so when I pushed back from the bar colors where fuzzy words were wavy scenery sashayed every which way and the few people that were there turned beautiful. It was magic and that anonymous bartender with four day foul breath back bent over the counter asked if I was fit to stand. I tipped my top hat that wasn’t there glinted Colgate smile on beer backwash and slid him a napkin I mistook for a mint five dollar bill headed for the door without a word spoken then turned around at the stern stench sifting so suddenly from the mens lavatory turned the opposite direction passed the barkeep once more and left leaning to and fro from there to my correct destination. My car.
    Sweat saturated hands and a steering wheel made of sleek slick synthetic plastic shit. This was drive number one made in sinful heaven. Keys in the ignition knowing full on that farewells were far off. I had the distinct defacto dynamic that I unlike most brain dead demented drunk drivers could keep count accurately from the very first drunk dredge on dry roads to the very last with forewarned knowledge that no number need mean more than 89. Then I twisted key pulled R and punched gas. Hello lonely road hello.
    I wake up head hollering hell and murder. Last nights shirt still soaked and soiled in late night stench stink and sweat. Barely a memory hooking the day before to the now after. A few colors. A table and a urinal all the pieces I have to patch back parts put out of order placed and scattered swirled around and wretched on. A hangover that fell off forcing fowl familiar not forgotten things farther forth toward forgotten and I never felt so bad feeling so far gone and good. Then She steps out mist following her ghost presence all to real naked from the waist up unrecognizable with glasses stuck to her face fogged forcing those phantom faux eyes behind circular secret mirrors and I admire her. She asks if Ive seen her shirt this female stranger stranger even more because how she arrived in my home I don’t know but even knowing wouldn’t affect a thing because this strange strangers shirt I couldn’t even fathom to recite some sort of repulsion reeked response to its location so I shudder in my sheets and turn over from the light. Is this an alcoholics life man made and moist with soaked shower air clinging close cloud style to fleeting framed moments? She drapes herself in a shirt that isn’t hers grabs knob opens door and says “Call me”. I never knew her name or her number.
    At some trendy restaurant chain people populated by hoaxing hip hicks posing as hip hick hipsters ordering clandestine wine leaving tips too low for their bill. Hovering over my half empty highball at a dark dank table all by myself. Swirling the soft slight condensation in small semi circles ruminating on just how far gone I am. Not enough. No eyes eyeing me at peace with no purpose I hoist hand until a waiter places palm and drinks pile and pour at my table. A song breaks. Accompanied by a neophyte. I look center stage and see an angel her looks landing lead heavy on my frozen face. Her eyes and her teeth and that mask made mint by natures neat hands gleamed goddess rays from far away. Pulling strings somehow at a vast void place where something used to be and could care no more. A siren more than songstress softly supplying all my terrors trembling triple time till I couldn’t bare burden and I screamed and then there sat still in the silence. I swiped sweat stood staggered appalled poised and feeling fantastic to know now I was broken from her trance and screamed again. It was done. It was finished. I took a full drink made it empty and then made my way toward my angel demon. A linguistic torrent of curses and compliments trailing and tripping tongue slurred and lucid along my footsteps origin to the microphone. Yank grab mic. Her eyes not even giving glimpse to second guesses for her to stay stern and still for my serenade of sobs sung slow to mile mellow melodies of What if God was One of Us? Old audio audience fave. When I was done I collapsed cold on the stage. Rolled up rolled over realizing my decline I reclined in my car propping myself close to the steering wheel reached turned ignition and was off way past plastered on the road my birth right redemption to hell.
    One hour nineteen calls and no name number left or numb needy message after non dial tone no. On my dresser drawer her picture frame with her picture in it a smirk smile sneer snarling snake eyes kind giving to me what it took back never to give again and I know this. Four AM sun bomb blocked back by cut cloth curtains shutting out what has left from inside me in my hollow cave poor self pity anger aching angst. But those tears haven’t come yet and I wont let them now those are my perfect precious cut stone diamonds price pressed past priceless that maybe she deserved at one moment before I decided not. Hand slow swipe searching through sweat soaked sheets exactly where exactly did I dump that bourbon bottle?
    This is what it feels like when the needle flies into red chug churning one million RPM windows down air howling holy hell plowing pure rage power through a moon lit park where are the people? Trees blur. Park lamps bushes meld into one mad mosaic music pumped as far as decimals dare dying out and lighting fires far behind me. Eyes glazed over all out of breath basted with countless cold cocktails engine revving ramming right through dark benches and plywood dirt grass and gravel trudging triumphantly under tire. This is not death Im taunting but a number you know it fine 89 well what happens if I bite it can I retake it? No this is not a test taken told nor passage from a bold bought book pages torn ripped and revised by the author. This is my misgiven life and far fetched flight into light dark total totality so as I skid scared screeches without bothering to brake back on the worn ugly road just know yes know this will be our end.
    I take it slow today. Deeper into the count down than before last still regrettably not in a state that would have been that state that had it been that state I would not have been able to state this to you. This place has sharp angles. Hexagons and prisms. A triangle. Moody mood music meant to manipulate moodless meanderings to moods of something hard to alter but with meaning. At least it isn’t loud. At least Im not loud. At least the ice tinks against the inside of whats inside my hand letting my thoughts coarse away as it goes down my throat. At least. Its good the waitress doesn’t smile at me. And she smells of a scent that could be something from a moment when she was something close to love and released to whats real perfumed by the memory it belongs to and she is not even aware but I am. So I think its really good she doesn’t smile at me. I think its good that I don’t want to touch her and feel the silk that is her skin and see the scenery in her eyes lush and lavish with emeralds rare and raw. I think that’s a good thing. This place with its rectangles and octagons. Its shapes. And when she passes by I brush my hand against her arm and she stops. And her face. There. A million possibilities and infinite expressions and Im looking down into my glass and I see only one. And then I raise my head to the shapes. My shape shifting shapes and shes gone but her scent is there. The sensibilities. The focus of the loathing. And I don’t mind it. Her lost in the polygons me afloat in the hexagons just wading and I don’t see the harm in it. Not too much at all. And the music. Well the music I could do without.
    The job called. I didn’t answer. I called back and hung up on whoever it was.
    Sixteen calls no answer no nothing. Just something fair faint and faking her voice which wasn’t truly hers recited by some sick solemn sardonic soulless machine.
    I left the bar because it had people in it. And I didn’t want passive participation in people populace penetrating my fragile wall so I left alone and entered darkness. Somewhere under black tall city buildings and pale moonshine shone and shoved as shameless replacements for broken street lamps that failed. Not a place for those who shouldn’t wander wondering body wrought right through the rails perception ruined rotten by something bought and bottled in blown glass and sold to those people back there that wouldn’t mind at all if it took their soul. Holding hands and hard smiles. Opposite opposed forces sexually hoping that mad motivations marching headfast and headlong in opposite directions would some how someway someday collide in the middle and maybe will. But this magically tragic miracle callous cold and calculated will have casualties for those forlorn former lonesome lovers need look else where because that which they wished was theirs was now someone else’s sold sealed certified and cemented with a ring that was made of sand. The air was cold. My skin felt a draft an omen of what was left passing on blown winds toward idealized abysmal replacements of mass made up mockery assimilated as this man that stood before me. He said something. Something maybe this man should not have said right then or maybe something I heard wrong now and I was reminded of that number that brought me back and bounced me out time after time from my isolation. 89. My fist clenched. Blood pulsing through veins vile as venom with the value of what was vulnerable to me at an all time high. I lashed out lost in downtrodden delirium dazed drained and done wishing for an end. My fist missed. His didn’t. Muscle bent bone and blind white light multiplied many times against my face. My agony was my own and I horded it in heaps halfway hoping that this angelic advisary would never stop. The wind blew faint across my exposed bloody body and my extremities would not respond the way I wanted them to. I laid there and tasted the ashes of my passion passing past my swollen tongue missing my teeth. Moments passed moist mild nightmares awaiting as they came. A man and a woman weeping about the broken bits beneath them represented by a bloated bust of bones that wasn’t me and was. As he dial dial dialed I died died died when she looked at me and said that tomorrow was their wedding day.
    From my point of view bandaged bound to a stretcher blood bags bouncing gurgling boiled blood to my system sirens railing racing ravaged roads savagely thrashing me to the methodic mayhem of the EKGs.
    This bed is not comfortable. It isn’t mine and I don’t want to be here. Confined with my spirit but free to go. Is this what they would define as a wake up call. I wouldn’t pay it much attention ignored because my life is in the state of a coma. Nerves on fire with pain. Bruises on top of bruises my left eye swollen shut a split lip and slashes across my face. A doctor entered white hair and clipboard a carbon copy cut out of cliché and redundancy said his name was Dafner then kept his mouth open. I remember snippets of our short hand conversation.
    “You lost a lot of blood.”
    “Feels like it.”
    “We shaved your head. Twelve stitches in the back. Its going to leave a scar.”
    “I don’t care what it leaves.”
    “You should care about taking care of yourself.”
    “I did that for a while and it didn’t get me anywhere.”
    The doctor tucked the clipboard under his armpit and rested his hands against the foot rail of my bed leaning in.
    “Youre on a trainwreck heading to a dark tunnel nowhere good.”
    I looked into his eyes. Analyzing him. Trying to see him from all angles. Tuning my moral antennae to the intent of his intentions and then said what was on my mind.
    “Do you know where they put my keys?”
    Night. Half dressed and bare chested. The TV glares a glow glowering mesmerizing those suitably susceptible enough to have their mind melted fools of folly unwittingly detoured and distracted from the option to turn it off like myself. A newscaster. Big eyed. The face on that facey envied by all that don’t know how half the things he spews are hack hack sawed and rigged together in holsom false fallacies engineered to entertain. But for a monumental moment a misguided minute he finds a way to sift sewage pop news and stick staples down in reality and reveal some stapled truths. Partly paraphrasing the message he snottily snorts is of some mad manic maniac crusing cursed city streets road rage reckless obliterating property causing carless carnage and not for a minute giving a good goddamn about man woman child and his holy holistic hell-bent heathenism has yet to perk part interest by the cities pissed police patrol and is there nothing they can do to stop this man? The car has yet to be indentified. I laugh loud. Its been conspired and confirmed Im a phantom false God negating peace with destruction and I don’t dare stop because this is something more than trite trash news am I the selected single subconscious of the peoples all out anger more pure in purpose than that of something I used to be? My curdling cry out in empathy has garnered gnarling visceral laminations from a public that is now aware of someone drained of half their soul and that is when I remembered the sharp sparks flying as I crashed and careened against that railing coming off the highway bottle in hand shirt half soaked sopped in some sick sinister mix of domestic foreign badashery hog wild with no collusion to my control rocked right up on solid cement barreling down hill with fire fueled combustion jolting as I swerved and missed that kid. He wouldn’t have had a name to me. No one nothing close to it and the chalk outline stained burnt burgundy would have been washed off and wasted what was the only other evidence of him being there save for me. I mulled on this. Consequences for questions that would lie lame and answerless because at sometime there may not be anything left to make of me. 89 was a number. A finite finalized fate a dark doomed destiny chose choice and right as was meant for me for whatever laid ahead I could never turn back. What would be done would be done as my final act. I had a place waiting for me a seat next to those who couldn’t count on blessing that would wander close breaking to the tune of liars promises kneeling before judgment I would answer the truth that I was unoccupied forever fated to remain unwhole. I yank cord and lift set smashing it against the floor crunching glass beneath shoes aching with a reminder that I would not know the outcome of my share and toll. Sink water cools my face. Mirror report. A carless cocky cool chasm of nothing that I see that could glad hand grief as the dark replaces light and I go out again.
    In a unsanitized urinal stall puking my guts out and my aim is not true. Clutching hands clasped around the rim of the throne with no crown part of my pilfered person pushed off the pedestal by me: ex-king and queen of black hearts. Lime tile underneath me cold slick slimy scuffed scratched filmed over by scum. I didn’t lock that latch door and occasionally theres a knock or tug and I tug back proving my polluted pathetic persona occupies something close to what I want to call my makeshift personal confessional. These walls close in on me from four ways formless and fixed on hinges sunk in screwed and secure rebuking my plea for a quick collapse. The stench is unmerciful unflinching and unforgiving. I don’t dare leave this is peace. This is home. A predetermined perfect picture reflected on my current state and status and I want to save savor its scent this scene and all. Reading my surrounding signs and bic pen and magic marker markings on stall walls form faceless phantom folk artists long left and over it the joke lost on an inside punchline that missed its mark trying to hit below the belt and no one cared. In my bottomless basement left to brood. Heart as dirty as the inside of this porcelain pit pitiless to my condition and why shouldn’t it be? I hurl again and this time it is from the heart. Where is she what is she doing right now. I like the poison taste from my parted lips cool colonizing clear memories of the warm words she used to say to me and wonder worried who she was saying them to now. Who was receiving her smile now and returning it with a kiss causing them to caress soft mutual skin and sighs seduced into moments that were once exclusively ours now extinguished with a gust of fraying feelings disdain and that unrequited so called feeling it would always hold out affront available unwanted as the stink of bad perfume. I flush fluids water swirls silly and some of me that was in me goes down with it. What happens when the confessed receives the confession from the confessor that he was not listening? Who decides who is forgiven. I pick up my glass swirl what is left listening to the music slow sifting from there beyond the door from beyond the door where the source of my sado seeking sado therapy touch teases economizing my fate with hours lost painted with smiles with faces and behind that hidden the means to do what can not be done without a cloak. I kick door rolling out numb new to nothing wearing old stink of falling fast failure welling up well worn and well past the geyser levels wondering what went wrong with my wayward ways the angel without wings that was her. I step past lost looking ladies while stock shocked stares come at me as I vacate their private pink palace really wondering how I got there back to my place proper in its purpose to alleviate the deviate as soon as I find my stool.
    Im not stopping. I am not stopping. Not for anything or anyone. Im pushing into the red. Im pushing into the red and well past it. I am not stopping. Everything is a blur. All I see past my windows is a blur. What was once in my rearview no longer is fading speedily into my past disappearing into the line under the horizon just in front of the sun that has yet to rise on my world at 135mph and I am not stopping. When I let the window down the air rushes in howling swirling with rage forcing its way into my nostrils I swallow it in gulps swelling up my lungs with softer smog drained of yesterdays toxins just filling with the toxins meant for today. Im late into the countdown. More than halfway and I can see the tip of 89 in front of me a startling moment of awe chilling and disturbing a decayed rotten hand bursting from the grave grasping for my neck to pull me under. Tires scream flooding the night air with skids smearing the road with rubber scrapping paint against graphiti ridden medians the sound and signs of chaos do not belong to me. They belong to those that had to be there for a random series of events brought on by personal agendas of greed lust envy honest love and loss tying them together with my line of inevitable actions to bare witness to the gaping wound I represented going head long directly into their path. I was not going to stop. I was not going back home. There was no home left to go back to. Only the living had homes. I was no longer alive. I was on borrowed time. A life on loan a hand me down condemned and boarded up already to be replaced and would not stop for anyone. Street lamp glare whipping up my windows flickering with the intensity of jumping fire across my face. Turning my eyes away from the road resisting any impulse to ease up on the gas I plunge my hand into the ocean of empty bottles filling up the passenger side foot well searching for what has become a substitute for my everything. My pain. My feelings. My happiness. It was now the fuel that kept me going and I was grateful. From the well I pulled up something warm wet and faded. It was an old picture of her. I thought I lost it. I thought it was gone forever and now there it was in my hand sagging and soggy. Alcohol bleached around the edges giving the image of her face a badly chosen backlight of gloom. This is what she was to me now. A vodka soaked memory and when I heard that familiar sound of a Semi I didnt look up. I rose her picture to my lips and closed my eyes.
    Waking up to the sound of a street sweeping sentinel sending scents of sullen trash into my nostrils I was having sweet dreams sinful and sinister sex laden sensual and not of her. My car reeked of rot rising restraintless from every point of putrid packed pleather bile rising in my throat then somebody cut the cable cord to my lacerated lungs and kept it cool calm and right where it was. I took toll of bottles mixed a mock cocktail of malice into a half empty pint of potent pale pick me up gasped down gulps to push back the bile and give my lowly liver an even further smacking around without a fighting chance. It was at that point it fully registered I was no longer in the drivers seat. I was put down plowed seven ways from Sunday bound bent broken between the back of the front seats and the front of the back seat stuck staring at the roof semi-sedated and sublime. I had yet to discover how what when and where I was and too damned determined not to care drunk drained debilitated debauched and not really seeing any fault in it. Whatever clues could clear clouds of mystery collecting truth were beyond my windows and I was simply too low to see out into the real world. The gaping gap of general good graces was widening one wrong choice at a time not needing neither mine nor the lords to decide I didn’t have anymore favors coming the clock closing in quick on my end time merely meaning I better take these tasks however menial and meaningless with well weighed weight and caution because a peek just past my window might be Hell itself. So I could wait. And I did feeling the sun heat hot hyper activating my hangover hammering havoc hacking hostile hard and harpoon sharp into my lacerated limp frontal lobes. Then the rapid rap of wrist on glass jumpstarted the jolt that jumped me up into the eyes of the world staring from the outside to within. A bearded man beclothed in bathrobe butch burley and all the same anger etched on every inch within his face. Laughing loud and loose I finally fingered my position lost no more parked planted preened and primped on his front lawn. He yelled and kept on doing that. I came to the daunting dark deranged conclusion that there was more than a plexiglass worthless window muffling the scornful screams that separated his sad world from mine. Then I noticed her photo was gone.
    She hadn’t called there was no message. I sat sunk still mulling melancholy melting into the middle of my couch muffling whimpers into my pillows messed in mildew. My throat was raped raspy by relentless reaches for unrequited love. And alcohol. Bottles upon bottles of body bludgeoning alcohol. I had no idea what time it was or day and the month manifested into something with no meaning. I was in a purgatory prison paradox past the point of peaked formalities falling freely into frothing jaws of detrimental decisions and out of booze. And all too sober. 89 is not for the sober man. Its for that instant innate ill insanity deviating thoughts divert goodwill towards deranged and slightly lying beating better judgment. The mist that held my mind suspended in the depths of outer dark depleted dissipated detached deserting my shriveled protests for no more. One hot blazing belligerent truth shined down and deep within me intense as dessert sun heaped heaven high heaving heat at high noon. She was never coming back. I would falter fumbling forward failed and futile frustrated fighting fits of fury unable to move forward forever. I wept into the couch and just accepted it. I was tanked out trashed and thirsty bars beckoned yet they were closed. Too early now blocked and boarded bound with locks still not open not the time for quite some time. I was at the very farthest point from what some might say was a dead run away from recovery. A sit down on a barstool. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger but what was willing waiting ready to put an end to my molten misery really maybe could just make me force a smile.
    The Boss didn’t have much to say to me. He sat there behind his too clean desk eyes gleaming ghastly and not much there but guile. Justified in judging me in my actions or lack there of from his point of view. His stare wordless words wafted whistled hit floor withered right there in front of me his yack hole wide open barely waiting for a practical pace to start up from this pause. Then he spoke. He hand selected me. I was hand selected. So he said and so that’s what it was. He might have mentioned that he made me though met at moments like this those thoughts are thus omitted from ones own mind. What would he have made like this that thought to tear rip toss and ruin his regard. Something sad sorrid and sort of strange admittedly. He was down and disappointed asking if I needed healing help he knew of people poised and ready really able to do something because I was not nearly close to what he proclaimed my normal self. I told him that what was normal numbed me down next to nothing nearly killing me while idle at my desk. Dealing down in life defeated doing nothing next to feeling unrewarded was life in sadistic slow motion merely managing minutes into barely breathable bleak black oblivion. He didn’t understand my phrasing. What Im saying is what I said next is that I was currently loudly living life in real time unmonitored unchecked of my own will not accelerated just more elevated even in evaluation and before you I bare the burden of you seeing your reflection if you simply set to live your life unchained. He rose from his desk and crossed it. Settled back down in front arms folded frosted breath breathing deeply up and down and down and up he looked at me. This was his response: “What I really whish no what I really wondered is if this failed and fragile form I suddenly see in front of me has forged these false beliefs because he believes them or wants to. Your narrow new narcissistic negligence to your well being is nothing next to pure painful selfishness. You have dwindled dearly down to nothing nearly here and hearing only what you wrongly refuse to not believe is nobility. Its not. No. Its not. I was once your reflection wearing rueful wrongs and burden dolling out what havoc I could carry on my heart. Then the day came sudden without warning not a holy calling clean and clear seen or said to you by others trying to bare witness to salvation. The day I died I died that day and somehow certain saints or sainted sinners saw me from my death back to bare this burden you call life. From that point bold braver grasping the parts of me guilt ridden getting rid of them I pulled my merely meager means and started something to sooth my soured legacy. This business you see is mine and mine alone and free from future failing because the life I have I have control on all my own. So tell me this I wonder really how can you be anything almost acting as some sordid seeming sack of something that comes nothing clearly close to what is me and a reflection of myself you are not?” The instant impact of his statement sent me sailing down the hallway hollering halfway on the inside in search of my next drink.
    I never sucked down so quickly so many cigarettes solely to sooth slowly slipping cemented sentiments of my once secure self determination in my own damnation. Brought down bleakly bothering both my belligerent battles within myself and my intent. It didn’t last long. I sunk my sobriety deep down the shimmering pool inside myself keeping up my low self esteem with a good faith of high end hooch from a low end convenience store thanking God they had it. Inebriated stuck in traffic night time highway bumper to bumper to bumper broad side to broad side beamers beaming backing up the blackness blasting with light the darkness that was my barrier losing my way on a highway to nowhere going nowhere sipping slugs from a barely broken in bottle my second one brilliantly beckoning the thought I needed all anew to resuscitate still debilitating my conscience constitution. The radio played several songs serenely each successing the one before in innate emotions playing chorus to the horrors so secluded in my car. I turned it down. Listening to the world around me making mental notes of nothing really. Then I noticed there were actually cars with people all around me. Blocked off boxed in worlds of those behind idle engines lifes sad survivors in the very vehicles that surrounded the circumference of the space I occupied. I spilled ashes on my lap looking loathing loving these brief glimpses into life. The Oldsmobile. An old couple parked but partially moving baring down in my direction barely blinking staring blankly if I saw their mouths move once it was a moment I could question as if I didn’t see it at all. They were in my life alike as I was in theirs the existential perfect picture painted perfect for our fates planned. They would never know me nor I know them as well yet our history forever tainted with each others presence we knew not there forced to face each others flaws from far away. Next to me or next to nothing at my side its placement placed in my peripheral a middle aged woman with haircut short gripped in gridlock dealing with it grabbing wheel with well worn hands. Her attitude was nondescript I assumed guarded from gangs of thoughts either guilts or faded glories unexplained to what went wrong whether it didnt or not was not mine to decide on even if I tried. My acumen for attitudes unampliphied by altered answers unaided ailing those assailed assessments accumulating then turned rotten descending downward past my smoke straight into the dust. And behind me was a man. Behind me there was a man. I choked on chosen choices drained down my throat and liquidated emptied then tossed to steel rendered roadside busting into broken shards of glass as the cars slowly separated relieved of resting and back to rushing never looking never wanting to look at the man that was behind me. Then I searched my mind for her location.
    Sitting behind my pain. Waiting for her to wind up at her window. Parked in front of her parents house placing down my piss poor drink in the darkness of my car within the shadows. When she walked out on me this is where the ending of us ended up. Remembering her kindly kisses caresses the clothes she used to wear beneath them was her softness I enjoyed. Just to see her silhouette eeked out inch by inch from light that lit the length of window that represented her room. Her smile and laugh echo endless in my mushed up memory more of her than anything I want is what we had and have no more. Where is she is she in there wrapped in arms that are not mine giving him her pure perfections to me this is worse than death 89. 89 my only outcome at once her substitute because having had her and then no more it’s the only thing to hold on to. Where was I what happened what went wrong the hows the whys the answers only she now knew not giving reasons any more. Tears tumble toward my lips moistened more by her mystique the mysteries turn the floodgates open welling up my well worn eyes flowing fast free falling rivulets turning into sobbing cries. The door opens and its her pressed peering past the screen does she see me do I want her to I wish she does but these are lies. The door it never opens though I want it to to see her face to face her would free the fear inside my heart. I dry my face of sorrow grab handle unlock door open it kicking back bottles that threat to spill upon the street. I close door quiet clasp my feet upon the ground giving over to the impulse and beckon begging from the door for that thing that I don’t own. Getting closer resisting reservations to undo my course of action drive off and not return. The light comes on upstairs. High off on the second floor her bedroom shades drawn light flushing frame from inside seeping out from strips to stream. That entire moment I held my breath baited by the instant born her beauty bathing basked in the glow of something like my love. The seconds passed their own eternity twice that length and longer still I waited on a road wrenched wide enough to be the crushing chasm that caused our cold clear complications lost inside heartbreak falling into canyons claim. The ground dropped from beneath my heart sank my sweat too cold with my soul on fire when I saw the saving graces the shadow hers but seemed still mine. I didn’t move I didn’t think a thought at all all at once I gave attention to the image of my idol letting go and letting die the nihilistic 89. For the first time moments fleeting feeling joy in since forever finding meaning in the mess that made this world to be. And only from her form her shadow the light went off and she was gone the return of picked remains of calling came collapsing back around constructing cages not meant to leave. I turned back to my permanent home possible coffin kicked the engine in ignition next to that I pressed on forward not looking back for love or her and what I passed on my way to away from her was painted plain a premonition plain to see. Amber lamps. Revolving glow. A car crashed into a wall its driver halfway through the windshield pushed down flat against the hood. Paramedics huffed heaved huffed to resuscitate a man past recessed a man that could have been any man but at that moment was not me.
    Riding along the river bank banking up the bridge wrestling with what waits up next killing time blowing steam sipping sin from sixteen six packs of beer burning down my throat. It wouldn’t take much to touch turn the wheel well willfully taking me past the patrician that separates wheels from whats below. 89 not far away not far away at all with all that rests there beyond that nothing else if statistics hold to measure. I trail my hand through whisping hair whispering reasons to resist what is so tempting and the well that is my soul is far from full most of the reasons hardly helping how I feel. Her image silhouette set in stone solid standing there and seeing nothing the nothing that is me. Mostly what I want is everything Ive never had the helping hand that refused to reach out resting my hand in its palm soothing softly sharing secret shames I couldn’t quite get myself to admit to for they amounted to failures within myself. Bridge and cables coiled tightly my anxiety taunt against the tension why not fool those phony numerical figures proving that they are so wrong. The demon deep within me making measured moves to surface surging shrilly through my veins vexing volatile and vicious making more these mad malicious intensely intense initiatives more possessed in need of exorcism insight of only one way to really die. There are no prayers to pull me back from the edge of what is greater than depression forced upon me by a decision so far disconnected from the way my plans where and a future I thought mine. The beast inside screams out the engine harmonizes howling burning fuel mixed with agony the glint of light deep down that tunnel representing hope has just snuffed out the void that’s left behind now matched my mood of mind leaving now the business that’s of hand all in all of my invention suspended simply by a tug to the left off the side of the bridge just to the left and what could feel so right. I rolled closer to the median meeting metal as close as I could just to feel the frozen seconds separating me from my call the cold and the grave there was nothing left to do the moment finally here veering left I hit the gas leaving the bridge alone again.
    I awoke. Barely a scratch or dent or mark at all from my cars’ short plummet dipped into a ditch barely missing the angry current of the river drowning just my screams. I don’t know how I ended up outside the car the chirping chime of my open door waking me back into the night of a different day which might have never existed at all. I returned to my car. Reversed rolled out reborn conducting the preplanned plot of events to happen next letting rituals erupt at random taking me to plains I couldn’t foresee. I drove away from that the tires lopping listlessly against the road approaching lights hazed in the distance a lot with cars a parking lot a mass of people entering the archway of a reception knowing wishing that this was all for me. My car was parked among them and I left it there. I staggered amongst the crowd faces forged with smiles melting into laughs sharing hugs glancing for stolen moments at someone across the room. Then I noticed more than anything a lady in a bridesdress beloved by those around her blushing brightly at their words while whipping back her tears of joy. I found the open bar surrounded by familiar strangers golden oldies played for purposes of keeping time tuned tied to the movement of savored affections encased in fragile glass. Detaching from society lusting for maximum intoxication to take me away again liberating the shrunk down short spirit inside me. The room went dark lights strobed people danced I sat there no one close around me my emotions flooding into my body escaping further deep inside myself these truths were worse than lies. People holding each other close slowly dancing dancing to the music talking softly as they moved hands joined together joining them matched together magically made for one anothers lives. How could a fantasy too frightening feeling right and feeling wrong as ever evil even if I was never to be invited to the illness of illicit isolation biting snarling showing teeth sharpened seething spitting venom redness splashed across the perfect picture of which I didnt trust this part I was witnessing hacked off from me. The lights came up my glass went down across the bartop and shattered bits of glass impaled my skin that I didn’t try to hide I waved Hello and then Goodnight turning to leave parting past the pit of people trying to stop me I refused repeatedly I was injured and it was mine this injury was my own.
    My next ride is when I met you sloshed sick silly off Segrams Seven searching for companionship and when you asked me for a ride running up behind me from the gas station me pumping gas and pulling gin under ugly swollen lights I granted your request because the basic nature neatly put was there had to be someone listening not so lightly to report my tale and all I found was you. So as I asked before pleading pressing needing answers all at once what do you know about love? To put yourself on the chopping block blacking out from beatings bruised and blistered begging for it to go on because after that there is nothing you will feel. The veil pulls back ripped from the rafters exposing the empty insignificant essence of the vexed and vicious gray mass no more your heart so dead this is 88 there is one more drive to go one more road to run red lights to live or one day to die. If I somehow stay alive I may look again for myself that went away that deserves to fall to be rebuilt if fate does not have its way. I pull up to a house that’s yours hop curb belch and wreck the fence and before I let you out I take the time to look at you part mouth slur words to speak asking while Im telling you did I say my name is Jane?

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