Hero
They call you their villain, you're convinced you're the hero.
Hero.
You see what they need,
You beg for their love.
You planted the seed,
You sent out the dove.
Villain.
You begged and fell alone,
Now you bring them to their knees.
Finally taking what you're owed.
Won't listen to their pleas.
Hero.
You don't need anything.
You fall to help them up.
Now you're down on your knees
So they'll see you're not corrupt.
Villain.
Can't listen to yourself.
Have to be the better one.
Put your own life on the shelf.
Close your eyes until it's done.
Can't stop. Can't stop. Can't stop.
Now they call you their hero, you're still your own villain.
F.U.J.I.M.O.
I get it.
I used your '57 Chevy without permission. Truth be told, I like to think of my balls of steel as rolling thunder--ball-lightning--on that bat out of Hell that was my pteropine stallion. And yes, it was the last car to pass him by, ungulate and horned, the devil's last chance: but no fingers--ten thumbs made him irresistible and I had to pick him up.
And yes, we crashed the pillars of Heaven, as a blur of fire and ice through the uprights of the uprighteous. Rolling thunder, ball-lightning, All while you slept so securely sweetly.
The affectations only punctuated my guiltless irresponsibility--the faded blue jeans, torn leather jacket, tattoo stating what I was born to do, and not a dry eye in the house; no dried-up tears for what might have been. That kind of might ain't right, but now my kind of might was right.
Yes, I confess--proudly, defiantly, and righteously.
Whatever you shout at me, push your objections hard to overcome your red-shifting, 'cause you're falling behind. I'm internally combusting and I'm blue-shifting. Possession is my qualification, and I have it all. You want retribution? Then come and get me! At the very least, argue your point, 'cause we're movin' on! FUJIMO!
The Devil’s Last Chance
Lainey found it to be true, the fact that wild, feral eyes are drawn to the movements of other wild, feral things. Her own eyes were currently attracted to the prowling's of one such thing, her ears tuned toward it’s guttural reverberations, her senses recognizing something of herself in the way the souped-up roadster crept jerkily towards her, it’s muscle flexing against it’s brakes as though anxious to pounce, the familiarity of it tickling at a salacious memory deep within her.
The car stirred some untamed thing inside Lainey which slowed her steps, allowing the danger to creep ever closer in spite of her natural predilection to flee… even wild things have a breaking point… but then a resigned willingness to either consume or be consumed halted her steps altogether until she waited, allowing the distance between she and it to close. Lainey couldn’t forget. How did one unlearn the exhilaration of lust, or the intoxication of being it’s object. God knows she had tried, but she couldn’t forget the summer heat, the youthful intrigue, the secret hidden trysts. These were, of course, the delectable parts. They were the reasons for the excitement produced within her by the approaching car, and they revealed to Lainey her long suppressed yearnings for those things, despite all that had happened.
Like it or not, Lainey Frost was possessed of a wildness.
“C’mon, Lainey. It’s just a ride home.” Gideon’s eyes were a drug boring into her own, sedating her judgement. They were a drug she had tried before and whose cravings she didn’t want to like, that she was afraid to like. The fire and ice intensity of those eyes seared through her, beautiful as they were, so that Lainey instinctively knew she must pull herself away or suffer another terrible injury as consequence for her addiction.
”What is it with you Galloway boys and these cars?“ Lainey hoped to sound cavalier, but her voice failed her, dribbling the words out meekly, barely even audibly. Lainey understood perfectly well that this specific car was no accident. Gideon had always idolized Noah, just as Noah had idolized their father. Gideon had chosen this car on purpose, and had obviously worked hard to make it just like the one Noah used to drive, the one that had killed him and had nearly killed her. “Please, Gideon.” She tried to look him in the eye, the better to get her point across, but she only melted into that crystalline, Noah-like gaze of Gideon’s.
"Damn these Galloway boys," she thought. "And damn what they did to her!"
“Please Guideon,“ Lainey found her strength. Gideon was only a boy. He was the age now which she had been at two years ago, when she and Noah had…
“I can’t. Just leave me alone, Gideon. Please leave.”
The hurt in his eyes at her rejection nearly changed her mind. Hadn’t she already hurt the boy enough? But she didn’t call out for him to come back. She couldn’t, could she? And even if she had, could he have even heard her above the sudden mechanical storm she’d wrought?
The heavy growl of the small block V-8 as the ’57 Chevy idled away was every bit as frightening as the low rumble from an unseen bear or lion would be from out of the primeval darkness. Lainey knew it to be just as deadly in fact, as she had once danced in that darkness. Cast in her father’s era the car did not look antique, not with it’s custom hood scoop, flared fenders, and chromed out racing wheels, but the Chevy’s heavy heartbeat reverberated through her, rattling her bones, and her nerves, and even her sexuality. When safely away from her, whether from anger or disappointment Lainey could not know, Gideon floored it’s accelerator, loosing 455 cubic inches of mechanical muscle strong enough and loud enough to shake loose the very pillars of Heaven. As the it’s engine roared, and it’s squealing tires spewed a towering chimney of billowing white smoke into the ethereal blue Lainey shrunk down inside herself, the sights and sounds taking her back to that night when love had lived and died for her as quickly as a meteor‘s shower ends.
Like most sixteen year old girls Lainey had once had girlfriends. She had even been somewhat popular, back before Noah. But while those girlfriends had been drawn to the football quarterback, or to the baseball boys, even back then Lainey’s eyes had been drawn to the wild things, to the things the others couldn’t understand, and feared. From Lainey Frost’s very first glimpse of Noah Galloway she‘d known exactly what it was she wanted, and who. Lainey had been standing outside the high school when his souped-up Chevy crept past her, it’s “balls of steel” engine rebellious at being reined-in beside her, spitting and sputtering it’s disgust at her. He’d stopped on account of her, brashly ducking his head for a better look through the passenger-side window. Brown, wind-blown curls splayed from beneath a ratty ball cap. A tight, greasy t-shirt and faded blue jeans completed the “motor head” look. His arm reaching out for the steering wheel had been tanned and muscled, with delicate blue veins which longed to be traced coursing down it’s length. But it was his eyes that captured her, so icy-hot that she found her heartbeat matching the spitting and sputtering angst of the Chevy’s. He’d smiled a crooked smile at her through the window, Noah had, but the smile hadn’t been necessary. She was already aware of his desire, his eyes had made sure of that. She might have climbed in then and there if he’d asked, but he hadn’t, thank heavens. No, the car had rumbled away, leaving behind a million questions and no one for Lainey to ask them of, her heart despairing of ever seeing either car or driver again.
But she should have known better. Eighteen year old boys are hungry, and must eat. It seemed that everywhere Lainey went from that day forward Noah was somehow there, too; whether parties, dances, or ballgames. Things progressed quickly from phone calls, to holding hands, to kisses, and more. Long and lanky, he took her to his home, where she also fell in love with his Uncle Benjamin, and his little brother Gideon, a sparkling-eyed fourteen year old with the same curls spilling over his forehead that Noah sported.
It had been her idea, sneaking out. They drove until they found a dirt road, and a quiet place. She and Noah made love for the first and only time on a blanket laid over a dry, sandy wash beneath a bright, low-hanging moon. They had used whispers there for no real reason as the slow, black water serpentined past. It had been soft, earthy, and innocent. They had proceeded slowly, cautiously, tree frogs and crickets urging them on from the darkness. Noah had balked in the end, afraid of hurting her, content with touching and tickling her most sensitive parts with his calloused fingertips until her body literally ached with wanting him, so that she nearly screamed at him to do it, already! And when he finally did do it, it was even better than she’d imagined, and nicer, and sweeter; his lean body rocking gently atop her softness, and then faster, yet his rigor somehow still soft in her hands, and salty to her taste, as if the tawny muscles of it were melting for her comfort… except, of course, for that tiny bit of pain that warmed her to her core, reminding her that she was now a woman.
He’d kissed her then, gazing into the shadows of her eyes as an easily rolling thunder rumbled like waves towards them from the faraway distance. ”I love you, Lainey Frost.” The words had come to her on queue, right when she’d needed them most, making her so happy she could have burst.
If only she had whispered them back. But in that youthful moment time had seemed no obstacle.
On spindly legs they’d dressed, helping one another in the darkness, giggling guiltily in their clumsiness. Their get-away car had been that lone obscene thing which shattered the stillness of the night. Her insides a-smoldering Lainey had climbed aboard him as he drove, grinding on his lap and kissing his neck, her grooves wetting his mounds through their confounded cotton clothing.
The flashing lights had been a surprise, coming as they did from nowhere. “Oh God, Noah! No! Don’t let me get caught.” But angry parents would not have been so bad.
From her perch on his lap she’d watched the lights through the back window. They were clearly pulling away from the police car when the turns became too sharp. His arms left the wheel to embrace her protectively as the car slid from the road and into a ditch, where the Chevy’s great speed sent it, and them, reeling high into the air.
She’d lost her spleen, and broken her sternum, but Lainey was comparably lucky. Still in the hospital, the funeral had gone on without her. He was completely gone to her, devoid of closure, as though Noah had never been anything more than a sweet, recurring fantasy from her youth. But then Uncle Benjamin had come by, wondering what had happened, seeing if she was ok, but she honestly hadn’t known the answers to any of his questions. She either couldn’t, or wouldn’t remember. Over time, some of the memories returned, in spits and spurts, until she longed to go to Uncle Benjamin now that some of the answers were unveiled, but it seemed that the more time ticked by, the harder that became.
On Lainey’s 18th birthday she was still grieving. Two years of ever-so-slow healing. Her school friends were already marrying the quarterbacks, and the baseball boys, while her stitches, and bones, and memories scarred over. Those girls seemed happy-as-not when observed from afar, from where Lainey watched alone as she spiraled down in her whirlpool of guilt.
And then it had all begun again, as though a wish had been granted. The car had frightened her when she first began to see it on her few sojourns about town; sleek, black, growling panther-like through the streets, or leaping and screeching when kicked, barreling from sight. It’s novelty awakened something inside her; a longing, an urge to track it’s blacktop skid marks right up to it’s very lair, where she might actually pet the beast. It frightened her because she knew her drug now, and she knew her weakness for it. And as she’d known from the start that it would, on one of her sojourns about “it” finally rumbled up behind her, a crooked smile finding her through the passenger-side window.
”Hi Lainey.” He seemed genuinely happy to see her, Noah did, as if he had forgotten what she had done. Of course the boy wasn’t Noah, but it was exactly the same, her feelings exactly the same, only the day and the year being different. The blood inside her froze, paralyzing her in memories, and desires, and shames. Those same icy-blue eyes burned her, bilging long dried-up tears to her surface. Standing there, on the outside looking in, Lainey felt the warmth of other suns, and the warmth of another’s skin in the cool of night. God, how she so longed for him to be Noah.
But it wasn’t Noah, was it. “Gideon?”
He was forced to read his name off of her quivering lips, as her voice failed her, but despite it his smile grew. She had dreaded this moment, feeling unsure about how the younger Galloway boy would react to seeing her, the girl who had killed his older brother, but Gideon seemed genuinely happy to see her.
”Yea. How are you, Lainey? We’ve missed you, me and Uncle Benjamin.”
Not trusting her voice, she constrained herself to a nervous, half-smile by way of gratitude.
”Can I give you a ride somewhere? I’d love to talk.”
Lainey was suddenly sixteen again, standing in front of the high school. She would have climbed in, if he’d only asked. From inside looking out those crystaline eyes burned into her, just as they had before. She could see the desire in them, and she felt it in herself, and she wondered if he could see it in her as she could in him. The thought broke her down so that she had to get away from him, and fast.
”C’mon, Lainey. It’s just a ride home. Can’t you trust me?”
But he had it all wrong, didn’t he? She did trust him. It was her she didn’t trust. Damn these Galloway boys, anyways! “Please Gideon, just leave me alone.”
She was still standing there, staring at nothing, holding her feelings in, tamping them down. The smell of burning rubber was still heavy around her, the shame still hot on her cheeks when another rumble found her consciousness.
Gideon had circled the block and come back. She climbed in, as he’d known she would.
It felt the same, the speed did, the exhilaration, the freedom. It was nothing for those things to toss the heaviness inside her out the opened window. For a moment she was allowed to be a girl again, with a boy. She never imagined she could have that again, what with the warm winds whipping at her hair through, her shrieks weightless upon ticklish rises and under dipping valleys, his laughs at her screams, the bluish veins on his steering arm longing to be traced.
The sun was low when the Chevy finally rumbled them to her curb. “Can I see you again, Lainey? On Saturday, maybe?”
Her mother’s worried face looked out from the window. ”It’s not a good idea.” Gideon was just a kid, though he no longer looked like one, what with his bulging biceps and chiseled features. She would have to be the smart one in this room, if there was to be a smart one.
”Of course it is. Uncle Benjamin would love to see you. So would I.”
”No Gideon. I can’t.” She climbed from the car. “Thanks for the ride.”
She was half way up the driveway when he called out to her. “See you Saturday, Lainey. I’ll pick you up at noon.”
The driveway seemed dreadfully steep as Gideon drove away. Lainey’s feet felt dreadfully heavy walking it. The house waiting at the driveway’s end seemed dreadfully domesticated, her room inside it dreadfully lonely. Her parents seemed dreadfully apprehensive, her future dreadfully docile.
They should not have let her out alone. After two years cold-turkey Lainey had tasted her drug today. Gideon had rolled up her sleeve, and had administered her cure as any good doctor or dealer would, shooting it through her veins and removing the tourniquet, releasing a rush like Satan’s pet "bat out of hell" straight to her heart.
Could she go back now? Could she ever go back after this day’s relapse? She understood her parents, and could not condemn them for their comforts and amenities. But if “they” were right, her friends and her parents, if she succumbed to their cautions, what would their caged life offer her? Roasting beef and darning socks? Could she stand so little, she who thrived on passions? Wasn’t the dullness of them just as deadly to the wildness in her spirit as his injuries had been to her body?
And if she ran, and it were to go with Gideon as it had with Noah, could she survive the trauma again? Perhaps not, but did she care? Wasn’t one form of death the same as another? For two years she had tried it their way, and where was she now? Sad, broken, lost in yesterday and the rush he had given her. Was the spirit pumping through the beating heart not as crucial to it as the blood was? She’d had just a taste, but after today she knew that the spirit was as crucial, and she knew now what it was she needed.
Damn those Galloway boys, and what they did to her.
Yes... she knew exactly what she needed. At noon this Saturday, come hell or high water, Lainey Frost would be ready and waiting.
Drunkards’ Row
“Knock knock. Anyone home. Wake up, lad! Wake up, would ya?” Billy Fryer knocked on the dirt in front of a brand new headstone. The soil still loose from the freshly dug grave. “Who do we got here? Let me see.” He read the engravings.
Patrick Mann, 1974-2023 Beloved father, husband. A proud railroad man.
“Another railroader. Christ, I’m getting outnumbered here.” Frankie Jenson laughed.
“You’ll always be outnumbered, my friend. Ain’t many drunken poets around these parts. Except old Herbert. One of the greatest poets on this side of the grave.”
He winked, waiting for the reaction he knew he’d get from his old friend.
“Why that old fool ain’t no poet. Just a drunken fool. A rambling fool. And before you say anything, lad. I’m more than just a drunken rambler. Why in 1932, during famine and war in Ireland. I wrote a collection of poetry that made its way to the land of opportunity. Poems for the broken man. That was poetry. Do you want me to recite some of it?”
“No, God. Please, no more. Or I’ll opt for the eternal sleep.”
“Oh, you’d never, you tired old fool. You like me far too much.”
“Um. Excuse me. Pardon me!” A timid voice from behind the bickering friends made
them turn around and smile.
“Bloody hell, you owe me a drink,” Billy said.
“Yes, sir. You must be Mr. Patrick Mann. Beloved father, husband, and proud old railroad man,” he said, again looking at the headstone. “Let me guess, your old man told ya it was in yer blood? The way father’s guilt their sons into becoming them, even though they hate themselves, is beyond me.” He finished with a roll of his eyes. “Anyway, we’re here to welcome ya.”
“Where am I? Where the hell am I?”
“Frankie, do ya want to explain it to him?” Frankie was a tall, dark-skinned man in an old dirty suit that looked as though once upon a time it could have been white. It was ripped and torn, parts were charred and burned. Half his face in the same condition.
“Well, uh. Patrick. It’s always hard to tell the new ones. It’s going to take you some time to grasp what I’m about to tell you.”
“What’s going on?” Patrick looked around swiftly. Eyes of panic. Eyes that Frankie and Billy had seen many times before.
“Well, boy. You’re dead. Ain’t no simpler terms a man can put it.”
“Dead? What are you talking about, dead?”
“You’re dead, son.”
Then Billy cut in. Those five seconds of silence, far too much for him to bear. “You’ve bitten the dust. But the good news is you can spend your time here with the likes of us.” Then he began to sing “Here in Drunkard’s Row, where the working men they go. The ones who lived with just enough hate to miss their chance at the Pearly Gates.”
Frank rolled his eyes. “An old poet. Don’t worry about him.”
“But. But. But. The doctor. He. He told me I was getting better.” Patrick checked his arms where the IV had been placed when he was still in the land of the living.
“They do that, lad. They do that. Now come with us, would ya? You’ll understand what I’m talking about in due time, friend.”
The trio walked through the thick smog of the graveyard. Patrick’s head still on a swivel as he scanned the darkness of St Anthony’s. “What is this? Is. Is. This heaven?”
Billy looked at Frankie and the two burst into laughter. They awaited that question every time, and every time, the same reaction flowed through them like the ghosts of their flesh and blood.
“Not quite, pal.” Frankie answered.
“Well, then. Oh God. Am I in hell?” Patrick asked as he looked at the melted skin on the left side of Frank’s face.
Again, the two laughed despite telling themselves on the way to see Patrick, that they’d be courteous and respectful this time. The green ones just asked so many questions. So many existential questions that an old poet and and door-to-door vacuum salesman had to explain.
The two self-appointed greeters.
“Not quite, my friend.”
Then Patrick stopped in front of a giant white cross. “What the fuck is going on?” The two turned around and could see the anger in his eyes. That anger that belonged to a railroader. “You better fucking tell me right now what’s going on.” His fists were raised in front of his face. A stance that told the men that in life, old Patty had been accustomed to raising them. And probably doing quite well when they started flying.
“Yep. He’s a railroader alright.” Billy said. “Look lad, put those weapons down, would ya? There’s something you need to understand about death, alright? These are secrets that the living will never know, nor ever understand. It belongs to us, friend. Only to us. I’ll explain it as clearly as I can, though I’m half in the tank.” He said, hauling a brown paper bag out of his striped wool coat.
“You’re always half in the tank.” Frankie said. Billy just shrugged and took a swig that
quickly turned into a chug.
“Neverthe-fucking-less. I’m going to explain it to you, lad. Ya see, in life, they teach you about heaven and hell, right? How if you’re good, you go to heaven and. If you’re bad, you go for an eternal swim in the lake of fire. But even in the land of the living, you must have had some questions about that? You a religious man?”
Patrick shook his head.
“Good. The zealots are harder to explain this to.”
“Watch your mouth,” Frankie said.
“Oh relax, would ya? Drunkards’ Row in yer Bible?” Frankie didn’t answer. “Anyway, Mr. Mann.”
“Patrick”
“Sorry. Patrick. You see, life is far more complicated than good and bad. Most of us tread that line our entire lives. Because, well, how can you be saintly all the time? Christ, giving yerself a tug is grounds to be bedmates with Lennon. So where do we go? The Catholic Church never told me where I’d go. Because even as a young boy, I knew I wasn’t the good books definition of Abel. I wasn’t going to be met with a choir of angels waiting for me once old Pete let me through them Pearly Gates. But I also didn’t think that I belonged with the Old Red Spire.”
“The Red Spire?” Patrick asked.
“Just a goddamn killer. Killed a dozen or so women outside of Dublin when I was just a little lad. So, as I say. Where do the rest of us go? The ones who might drink a little too much. Frequent the gambling halls more than we should. Fight. Possibly some infidelity sprinkled on top. Where do the humans go? The real humans?”
“Here?” Patrick asked. Frankie wrapped his arm around Patrick’s shoulders.
“You got that right, pal. Right here in Drunkards’ Row”
“Drunkards’ Row?”
“Well, that’s what we call it, anyway. Seems better than purgatory, or the land of the kinda good, but kinda bad. See what I mean?”
Patrick was silent for a moment. He rubbed his thick black hair, tugging at it. And again he looked around. Then finally, at Frankie. He looked the gentler of the two.
“When did you die?” Patrick asked.
“1963. Birmingham. Alabama.”
“The church bombing?”
“The man knows his history. Yes, Patrick. I died in the riots after the bombing. But you know what? Even in death, you are not martyred, son. Even in death, you’re a marked man. My past never eluded me.” He touched the burned side of his face.
“What did you do that was so wrong?”
“Well, like we said, we weren’t exactly monsters. I was only in Alabama to meet up with a pretty young thing. Not my wife. Ya know? It doesn’t take much. Oh well. It’s better here, anyway. You know every self-righteous prick you ever met? Guess where they are.” Frankie pointed up. Patrick let out a short smile.
“What about you?” he asked Billy.
“1936 in Spain. Goddamn, O’Duffy and politics. I volunteered. I was young and wanted to fight. I died in a blood soaked foreign land. Want to hear some poetry I wrote during the war?”
“Uh. Maybe later. So, why no heaven for you?”
“My past, son. I killed a man. A dirty, dirty man, plus all the men I killed in the war. That’s kind of a grey area, I think. But, nevertheless, killing don’t get you the harps, my friend. We grew up in a hard place. Chances of making it out without blood in on yer hands were slim. Slim to none. Anyway, enough about me. So what brings you to Drunkards Row? Other than the cancer, of course. Sorry about that, by the way. Terrible way to go. Took me old man. Working in a factory his whole life. Breathing in chemicals.
Patrick paused. Thinking about his life. His wife. His kids. Friends. All the living people he wasn’t going to see again.
“Christ. I wasn’t a good man. I worked hard and kept a roof over my family’s head, but that’s all I ever did. I was a tired, cranky old drunk. No time for anyone. Not even my boy. Jesus. I need to tell them. I need to tell them I’m sorry.”
“Sorry, pal,” Frankie interjected, patting him on the back. “But that’s the mystery. They can never know until they come themselves. I’m sorry, friend.”
“Jesus. Jesus. I wasn’t good.” Patrick began to cry. “I could have been better. Christ, I could have been better.”
“Regrets run rampant here, Patrick. Let us introduce you to the rest, alright?”
“The rest?”
“Well, Jesus H. Christ, ya didn’t think it was only the two of us in this sea of lost souls?” Billy asked.
“Why am I here?” Patrick asked. “I mean, why am I not just, you know, dead? I mean, dead, dead.”
“It’s a fair question.” Billy answered. “The way it works here is strange, friend. Some folks die peacefully. They died having lived a full life and they feel no need to go on. This place here is for those who bit the dust before having their full say. You know what I mean? Died before their time, even though maybe that doesn’t make sense, because whenever you die is your time, I guess. But you know what I mean. And if you don’t want to do this anymore, you can go right back to yer resting place. But once you do that, then that’s it. Dead dead, as you put it”
“Really?” He looked back towards his grave.
“I know what yer thinking. We’ve all thought about it. But come with us before ya decide, alright?”
Patrick nodded.
Billy continued leading the way through a path between headstones on either side that looked as old as time. Full ecosystems were growing through the cracks, and the words were barely legible, if legible at all.
Eventually, they reached a tall eucalyptus tree. “Well, here we are. You ready?” Billy asked Patrick. Who stared into the darkness before answering. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“That’s my boy.”
Then the three men of different times walked by the eucalyptus to the place where time blended in sweet sacred harmony. Drunkards’ Row.
The bar looked like an old English Tavern. Somewhere you’d expect to find the Shelby brothers in an episode of Peaky Blinders. Patrick stared at it in disbelief. He looked around and there was nothing but darkness on either side of the bar.
A sign read Drunkards’ Row, and the S was hanging upside down. There were men outside, smoking, drinking, and laughing. Telling dirty jokes about a lonely housewife and a foreign pool cleaner. The men were laughing hysterically, and clinking their beer glasses together, spilling half the drought in the process.
“Well, come on, lad. Let me introduce ya to the renegades.” Billy waved him forward, and Patrick looked at Frankie, who supplied a generous nod, letting him know that it was alright. It was safe.
“Billy! Frankie!” The men in front of the bar yelled. “You got another new one?”
“Meet. Mr Patrick Mann. Devoted father. Husband. And a proud railroader.”
“You hear that, Jim?” A big burly man walked down the steps towards Patrick. He looked mean. Patrick was ready to raise his fists again, before Big Jim put his hand out.”
“My grandfather, my father, and myself were all railroaders. It’s in our blood.” Billy rolled his eyes, and the two men shook hands. “Worked in Kansas City for 35 years.
What about you?”
“Uh, Annandale. Small industrial town in the North. 23 years. Then the cancer..”
“Line drive right to the throat at a summer softball tournament between the railroaders and the men at the pulp mill. Struck down in my prime. Come on, let’s go inside.” Big Jim lead him to the old tavern doors like in the old west. He pushed them open, and the aroma of eternal life welcomed Patrick.
Inside looked like the pages of an introduction to World History textbook. Although on the outside, Drunkards’ Row looked like a small time hole in the wall pub, inside it was endless. Tables upon tables, and a bar that stretched the length of the Great Wall. It was filled with laughter, stories, and singing.
A corner table had a 15th century peasant, speaking with what looked to be a blood relative of Lucky Luciano. There were vikings, moors, some kind of royalty, and a myriad of working class labourers. One large man with a flat brim hat was yelling about unions and McCarthy. A scientist was claiming that he worked in Los Alamos as part of The Manhattan Project under Oppenheimer, while a veteran of the second world war talked about the bloody carnage during the Battle of the Bulge.
Patrick couldn’t wrap his head around what he was seeing. Billy and Frank were smiling slyly at each other, knowing full-well that everyone who rose up from the grave, to see a thick dark fog and two haggard souls, who looked nothing like angels to greet them, wanted to crawl right back in. But Drunkards’ Row was a place that most wanted to be a part of.
The door closed behind Patrick as the sounds of an English band singing their version of Dirty Old Town.
“I met my girl by the gas works wall. Dreamed a dream by the old canal”
Burn Away the Tears
I like to think we were in love,
I and the girl so different than me--
Torn leather jacket, one fingerless glove.
My babydoll dress to her faded blue jeans.
She cared too much, it dragged her under,
Played with fire and ice to mask her fears.
Her wishes drowned out by rolling thunder,
Only I could see her dried-up tears.
I believe we were in love, once,
Before she was blinded by a world of weapons.
But her cautious love was the devil's last chance
To steal her away from the pillars of Heaven.
It seemed that she was gone already
As I shut my eyes and wished her well.
And I heard the engine in her '57 Chevy
As she ran from love like a bat out of Hell.
Shakespeare - hate poem to pride/arrogance itself
Curse thee I need not, for thou hast e'er been
From the beginning of thy wretched days!
O brood of darkness and one soul of sin,
O cursed be thy covert and tempting ways!
See sorrow's share, to all thou hast long claimed
To the beauty thou hast dragged to thy lair!
To all the bleeding souls thy sword hast maimed,
The end of young souls so bright and so fair.
To be thy end, alas! Strength I have not,
Small wretch mortal I be! O sing we now--
Rest alone in shadows deep, thou heal naught!
May no one ever find thee, O curs'd thou!
Thunderstruck
Jessy and I were chalk and cheese. Fire and ice. She was fiery, passionate and loud, loud, loud. I would stand and glare at the boys she flirted with. In her faded blue jeans and torn leather jacket, she was my god. Why she wasted her time with those morons was beyond me.
After school, we'd drive around town in my dad's '57 Chevy, smoking, in silence. I was sure we were the definition of cool in those days. The best days of my life, turned out they were the devil's last chance.
When she turned on me, my world collapsed. Those balls of steel she had that I'd once so admired, scared the shit out of me. The pillars of heaven that once sustained me had come crashing down.
After hiding in the bathroom stall during lunch for a month, I was desperate to escape. The rolling thunder of my rage hit in waves. I sat with my dried-up tears, and was determined that as soon as was humanly possible, I'd be out of that town like a bat out of hell.
Battle of Mind and Soul
Click, clack.
Click, clack.
Back and forth balls of steel swinging on a string, one stops and the other starts, impossible to escape from the laws of motion. I watch the sway of the dancers endlessly trapped in their line, predictable, knowable, understood. Light reflects off of the representation of the laws of nature, and I swing back and forth unsure if what I am doing is what should be done.
I slowly pull myself away from my workstation white lab coat swirling around me as I walk down the hallway to clock out for the day. My locker looms, this is the devil’s last chance to pull me away from my decision. I hang up my coat with decisive movements and exchange it for a torn leather jacket to match my faded blue jeans. I take a deep breath and slide my glasses case out of one coat and into the other. The decision is made, I turn away letting the door slam shut, the final clash of rolling thunder of a raging storm all that remains now is calm.
It is laughably easy to walk out the front door, the security guard barely even glancing at me. I peel out of the driveway, the best impression of a bat out of Hell that I have ever given, the implications of what I have just done still pressed down deep within my mind. I spare only a brief wish that I could turn around and follow the ’57 Chevy I pass going the opposite direction.
I blur past the city, and the fields out into the forest where only trees stand to bear witness to what I am about to do. The clouds reach far above me, pillars of Heaven stained red by the setting sun. I slowly open the case in my hand, a flash of light blinds my eyes for a moment. She is awake. Buzzing fills my ears before I can convince my eyes to open. Golden dust and lacy wings.
Dried-up tears stain the tiny face of the one fluttering in front of me, a heartbeat, a wingbeat, and then she is gone, leaving only her memory behind. The battle of fire and ice has come to an end within my heart, the ice of my fact loving mind melted by the fire burning in my soul for all living things. Slowly tears slip down my face as I sink to my knees in the grass. I have destroyed my entire life for this, to leave no trace of something Other. Knowledge sacrificed on the altar of morality in exchange for life. Now there is only one question, was it worth it?