Little Synchronicity
Ray Timmins


Been three months now on unemployment. Don’t get a lot, but every two weeks I’m there at the mailbox to collect my meager earnings from the state. With a few cutbacks I can just get by.

Should be a check in the mail today, which means I have to make a trip to the check cashing store. But first, breakfast.

I head to 7-11 after picking up my check at the mailbox and pour a large coffee. I also get a granola bar and head for the register to pay for them. Some basic nutrition and a little caffeine boost is what I need today.

The cute girl at the counter rings me up and I’m off to the bus stop to wait for the 33.

I sit at the bus stop, happy to be alive for a change. Much of the time I’ve had lately has been spent in sadness and boredom, but today feels like a good day. The sun is shining but it’s not too hot. There’s a nice breeze, as a matter of fact. I feel it sweep through my hair and a subtle shiver consumes my body as if the wind has passed right through me.

Today I woke up somewhere around eleven, watched Headline News for a little while and took a shower. Being unemployed, I can work the day at a leisurely pace. This is what it must feel like to be retired.

Sure, I should be looking for a job, but there’s plenty of time for that.

I’ve lost thirty pounds in the last three months due to my low calorie diet.
The coffee keeps me going. I’ll hold on to the cup and when I get back home from the check cashing store I’ll refill it for a dollar.

I can see the bus coming. I finish my granola bar, take a sip of coffee and stand up. I pay my fare and take a seat in the middle of the bus. From here I can sit sideways and take in a view of the whole bus and all its varied passengers.

In the back corner is a kid rocking and bobbing to his iPod. A couple also sits close to the back, holding hands, staring straight in front of them. The girl sees me looking at them. I look away.

There’s an old lady with groceries sitting in the front rifling through her purse for something. And sitting directly across from her is an old man talking to a young woman, in her twenties, dressed in black with heavy black eye makeup.

It’s not too far to the check cashing store. I ring the bell and get off the bus. I cash my check and make my way to the bus stop on the opposite side of the road. I have about a fifteen minute wait. I light up a Camel and wait.

A guy walks up to the bench and sits down next to me.

“Hey, could I get one of those,” he says.

I hand him a cigarette and lighter. He lights it up and hands back the lighter.

“Thanks,” he says, smiling.

Now I’m nervous that he might want to talk. I’m not in them mood to talk. I just want to smoke and drink my coffee—I’m still a little sleepy and don’t think I can keep up with a conversation with a stranger right now.

“Man, it’s a nice day,” he says.

“Yeah, it sure is,” I say.

There’s a moment of silence and I decide that that wasn’t too bad. It is, after all, a nice day.

“Man, when I get home I’m gonna smoke me a nice, fat blunt,” he says, out of nowhere.

“Sounds good,” I say, sipping my coffee.

“You smoke?”

“Not in a while. Been unemployed. Not much money.”

He opens his backpack, which I hadn’t seen till just now.

“Man, you’re gonna make me cry. Here, take this.”

I couldn’t believe my fortune. He gave me a nice little bud from what looked like an ounce in his backpack. I put it in my cigarette pack. I hand him another cigarette. He puts it behind his ear.

“Take this too,” he says, scribbling on a scrap piece of paper. It was his phone number. “Call me if you ever want to hook up. I get this stuff all the time. It’s good shit.”

“Thanks, man.”

“James,” he says.

“Dell,” I say.

“I like my weed,” he says, “I like my booze. I was in the Mideast during the Gulf War and we used to get some good shit. Man, tell you what. Fucked up over there, though. Lost a lot of friends. Fucked up,” he says staring off into the distance.

“That must’ve really fucked with your head, seeing all those people you know die.”

“No shit, man. After all that I decided that you gotta have a good time as often as possible. Now, I party whenever possible. I spread cheer and mirth, man.”

“Cool.”

“So, how long you been unemployed?”

“Three months.”

“Getting unemployment?”

“Yeah, but not much. Ya know, just enough to get by.”

“Yeah, I know. Just found a job recently myself. I’m a cook at Boscoe’s.”

“Oh, I like that restaurant. Good steaks, man.”

“Yeah. When you get a job you should come by. Call me before you come, I’ll fix you up something sweet.”

“Cool.”

“Ooh, the bus.”

The bus overshoots the stop by half a block. James and I run to catch it and board. We pay our fares and sit down in the front of the bus.

“Enjoy that,” he says.

“Believe me, I will.”

The bus arrives on my block, I shake James’ hand, thank him and get off the bus. I jog to the 7-11 to get my coffee refill.

Feeling plucky, I get the dark roast with a little Irish Cream-flavored cream and go up to the register. I then remember the weed in my cigarette pack and decide to get lunch now so I don’t have to come back all stoned to get it. I have some food at home, but I probably won’t feel much like cooking when I’m high. I grab a microwave burrito—a green burrito—and a Chipwich.

I dart across the street after a couple cars pass and walk up to my door, key ready. I put the burrito and ice cream in the freezer, skip to my bed and plop down. I take out my cigarette pack and pull out the nice bud. I grab a random book from my bookshelf, it’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and start to break up the bud. I have papers, but decide to use my bowl instead, to conserve what little I have. I figure I can get high twice, maybe three times, since my tolerance lately is so low.

I pack the bowl and take the first hit—a long, slow hit. This is good shit, I decide, already feeling it. I take one more hit and decide that it’s enough for now. I turn on the TV and flip through the channels, trying to find something good. I can’t find anything. After going through all the channels twice, I turn off the TV. I go to my computer and queue up a beefy playlist. I randomize it a few times, till I’m satisfied, and click Play.

Morphine plays—I get lost in the somber tones, sinking into my pillow, staring at the ceiling fan whirring above me.

I hear a knock at the door and I already know who it is by the uneasy sound of the knock. It’s Hanna. Hanna’s crazy. Hot as hell, but crazy. I met her on the bus last week when I was going to cash my check. She immediately took to me and started telling me all about her life. How she had taken a bus down here from New York to get away from her psycho ex-boyfriend. She was going to the grocery store nearby and asked me if I’d meet her there after I cashed my check, that she was afraid to be alone. I promised I would, so after cashing my check I walked the block to the grocery store and found her in produce, where she said she would be. I did some shopping too and we walked to the bus stop and caught the bus. Turned out she lived about a block from me and I was surprised that I had never noticed her before. She’d said she’d been in town for a few months, though she had spent most of her time inside till the last couple weeks.

I answer the door and, indeed, it is her. She pushes past me and plops down on my bed, seemingly exhausted.

“I ran all the way here!” she says, panting.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s a cannibal living next door to me!”

“What?”

“It’s true! I saw him eating a giant piece of raw meat in his doorway when I came home from the beach this afternoon. I went inside my place and prayed. Dell, he was smiling as he chewed the meat, eyeballing me. What if he wants to kill me, hack me up and eat me?”

“Calm down, Hanna. Are you sure he was eating raw meat?”

“There was . . . sinew and gore and blood dripping from it. It was so gross, oh my God!”

“There’s no way you know that it was human flesh though.”

“I know what I saw, Dell! I saw an elbow!” she screamed hysterically.

“Alright, Hanna. I’m sorry. What are you going to do?”

“You have to let me stay here for now. But I need some stuff from my place. I need you to take me there, so I’ll be safe. But not now. He goes out at night, probably cruising the beach bars for women to take home and hack up. We’ll go after dark.”

She starts to calm down and I take a seat next to her on my bed, feeling sorry for her. Murder by Numbers starts.

“Holy shit! I’ve had this song in my head all day. Ever since I saw that guy eating the raw meat in his doorway. That’s just weird.”

“There’s a lot of Police songs on this playlist.”

“But why this one, huh? This is the first song that’s started since I’ve been here. I came in the middle of the last one and then a new song starts and it’s this one and I swear, Dell, it’s been in my head for hours.”

“Well, nothing terrifying about a little synchronicity,” I say, laughing a little, “which is also somewhere on this playlist.”

“One or two?”

“Both.”

“Cool!”

She seems at ease now, which puts me at ease.

“Is that pot I smell?”

“Yeah. Want some?”

“Hell yeah! I haven’t smoked in months. Not since I split up with my psycho ex. He was a huge pothead.”

“Couldn’t have been that bad then.”

“You don’t understand. He was psycho!”

I hand her the bowl and she hits it, offering it back to me. I decline, tell her I’m already stoned and she hits it again.

“He would just snap for no reason sometimes. Like we’d be maybe kissing and it’s getting hot and heavy and he would just shove me away and tell me that he knows what I’m up to, that he could smell other men on me and that he knew I was fucking around on him. Then he would break down at times and confess that he’d never dated someone as beautiful as me and what was I doing with him. Sometimes he’d accuse me of using him for his money and that I was used to living off Daddy’s money so that’s why I was with him.”

She takes one more hit and puts the pipe down.

“But I really did love him. I worked part time at a shoe boutique and I’d see him driving by every now and then just to check that I was working. Sometimes he would come inside and talk for a while, which was alright, but many times I’d just see him driving by.”

“That kind of possessiveness can get old after a while.”

“Tell me about it! One day we hired a guy, a fag actually—his name was George. He was really cool and we hit it off right away. So, Desmond, that was my ex’s name, came in and we were all talking. Now George was very obviously gay. He didn’t spell it out for Desmond but he really didn’t need to, ya know? And when I got home that night, my ex was waiting for me in the dark with just a single candle flickering on the coffee table—it was so creepy! He accused me of fucking around with George and I laughed because the whole idea was absolutely absurd. He slapped me and began screaming at me, calling me a whore. That was the last time I saw him. I packed some things and left. I went to my dad’s and stayed there for a few days till I bought a bus ticket down here. I wanted to take the bus to see the country, ya know? Although, in retrospect, a train might have been more comfortable.”

“So, you haven’t heard from Desmond?”

“No. Sometimes I miss him, but it’s for the best. I’m better off without him. Though he made me feel safe. Part of me hated that he would stalk me when I was at work, but another part of me liked that he was looking out for me. I dunno, sounds kinda crazy, I suppose.”

“I see where you’re coming from. But you are better off without him.”

“Besides, I have you now.”

Jesus Christ, what did that mean? Although she’s calm now and opening up, I still can’t get past the cannibal who lives next door to her. And how she’s moving in. Am I some sort of boyfriend now? No, I don’t want to be, but I don’t have the heart to turn her away. I mean, she’s a damsel in distress and is legitimately afraid to go home.


After dark, we leave for her apartment. Along the way, she sees “the cannibal” walking down the opposite road. She hides behind a bush and pulls me back there with her. When he’s out of sight, we emerge from the bushes and continue on to her place.

“Didn’t he just look evil?” she says.

When we arrive, she slowly unlocks the door and heads inside. I follow her. She grabs some clothes, a few CDs and some things from the kitchen, packs them in a large shopping bag and darts toward the door.

“Let’s go,” she says, “I’ve got everything I need.”

We walk back toward my place. She needs to stop at the gas station for a pack of cigarettes. I wait outside with her giant bag of shit. I see steaks in the bag and think that this might not be so bad. Hell, I haven’t had a steak in I don’t know how long. I remember the bag of potatoes at my place. Some guy on a fancy, bright yellow motorcycle pulls up to the gas pump near me. He begins fueling up. Hanna comes out, talking to the guy who works inside who’d followed her out. The stuff is heavy, I set it down while she blabs with the dude. The guy on the motorcycle calls to me.

“Hey, that your wife?” he says.

“No, just a friend.”

“She’s beautiful.”

“Yeah.”

He hops on his bike and flies away. Hanna starts walking toward me, holding up her pack of Marlboros.

“That guy is so nice,” she says, referring to the kid who works the gas station.

We cross the street to my building and walk up to my door. The next door neighbor is sitting on his stoop. He looks at me and winks, smiling. I open the door and we go inside.

“What was that all about?” she says, worried.

“Guess he was sort of tipping his hat to me for bringing home such a beautiful woman.”

“Really? You think I’m beautiful?”

“Very.”

She beams. She puts the steaks in the fridge—saying that she will make them later—and the rest of her food away. I start packing the bowl with what’s left of the pot. She sees me and her eyes widen as she makes her way toward me and sits down next to me.

“This is the rest of it,” I say.

“Can you get anymore?”

“No money. Some guy gave this to me.”

“That was nice of him.”

“Yeah, sure was.”

“Hey, I’ve got some money. Dad’s credit card, actually—I can get a cash advance. I’m sure he won’t notice, he doesn’t really check. I’ve had his card since I was sixteen.”

“So how many years has that been?” I ask, trying to find out her age.

“Oh, a few.”

“Well, it’s up to you,” I say, handing her the bowl.

She hits it.

“We’ll see tomorrow. I don’t want to go to the ATM after dark, even though I have you. That guy is out there.”

“Oh, yeah, the cannibal.”

She slugs me on the shoulder: “It’s serious!”

“Sorry.”

“Besides, we have some for now.”

“True.”

We smoke till we’re high and save the rest for later.

“What’s this?” she asks, referring to the music.

“Frank Zappa.”

“Oh, so now I finally hear him. Have heard about him for years but never actually heard him.”

“Hearing one song is barely a glimpse into what he’s done, though.”

“Oh, yeah?”

I nod.

“I need to take a shower,” she says, rifling through her bag. She pulls out a towel and a T-shirt. “Is it alright?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I just love taking a shower stoned.”

“Go for it.”

She goes into the bathroom, I hear the shower turn on. I’m not really paying attention to what’s playing, just entertaining the thought of her naked in my shower. If only she weren’t crazy. Ah, but we’re all crazy in our own way, I suppose.

She comes out in a towel, curly brown hair hanging wet upon her neck and shoulders.

“Steamy in there,” she says, smiling, sitting down on the chair next to the TV.

“So, how was it?”

“Sublime!”

“Good.”

Suddenly, she stands up, drops her towel and says “What do you think of my ass,” showing it to me.

“Gorgeous.”

“Desmond used to say it was sublime—that’s what made me think of it, when I said that.”

“Yes, sublime would also be a good description.”

She puts her towel back on and walks into the bathroom. She comes out in a large T-shirt. It’s white and I can see that she wearing nothing underneath.

“All clean?”

“Oh, yeah,” she says, lying back on my bed, exposing her thighs.

I play with her hair, running my fingers through it and she begins to giggle softly. She reaches up and grabs the back of my neck, pulling me in closer to kiss me, which she does, upside-down. It’s a short, simple, but passionate kiss.

Her shirt pulls up, exposing herself but she doesn’t cover up. She just lies there smiling. I kiss her on the forehead and she closes her eyes. I run a hand down her shirt over her breast and she giggles.

“Stop that!” she says.

She pulls up her shirt.

“I have such small tits.”

“They’re very nice though. Well shaped, that counts for a lot.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She grabs the back of my neck and kisses me upside-down again. This time I put each of my hands on her breasts and stroke them. She squirms and giggles as I lightly pull on her nipples. She sits up, taking off her shirt and lunges at me. Pretty soon, I’m undressed and we’re having sex on my bed, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds playing on my computer.


I wake up and she’s gone. It’s morning, just after 8. I get up and go to the bathroom. As I’m pissing, I hear the door open. I finish and go back out into the living area. It’s Hanna.

“Went and watched the sunrise. Haven’t seen it since I’ve been here. It was beautiful. And I picked up some breakfast, too.”

We eat breakfast: pancakes, eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. It is delicious. As I eat, I think about the sex we had last night. It was wonderful and I’m hoping for a repeat performance today. But the more I think about it, the more it seems like a fluke, that it’s never happening again. She sits across from me on the bed eating her pancakes with the innocence of a young girl. She thinks there’s a cannibal living next door to her. I start to feel sorry for her, so far from home and so lost. She has stepped through the looking glass. I reach my hand out and caress her cheek. She smiles at me with a mouthful of pancakes.

I call up James later and he makes a delivery. We all hang out for a while, smoking, till James has to leave. Hanna makes those steaks with some potatoes, which is wonderful. We make love again that night and it's even better than the first time. She stays the next few days, each night we make love is better than the previous night. I can’t believe my fortune. The way this crazy girl just appears out of nowhere, buys me pot, makes me steaks and gives me the best sex I’ve ever had in my life. This seems to good to be true, I keep telling myself. Hanna’s strange. I’ve spent every moment of the last few days with her and I know nothing about her childhood. She tells lots of stories though, I know just about everything that has happened to her in the last few years. She seems to like aggressive dickheads, which makes me wonder what she sees in me.

She lies on the bed now as I sit at my computer. I watch her sleep. So beautiful and serene. She begins to wake up, her eyes slowly open, she sits up in bed and runs her hand through her curls. The blanket around her falls away and she is naked. She gets up and gets dressed—the whole process is breathtaking. I like watching her get dressed almost as much as I like watching her get undressed.

Almost.

After spending a good half hour zoned out to the TV, she says, “I wanna get drunk today.”

I look over with an inquiring look.

“I want to drink today—vodka.”

“Vodka?”

“Vodka.”

“If I give you money will you go get it for me?”

“Sure, I guess.”

She gives me two twenties and tells me to get as much Absolut as I can. I walk across the street to the liquor store and buy a liter. When I get back, I hand her the change and the bottle.

“Any shot glasses?”

“I have two.”

“Get them.”

I do, setting them down in front of the bottle. She fills them both.

“Let’s go—grab your shot glass.”

I do, we toast to never ending happiness, and we drink. She pours two more and we drink them. She pours two more, immediately, but I hold out.

“In a little while. I don’t want to get wasted this early in the day.”

“I do,” she says, taking down three more shots. “Pack the bowl,” she says, and I do.

We smoke. I ask her what she wants to do with her life, if she wants to go to school or what have you.

“I want to live with gorillas.”

“Like Jane Goodall?”

“Exactly. She’s my hero!”

“So you plan on going to school?”

“Yeah, I suppose. I mean, yes, definitely. Just not the right time, ya know?”

“Why not, I mean, won’t your Dad pay for it?”

“Yeah, but I feel . . . restless. It’ll wear off, I guess. I dunno. I don’t know what I’m thinking one day to the next. I probably need medication. I just get so excited and have all this energy sometimes. I don’t even know if that cannibal thing was even real, at this point. I’m not sure. But I don’t want to go back, just the same. I like it here with you. For now.”

“For now?”

“Yeah, I mean, like I said, I don’t know what I’m thinking from one day to the next.”

I’m a little hurt, suppose I was starting to get a little attached. But we’re living in a fantasy—no jobs, no prospects, just wrapped up in each other like we have been. Deep down, I knew it wouldn’t last long.

She gets drunker and drunker, taking shot after shot, till she’s barely able to walk. And yet, she won’t sit down. She stumbles around, picking up random objects, a sock or a pen, and waves them around at me.

“You know what I think?” she says. “This is the first time you’ve been laid in a long time. I can tell.”

“Oh?”

“All the detail you put into lovemaking, oh, it’s been building up for a long time.”

“Yeah, perhaps.”

“You know what your problem is?”

“What?”

“You gotta take what you want. Even when we met, I started talking to you. And earlier when I told you that I wouldn’t be around forever you should’ve said something, but you didn’t. You just accepted it. Don’t you want me?”

“Yeah, but not if you don’t want me.”

“God!” she says, grabbing her purse. “I need cigarettes!”

She walks out the door, leaving me alone in my now quiet room. The playlist I’d had queued up ended a few minutes ago, I decide to queue up some more. I listen to a couple songs before I begin to wonder what’s taking Hanna so long. I walk outside, to the front of my building, and look across the street to the gas station where she buys her cigarettes. She’s just outside, talking to that guy I saw there a few days ago with the yellow motorcycle. I think about walking over there, but decide I have no real reason to. I find that I’m more annoyed than jealous and go back inside to listen to music.

I’m listening and singing along to Fairies Wear Boots when she walks in. She starts packing her stuff in her shopping bag, saying nothing at first.

“What’s up, Hanna?”

“I’m sorry, Dell, I gotta go. We could never be, you know that.”

I have just this moment now—she wants me to try and stop her, but I don’t think it would help anyway. Plus, I kind of want her to go. She’s just too much, all at once. I miss my privacy. I miss my sadness. The last few days have been exalting but nerve-racking at the same time. She sucks the life out of me. When it comes down to it, I just can’t keep up with her.

She’s done packing quickly and heads for the door.

“I’ll always remember you,” she says and it’s so cheesy and Hollywood but it gets to me.

The door closes and I sit there for a moment. I have privacy now, and sadness. I curse them and make for the door. I run outside, to the front of the building, to see the fancy yellow motorcycle speeding away, Hanna on the back. Maybe I could have made her stay, but I still wasn’t sure whether or not I even wanted to be with her. Never wanted to be with her to begin with, but things just sort of happened. I may have even fallen in love with her. I watch the motorcycle disappear in the distance, turn around and walk back to my empty room. The Doors are playing: “. . . don’t you love her as she’s walking out the door?” I remind myself what I had told her about being terrified by a little synchronicity. As usual, my own reasonable advice seems useless when applied to myself.

Excerpt from my novel, Soliloquy. FREE Promotional Copies Available Now

 

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Soliloquy: or, Emanations of the Muse (190pp, plus illustrations)

Excerpt from Chapter 3:

I stay awake at night with these thoughts churning, the same thing being said over and over, the wording altered slightly each time. Like a song playing over and over again in your head but instead of a song it’s a whole spectrum of ideas branching off one another eternally in an infinite number of directions. I’ve seen so much madness and studied so much of it, what if I’m purposely driving myself mad, I wonder sometimes. Using myself as a guinea pig for some massive long-term psychological experiment. Better than popping out a couple kids and instilling all the hype and fear and ugliness my upbringing forced upon me. Most children are born as Frankenstein monsters—a genetic and psychological patchwork design of the parents and their environment. While the virtuous legacies continue so do family vices strengthen with each imperfect generation. Evolution depends upon your point of view. Evolving toward what? Evolving from what? For all the gifts it affords, we lose something else. Somewhere in that dark rift between the push ever-forward into the future and the heavy magnetic pull of the past is the birthplace of madness. Everyone’s madness unique. At the very heart of that madness is one’s personal salvation. Back to the source. Acknowledge and confront the shadowy sides of our personality, bring them out into the light, sort through the many possibilities to find the real self.

When the human brain begins developing, it is one. As the fetus matures, the brain splits in two. Life is a struggle to keep polarities of all kinds in balance. Persona and Anima, outer and inner selves. A constant struggle to merge the two. Our Shadow emerges throughout the conflict, teaching us the lessons we need using the most base language our psyches can comprehend. Billions of years of evolution, the fission and fusion, the collapse and release of the universe into itself, anchoring us down to the ylem, swimming in the Void’s amniotic seas.

So many selves. The true self, one’s true personality forever hidden in this diverse cacophony. But some are able to shape the crude key needed to open this lost door. And enter the Secret Room. In the hidden depths of our primal, elemental nature is the mold to fashion this key.

I go over past relationships, what they mean, how they may have affected me. My mom is the big question mark. I was born the day she died. This fact haunts me. A helpless guilty feeling. I know it’s completely irrational to blame myself, but the feeling is always there, active or dormant. She sacrificed her life for mine. Naturally, I’m gonna have issues: idealizing women, I know I’m guilty of this. And perhaps there is some selfishness born out of it, as well, due to some of the high expectations I don’t even realize I’m putting on a woman. Consciously, I want only what is there, but I see these deeper desires in the women, places I know their minds want to go, things they want to be. Yes, I love the women, but I also love the potential their souls reflect. When I’m at my worst, during a lingering spell of depression, I feel let down by what I see as a hopeless projection my mind has created: that I can’t live up to the pure beauty she represents. At my best I have all the questions and their answers etched into my mind. I have the solar system sitting in the palm of my hand, the Sun burning in the center, the planets madly rotating and revolving in their predetermined orbits. This kind of radiating confidence is wonderful.

How Mom’s death must have affected Dad and how it may have affected our relationship, they didn’t teach us this in school. This is probably what I was seeking when I decided on my major. Answers to my questions. But I’m too close to my situation. The idea being that answers to childhood questions will make things easier now if I could figure them out, so far from the nest, years later now. All grown up. The thought frightens me sometimes.

The finger-pointing days are over. This phase of my life has been devoted to integration. The observational days of my youth are never far behind, but looking deep inside my self, my soul I guess, strange as it may get, I know I can find a little peace of mind. A lofty enough set of wings to catch breezes of freedom and wisdom. Fully savor the morsel of every moment.

And, after all, isn’t that what we all want?

Sometimes I wonder how much of my present life I’ll be sorting out in the future. Is it a never-ending cycle, will the past always haunt me?

story from over 10 years ago when I was reading too much Bukowski (if there is such a thing)

Wake, Bake and Skate
Ray Timmins

Wake and bake. That’s what I did. 9:30 AM, I got up, smoked a joint, took a shower, got dressed and strolled on out the door. Got in the car, vroom vroom . . . gone.

Getting up that early was something new. I worked nights. Usually stayed up till 7 AM, went to sleep and got up around 2 or 3 PM. I’d read, or try to put some miserable story or poem together all night when I didn’t have to work. When I worked, I’d do the same except that I’d write when I got home. Things had been getting real dark and lonely. I was living in a Kafka-esque nightmare hell world jerking off blood every night. And I’d drink. Naturally, I had a slight hangover that day but the weed settled that right down.

So I’d decided to get up early and go rollerskating, of all things, with my buddy Kevin and his friends. Kevin’s friends were a married couple who had a couple kids and this was a kids skating session. Kevin had invited me along the day before and I figured that before I went nuts I would get up, no matter what, and go. I wasn’t much of a skater but I needed to get out of the house for a change. Kinda exhilarating to see the little rugrats laughing and having fun every once in a while.

The music in the car was just right, too. Whatever came on was perfect. I thought about getting there. I was in a good mood for a change and I wanted to entertain my friends. Carmen was going to be there. I liked her. She had style. A moxie most women didn’t have and gorgeous eyes. She was also insane. This was simple math: I was attracted to her therefore she must be insane. Always.

I got there and and Kevin was just getting out of his classic Land Cruiser. He had a magnet of Shaggy from Scooby Doo on the inside of the green, rusted vehicle which always reminded me of him. The roof threatened to fly off every time he got that thing above 50 MPH. Madness. I loved riding in it. Few times in my life had I ever felt so free. Carmen was with him, he’d picked her up. She looked good. She always did, though.

Carmen had had a crush on Kevin ever since I’d introduced them. But he was gay. Such luck, huh?

“That figures,” she told me when she’d found out. “Every guy I meet is either gay or psychotic.”

“I’m neither. I don’t think.”

“Oh, really?”

“Well, I’m not gay.”

Oh well.

We walked inside, paid and went to get our skates. The room with the skates immediately struck me as horrific. It reminded me of a barrack in a concentration camp with all the flesh-colored leather skates lined up on shelves, breathing. Damn, was I high. I told Kevin and Carmen.

“Ohmigod, Dell,” she said, “shut up! You’re gonna freak me out!”

“No, no . . . really!” These skates were made from the skins of executed Jews. This place stinks of evil. Those skates on your feet, Kevin. Probably made from the flesh of my executed Great Grandmother, you bastard!”

“Shut-up!” Carmen screamed.

Kevin laughed. So did I.

Then we were skating. Carmen had brought her own skates. They were gliitered silver. Style, like I said. She skated ahead of me. I looked around at all the people—it’s a hobby of mine. There was a scrawny little kid skating awkwardly, his arms slapping around looking like a fish jumping, gasping for breath on a river bank. I sped past him. To my left a little girl in a matching outfit flew past me at warp speed. I contemplated tripping her next time she skated past me. Of course, I didn’t.

The was a man skating with a child, probably his son. The man was no more than 25, just a little older than I. His kid was cute, chubby like a gnome with magical eyes and an innocent, beautiful smile. An angel without wings.

My attention was diverted by a beautiful woman with long brown hair and deep, mysterious eyes. Probably a Scorpio, I thought. She skated with what I presumed to be her husband and daughter. They skated next to each other, smiling. Their daughter then skated ahead of them, leaving them way behind. They continued smiling.

Carmen skated past me. She waved and I waved back. I felt depressed.

The DJ played The Hokey Pokey. I sat that one out.

All those people and their kids. And me. I hoped people didn’t look at me like some weird pervert. But maybe I was, in a way, looking at all those happy skating families and feeling envious. Looking at Carmen, feeling lonely.

The last skate was The Couples Skate. Wonderful! I sat and watched all the couples. Carmen skated with Kevin. Couldn’t blame her. He was a cool guy. If I were gay I’d probably go for him too.

I took off my skates while the couples skated holding hands. I looked back at the rink one last time before entering the skates barrack and spotted Carmen. I smiled slightly then quickly looked away.

We went to Carmen’s, I pulled out a joint and we smoked it.

Kevin had to go.

Carmen and I talked about music, a subject we could both speak extensively upon. I was charmed, as always, but remained civil. I drove her to work. We hugged good-bye.

“Thanks, see ya later, Dell. Thanks again.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

I watched her walk inside and I pulled away. I had to get to work too. I was coming down. The music on the radio began irritating me like it usually did.

events taking place around '90, written a couple years later. touched up but basically the same as originally written.

The Red Car

Ray Timmins

“I’m sick of being stuck all the time without a car . . . and hate having to ride the fucking bus to school everyday,” John said, looking directly in my eyes with a deathly serious look. “And what’s up with that fucking bus driver bitch staring at us like we’re assholes every time we get off the bus, anyway? I’m gonna talk to my parents about getting a car.”

I knew exactly what he was talking about. We really needed a car. Often, we would talk about the places we would go if we had a car, like the Keys. We could cruise down US1 till we hit the Keys and camp on the land his dad kept his bee hives on and in the morning we could head down to Key West and visit Ernest Hemingway’s house and see the six-toed cats. Then go to the beach and soak up the sheer thrill of being alive and far away from home, free from our parents and daily responsibilities, the breeze from the ocean whipping and inspiring us while we stared down the horizon watching that line disappear as the day turned to night. And if things got too weird or we longed for our families, we could cruise on home and be there in no time at all. And whenever we got pissed or it seemed like everyone was taking us wrong we could hop into the old car and speed away to Mexico, drink ourselves silly and dance with the señoritas.

On impulse, we could escape to the beach at night and talk while the waves rolled in, crashing up against the jetty, the moon glowing in the corner of our eye. My parents wouldn’t even allow me to practice driving in their car so I was looking forward to John getting a car just as much as he was. We were a team up against an invisible legion of authority that had been holding us back since grade school. We had been friends for a few years since we met in Junior High. We shared a superior sense about ourselves that turned into a bitter sense of humor that seemed to entertain others. Kids in school loved to hear us rant and tell them the way things really were—they thought we were funny and we enjoyed entertaining them. John and I respected each other’s opinions and intelligence though we figured no one else really had a clue about about anything like we did. And they probably didn’t.

It was a Saturday afternoon. The night before, John had borrowed his mom’s Cadillac and we sped down I95 at top speed alongside another baby-blue de Ville driven by some other teen-aged dude and what we figured was either his sister or girlfriend. Judging from the way he was speeding and showing off, it was probably the latter, or just some date he was trying to impress. We raced from North Miami all the way down to downtown Miami where John decided to finally to end the mad contest by pulling off at the Biscayne Boulevard exit. We drove back to North Miami at a more tolerable speed and headed straight for Haulover Beach—but not before we stopped at the Vietnamese market to get some alcohol.

John spoke Mandarin fairly well for a white boy. He’d been studying it intensely for about three years. I wasn’t sure at the time why the Vietnamese owners spoke Chinese but I learned later on that there were many Vietnamese citizens of Chinese origin who had settled there but who had retained their language and culture, just as they had when these families had emigrated to the US. At the time though, John’s Chinese and goodwill was able to get us wine coolers to take the beach and drink and share conversations and forget about the rest of the world for a little while. Which was a good thing.

“Ni hao ma?” John started as soon as we entered the darkly lit store with the scent of Oriental herbs and spices filling the air. 

“Oh, John . . . ni hao ma?” the little Asian dude behind the register sang, smiling and waving his hand for John to come closer and speak with him. John did. They talked for a few minutes, John droning on in his broken Chinese, struggling with many phrases I could tell, but the man behind the register smiled and put the words together, responding in turn. I began getting impatient, just wanting John to shut the hell up so we could get our alcohol and get a move on, but the exchange was remarkable I thought even though I really had no clue what they were talking about. I stared around at all the alien products and let my mind get caught up in the exotic nature of the goods sold there and tried connecting them to similar fare offered in the average American markets. Though many things remained a mystery, the aesthetics and the colors delighted me and kept me distracted until John paid and we were on our way to get wasted and talk about the Chinese twins we’d been hounding with our innocent yet foolish affections and attention since the ninth grade and tie it all together into our teenage philosophical conclusions for the night with the moon balancing just above our heads and the waves crashing in as they did, as a rhythm to our meandering thoughts trying to make sense of the world we had no choice of being born into.

Oftentimes I felt alienated when he would start blabbering in Chinese to a server in a Chinese restaurant or we ran into someone who spoke French and he’d rattle on and on but I suppose it had more to do with the fact that I wasn’t able to join in because I hadn’t devoted much effort into learning these languages and was unable to contribute my thoughts.

Finally, John and I were picking out the two four-packs that we would need for our midnight beach excursion.

“This looks good,” I said.

“Anything but peach,” John said with his nose upturned. “Peach really sucks!”

“No shit,” I nodded.

The road was clear and we played the tunes loud. That night we opted for classic rock, as we usually did. Kashmir by Led Zeppelin, Hey Jude by the Beatles. Some Van Halen (with David Lee Roth, of course) and even over to the soft rock station for Chicago and their pure mushy sentimentality. We talked about the twins we were in love with, or believed we were in love with. We spoke of them in a sarcastically macho manner to keep it light. For example, I might say: “Ya know, I saw her walking through the hall today and I said hello and I could tell by the way she said hi back and walked down the hall that she totally wanted me right then and there."

“She just doesn’t know it yet,” John would joke back and he would go on to tell a similarly absurd observation he’d made about her sister that same day. All in good humor though, we realized they didn’t want to have anything to do with us other than being our friends. But that was OK, we’d joke, they just didn’t know us well enough yet.

“I’m telling you, man, all we need to do is get that car and the babes will be all over us!” John said, that sarcastic sneer again.

“Fuck yeah!” I smiled, “All the chicks will dig us, man.”

“Almost at the beach, dude.”

I nodded and smiled: “Cool.”

We parked his mom’s car and made our way across the midnight sand to the rocks where we then walked out far enough to be close to the crashing waves and feel the sea spray on our faces. The moon was full that night. John handed me a berry wine cooler and took one out for himself and we sat on a smooth rock in the jetty looking out to the sea. There was a ship on the horizon and some blinking lights from radio towers far in the distance. A speedboat flew by and made the waves rough for a minute but then the water calmed down and was still again with just an occasional wave smacking the rocks in front of us.

“You know, the French have two different ways of referring to the ocean. When they say, “la mer” they mean it in a more . . . poetic sense. Like how the water looks now, how beautiful it looks and dark and mysterious. Right now it looks like more than just an ocean,” John said, taking a huge sip of his wine cooler.

“It looks so boundless,” I said. “It’s more like a god or a living thing than just a body of water.”

“It carries so much more meaning than just the word ocean can give.”

“The sea is a more poetic word, used in English.”

“Yeah, kinda like that.”

“Yeah.”

We were silent for a moment staring out at the water while we finished our drinks. He threw his empty bottle, it crashed against the rocks and I did the same. We reached for another.

After a couple hours, four wine coolers apiece and an exhausting conversation about God, the government, Freedom and Love and everything in between, John and I made our way to the car and drove home. I spent the night on his floor and we talked for another hour or so before falling asleep.

That Saturday night John talked to his dad about getting a car and his dad said that they couldn’t afford to buy him one. After thinking a moment he remembered that his sister had an old Impala sitting in her yard that nobody seemed to want. Not concerned with cosmetics, John and I thought it would be a good idea to see if we could get her running somehow. We figured the following morning would be a good time.

Sunday morning John and I walked to his aunt’s house, which was just a few blocks from his house. We were determined to get that car started, on way or another. His dad had told us that there was nothing really wrong with the car except that it was old and neglected and hadn’t been started up for a while. This gave John and I the initial encouragement we needed to get the car started. Our bleeding hearts for the inanimate, I suppose.

We could see the big red beast from down the street. It was, indeed, pretty old. And it was filthy. When we got closer we could see that grass had grown into the engine, showing that it had not moved from that spot in months. John got the keys from his aunt and he tried starting her up.

John got in the driver seat and I sat in the passenger side: “Here we go, dude,” he said, putting the key in the ignition. He turned it and there was no roar of the engine like we were expecting, but the air conditioning came on.

“Cool,” he laughed, “at least we have air-conditioning!”

“Yeah, I suppose that’s a good start.”

“Ah . . . the gas gauge. Look,” John said, pointing at the dash. It was on empty “No problem, dude. There’s a can of gas in the shed. He jumped out of the car and ran to the shed. He came out with a five-gallon tank.”

“How are we gonna pour the gas in the tank with no funnel?” I said.

“Shit!”

We leaned on the car and thought.

“Here, try this,” I said, picking up a section of newspaper from the back seat of the red car.

“Good idea, dude,” and he rolled up a section of the newspaper into a cone and stuck the tapered end into the car’s tank. Most of the gas poured all over his hands and onto the grass but eventually there was enough gas to start the car.

“Holy shit, dude, look: an eight-track player with a digital display!”

“I wonder if it works.”

“Let’s put some more gas in her then go to Red White & Blue and buy an eight-track tape and test it out.”

John threw the red car in reverse and backed out onto the street. We left a large patch of yellowed, moist grass in the middle of the yard where the red car had been. The car hesitated getting to the light, black smoke billowing from beneath the hood, but picked up and got smoother the farther we drove. We filled up the tank and put some oil in her and raced down to the thrift store to get an eight track tape for the red car. It was Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti.

We got back in the car and I popped the tape in. The music started. John looked at me and said, “Our new car, Ray-man.”

I turned up the volume and we sped off toward the beach. The place where all our dreams began.

Happy Halloween, Xmas and New Year to Phoebe . . . and ME.

Snow and Dark Brown Eyes

Ray Timmins

Dave walked in the early evening down a quiet side road toward the mall. He was bundling up his body to shield himself from the cold; a light snow had just begun to fall and was gently covering the familiar road to the Town Square Mall where his girlfriend Phoebe worked.

When he arrived at the electronics store where she worked he waved. She saw him, smiled and put her finger up, signaling him to wait.

Dave sat down on a bench and watched the mall rats scurry past talking loudly to one another in their little nomadic cliques. No particular conversation was audible by itself, but was merely one badly tuned instrument in a cacophonous symphony of drivel and din in the key of shit. Dave hated the mall more and more every time he went there. If Phoebe hadn’t worked there he wouldn’t go on a dare. Cheesy haircuts bobbed like hollow barnacled buoys in and out of over-priced, supposedly fashionable stores. And he cringed. He reached down to tie his ragged Converse and took his black, faded denim jacket off.

Phoebe walked out with her arms spread, readying for a big hug and kiss. And he gave them to her. She smiled seductively, biting her lower lip. Her eyes brightened as she ran her delicate fingers through his messy brown hair: "How ya been?"

"OK."

She gestured with her eyes toward the door.

"Yeah."

Now they were outside, away from the zombies—all alone with the gentle snow and the quiet glow of the moon. Dave focused all his attention on sipping in every inch of her face with his eyes. Dark hair, nearly black. Her deep brown eyes glowed with optimism and a simple understanding of the joy of living that cast a spotlight on the heavens as she looked upon them. Looking at those eyes sometimes made him want to cry. Sometimes they even made him a bit envious. He knew of no such joy; he could only rationalize its existence, but not actually experience it. The contrast of her glowing white turtle-neck sweater and her black skirt looked splendid in the pale moonlight with the snowflakes meandering down in the background. The only thing paler and more aglow than her sweater—or even the snow—was her skin. Smooth and consistent from her toes up to her forehead, from her ass to her breasts. Dave would dreamily lose himself studying the landscape of her body—or just imagining it.

"Dave!"

"Wha—what?"

"Are you listening?"

"Sorry."

"What were you thinking?" She leaned her mouth in closer to his face and pecked him gently twice, using all of her full lips.

He raised an eyebrow and cast a devilish grin.

Her eyes widened seductively. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Dave smiled. He placed his hand on her milky thigh and felt deeply.

She rolled her eyes and put her hand on his cheek. "You didn't shave today, didja?"

"No, nor yesterday."

"You're so cute," she said, wrinkling her nose.

"I know," Dave said, blushing, unable to completely pull off the mock conceit.

She kissed him deeply, working her hand into his shirt and across his chest.

"You going to the pep rally tomorrow?"

"I doubt it, Phoeb’, it's during my art class and I actually like that class. I'm not much for school spirit anyway."

"Yeah, I know. You're not much for anything, are you?" She was getting serious now.

"I love you, what about that?"

"Well, what else? You're so damn cynical about everything else it seems. Everything's got to be so logical to you. Must you analyze everything?" She was getting noticeably more upset.

"I dunno. I like art class OK, I suppose. And I like thinking about things. Always have. Find it unsafe to take anything at face value."

"What about your feelings toward me? Have you thought about them?"

"No, I mean, I know I love you."

"How?"

"I just do. That's very simple for me. I'm not sure why, but it is," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "Oh, and I like to read. I love just getting lost in the library. It's a great feeling."

"But you don't do any of the assigned reading in English and you read my notes when the test comes around. I know you're smart and you like to read— what's wrong?"

"I read The Catcher in the Rye. It's the only thing I could get into so far."

"And what about the ten other books? Crime and Punishment, Les Miserables, Don Quixote . . ."

"Just couldn't get into them at the time and within the time limits we were given. I'd like to read them all eventually. But it's hard to keep at something like that everyday without getting distracted."

"Is it me?" Phoebe asked turning her head. "Do I distract you?"

"How? I mean, I'm no worse than before I met you. C'mon Phoeb’, let's not start this again."

"I just can't understand . . ."

"What? What Phoebe? What can't you understand?" he spoke louder, more nervously.

"That you can love me so much and do so much for me while you hate everything else. Including yourself."

He thought a moment as she began to cry.

He stared at the ground: "Well, Phoeb’, I just don't know. I mean, I don't exactly hate myself. I'm not sure much of anybody else likes me, but I do."

"Yeah, so do I," she cast a quick smile through her tears.

"Listen—don't worry about my feelings toward you. I love you, I know that. But you're right, I'm not too crazy about the rest of the world. But that's what's so great about us—we have each other. We could just run away together and forget about the rest of the world."

"But I don't want to run away. I like the world. I want you, but I want you here along with everything else."

Phoebe nestled up against him and put her arms around his waist. He ran his fingers through her silky hair and kissed her gently on the forehead.

"I really do love you," she said, the sound slightly muffled by his jacket.

"So do I."

He put his hand under her chin and brought her head up. Then he lined up his wounded eyes with her eyes. He meant to say "I love you," but instead he let one small tear fall down his cheek. Something about what she had said was right and he knew it. He still thought school spirit was bullshit, but he saw in her eyes that she was concerned about something deeper that she couldn't quite express. She was concerned. He couldn't figure it out either, not exactly, just this vague impression. Something about his ever-present feelings of alienation. Issues going back way before her.

She had become his distraction. She possessed a strength and confidence he had never known. And that's what made him cry. He thought so complexly because he wasn't satisfied with the simple truths of life. She seemed to be content with the way things were in the world—she didn’t have it in her to question things for their own sake.

"I love you, Phoebe. I really, really love you," he finally said, kissing her deeply.

"Time to go," she said softly and sweetly, looking directly into his eyes. She reassured him and put his tormented soul at ease. Gave him courage to walk, to breathe, to smile, to talk, to sleep, to get up in the morning—courage to just live.

"Break's over already?" he said, whining a bit.

She nodded and stood up, pulling on his hand to get him up.

They walked, snuggled closely together, back to the electronics store and kissed one last time. Then she turned and walked away. Dave stood staring at her legs; they hypnotized him with each step.

She turned her head and mouthed, "Call me."

Dave slowly turned around and walked away. He stopped at the bookstore and looked around. For the cold walk home he stopped in the food court and got a steaming hot basket of chili-cheese fries.

Walking outside, his breath puffing into the night air, he ate his fries and stared at the frozen trees around him. And the cars with frosted windows and the darkened store fronts with Christmas lights around their windows. He looked at the half-moon sighing restfully in the sky and pictured himself curled up at home in his blanket.

The walk was about thirty minutes; he mostly stared at the houses and delighted at the charm in the twinkling, multi-colored lights. They were dazzling in the dark, with the gently falling snow, and without a human soul or the noise of a car to distract him from the moment. And even the parked cars were beautiful in their stoic stillness and silence. Everything seemed so quaint that he wondered where all the previous anxiety had gone. The fries seemed like the most delicious things he'd ever tasted. Then he thought about Phoebe and her eyes and her smile and her love and her kisses and her naked body smooth across every rise and fall of its ivory landscape.

He closed his eyes and saw the falling snow that had reflected in her dark brown eyes. And for that night he felt as if he were seeing the world through her holy and blessed eyes. She had given them to him during that long stare when they had both cried for each other. He wondered if she felt his pain in the way that he was now experiencing her joy. And he cried again, but this only made everything seem even more wonderful.

YES, I used to fancy myself a rock journalist . . .

pidgen pidgen burning brite in the bus stations beyond the nite . . . 

Ray-Ray's Morphine Experience in NYC
by:  Ray-Ray

(reprinted with permission from ME:  Bitch Rag! c. 1995)

Morphine @ Irving Plaza, NYC
Saturday, June 3, 1995

  
So, my good buddy from high school, John, invites me to his graduation at West Point, and promised loads of fun in the City if I went up.  The only real problem was money:  $5.25 an hour just doesn't leave much for vacation expenses, you know.  I thought and thought.  I called Greyhound and Amtrak and carefully recorded all the prices and compared them to see what might be my best bet.  Finally, I got another buddy from high school, Nina, to agree to go, too.  Her boyfriend, with whom she lives, was being a real dick and didn't like the idea of her going up there with me.  He has no female friends and doesn't understand how Nina and I could be just friends.  Oh well, fuck him, I thought.
  
She was excited, always loving to go on vacation and get away from her dreary waitressing job in Miami.  I owe much adulation to the fine folks of Discover; without them, I would never have gone to New York, and would never have seen one of my favorite bands, Morphine, who played on Saturday, June 3rd at Irving Plaza.
  
The tickets were charged and Nina and I had round trip tickets for New York; we would be landing at La Guardia airport in northern Queens on June 1st at about 11 a.m.  Good timing, 'cause we had to catch a series of buses and trains in order to reach John at West Point and arriving in the evening might've been a bit intimidating.
  
Well, everything went well and we arrived at La Guardia a few minutes early and scratched our heads when we stood at the gate and wondered what to do next; I knew that our next destination was the Port Authority.  But, I couldn't remember if John had said we could walk that or if we needed to catch a cab, or what.  So we went outside, carrying our bags over our shoulders, probably looking like seriously lost tourists by the way our heads looked all around us in amazement; as if we'd stepped off a spaceship and landed on the Moon.  No, it wasn't the Moon--it was much scarier--it was New York.
  
A skinny little black guy came up to us and asked us where we were going, I said, "Port Authority," trying to sound confident, like I knew full well where I was and where I was going.  I think he saw right through me.  He pressed a few buttons on this hand-held contraption and it spit out two receipts for some chartered bus to the Port Authority.  Ten bucks, each one read:  Nina smiled and said, "No thanks."  Ten bucks--fuck that, we needed to save as much as we could; the plane tickets cost enough, and work for the both of us had been slow the last month and we didn't have much.  Also, dumb-ass me had bounced like three or four checks over the last few weeks at 29 bucks apiece:  no, things would be tight, and we knew it would be expensive once we got to explore the city.  Nina had about 80 bucks on a card, and my Visa was maxed out . . . had to save.  So, the skinny little guy crumbled the receipts up and told us we could catch the public bus--number Q33--for a buck twenty-five and it would take us where we needed to go.  OK.
  
So, we lugged our shit to the bus stop and caught the bus with a portly Asian guy who said he was going our way, too.  We caught a train--the 7--to Grand Central, and walked up the stairs to the railroad station.  It was beautiful--wood-paneled and well-lighted, clean floors and a high, high ceiling.  We got two seven dollar tickets to Garrison station, where John was to meet us at 3 o'clock.  Walking to the train, it looked just like the scene in Carlito's Way, where Al Pacino got killed:  dark, save for the long fluorescent bulbs that ran down the length of the dock.  When we sat down, I ate a granola bar and Nina read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson; a book of mine I'd just finished and told her it was the funniest book I'd ever read.  She reads any book I recommend, I've always liked that about her.
  
We got to Garrison station about forty minutes early, and just sat there enjoying the scenery:  mountains with miles of greenery; and it was pretty hot--no change from the Florida weather.  Too bad, thought:  I'd been hoping for cooler weather.  Nina was happy--just the right temperature for her.
  
John arrived late, as usual, and smiled big and hugged us outside the old green Volvo his folks had borrowed from a friend in Queens.  His little brother and sister were in the back seat; Nina squeezed in next to them.  His mom was in the front seat, passenger side.  We said all our hellos and talked the usual just arrived chit-chat--how we saw the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building from the plane, and how we almost got lost at Grand Central.
  
The next few days were pretty uneventful:  had a couple Long Island Iced Teas at the hotel lounge that John's dad bought me; went to the West Point graduation (pretty boring); got to see the campus, which was beautiful, including a graveyard where I saw Custer's tomb.  Wow.  John took us to the Church, which boasted having the world's largest pipe organ.  But there was a bunch of weddings scheduled on Graduation Day, so we got kicked out immediately.  Oh well.
  
It was June 3rd, John had graduated, moved his shit out of his room and we left for the City in the Volvo; we arrived about an hour or so later and were dropped off somewhere, none of us knew, at a subway station.  Just before descending the stairs, I heard an angry voice yelling:  "Git out, I'll kick yo fokin' ass."  Then I saw him kick the back door of a moving car and wave his hands up in the air.  The car drove on and he was apparently going down to catch a train, too.  I was a bit scared; I walked fast, bought our tokens and dropped mine in and hustled to the train which was about to leave.
  
John knew where we were going, I didn't.  I just told him and Nina that we needed to be at Irving Plaza to see Morphine.  The doors were opening at 8:30--so I figured they'd get on after ten some time.  We strolled down the streets of the West Village, passing all sorts of clubs and cafés.  John pointed out Jekyll and Hyde's, and said that he'd been there once and that it was real cool inside--like a torture chamber--but that it was expensive.  There was a long line anyway.  We walked a few more minutes, just soaking up the happening Saturday night scene of the Village--a hell of a lot more exciting than Orlando, and even Miami, in my opinion.  New York was It, all right, no doubt about it.  We stopped in the Mona Lisa Café for something to drink.  Nina and John got some fancy-ass chocolate espresso something-or-other; I got a simple "American Coffee"--the true test of any coffee shop was whether or not their coffee--just a basic, unadorned cup of java--was good.  We also bought an "Assortment of Cookies" for the low, low price of $2.95.  The drinks came, then the cookies:  five cookies.  They were OK--but something you could get at any grocery store bakery--and 3 bucks for 5 cookies; that's 60 cents a cookie!  Shit . . . oh well, I thought.  I'm on vacation, I guess; and Nina paid the tab anyway.  The coffee was bitter--not good, I put lots of sugar in it.  However, I did get a refill that was SUPERB, let me tell you--just right.  I smiled and held my cup in front of me and told John and Nina, "Now this is a good cup of coffee!"  I was in a better mood.
  
It began raining heavily, but stopped by the time we were done, and the manager gave us scarce directions to Irving Plaza, where Morphine were getting on soon, I figured.  It was about nine or so.  We walked in the direction we were told and asked a couple times along the way to make sure we were on the right track.  New Yorkers seem to pride themselves on their directions.  They walk so damn fast everywhere and seem a bit rude, but if you stop someone on the street, you'll more than likely get a smiling, confident face that'll give you directions to Hell, if you ask.
  
We got there and I could hear them playing already; the guy at the door said they'd played about three songs so far.  We bought our tickets and I rushed into the club, John and Nina tagging slowly behind; neither of them had actually even heard of Morphine.  "It's a cool, jazzy band, with a sax and no guitar player--they're pretty dark," I told them.  They didn't care--they were game for anything.  Good, 'cause I'd been  wanting to see them for a while, ever since I heard their Cure for Pain CD, a while back, and their new album which they were on tour for, Yes.  They never came to Florida, so this was my only chance.
  
The club was packed.  We stood on the side downstairs, but thought it better to go upstairs and watch from the balcony.  It was.  I got lost in the dark tones and deep growls of the baritone sax.  On a few songs, he played two saxes at once.  This turned the whole trip around for me.  It grounded me a little and made me forget about everything that was bugging me at home (financial difficulties), and erased the last few boring days surrounded by conservative, uptight West Point parents and relatives who talked about nothing but their experiences in war and how proud they were of their son or daughter for kissing enough ass for the last four years to graduate with honors and receive commissions as second lieutenants.
  
The band performed all my favorites, but one, "I'm Free Now," from Cure for Pain.  Mark Sandman, the bassist and singer was cool throughout the performance, announcing before the first and second encore that they were about to play "technically, the last song of the evening."  They didn't leave the stage till after the second "encore," and came back again for one more song.  It felt so good to be back in touch with something familiar, being so far from home; the concert raised my spirits for the remaining days.  And John and Nina said they enjoyed it, too. Good.
  
I needed a clean shirt for the next day; at least, this was the excuse I used for myself to buy a T-shirt.  But my main objective was done, I saw Morphine.  The rest of the trip was pretty laid-back; we went wherever, whenever:  walked down Times Square; strolled through the East Village and saw junk sculptures; slept on a rock in Central Park and watched ladies walk their well-groomed dogs.
  
The last day, Monday the 5th, John bought Nina and me lunch at this vegetarian joint in Chinatown.  Good meal . . . free meal . . . superb meal!  Nina got a cab in Queens, where we stayed the last few days, to La Guardia.  The cabby was probably younger than me, and spoke little English--fare was $8.50, gave him a ten, and made our way to the terminal.  We got there about 5--an hour before the plane would take off.  Nina called her asshole boyfriend in Miami to tell him she was at the airport and heading home; he told her he was glad she was finally going to be home and that he didn't want her hanging out with me anymore.  He's always hated me, anyhow.  Fuck him.  I told her he was an asshole and had no right, but she was upset and dreaded getting home from a tiring trip just to argue with him 'cause he was jealous she was having fun with two guys in New York.  Hell, she'd called him twice a day for Christ's sake!  I guess that time, drunk off her ass, with me laughing "Bob, I wuv you," from the hotel lounge, didn't make things any better.  Fuck him.  We had a great time. The City ruled, Morphine changed the whole trip around for me, and I can't wait to get back to New York real soon.

video of the very show I attended: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXnGxASoXn0&feature=PlayList&p=931810529826AA88&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=100